Andy Christ's Blog

Whip Hand by Joseph Chadwick

Whip Hand by Joseph Chadwick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I noticed the title "Whip Hand" and author name Joseph Chadwick in the Spring or Summer of 2018 one morning when I was getting ready to go to work and had an episode of the "Cheyenne" TV series playing on the "Heroes and Icons" station; when the credits rolled, I noticed the novel was credited as a basis for the episode, which was titled "Top Hand".

Managed by the Lenniger Literary Agency, which was active from 1926 to 1975, Chadwick was a prolific author of more than 90 novels who began writing in 1935 in Chicago, apparently as a journalist, for the Chicago Daily News. Most of his novels were westerns, spy stories, or other tales of suspense. This paperback noir/hard-boiled western, published in 1953 by paperback publisher Gold Medal of Fawcett Publications, seems to be one of his better-remembered if not better-selling efforts.

As I remember it, little besides the setting of the Wyoming Territory maps from the novel to the "Top Hand" episode of the "Cheyenne" TV series.

Near the beginning of "Whip Hand", we learn through a bit of backstory that Ed Sands, a man in his 40s, decided to leave Texas and make a life for himself using his skills to work on a ranch in the so-called Wild West of the Wyoming Territory. In 1879, as ranch boss at the Diamond K ranch for Phil Kimbrough, a wealthy man who decided to leave his home near the East coast to make a life for himself by founding and overseeing the Diamond K, Sands meets Nora Beach, a lovely local woman. Although they don't become lovers, Nora and Ed do realize they have strong feelings of love for each other. Ed learns, among other things, that Nora's father struggles to find regular employment due to another struggle he has with alcohol consumption. Nora's mother is not mentioned. Nora and Ed, each making their own way in the world, decide to marry.

Unfortunately, Sands' boss decides he'd like to have Nora for himself, and he uses his wealth, power, and influence (the so-called "whip hand") to lavish her with his attention and gifts after sending Sands away on Diamond K business. Nora, perhaps a bit naive, perhaps, as Ed says later, "a little mixed up", agrees to Kimbrough's proposal of marriage, realizing too late she has made a mistake. Sands, feeling cheated, among other things, quits his position at the Diamond K ranch and finds a cabin near the ranch to live in for the time being. The cabin is owned by Hank Jessup, who is convalescing in nearby Wellsville with a case of rheumatism.

The storytelling sweeps the reader along as the adventure unfolds from the opening scene, where Sands is hunting an elk not far from Jessup's cabin. Sands sees Nora ride by (we never learn why she is out in that particular place and time by herself) and Kimbrough riding not far behind her. Later, at home, unconvinced that Nora has no more feelings for Sands, Kimbrough tries to beat a confession from her. She flees to Sands for protection, and Sands takes her to her father's home in town before returning home himself. The next day Sands is driven violently from the cabin by former co-workers (Kimbrough is there to direct the violence, including the burning of the cabin, but does not himself get physical with Sands). Sands has become the target of Kimbrough's mortal hate.

Sands' character is revealed a bit further when Ed goes to Wellsville to talk to Hank Jessup directly following the burning of the cabin. We don't learn much about Mr. Jessup, but it seems he and Ed get along very well. Ed tells him, for instance, that he and Nora were to be married before Kimbrough involved himself. When Ed tells him that Kimbrough had his staff burn Jessup's cabin to the ground, Hank responds with kindness, advising Ed to not seek revenge, although that particular word, revenge, does not appear anywhere in the narrative. Although Jessup tries to dissuade him, Sands has his mind made up. "...if I'd been a big man like Kimbrough," Sands tells Jessup, "not he nor anybody else would have taken Nora away from me...I've got to quit being a little man for everybody to kick around." Jessup is understanding: "I've thought the same thing a thousand times in my life," the old man said. "It's easier said than done."

If it wasn't clear earlier, it is now: Ed Sands is the protagonist of this narrative. His drive to become a big man sets in motion the adventure of the novel.

One of the remarkable things about this book is the setting of the Wyoming Territory of 1879. The way we as Americans understand ourselves is influenced by how we remember and talk about the so-called Wild West, also known as the American frontier. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis" - that democracy in the United States was formed by the expansion westward across the continent, emerging from forests, as it were - has been particularly influential in this regard. The characters of "Whip Hand" do work that relates directly to this type of work of expansion, something like the work of the vaquero tradition of northern Mexico and in the same tradition that can be traced further back in time to Spain. Before them was the land where indigenous people roamed; with them and after them came perspiration, plots of property, homes, general stores, courage, and violence, among other things, including something like genocide.

Although Native Americans don't enter into the narrative of "Whip Hand", the pioneering work done by the characters of this narrative--mainly the cattle drive and the establishment of a ranch with the intention to undertake subsequent cattle drives regularly--was the same sort of work that was done by pioneers and cowboys who made it easier for people to move there from the East Coast, making the genocidal tendency of "manifest destiny" a matter of course with regard to the development of markets, towns, farms, etc. that were hospitable to Americans. Here we can see why violence is so much a part of this history. The westward pioneering expansion wasn't a matter of colonialism in the sense of attenuating the native political system in the service of hegemony. It was government leaders buying land, and then it was people doing the work of obtaining some of that land to farm it or to operate a business on it. Refusing to surrender their autonomy but agreeing to surrender the use of the land, the natives suffered nearly to the point of extinction.

Partly the expansion was a consequence of developing a railroad that went into the Wyoming Territory. In "Whip Hand", the railroad appears as something so reliable that Ed could show up at the station in Cheyenne for the 4:10 westbound train at 4:05, which he did when Mr. Naylor and his crew, including his daughter Laurie, were heading to Baker City, Oregon, to purchase the cattle that they will drive to the Wyoming Cattle Company ranch in the Wyoming Territory, which they will found when they get there.

Here we have another indication of how profoundly the work on the American frontier affects our understanding of ourselves as Americans even today. In "Whip Hand", Ed and Will Naylor discuss the need for equipment to mark the cattle as their own soon after the cattle are paid for. Sands tells Naylor,

"...we'll start branding these cows for the trail."
"You have irons made up?" asked Naylor.
"No," Ed told him.
"We'll have to, if we brand WCC for the Wyoming Cattle Company."
"What's wrong with your old Bar N iron? I figured we'd stick to it," said Ed.
Naylor said, "Well, if you say so," but in spite of his casual tone, he was pleased. A man got to be fond of his own brand and would much sooner change his name. That was something Sands understood, and Laurie did too. She had been listening to the conversation, and after her father went to dig his branding irons out of one of the wagons, she moved closer to Sands.
"That was a nice gesture, Ed," she said.
"Just wanted to save the cost of new irons," Ed replied.
"You say," she said.

Though the context of branding has changed, marketers today understand the profitability of customer loyalty to a brand.



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