DAVID CROCKETT --FRONTIERSMAN, SOLDIER AND MAN FOR THE AGES AUDIOBOOK

David Crockett's the rugged, good humored Backwoodsman America cannot forget.This album is Abridgment #3 of its nonfiction sourcebook TRAILS OF THE WHITE SAVAGES, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft History Award. The album's done in Dolby® Stereo as an AudioStagePlayÔ by Authors Gary Wiles and Delores Brown with a different voice for every person. Spiced by sound effects and music of the era, the Houston Album stars David Crockett and features Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, Joseph Walker and other historical figures in lesser roles. Dialogue evolves from diaries, journals, letters, autobiographies and verified texts, letting legendary Americans talk in their own words. Battlemaps of the 1814 Creek War and the 1835-6 Texas War of Independence are inside the front cover of the album. 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.

Born August 17, 1786 in Green County, Tennessee, David Crockett would burn his brand deeply into the hip of American History. Crockett's early years in Virginia and Tennessee, including marriage to lovely Irish Mary Finley are revealed in a new Prologue added to the text. While the War of 1812 rages, ride with 3rd Sergeant Crockett in Tennessee's Mounted Gunmen to avenge the settler massacre at Fort Mims, Alabama where Creek Indians brained babies on stockade walls. Fight in Alabama and Florida under General Andrew Jackson, who inspires David's motto, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead."

Let's join David in Chapter 6 as he tries desperately to get home from Spain's northern Florida in February of 1815 after the Creek Nation's back is broken.

[Chapter 6] David Crockett's outfit'd finally got orders to go home. David hoped he'd never hear another copperhead slitherin' into his blanket er git woke up to kill somebody.

They marched north. Not all Creeks knowed the war was done, but David was used to arrows streakin' from the shadows and musket balls kickin' dirt on him. His meanest enemy was a heap closer -- his belly. His outfit hadn't tasted bread in months. David eyed the other starvin' men, then grated, "Rule is -- root hog er die!"

David got Captain Cowans' permission for him and two others to light out and shoot game afore his army's noises run everthin' off. Crockett was so famished, he shinnied up a 30 foot dead pine to knife a gray squirrel out of its treehole and gobble it raw but for head and tail. This left him ashamed cause he allas give his first kill to the sick.

Two days later Crockett and a man named Vanzant come to a grassy plain. Even in dawn's dim light, Crockett spied animal tracks, whispering, "This's the Promised Land."

"What's that mean?" Vanzant grunted.

"Means our outfit ain't gonna starve, you knothead. Foller me an' don't walk on nothin' but yer own big feet." They slipped up on a gang o' turkeys in trees and headshot four afore the rest got enough smarts to fly off. By the time David's outfit caught up they'd also bagged a hawk, a copperhead and four toads. They come on a bee tree, smoked the bees stupid with a fire, then tomahawked the trunk open. They clawed honeycomb out and stuffed it in their faces, bees and all. The Mounted Gunmen spent the day fillin' the air with cookin' smells and their guts with a bit o' food. By nightfall David'd give away the rest of his meat and honey to the sick in other outfits.

Havin' made friends with his belly agin, David lay on his blanket and belched. To nobody in particular David muttered, "Hunger's like what the Irish say about hangin' -- ain't turble, but it's turble hard ta git used to."

A soldier retorted, "So's the Army!"

Crockett's outfit couldn't outmarch starvation. Every time they reached an Indian settlement, David'd offer a farmer a dollar fer a hatfull o' corn. Most refused, but would trade a hatfull for ten bullets and another for ten charges o' powder.

At the Creek's sacred Hickory Ground in southern Alabama, they found no food. The men voted for a forced march through the 49 miles of wilderness to Fort Williams. All went to bed hungry, but at noon next day they received enough pork and flour rations to get them to Fort Strother. Two more bony horses died, got cooked and chewed as stringy meat on the way to Fort Talladega.

David drifted from his outfit to wander Talladega's grassy ruins where he'd fought agin 1,100 Red Sticks two year back. He saw the black remains of the house 46 Creeks had run into. A squaw in the doorway'd drew back her arrow, bracing her bow with her feet. That arrow spitted Lieutenant Moore's skull beside Crockett, drivin' the men plumb crazy. The squaw'd got blown through by 20 musketballs. Then Crockett and the others'd shot the warriors down like dogs, before firin' their house. Men done things in war they was never gonna be able to live with later. Now it was a ghost's gourd patch o' skulls layin' around black house ruins. He ran and caught up with his outfit.

Crockett got home and quit the Army. At sight of his cabin, he couldn't wait to see if Mary was all right. Though she'd said he'd never see her agin, there she stood, holdin' a baby with a tousled boy at each side. Next thing David knowed, they was all in a pile, laughin', squealin' and squallin'. Wasn't long after their ruckus, David figured sumpthin' was bad wrong with his gray-faced wife.

"Who's are little un?" David asked as Mary scrubbed the supper dishes.

"Margaret's a girl nick-named Polly. She's strong, but I'm poorly."

"Mary, I reckon we love as hard in the backwoods as anybody in the whole o' creation. Love o' me and the boys'll pull you through whatever's ailin' you."

Mary Crockett rallied. Color came back to her cheeks. Heartened, David harnessed the mule and soon turned the plow's rusted blade shiny in the dark Tennessee dirt. His soul told him, this was the Promised Land fer sure.

On May 21, 1815, David Crockett's friends and neighbors elected him Lieutenant in the 32nd Regiment of the Tennessee Militia to thank him for savin' 'em from the Creeks. But the joy o' the warm days slipped away. Before the summer of 1815's shadows grew long, Mary Crockett died in her bed. David dug her grave, and lowered her into it inside a new-sawed coffin. He held baby Polly, the last treasure from the cold body in the ground. With John Wesley and little Billy huggin' his legs, David stood head bowed unable to speak.

At last David uttered, "Death entered my humble cottage and tore from my children an affectionate good mother -- and from me a tender lovin' wife. The ways of the Almighty falls heavy upon us, but these ways is right, and we gotta accept 'em an go about our lives."

John Wesley looked up through his tears, "Good thing you come home, Pap. Me an' li'l Billy couldn't dig Ma's grave."

David peered through his tears at the stern faced little feller, "John Wesley -- a man kin allas do what's gotta be done. I see a man in you, John Wesley -- a real man." Together they shoved the dirt into Mary Crockett's unmarked grave, then walked into the dusk, hopin' their sobs'd be mistook fer night birds.

. . . Diaperin' a infant was no job fer a feller with hands like pitchforks. David Crockett invited his brother and wife Birdie to live in his cabin. Twelve days of that forced David to announce over Birdie's pitiful supper vittles, "You folks'll be happy ta know I'm gittin' hitched, so you kin go back ta the good life."

Birdie sighed her relief, "Who's the lucky lady?"

David grinned, "Ain't met 'er yet!"

David felt a neighbor six mile away was a Godsend, but one within sound of his ax was a nuisance. Still there was that young widder Elizabeth Patton within a day's ride.

David spruced up at a spring near her tidy little farm, wettin' his hair down so it didn't stand like a rooster's comb. All he knowed fer sure was this Elizabeth had lost her husband in the Creek War and she had two little uns.

Almost like she'd got wind he was comin', portly 27 year old Elizabeth Patton was purtied up shellin' peas into a blue bucket on her front porch, when David rode up. "You the folks sellin' the Guernsey heifer?" he asked politely.

"No, I'm Elizabeth Patton born May 22, 1788 in Buncombe County, North Carolina with a son named George and girl Margaret Ann. I'd make a fine mother for your young uns, and I thought you'd never git here, Lieutenant David Crockett -- that I used my widdows vote for after hearin' you tell us what a heller you was."

"Well, yer way smarter'n a Guernsey heifer and lookin' purty as a brindle pup. Guess I'll git down and set a spell."

"I'm hopin' you'll do way more'n that!"

Three months later in the midst of 1816's summer, everbody who was anybody in Franklin County Tennessee and quite a few nobodies was gathered in Elizabeth Patton's livin' room for her weddin' to David Crockett. David and the minister waited in the center o' the room. All eyes was fixed on the front door awaitin' the bride's grand entrance. Guttural grunts sounded outside the door, followed by a large nonchalant pig enterin' in the bride's place to titters o' laughter.

David bent over the pig, "Old Hook, from now on, I'll do the gruntin' around here." He grabbed the pig's ear and ushered it out, returnin' in time to wed the real bride. [End Chapter 6]

Next, we leap over David Crockett's rise to Judge, Tennessee Militia Colonel and member of the U.S. House of Representatives to accompany David and the fascinating men he attracts on his trip from Tennessee to Texas where the war clouds gathered in Chapter 53.

[Chapter 53] David Crockett donned his buckskins and coonskin cap. After tearful good-byes with dear wife Elizabeth, he turned to his eldest son. "John Wesley, you do what's gotta be done here, an' I'll do the same in Texas," then David hit the trail with a lump in his throat bigger'n his fist.

David hadn't gone far with nephew William Patton, neighbors Abner Bergin and Lindsey K.Tinkle when they paused at a spring on the outskirts of Rutherford, Tennessee to sip some cool water.

David dried his lips on his buckskin sleeve. "You fellers member when I's in the Tennessee Legislature, twas me who got the bill passed in 1823 creatin our own Gibson County?"

William nodded. "Whatchu gittin at, Uncle David?"

"Wall, jist to show ye what fools they is in are gov'ment, they done left my prapety outa my own County that I done made misself -- an nat's why folks roun here says my home's in 'Crockett's Corner.' Gov'ment won't change my County now neither -- even tho they knows better!"

Abner Bergin chuckled, "I heard o' the man without a Country. Guess yer the man without a County, Colonel!"

Colonel Crockett picked up his rifle Old Betsy. "We're gonna change all that, boys. We'll git us a a new Country called Texas an turn out new Counties like litters o' mongrel pups -- each with their own tree an all the cats they kin affright. Fine liquor and finer friends awaits us in Memphis to prime us fer the trip."

By the time they reached the Union Hotel in Memphis on November 1, 1835, David had hisself quietly believin' he'd move his family to Texas right soon an go back into politics when Texas become a state. Good friends soon left the scant remains o' their dinners to join Colonel Crockett's troop in the Union Hotel bar for a farewell drinking frolic.

As the evening staggered toward midnight, Colonel Crockett was called upon for his final observations on Tennessee. He rose with a smile, but harbored a fierce glint of the eye. "Well you boys shoulda been home votin in are last election, steada out bear huntin. While you's atrackin' them bears around, I's the one got mauled -- by yer new Congressman Adam Hunstman -- an him with a wooden leg! In closin, since you've chose to elect a man with a timber toe, you may all go to hell -- an I will go to Texas!" The riotous applause and bear calls got Crockett and carousers chased outa the Union Hotel. Same scene got repeated through a series of intolerant inns where proprietors cared little about Texas, less about politics an not so much as a hoot bout bears.

Glad he could find Old Betsy, his shot pouch and powder horn without openin his bulgin eyes next mornin', Colonel Crockett mustered his 3 man troop. All tottered to the Memphis steamer docks. Boardin' a Mississippi steamboat with his comrades, Crockett soon found excited people gatherin'. He wrote: "I drew nigh the cluster, and seated on a chest was a tall lank sea sarpent looking blackleg ... amusing the passengers with his skill at thimblerig with a disappearin' pea ... picking up their shillings as a hungry gobbler would a pint of corn."

The gambler in the Vicksburg hat at last let one victim, David Crockett, find the pea under the thimble, Crockett won and quit, causin' the conjurer's disgust. Crockett bought him a drink in the salon askin', "Whyncha gitcher self a rightful job?"

Thimblerig replied, "Being educated as a gentleman in Natchez, I was left unfit to perform any real work."

"I never seed Natchez, Mississippi. What's it like?"

Crockett later wrote Thimblerig's words. "Natchez is a land of fevers, alligators and cotton bales where the sun shines with force sufficient to melt the diamond, and the word ice is expunged from the dictionary, ...where to refuse grog before breakfast would degrade you ... where the majestic magnolia tree ... calls forth admiration of every beholder; and dark moss festoons the trees like a funeral: where bears the size of young jackasses are fondled in lieu of pet dogs; and knives big as barber poles usurp the toothpick: ... and such is Natchez."

"Where's your place in Natchez?"

"Decent live on the hill, but my den's under the hill where Satan looks with glee upon brothels and gaming taverns engaging in the Spanish Burial. Such is Natchez under the hill."

"What's the Spanish Burial?"

"Greenhorn's forced to join a funeral. Each person kisses the corpse's forehead, but the corpse seizes the greenhorn and mourners beat him until he agrees to buy drinks around."

Crockett admired Thimblerig's light grasp o' evil, but didn't let on that he did. Instead, Crockett donned his moralistic look and said, "Much as you've enjoyed these dens o' sin, Thimblerig, ye must know there's more to the fullness o' life than jist swindlin folks an cadgin toddies. Whyncha jine my group an help us let the light o' freedom shine on Texas?"

Thimblerig's eyes slitted. "What's my take?"

"Absolutely nothin', an come one day, ye'll see the beauty innat, my Natchez friend."

"Fat chance," Thimblerig grinned, tipping his wide hat as he strolled away from Crockett's table and disturbing homilies.

Riverboat life weren't turble with its throbbin' engines, water-slappin' paddle wheel and tiltin' decks, but David Crockett knew it'd weren't never gonna edge out bear huntin' fer fun. Colonel Crockett found himself alone at the top deckrail awatchin' swirlin green-brown water with its own glassy streams on the river's rippling surface. The state o' Mississippi's dense forests to the east shaded the Mississippi River's left bank. Plains with lush grass and gentle hills rolled toward the setting sun along Arkansas Territory's right bank He couldn't wait to lay eyes on Texas. Was 49 too old fer a feller to start over -- even in a fresh new land like Texas?

Having devoured about a hundred miles of Mississippi below Memphis, the steamer swung hard to starboard and labored against the current northwest up the Arkansas River toward Little Rock. By the time they docked in Little Rock, Arkansas Territory on Thursday evening, November 12, 1835, David Crockett had somehow convinced Thimblerig to serve the cause of Texas. Word of Colonel Crockett's arrival in Little Rock prairie-fired through the settlement. Hundreds flocked to see him at a hastily arranged dinner in his honor at the Jeffries Hotel. Colonel Crockett seized this opportunity to make a controversial but entertaining speech.

At least two Little Rock newspapers reported Crockett's speech, but not its text. The Arkansas Gazett termed it "Outlandishly anti-Jackson." But the Arkansas Advocate ho-hummed that it was "Plain, moderate and unaffected."

While the Crockett party, now numbering 8 persons, bought horses, tack and supplies at Little Rock next morning before their departure, the November 13, 1835 Arkansas Advocate ran an eerily prophetic item: "We shall die contented. We have now see the Hon. David Crockett, who arrived at this place last evening, on the way to Texas, where he contemplates ending his days...." Even more eerily, the Niles Weekly Register of Memphis, Tennessee soon echoed, "Col. Crockett has proceeded to Texas -- to end his days there...."

Following a professional cavalryman like Colonel Crockett was not a simple task for the gambler, farmer, tradesman and casual horsemen in his party. None expected to be quite so sore on the sit-down as they were when they reached Washington, Arkansas, the regular resupply point on the trail to Texas. By the time Crockett finally led his men into Fulton, Arkansas they were loosened up enough to tolerate their ride along the Red River lowlands.

Crockett wrote: "... the low ground along the Red River will produce 40 bushels of frogs to the acre, and alligators enough to fence it." Takin' rooms in a tavern, they met a handsome, barrell chested hunter of 22 in ornamented buckskins. Crockett commented, "Never seed a hunter so clean."

The hunter doffed his fur cap, releasing curly clusters of black hair. "Clothes are new, but I'm a bee hunter. Their wax is worth more in Mexico for church candles, than their sweets."

Thimblerig slapped Bee Hunter's back, "Ned's real sweets live in the towns! Come with us to Texas, Ned.

World's biggest game's due there any day!"

"But have they got bees?" Bee Hunter asked.

"What the hell do you care, Ned? They got life to be lived in the biggest lottery of all -- the lottery of death."

"When you make it sound so divine, how can I resist?" Bee Hunter exploded.

"Still shooting like sure death, Ned?" Thimblerig grinned.

"I was shooting bees at a hundred paces, but it was bad for the honey business, so I quit!"

Next day, after buyin' Thimblerig a rifle and several fresh horses, they rode the east bank of the Red River heading west into Texas. Crockett hoped to get his first buffalo, but found none.

Roaming the north Red River bank, David led a trecherous fording to the south side and soon came into Clarksville, Texas, where by chance he met an equally famous fellow and his family in their new home on Becknell's Prairie. The slender, but muscular fellow a settin on his porch with his feet on the banister had deep set eyes that peered from a deeply tanned faced. He got up and walked ramrod straight toward their horses. Holding his powerful hand out, he said, "Welcome to our home. I'm Billy Becknell."

Jumping down from his horse, Crockett matched Becknell's iron grip. "I'm David Crockett. Me an my men plan on gittin' in the stir o' things south o' here. Say, aintchu the feller they call the Father o' the Santa Fe Trail?"

"That's been said. I hearda you too. You know Senator Thomas Hart Benton?"

Crockett released Becknell's oak-hard hand. "Bit better'n I'd like to. Whyzat?"

Becknell grinned. "Jist know Benton's name cause he passed a bill to survey the Santa Fe Trail bout 10 years back. You boys kin wash up and savor some o' Mrs. Becknells biscuits."

Bee Hunter sniffed the air. "Thought something smelled divine."

After a wondrous meal, David and his men were relaxing when Billy Becknell said, "Henry Stout's leadin a huntin party fer us tomorry. Like to tag along?"

Crockett asked, "Think that feller kin git us near some buffalo?"

"Can if the Comanches don't bust up the hunt."

"We'll give it a flang," Crockett said, to the dismay of several in his party. Comanche war parties combed the north Texas plains. After their unsuccessful hunt, Crockett led his group due south for Nacogdoches.

Near Nacogdoches, they saw its flag flyin' and heard fifes and drums playin patriotic tunes.

Crockett located Judge John Forbes and took the oath of allegiance to serve and defend Texas. His nephew Will Patton subscribed the oath, but Abner Burgin and Lindsey Tinkle headed for home. Bee Hunter and Thimblerig signed up.

Crockett wrote: "Nacogdoches is some 60 miles west of the river Sabine, in a romantic dell, surrounded by woody bluffs ... within whose borders ... flow the two forks of the Nana, a branch of the Naches. Tis a flourishin town of 1,000 citizens, though it generally presents twice that number on account of trade with friendly Indians."

Bee Hunter made a beeline for the Nacogdoches home of his beloved Kate, a splendid blonde lass with a mandolin. They finished the day singing ballads, often alternating verses. When Bee Hunter, Crockett and Thimblerig gathered on January 8th, Kate said, "Here's a gourd I've slung for you to hold a gallon of water." Bee Hunter kissed her for the gift. Then she added, "Here are two books for you," tears forming in her large blue eyes.

"I'll take the Bible and leave the British Bard with you."

"Where do you go now, Love?"

"The Alamo."

"Alamo means poplar or cottonwood in Spanish. When I hear of it, I'll see a tree -- leaves glinting in the sun -- tip rising to the heavens with you sitting under it," Kate said softly.

Bee Hunter sang, "Saddled and bridled, and booted rode he, a plume in his helmet, a sword at his knee."

Kate trilled, "But empty cam' the saddle, all bluidy to see, And hame cam' the steed, by hame never cam' he."

Crockett's party saw three wolves runnin' out of rifle range. Bee Hunter said, "They put me in mind of us."

Lookin' for what flushed the wolves, Crockett pointed at two men, "My eye's not sharp as a lizard's but that bearded feller looks like he was hacked out of a gum log with a broad ax. Bull Injun's no peach neither. Check yer primes." As the men drew closer, Crockett read the cutlass scar on the bearded man's forehead and yet another on the back of his right hand. "That un's a pirate." [And so ends Chapter 53 for us.]

The bombastic saga of the Alamo lies in the offing, before a text added Epilogue ends this stirring true tale.

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