Dedicated to the Native American peoples, cowboys, lawmen, and the men and women of the American West whose courage, hardships, and sacrifices became part of the enduring story of our great American frontier.

Much to my family's dismay, I joined the Union Army and headed off to war.

I was young, strong, and full of ideas about honor, duty, and the glory of serving my country. When I first put on that brand-new blue uniform, with its polished brass buttons and neatly pressed cloth, I felt ten feet tall.

I figured I was marching toward adventure.

Little did I know I was marching toward a lifetime of memories I would spend years trying to forget.

I fought at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, where I learned that war was nothing like the glorious adventure I had imagined. Later, I served in campaigns under General William Tecumseh Sherman.

By the time the war ended, my once-proud uniform was as tattered, stained, and torn as the man who wore it.

And the boy who had marched away from home was gone forever.

My decision to join the Northern Army had divided our family long before the first shot was fired.

My older sister, Sara, had married a gentleman from the Deep South. He was a decent man, and I had always respected him. But as the country moved closer to war, a strange silence settled over our family gatherings.

We spoke about the weather, the crops, and the neighbors. We discussed everything except the one thing weighing heavily on everyone's mind.

We all knew that certain words, once spoken, could never be taken back.

So we kept our opinions to ourselves and pretended that nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

During those first years of fighting, I lost more friends than I care to remember. Some died beside me. Others disappeared into the smoke and confusion of battle, never to be seen again.

I learned to pray with a sincerity I had never known before.

At first, I wrote letters home whenever I could. I told Ma that I was eating well, sleeping comfortably, and keeping myself out of trouble.

Most of those letters were lies.

Eventually, I stopped writing altogether.

The endless marching, fighting, rain, mud, and sleepless nights swallowed up whatever remained of my former life. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and the months seemed to stretch into eternity.

Every morning, we prayed that the war might finally end.

Every evening, we counted the men who had not returned.

Then, in the spring of 1865, the news we had waited so long to hear finally arrived.

A soldier came galloping into camp, waving his hat and shouting that General Lee had surrendered.

Men cheered. Some laughed. Others fell to their knees and wept.

I did none of those things.

I sat beside a small campfire, staring into the flames, my boots soaked from the previous day's rain.

I should have felt victorious.

Instead, I felt empty.

The war had taken something from me that no victory could restore.

I had fought for the Union because I believed in its cause. I believed our country must remain united, and I believed slavery was wrong.

Yet I had also witnessed suffering that reached far beyond the battlefield.

I had met Southern families who showed kindness to strangers, just as families back home would have done. I had seen innocent people lose everything because armies happened to march through their towns.

The people themselves were not always my enemies.

It was the beliefs that divided us, and the terrible things men were willing to do in their defense.

When the fighting ended, I found myself facing a question that frightened me more than I cared to admit.

What was I supposed to do now?

Some of the soldiers talked about reenlisting and heading west. They spoke of the Army's campaigns on the frontier and of a cavalry officer named George Armstrong Custer.

I had heard that Custer was a daring commander who expected his men to look sharp and ride hard.

Having grown up around horses, I figured cavalry life might suit me.

Besides, the thought of wearing another clean uniform held a certain appeal.

But first, I needed time away from soldiers, officers, and the sound of gunfire.

So I headed west.

After months of wandering, I found myself in a small Montana settlement surrounded by mountains, open country, and more possibilities than I knew what to do with.

I rented a room beside a saloon called the Dove Tree.

Before long, I became one of its regular customers.

Most afternoons, I sat alone with a glass of whiskey, watching the world pass through its swinging doors.

The Dove Tree attracted just about every kind of person a man could imagine.

There were cowboys fresh off the range, farmers with dirt beneath their fingernails, gamblers with polished boots, and traveling salesmen who could talk a rattlesnake out of its skin.

There were soldiers, drifters, hustlers, and ordinary folks looking to forget their troubles for an evening.

An old piano stood against the far wall. Several keys were missing, and the remaining ones sounded as though they belonged to three different instruments.

Nobody seemed to mind.

The piano player pounded away, the whiskey flowed, and laughter filled the smoky room.

I enjoyed studying people.

Ma always said I noticed things other folks overlooked.

"Luke," she'd tell me, "you ought to become one of those Pinkerton detectives. You spend more time figuring people out than tending to your chores."

Perhaps she was right.

One particular gentleman caught my attention.

He sat alone in the far corner almost every afternoon.

His clothing was worn and dusty, yet the fine stitching and expensive fabric suggested that he had once been a man of considerable means.

His hands were soft, without the calluses of a farmer or ranch hand. His face lacked the weathered look of someone accustomed to working beneath the Western sun.

Whatever his troubles were, they had not begun behind a plow.

Each afternoon, a young boy of about seven entered the saloon and gently tapped the man's shoulder.

"Pa," he'd say, "Ma's waiting outside."

Sometimes the boy repeated himself three or four times before his father finally rose.

The man would place a few coins on the table, straighten his coat, and follow the child outside without speaking.

I often wondered what had brought him to such a lonely existence.

Then came a Saturday afternoon in the middle of July.

The Dove Tree was crowded, the piano was making its usual racket, and the air smelled of whiskey, tobacco, and damp leather.

Suddenly, the laughter stopped.

Someone near the doorway shouted, "They're coming down Main Street!"

Chairs scraped across the floor.

Men hurried toward the windows. Others rushed outside.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I followed.

Four Native American riders were making their way slowly along the muddy street.

Their clothing was beautifully decorated, and their horses moved with a quiet dignity that seemed strangely out of place among the weather-beaten storefronts and noisy townspeople.

I had never stood so close to Native people before.

The crowd watched in uneasy silence.

Behind the riders stretched the magnificent mountains and open country that had drawn me west.

Beside me, an older man shook his head.

"Government's ordering their people off the land," he muttered. "Sending them to reservations."

I looked again at the riders.

Until that moment, I had thought of the West as a place where a man could begin his life anew.

But watching those four people pass through town, I began to understand that the land I hoped would offer me a fresh start was already home to others.

And for them, the future held no such promise.

Then the rider in front stopped his horse.

He turned toward the crowd, his eyes moving slowly from face to face.

When his gaze reached mine, he held it.

For a long moment, neither of us looked away.

I could not have known it then, but that silent encounter would change the course of my life.

— To Be Continued… —

The trail continues in Chapter Two of The Life and Times of Montana Marshal Luke Johnson.

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A.J. Lombardi
American Author | Founder & Publisher
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