When Bill Sublette, quit being "Constable One Punch" in Missouri in 1823 to join the legendary Mountain Men trapping beaver in the wilderness, it was the beginning of 12 years of high adventure no one could ever have imagined! These fabled years were first enshrined in the high action, nonfiction sourcebook Ponder The Path nominated for the Francis Parkman Award and its free standing sequel Behold The Shining Mountains, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in U.S, History. Now they're in three epic albums, each running about 41/2 hours as an AudioStagePlayÔ with a different voice for every person in Dolby Stereo®, spiced by sound effects and songs of the era!

Our albums aren't about dead people. They're live history as it happens™ in a high action format. Like a PBS TV documentary, dialogue evolves from diaries, journals, letters, autobiographies and authentic texts revealing the hearts and minds of early Americans as they speak their own words. A Table of Contents Chronology on each cassette label and audiotape soundtrack specifies every Chapter's time period, so you never guess when it happened. You'll relive the lives of these historical figures with muzzleloader gunfire and other sound effects. At scene changes you'll hear stanzas from actual songs of the period, all listed by Chapter with origin dates inside the album's front cover.

Big Bill Sublette - The Oregon Trail And Beyond [1827-1833] This second album of the Sublette Trilogy is the combined Audio Abridgment #2 of the last part of its sourcebook Ponder The Path with the first portion of its other sourcebook, sequel Pulitzer Prize nominee Behold The Shining Mountains. Of course Bill was not the only Sublette Up the Mountain. There was Bill's 6'4" brother Milt, who didn't give a damn that the Mexicans allowed no American trapping in their New Mexico province in 1827 as you shall see from this part of Ponder's Chapter 27.

[Chapter 27] By the time Irish Thomas Smith's band of trappers reached the Trujillo Rancho 12 miles north of Albuquerque in New Mexico, they were reduced to living on roots, although they had taken and eaten many beaver near the Gila River.

Señor Trujillo's friend, an Alcalde menor in the New Mexico government of Don Manuel Armijo, divulged, "Your Americano James Baird has become the Mexican citizen." Baird's letter to El Comandante of the El Paso District says your trappers was looting $100,000 per año in furs from this territory. Don Manuel Armijo has replaced Gobernador Antonio Narbona. Armijo enforces the law that only the Mexican citizens can trap in Mexico, so the furs of all foreigners is confiscated! As we talk, Americano Ewing Young's entire fur catch worth over $20,000 es en captura!"

Smith suggested, "Ewing Young is a direct man and probably sought Governor Armijo to talk it over."

"¡No, Señor! Young hid his skins en la casa de Don Luis Cabeza de Vaca in Peñablanca. En Junio, el Alcalde and many soldados matan -- killed -- Don Luis. They took his 29 packs of wet beaver to the Guardia in Santa Fe to dry! Mi spy say mi Rancho is el primero lugar they will look for your furs, so you must run ahora."

. . . Ewing Young prided himself on diplomacy, but Governor Armijo had ordered an American traitor named James Baird to sell all the furs of Young and the men in his party on behalf of the Mexican Government. Ewing eyed the furs in the Santa Fe Guardia quadrangle. It was afternoon siesta time when the Mexicans hibernated. It made a man connive.

Milt Sublette reigned in his Buckskin horse with two pack mules behind it. "Ewing, you been studyin' them furs fer quite a spell. You know which two of them bales o' furs is mine?"

"That one over there by the Armory door and this one bear your brands."

Still hindered by the heel wound the Apaches had inflicted, Milt limped to the furthest bale, hoisted it and tottered to the front mule where he lashed it to one side of the packsaddle. The small Mexican soldier on guard followed Milt, ordering him to surrender at once. As Milt hobbled after his other bale, the guard jabbed at him with the bayonet on his musket. Milton snatched the bale up. Furious at being ignored, the guard cocked his musket and aimed it at Milt.

"¿Se habla Inglés, Señor soldado?" Milt asked the guard.

"Mas o menos," the irate guard answered, admitting a smattering of English, as he aimed his musket at Milton's chest.

"You ain't fired that rusty wreck in years. When it misfires, I'm gonna bust it over yer face. Step aside!"

The soldier's finger took the slack out of the trigger. Knowing his beaver would stop a musketball, Milt Sublette held the bale between himself and the musket and kept coming. "Pull that trigger and leave a widder. Step aside and spend siesta en la cantina con su amor." The soldier dropped his musket and ran into the Armory to get mas soldados.

Milt lashed the second bale on the front mule, grabbed the lead rope of the unladen hind mule then mounted his horse.

Ewing Young had to ask. "Why'd you bring two mules if you knew you'd put both fur packs on the first one?"

Milt kicked his horse and bolted for the Armory door that had filled with the sound of rushing boots. "Thought it'd be worth a good mule to see how them soldados handle a trappers' Fandango!" Milt let go of the empty charging pack mule's lead rope. The mule blasted soldiers backwards like ten pins through the Armory door.

"What'll I do after you pulled this stunt, Sublette?" Young bellered at the dust cloud. "They'll toss me in jail!"

Milt's voice trailed back, "Try one o' yer Greek myths on them Mexicanos!."

. . . Thomas Smith's party left Trujillo's Rancho, traveling by night to miss settlements with their contraband skins. Four days later, they smuggled their beaver into Taos and sold them to Sylvester Pratte. Smith's coup called for a celebration, during which the jovial Irish rogue was regaled with his long time friend Milt Sublette's "beaver robbery." Irish Tom Smith, waving a longhaired scalp on a pole, was lugged in a chair at the head of the tequila parade of the entire torch toting population of Taos. The last thing Smith remembered was toasting Milt Sublette with a whole bottle of mescal, worm and all. "Wherever you are amigo, you're my kind of rotten, beaver thievin' son o' Kentucky!" [End Chapter 27]

Having purchased the fur company from General Ashley, Jedediah Smith, Davey Jackson and Bill Sublette huddled in their frosty Wind River, Wyoming hut to talk of their murky future as we find them in Ponder Chapter 34 in March 1829.

[Chapter 34] A few smoldering coals glowed on their dirt hearth, but the chill air still showed their breath. Jedediah Smith said, "I've taken 33 men to California. 26 are dead. I know the men call me the Disciple of Death behind my back. I have nothing to show for these two trips to that land of outrage but 7 otter skins and this Hudson's Bay draft for $2,369.60 for salvaged beaver & horses." He pulled the battered Ace of Hearts from his shirt pocket, mindful that each of them had taken an Ace from a greasy deck of cards as their emblem of ownership the day they bought the company. Jedediah laid it between them. "Tear this card up if I'm no longer welcome as a partner."

Bill Sublette stuffed the Ace back in Jedediah's shirt pocket, then quietly laid their finances bare before them. "Our books show losses on horses, furs, traps and supplies since we started July 18, 1826 as $43,500. With all we took in before this Rendezvous, we've about busted even. The furs we're takin' to St. Louie'll bring $23,000 an' we'll net bout half o' that. Add Jedediah's $2,400 an' split it three ways -- each partner has $4,633 -- an' three Aces. That's more'n most workin' men make in a lifetime. Let's try it fer another year."

Smith and Jackson nodded, but Sublette added, "It's time to bring our tradin' supplies from St. Louie with wagons."

Jedediah flared, "Everyone knows that can't be done."

Sublette countered, "I woulda said a man cain't ride 16,000 miles through Injin country an' keep his ha'r, but you done it! We rolled the cannon out to the 1827 Rendezvous and back to St. Louie."

Jackson argued, "A pipsqueak 4-pound cannon weighing same's a mule isn't a caravan of 2 ton wagons."

Bill shot back, "Mebbee so, but I made more St. Louie trips than either o' you. You know I ain't a risk taker, but if them wagons don't work, you two kin take my share of everthin'."

Jackson and Smith's eyes met. Jackson gave their reply, "Bill, have 'em lay in firewood so Jedediah and I aren't found frozen when you roll those supply wagons in next spring!"

. . . Reaching St. Louis February 11, 1830, Bill Sublette spent every dime of their $28,000 and barely got their financier, General Ashley to advance $2,000 more for the spring supply train. Ashley scratched his balding head. "How're you going to haul $30,000 worth of goods to Rendezvous, Bill?"

"Freight wagons."

"Freight wagons! The War Department and Senate have intense interest in making a wagon road to Oregon, but they say it's impossible, and of course it is without bridges over rivers or even a semblance of a road -- to say nothing of being slowed too much to escape the Hostiles."

"General, what have I ever said I'd do, that I ain't done?

Ashley acted like he was finishing his prior sentence, "But if there's a man alive who can do it -- I'm talking to him!"

General Ashley sounded out his political cronies to drum up financing for wagons for the epic beginning of a road to Oregon. Angered by derision, Ashley tried the businesses that'd profit most if it worked. More scoffing. Ashley enlisted the newspapers. The papers printing stories hinting money was needed, but the public plan backfired. People treated Bill Sublette like a lunatic. Jokes circulated about the fur trade firm of Broken, Down & Lost. Sublette's last hope was to get the wagons built on credit.

Sublette padded into Irish Joe Murphy's wagon works after the workers left on a Friday night.

"I need ten sturdy wagons built by April 15th."

"Meanin' no disrespect, Mr. Sublette, I'll need a third down, and payment in full before they leave me shop."

"Don't know how I'll git the money, Murphy, but I'll be back."

"There's always the Little People, Mr. Sublette."

"The who?"

"Leprechauns, Mr. Sublette. They must reveal their treasure if you catch them!" [End Chapter 34]

And in Ponder Chapter 35, we see that the financing and Sublette family problems for the wagon trip west have only

Gotten far worse.

[Chapter 35] General Ashley scowled across St. Louie's Green Tree Tavern table. "Bill, this idea of taking wagons to the Rocky Mountains is a political powder keg. Plenty in Congress and the press are opposed to the western expansion others champion. Many think it'll bring on wars with Britain, Mexico and the tribes that could cripple or kill this country."

"General, I got $30,000 worth o' supplies that's goin' ta the 1830 Rendezvous in wagons. No other way without goin' broke hirin' men an' buyin' mules. Everythin' I own's on the line! This ain't politics! This's real life!"

"Bill, in Missouri, politics is real life! Why'd my money sources ducked funding it? They know there'll be big -- big winners or big -- big losers."

"Which way you goin' on it, General?"

"Bill. I'm running for the U.S. House of Representatives. With all the money I've loaned you, I'm tapped out."

"Give my best to yer dear wife Eliza. Hope she's better real soon."

"Thanks, Bill She's very ill. Keep her in your prayers."

The man eyeing Bill Sublette was not John Gaither or John Hannah who'd signed up in the Green Tree and got killed by Crows on the Green River last year. It was Andrew Whitley Sublette with their Papa Phillip's raven hair and Mama Isabella's dreamy smile.

"Drew, our brother Pinckney got his skull split Up the Mountain. I ain't got it in me to kill another Sublette."

"Uncle Solomon said to remind you that you and Milton are still alive and 2 outa 3's good odds."

"Fat Uncle Solomon's biggest risk is gittin' the gout."

"Fat Uncle Solomon has made more at cards than real estate."

"I'll git him inna game with Chief Little Soldier so he kin see an inside straight means 4 inches o' steel in his belly."

"You see me as a kid. I'm 22.What if I could outshoot you?"

"Rifle er pistol?"

"Either one."

Bill plucked his Ace of Spades from his shirt pocket, then laid his Hawken boot pistols on the table. "I'm takin' you to the wagon yard."

Convinced a challenge to a duel had been accepted, the Green Tree Tavern crowd stormed into its wagon lot. Bill stuck the Ace into a crack in a corral post, then stepped off 20 paces, hoping the growing Spring rain would not cancel the shoot.

"We supposed to hit that card from here?"

"Big spade in the center, Drew."

Andrew fired. Bill sighted down his pistol, but the card'd vanished. They strode to the corral. Andrew picked up the center-shot Ace and peered through the bullet hole. Bill tucked the Ace away and slid his pistol into his boot holster. "When that boot pistol's cleaned and reloaded, yer hired Drew!"

. . . Foul October winds fanged the 10 wagons rolling back to the U. States on the primitive wagon road Sublette had made last Spring on the way to Rendezvous -- a road that would be known to all as The Oregon Trail.

At their nightly fire, Jedediah Smith talked of the letters he must write. "We must urge Congress and border states to repeal laws barring expansion into western lands. People must know that wagons have crossed the Great American Desert -- in spite of the scientific gibberish to the contrary! When we get home, I'll need your help on maps to correct those done by guess work."

"I'll help," David answered.

But Bill Sublette just looked into the fire where he saw hisself as a little boy with a cut chin leanin' over his Grandpa Whitley's Lewis & Clark map with that old man who'd built explorer's dreams in his head.

"Bill, will you help with the maps?" Jedediah asked.

Bill looked at the stars, "Been waitin' all my life to do them maps. Got a fine old man up there wants to see 'em."

Andrew Sublette rode beside Bill a mile west of the Missouri border. Bill said, Drew, It's still eatin' on me how you learned to shoot like you did the day I hired you in the Green Tree's wagon lot."

"Uncle Solomon said I looked just like Milt, and if I was like Milt with the ladies, I'd be dueling irate husbands on Bloody Island all the time. He made me shoot every single day, Bill! By the way, you think this wagon trip'll make us famous?"

"If you gotta choose tween fame an' fortune, take the money. Fame's a fingersnap but money buys the kind of misery we enjoy."

"Bill, you're still a young bull. What'll you do?"

"After listenin' to brother Milt, bin thinkin' bout goin' into business down Santa Fe way. You interested innat?"

Looking just like Milt, Andrew grinned, "Soft nights and sweet señoritas!"

"I's thinkin' more along the lines o' business!"

"Sure you were, Bill!"

Their caravan rolled through western Missouri settlements where people turned out to cheer and wave. "How they know who we are, Bill?" Andrew asked.

"Must be them damn newspapers. Always goin' on bout sumpthin'. Guess fer now it's us."

"What are we going to do in all these waving crowds?"

"Keep yer eye on where you're goin' an' wave back."

At Columbia, Missouri, the town turned out to wave and shout. A little blonde girl in a white gown threw flowers on the startled wagon mules. Her flowers triggered a trend along the road.

On Sunday morning October 10, 1830, the southwest wind wafted gentle rain across the shiny buildings of St. Louis. Their wagonwheels cut furrows in the mud of the streets where 5,000 people swarmed, yelling what happy crowds yell.

Bill remembered his Grandpa Whitley's description of Lewis & Clark's return to cheering crowds in this town. He wondered if the old man was watchin' from up there -- or maybe from these streets with long dead Mama and Papa Sublette. He saw General Ashley and slid off his mule. "How's Eliza, General?"

Ashley's eyes filled with tears. "She passed away June first -- right after you left for the Rendezvous, Bill."

Bill turned away in dismay. "I wanted her to see this more'n anybody. Without her financin' the wagons, this couldn't be."

"Eliza saw it before she died, Bill. Told me exactly what it would look like when your wagon train returned to St. Louis -- and it's as inspiring as she said it would be. Eliza's not really gone, Bill. I often see her in her wedding gown swirling among the clouds." [End Chapter 35 and Ponder the Path]

Now we leap over Bill Sublette's Behold The Shining Mountains adventures in 1831 on the Santa Fe Trail, the great 1832 Battle of Pierre's Hole with the Blackfeet to witness Backwoodsman Bill Sublette's encounter with a most sophisticated lady in Philadelphia's elegant Congress Hall Hotel in Behold Chapter 16 in late 1832.

[Chapter 16] Thanks to Congressman Ashley's guarantee, hardware dealers Wolfe, Spies & Clark sold Bill Sublette $4,000 worth of goods on credit. Bill learned that brokers Riddle & Forsythe sold most of his 1832 furs at $4 the pound.

Bill's partner Bobbie Campbell returned to his brother Hugh's in Philadelphia to see what he could do for them. Sublette followed. After checking into Philadelphia's Congress Hall Hotel, Sublette met 3 sisters outside the dining room. His eye was taken by the shapely one.

"You may call me Cat!" she purred.

"An' you may call me Cutface!" Bill retorted, whooshing his 225 pounds into the leather couch beside her.

"Is that a dueling scar on your chin?"

"Wild hog bit me when I's eight years old."

"Dueling scar's more romantic. You must learn the art of the polite lie. What do you do, and where do you do it?"

Sublette flashed his white teeth. "I'm a Lord o' the Shining Mountains. Spend my time being dev'lish clever an' trying to stay under all this yellow hair."

"Stay under your hair?"

"Blackfeet -- are dead set on lifting it."

Cat covered her sensual lips with her fan. "Isn't that novel? Whatever would they do with your hair?"

"They'd hang my scalp on a lodgepole next to my little brother's, so they'd have a matched set."

Cat's sisters aborted dinner. One grabbed Cat's hand, "We must pack to leave on time for Baltimore in the morning!"

Sublette rose and kissed Cat's free hand. It was the first time he'd tried that, and it wasn't bad -- even through the satin glove. Cat held the hand to her lips as she was dragged away.

As he left the dining room after dinner, Cat rose primly from the sofa and held out her delicate hand. He took it and she led him, his heart hammering, along the corridor. She unlocked her room, pulled his head down, extracted his toothpick and kissed him long and hard on the mouth. Cat nudged her door open with her foot. "You see Cutface, I don't really care if I am late to Baltimore in the morning." [End Behold Chapter 16]

A host of grand adventures from the Pulitzer Prize nominated Behold The Shining Mountains await you in Dolby Stereo® spiced by sound effects and music of the era in this album. Why not give this album a try? It's surely the most exciting and entertaining way in the world to learn U.S. History! You can order this second album with the other two albums in the Trilogy, or just this second album, since each album can stand alone as a story unit. Get any or all of these fascinating albums now on our Special Introductory Offer! Click on "To Order" below for discount Prices.

Behold sourcebook reviewers say:

"The highest possible recommendation!" Chuck Hamsa, Bibliographer, Library, University of Southwestern Louisiana.

"Vast research incorporated by great showmen into an opus many will devour with gusto!" Dr. Charles Hanson, Jr., former Curator of the Museum of the Fur Trade at Chadron, Nebraska.

To Order

Andrew Jackson, The Gunfighter President

Sam Houston, A Storm Rising

David Crockett, Frontiersman, Soldier & Man For The Ages

Mighty Joe Walker, Soldier, Sheriff & Mountain Man

First Women Over The Rockies

Young Bill Sublette And The Legendary Mountain Men (1823-1827)

The Sublettes And The Fur Wars (1833-1836)

 Read about the sourcebooks

PONDER THE PATH

BEHOLD THE SHINING MOUNTAINS

Birth of America AudioBooks

 P.O. Box 7008 Hemet, CA 92545 ( or FAX (909) 765-0950 Or Toll Free 877-742-6241

Email: Photosensitive@worldnet.att.net Website: home.att.net/~birthofamericaaudiobooks