What is a twelve year old girl to do when she finds herself in the silver boom town of Tombstone, Arizona, in 1880, and her only home is a brothel and her only parent is a drug-addicted mother? If she is Carissa Beaumont, she outsmarts the evil madam and figures a way out.
After tricking the madam, Miss Lucille, into summoning a doctor for her mother, Lisette, she discovers that Miss Lucille has been drugging her. She and the kind doctor make a plan to try to save Lisette by dosing her down on the drug.
Doctor Henderson tells Carissa that the only source for the drug is a Chinese immigrant named China Mary, who lives in Hoptown, at the other end of Tombstone. Carissa has no choice but to go to the powerful woman for help. Many say that China Mary is the one who really controls Tombstone. China Mary admires Carissa's brave spirit, and uses her influence to aid her.
With a host of colorful characters and meticulous attention to period detail, Blood and Silver is a story of the best and worst of human nature, the passion for survival and the beauty of true friendship.
What is a twelve year old girl to do when she finds herself in the silver boom town of Tombstone, Arizona, in 1880, and her only home is a brothel and her only parent is a drug-addicted mother? If she is Carissa Beaumont, she outsmarts the evil madam and figures a way out.
After tricking the madam, Miss Lucille, into summoning a doctor for her mother, Lisette, she discovers that Miss Lucille has been drugging her. She and the kind doctor make a plan to try to save Lisette by dosing her down on the drug.
Doctor Henderson tells Carissa that the only source for the drug is a Chinese immigrant named China Mary, who lives in Hoptown, at the other end of Tombstone. Carissa has no choice but to go to the powerful woman for help. Many say that China Mary is the one who really controls Tombstone. China Mary admires Carissa's brave spirit, and uses her influence to aid her.
With a host of colorful characters and meticulous attention to period detail, Blood and Silver is a story of the best and worst of human nature, the passion for survival and the beauty of true friendship.
As Carissa peeked out of the canvas-covered wagon for the first look at her new home, she asked herself for the thousandth time in four years what would become of her. Was that a pool of blood in the street?
âHere it is, Maman,â she said dully, shaking her mother gently to wake her. âTombstone, where Miss Lucille says weâll find our fortunes.â
âLet me know when I need to leave the wagon,â her mother mumbled, snuggling back into the thin mattress the women shared. Carissa sighed. She was not impressed with the coarse, gritty town. It was what was called a boomtown, since silver had been discovered there in 1877. When word got out, the town âboomed,â and on that September day of 1880, Tombstone was reaching its zenith. As soon as Miss Lucille had heard about the silver strike, sheâd begun making plans to move herself, Carissa, three of her best girls, and her black servant, Jonah, to that spot in the Arizona desert where, it was said, silver was lying in the streets for anyone to gather up. Try as she might, Carissa could not see any. 1Carissa was included in the group only because she had made herself indispensible to Miss Lucille and her girls. She could press clothing, apply cosmetics, and dress hair better than many women twice her age. Had she not been useful, Carissa thought bitterly, Miss Lucille would not have bothered with her, Lisetteâs daughter or not. They wove their way down Allen Street, choking on the dust of the passing twenty-mule teams hauling silver to the smelter just down the road. They reached Sixth Street, and Jonah, who was driving, pulled over at Miss Lucilleâs command.
Immediately, Carissa was struck by how breathtakingly intense the sky seemed. She had never been under a sky so bright and so blue before. As the mountains glistened beautifully on the horizon, she thought, Things sure are crystal clear here in the desert. This opinion instantly changed as Carissa took note of her immediate surroundings. Carissa scrutinized her new Purgatory. Allen Street was filled with shops of all kinds, and it seemed that between each shop was a saloon, where crowds of rowdy men were getting drunk and playing cards. It did not look like San Francisco, but it did resemble how she had been told San Francisco looked in 1850, right after the discovery of gold at nearby Sutterâs Fort. The miners had descended in hoards once word of the strike was out. They were quickly followed by the saloon keepers and the gamblers and then the storekeepers and the prostitutes, all the latter preying on the weakness of the poor men who came west with a dream they might strike it rich. The ones who followed usually fared better than the miners. A usual phrase of the day was, âWhy work the mine when you could mine the miners?â
Many of the buildings appeared to have been put up in a hurry, using whatever materials were at hand. Jonah stopped the wagon in front of a half-finished building at the end of the street. Beyond that, scattered on the hillsides, were hundreds of canvas tents that seemed to stretch for at least a mile. âPlease,â Carissa prayed, âlet us be in a house with a roof and a floor, and not in one of those tents!â Miss Lucille hefted her bulky body off the wagon seat, with Jonahâs assistance, and surveyed her new base of operation.
âWell, ladies, we made it,â she announced grandly. âAnd just look at all those miners!â she exclaimed as she gazed down the hill at one of the several silver mines that operated just blocks away.
âThe place is crawling with lonely men who have silver in their pockets!â Elise, the youngest of Lucilleâs âladies,â jumped down from the wagon agilely. âI smell money,â she told Carissa, who joined her in the street, stretching her cramped legs. âI smell a lot of things,â Carissa returned, turning up her pert nose at the odor of the smelters, the unwashed bodies, and the animal offal that attacked her senses. She alone had enjoyed the wagon trip from San Francisco. She loved sleeping and cooking outdoors and being out of the crowded city. Miss Lucille told Jonah to ask around for Rose Red, and he shuffled around the corner. Elise pointed at a building across the street. At eighteen, she was only six years older than Carissa and still had some of her childish enthusiasm.
âCarissa! Look over there! See the beautiful gowns in the window of that store? Itâs just like Miss Lucille promised! So elegant!â
Carissa followed her gaze to the window of a store that bore a sign âM. Calisherâs General Merchandise,â but she didnât respond. To her, there was nothing appealing, much less elegant, about this stinky town. Yvonne, Eliseâs older sister by five years, had been observing from the back of the wagon. It was obvious that the two were sisters; despite the age difference, they were nearly identical, with their high cheekbones, lush curves, and leaf-green eyes. The only difference was that Yvonneâs hair was flame-red and Eliseâs was soft-blonde. Yvonne had run away from their hometown of Council Grove, Kansas three years ago with a handsome gambler who had turned out to be exactly what her father had told her he wasâno good. The couple made it all the way to San Francisco, where he promptly found another woman and left Yvonne in the streets. She had wandered into the club owned by Miss Lucilleâs boyfriend and had been with her ever since. Last year, Elise managed to escape their strict, overbearing father and joined her sister at Miss Lucilleâs.
âOh yes,â Yvonne said cattily, âelegant is the word. Grow up, Elise!â
Then she looked at Carissa. âShould I wake up the princess?â she asked, referring to Carissaâs mother.
âGo ahead,â Carissa told her wearily. âGive it a try.â Sometimes Carissa liked Yvonne, but sometimes she didnât. But she always liked Elise and was sad that Yvonne had ruined her sisterâs small pleasure. She attempted to make Elise feel better. âElise, look at the store next door to the gowns. Itâs a shoe shop.â
Eliseâs good humor returned immediately, and they continued to point things out until Jonah returned.
âYou was right, Miz Lucille. Rose Red be right down de block der, anâ she say she bin waitinâ foâ us.â
âExcellent!â Miss Lucille said, clapping her hefty gloved hands together.
âShall we?â Jonah helped her back up on the wagon seat.
âWeâll walk,â Elise announced, linking arms with Carissa. As the girls neared the corner, they were startled by the sound of gunshots. Carissa pulled Elise into the closest store, and through the store window they watched the drama unfold on the street. Two rough-looking men, both swaying drunkenly, stood facing each other right there on Allen Street, not twenty feet away. Both men were waving their guns. âYou callinâ me a liar?â one man shouted. âNo,â the other man shouted back. âIâm callinâ you a card cheat and a liar!â Suddenly the first man raised his gun and fired. His shot went wide, but the other manâs did not. The first man crumpled in the street, and crowds rushed out of saloons to see what had happened. Carissa and Elise stood in shock, as they knew that the first man was most certainly dead. âWhat in the world kind of place have we come to?â
Blood and Silver by Vali Benson is a fascinating YA western historical fiction novel. I don't often read westerns, but I am glad I decided to give this a chance thanks to Reedsy Discovery. I wasn't familiar with the author or the novel going in, but it ended up being such a pleasant surprise. It's a short and quick read, but the characterizations, the setting, and the world-building really make this novel stand out from the crowd. Â
Carissa, our MC, is now one of my favorite young adult leading characters and she is only twelve years old. Usually, I would say that with such a young character at the helm that would place this in the middle grade category instead. However, the heavier subject matter and Carissa's life experiences certainly place the book in the young adult category. She has a lot on her plate with her mother, her mother's health, and the brothel where her mother is employed. Her mother's well being is always at the forefront of her mind. When Carissa learns that the brothel's abusive Madam has been drugging her mother, Carissa is willing to do whatever takes to help her mother recover and get well again. She's quite a brave girl and her journey over the course of the story is very inspiring. I do wonder though how well a reader from the YA target audience would would take such a young main character. Anyway, as admirable as I found Carissa, I would say the most intriguing character of the story is easily China Mary. I had no idea that she was a real person in historic Tombstone, Arizona. She was a well-respected and shrewd businesswoman at the top of the Chinese community in Tombstone. I would love to learn more about her life. Â
Overall, Vali Benson's Blood and Silver is well worth your time if you enjoy standalone historical fiction with characters that walk right off the page and a setting of a real Old West town that's practically a character in its own right. I'm looking forward to reading more from Benson in the future. Thanks again to Reedsy Discovery for the opportunity and introduction. Â