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 book 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 here in three epic albums, each running 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!

These 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 exposing 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 inside the album's front cover with origin dates.

Each presentation has three 90 Minute cassettes in a stunning reusable white vinyl album with exciting cover graphic and copy, running about 4 1/2 Hours. $19.95. You can order the third album with the other two albums in the Trilogy, or just the third 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.

The Sublettes And The Fur Wars [1833-1836] The Sublette Trilogy's third album is Abridgment #3 from the last part of nonfiction Pulitzer Prize nominee Behold The Shining Mountains. What happens when backwoodsman Bill Sublette stops battling Indians, rival fur companies and his brother Milt to start a hopeless money war with John Jacob Astor, the richest man in America? It begins with Bill building 13 forts on the Upper Missouri River, rattles the Halls of Congress and ends in a showdown in Astor's luxurious New York City Board Room as we shall see in Chapter 24.

[Chapter 24] On January 22, 1834 backwoodsman Bill Sublette was admitted to the American Fur Company's New York City board room of polished walnut and brass. John Jacob Astor's 40 year old stoop-shouldered son William B. Astor, greedy monopolist and second richest man in America, headed the AFC contingent of eight other glaring financiers.

Sublette asked, "Where's the boss?"

William B. Astor growled, "My father's in Europe, so I'm in charge. Let's get down to business."

Sublette's eyes did not betray the panic in his gut. Stripped of all his plans designed to beat ole man Astor himself, he'd have to bare-knuckle it with nine strangers till he plain, flat knocked the greed-slobber outa their heads. "Fine. I got 13 fur posts on the Upper Missouri -- one next ta every one o' yers. Yer losing business ta me an' these posts're costing ya money. Yer paying $12 a pound fer beaver. That's three --maybe four -- times what you kin sell them plews for here in New York. My posts're fer sale at the right price, if AFC gits outa the Rockies."

"You want us to buy posts you built beside ours, solely to steal our business and we still get out of the Rockies?" the squinty-eyed William B. Astor asked unemotionally.

"Right."

"Why don't you get out of here?" Astor rasped.

"Come a thousand miles ta talk. Ya want me outa here in two minutes, you throw me out. Nine o' you puss-guts oughta be up ta tossing out one ole boy from Missouri."

William B. Astor clicked open a box inlaid with rainbow mother of pearl at his elbow. He extracted a chrome plated pistol, dropped it noisily on the polished hardwood and muttered, "One New York .45 is all it takes. Get out, Sublette."

Sublette leaned forward and pulled both his boot pistols. He aimed them under the table at William B. Astor's paunch. Sublette grinned, showing dazzling teeth. He cocked one of his Hawken pistols, then the other. "You put one finger on nat fancy piece, yer gonna have three belly buttons. Tell yer boys to bust out them pens an' git ta ciphering. Business'll be done here, er you won't be around ta brag why it weren't."

Sublette had each of his 13 fort's building costs itemized on a separate sheet. Since they were going businesses, he demanded three times their original cost as a selling price. By ten o'clock that night, many alternatives had been explored and mention of shootings had ceased. They agreed to meet at nine the following morning.

Sublette's razor'd been left at Hugh Campbell's, so bright blonde beard stubble adorned his second day of haggling.

The stubble fit the hairy situation, so Sublette gave up all notions of shaving the third day. They got close to a deal around noon, but the American Fur men pulled back. The nine took turns haggling with Sublette over every penny of his recorded costs for each fort, but none called Bill a liar.

Sublette realized they were playing him like a fish, so on the fourth day, he brought a bedroll and some jerky. He dozed on their big leather couch that night till he heard voices in the hall and saw light flickering under the door.

Three brawny roustabouts tip-toed into the dark boardroom and bunched near the couch. Sitting cross-legged in his underwear on the boardroom table, Bill growled to the man outside, "Bring that lantern in here, Suzy." As the light flickered over the men with clubs around the couch, Sublette stabbed his foot-long bone handled knife into the parqueted table, then leveled his boot pistols at the intruders. "How many o' you boys're gonna be at work inna morning?"

The men peered at Sublette's massive muscular body, the murder in his eyes and scrambled out the door.

The fifth morning, Sublette put only his pants on and waited till one of Astor's financiers appeared in spotless clothes. "Tell Astor and the boys ta git in here."

When they filed in, Sublette grinned, "Me an' them girls with the sticks had a shindig here last night, but I lost my sense o' humor. Yer already in bad odor with the gov'ment an' crucified by the press fer smugglin' liquor an' handin' out them medals to the Indians like yer old man was a King. Them notes I send out ever' day tell Congressman Ashley how things're going. Agreement'll be made, er I'm gonna lay myself open with this b'ar knife an' git the press up here ta show 'em what you done ta me."

William B. Astor muttered, "Your Stone Age behavior's amusing, but will avail you nothing." After that disclaimer, negotiations got serious. Sublette refused to wear a shirt by day, camped in the board room by night and his bathless body grew gamier as the days crawled by.

On February 1, 1834 a bearded Bill Sublette and a limp William B. Astor signed an agreement selling AFC all the Upper Missouri Sublette & Campbell posts at two and a half times their original cost, a handsome profit. The American Fur Company also agreed to refrain from all fur operations in the Rocky Mountains for one year.

There were no handshakes, but William B. Astor said, "I demand two more things."

"Ya wanta dicker another fortnight?" Sublette asked in annoyance.

"Leave your knife stuck through our table, as an example of tenacious negotiation for our executives."

"What else?"

"Your word you'll take a bath here before you leave, so our citizens won't think New York's got those rotting cholera corpses in the streets called Corporation Pie back again."

"Trade ya both them things fer yer answer ta one question."

"What's that?"

"Is yer middle name really Backhouse?"

William B. Astor nodded in disgust.

. . . Bill Sublette left his AFC Agreement at Ashley's office in Washington, then returned to Philadelphia and slept three days straight on the top floor of the Congress Hall Hotel. An odd note came from General Ashley: "I've christened your AFC agreement - Bill's Miracle! It looks like the partitioning of Poland. I've just heard something that makes me think you better read the last line of Micah 7:6 in the Good Book right away."

On February 13th, Milt Sublette, using only his cane instead of his crutch, rejoined his brother Bill at the hotel. Surprised at Milt's boyish mood, Bill asked, "Get medical treatment fer yer bum leg?"

Revealing none of the treachery in his own New York trip with Nathaniel Wyeth, Milt answered, "Right nice trip, Bill. How'd yers go?"

"Sold all our posts to AFC an' they agreed to stay outa the Rockies fer a year."

"One year? Hell, that's one trappin' season, Bill. What good's that gonna do me an' the Rocky Mountain Fur Company that me an' the boys're payin' you all that money fer?"

"If it weren't fer you an yer Rocky Mountain Fur Company, I wouldn't o' built them 13 fur posts er come back here, Milt!"

"So you say, brother Bill. So you say." [End Chapter 24]

Does Milt Sublette really have a plan with inventor Nathaniel Wyeth to seize all the western Rendezvous fur trade business from his brother Bill? Milt and Wyeth will have to take bold and dangerous action to beat long time Rendezvous supplier Bill Sublette to Wyoming's Green River where hundreds of trappers and tribesmen await to trade furs for supplies in June 1834. Chapter 27, entitled "Hellbent For Rendezvous" gives us an inkling.

[Chapter 27] Cripple Milton Sublette shared command with Wyeth. In April 1834 Wyeth's expedition moved to a St. Louis wagon yard and prepared to depart. But there Bill Sublette sat his mule like the bull grizzly version of Napoleon barring their path.

"Ride him down!" Wyeth commanded, but nobody did. "All right, what do you want?" Wyeth shouted up at Bill.

"Milt Sublette's not leaving St. Louie till he pays Sublette & Campbell his $500 note that's past due."

"That's solely between you and Milt."

"And you, if ya think Milt's ducking out without paying!"

Wyeth prided himself on not losing his temper in public. "Highway robbery's no way to collect a debt!"

"Milt pays er stays, Mr. Wyeth."

"Ah Bill, we're brothers. Whatta ya doin' here?"

"Fer once, Milt, yer gonna pay yer debt."

"Here's your blood money!" Wyeth yelled, flinging gold coin and wadded specie in the dirt, startling William's mule into braying raucously.

Bill's eyes locked up with Wyeth's. "Put $500 in my hand, Mr. Wyeth." Sublette's demand brought rumblings from Wyeth's men. Somebody cocked a rifle.

Wyeth knew a St. Louis killing would stall him for months. He picked up the dirty money and counted $500 into Bill's massive callused hand. "There, I've paid the ransom! Stand aside."

"You paid a legal note," Bill growled. He scribbled Paid without Interest across the note and handed it to Wyeth. "Throwing my money inna dirt's bought you boys a race to Rendezvous."

Wyeth grated, "You're bluffing! You've got no expedition ready. You better not break my supply contract with Rocky Mountain Fur Company, or you'll get sued."

"What supply contract'd that be, Milt?" Bill asked, his eyebrows arched above his piercing eyes.

Deciding to avoid murdering his own brother, Milt spurred his horse past Bill, leading his glowering 70 men around his redic'lous relative, who sat his mule in the dust as 250 horses and a herd of horned cattle turned the air brown.

. . . At dawn on May 5th 1834 Bill Sublette led twin columns of his 37 men with 95 horses and mules out of Independence, Missouri at a brisk walk. Skinny young lawyer Marshall Anderson, nephew of General Atkinson, rode his 14 hand thoroughbred Black Hawk beside Sublette on the World's Smartest Mule Bluegrass. "Shouldn't we be at the dead run, Captain Sublette? Aren't you in a Brobdingnagian hurry to catch Wyeth's caravan?"

"No an' yes."

Tiring of waiting for Captain Sublette to elaborate, Marshall asked, "Aren't your answers inconsistent?"

"No," Sublette snapped, then turned yelling, "Catch it up! Catch it up!"

"Sir, if I wanted to catch people with a week's head start, I wouldn't be chasing them at a walk."

"Then you wouldn't be catching 'em neither. Steady 25 to 30 miles a day wins the long race."

"When do you figure reaching Rendezvous on the Green River?

"Bout June 15th."

"That's 41 days."

Sublette shook his head, "Nope. Got all day today, May 5th. Add 27 days in May to 15 in June. I make that 42."

"People in Independence said Wyeth's caravan left April 28th -- 7 days ago. You're handing Wyeth 7 days out of 42. You don't want a tie, so you need to beat him by another day, meaning your've spotted him 8 days. That's over 19% of total trip time, Captain Sublette."

"Forgot ta throw in nat I also need a day or two to lay out a new fort at the Laramie Fork."

William Marshall Anderson laughed, "We add two more days to what you're giving away. That makes 10 days or almost 24% of total trip time. How in God's world can you win?"

"Admire yer ciphering, but ya made three mistakes," Sublette said holding up three broomstick sized fingers.

"Three mistakes?" Anderson repeated incredulously, "I'm well versed in mathematics."

"First's figuring our miles per day same as Wyeth's. Second, ya didn't lop off his time fer losing the trail. Third, I took Wyeth out ta the 1832 Rendezvous, an the man doesn't have the common sense God gave a goose." [End Chapter 27]

In Chapter 28, the race to Rendezvous and the pain in Milt's leg are just heating up when the Pawnees halt Bill Sublette.

[Chapter 28] On May 7, 1834 Nathaniel Wyeth camped before dark at Red Vermilion Creek. Black-bearded giant Reverend Jason Lee spied whiskered catfish in the creek. After the tents were pitched, the men fished with Reverend Lee. As a Canadian frontiersman, Methodist Reverend Lee fit in with the Mountain Men. He gave sermons on Sunday, but made no effort to reform them. They liked that. The catfish liked kernels of corn.

Milton Sublette, himself a huge man at 6'4", joined Reverend Lee beside the creek, but he didn't fish. He knelt on a rock slab overhanging the gently rolling water and razored slits around his left boot ankle, then eased his boot off, exposing his fiery leg with its mutilated heel. He eased his agonized leg into the soothing icy water and uttered a yelling sigh of relief.

Reverend Lee landed a flopping footlong catfish, killing it with a whack to the head with his knife handle. "How'd you come by that leg?"

"Coyotero Apache shattered my heel with a rifle ball in 1826. Plucked bone splinters from it with a bullet mold fer months. Use ta put my foot on the bar in Taos Cantinas and make diggin' out splinters the entertainment. Healed over, then swole up agin. St. Louie Doc says I got a bone disease an my leg's gotta come off jist below the knee."

"You can't cross a continent in all that pain, Mr. Sublette. The Lord forgives you. Go home."

Milt ripped his leg from the water and lurched toward his tent, nearly trampling ornithologist Townsend who was enraptured by the ravens cawing raucously throughout their camp.

Townsend startled the camp by shooting a raven with his tiny pistol. He marveled at the spectral colors glinting on its ebony feathers. He dismembered the raven and immersed its body parts in crocks of alcohol on his packsaddle where he'd also stored specimen spiders, lizards and snakes. Townsend was unaware the Mountain Men'd dubbed him "The Fool," slyly siphoned off his alcohol for drinks and gobbled his "pickled vittles."

. . . The change from the plains of May 12th 1834 to the rugged hills of May 15th brought wild game. Marshall Anderson tried out his rifle. He missed the ghostly antelope. His stray shots only spooked some elk, but he crushed a rattlesnake's head with an empty boot beside his bed. "Finally hit something," he grunted, whacking the twitching rattler again.

While Bill Sublette's caravan nooned beside the Blue River, a man on a paint horse wandered up to them. "I'm half starved," he groaned.

"Get down and eat," Bill Sublette said, eyeing the man. "Whatta ya doing out here alone?"

"Went antelope hunting, got tangled in my mind. Been lost two er three days."

Bill Sublette left the man eating noisily and cornered Marshall between two boulders. "That's Wyeth's man. Spy or courier. Watch 'im like he's your best girl on payday night inna Army camp. He takes off, let me know."

"Right, Captain. Anything else?"

"Find my Segundo Moses Black Harris. Tell him I wanna know ever' time that jasper breathes. You got that?"

"Right," Marshall snapped, elated at being in the spy intrigue.

Bill Sublette led his caravan at a hard walk on the World's Smartest Mule Bluegrass. Realizing they were leaving Otoe Indian land and entering Pawnee country, Sublette camped on high ground that would be easier to defend.

Dawn didn't disappoint Bill Sublette. Dust clouds towered into the fiery sky. Sublette ordered, "Strike them tents and pack the mules. Move them horses from the top of the knoll ta that box gully over there! Hobble and picket 'em on deep stakes." He helped the men throw bales of tradegoods around the brink for breastworks. Mebee the Pawnees'd settle for tribute. If not, there'd be a battle.

Bill Sublette grabbed Charley Lajeunnesse, who talked Pawnee, by the shoulder. "Go down the hill with this American flag. Halt them Pawnee bout 100 yards out, so they're still in rifle range. Bring the Chiefs back up here."

Charley grunted, then crabbed down the hill and palavered with the Pawnee. It did not look good, but finally, four war bonnets headed up the hill, leaving over a hundred, sitting their ponies "in a string of fight."

The Chief in the breechcloth was tall, broad shouldered and tapered down to the waist of a woman above shiny muscular legs flexing in the sunlight.

Using the handsigns of the prairie, Sublette asked the Chiefs what they wanted.

The muscular Chief signed, "Plenty tobacco, powder, balls, ochre paint and beads."

Marshall asked, "You aren't going to give them anything are you?"

"Sure am," Bill nodded.

"Isn't that a showing of fear?"

Placing the goods they'd asked for in a pile before the Chiefs, Sublette answered, "My pa ferried people across the Mississippi. Charged a toll. That's what this is. They're charging us fer passage over their land."

When the pile was completed, the biggest Indian signed that this pile was for the Grand Pawnee village. Another pile of same size must be made for the Republican Pawnees.

Sublette growled to Charley, "They're all Grand Pawnee."

"No doubt o' that. Now it's jist whether you wanna double the goods er die."

"They'll know we're scared if I double 'em. Translate what I say."

"Start, an' I'll foller along," Charley said, "Go light as goose down er they'll butcher us out like so many hogs."

Bill Sublette eyed the powerful Chief, "I lived 11 summers in the Mountains. I killed many Blackfeet an' Arikaras -- never Pawnee, for I say truth to the Pawnee an' they say truth to me. I know the four Pawnee tribes." Sublette held up four chair-leg fingers, tapping one for each tribe as he spoke, "The Grand, the Loup, the Republican an' the Noisy."

Charley finished parroting the four subtribe names in Pawnee, "Chauis, Skidis, Kitkehahkis -- Tapages." Charley whispered, "They outnumber us over three to one. Ain't gonna translate it if you call 'em liars. They'll scatter our guts all over this hill."

Sublette watched the Pawnees eye each other, then went on, "The Grand Pawnee are a great people with much honor in their fathers. I know the Grand Pawnee will not sell their fathers for one pile of goods. Take the big pile of goods we give. Go back to the Grand Pawnee nation in peace." Sublette laid four more twists of tobacco on the pile. "Smoke the calumet for us, your friends. We will meet in peace and give more goods another day."

The Grand Pawnee Chiefs stood with chins dropped against their chests as Charley sweated through translating Sublette's words. Tension built as the Chiefs said nothing. Sublette knew he could kill two of the Chiefs quick with his boot pistols. His rifle lay in reach. That meant Bill had to cut the big mean one's throat first. [End Chapter 28]

As Bill Sublette learns in Chapter 34, sometimes a man's most formidable enemies live within him.

[Chapter 34] Asiatic Cholera prowling St. Louis flushed the Sublettes from E. Town's comfortable City Hotel to Bill's crude cabins at Sulphur Springs. If anything worried Bill more than cholera, it was his brother Milt.

The brotherly reunion Bill planned on the way back from the 1834 Rendezvous misfired. Ever since Milt'd learned his own brother'd kilt the pride of his life -- the Rocky Mountain Fur Company -- he'd holed up.

Bill watched ole hound dog Doc Bernard Farrar waddle from Milt's cabin and head for his buggy. "Wait!" Bill hollered.

"You glide like a big cat, Bill!"

"Shoulda seen Milt before rot got after his leg, Doc. Wind was clumsy beside Milt."

"If you're gonna beg me to save Milton's leg again, I got no miracles in my black bag. These poultices are worthless as trying to heal the red off a brick wall. Osteomyelitis has chewed up into his tibia."

"Tibia?"

"Shin bone. Disease's a boll weevil. Leave it alone, it'll bore up to his knee. Once the knee's ruint, Milton's chances of walking half-normal on a wood leg're gone. Lower leg's gotta come off quick."

"Can it wait till after Christmas?"

"Didn't we have this talk last year?"

"Doc, 12 years ago I promised my dying Mama Isabella I'd take care o' my brothers an' sisters. Words weren't outa my mouth when baby Sally died. Polly follered her inta the grave. I tuck young Pinckney Up the Mountain when he's 15 an' Blackfeet kilt him. Now it's Milt. Not easy fer a man who worships honor, ta keep lying ta his dead mother, Doc!"

Farrar snorted, "You protecting Milt from me? That leg's killing him. You better get another Doctor!"

"Wait, Doc. Give Milt this last Christmas an' I'll personally help ya cut his leg off."

"You can't do that, Bill. Two strong field hands're all I'll need."

Bill begged, "Jist give 'im this Christmas, an' I swear ta God I'll do it, Doc." [End Chapter 34]

When a man like Bill Sublette makes a promise, there is no escape as we experience the horrors of Chapter 36.

[Chapter 36] In February 1835, Andrew Sublette's snores filled Sulphur Springs' most primitive cabin with wolfish snorts.

"Drew! You gotta help me," Bill urged from the cockeyed doorway.

"Jesus, it's freezing! What time is it, Bill?"

"Dawn."

"Didn't get my buffalo robes into your warehouse till three."

"Yeah. Three in the afternoon yesterday. Then you closed every saloon in St. Louie!"

"Had to howl, Bill. First time I ever brought in my own peltry."

"Ya could do a lot worse than partnering up with Lou Vasquez. That ole boy knows where the b'ar sleeps."

"Bill, why didn't you tell me our Uncle Solomon died?"

"Sent ya a letter bout Solomon's death to Fort William, Drew."

"I hauled the robes down from Lou's and my fort."

"Fort Convenience?"

"How'd you know the name, Bill?"

"Trappers' talk."

"Drew, we got the sorriest chore inna world."

"What's that?"

"Gotta help Doc Farrar cut our brother Milt's leg off!"

Andrew Sublette sat up, his eyes agape. "Not me, Bill! I can't do that! Get somebody else!"

"There isn't nobody else, Drew."

"Get Robert Campbell."

"Bobbie's in Philadelphia buying supplies for Fort William. Milt isn't gonna sit still fer this. Can't have nobody seeing Milt like that. This's a family affair."

"You think you and me can hold Milt down? I've seen him stack a saloon full o' river men into cord wood without breaking a sweat."

"He's not the old Milt. Been boozing fer months. Throwed up on hisself at sister Sophronia's Christmas dinner table."

"He's the old Milt to me. Can't do it, Bill. Not everybody's as cold blooded as you are!"

"Doing what's gotta be done don't make a man cold blooded, Drew. Higher up his leg this disease crawls, more it's likely ta kill 'im. You wanta let Milt die?"

"I'm getting up. Whatta you wear to your own brother's amputation, Bill?"

"Guts."

. . . "Why you wanna see the mansion's construction site before Milt's amputation, Doc?"

"Need boards to strap to Milton's legs with a foot or so of overhang, so both legs'll be hog tied."

Numbly, Bill selected a couple 2 x 6s. "Need belts to strap them boards to his legs?"

"Or harness straps -- and that saw over there if its sharp. Try it on a board. Is Milton sober?"

"Left him a quart of brandy. Any other day, he'd be potted, but he knows what we're up to. Gonna fight like a grizzly."

Shirtless in buckskin pants, Drew Sublette stalked behind them. He snicked off a 1 x 2 with the saw. "Plenty sharp, Doc."

"Drew, why don't you round up three of the stoutest field hands you can find?" Doc Farrar asked.

Andrew gave Doc Farrar a steely look. "This is a matter for the Sublettes, Doc. Let's be done with it!"

"Get this laudanum down him, boys."

"Then what?" Bill asked.

"Put Milton face down on his bed, both legs strapped to the boards," the gray-haired Doctor Farrar muttered, unwrapping his smelly amputating knives with sweaty hands.

"Operation take long, Doc?" Bill asked, his face pale.

"Five minutes amputating. Three to cauterize the stump -- couple minutes for bandages. I'll cut the calf muscle a few inches below where the thigh muscle anchors to the top of the fibula and just above where the popliteal artery branches into the posterior tibial and peroneal arteries. That way I'll only have one big vessel to choke off stead o' two. That'll leave Milton a sound stump below his knee for a wood leg.

"Ready, Drew?" Bill asked.

Andrew nodded and trotted to the kitchen, returning with two glasses. "Hit this one with the laudanum, Doc."

Andrew slipped into Milt's gamy cabin, "Hey big man, time for a drink."

Even in the dimness, the puffy-faced Milt looked a decade older than Andrew remembered him. Bill was right. This sodden hulk wasn't the same old Milt.

"You jist wanna git me drunk, so's that butcher kin hack my leg off."

"Nobody fools you, Milt. You can drink this dope and dream or see how long you can choke back a holler."

"This is my leg we're talkin' about, Drew. My honest-to-God flesh 'n blood leg. You ain't dressin' out a buffalo now -- though you smell like a skinner."

"Sweet talk'll get you no place, Milt."

"How old're you now, Drew?" Milt asked.

"Twenty-seven."

"Ya look jist like me when I was your age."

Andrew nodded, "Near gets me killed every now and again."

Milt laughed, "Least ya can't say I never left ya nuthin'."

"Here, Milt. Let's drink to the smiles you left on the faces of the lucky women of this world."

"Now that -- by God -- is worth drinkin' to, Drew!"

Andrew held the laudanum to Milt's lips till he swilled it all down.

Milt drifted off. They rolled him face down on top of the boards and strapped his legs to them -- then Milt woke up screaming, "No, by God NO! Git the hell outa here!" Bill straddled Milt's back yelling, "Milt, we ain't gonna letchu die! Yer leg's gonna come off!" As an afterthought, Bill realized he'd said his banned word ain't for the first time in over three years.

"You always wanted ta do this, ainchu, Bill? Always green jealous 'cause I could outrun you."

"You was the fastest boy in Kentucky Milt, but now you're gonna act like a 33 year old man while the Doc gits this done!"

"Bill, I ain't never gonna fergit whatchu done here."

"None o' the Sublettes will," Drew growled with sweat streaming down his face.

Milt gritted his teeth through the slicing of his calf muscle, but when Doc Farrar sawed into his leg bones, Milt shrieked like a woman in childbirth. Still straddling Milton, Bill leaned close to Milt's ear and said, "Don't let Umentucken hear ya carry on!"

"She here?" Milt gasped, vaguely puzzled at how his long gone Indian wife got here so quick.

"That she is!" Bill lied.

Milt choked a scream into a gurgle and went limp.

Bill yelled to Doc Farrar, "Oh God, is he dead?"

Farrar, his face dripping sweat, sawed through the last of Milt's tibia, then loosened the ligature on the leg stump. "Artery spurts. He's alive." Gore to his elbows, Farrar snugged the ligature. "Soon's I cauterize the stump and bandage it, we're done." Farrar toweled the handle of the hot running iron in the fireplace and seared the raw flesh of Milton's stump.

Bill had the fleeting thought the burning flesh smelled like buffalo sizzling over a campfire.

Fararr bandaged the blackened stump with sheet strips starkly whiter than the blood soaked sheets on the bed.

Bill Sublette burst into the icy air and wiped the scalding sweat from his eyes. What if Milton died? Another dead brother? Another busted promise to Mama Isabella? Bill gasped, "There's ten minutes that took a lifetime."

Andrew Sublette stood with his hands on his hips, his sweaty face steaming in the morning mist. "It was a lifetime, and none of us'll ever be the same for living it, Bill." Sunrise turned the mists golden as Andrew sang in a tormented tenor:

Bill growled, "Fer God's sake, Drew! This is no time fer singing."

Drew snarled, "It is for me," and disappeared into the fiery mist, his tormented voice rising into the bloody sun:

Now that you've sampled several episodes, wouldn't you like to share all of Bill Sublette's wild adventures from 1833 to 1836? A host of other 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 third album with the other two albums in the Trilogy, or just this third 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

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

Big Bill Sublette -- The Oregon Trail and Beyond (1827-1833)

First Women Over The Rockies

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