The Whip
Praise for Karen Kondazian’s THE WHIP
“You won’t know what
The Whip
means until you read this fascinating book. It’s a piece of the Old West, a part of America’s past, told with amazing authenticity.”
—Thomas Fleming,
New York Times
best-selling author of
Conquerors of the Sky
“Take it from someone who’s had firsthand experience with great art exploring the human spirit in a Western setting: Karen Kondazian’s
The Whip
is just that. This is a story that cries out through its adventurous surroundings—a call from deep in the human heart, a call for understanding, for love, for identity—and it does so through the skill of a magnificent writer. (It also cries out to be a movie. It’s that rich, visual, and dramatic.)”
—Jim Beaver, star of HBO’s
Deadwood
and author of
Life’s That Way
“Karen Kondazian’s
The Whip
is a cracking good story with more twists and turns than a wagon trail through the mountains. Kondazian takes what could be a hackneyed adventure tale of Charley Parkhurst’s gender-shifting revenge and imbues it with surprising tenderness and yearning.”
—Edward Achorn, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of
Fifty-nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had
“
The Whip
is one of the best books I’ve read in long time…a real page turner. I didn’t want it to end and it stayed with me long after I put it down. I’ve noted quotations from the book that I continue to revisit because they struck such deep chords in me. I laughed and cried. The experience reminded me of reading
Lonesome Dove
—you go on a true journey with the characters, especially our hero/heroine, Charley Parkhurst, and you don’t have to be a fan of Westerns to love it. The novel is inspired by the extraordinary true story of one of the first stagecoach drivers of the Wild West, so you get a bit of a history lesson, and the writing is poetic and poignant, making you feel as if you are right there with the characters—feeling what they’re feeling, smelling the smells, seeing the sights, tasting the grit, and experiencing their love, joy, pain and the all the nuances in between. The story is unusual, complicated, fast-paced, and beautifully written. It’s quite simply, epic. I can’t wait for the movie version!”
—Elise Ballard, author of
Epiphany
The Whip
by Karen Kondazian
Copyright © 2012 by Itzy. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60182-303-8
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of historical fiction and includes background material about the historic stagecoach, freight and banking company called Wells Fargo & Co., which was active in the American West in the mid-19th century. No sponsorship or endorsement by, and no affiliation with, the contemporary company known as Wells Fargo is claimed or implied.
The epigraph for Book One: Louis L’Amour,
Lonely on the Mountain
, Bantam, 1984. Reproduced by permission.
Book design and typography by Jon Hansen
Cover design by Jeffry A. DeCola
Hansen Publishing Group, LLC
302 Ryders Lane
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
Author web site
Contents
For my mother Lillian Marie and my father Varnum Paul…
for giving me the resources to find my way in this world,
for helping me to understand, as Charley Parkhurst did,
what one must sacrifice
to embrace a life of freedom.
In Blackwater Woods
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
From AMERICAN PRIMITIVE by Mary Oliver. Copyright © 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 by Mary Oliver. By permission of Little, Brown and Company
In researching this book, I found many contradictory statements regarding the facts and dates surrounding the life and legend of Charley Parkhurst and of the history of the Old West. I chose to come as close to the facts as possible while still staying true to the story of Charley’s life that I imagined. Some historical details are invented.
— Karen Kondazian
November 2011
Of course great curiosity is excited as to the cause that led this woman to exist so many years in such strange guise. There may be a strange history that to the novelist would be a source of inspiration…
— Watsonville Pajaronian
from Charley Parkhurst’s Obituary
January 1, 1880
Letter to the Reader
Boston, Massachusetts
January 27, 1901
As a young man, in the year of 1879, I made the trek out West to California to write my first article for the
Boston Globe
. The point of my journey was to interview the last of a dying breed, the stagecoach drivers or whips as they were called. I was instructed by my editor to listen to their stories, to hear their true voices, in particular around the subject of the demise of the stagecoaches—which were being devoured by the railroads, bite by bite.
Whilst on my job there, I met a fellow, an old timer and well known whip from the Wells Fargo line, one Charley Parkhurst. He gave me his voice on these matters, but more vital than that, he gave me the unique understanding of how adventure, freedom and loneliness seem to go hand in hand.
Less than eight months later, on the morning of December 31, 1879, I read an obituary on Charley. He had passed away at the ripe old age of 67. His mysterious and out of the ordinary life reminded me of a quote by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—“life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent.” It got me to thinking that someday I wanted to write a novel about Charley and of that fabled time in our history.
And so, after years of procrastination, of struggling to put pen to paper, I now deliver my book to you. My genuine hope is, that in this tale you find not only some entertainment and pleasure but more important, that Charley’s story might illuminate as Shakespeare wrote, “What a piece of work is a man…”
—Timothy Byrne
Book One
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.
That will be the beginning.
— Louis L’Amour
Lonely on the Mountain
One
California
May 8, 1879
He looked like a craggy yellow toothed god.
One-Eyed Charley sat high up on the driver’s box balancing the reins of the six-horse team. He pinched out a chaw of tobacco and placed it in his cheek. The stagecoach was swaying, cracking, bouncing—wooden wheels sloshing on sun parched earth turned to mud. The horses executed his commands with precision. His twelve foot snake whip snapped over their heads as his shouts and curses drove them forward.
Riding in the honored seat beside Charley, on his run from San Juan Bautista to Santa Cruz, was a young journalist, Timothy Byrne.
Byrne snuck a look at the driver.
Charley sat holding the reins in his gloved hands, chawing his tobacco, staring raptly ahead, a black patch over his left eye. He had a polished granite face, a natural man whose features were etched by careless exposure to sun, wind, and rain. He was covered from head to toe with dirt and mire, a notable contrast Byrne thought, to the precision and elegance of his hand movements. The way he fingered the reins brought to mind a concert pianist. Byrne had heard that old Charley Parkhurst was one of Wells Fargo’s most adept drivers…that he could get his coach along twisting roads in the dead of night as a dog can follow a trail by his nose. He had heard Parkhurst could swear the dust off the streets. And he had heard of his sterling reputation for safety, punctuality, and for dealing with whatever came along—floods, rockslides, bandits…even neophyte newspapermen from Boston.
Byrne tried to shout out his questions to Parkhurst. Much to his chagrin, the earsplitting sounds of the coach made it impossible for him to make clear a full sentence, let alone to hear an answer. He would just have to find a way to get his interview at the end of the journey…maybe buy the whip a whiskey or two at the local saloon in Santa Cruz.
Since there was no possibility for a conversation at this juncture, Byrne sat looking out over the passing terrain…engulfed by all the sensations of this vast, unencumbered land. Some senses were familiar, like the pungent smell of horse and the musky scent of old leather. Some foreign…flowers and plants of various sorts, wet sweet grasses, sagebrush maybe? And then there was that sky. He had never seen in all his life a sky hanging so near. It was as though all that heavy azure might wrench itself free from the Good Lord’s hand and plummet to the earth. The blue was dotted with Mourning Cloak butterflies. It took his breath away. He wished his Elizabeth were here to see it.
Out of nowhere it seemed, a pair of eagles appeared in the sky. They were clasping talons, yelping, squawking, and spiraling towards the ground.
“What the hell are they doing?” he shouted over the sounds of the wheels and hooves.
“Fucking,” Charley yelled back.
“In the air?”
Charley ignored him. Then he saw why.
They were fast approaching something of a disturbing nature, a creaky and most dubious looking construction of boards spanning a roiling gap. According to his calculations, this must be the California Pajaro River. He shot Charley a tentative look. Of course Parkhurst wasn’t really going to try to cross. God Almighty, he himself wouldn’t have walked across that bridge.
He saw Charley raise the long whip, cracking it over the heads of the horses. And with a terrifying jerk that raised the hair on his balls,
the stagecoach picked up speed. The team plunged ahead with a wild leap onto the rotting, weather-eyeleted bridge. The brown waters, swollen from yesterday’s rain, were edging toward the bottom of the rickety boards. The horses were pulling like all creation.
Charley shouted at the top of his lungs, “Hang on everybody. We’ll save what’s left of you.”
From inside the coach came a great feminine scream, broken off no doubt, by the very sort of dead faint that Byrne himself felt half-inclined to fall into. The sound of the coach wheels clattering over the bridge and the pounding of the hooves vibrated to his bones. He could not help but think of the weight—there was almost a full load of passengers plus luggage. And Oh Mary, Mother of God, wasn’t the bridge sagging below them? Wasn’t that a snapping noise? And wasn’t that the groaning of wood?
Frantic, he turned to look at Charley and saw an amazing thing, a face transcendent with pleasure, a face living a perfect moment in time. He turned to look back over his shoulder. The bridge was already disappearing, its supports tumbling into the water, the water splashing up and gulping it whole. But now, thank Heavenly God, below him, the comforting sound of hooves on rock-solid earth.
His heart was pounding so violently in his head that he was aware of nothing at all except that he was alive. Oh God, yes. Yes. He would marry Elizabeth, give up journalism and write his novel. If he could just stop panting.
Charley reined the horses down to a slow walk.
At last Byrne could pry his frozen fingers from off the guard rail.
“Close call,” he said. His mouth was so dry that his teeth caught on his lip.
Charley gave him a wide cheerful grin. “Not to worry. Never had an accident on a run. Mean to keep that score.” He pinched out a fresh chaw of tobacco. “And I’m also damn careful who I take a bath with.”
Byrne tried to laugh but instead, a peculiar sound like the breaking of wind came out of his throat. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small silver flask and held it out to Charley.
“Not on the job, son. Apologies if you had some anxiety. That goddamn bridge was hale and hearty when we crossed over her last week. Never know what the damn weather will do to them.”
Charley then with great care, almost delicately, spit his tobacco juice at a passing bush. “But hell, been doing this so long, just trust in my craw to get me through. Never let me down yet.”
Just then the stagecoach hit a chuck hole in the road. Byrne couldn’t help it…his stomach rose to his throat. He grabbed onto the guard rail and began to retch over the side.
Charley laughed and laughed, the sound, a deep croaky hoot.
In a few minutes Byrne sat up straight again. “Sorry about that. I don’t know how the hell you can do all this every day.”
“Shit. You been doing this as long as I have, your guts would love it too.” Charley gave him a smile. “And you know what, son? I done my share of thinking about life, the way a man does when his clock starts to winding down; and whilst I never been one to be shook hard over heaven, I do believe we are guided at times by an invisible hand.”
“Well, here’s to the invisible hand.” Timothy raised his flask and took another swig of whiskey.
Charley gave a loud whoop, cracked the whip and the coach lurched on towards Santa Cruz.