Homeland Security Agent Joe Maki was completing the aftermath mop up of the Boston Marathon Bombing investigation when something came up. It was an encounter with a former Russian operative, one of the famous embedded spies, known to the agency as Milton Ericson. His chilling account of the latest Russian espionage would set in motion a vast gathering of Homeland and FBI agents in a desperate effort to head off what was being called World War Zero Sum DAY New advances in computer technology coupled with far-sighted Russian Bureaucrats made the impossible into ominous reality right here on American soil Since it no longer was needed for information purposes continuous news coverage and cell/Satellite phones took care of that, the Russian spy network could actually become the front line for a war waged against American financial supremacy. The Cold War had just become Cyber War The reader will be joining the Homeland Team as they investigate this dangerous plot. For those who willed the Cold War to be over, things are heating up again
1850. It was the beginning of something that would define America for 100 years. Gold had been discovered in California and word spread like wildfire across the United Colonies of America. The treaty that had acquired California into the American Union was signed two years earlier when no one yet knew the importance of the gold discovered at Sutter's Mill in January 1849. From Sacramento all the way down to Mariposa and Monterey, the territory of California seemed to be one long Gold field. California in 1850 was a boiling, seething, frontier mass of humanity. People had come by the tens of thousands from all over the world, mostly from the Eastern American Colonies, to seek their fortune in the Goldfields. Three Rivers held the secrets of the gold rush, the American, the Sacramento, and the Merced Rivers. They were the RIVERS OF GOLD. John Charles Fremont had taken advantage of the fragile land situation in California during the transition from Mexican rule to American management. The Mexican government had wanted desperately to entice nobles from Mexico City to take over large land grants in the California territory and begin to establish the feudal model they hoped would bring stability to the area. When the transition occurred between the Mexican rule and the American, it was the most natural thing in the world to respect these subdivisions, especially in more remote territories. Along the Merced River in Mariposa County in Southern California, it seemed right therefore to put these large land grants up for sale to the first American bidders. One such parcel was bought by John Charles Fremont and his partner Thomas Larkin for a small amount of money. They gained a large land-grant, a tract of land that was seventy miles square, along the Merced River and at the foothills of the Yosemite Mountains. Time would prove this to be one of the great real estate acquisitions the new state of California would ever see. Historically, it would make John Fremont a millionaire many times over. John Charles Fremont and his partners had purchased an enormous land-grant along the southern end on the East of the Merced River. Bordered by the Sierra Mountains to the east, the vast property of what had come to be known as Fremont Enterprises, posed a problem of significant legality. In 1850, California territory became the state of California, the thirty-first state in the Union and John Charles Fremont, owner of this considerable land-grant along the Merced, became the first senator representing California in Washington. Fremont was a man who had become a thorn in the side of Washington politicians because of the issue of slavery, which he opposed vehemently. While he was preoccupied in this way, setting the course for California in American history, his land-grant was being managed by men he had come to trust. Two men in particular helped to manage the rich gold deposits of his property: Jeremiah Warner, his field manager, and Alex Godey, who managed the actual mining itself. The story you are about to read is a snapshot of what happened on the rough-and-tumble frontier of the Goldfields. It is the Seventeenth volume of the Mountain Man Series, the excitement of the frontier continues in "Gold River Gunman."
1361 is the year that follows the treaty of Bretigny. The treaty gave some concessions to the king of England, Edward the Warrior, granting him lands around Calais in the northeast of France and Aquitaine, a large portion of southern France, to the west near Spain. Edward placed his son, The Black Prince in charge of Aquitaine and a brief period of peace followed. The Young archer Duke, William Burton is now settling into his role as Duke of Devonshire and setting in place the people and structures he will need in the region. He and his brother, Thomas, England's Master Archer, are heavily involved in the development of a mercenary force made up of archers for hire. Men who can wield the powerful Longbow are in great demand on the continent and the local French nobles will pay dearly. Will Burton's ascendency to the position of Duke of Devonshire was rare for the times, but was also symptomatic of what was coming: the upheaval of medieval structures. Hundreds of years before commoners toppled kings, there is the story of "The Archer Duke." In this sixth volume of the English Archer Series, the Hawking Duke comes to hunt.
Every day we add another spoke to the wheel of our life. When we bring our full self, our complete insight to this awareness, we make the spokes stronger and we give our life greater determination and meaning. The first man or woman who invented the wheel changed the course of humanity. Where we had been beings with just two feet, we relied on and depended on, the ability to carry something less than one hundred pounds of baggage. With the wheel, all of a sudden new horizons were opened before us. It was the wheel that made the difference and allowed us to expand the reach of our existence and the fullness of our potential. Without the wheel we would never have been able to plant civilizations around the world as we have. Without the wheel we would never have been able to fly and lift ourselves into the air and move about with extraordinary speed and agility. The wheel has given us access to the heavens and has given us access to the depths of the earth. The wheel is truly a magical development in human history. Things would never be the same once the wheel came to be. We quickly learned that wheels have to have support and that their support must come from within the circle. Two things make up that strength, the axle and the spokes. A strong axle and many strong spokes make a wheel capable of carrying unlimited material. When the horizons of life open for us unlimited, mankind forges ahead with gusto. The one who invented the wheel was a poet, someone who looked at life and saw there something that no one had seen before. The vision that they saw made magic for the followers of that generation. Once the wheel had entered into the social structure of human nature everything had to change. No one can trace the actual development of the first wheel and probably that's not important. But we always will know that that one invention, like the invention of fire, has moved mankind ahead by leaps and bounds. Each day of our life is like a spoke in the wheel that turns round and round. Moving us forward, the spokes get stronger as we pay attention and reach out to them with love. The poems that follow are the spokes of life and they have the potential for making life an even greater gift.
The treasures of our life can be identified by what they bring of truth and goodness, of pleasure, satisfaction and creativity. We face in the course of any day a multitude of circumstances that we can turn into meaning and value. As we look at the circumstances and the environment in which we find ourselves, a moment of vision happens. Through vision we have internalized and assimilated its richness. We own the vision of happening, the moment is ours. Poetry is the discourse at this apex of vision. The poet in each of us is able to turn the greatest of our life circumstances into the fiber of our meaning. Moment by moment this process is our greatest asset for happiness. Consequently, poetry is something to be cultivated every day of our life. As athletes train for the field of sport, so we are trained by poetry for the field of action. The poetry in us finds the layers of truth hidden in the happenings of each day. Truth is more complex and rich than we allow, and it is up to us to perceive the subtleties of these layers through the filters of poetic insight. The filter of insight is the poetic gift, it is the ability to look at life situations and see in those situations the potential, the becoming. In fact, life is much more than we can imagine, giving us numerous options in all the events of this day, this week, this month, and this year. We are challenged to pay attention, to truly observe what is happening around us. The poet is someone who is obsessed with being here, not with tunnel vision, but awakened to what might be, what has been, what will be. This requires the mindfulness of full mental health, and brings with it true happiness. Life is a posturing, it is an awareness of this moment, a sense of the fullness we stand before. What we do with this fullness depends on our perception of its depth, its breadth, its horizons, and the many purposeful things that can be derived from this moment in time. We are constantly telling the story of our life as reinvented by this moment in time. Life is always going forward, never back. Reading poetry is re-living this vision of fullness. Like the athlete practicing, the musician doing drills, the reader of poetry is refining the basic skills of insight. A poem is not a "figuring out," but instead, a "going within." It is a portal of insight that guides the mind into the riches of time. The poem activates those powers of the mind that are both pleasurable and transformative. In the play of words, the tone, the rhythms, a poem touches the depths of the intuitive mind, the mind of the child within. It is this deeper mind that brings fulfilment, satisfaction and happiness to life's daily experiences. One word encapsulates this process and gives it meaning: ENJOY
The first half of the nineteenth century in the American West was marked by an intense spirit of national pride and frontier determination. The politicians were the ones who stoked the flames of national pride that would eventually bring the territory of California into the American union. From the year 1803 when the Louisiana Purchase brought the entire Rocky Mountain territory under the control of the American government, men called free trappers were moving about throughout the territory and in their own way claiming it for the new owners. Their activities, and their aggression toward the Native Americans who inhabited the region, where source of conflict and violence. Where the Lewis and Clark expedition had gone through the entire Western territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean and back without engaging in open conflict with the natives, things were gradually changing in that regard. Tribes which it always thought with one another were now considering the white settlers as invaders of their territories and the danger to their ancient traditions. The men who took part in this process of expansion, and invasion, took it for granted that their Native American counterparts could not be trusted for the most part. The story is Samuel Ogden Leonard, the Mountain Man, began in eighteen twenty when he was just sixteen years old. In the summer of that year he met a consummate mountain man, Clyde Patterson, who had been a companion of one of the first, is not the first mountain man, John Coulter. After Coulter's death in the war of eighteen twelve, Patterson continued his life as a mountain man, mostly alone as a free trapper. He saw in Young Sam Ogden, not just the makings of a mountain man but the makings of a great mountain man he was fascinated with the experience that Young Sam had already had in the short time that he had spent in the Rocky mountain region. He wanted to pass on to his prot g , the skills that would make him one of the greatest mountain men to ever live. In order to do that, young Samuel had to learn the secrets that are revealed in this volume, "Winter Down."
The decade following the California gold rush of 1849 was a time of tumult and treachery. Hundreds of thousands poured into the territory whose main settlements barely harbored a thousand people. The American government was overwhelmed at dealing with the raucous situation which it had inherited from a dispirited Mexican political machine. The men who had set this grand American experiment in motion looked to one man, John Charles Fremont, for direction. His Fremont Enterprises, is the subject of this 18th volume of the Mountain Man Series: "River Gold To Die For." Fremont was himself engulfed in the mining frenzy that drove his contemporaries to leave hearth and home, squandering their life savings, for the promise of GOLD. This massive migration would take years to settle down and in the meantime it would depend on men like John Fremont's fictional friend and Gunman, Jeremiah Warner. The land grant owned by Fremont covered more than thirty square miles along the southern stretch of the Merced River, gold country In this story, the eighteenth volume of the Mountain Man Series, Jeremiah Warner goes from being the Boundary Rider to becoming the Gold River Gunman. He will be called on to be judge and jury for the dangerous element that is now slipping into the saloons and brothels of the California frontier. The wealth of the Fremont Enterprises can quickly become "River Gold to Die For." The Jeremiah Warner Mountain Man Series follows his adventures through the Rocky Mountain Wilderness and now into the thick of the California Gold Rush.
The winter of 1826 finds young Sam Ogden living with the Mandan Indians in their village on the Missouri River. Life in the Slanted Village is built on the traditions of several hundred years. Sam and his mentor, Clyde Patterson have gradually become part of this complex network of practices and ceremonies. Sam has taken a wife, the daughter of Chief Rolling Thunder, her name is Little Fire. In the few months that they have been married, the young couple have successfully made a home of their spacious mud hut on the prairie. The Slanted Village is comprised of more than fifty of these solidly built log and mud homes. But living so close to the great River, the Missouri, brings with it the danger of the white man's illness. Already, the Mandan have been decimated by these fierce epidemics and another is now upon them. "Sam, my Warrior," is the fifth volume in the Sam Ogden Mountain Man Series. The story traces the evolution of the early Rocky Mountain West, marking its origins in the beaver trapping, fur trading period, through the gold rush phase and then into the cattle-raising period. The excitement of these simpler and nobler times continues to inspire us all The series is as follows: 1.Hard to Kill 2.Winter Down 3.Rendezvous Prize 4.The Deerslayer's Destiny 5."Sam, My Warrior"
It is 1851 and over a hundred thousand people have poured into the California coastal towns of Los Angeles and Monterey and San Francisco. What had been sleepy Mexican settlements, under the influx of so many Americans, have become major cities of California which was recently named the 31st state of the union. John Charles Fremont, the Mountain Man's friend and business partner, has been chosen governor of the state of California and is now living in San Francisco.This present volume is number nineteen in the series that presents the fictional life of Jeremiah Warner a virtual incarnation of men like Kit Carson and Joe Walker and Jim Bridger. The study of the lives of these men who were so active on the frontier amazes the reader with the extent of their travels and their understanding of the wilderness. It was second nature for them to cross the Rocky Mountains and pan for gold in the rivers of California.In this volume, Rocky Mountain Return, the Mountain Man and his Cheyenne wife return to their previous home in the Platte River Valley. There they recruit their friends Tom and Mary Wilkerson to join them in the fields of gold, in California. Their journey across the mountains is one of excitement and courage.
It is 1827, winter is fast approaching and Rocky Mountain life is getting ready for the big freeze and the great snows. Wild animals find the presence of human hunters annoying, disturbing their own hunting routines. It quickly becomes a struggle for territorial rights, whether it be a mountain lion, a grizzly bear or a wolf pack, domination is key to surviving in the high mountain ranges. In this story, the sixth volume of the Sam Ogden Mountain Man Series, young Sam and his Mandan wife, Little Fire are making a home for themselves in a cabin high in the Rockies. Along with their partner Clyde Patterson, the young couple will have to face the challenges to their survival from renegade Indians, outlaws, cougars, bears and wolves. The Rocky Mountain Cabin is their story, their adventure. The Mountain Man Rendezvous of 1827 took place in the Rocky Mountains at Popo Aggie. Once again, Sam Ogden and his partner Clyde Patterson were there for the tournaments that year: Hatchet Throwing, Knife Throwing and the Long Rifle Shoot. Tragedy had struck the last day of the Rendezvous when four mountain men tried to rape Sam's wife, the Mandan woman, Little Fire. That was a pain that would be a long time healing. At the Rendezvous, Sam and Clyde were offered the use of a mountain cabin in the Flattop range on the southwest flank of the Rockies. Big Bill Davis had built the cabin several years earlier and insisted that he wasn't going to be using it this winter. They took him up on his offer and headed south toward Grand Junction, Colorado Territory. In this sixth volume of the Sam Ogden Mountain Man Series, "Rocky Mountain Cabin," Sam, his wife and his partner Clyde Patterson settle in for the winter season of 1827. It will be a winter hard to forget. The Sam Ogden Series is as follows: 1.Hard to Kill 2.Winter Down 3.Rendezvous Prize 4.The Deerslayer's Destiny 5.Sam, My Warrior 6.Rocky Mountain Cabin
