The bond of a band of brothers is unbreakable.

Sixteen years after losing 1973 Niles High School graduate and machinist James Clayton Boht (June 30, 1954-July 27, 1996) to a heart attack, former football teammates will meet at the Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota’s Black Hills and bike to Crazy Woman Canyon in Buffalo, Wyo., where Broht trout fished, to spread his ashes in early August.

“His wife finally this year said, ‘It’s time to let Jim go,’” said butcher Dennis Wynn, of Colorado.

“We were a small group of country boys who rode the same school bus,” said Bob Cain, of Orlando, who also attended Peavine School near Dowagiac until moving to Niles in seventh grade.

“Jimbo’s” untimely death coincided with a visit from Arizona to attend a Cubs-Rockies game with Wynn.

“Jimbo passed away from a massive heart attack in Denny’s home,” Cain, a painting contractor who has lived in Florida since 1985, said.

“He was then cremated and services were held back in Phoenix. It was a sad day for us all.

“As fate would have it, Jimbo relayed to Dennis Wynn he wished for his ashes to be spread in Crazy Woman Canyon when the time was right, as they spent many times together. I had never heard of the place.”

While heading to Sturgis in 1999, Cain contacted Wynn to see if Boht’s remains had been spread.

“While in Sturgis,” Cain said, “I decided to ride off and find this canyon where my friend wanted his remains spread. After a long, wet ride, I came into Buffalo, Wyo., and asked a store clerk at a sporting goods store if he had heard of this Crazy Woman Canyon. He said yes and volunteered a map showing it off the main highway. Being late in the evening, I found a steakhouse and cheap hotel and decided to continue my search for the canyon in the morning.”

Fortified by coffee and his map, Cain climbed the Big Horn Mountains.

“As the air got thin and temperatures cold, I pulled off at an overlook to check the map and realized I must have passed the entrance,” Cain said.

“I began going down the mountain slowly to see if I could find where I had missed the turn. I came upon two four-by-fours spaced evenly apart and guessed someone must have taken the sign. Laughing to myself, I pulled in and the sky cleared, the sun came out and I began my journey for the first time into Crazy Woman Canyon. It was a lovely place of serenity and of nature’s true beauty.”

As years peeled away, Wynn and Cain lost contact with Boht’s widow and did not know where his remains might be. But thanks to Facebook, they located Leslie Boht in Reklaw, Texas.

“She told me she had lost contact with Denny eight years ago upon moving to Texas,” Cain said.

“After a brief phone reunion, I asked her if our buddy Jimbo’s ashes had ever been spread in the canyon. She said no, and that she still had them. I told her of my plans to return to the Sturgis rally in 2012, that I was hooking up with Dennis and asked if she was ready and if she would like for us to spread our brother’s ashes. She told me Jimbo would like that a lot, and she would be sending his remains so that a group of old Niles High School football buddies turned bikers could carry out their brother’s wishes 16 years after he passed.”

Wynn, Cain and his wife, Sherri, Mike Freeze, Bob and Dan Etzcorn, Jon Hoskin and Bruce Leach are expected to make the ride.