A Tourist in Tombstone -- Jacob and the KGB
By Tom Barnes
Researching a Legend Part 2 Jacob and Natalie lived out the war years in Rostock as Fritz Heimann’s children. Their father’s Pissarro hung on the living room wall and became a larger than life beacon of hope, for the youngsters, which helped to sustain the memory of their parents. But near the end of the war that symbol was shattered when a Nazi Special Detail came and took the painting away Jacob was bright and always near the top of his class. He entered the University of Rostock, and as a way to break from the past he immersed himself into his studies and absorbed the indoctrination to the Communist System. Jacob was especially interested in the political, economic, and social theories advanced by Marx and Engel’s. It was during his sophomore year when he first began to think about a possible career in politics. But while Jacob was consumed by the socialists’ ideology, it offered no appeal to Natalie. During those post war years she was desperately searching for her Jewish roots, and eventually joined a small clandestine group that had begun to study the Torah. He accepted and following his preliminary indoctrination into the agency he was ordered to Moscow for special training. More Sidney Sheldon on his approach to the novel. ‘I dictate the first draft of my novels to a secretary. When the first draft is typed – and it usually runs between one thousand and twelve hundred pages – I go back to page one and start a rewrite. Not a polish – a complete rewrite. I will often throw away a hundred pages at a time, get rid of a half dozen characters and add new ones. Along the way, I constantly refine and tighten. When I get to the end of the book again, I go back to page one. I repeat this process as many as a dozen times, spending anywhere from a year to a year and a half rewriting and finally polishing, until the manuscript is as good as I know how to make it.’ Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
On the Ground in Tombstone
I was excited to actually see the town of Tombstone as I drove past the city limits sign. I found the motel I had booked, checked in and unloaded my bags. I doubt that I spent ten minutes in the room. I walked out to those dusty streets of Tombstone just to get a sense of place. The first day I didn’t carry a notebook or recorder, didn’t want to inhibit the atmosphere. All I wanted to do was walk, look and listen to the sights and sounds of tourist chatter and local small talk.
From reading and studying maps I had an idea of how the place looked in 1881, and of course the streets were the same today, but the buildings were a different story. Some of the 1881 buildings no longer existed and some had been refurbished. But not so many as to break that image a tourist might form of how it was.
Today’s Tombstone is not quite a circus, but more like the old county fairs once were with barkers hawking the next reenactment of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, or ‘Come on down to the Bird Cage Theatre and take a walk into the past.’ Then you spot a museum that sells the old Tombstone story and pictures of the Earps and Holliday along with the dead outlaws resting in their coffins.
Locals dressed in costumes impersonating some of the main players in the 1881 shootout Wyatt or Morgan Earp, Doc Holliday and Ike Clanton, were among those I saw. Those local performers would engage small groups of tourist then talk about and answer questions from their character’s point of view. I listened to those I encountered and heard several good exchanges between local performers and well-read tourists.
Late that evening, back at my motel, I could still recall the cacophony of street sounds and talks about the way it was from that afternoon experience. But somewhere underneath I had a sense that old Tombstone of 1881 was alive and well. And if I looked and listened hard enough I’d find a way to sort out the truth from the myth.
I took out my maps to get an idea about the country surrounding Tombstone and the places I wanted to see. Of course many of the small towns and mining camps no longer existed, but I still wanted to find those locations if for nothing more than place and their location relative to Tombstone.
It was early in the morning when I drove southwest out of Tombstone on the old Charleston Road toward the San Pedro River. As I drove along enjoying the cool morning I thought about the silver mines that were the original draw to Tombstone. During the 1880’s wagon roads crisscrossed the desert between mine and mill. Many of those roads wound up at the Charleston mill, but today there were few signs of that once flourishing mining industry.
I stopped short of the San Pedro River Bridge, found an off road parking space, got out of the car and began walking. There was a small stream running along the riverbed, which supplied enough water to sustain green vegetation within about 15 or 20 yards of the stream. I walked north following the San Pedro far enough to get a look at Charleston, or at least the few remaining adobe ruins that were once part of Charleston.
There was another site that interested me farther up the river, the Clanton ranch. However, from what I’d read no evidence remained that it was ever there so I turned around and walked back to the car.
I then drove over the bridge to the outskirts of Sierra Vista, turned south past Nicksville and Hereford before arriving at Bisbee. No disappointment there. The small town of Bisbee is steeped in mining history and is known more for copper than Tombstone was for silver. And the locals, just as they were in Tombstone, were eager to engage a stranger in conversation and tell the Bisbee mining story.
While I ate lunch I listened to tourist enthuse about the role Bisbee copper played in the first cable link across the Atlantic. Following lunch I drove back to Tombstone and stopped by the Epitaph Newspaper where I picked up several reprint copies of the old 1881 editions. Then I walked across the street to Red Marie’s bookstore and purchased a copy of ‘Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshal’ by Stuart Lake and a copy of ‘Doc Holliday’ by John Myers Myers.
Then I turned my attention to Fourth and Allen, the place where the Earps and Holliday started their walk with the intent of disarming the cowboys. When I got there I stood collecting my thoughts for a few minutes and then followed the same route the Earps and Holliday took on October 26, 1881 on their walk to the OK Corral.
(To be continued)
‘The Goring Collection’
Prologue Part 2
At the end of the war, with Jacob and Natalie still expecting their parents to come home Fritz Heimann finally told them exactly what had happened. “Your mother and father died at the concentration camp at Buchenwald.” Jacob’s shock at hearing the truth led him to believe that Fritz Heimann was telling a cruel joke, but Natalie recognized it for what it was and wept for days. Eventually Jacob’s questions were answered and over a period of time by using physical activities and studies, as a diversion, the hurt he felt at the loss of his parents began to wane.
Following the war Rostock became a part of the Soviet Bloc, and as a consequence the children grew up in East Germany.
Soon after Jacob’s graduation, from the University of Rostock, Communist Party officials looked at his scholastic achievements and offered him a position with the KGB.
Jacob’s trip to Moscow was exciting and filled with many challenges and hard work, the kind of environment in which he excelled. He attended classes and participated in exercises taught by instructors that were experts on the subjects. Many of the instructors were internationally known spies that notoriety had forced to retire from service.
By the time Jacob completed his course and left Moscow for his return to Rostock he had every intention of joining the secret world of intelligence gathering and espionage, but those ideas were quickly derailed. For when Jacob returned to Rostock new orders awaited him. He would be moving to the United States and assigned to work with the American Communist Party, from a position, later to be determined, in academia. Jacob didn’t question his assignment, but he was disappointed in the new job since it didn’t allow him to become a part of the Intelligence Service.
(To be continued)
Writers Notebook:
Sidney Sheldon.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com
www.TomsHurricanes.com
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