The Last Western

By Christopher Lee Bowen

Civil War, 1861-1865, the origin of today's political, economic and social conflicts and cause of the 19th century national transformation from farm to factory, town to city, pioneer to wage slave, Bible to Darwin, honor to profit. The story of this historic pivot set in C

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookTrail Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637678305

Christopher Lee Bowen

CHRISTOPHER LEE BOWEN served in the US Army, worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and is an avid student of American history. Earned his undergraduate degree from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, and graduate degree from The University of Minnesota. He resides in Oakland California.

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Copyright © 2022 by Christopher Lee Bowen

Paperback: 978-1-63767-830-5

eBook: 978-1-63767-831-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022905553

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction.

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The Last Western

A Baldwin locomotive with six Pullman and five freight cars trailed a black plume of gritty coal smoke across the sere grassland of western Nebraska as it chugged and rattled its way to Del Norte Colorado. The English party, dispirited by the endless monotony of the Great Plains, huddled in a well-appointed Pullman club car to play cards, chat and commiserate. Dressed for tea at a London club, not for the baking heat of June 1882 in midland America, added physical discomfort to their growing misgivings about this trip into the American Wild West. A few sod huts but otherwise no sign of human habitation induced a sense of leaving civilization behind without a redeeming prospect ahead.

Amanda Egerton, inattentively playing in a foursome of bridge, looked amused at the extravagant brass gaslight fixtures and chandelier, lush carpeting and abundant provisions, potable and edible of the ornate walnut bar of the club car. Garish velvet upholstery in a color her father, Sir Gavin Egerton, Field Marshall, Baronet, once described as ’bordello red’, called up fond memories of his penchant for mordant comment.

Sir Charles Winthrop, a principal with Imperial Bank of London, sipped whiskey, played poker with Carter Braddock, a financier with Morgan Bank of New York. Indistinguishable in appearance, they embodied the industrial age of standardization and interchangeable parts: same regimental moustache, sleek gray hair, prep-school tie (Harrow/Philips-Exeter), black business suit (Savile Row London/Brooks Brothers Boston), and capitalist greed that prompted them to meet at the Union Club in London last February to arrange this trip to evaluate prospective copper mines in Colorado.

Lord Basil Pomeroy, a player in the bridge foursome, left his study at Oxford to join the party, reluctantly. Son of the head of Imperial Bank and affianced to Sir Charles’ daughter Ariadne, he felt obliged, though uninspired, to go. Inspiration was not the first characteristic one associated with Lord Basil. Though only 19-years old, his receding chin, effete manners, and lofty attitude, attributes of declining vigor in the family tree, deprived him of any trace of youthful charm or vigor. He was easily unsettled by conditions not arranged to his advantage and convenience.

Sir Charles invited his niece Amanda on the trip to chaperone Ariadne, now 19-years old, while traveling with her fiancé. Not that Lord Basil was a threat to her maidenhood. She was herself a problem. Expelled from several English finishing schools, Sir Charles finally sent Ariadne to Madame Rubique’s academy in Geneva, a holding company for stimulating daughters of prominent figures political and financial who needed to be out of the country until a modicum of social self-control was acquired or attendant scandal died down. Sir Charles, consistent with Darwin’s then prevalent evolutionary theories, attributed Ariadne’s unruly nature (incompatible with the Victorian forms to which her mentors tried to mold her) to her French grandmother, a notable scandaleuse, member of the French aristocracy exiled near London in the years of Revolution and Napoleon. A three-month visit to her great aunt, la Comptesse d’Aubigny, at age fifteen, instilled very Gallic standards of feminine guile. She stripped Ariadne nude and evaluated in detail the advantages, function and deployment of every part of her anatomical armory in the battle for money, power, and pleasure. Given her blue eyes, abundant waterfall of chestnut hair, stunning endowment, and decolletée dresses cut just short of socially unacceptable, Ariadne was ever after an enterprising flirt.

Trump!

Lord Basil, Ariadne’s opponent at bridge, loudly declared victory, a rare event in his courtship. The word ‘pyrrhic’ crossed Amanda’s mind, already persuaded that Ariadne and Lord Basil were entirely unsuited to each other.

Well done Basil.

Exuded Raymond Dumaine, Lord Basil’s tutor from Oxford University and bridge partner, invited on the trip to coach Lord Basil for upcoming exams. Sir Charles welcomed anyone who would divert Lord Basil and allow himself to avoid his prospective son-in-law as often as possible without appearance of incivility. Projecting an extraordinary degree of insignificance in manner and person, Raymond was unanimously ignored by the rest of the party.

I simply must see something vertical or I shall go mad!!!

This sudden outburst from Ariadne, supposed due to exasperation at her loss at bridge or the flat monochromatic landscape of the Great Plains, was in fact inspired by the presence in the club car of a dozen male fellow travelers, a sartorial mélange of bowlers, Stetsons, Brooks Brothers suits, Western frock coats, silk vests, cowboy boots, bespoke cordovans, black ribbon bow ties and shiny silver buckles on hand-tooled leather gun belts. They were headed to a lumber mill in Eureka, a vineyard in Napa, several banks and shipping companies in San Francisco, a ranch in Oregon, a gold brokerage in Sacramento. Varied in appearance, they all shared the vigor of youth.

Ariadne excited by these handsome denizens of a wild land in which social order was maintained by mutually respectful self-defense (their holstered revolvers the means), not enforced by law and instituted authority. Never one to let pass an opportunity to attract and reward male attention, Ariadne tossed her long richly auburn hair and set her chin.

When Ariadne entered the club car all the men had immediately stood, removed their hats, nodded and smiled in admiration. Her response a modest smile, modesty a rarely used ploy in her dramatic repertoire. Masculine aroma of polished leather, Cuban cigars, Jim Beam whiskey and bay rum aftershave spread from their end of the club car, their courtesy, admiration and desire to please only slightly tempered their aggressive visual appraisal. Ariadne, used to intimidating males she encountered in England, now felt a tremor of intimidation herself as their scrutiny suggested no words or gestures of refusal would interrupt their pursuit of pleasure given the opportunity. The men laughed at Ariadne’s comment which cheered her up and more than made up for the victory her fiancé, by comparison overdressed and rather effete appearing, had just won at cards. Ariadne was more interested in winning at life.

Amanda didn’t give a damn about bridge, but she was irritated at Ariadne’s endemic frivolity and inability to take much of anything seriously. Since her father’s funeral two years ago she lived with her uncle Sir Charles. Amanda and Ariadne shared the tragic early loss of their mothers and got along well enough since neither posed a threat to the goals and expectations of the other. But they were antipodal in temperament, Ariadne willful and impulsive, Amanda thoughtful and reserved, widely courted during visits to her father in India, a lovely English girl with green eyes and soft light brown hair. Ariadne looked the quintessential English girl in face, figure, manner and diction, but was inwardly entirely French in feeling, emotion, tastes and outlook. This out of focus combination made English and most Americans who encountered her uneasy, unable to reconcile apparently shared Anglo heritage of values and outlook with gestures, impulses, and expressions entirely Gallic in character, which were to the Anglo-Americans largely capricious and absurd.

Amanda Egerton

These club car musings and speculations abruptly ended as the train came to a sudden stop. Steel wheels screeched against steel rails, as a black mass of buffalo seen out the club car window moved across the path of the train. All passengers detrained, affording Ariadne an opportunity to mingle with the club car male population, evolving into endless laughter and bantering she especially enjoyed. The men pulled their Colt revolvers to join the hunt. First shots rang out in a delirium of shouts and cat calls. The Sacramento gold broker handed Ariadne his Colt .45 and offered to instruct her on how to aim and fire, necessitating rather intimate proximity. Ariadne hit a buffalo, shrieked with glee augmented by a hug of praise from her tutor to which Lord Basil found no feasible means of protest. The buffalo panicked and gained speed as they became aware of the first of their number falling under the gunfire.

Let’s get’ em stampeding. They’ll fall all over each other and trample more than we’ll ever shoot.

More laughter and shooting, the gunpowder formed a sooty cloud overhead. Amanda recoiled from the sharp pungent odor as she stepped from the train onto the ground. The men fired as rapidly as they could, Remington rifles, Colt revolvers, like some wild Gettysburg of the Plains. Amanda saw a dozen or more buffalo writhing on the ground as the herd attempted to move around them, couldn’t, and began to trample the fallen, tripping more buffalo, in turn trampled, as the men continued to fire wildly into the herd. Without thinking Amanda screamed at them: ‘Stop, stop this