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Overview
in the Arizona Territory
Rochlin offers a fascinating tale of the Old West from a Jewish perspective that is not often found in books, while her expertise in early Arizona life will appeal to all western aficionados.
—Booklist, American Library Association
Rochlins Desert Dwellers Trilogy combines authentic details of Jewish settler life, colorful characters and...enough period charm, crackling storytelling and priceless details to satisfy devotees of both wild west lore and Jewish history.
—Publishers Weekly
Frieda faces a difficult journey, harsh lawmen and a trial that tests both womens ingenuity and strength. Rochlins in-depth research offers a vivid, compelling picture of life in 1880s Arizona.
—Edith Broida, Book Club Facilitator, Farmington Hills, Michigan
Frieda Goldson and her husband Bennie live in Dos Cacahuates, on the Arizona-Sonora border. Frieda is about to give birth to their third child when they receive the news that Friedas fourteen-year-old sister, Ida, has been kidnapped by a surly murderer named Jed Pearson, somewhere in the wilds of the territory. Frieda hires the services of a garrulous, greedy sheriff, who hunts down the murderer and brings him, and the captive Ida, to justice.
Frieda hurries to Nogales to settle with the sheriff and bring her sister back to Dos Cacahuates, but is dismayed to learn that Ida has fallen under the spell of the tight-lipped Pearson, and is carrying his child. Ida is now considered an accomplice to Pearsons bloody murders, and the scene shifts to Prescott, where the couple are tried in a tense courtroom drama.
On Her Way Home, the third novel in Harriet Rochlins acclaimed Desert Dwellers Trilogy, is good-hearted, action-packed, and full of the rugged frontier spirit of Arizona in the 1880s. Told from the viewpoint of a strong-minded young Jewish woman, this western has a cast of fresh and believable pioneer characters—women, Jews, Mexicans, Chinese, Papagos, and Anglos from many segments of American society, from horse-traders and mule-drivers to pompous politicians.
Praise for Harriet Rochlins Desert Dwellers Trilogy
Rochlins Desert Dwellers Trilogy combines authentic details of Jewish settler life, colorful characters and...enough period charm, crackling storytelling and priceless details to satisfy devotees of both wild west lore and Jewish history.
—Publishers Weekly
Rochlin is a superb interpreter of Jewish types and Jewish activities in the West, and her talents as a writer are impressive. She gets it all in—the harsh realities along with the shining illusions, shame and sin along with joy and triumph, courage and hope along with despair—but best of all, the juices of life flow in every man and woman.
—C.L. Sonnichsen
Author of From Hopalong to Hud: Thoughts on Western Fiction
Harriet Rochlins On Her Way Home is one great story, deftly written, sure to become an instant classic. This is life as it still is; this is love as its meant to be. Rochlin combines a page-turning historical courtroom thriller with a passionate rendering of family, misfortune, and faith. She gives us a story powerful enough to apply to our contemporary life with detail enough to make us believe weve stepped back in time. Most importantly, through the Levies and Goldsons passion and pain, Harriet Rochlin pierces every heart, giving back a slice of hope and history we never knew we lost.
—Jane Kirkpatrick
Award-winning author, No Eye Can See
FLAP COPY: Historian/novelist Harriet Rochlin, a native of Los Angeles, www.rochlin-roots-west.com, has spent three decades recording in fact and fiction the lives of Jews, women, and other little-known westerners. Her landmark social history, Pioneer Jews:
A New Life in the Far West (Houghton Mifflin), in print for sixteen years, was recently released in an updated edition. The first two volumes in her extraordinary Desert Dwellers Trilogy, The Reformers Apprentice and The First Lady of Dos Cacahuates, were published by Fithian Press/Daniel & Daniel.
Hard Times, Frazzled Family Ties, and Tin Horn Justice
in the Arizona Territory
Six years in Dos Cacahuates, five failed businesses, a third child on the way, and Bennie still wont budge. Nor will Frieda, until catastrophe strikes. Her sister Ida, a dazzler at fourteen, comes to visit, and is invited by cultivated easterners on a scenic wagon tour. En route, the hired hand Frieda recommended kills the easterners and kidnaps Ida.
When the Yavapai County sheriff arrests the missing suspects, Friedas in for more bad news. Terrified of and controlled by her captor, Idas filthy, foul-mouthed, pregnant, and headed for jail. Now Frieda must wean Ida from her captor and coach her through two murder trials. Blamed by her San Fran-cisco family, at odds with her husband, misused by corrupt public officials, and shunned by Prescotts wary Jewish elite, strong-minded Frieda Goldson learns where and with whom she belongs.
On Her Way Home, the third novel in the acclaimed Desert Dwellers Trilogy, is set in the tumultuous 1880s. Friedas determination to return Ida to her parents takes her from the fringes to the center of territorial society and thrusts her into dealings with Arizonans of diverse cultures, occupations, classes, and moralities. Authentic and exciting, this is western historical fiction at its best.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780974134949 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Roots West Press |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2001 |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d) |
| Age Range: | 16 Years |
About the Author
Born in Boyle Heights, a Los Angeles neighborhood, Harriet Rochlin grew up attached to its foods, languages, and multicultural social clime. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Hispanic America at the University of California, Berkeley, married, had four children, and became a freelance journalist. In the early 1960s, excited by the emerging ethnic history movement, she launched a quest for Jewish roots in the Spanish, Mexican and American West. Her pursuit has reaped 26 articles; 114 speeches; the landmark illustrated social history from Houghton Mifflin, Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West (co-authored with Fred Rochlin); and two Western Jewish collections — one historical, the other photographic — both at UCLA Charles Young Library, Special Collections.
To probe deeper, she created a fictional trilogy: The Reformer's Apprentice: A Novel of Old San Francisco ("Rochlin is a superb interpreter of Jewish types and Jewish activities in the West...but best of all the juices of life flow in every man and woman." C.L. Sonnichsen, Journal of Arizona History); The First Lady of Dos Cacahuates ("The author serves up enough period charm, crackling storytelling and priceless details to satisfy devotees of both wild west lore and Jewish history." Publishers Weekly); and On Her Way Home ("Rochlin offers a fascinating tale of the Old West from a Jewish perspective that is not often found in books, while her expertise in early Arizona life will appeal to all western aficionados." Booklist—American Library Association).
In 2011, Harriet completed the first current and comprehensive guide to 38 Western Jewish historical societies, museums and archives founded in the last fifty years. The Rochlin Guide can be found on her website, www.rochlin-roots-west.com.
She is currently completing A Mixed Chorus: Jewish Women in the American West, 1849 to 1924, a documentary, social, pictorial history.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
It's My Fault and Yours Too
FRIEDA EASED her pregnant body out of the large, carved walnut bed in the family quarters of their hotel and tiptoed to the wash basin on the bureau. "Everything's going to be all right," she muttered as she washed the hot night's grainy residue from her face and arms. Nothing had ever been all right in Dos Cacahuates. She rinsed her mouth with the tepid water, then sprayed it on the shriveled potted palm nearby. We're doing all we can, she grumbled silently. Asking stage drivers to keep their eyes open and writing to sheriffs on the Rutherfords' itinerary was not doing all they could.
As Frieda slid her arms out of her nightgown and into a loose, white cotton dress she heard Bennie yawning and clearing his throat. A moment later, her naked husband ambled to the chamber pot in the corner, and then to the wash basin. Frieda grabbed her worn hightops.
"Where you off to, Fried'?"
She wriggled her feet into her shoes and reached for her ragged straw hat.
"Fried'?"
"The First Lady."
"To do what?"
He'd wrapped a towel around his midsection and was moving through the furniture-choked room toward her.
Frieda told him what, but not why.
"Eight months pregnant, least a hundred and five degrees by noon, and you're going to spend the day in that hot box making green corn tamales?"
Gathering her curly brown hair into a topknot, she dangled a foot at her husband.
He dropped to his knees to tie her shoelaces. "You're worn out. Why don't you loll around the hotel today?"
"Doña Eufemia suggested a remedio."
"Like what?"
"Fix a delicious homecoming supper and then repeat three times, venga, venga, mi amor, su cena está lista para—" His quizzical look halted her. "I can run back and forth to the lookout point all day, or I can make green corn tamales. Which would you prefer?"
"What time's supper?" he called as she headed for the door.
At ten that morning, Frieda was standing at a table in the tiny, torrid kitchen of the First Lady Restaurant husking newly picked corn. A wet cabbage leaf lay on her head and fat drops of water trailed down the sides of her round, flushed face. With her was Soo Fat, her helper. A mess boy on Chinese vessels since he was twelve, Soo had jumped ship in Guaymas in 1883 when he was sixteen and had hopped a ride on a wagon train headed for Dos Cacahuates. When a wily prospector about to give up and get out heard Soo had one hundred and fifty dollars, he hustled him to the First Lady where he wooed him with Frieda's machaca. Two days later Frieda made the mess boy turned mine owner an offer: meals, a bed, and ten percent of the restaurant's eventual profits.
When the heat in the First Lady kitchen wore down the seafaring boy, he amused himself and Frieda by poking fun at their fellow Dos Cacahuatans, at last count, eighty-nine and dwindling.
That afternoon's target was Mrs. Bidenbach, the owner of Der Edelweiss, a three-table restaurant next to Frieda's five-table. Hand on his thin hip, his face wrinkled with distaste, Soo shrilled, "Tamayess tainted. Better you eat mine veenahsneetzel." Encouraged by Frieda's chuckle, he dropped his knife and moved center stage. Skinny rear end thrust back, concave chest pushed forward, he hissed, "Mrs. Goldson's tamayees no good, you womit for a veek."
"Womit a veek?" Frieda played along, then reconsidered. "A thousand miles from home, and not a clue of how to get back. What do we want from that poor widow?"
Soo was back at her side at the table when Bennie shuffled in. She knew that to be the case because creaking door hinges, Soo's flashing knife, and flying corn kernels were part of her mental image of her husband coming through the door, letter in hand. She knew at once something was wrong. Bennie was hatless. He always wore his tan Stetson, especially in the June heat. He was silent. Even when they were mad enough to throw knives at each other, he greeted her. He appeared grief-stricken. Bennie and grief were not on speaking terms.
"Something's happened," Frieda said, dropping the corn husks from her hands.
He nodded, his brown eyes lowered, his fingers running through his curly red hair.
"To the Rutherfords."
Her husband affirmed her guess with a mournful nod.
Swaying precariously, one hand on her bulging abdomen, the other splayed against her cheek, she croaked, "Bennie, not Ida.
He grabbed a chair from alongside the wood stove and eased her into it.
"Tell me Ida's all right," she pleaded.
"Appears to be."
"Where is she?"
He tried to speak. No sound came out. Jaw muscles clenched, he thrust the letter into his wife's hand.
The letterhead read Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, Office of Sheriff Alton C. Follett. It was dated May 30, 1886. Frieda searched through the dense sentences until she found the words that had muted her husband.
"Richard, Evaline, even little Penelope murdered?" She let the letter fall into her lap, unable to swallow the vile news in a single gulp. "Some kind of joke, isn't it? Six years and your stupid pals still think they're toying with a tenderfoot."
"No one's joking," Bennie said, his voice soft with regret, his hand cupping her shoulder.
Frieda shrugged it off. "Where is she?"
"With Pearson."
"Thank God, thank God." Frieda picked up the letter again and tried to read, but her eyes wouldn't focus. "How did the sheriff know to contact us?"
"He had that letter I wrote."
"Where are Pearson and Ida now?"
"They were last sighted in Kanab, Utah, six miles north of the Arizona border."
"When?"
"May third."
Frieda's eyes sought her husband's. "Today's June fifth."
He turned away, wincing.
"Bennie, look at me. Pearson did in the Rutherfords?"
He cranked his head in her direction. "So it seems."
"Now he's got Ida. What does he want with Ida? She's barely fourteen, and so tiny and delicate she looks eleven." Rising, Frieda rasped, "Oh my God, I recommended Pearson to Richard Rutherford."
"Pearson agreed to work for food and a mount. Richard had eight inches, fifty pounds, and a wagonload of wit on the little runt. Besides, Pearson was unarmed, Rutherford made sure of that, and he had a small arsenal."
"He was hard-working, courteous—"
"Things happen, Frieda. You can't blame yourself."
"I do blame myself and you, too." She said, chin jutting. "Everyone with a lick of sense left Dos Cacahuates years ago."
"No use getting into that now."
"'Ida's as safe with the Rutherfords as at home on Tehama Street,'" she said, mimicking her husband's country drawl. "All you care about is proving Bennie Goldson right and—" Rage mottling her shock-blanched face, eyes glassy, she was swaying like a drunk.
"You need to calm down, sweetheart." As he spoke, Bennie came toward her, one arm extended, one hand pulling a small bottle from his pocket. Hoisting her upright, he raised the smelling salts to her nose. She batted his hand aside. With a beckoning glance, Bennie summoned Soo. His thin face mirroring Frieda's distraught state, Soo rushed to Bennie's side. Clutching her head as though it belonged to a chicken about to be butchered, he cried, "Breathe, Doña Fridita, breathe."
Frieda inhaled once, then again. As her head cleared, another blow landed. "Oh my God. My father told me not to let her go. He'll hold me r-r-respons—" she stammered, gasping for air—"sible." Tears bounced off her cheeks and on to the embroidered birds on the bodice of her dress.
"We'll think about your father later," her husband soothed.
"I've got to find her," Frieda sputtered, lumbering toward the door.
Bennie darted in front of her, arms spread. Teeth bared, she threw herself against him, pummeling his chest and kicking his shins, until, begging her not to hurt herself, he gave way.
Outside Frieda fixed her gaze on the wagon road just beyond the empty, heat-baked main street lined with mostly boarded-up stores. She started walking, Bennie and Soo at her heels. Passed Der Edelweiss, Chevalier's Livery, she was approaching Goldson Brothers General Merchandise when the fetus inside her shifted from her left to her right side. She stopped and pressed her hand against a protruding knob. A rush of water swooshed out of her, wetting her legs, her dress, and the sand beneath her feet. She looked down at the darkened area, then back at Bennie and Soo.
"Find Ida later," Soo urged. "You can't go nowhere now."
Stunned by his contorted features, trembling limbs, and tear-glazed eyes, Frieda's legs buckled.
Her husband slipped an arm around her waist and gathered her against his wall-like bulk. "We'll get you up to the hotel. Angelina will see to you, and I'll get Ramón to take the boys down to their house for the night."
As she inched up the slope between the men, she gave Soo instructions. "Finish the tamales. You know what to do. Use only the good white cheese in the cooler. Don't skimp. Remember, Soo, no lard, just butter, but not too much, the Rutherfords don't like greasy tamales."
* * *
Several hours later, Frieda awoke from a laudanum-induced sleep, a band of pain circling her lower back and pelvis. The labor was as swift and brutal as the news that had precipitated it. She screamed until she was as hoarse as a mule driver and thrashed her arms and legs as though she were being murdered. Bennie and Angelina had to hold her down to keep her from hurting herself and the baby. At the end of a two-hour-long struggle, she let out a long parturient grunt and pushed from her womb a blood-coated female infant.
"A girl, just what you wanted," Angelina cried out.
Her newly-collapsed abdomen sagging in furrows, her voice gone, her will spent, Frieda lay as still as a corpse while Angelina washed her, fixed a roll of cotton between her legs, pulled a fresh nightgown over her head, and gave her more laudanum. As the drug was dimming what remained of her battered consciousness, Frieda lay eyes closed, listening to the baby trying out her new voice.
Finally, the room was still. She felt oblivion beckon, and went to meet it, eager to escape the anguish whirring inside her. As darkness crept over her, she heard her father say, "A daughter for a daughter."
What People are Saying About This
"A swiftly placed narrative of mystery, intrigue and devotion on the Western frontier. A page turner with a Jewish twist."
—Professor of History, University of Arizona