FIRST WOMEN OVER THE ROCKIES AUDIOBOOK

FIRST WOMEN reveals the pain and joy of two young city women and their city husbands braving North America's wilderness in the 1830s to serve a noble cause. Meet Narcissa, a chemistry professor with red-gold hair, a love of God and guts any man would envy. Then meet Eliza, fluent in several languages, disinherited for departing New York for Oregon, but not dissuaded from their 3,000 mile trip into Indian country where no settler woman has ever set foot. Encounter the wild, smelly Mountain Men who help or hinder them. Feel the fiery tapestry of American city life, cholera epidemics, slavery debates and people fleeing smoky cities to mountains so enchanting they risk death each moment just to be there.

This is Abridgment #1 from its nonfiction sourcebook BEHOLD THE SHINING MOUNTAINS nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in U.S. History. It's actual 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 in Dolby Stereo® with sound effects and a different voice for every person. You'll hear stanzas from 13 hymns and 40 actual songs of the era at scene changes, all listed by Chapter inside the album's front cover with origin dates.

Now let us intrude into the swirling mists of history in May 1831 when Narcissa Prentiss and Henry Spalding engage in the most shocking ever of their verbal brawls.

[Chapter 2] Narcissa Prentiss savored each New York spring as more glorious than the last. But at 22, she asked herself the frightening question, "Narcissa, will you ever marry?" She selected a serene place on Franklin Academy's grounds to meditate -- to assess herself through the noon repast under the bower of flowering vines beside the lilly pond. Narcissa leaned forward on the creaking bench to study her reflection in the greenish pond's gently undulating surface.

Her auburn-blond hair framed her alabaster face like gentle fire. The tiny row of freckles across the bridge of her nose didn't show in the water, but her wide blue eyes did. "Are my features too large? Is my look too direct?" Tall as most men, Narcissa was 5'7" and weighed a buxom 136 pounds. Her neck was chastely hidden by her high collar. She never showed her ankles except when she lifted the hem of her dress to rush to a lecture.

Henry Spalding peered at the frog pond. That full bodied Narcissa Prentiss sat brooding there. Though she laughed far too much for piety's sake, she dominated his thoughts, occasionally making him blush. At 27, Henry knew he ought to be more worldly. But prurient thoughts should not sully a man who'd some day be called Reverend. Like a mindless leaf whirling down a vortex, he was drawn to this vixen.

Before Narcissa could ferret the flaws that forestalled her wedding, a head bloomed beside hers in the reflection -- that vexing Henry Spalding! Henry's forehead bulged. His blazing brown eyes crackled, but his expression was stern.

Henry asked in his clarion voice. "Have you become your namesake?"

"What's that mean, Henry?"

"Where's your ancient Greek! Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in a pool, and was transformed into a flower."

"Henry Spalding, in class you said Slavery is a natural institution of mankind. How can you say that?"

"Slavery's found in Babylon's Code of Hammurabi from 1800 B.C. Ancient Egypt lived by slave labor."

"That was before slavery was made wrong by the Bible, Henry!"

"The Bible even lists rules how Hebrews shall treat their slaves. Here read Exodus Chapter 21, verses 2 through 6!"

Narcissa read them. He was right. "Henry, your Bible's as hard as your heart! My Bible's joyous as spring. This is Isaiah 55:12. "For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands!"

"What's that got to do with slavery, Narcissa? Article 1, Section 9 of the U. States Constitution ratified in 1788 provides for continuation of slavery!"

"Whites have trapped enough Negroes in Africa!"

"Your history's deficient as your Greek, Narcissa! Africans had other Negro slaves from the dawn of time -- mostly war

prisoners. When the New World slave trade started in the 16th century, it was Africans selling their kin to the Arabs."

"You are a slaver, Henry Spalding!"

"I'm a Colonizationist. The Negro should be shipped to Africa and freed in his own colony. He'll never be free here!"

"William Lloyd Garrison's new weekly, The Liberator, brands the American Colonization Society as the handmaid of Slavery."

"Garrison's a radical without the faintest hope of helping those he seeks most to serve."

"John Greenleaf Whittier calls Garrison a champion of those who groan beneath oppression's iron hand. I myself say, one who has no noble dream has nothing!"

"Pray tell what noble dream you have for yourself, Narcissa?"

Narcissa bit her lip to keep from revealing her thoughts to this man who never forgot anything, but she just boiled over. "I will be the Lord's minister to heathen Indians beyond the Shining Mountains."

"Narcissa, if you minister to anyone, it'll be in New York! Where'd you get such a fool notion?"

Too angry to heed her inner cautions she replied, "When I was 16, I had a vision. The Lord God told me I would save heathen souls beyond the Shining Mountains."

"Did the Lord God tell you how a white woman would get to a foreign land where no white woman has ever set foot?"

Tears streaking her white cheeks, she retorted "Not then, but He has since shown me the man who can deliver me there!"

Henry laid his hand softly on hers. "Narcissa, you could do worse than a man like myself. I'd free you from your suicidal cause. You could be my wife, and we'd save the hordes of sinners abounding here in New York!"

Narcissa was shocked at a proposal invading this nasty clash. "Thank you for your generous proposal, but we could never be man and wife, Henry -- never."

"I suppose that's because I was born on the wrong side of the blanket and cast out by a drunkard -- while you are the daughter of Judge Stephen Prentiss, a founder of this very academy!"

"This Judge Stephen Prentiss you envy so, is a carpenter who supports 9 children and once served briefly in a minor judicial job. Judge Prentiss is a founder of Franklin Academy -- who contributed $50! My answer is based on the chasms between our hearts and souls."

Henry gripped her hand. "Don't turn your back on me! "

"Henry, you're crushing my fingers! We cannot be! We just cannot!"

"Like your namesake -- you are a vain woman in love with yourself! I shall hate you till you die!"

"How can you propose to me in one breath and despise me to death the next?"

"And just who will lead you to your death across the Rocky Mountains?"

"I read of William Sublette's exploits in the Boston paper. Last year he proved wagons can cross the Great American Desert. One day, he will guide me over the Shining Mountains to save heathen souls floundering in darkness."

"You know nothing of William Sublette. If he's one of those savage Mountain Men, he'll only despoil you in the wilds!"

"Leave me now, Henry Spalding!"

"You'll regret this eternally, you harlot!"

Narcissa sensed someone on the pathway. "Oh, Merciful God, I pray they did not hear you! My reputation will be ruined by your cruel lie." Narcissa sobbed as her only marriage proposal, now her mortal enemy, shambled away down the pathway. She looked skyward through the flowered trellis. A spring rain pelted her face. God was cooling her molten anger, but not her dream. She placed her hands together in prayer, "By the Grace of God and a Mountain Man I shall save heathen souls beyond the Shining Mountains." [End Chapter 2]

You'd think fate could not be cruel enough to cast Narcissa and Henry together in the future, wouldn't you? Well, we shall see. But first, let's see if Henry finds a new love in the Fall of 1831.

[Chapter 4] Though Narcissa Prentiss and Henry Spalding attended Prattsburg, New York's Franklin Academy after she spurned him, they never spoke nor let their gazes touch. Revolted, Henry left Franklin in the summer of 1831, but not before one Mrs. Orman Jackson wrote to Eliza Hart on Henry's behalf.

Meeting by mail, Henry and Eliza corresponded for months. Both shy, they bared themselves in letters beyond anything they could have imagined in person. They traded secrets about God, their souls and their futures. Henry'd study until ordained, then minister to heathens somewhere. Eliza's devotion to God and her talent for languages might fit her for the missionary life, but their letters stopped short of the committal word "Love."

Rashly they agreed to meet on the Village Green near Eliza's home in Holland Patent, New York. Henry was en route to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York with the $150 he'd earned at 61/4 ¢ per hour in a print shop. The thought of actually seeing each other was petrifying. They'd left no room for the usual deceptions nor even innocent artifice. It was like meeting naked.

Eliza fidgeted in the morning sun with no idea Henry'd been watching her since she'd arrived in her best black Sunday dress and lace gloves 30 minutes early. Her black bonnet wasn't her best, but her dearest, because her mother'd made it.

Henry was not discouraged that Eliza was a plain young woman of small stature and nervous manner. He was torn between charging out to hug this sweet Christian woman and fleeing to save his soul from being mutilated again. He kerchiefed his forehead. Stay or go? He was going on 28. If not now, when? He strode toward her in child's steps -- all his serious reservations would allow.

Startled, Eliza's heart fluttered inside her ribs like a darting dove. It mattered not that Henry had a high forehead full of wrinkles or that his beard was scraggly. He had compassionate brown eyes. He radiated piety. Although fluent in Latin and Greek with the classics in mind, Eliza had no idea what her first words to this sacredly important man would be.

Henry bowed slightly. "Upstate New York's become such a truly modern place."

Eliza nodded, put her hand to her lips and replied in her tiny voice, "Oh it is! The bears don't eat our pigs any more!"[End]

Before we leave Chapter 4, there's someone else you should meet. Perhaps two someones who'll be big in this true tale.

[Chapter 4] Reverend Samuel Parker hammered the door of Fairfield Medical College's Infirmary. The preacher's thin face was crimson. He rued not bringing his buffalo coat to Fairfield, New York on such a frosty night.

The door parted a crack. Candlelight flickered eerily under the rugged face of a sleepy fellow about 30 in a flannel nightshirt who yawned, "I'm Dr. Marcus Whitman. State your business."

"You a Thomsonian Doctor?" Reverend Parker yelled.

"Puke Doctors are charlatans!" Dr. Whitman replied. "Inducing vomiting with lobelia and cayenne pepper makes a sick man sicker."

"Right! I'm Reverend Samuel Parker, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church at West Groton, with chills and ague. Open up."

Dr. Marcus Whitman admitted the old man. Cold air clustered on the skinny stranger like a cloak.

Dr. Whitman put his arm in his wool greatcoat, but the Reverend wrapped it about himself. "How much you charge?"

"College charges 25¢ same's a practicing physician. That includes your medicine," Dr. Whitman rumbled, wrapping his shivering body in a threadbare blanket. "Sit, Reverend."

"Raw board's hard."

"This's not a sitting room. Bare your arm, so I can bleed you. Here's a spoonful of calomel."

Hissing at the metallic taste, Reverend Parker bared his left arm. Treated by Mineral Murderers before, Parker gripped his dainty hand and forced up the artery inside his delicate elbow.

Dr. Whitman tightened the ligature around the bicep's brachial artery, then lanced the bleipital fascia. Scarlet blood trickled down Parker's fish-belly white arm into the blue porcelain catch basin. Waiting for the bleeding to be done, Dr. Whitman asked, "What brought you to Fairfield?"

"Conducted a revival -- saved sinners! You a sinner!"

"I'm a Presbyterian like yourself, but we're all sinners in the Lord's eyes. Longed to be a minister myself, but couldn't afford the education."

Parker squinted in the candle's yellow glow. "You an experienced Doctor?"

"Began ridin' with Dr. Ira Bryant in 1823. He was cousin to William Cullen Bryant and a corker of a physician!"

"A corker?"

"Ira could saw an arm off in three minutes -- a leg in five."

"I guess that's tolerable -- if they needed to be cut off."

"Quickness is next to Godliness for a surgeon. No way to soothe pain but hard liquor. I'm a temperance man agin liquor."

"You got formal medical training, Brother Whitman?"

"Come here to Fairfield College in 1825 after ridin' two years with Ira. Got licensed to practice in the next year when I was 24."

"Why're you still here?"

"I'm not still here."

"Sure you are, Brother Whitman! My blood's drippin' into your pan. You're here all right, and I don't feel no better yet for all this gore!"

"Practiced in Ontario. Come back here for my M.D. degree first o' this year. It'll be conferred after this term. I'll practice in Steuben County."

Reverend Parker sized up Brother Whitman. Shaggy hair. Deep fiery blue eyes. Nose with a hump like it'd been broken. Broad shouldered, muscular. Near six feet. More like a logger than a Doctor. "Well Brother Whitman, you're rude in speech and careless in appearance, but you got a soul shining through -- just the man I need for Oregon."

Peeved by the Reverend's rudeness, Marcus argued in his basso profundo. "Nobody goes to Oregon. No road."

"Mountain Man named Sublette took wagons out to the Rockies and back last fall. I'm fixing to find some mission sites out there. I could use a Doctor to tend me."

After reconciling the shock of such impossible wagon travel, Marcus muttered, "I can't go."

"Wife have you tethered?"

"I'm single, studying Cholera. It's piling up corpses across the Atlantic. I'll make a stand against it here in New York."

"Cholera slays non-Christians! It dare not invade Christian New York -- I'm making your fight for you -- saved 17 sinners today!"

"Cause of Cholera's a mystery. Most Doctors think it rains from the atmosphere. Me, I think it's something like smallpox that Edward Jenner stopped with cowpox."

"Cholera is evil, Brother Whitman. My fight -- not yours. Evil cannot swim the Atlantic!"

"Before tonight, I knew wagons couldn't reach the Rockies. You say they can. When I'm certain cholera can't swim, I'll consider Oregon."

"I'm running a revival next Sabbath at Stephen Prentiss's grand home in Prattsburg. He has five comely Christian daughters. Join me!"

"London lecturer on cholera's comin' to New York City. I'm helping him."

Parker tried a new tack. "Run your candle by that picture on the wall. What is that?"

"A sketch of my father Beza Whitman's tombstone with this riddle."

"Stop here my friend and think on me

I've always wondered what hidden meaning lies in those words."

Reverend Parker leered, "Come to Oregon and I'll tell you." [End Chapter 4]

Since nobody could possibly guess what happened between Dr. Marcus Whitman and Professor Narcissa Prentiss on their very first meeting in February 1835, we'd better check in to find out.

[Chapter 37] The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had finally said Marcus could go west with Reverend Parker to find mission sites and see if the wilderness could abide female missionaries. But Marcus must be married to be permanently appointed as an Oregon missionary. Marcus had shared Sabbath morning with Reverend and Mrs. O.S. Powell here in Amity, New York, themselves recently appointed missionaries. Mrs. Powell had spent ten uncomfortable minutes massaging goose grease into Marcus's unruly hair to hold it down. Marcus wanted to gallop back to Rushville, but this was Narcissa's horse and she had his because of Reverend Parker's connivance. Could Marcus stall her horse in her barn and slip away on his own? But Marcus knew he had to see this Narcissa or perish of curiosity.

He stalled her horse in the huge-beamed barn, curried it and forked sweet smelling hay into its manger. His gelding wasn't in the barn, so he lugged his saddle, blanket and bridle back toward the house with his old mysterious side pain acting up.

As Marcus neared the grand house, a mellow voice said, " I'm Narcissa. Thank you for bringing my Toby home, Doctor. How is he?"

Marcus spied her sincere face between lacy curtains in the open window. The curtains made Narcissa an angelic halo. Her features were larger than her lovely sister Jane's. She was more direct -- almost manly in her speech. He wondered what the rest of Narcissa looked like.

Standing about six feet, Dr. Marcus Whitman was the strangest looking man Narcissa had ever seen. As Jane said, he resembled their burly Irish Wolfhound Shamrock with humped nose and strong stance. His eyes were blue enough to be called purple. As she watched, sprigs of his greasy hair popped up like bug antennae. He was not the Mountain Man she'd prayed for! Narcissa repeated, "How is Toby, Doctor?"

He cleared his throat and said in his deepest base tones, "Your horse was colicked, but he's well now." He felt foolish and lowered his gaze. "I know I'm not much to look at."

Narcissa realized her face had cruelly sold her thoughts, but rallied, "The devout put more stock in a man's soul than his looks." This was not a girlish love affair. Her duty was to God, not her unworthy prurience. "Won't you come in for tea?"

Marcus stammered, "Gotta git back to the Powells in time for dinner."

Narcissa laughed louder than any woman he'd ever heard before.

"What's so funny?"

"Doctor, if you threw a stone over our barn's weathervane, you'd hit Reverend Powell's house. It's only 12 minutes after two. We'll not grow and harvest the tea, just drink it!"

Narcissa was the wittiest woman he'd ever met. She had him chortling like an imp in knee pants. "I'll leave my horse tack outside an' take tea."

"You will not! Tack's as welcome in this house as you are! Plenty of room in the vestibule. If you don't run, I'll beat you to our front door."

He nodded and started around the front of her impressive home. More direct than the roughest rogue he'd met, Narcissa Prentiss was a woman a man could be friends with.

She swung the great door open and extended her hand. "I'm Narcissa -- but I guess I told you that."

Narcissa wasn't the feminine vision that her sister Jane was, but she was symmetrically formed although at least 5'7" and quite buxom. He shifted his horse gear to one hand and shook her small hand. "I'm Marcus Whitman of Rushville." Her touch didn't thrill him like Jane's did, but it was pleasant.

She turned Marcus's hand over. "Your palm's callused. Not the hand I'd expect on a Medical Doctor. Doctoring's what you do, isn't it?"

Her smile, though quite impious, warmed the spirit. "It is when I'm not building a cabin or shoeing my horse."

"Speaking of horses, your gelding's in the back corral. Reverend Parker left it there last week."

"Can it walk?"

"Certainly, why do you ask?"

"Reverend Parker's easier on scriptures than he is on horses, as Toby'd tell you -- if he could talk."

"You must be pretty stout to hold your equipage in one hand forever. Put it there." She pointed to a spot on the gleaming hardwood floor between the hat and umbrella stands. "Have a seat in the parlor. I'll bring the tea cart."

The Prentiss parlor was the most elegant room he'd seen outside New York City. When she left, Marcus got up and checked his pants to be sure he wasn't getting hay or anything on their velvet sofa.

Narcissa brought a cherrywood teacart with flowers painted on the tray. He lifted the pot.

She rescued the ornate metal teapot. "Hostess pours, Marcus. Sugar and cream?"

"Spoon o' both," he nodded and watched how smartly she handled the utensils.

"When did you graduate from Medical School?"

"Three years ago, this spring."

"Did you study chemistry?"

"Needed it to mix medicines for my patients."

"Did you take chemistry or pharmacology?"

"Both at Fairfield Medical College." He hoped that would impress her. The aromatic tea was tart, but tasty.

"You enjoy practicing medicine?"

"Sometimes. You interested in chemistry? Might be something I could help you with."

"I dabble in it," she smiled, not letting on she'd been a chemistry professor at colleges and finishing schools. She liked his crooked smile and the way his skin crinkled around those blue-purple eyes. "Did you agree with Sir Humphry Davy's assessment of chlorine as an element in 1810?"

"Didn't Davy just confirm Karl Wilhelm Scheele's 1780 findings?"

"Why that's wonderful, Marcus! I've never met a man with any depth in this field! I noticed you hefting the teapot. It really is solid Ag [Silver]!"

"Thought it might be Fe [iron] plated with Ag. Tea's fine as long as you didn't load it with As [Arsenic]!"

They laughed till they remembered they barely knew each other and began to fidget.

"Marcus, you know we share a higher calling than chemistry."

"That's why I'm here. The American Board's appointed me to see if the West is suitable for females."

"I'd die for such an appointment, Marcus."

"It's not what you think. I'm nothing but a scout now. Board won't appoint me as a missionary till I'm married or have some arrangement along those lines."

Narcissa left the parlor. Returning, she handed Marcus a letter. "I don't know how the American Board's Reverend Greene could have rejected me as a Missionary so coldly just because I'm unmarried. I'm only 27, you know."

Marcus sympathized with the woe in this good woman's face. "Solution's in our chemistry."

"I don't follow you."

"Element's a substance that can't be reduced to simpler substances. A compound's matter with two or more elements in the same proportions throughout. We need to combine as a compound to serve the Lord."

Narcissa's face went through a series of changes like the sky during a storm. "Marcus Whitman, is this some kind of a proposal?"

"Should I have spoken to your father, first?"

"Oh no! He's the last person you need to speak with now! Can you see me telling Judge Stephen Prentiss -- this afternoon, a man I never saw before dropped by and proposed to me -- and I accepted."

"Do you accept, Narcissa?"

"Sort of. Just what is your proposal?"

"Call it a compound of convenience, Cc by symbol. If I can honestly tell the Board upon my return from the West, it's suitable for females, we combine. If not, we have a compound that breaks down to its pre-combined elements."

"Fair enough. What if we assume your report's positive, Marcus?"

"Grand leap of faith -- that assumption. No white woman's ever crossed the Rockies. If the Gospel Truth be it's feasible for females, we'll combine under my name and serve the heathen as two separate elements."

"Both a compound and a marriage of convenience?"

"If it be the Lord's will."

"Is it your will, Marcus?"

He nodded nervously. "Will it be yours, Narcissa?"

"As long as you never disclose our real arrangement."

"What about your parents?"

"How long before you get back from the West?"

"Maybe by Christmas."

"I could have them used to the idea by then."

Vastly relieved, Marcus rose to go.

"One thing about this was far too subtle for me, Marcus."

"What was that?"

"Our courtship. I didn't even notice it."

Marcus wanted to laugh, but there was something so very sad about all this that tears welled in his eyes. Narcissa was also about to cry. He picked up his saddle, bridle and blanket in the vestibule and clutched them against his chest as he walked onto the porch.

Narcissa wanted to kiss Marcus to seal the Satanic bargain they'd made to serve the Lord. She looked into his eyes as she felt a woman just engaged would, and he only raised the saddle higher and left without a word. She went inside and watched him out a back window walking to get his horse from the Prentiss corral. "What in God's name have I done? I've freed the Prisoner of Prattsburg and Amity. That's what I've done." Narcissa climbed the stairs to her room. Her fiancé Marcus Whitman would be leaving for St. Louis tomorrow -- without even saying good-bye. She reached into her desk for a sheet of her pale green letter paper. She dated it February 23, 1835 then wrote with some assurance that she had finally solved their simultaneous quadratic equation in four unknowns:

"To the Secretaries of the A.B.C.F.M.

Permit an unworthy sister to address you. Having obtained favour of the Lord and desiring to live for the conversion of the world I now offer myself to the American Board to be employed in their service among the heathen, if counted worthy. As it is requested of me to make some statements concerning myself I shall endeavour to be brief as possible knowing the value of your time especially under the late afflictive bereavement with the death of Dr. Wisner. . . .

Narcissa Prentiss"

Narcissa would make certain that when Reverend O.S. Powell, affixed his recommendation to this letter, he would unveil her engagement to the Board's emissary beyond the Shining Mountains, Dr. Marcus Whitman. Narcissa knelt by her bed. She opened her New Testament to I Corinthians 4:10 and read: "We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised." She didn't know why she couldn't stop crying. [End Chapter 37]

Will Missionary Dr. Marcus Whitman heal a rowdy band of 60 Mountain Men fatally stricken with Asiatic Cholera after they've rotten-egged and threatened to drown him for being a "Psalm Singer" who refuses to drink with them?

Will Narcissa Whitman find love in her marriage of convenience to a stranger on their Honeymoon from Hell in the wilderness with her fuming former suitor?

Will famed Mountain Man William Sublette guide Narcissa Whitman to Oregon to do God's work? Let's see what happens when the Whitmans meet him in the Spring of 1836.

[Chapter 51] Landing in St. Louis, Missouri on March 30, 1836, the Whitman and Spalding couples found it utterly depraved. Besides its atrocious, brawling waterfront, it boasted the most ostentatious Catholic Cathedral west of Boston. They all entered the vast edifice during High Mass. Narcissa and Marcus escaped the echoing vault for their scheduled meeting with William Sublette near some den of wickedness.

In his business suit, Sublette showed shockingly white teeth in a grin outside the Green Tree Tavern on Church Street in St. Louis. Sublette extended a monstrous hand to Marcus. "I'm Bill Sublette. Heard how ya cut a arryhead outa my dear friend Jim Bridger's back. Felt I owed ya, fore I even metchu and this purty lady. What's yer pleasure, Doctor?"

Narcissa's jaw dropped at sight of this 6'4" stallion of a man with eagle eyes, hooked nose, cut chin and wavy saffron hair to his shoulders. She'd dreamt of meeting "her Mountain Man" since reading of his "impossible" wagon trip in 1830 news-papers. She expected Sublette's voice to be deeper than Husband's, but it wasn't.

"This is my wife, Narcissa."

Sublette bowed to her showing her his lustrous locks.

Dr. Whitman asked matter of factly, "We're going to Oregon and wondered if you'd guide us."

Sublette's face remained impassive, but his eyes said he'd met a mad man. Sublette cleared his throat. "I come Down the Mountain in '34. I'll not be going back. Gonna stay in the settlements an' git respectable like my Grandpa Whitley."

Narcissa smiled, "You're pretty spry for retirement."

"My advice is ta turn back."

Narcissa flared, "God sent us to save the heathen in Oregon, Mr. Sublette. Good day, sir!"

"Hold on, Mrs. Whitman. I was Up the Mountain nigh 12 years. Most Mountain Men're dead in four. By 1830 Injuns had kilt 94 men in my fur company and 20 more's never been heard of agin. Grizzlies, snow and bad whiskey kilt a bunch more. Jist inna Sublette family, Blackfeet butchered my brother Pinckney when he's 16. Apaches crippled my brother Milt's leg, and Blackfoot bullet busted my arm. You Pilgrims go up there, Blackfeet're gonna kill ya slow, but they'll likely cutcher eyelids off first so ya won't miss how they do it."

For years, Narcissa'd dreamed of a Mountain Man leading her into the sunset to save the heathens. Now this Sublette was sentencing her to death on a back street outside a sin den.

Before she could protest, Marcus spoke calmly. "We respect your word, Mr. Sublette. But we respect God's Word more. We are going to Oregon, Sir."

"Then ya better go with the American Fur caravan. My brother Milt's taking it ta Rendezvous. I'll ask 'im ta watch over ya. So long!" Sublette padded soundlessly toward the Green Tree Tavern, muttering under his breath.

As distraught as Narcissa, Marcus pressed her hand into both of his. "My dear Narcissa, I'll not Judas you to your death. You wanta turn back?"

"Not if the devil himself is digging my grave this very minute!" [End Chapter 51]

Will anyone in the two Missionary couples live to set foot in Oregon?

 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 & The Legendary Mountain Men

Big Bill Sublette-The Oregon Trail & Beyond

The Sublettes & The Fur Wars

BEHOLD THE SHINING MOUNTAINS

Birth of America AudioBooks

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