MIGHTY JOE WALKER SOLDIER, SHERIFF AND MOUNTAIN MAN AUDIOBOOK

Joe Walker was one of the bravest, and surely the kindest, of 1800s Western Frontier heroes. This album is Abridgment #4 from its nonfiction sourcebook TRAILS OF THE WHITE SAVAGES nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft History Award. It differs from traditional history presentations three ways. [1] It's actual history as it happens™ in a high action format. Like a PBS TV documentary, dialogue evolves from diaries, journals, letters, newspaper interviews, autobiographies and authentic texts revealing the hearts and minds of these early Americans as they speak their own words. [2] 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. [3] Instead of sticking to one person like a burr, our broader perspective portrays central figures with their contemporaries. This album stars Joseph Walker and features Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, Joel Walker, William Becknell, Benjamin Bonneville, Old Bill Williams and many other historical figures in lesser roles. You'll relive their lives with sound effects, a different voice for every person and hear stanzas from 54 actual songs of the era at scene changes. Maps of several of Joe's expeditions are inside the album's front cover.

After the Creek Indians massacre all the American settlers in Alabama's Fort Mims, braining the babies on its stockade walls in August 1813, teenagers Joe and Joel Walker beg their parents on their farm near Knoxville, Tennessee, to fight the Indians in Alabama under the great General Andrew Jackson. Both fight valiantly until the Creek Nation falls at the March 27, 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Back home, they find their father half-dead, their mother half-mad and the family farm ruined, all from Indian attacks.

After migrating to Missouri in 1819, Joe Walker traps New Mexico's mountains in 1820 and is soon jailed in Santa Fe. Joe's in William Becknell's first American trading expedition by mule train to Santa Fe and the first ever with wagons to Santa Fe in 1822. Recruited by Major George Sibley, Joe Walker and his brothers Joel and Big John survey the Santa Fe Trail with Old Bill Williams making Indian Treaties for its use in 1825 until the survey stalls at the border of Mexico for lack of Mexican approval. On the way home to Missouri, Joe and his brother Joel discover that all of their survey work is gone with the wind. Let's join Joel Walker and his power hungry brother-in-law Abe McClellan in Chapter 17 near Independence, Missouri in 1826 and see where that leads us.

[Chapter 17] Standing on the bluff overlooking the Missouri River, Abraham McClellan's blue eyes pierced Joel Walker. "Only way to be sure the government's fair to you, is to be the government."

"How you gonna do that?"

"Why you think I wanted you to build this first house in Independence? The 500 new settlers here see you as their founder. Lilburn Boggs and I are running for the Missouri Legislature this fall. Independence is young and strong. Got to have its own new county to grow like it should."

"We can't all run for the legislature, Abe."

"Course not! Government's got legislative, judicial and executive branches. You help get me and Boggs elected. We appoint you Judge and Joe the Sheriff."

Joel waved his arm at Independence. "Don't these people have anything to say about it?"

"Sure, they'll elect us. You'll see to that."

"Abe, you talk this over with Joe?"

"He's your brother."

Joel chuckled. "Ever since we could walk, Joe riled if I bossed 'im. Even told me not to boss him in the battle at Horseshoe Bend."

"Any man alive you'd rather see as Sheriff of your town than your brother?"

"Joe's way too kind to be sheriff."

"Better than some wild card we don't know. He's 6'4" and goes -- 220?"

"Probably 235 since he's filled out."

"Joe fight at Horseshoe Bend?"

"Like Samson slaying the thousand Philistines, but that was 12 years ago when he was 15 years old."

"With Franklin washed out and Fort Osage decommissioned, Independence will be the gateway to the West. Every drunken drover and hammer-fisted Mountain Man will want to knock this frontier town of Independence flat. We put Joe Walker in against the Philistines, he'll have to fight."

. . . On May 23, 1827, Major George Sibley invited Joe and Big John Walker to Fountain Cottage near Fort Osage, Missouri. Sibley looked haggard, but yelled, "Gentlemen, the Mexicans finally hahtched ouah egg! The suhvey cahn continue. Will you?"

Joe grated, "Big John and I'll sign on, but I have to tell you our Santa Fe Trail dirt marker mounds all the way to the Arkansas River blew away. With Surveyor Brown's notes, we could pile rocks where they used to be."

"Mistah Brown's notes've been foahwadded to Washington. We'll pile rocks from the Ahkansas to Santa Fe, then remock the othahs on the way back -- if we have the time ond money."

Joe saw how the survey's long delay had addled Major Sibley. Leaving the first half unmarked -- to mark the last half? How would a newcomer find his way to the last half?

Big John felt sorry for Sibley too. "When do we leave?"

"Tomorrah befoah some fool figuahs a way to stall two moah yeahs!" Sibley's face reflected the desperation in his words.

Next day, his old survey team, salted with new faces, left Fountain Cottage, but Mary Sibley lay abed, too ill to wave.

They were 2 days out when Joel Walker overtook them on his lathered bay stallion. He panted, "Joe, you gotta go back!"

"Why?"

"Remember when we named that town where I live?"

"Independence. What about it?"

"You're their new Sheriff."

"What?"

"Congratulations, Joe! Get your badge from Abe McClellan and tell 'im where you want your jail."

"Why not you, Joel?"

"I been made Judge."

Joe dug a cloth from his pack and rubbed the lather from Joel's chilling horse. "How about Big John for Sheriff?"

Joel got his horserag from his saddlebag and helped Joe dry his stallion. "Came from the Legislature, Joe. You are the Sheriff of Jackson County."

Big John snorted, "I told the Major I'd go to Santa Fe with him, and I'm going. Joe, can you just abandon a fine man like him? He's a second father to us."

Joel nodded, "You're right, Big John. I'll work the survey to Santa Fe in Joe's place."

Big John muttered, "Thought you were the Judge, Joel."

"Judge without a courthouse. We all feel the same about the Major. I just sentenced myself to the Major's road gang!" [End Chapter 17]

Chapter 18 lets us in on what happens in Independence in the summer of 1827.

[Chapter 18] By the time Joe Walker reached Independence, he'd made up his mind to become Sheriff, depending on what Abraham McClellan had to say. Joe found Abraham at his distillery in Fort Osage township. Having just fired his foreman for being soused, Abraham was still ruffled. "Sure you wanta talk about this Sheriff business today, Joe?"

"I do unless you can't."

Abe rubbed his face. "I can. Let's go outside, so I can cool off."

Joe sat on a bench under a shade tree while Abe paced, mopping his face with his handkerchief. "Before you ask, you'll be the highest paid Sheriff in Missouri, right after the Sheriff of St. Louis County. Job won't take all your time at first, so you can earn some money on your own."

"Money's not my main concern."

"What is?"

"Who will I answer to?

"Beside the people of Jackson County, the three Judges, Fristoe, Burris and your brother Joel. All Scotch-Irish and veterans of the Creek Campaign like you. That a problem?"

"What about you?"

"I'm to get a jail built for you, give you a badge and stand back."

Joe put his hand out.

"Whatta you want?"

"The badge."

"Where you want the jail?"

"Where you can get the best price on land and logs. Just don't make it big like Franklin's. Won't be many in it."

"Won't be big, cause I only got $150 to build it. What're you gonna do when those big Trapper outfits and drunken drovers start tearing up the town?"

"Ask 'em to stop."

"Joe, you sure you want this badge?"

"Thought you were gonna stand back, Abe."

"I am. Take it."

Joe Walker spent his first two weeks introducing himself as Sheriff to Jackson County's people and business owners while his jail was built. Joe nailed a board along the half built jail for posting wanted circulars on criminals, runaway slaves and indentured servants. One was for a young fellow named Kit Carson who'd run away from a saddler in Franklin.

Joe explored Independence. She was shaping into a boisterous lady. She lay on a high bluff overlooking the Missouri with a strong stand of log houses surrounding half a dozen stores, several warehouses and tippling taverns. Steamers bypassed Lexington and Franklin to tie-up at her wharves that still had the bark on. Though inexperienced, she'd come of age. She was the outfitter for Rocky Mountain fur traders, Santa Fe traders and Indians who hated White settlements too much to venture east of her.

The greasy, bathless men of the pack trains returning from the mountains would stop to the west of her and make the welkin ring with rifle fire to let the merchants and shippers know they were coming. Once in town with their spavin legged mules and old wagons with rawhide wrapped spokes, these savage men prowled her streets and taverns whooping and shooting into the air, giving her high carnival whether she wanted it or not.

Typically, Joe Walker would step out of the shadows, a brawny smiling giant with his hand out to shake theirs. He said much the same to all, "Friends, Independence's glad to have you. Want you to have a good time, eat plenty and enjoy being in business with us."

After Joe's crushing handshake, most would ask, "Who might you be?"

"I'm the Sheriff, and I need your help."

"What?"

"Gunfire in town makes our babies cry. I know you don't want that."

"Plumb right about that. That all?"

"I'm asking you to treat this town just like she's your mother."

Most were stumped and said something like, "Not used to Sheriffs askin' fer anythin', but glad to oblige."

Joe Walker didn't meet the man, however wild or sodden in galore of drink, who wanted to make babies cry or to rough up their mother.

Businessmen were astounded how well Joe Walker handled their customers and townsfolk. Samuel C. Owens, who was both the first clerk of the Circuit Court and a trader in partnership with John Aull, opined that it was Joe's commanding presence. A historian of Jackson County chronicled, "[Sheriff Joe Walker] was never a braggart, soft spoken, yet capable of maintaining discipline."

Joe told Judge Fristoe, "Treat a man well and don't humiliate him, he'll be your friend." Joe told his brother Joel, "Andrew Jackson destroys his enemies by murdering them. I destroy mine by turning them into friends."

Keeping order at trials was itself a trying task. Most of the participants had hideout guns or knives, and the spectators came to see a circus -- or create one. When a political adversary of Thomas Hart Benton sued for slander because the Senator'd said he "was no better than a sheep killing cur dog," Benton testified that truth was a complete defense and he could have said the fellow was "worse than a sheep killing cur dog" and still have been within his rights. Benton's defense lawyer, the renowned orator Waldo Johnson, waxed poetic about Senator Benton's standing as a bulwark of liberty for free speech, freedom of the press and the Manifest Destiny of America, inciting a tipsy female spectator to rise and beller, "Go to it, my little Johnson! Rise and shine honey! Live in the milk and die in the cream!"

The Judge's rulings in another trial provoked a burly bystander to challenge the Court shouting, "Hell's afloat and the river's risin'. I'm the yaller flower o' the forest -- a flash and a half o' lightning -- a perfect thunder gust! You wants to fight?" The Sheriff simply pointed to the man, then the door, and the man left before the Judge could decide if he was in contempt.

Sheriff Walker's regular jail client was Joe O'Connor who fished in the horse troughs and sang to the moon when he was drunk. Walker liked the drunken O'Connor, but the man made his life hell. O'Connor regularly infested the small jail, where Joe Walker usually slept, with fleas. Then Sheriff Walker would have to drive sheep through his jail so O'Connor's fleas would jump on them. It got so, Sheriff Walker would soak O'Connor in a horse trough to get the fleas off, then just leave him there to sober up.

The few arrests Joe made in his first term were for assaults or riotous drunkenness. Though Jackson County hosted the most barbaric men on the frontier, it had not a single killing. Even with arrests, Joe had his own methods.

On a humid summer evening, six young sons of good Scotch-Irish families sold ten gallons of whiskey to a dozen Osages, then proceeded to outdrink them. By midnight all were snot-flying drunk, and a brawl erupted in the grove where they were spilling more whiskey than they drank.

Joe thundered up to the lodge of Owl, an Osage Chief, east of Independence. "Wah-lo-gah!" he yelled in the darkness. "Need you to prevent a Indian war. Hightail it to the grove by Independence!" Then Joe galloped to the grove and thundered his 17 hand, bull-chested bay stallion through the melee. Once the flying bodies landed, Joe shouted, "White Savages line up in the crick and Red Savages on the bank!"

The scion of a prominent family turned to bludgeon Joe Walker's snorting stallion with a whiskey jug, but his cohort yanked him into the brook, mumbling, "Paulie, Joe Walker'll rip your head off and feed it to the hogs."

Half-dressed, Owl galloped his chestnut mare into the grove and began shouting in Osage. He demanded that his Osages poison the fish with the rest of their whiskey -- save for one jug which Owl would keep in case of snakebite. Capturing his jug, Owl told the Osages to go to their lodges or get locked up in the White Jail. The Indians straggled from the grove. Wah-lo-gah herded them toward their village, cursing them imaginatively in their native tongue.

Walker yelled to his White Savages, "Drop your trousers and wade ashore! You're going to march to Independence with your pants around your ankles singing Rock of Ages. Those too drunk to sing every verse will sleep in jail. Let's go!!" [End Chapter 18]

Joe Walker's Sheriff career takes a drastic downturn during the Independence Court's last session in the Winter of 1829 as we shall see in Chapter 25.

[Chapter 25] Though Independence was touted in the East as the wildest town on the western frontier, Joe Walker had tamed it till it barely needed a Sheriff. Serving since the summer of 1827, Joe was a friend to its townspeople, drovers and Mountain Men, and the town was yet to have it's first killing. Still harboring his dread of daily routine from his dreary days on the Walker farm, Joe used every break in Jackson County's Court sessions to go horse trading.

. . . The last case on the docket for the Winter Session was against Hanna, a slave, charged with attempted murder of her master. A slender, even-featured young woman, Hanna sat at the defense table with the tears streaming down her cheeks, and her lip trembling. Her clothes were wretched and rumpled. She'd pulled her hair into a tight knot behind her head.

Because she ate and slept in his jail, Joe Walker knew Hanna's story too well. She'd been promised by her master that he'd never sell any child they brought into the world. Hanna'd birthed him a baby boy. The minute the boy was weaned, her master'd grabbed him from her arms to sell him, inciting her to such a state of grief, she'd stabbed her master in the shoulder. Hanna knew the gallows awaited her.

The rotund prosecutor finished his opening statement by telling the jury, "Slaves got no right of self defense nor any other rights to speak of, so you need to find this wench guilty before it gits warm enough in here to pull our coats off."

The small balding defense lawyer retorted, "The prosecutor's told you Hanna has no legal rights. If that's so, why's he tryin' this case?"

Hanna's master testified she'd jumped him and gashed his shoulder with a butcher knife. He finished, "And the wench woulda murdered me, had I not knocked her flat." There was really no need for Hanna to testify. The jury, like everybody else in the small town, knew what had happened and who'd bought Hanna's baby boy. They convicted her of attempted murder anyway. Unfortunately, Joe Walker's brother Joel was not the Judge. As Joe Walker awaited Hanna's sentence, he began to sweat in the icy courtroom. If she went to the gallows, Joe knew he could not -- and would not hang her.

Finally the Judge read her sentence that he'd been writing and rewriting since the trial began, "The said Hanna to receive on her bare black ass Thirty Nine lashes well laid on, and it is Ordered that the Sheriff cause execution of this order immediately."

Hanna stiffened. The jury filed out, unable to meet her gaze. When only the Judge, Hanna and Joe remained in the frigid room, Sheriff Walker said solemnly, "Her master's the lying thief who oughta get these lashes. Taking a horsewhip to Hanna for trying to save her baby is barbaric."

"Sheriff you will remember yourself and carry out the sentence."

Joe muttered, "Your Honor, I can not carry out your Order."

The Judge glowered in disbelief. "You what?"

"Thirty-nine lashes will maim her for life. I can't do it."

"You well know she should be hanged, Sheriff."

"I resign, Judge."

"Your resignation's refused. You are the duly elected Sheriff of Jackson County, and you will do the job the taxpayers of this county pay you to do. We'll not hold another election to get one that can -- although it sounds to me like we should."

Hanna gazed at Joe Walker, her eyes brimming with tears. She put her small black hand on his huge white one. "You kin do it Sherf. You has to. Let's git it ovah with. Ah cain't stands to think on it."

"Judge, I don't own a horsewhip."

"You're a horse trader and you don't own a horsewhip?"

"I've never taken a whip to man nor beast -- let alone a woman."

"Buy one from the saddlery."

"It's not in me, Judge."

"Want me to change this order to have her hanged?"

"Oh God no!"

"Then do your duty, Sheriff!"

Hanna touched Joe's hand and pointed to the door. They left together.

Joe's deputy, Jacob Gregg, was not at the jail, so Joe left the sobbing Hanna locked up and went to the saddlery.

"A whip? Gonna work oxen?"

Joe shook his head and paid for the whip. He coiled it and walked back to the jail. A bloodthirsty crowd had gathered, and Hanna sat nude in her cell. He gave Hanna a pair of his huge pants and walked her out. He cleared his throat and told her, "Hold on to that bulletin board, till I get this over." She couldn't reach across the bulletin board with its parched wanted posters and land sale notices, so she gripped one side of it and clamped her eyes shut.

He lashed her bare back with the whip, making her flinch, but Hanna did not yell. Somebody in the crowd hollered, "That's one!" The whip bit her bare back again, and the whole crowd counted, "Two."

As Joe Walker, who'd read the poetry of Robert Burns since boyhood, whipped Hanna, he heard himself reciting the Scottish bard's ode To a Mountain Daisy:

When the crowd chanted, "Thirty-nine," Joe Walker hurled his whip to the ground rasping, "You're free Hanna! Now by God, I quit!" [End Chapter 25]

At Fort Gibson, Oklahoma in February 1831, horsetrader Joe Walker & U.S. Army Captain Benjamin Bonneville agree to explore the West together if Bonneville can raise an expedition. Unbeknownst to Joe, Bonneville then agrees with President Andrew Jackson to spy on the British in Oregon Country and the Mexicans in California to justify government support for their expedition.

With Bonneville, Joe Walker crosses Kansas and Nebraska into Wyoming, where they build Ft. Bonneville before mule packing to the Rendezvous on Wyoming's Green River in the Summer of 1833 where. Bonneville reveals their secret spy mission to Joe Walker. Disgusted, but unwilling to quit the expedition, Joe recruits 40 men and leaves for California on July 24, 1833. Joe soon recruits 20 more free trappers, including famed Mountain Man Old Bill Williams. Let's look in on the Walker expedition in September 1833 in Chapter 43 as they enter the perilous Paiute country in what would become Nevada.

[Chapter 43] Walker's outfit trapped the Barren River [now the Humboldt] in early September, losing their traps to naked Paiutes. Reaching a Paiute village, Joe Walker got even for the stolen traps trading two awls and a fish hook to a Paiute for a robe of sewn beaver skins worth $40.

Joe made camp several miles from the village. But skulking Paiutes purloined traps and anything else they could find. At Walker's campfire Old Bill Williams growled, "Those Diggers have taken their last trap from Old Bill. Next one'll cost them naked flea farms a bucket o' blood!"

Levin Mitchell yelled, "Make it a barrel!" Others muttered agreement.

Joe Walker boomed, "There are a thousand Paiutes here. Never lost a man from my outfit. We'll not go to war over a few rusty beaver traps. Tell my clerk Zenas Leonard how many traps you're out, and I'll make it good outa stores. These Diggers are from the Stone Age -- don't wear clothes and don't even have trade guns. They take what they see, cause that's how they were brought up. Leave 'em be."

Old Bill growled, "I take no charity and give none."

Joe said quietly, "Bill, I'm telling you plain. You wanta cut your string, go ahead but don't kill a Paiute and bring a thousand Indians down on our heads. Paiutes dip their arrows in sidewinder spit. Leave 'em be!"

Old Bill glowered, then strode into the darkness with Levin Mitchell behind him.

Zenas Leonard said softly, "I's you, Captain, I'd sleep in a different lodge tonight. Old Bill jist may take leave to cutcher throat. Plenty room in mine."

Walker knew his clerk was right, but wouldn't be driven from his bed by Old Bill or the others who worked the wild side o' the river. "See you in the morning, Zenas."

Just before dawn a gunshot jerked Walker's camp awake. Zenas pounded up to Walker's lodge with his rifle. He yelled, "Helloo Captain!" and whipped the door flap back.

Bare chested and hairy, Joe burst past Zenas, "Shot came from the river."

Sprawled on the riverbank lay two skinny Paiutes, one shot dead and the other with his throat slashed. Walker yelled, "Strike the camp and head down river." Trotting down the Barren River, they reached the marshes on the 4th of September. Grazing their spent mounts, they rested their sore bodies.

Joe found Old Bill Williams on his back with his fingers laced behind his head. "You kill those Diggers this morning?"

"As promised."

"Get out."

"This a trapper outfit or a quilting bee?"

"Don't you get it, Bill? They don't know any better."

"Maybe you don't either."

"You won't be here to find out. Pack up and move out!"

"Never kill a White man unless I have to."

"Bill, you better leave -- while you still can."

Old Bill sized Joe up, then headed for his lodge.

"Take Mitch with you, Bill."

Joe could see smoke rising from brittle grass on their backtrail. "Picket the horses. Build a breastwork around the camp with your mule packs." Before their breastwork enclosed them, upwards of 900 naked Paiutes issued from the high grass. They signed they wanted to come in to smoke with the Whites. They edged closer. None were women, leaving no doubt they were a war party.

Walker said, "Been good riding with you boys. Load everything that will shoot. Put your knives where you can lay hands on 'em. Learned as a young soldier, infantry's no match for cavalry, so mount up. Never fancied dying afoot." [End

Chapter 43]

The result of the 58 man Walker expedition's clash with 900 Paiutes appears in Chapter 44 on Cassette Tape 3, Side

A of the Joe Walker Album with Alfred Jacob Miller's 1837 portrait of Joseph Walker proudly displayed on its cover.

To Order

Andrew Jackson, The Gunfighter President

Sam Houston, A Storm Rising

David Crockett, Frontiersman, Soldier & Man For The Ages

Young Bill Sublette & The Legendary Mountain Men

Big Bill Sublette-The Oregon Trail & Beyond

The Sublettes & The Fur Wars

First Women Over The Rockies

Read about the sourcebook TRAILS OF THE WHITE SAVAGES

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