Charissa of the Overland by Phyllis de la Garza

 “Grassroots at its best.... thorough and commendable.... a delicious sense of humor.... both sympathetic and evenhanded....”

Set against the action of Quantrill’s Raiders, Westward Expansion, Indians, and unrest over the Civil War, this novel tells the amazing, story of Charissa Pankhurst, A.K.A. Charley Pankhurst in the 1860s.

Charissa’s parents died of typhoid. Southern zealots forced her much older husband and her to hide out and live in caves in the Ozarks. Her husband was mercifully shot when he contracted rabies, and the young wounded Union soldier Charissa met while living in the caves was hunted down and hanged by Quantrill’s Raiders. Feeling it her duty to tell the young man’s parents, she risked her life to get to their farm. This was Charissa’s journey of change. At the farm, needing to take control of her life, she vowed to kill Quantrill. There, sixteen-year-old Charissa clipped her hair and cast aside her calico skirts to morph into Charlie, a young man with freedom a woman could never know...then struck out for an adventure-filled life on the rough frontier.

Intending to follow through on her vow, Charlie joins the raiders, and meets Quantrill’s young wife, Kate, and Doctor Benson. Kate immediately knows Charley's secret, but keeps it because she wants a female friend to talk to. Doc Benson knows too, but his business is doctoring and getting to Texas. Charley helps the good doctor, breaks horses for Quantrill and learns to drive a buck-board. Eventually Kate tells her husband about Charley, and he too keeps the secret from his men, because he loves his wife. Charley cannot kill Quantrill and leaves the Raiders instead.  She begins to work with a 16-mule team operation, does a stint as a horse jockey, becomes a jerk-line freighter, and eventually drives the big, Concord stagecoaches across the West.

Charley's relationships with men and women exhibit humor as she perfects her walk, tobacco chewing and spitting expertise. They reach memorable proportions when squaws capture her spying on their ceremony and prepare to castrate him, only to discover “his” secret. The women collapse laughing, and Charissa makes her escape. Later, Charley becomes very close to her freight-hauling boss, and is certain that he knows she is a woman when he announces that he has a proposition to put forth. Sure that he will propose marriage, she buys a velvet dress for her unveiling. But she is mistaken. His proposition is an offer to Charley for half of the business. Those who met Charley early and recognized that he was a girl in disguise, kept the secret, did not question his motivation, and offered suggestions for appearance improvement. Charissa listened well!

Author Phyllis de la Garza’s works have been reviewed as “Grassroots at its best.... thorough and commendable.... a delicious sense of humor.... both sympathetic and evenhanded....” She is a member of Western Writers of America and a SPUR Award finalist. The author makes her home in Southeastern Arizona.