The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume One: Crimson Shadows by Robert E. Howard
So we swept down the road and around the bend and there was the stage coach coming up the road with the mayor riding alongside with his hat in his hand, and a whiskey bottle sticking out of each saddle bag and his hip pocket. He was orating at the top of his voice to make hisself heard above the racket the band was making. They was blowing horns and banging drums and twanging on Jews harps, and the hosses was skittish and shying and jumping. But we heard the mayor say, “–And so we welcomes you, Miss Devon, to our peaceful little community where life runs smooth and tranquil and men’s souls is overflowin’ with milk and honey–” And jest then we stormed around the bend and come tearing down on ’em with the mob right behind us yelling and cussing and shooting free and fervent.
The next minute they was the damndest mix-up you ever seen, what with the hosses bucking their riders off, and men yelling and cussing, and the hosses hitched to the stage running away and knocking the mayor off ’n his hoss. We hit ’em like a cyclone and they shot at us and hit us over the head with their music horns, and right in the middle of the fray the mob behind us rounded the bend and piled up amongst us before they could check their hosses, and everybody was so confused they started fighting everybody else. Nobody knowed what it was all about but me and my warriors. But Chawed Ear’s motto is: “When in doubt, shoot!”
So they laid into us and into each other free and hearty. And we was far from idle. Old Joshua was laying out his feller-townsmen right and left with his ellum club, saving Chawed Ear from education in spite of itself, and Glanton was beating the band over their heads with his six-shooter, and I was trompling folks in my rush for the stage.
The fool hosses had whirled around and started in the general direction of the Atlantic ocean, and the driver and the shotgun guard couldn’t stop ’em. But Cap’n Kidd overtook it in maybe a dozen strides and I left the saddle in a flying leap and landed on it. The guard tried to shoot me with his shotgun so I throwed it into a alder clump and he didn’t let go of it quick enough so he went along with it.
I then grabbed the ribbons out of the driver’s hands and swung them fool hosses around on their hind laigs, and the stage kind of revolved on one wheel for a dizzy instant, and then settled down again and we headed back up the road lickety-split and in a instant was right amongst the fracas that was going on around Bill and Joshua.
About that time I noticed that the driver was trying to stab me with a butcher knife so I kind of tossed him off the stage and there ain’t no sense in him going around threatening to have me arrested account of him landing headfirst in the bass horn so it taken seven men to pull him out. He ought to watch where he falls when he gits throwed off of a stage going at a high run.
I also feels that the mayor is prone to carry petty grudges or he wouldn’t be so bitter about me accidentally running over him with all four wheels. And it ain’t my fault he was stepped on by Cap’n Kidd, neither. Cap’n Kidd was jest follering the stage because he knowed I was on it. And it naturally irritates him to stumble over somebody and that’s why he chawed the mayor’s ear.
As for them other fellers which happened to git knocked down and run over by the stage, I didn’t have nothing personal agen ’em. I was jest rescuing Joshua and Bill which was outnumbered about twenty to one. I was doing them Chawed Ear idjits a favor, if they only knowed it, because in about another minute Bill would of started using the front ends of his sixshooters instead of the butts and the fight would of turnt into a massacre. Bill has got a awful temper.
Him and Joshua had did the enemy considerable damage but the battle was going agen ’em when I arriv on the field of carnage. As the stage crashed through the mob I reched down and got Joshua by the neck and pulled him out from under about fifteen men which was beating him to death with their gun butts and pulling out his whiskers by the handfulls and I slung him up on top of the other luggage. About that time we was rushing past the dogpile which Bill was the center of and I reched down and snared him as we went by, but three of the men which had holt of him wouldn’t let go, so I hauled all four of ’em up onto the stage. I then handled the team with one hand and used the other’n to pull them idjits loose from Bill like pulling ticks off ’n a cow’s hide, and then throwed ’em at the mob which was chasing us.
Men and hosses piled up in a stack on the road which was further messed up by Cap’n Kidd plowing through it as he come busting along after the stage, and by the time we sighted Chawed Ear again, our enemies was far behind us, though still rambunctious.
We tore through Chawed Ear in a fog of dust and the women and chillern which had ventured out of their shacks squalled and run back again, though they warn’t in no danger. But Chawed Ear folks is pecooliar that way.
When we was out of sight of Chawed Ear I give the lines to Bill and swung down on the side of the stage and stuck my head in. They was one of the purtiest gals I ever seen in there, all huddled up in a corner and looking so pale and scairt I was afraid she was going to faint, which I’d heard Eastern gals has a habit of doing.
“Oh, spare me!” she begged. “Please don’t scalp me!”
“Be at ease, Miss Devon,” I reassured her. “I ain’t no Injun, nor no wild man neither. Neither is my friends here. We wouldn’t none of us hurt a flea. We’re that refined and soft-hearted you wouldn’t believe it–” At that instant a wheel hit a stump and the stage jumped into the air and I bit my tongue and roared in some irritation, “Bill, you condemned son of a striped polecat, stop this stage before I comes up there and breaks yore cussed neck!”
“Try, you beef headed lummox,” he invites, but he pulled up the hosses and I taken off my hat and opened the door. Bill and Joshua clumb down and peered over my shoulder. Miss Devon looked tolerable sick. Maybe it was something she et.
“Miss Devon,” I says, “I begs yore pardon for this here informal welcome. But you sees before you a man whose heart bleeds for the benighted state of his native community. I’m Breckinridge Elkins, of Bear Creek, where hearts is pure and motives is lofty, but culture is weak.
“You sees before you,” says I, growing more enthusiastic about education the longer I looked at them big brown eyes of her’n, “a man which has growed up in ignorance. I cain’t neither read nor write. Joshua here, in the painter skin, he cain’t neither, and neither can Bill”
“That’s a lie,” says Bill. “I can read and–ooomp!” I’d kind of stuck my elbow in his stummick. I didn’t want him to spile the effeck of my speech. Miss Devon was gitting some of her color back.
“Miss Devon,” I says, “will you please ma’m come up to Bear Creek and be our schoolteacher?”
“Why,” says she bewilderedly, “I came West expecting to teach at Chewed Ear, but I haven’t signed any contract, and–”
“How much was them snake-hunters goin’ to pay you?” I ast.
“Ninety dollars a month,” says she.
“We pays you a hundred,” I says. “Board and lodgin’ free.”
“Hell’s fire,” says Bill. “They never was that much hard cash money on Bear Creek.”
“We all donates coon hides and corn licker,” I snapped. “I sells the stuff in War Paint and hands the dough to Miss Devon. Will you keep yore snout out of my business?”
“But what will the people of Chewed Ear say?” she wonders.
“Nothin’,” I told her heartily. “I’ll tend to them!”
“It seems so strange and irregular,” says she weakly. “I don’t know.”
“Then it’s all settled!” I says. “Great! Le’s go!”
“Where?” she gasped, grabbing holt of the stage as I clumb onto the seat.
“Bear Creek!” I says. “Varmints and hoss-thieves, hunt the bresh! Culture is on her way to Bear Creek!” And we went fogging it down the road as fast as the hosses could hump it. Onst I looked back at Miss Devon and seen her getting pale again, so I yelled above the clatter of the wheels, “Don’t be scairt, Miss Devon! Ain’t nothin’ goin’ to hurt you. B. Elkins is on the job to perteck you, a
At this she said something I didn’t understand. In fack, it sounded like a low moan. And then I heard Joshua say to Bill, hollering to make hisself heard, “Eddication my eye! The big chump’s lookin’ for a wife, that’s what! Ten to one she gives him the mitten!”
“I takes that,” bawled Bill, and I bellered, “Shet up that noise! Quit discussin’ my private business so dern public! I–what’s that?”
It sounded like firecrackers popping back down the road. Bill yelled, “Holy smoke, it’s them Chawed Ear maniacs! They’re still on our trail and they’re gainin’ on us!”
Cussing heartily I poured leather into them fool hosses, and jest then we hit the mouth of the Bear Creek trail and I swung into it. They’d never been a wheel on that trail before, and the going was tolerable rough. It was all Bill and Joshua could do to keep from gitting throwed off, and they was seldom more’n one wheel on the ground at a time. Naturally the mob gained on us and when we roared up into Bowie Knife Pass they warn’t more’n a quarter mile behind us, whooping bodacious.
I pulled up the hosses beside the tree where Jack Sprague was still tied up to. He gawped at Miss Devon and she gawped back at him.
“Listen,” I says, “here’s a lady in distress which we’re rescuin’ from teachin’ school in Chawed Ear. A mob’s right behind us. This ain’t no time to think about yoreself. Will you postpone yore sooicide if I turn you loose, and git onto this stage and take the young lady up the trail whilst the rest of us turns back the mob?”
“I will!” says he with more enthusiasm than he’d showed since we stopped him from hanging hisself. So I cut him loose and he clumb onto the stage.
“Drive on to Kiowa Canyon,” I told him as he picked up the lines. “Wait for us there. Don’t be scairt, Miss Devon! I’ll soon be with you! B. Elkins never fails a lady fair!”
“Gup!” says Jack, and the stage went clattering and banging up the trail and me and Joshua and Bill taken cover amongst the big rocks that was on each side of the trail. The pass was jest a narrer gorge, and a lovely place for a ambush as I remarked.
Well, here they come howling up the steep slope yelling and spurring and shooting wild, and me and Bill give ’em a salute with our pistols. The charge halted plumb sudden. They knowed they was licked. They couldn’t git at us because they couldn’t climb the cliffs. So after firing a volley which damaged nothing but the atmosphere, they turnt around and hightailed it back towards Chawed Ear.
“I hope that’s a lesson to ’em,” says I as I riz. “Come! I cain’t wait to git culture started on Bear Creek!”
“You cain’t wait to git to sparkin’ that gal,” snorted Joshua. But I ignored him and forked Cap’n Kidd and headed up the trail, and him and Bill follered, riding double on Jack Sprague’s hoss.
“Why should I deny my honorable intentions?” I says presently. “Anybody can see Miss Devon is already learnin’ to love me! If Jack had my attraction for the fair sex, he wouldn’t be luggin’ around a ruint life. Hey, where’s the stage?” Because we’d reched Kiowa Canyon and they warn’t no stage.
“Here’s a note stuck on a tree,” says Bill. “I’ll read it–well, for Lord’s sake!” he yelped, “Lissen to this.”
Dere boys: I’ve desided I ain’t going to hang myself, and Miss Devon has desided she don’t want to teach school at Bear Creek. Breck gives her the willies. She ain’t altogther shore he’s human. With me it’s love at first site and she’s scairt if she don’t marry somebody Breck will marry her, and she says I’m the best looking prospeck she’s saw so far. So we’re heading for War Paint to git married.
Yores trooly, Jack Sprague.
“Aw, don’t take it like that,” says Bill as I give a maddened howl and impulsively commenced to rip up all the saplings in rech. “You’ve saved his life and brung him happiness!”
“And what have I brung me?” I yelled, tearing the limbs off a oak in a effort to relieve my feelings. “Culture on Bear Creek is shot to hell and my honest love has been betrayed! Bill Glanton, the next ranny you chase up into the Humbolts to commit sooicide he don’t have to worry about gittin’ bumped off–I attends to it myself, personal!”
Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die
The Black Door gapes and the Black Wall rises;
Twilight gasps in the grip of Night.
Paper and dust are the gems man prizes–
Torches toss in my waning sight.
Drums of glory are lost in the ages,
Bare feet fail on a broken trail–
Let my name fade from the printed pages;
Dreams and visions are growing pale.
Twilight gathers and none can save me.
Well and well, for I would not stay:
Let me speak through the stone you grave me:
He never could say what he wished to say.
Why should I shrink from the sign of leaving?
My brain is wrapped in a darkened cloud;
Now in the Night are the Sisters weaving
For me a shroud.
Towers shake and the stars reel under,
Skulls are heaped in the Devil’s fane;
My feet are wrapped in a rolling thunder,
Jets of agony lance my brain.
What of the world that I leave for ever?
Phantom forms in a fading sight–
Carry me out on the ebon river
Into the Night.
Appendices
ROBERT E. HOWARD
Twentieth-Century Mythmaker by Charles Hoffman
Robert E. Howard’s most famous creation, the indomitable barbarian warrior Conan, was introduced in the December 1932 issue of the pulp magazine Weird Tales. For the first story in the series, Howard provided a brief preface that served to set the stage for Conan’s debut:
Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars–Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.
Earlier, the editor of Weird Tales had requested some biographical information about the young author himself. Howard’s response painted a very different picture:
Like the average man, the tale of my life would merely be a dull narration of drab monotony and toil, a grinding struggle against poverty. I have spent most of my life in the hard, barren semi-waste lands of Western Texas, and since infancy my memory holds a continuous grinding round of crop failures–sandstorms–drouths–floods–hot winds that withered the corn–hailstorms that ripped the grain to pieces–late blizzards that froze the fruit in the bud–plagues of grasshoppers and boll weevils…
I’ve picked cotton, helped brand a few yearlings, hauled a little garbage, worked in a grocery store, ditto a dry-goods store, worked in a law office, jerked soda, worked up in a gas office, tried to be a public stenographer, packed a surveyor’s rod, worked up oil field news for some Texas and Oklahoma papers, etc., etc., and also etc…
Finally, Howard was moved to conclude, “And there I believe is about all the information I can give about a very humdrum and commonplace life.”
Many years later Mark Schultz, illustrator of The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, recalled:
I discovered Robert E. Howard’s Conan in 1969, when I was thirteen years old. I read the stories then for their incomparable high adventure and mind-blasting horror. It wasn’t until
Howard often discussed his writing with a young schoolteacher named Novalyne Price, who had literary ambitions of her own. Late in life, Price wrote a memoir of Howard entitled One Who Walked Alone (subsequently adapted into a touching motion picture, The Whole Wide World ). Price recalls mentioning to Howard that she wanted to write about “real people with real problems.” Howard, however, had little interest in writing about the world he saw around him, which he once characterized as “a dreary expanse of sand drifts and post-oak thickets, checkered with sterile fields where tenant farmers toil out their hideously barren lives in fruitless labor and bitter want.” In defense of his own fiction, he asserted:
The people who read my stuff want to get away from this modern, complicated world with its hypocrisy, its cruelty, its dog-eat-dog life…The civilization we live in is a lot more sinister than the time I write about. In those days, girl, men were men and women were women. They struggled to stay alive, but the struggle was worth it.
H. P. Lovecraft, with whom Howard corresponded regularly, once noted a curious paradox. Lovecraft observed that a great deal of fiction that purports to be about everyday life is actually quite often rife with sentimental distortions. Howard himself expressed a similar view: “Nobody writes realistic realism, and if they did, nobody would read it. The writers that think they write it just give their own ideas about things they think they see. The sort of man who could write realism is the fellow who never reads or writes anything.”