Beyond the Black River. Robert E. Howard
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2007 by Paul Herman.
Cover art copyright © 2007 by Stephen Fabian.
All rights reserved.
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
INTRODUCTION, by Damon C. Sasser
Barbarians and Indians: The American Frontier Meets the Hyborian Frontier
Robert E. Howard was born and raised in Texas during the early 1900s, a time not too far removed from the days of the Old Frontier. While growing up, Howard talked to many old timers who still recalled the days when Indians were a threat to the frontiersmen and danger lurked at every turn of the road. Howard’s bookshelf was also well stocked with books on the West and the colorful characters that populated it. So it’s not surprising that he wrote so convincingly of it, particularly during the later years of his short writing career.
This seventh volume of Weird Works contains “Beyond the Black River,” universally recognized as one of the best Conan stories Howard wrote. This tale was a departure from Howard’s other stories of the Cimmerian in that it takes place in the lush forests and the winding rivers of the far-flung Pictish Wilderness. The buckskin-clad Aquilonian settlers and log structures are strangely out of place in “Black River;” a big departure from the exotic settings of other Conan stories. But this is just what Howard was trying to do — break the mold and expand the possibilities by bringing the American frontier to his imaginary Hyborian world. Further, this Conan story has no sexy females in it, either as heroine or villainess, but neither did it skimp on the other elements of a good Conan yarn — sorcery, intrigue and mayhem.
Here is a statement made by Howard to girlfriend Novalyne Price in 1935 shortly after selling “Beyond the Black River” to Weird Tales that reflects his fervent desire to write a definitive novel of the American Frontier:
“I wouldn’t say this to anybody but you, but, by God, I know what I can do. I love this country, and I know damn well I can write about it. I know damn well I can write a novel that will move, be about people facing real odds.” He became exuberant. “I tried that yarn out to see what Wright would do about it. I was afraid he wouldn’t take it, but he did! By God, he took it!”
The plot of “Black River” is a classic one, a story of a modern civilization pushing deep into the frontier, infringing on the territory of the local inhabitants and their way of life. While there are some parallels with James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Howard, did not own a copy of the book. However, it is certainly possible he read it in school or “borrowed” it during one of his many late night forays to public libraries in the surrounding towns. It’s easy to see where Fort Tuscelan and the Picts could be substituted for Cooper’s Fort Will Henry and the French and the Hurons, with the Pictish Wilderness taking the place of Colonial New York state. Howard did own copies of several books by Robert W. Chambers, another writer of frontier fiction. He even derives a few names from Chambers’ books for “Beyond the Black River.”
The story is fast-paced with Conan and the settlers fighting an evil Pictish wizard named Zogar Sag, as well as the united tribes of Picts who are intent on driving the settlers out of their territory. It’s a violent death-race as Conan and his fighting companion Balthus cut and slash their way to the settlement in an effort to warn the settlers and get them to safety. Of particular interest here are the characters of Balthus and Slasher, who appear to be Hyborian döppelgangers for Howard and his dog Patches. By the end of the story, the conflict between the settlers and the Picts has cost many lives and nearly wiped out the Aquilonian frontiersmen. One of the few wounded surviving foresters speaks these words that are usually attributed to Conan:
“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarism must ultimately triumph.”
It’s a reference on the outcome of this tale as well as Howard’s own beliefs that modern civilization was a decadent and dying venture, and that it would be purged by barbarism, just as civilizations of the past had fallen under the sandaled feet of various barbarian hordes.
A Western-like setting was also used for the Conan story “Jewels of Gwahlur.” It takes place in an underground natural cavern setting filled with fantastic caves and subterranean rivers, much like Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, which Howard visited shortly before writing this story. Howard, still excited from his visit to the caverns, writes to H. P. Lovecraft:
“God what a story you could write after such an exploration! . . . Anything seemed possible in that monstrous twilight underworld, seven hundred and fifty feet below the earth. If some animate monster had risen horrifically from among the dimness of the columns and spread his taloned anthropomorphic hands above the throng, I do not believe that anyone would have been particularly surprised.”
The plot of this tale involves Conan scheming to outwit a rival, Thutmekri, and steal the treasure of an evil priest named Bit Yakin, who has a gang of violent gray semi-intelligent apes as his servants. Of course there is a pretty slave girl named Muriela involved, which complicates things somewhat for Conan. Howard channels his enthusiasm from his trip out west into “Jewels” and again brings a bit of the American Frontier to his Hyborian world.
With “Shadows in Zamboula” Howard abandons his Western locales and returns to more conventional Hyborian terrain — a god-forsaken desert town named Zamboula located in an area comparable to the present day Middle East. But even here one can easily imagine Conan as a down-on-his-luck gunfighter, with little more to his name than his weapon, being taken advantage of by the evil saloon/hotel owner. Unlike a typical western story, “Shadows” features bad men of a difference sort, with Conan facing men more barbaric than he in the form of blood-thirsty cannibals, an assassin who strangles women and children and a sorcerer who delights in tormenting a girl with four deadly cobras. Needless to say, all are meted out justice in Conan’s own unique way by the end of the story.
In addition to these three Conan stories, two more offerings from Howard round out this collection: “The Grisly Horror,” a tale of shuddering terror in the piney woods and slimy marshes of the Old South, and the round robin weird fantasy story “The Challenge from Beyond.” All of these stories will send you to far away frontiers where men struggle with the ages old conflict between good and evil and leave you wanting more.
THE GRISLY HORROR
Weird Tales, February 1935
1. The Horror in the Pines
The silence of the pine woods lay like a brooding cloak about the soul of Bristol McGrath. The black shadows seemed fixed, immovable as the weight of superstition that overhung this forgotten back country. Vague ancestral dreads stirred at the back of McGrath’s mind; for he was born in the pine woods, and sixteen years of roaming about the world had not erased their shadows. The fearsome tales at which he had shuddered as a child whispered again in his consciousness; tales of black shapes stalking the midnight glades. . . .
Cursing these childish memories, McGrath quickened his pace. The dim trail wound tortuously between dense walls of giant trees. No wonder he had been unable to hire anyone in the distant river village to drive him to the Ballville estate. The road was impassable for a vehicle, choked with rotting stumps and new growth. Ahead of him it bent sharply.
McGrath halted short, frozen to immobility. The silence had been broken at last, in such a way as to bring a chill tingling to the backs of his hands. For the sound had been the unmistakable groan of a human being in agony. Only for an instant was McGrath motionless. Then he was gliding about the bend of the trail with the noiseless slouch of a hunting panther.
A blue snub-nosed revolver had appeared as if by magic in his right hand. His left involuntarily clenched in his pocket on the bit of paper that was responsible for his presence in that grim forest. That paper was a frantic and mysterious appeal for aid; it was signed by McGrath’s worst enemy, and contained the name of a woman long dead.
McGrath rounded the bend in the trail, every nerve tense and alert, expecting anything — except what he actually