“At times they vowed sacrifices to idols in their heathen

Tabernacles, in prayers implored the slayer of souls to afford

Them help against the sufferings of the people.”

BEOWULF

The sun sank westward, washing the sky in pale blues drifting into a faint, golden horizon. The rising wind tinged with mist that threatened rain. Cullen halted for a moment beneath one of the arching, gothic canopies of twisted oak and alder trees. Somewhere in the distance, he caught the scent of smoke on the breeze and strained to see the argent wisps threading upwards against the waning sunlight.

Riding swift across the uneven forest road, he came soon to a rough expanse of brush and prayed the shadows would prove sufficient canopy. Gradually, as violet night crept on apace, he beheld the looming specter of a village through the trees. As he slowed his chariot and drew nearer at a trot, he saw it was a large settlement situated in a vast, deforested glade along the face of a thick forest of dusky, gnarled willows. It was bordered on the opposite side by a vast, shallow river choked with boulders and serpent roots.

Darkness fell as his chariot rattled over the uneven glade towards the bank of the river. He drew to an abrupt halt before it, narrowly missing the black line of wooden hedgehog beams that bristled forwards with pointed stakes glinting in the pale moonlight. He silently thanked the heavens that his approach had not been at a gallop. Dismounting there, he gazed along the expanse of the barrier which seemed to stretch for some hundred feet along his side of the riverbank while another curled around the edge of the village itself still some two hundred yards away. Loth though he was, he spoke gently to Liath and Dubh and bade them wait as he left them on the riverbank and made the crossing on foot.

Clambering carefully across the barricade, he darted quickly to the next and crossed at last to the border of the wattle and daub cottages he could now see bordered by tall grasses and flickering pale in red firelight. Slipping silently between the cottages, he could see the thoroughfare was deserted and that the light came rather from the wooded edge of the village. Curiosity now more than shelter prompted his movements, though he was ever wary of the silent corners where shadows flickered with shambling mockeries of life, and his fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword as he unslung and donned his shield.

Before long, he cleared what he soon realized was a zoned corner of the settlement divided by wide, sharp roads that cut them to shape like blocks and passed through an open, central courtyard headed by an earthen rampart in a deep ditch in the shape of a V. He noted with wonder as he passed the ditch that it gleamed with a trove of golden coins and bronze weaponry. Atop the rampart was set a heavy, timber palisade concealing its mysterious chamber or courtyard from the world and decorated with the skulls of bulls and bears.

He might well have delved into that plunder with itching fingers, had not the bellow of a distant horn torn his gaze to the trees. Closer now than before, he could now hear the faint keening of chants on the night air, and he trembled within for a moment before steel seeped into his bones, and he pressed forwards with a dark glare.

Over all shrilled a call like the warbling scream of a death whistle over the sharp rattle and thrum of cymbals and drums. Thrum, thrum, thrum, rattle and thrum came the ceaseless dance of the night music that beckoned to him in the night, stirring his blood to a fury—an ecstasy and anger he could not have named but as madness. Deep within him came the drumbeat of his heart in tune to the savage call, stirring his feet to a reckless speed.

He burst onto the opposing end where the music shrieked to a fever pitch and the glade ended in a sudden scarp and debouched into a lower plain beyond. The breath sucked through his teeth, and his feet rooted in place at the weird sight before him.

In the lower plain which rounded into the forest edge like a full moon, he beheld a vast concourse of somber suppliants kneeling or standing stoically before the forest edge where rose a great, black standing stone hewn with spiraling intaglios, between the forest and a pale stone table. Several suppliants swayed and trembled before the black stone as if an unseen wind rustled their bodies like blades of grass in the lurid crimson of their torches, their keening chant echoing into the dark forest. Those standing solemnly were robed in white, their faces concealed beneath low hoods as they gazed upon the ceremony with an icy solemnity.

Yet it was not this ghastly ceremony nor the monolith itself which gripped and held Cullen’s startled gaze. Upon the altar lay a supine form, supple and motionless, which he realized was that of a woman, naked but for the loose, silken, side-less garment which seemed to hover over her like gossamer, and the golden armlets that coiled around her slender arms like serpents. Her golden hair rippled like waves of sea about her shoulders and spilled over the altar stone like a waterfall. The slight heave of her breast as in slumber alone belied the vitality of that alabaster beauty.

A beshrouded form like a vulture swept before her, cutting the girl off from Cullen’s view. With his back before the onlookers, a man Cullen took to be a high priest stood garbed in a flowing, crimson cloak his arms thrust wide in fanatical gesticulation to the impassive, black monolith. His warbling cries reverberated off the towering pillars as his hand flashed with the black glimmer of a broad, leaf-bladed dagger.

Madness overcame the Ulaid. Savage and battle hardened though he was, to see the tender flesh of an innocent writhe beneath a knife incited a boiling rage within him. With a panther like leap, he bounded upright and forward a step, wrenching back the corded thews of his shoulders and casting his spear with a blinding thrust.

The spear sang through the darkness and tore through the robed back with a rending of flesh and bone. The ritual cry of the priest broke on a gasping note as his lips burst in a terrible scream. The revelers fell silent and frozen as the dead man crumpled upon the grass, blood oozing from his left breast where the spearpoint had pierced through cleanly.

Cullen was frozen and nearly as astonished as the throng just before their voices split the silence with a medley of yells. As before, his body reacted while his mind still reeled. When scores of white robed figures descended upon him with howling fury, it was with a wolfish snarl that the first attacker fell headless from the sudden flash of Cullen’s sword. With barking cries of rage, the standing acolytes flung themselves upon the desecrator, hacking at him with their narrow bronze swords and dirks while the other revelers scattered to avoid the carnage. Heaving up his broad shield, Cullen battered and ducked away from their blows, his movements as swift and nimble as they were devastating in their power. His flickering blade made shimmering waves in the firelight, checking the feint of an acolyte before bringing the edge of the shield down on his wrist. When the dagger fell with a splintering of the wrist, he spun and drove his blade between the man’s shoulders before he had time to scream. Checking the charge of another assailant, he carried the motion with a swing, splintering the man’s jaw with the iron boss of his shield and driving his nose into his brain.

When the white acolytes beheld the mad warrior driving through their ranks in a red mist and seeing their leader pierced before their altar, they turned and fled tripping over the prostrate figures that cowered before the carnage. Their cries faded into the shadows of the leaning forest until all was silent.

The remaining suppliants looked upon the red ruin of butchered bodies scattered around the altar where enough blood flowed to slake the thirst of a thousand, gluttonous gods. Then they looked upon the saturnine warrior standing amidst the carnage, his weapon and armor besmeared with blood with mingled awe and dread.

Cullen heeded not the many gazes but glaring a moment at the tree line with reckless challenge, he dried his sword in the tall grass. Then, his shoulders heaved in a deep sigh that seemed both relieved and somewhat grim. Sheathing his sword at last, he turned and strode back across the battlefield, heedless of the fallen bodies in his wake or the scrambling figures making a frantic path for him.

When he reached the altar, he lightly touched the brow and cheeks of the unconscious girl. Drugged, he concluded silently, noting her shallow breathing and the redness of her cheeks. He promptly bent, lifted her gently in his arms, and marched silently and stolidly back towards the village. The drums in his heart had softened, their echo fading into the back of his mind with flashes of the bloodied bodies, whispering, Thrum, thrum, thrum, rattle and thrum. The wolf has come. The wolf has come. Drink, drink, drink, drink. Oh, rise, oh wolf, and kill and eat, and kill and eat, and kill and eat.

That night had been endless and ephemeral as a dream, for Cullen passed it sleepless and alert, watching the flickering torches fade from beyond the door of the stables. The torches faded to stygian blackness that weighed upon him like the sea whose hissing spray and lapping waves ever called to him in dreams. Then, beams of sunlight broke upon his dreary thoughts, and he lifted his eyes to behold a cherubic, bearded face framed in the doorway. He could smell outside the savory sizzling of meat cooked on hot stone and the sweet spices bubbling in a cooking pot.

The barrel-chested old man stroked his beard as he stepped through the doorway. When he spoke, his guttural tongue rolled and nigh trilled with a sibilant tone which Cullen had come to know in travels. “What a wonder! Did you sleep at all yesternight, stranger? For your bearing remains unchanged as the wooden idols.”

“Nay,” replied Cullen in a low voice. “I slept not.”

The old man nodded absently, gazing over the mighty form of the stranger. “What are you called, stranger?”

“I am Cullen of Uladh,” he replied. “I am a wanderer and a freebooter seeking charter in the Ligurian Sea that I might sail to Achaea and find gold or glory selling my sword to the Achaeans.”

“I am Brixus, chief of the Morvani. I have not seen men of your like in these lands. You came like a demon from the fields, and ten acolytes fell beneath your blade.”

Cullen gave no comment but stared silently a moment at a far corner of the stable. “Where is the girl?”

The old man continued to stroke his beard and narrowed his eyes. “Naria,” he affirmed as if recalling a distant memory. “She was promised to Karnorix.”

“Where is she?” Cullen’s voice cut in icily.

“She is well, stranger, as you shall soon see,” assured Brixus with a wave of his hand. “But why have you struck so bloodily into our ceremony? Why have you interrupted these rites we have kept for centuries since the lands first sundered?”

“It is a savage, nay, a beast that would see a woman slain so,” replied Cullen with a glare, a hint of danger seeping into his voice. “What black rites could be so ancient and sacred to men that they would suffer innocent flesh beneath a knife? I have seen the rites of base heathens and those that feast on the flesh of men for strength. What rite or sacred pledge would you proffer me that a girl should fall prey to such savagery?” His back was straight, and there was a challenge now in his bearing.

A shadow fell across the brow of the chieftain, and he hung his head. “These are dark lands, Cullen of Uladh, ruled by dark sorcery, and their tribute is paid in blood. Long has Morbihan been in thrall to the forces of Karnorix, the black sorcerer of the forest. Listen, and I shall tell you of the ancient curse that pollutes this land.”

In the time that followed, while Cullen ate and drank the stew and mead brought to him, Brixus spoke with him at length and told him how they came to be in thrall to this ghastly sorcerer.

The Armorians of that region had come from the south after warfare with the neighboring Latini, who were steadily driving many tribes to the coast or to seek refuge in Iberia. They had settled in the shadow of the forest to situate their town on the bank of the river and to take advantage of the good game found in the forest near the coast. They had formerly come with some quantity of wealth and the intent to trade with neighbors using the river. Yet their progress became stifled by the onset of plague and winter which bound them there.

In the shadow of winter, they soon found that they were not alone in those lands, for those who sought the forest for wood to warm their homes and cook their food trespassed unwittingly upon a hunting ground of creatures faceless and woven from the fabric of the night. With them came the raids of a savage people, men of a dusky skinned race and lean, hairless bodies who descended upon their fields and herds like ravenous wolves. Young women and children began to disappear, the once fertile ground became barren and ashy nearest the trees, and the river itself became tainted for a time. When three young hunters strayed into the forests, seeking to locate the source of the corruption, the night air was filled with the distant, endless cacophony of their screams. In the gray light of dawn, their heads were seen mounted from branches at the forest edge.

When the Armorians prepared to leave that country and circle around by way of the coast, they found only more of the raiding hordes who cut off their escape and drove them back the way they had come. Then came the acolytes, the men robed in white from the trees who proclaimed to them that to trespass on their sacred lands and to take from their forests had forfeited their right to flee, for they had tasted of the land of Karnorix and were now his subjects.

The Armorians balked at this subjugation and attempted to slay the thralls of the forest king, but their forces were driven back to the river, and in a massacre that swept over the village, all but five of the founding families were decimated. For their defiance, Karnorix demanded a tribute in blood. Each of the five families must offer a firstborn daughter every year, chosen by lot, to be sacrificed at the standing stones.

“So? And what is this Karnorix?” queried Cullen over his mug of golden mead.

“No man knows, for none have seen him. Only his acolytes carry his word. We know not whether he be a chieftain, a sorcerer, or a god, but like a god he demands blood. His command seems to work the very beasts to his will, for they descend upon us if tribute is not paid, and doubtless they shall fall upon us again tonight. We have satisfied them from time to time with tributes of gold and weapons, but even these begin to dwindle. We cast our treasures now to the river, striving to cure the taint that often corrupts it.” He abruptly leaned in and gripped Cullen by his brawny arm. “I beg you save us from this nightmare! You have seen the gold and treasures we have paid, perhaps in vain, to tickle the ears of a river god. It is yours! As much as your chariot can hold! If you fancy a woman of our tribe—she is yours! Only, defend us from these Karnori!”

The thought of the gold and treasures piled in the pit tickled the back of Cullen’s brain. What’s more, the allure of battle had already ensnared his heart. He had heard the kettle drums of war and joined with the song of steel. Glory lay for a man who triumphed this endeavor, and if death truly met him here, then it would be a death most glorious. So, with the reckless fatalism which marked his kind and the allure of combat and boon, he took the hand of the old man in a firm grip.

When at last his meal was finished, Brixus guided him out to meet the warriors of Morvana. With them, he also met an old man in a green hooded cloak who leaned upon an ash staff. He was the local priest—a reader of stars and keeper of the old law. With him came the warriors of the village who had heard of and seen the resultant carnage of this new warrior.

“I am Crixus,” introduced the old priest with a bow. “In times past, my father, and his father before him held the holy priesthood of the stars. When the days were young, our people often moved by the stars, seeking new land to graze cattle when the signs told us to move. We remained a few moons, took only what we needed to grow and flourish, and then moved to new climbs. Thus we often traded with those we encountered and so sustained our wayward society.” He wagged his grey head sadly. “Too long have we abided here, and in such land we cannot flourish. I have ever lifted my voice to the gods, pleading for deliverance.” He clasped Cullen firmly by the forearm. “Well met we are, oh champion of Uladh! You come under a favorable star!”

Cullen could only nod grimly, speaking not his quieter thoughts and of the doom that ever barked at his heels. Nor spoke he of the banshee and the ill omens of the gulls.

A scarred and sinewy warrior stepped forth, his features like wood engraved and framed by the braided strands of blonde hair that draped over his shoulders. “I am Casticus, champion of Morvana and commander of her forces. These are my boyhood companions and men-at-arms,” he gestured to the ten men arrayed at his back. “Our guard watched as you fell upon the ceremony. In truth we thought the gods had come to claim our blood for these pagan rites, for we have never seen a man of your like upon these shores.”

“For that reason you did not join the acolytes in their fight?” Cullen queried somewhat sardonically.

“He is a fool that would lift a hand when ill fortune befalls his oppressor,” replied Casticus. “Yet we shall lift a hand for you. Hereon be all our hands pledged to you. Command us as you will.”

He extended an arm which Cullen took in friendship, and so too did he take the arms of the warriors gathered there. Four of their number he came to know well and shared drink with them, these being the sons of three houses—Cailos, Arvernus, and Monaeus and Toutiorix, twin brothers of the house of Moromar. When he had greeted each of their number, he retrieved his chariot from beside the river, fed and watered Liath Macha and Dubh Sainglend, and saw to it they were richly stabled and tended to.

At sundown, when labors were done and Cullen had overseen the reinforcement of the river, he joined the merriment of the Morvana. The drums were stricken up once more, stirring men’s blood to revelries, and the daughters of the tribe danced in trailing silks before the bonfire while crouching players beat their cymbals and drums and struck up the primal call of the woodwinds. He even took up his own bone pipes to join with the wild jigs of his homeland and the mournful tunes of sea shanties.

Then the procession of dancers parted like waves before the woodwinds, and forth came the girl whose flesh Cullen had spared from the knife. Naria! Jewel of the house of Crixus, his only daughter. She danced to the trill of the woodwinds and the beat of the drums—she danced for him alone. She waltzed with the dancing flame of the bonfire, her body a gleam of ivory beneath the sleeveless dress of shimmering yellow like the summer sun.

On she danced and on he played—two souls entwined in the ecstasy of revelry their passions dancing with the drifting embers waltzing with the curling smoke among the stars.

Share

There's no beating around the bush. William Patrick Murray was the Christopher Tolkien of the pulps, particularly of Walter B. Gibson’s groundbreaking superhero and pop culture icon, The Shadow. The man devoted his career to the chronicling of Gibson’s monumental life and career, and while many may know him in the world of comics as the co-creator of Squirrel Girl with Marvel's Steve Ditko, to fans of the pulps, he will be remembered as a great steward of the pulp hero pantheon, contributing his own works to their copious canon, from The Spider, to Tarzan, to, most especially, Doc Savage, for whom he contributed a whopping twenty-two novels, often using unfinished outlines by Lester Dent himself and writing under the original house name of Kenneth Robeson.

Murray was born on April 28, 1953 and grew up in Boston Massachusetts. Becoming inundated in pulp fandom from a young age, he became an avid collector of pulp magazines and wrote two psychological profiles of Doc Savage for The Doc Savage Reader. He continued writing for fanzines like Skullduggery and Duende, creating for the latter, The Duende History of the Shadow Magazine, foreshadowing his burgeoning fascination and documentation of the character and his origins. In 1979, he became the literary executor of Lester Dent's estate and held the position until his death, freeing him during that time to pen his own stories of Doc.

“In early 1969, I had just started buying paperback novels and was looking for something new. I was already reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I guess I was looking for something heroic. Maybe it was James Bama’s superheroic image of The Man of Bronze, but I bought that book, read it, and couldn’t get enough of them. I was soon writing articles for fanzines. After reaching out to Lester Dent’s widow, Norma, we began an extensive correspondence. I eventually became the literary agent for the Dent estate. The sale of a previously unpublished Doc Savage novel — THE RED SPIDER — to Bantam Books opened the door to many things. PYTHON ISLE, my first Doc novel was based on a rejected Dent outline from 1934. Although it took a decade to reach print, when PYTHON ISLE was published, Bantam asked for more. I’ve now written 23 Doc Savage novels, most of them based on Lester Dent’s material.”

-Will Murray

He even adapted Dent's The Thousand-Headed Man as a six-part serial for The Adventures of Doc Savage on NPR in 1985, sharing in the radio history of pulp icons like Walter B. Gibson. From 2006 to its unfortunate discontinuation, Murray acted as consulting editor for the Sanctum Books reprints of The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Avenger, and The Whisperer, which helped introduce myself and many other latecomers to the landmark adventures of pulp fiction's greatest heroes.

“That is the secret of Doc Savage’s appeal. He inspires. The fact that he is so multifaceted means that he motivates people to take whatever inspiration they choose from his superlative example. If Doc was only a scientist or a doctor, his inspiration would probably be limited to those two fields. This is what lifts this character head and shoulders above all adventure characters, whether they be Tarzan of the Apes or James Bond, or you name it. And let’s not forget that the creators of Superman, Batman, Star Trek, the Fantastic Four, the Man from UNCLE, Buckaroo Banzai and others, all ransacked Doc Savage when creators their iconic characters. It’s not for nothing that Lester Dent is sometimes called “the Father of the Superhero.”

-Will Murray

Beyond the hero pantheon, he also contributed stories to Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos, appearing in multiple collections and anthologies. Frankly, the man dabbled in everything but the Hyborean Age. His association with Lovecraft went beyond literary contributions, as he also organized The Friends of H.P. Lovecraft who fundraised for the dedication of a memorial plaque for the author at the John Hay Library at Brown University. Among his other literary bona fides, he penned at least ten original Sherlock Holmes tales collected in five volumes of The Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Murray was a man’s man of the pulp world, a maven of many genres and formats from literature to comics to radio and more, devoted to their preservation, proliferation and teaching. He did more than laud the pulps and adventure novels of yesteryear—he put his money where his mouth was and earned his place alongside the greats. He set the record straight on the pulps and their place in American pop culture and cultural identity, and he made no bones about the scions who gleaned or outright stole from the pulps, standing on the shoulders of giants to fashion an American conception of heroes that has subsisted for the better part of a century and birthed a multi million dollar industry in comics, films, television and beyond.

It is this giant we tragically lost last week at the age of seventy-three, and while his influence may go largely unnoticed, situated as he is in the shadow of figures like Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, or Bob Kane, his impact is undeniable—a Martin Chemnitz of the pulps, and one of our last living connections to Walter B. Gibson, whom he met and befriended early in his own career, conducting numerous personal interviews not just on the history of The Shadow, but on pulp itself, becoming one of the foremost authorities on the subject. He interviewed everyone from Gibson to the editors of Street and Smith, to the producers of The Shadow Radio Show, to illustrator, Edd Cartier. His meticulous research and archival work on Doc Savage formed the foundation of contemporary scholarship on the character with his discovery and implementation of unused outlines and first drafts gathering dust in the Dent Family archives which he used both to chronicle and continue the legacy of The Man of Bronze, as well as restore hitherto unfinished chapters. On a personal level, I would be remiss not to credit him myself, since his tireless research and archival work formed the bulk of my sources for my university Capstone project on pulp morality. The man was a generational talent and a living archive, and I suspect his absence will be heavily felt in further projects and reprints of these important pulp icons.

Rest in peace, Mister Murray, and thank you for keeping the pulps alive!

Share

her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was white as Leprosy,

the nightmare life-in-death was she,

who thicks man’s blood with cold.”

COLERIDGE

The emerald waves rolled and broke with foam like pearls beneath the autumn sun. The sleepy town of Caladh Boglach loomed on cliffs of shale and sandstone curling down in semi-spiral to the dour wharfs swaying with groaning ships and chimes of bone and bronze. Screaming gulls wheeled overhead to split the whispering silence of the wind.

Atop the gangplank of the ship Moralltach, Captain Conle scowled down at the boot that anchored the gangplank to the dock. His irritation was checked slightly by curiosity as he beheld the imposing figure below, stricken at once by the long strands of vermillion hair that poured over his shoulders like liquid fire. The man was a stranger to him, though he had thought he knew all the sell swords of the Emerald Coast. He studied the bearish figure of corded thews bulging beneath a heavy mail shirt and knee length blue tunic and wool trousers. His shoulders were draped with a heavy cloak of wolf fur fastened at his chest with an iron brooch, his wrists were clasped with leather bracers, and at his side, he carried his wolfshead helm of glimmering bronze, and a long, leaf bladed sword dangled from his hip. “What man are you, sir, who confuses by gangplank for a goat path?”

The stranger met the question with an alert, almost pantherlike gaze that, for a glancing moment, betrayed a danger not entirely human. Then as swiftly as it flickered, it vanished beneath a broad, jovial grin. “I am Cullen,” he answered as if sharing a private joke. Conle’s ears perked up at the peculiar deep, rolling accent of the stranger’s voice.

“Cullen, he says!” snorted Conle with a wag of his dusky locks. “Of what people are you?”

“I am of Uladh. I understand your passengers boast a more exotic array than any in Eiru. I would buy passage to Ubaid. Do you board animals?”

Conle glanced over Cullen’s shoulder, and his eyes broadened somewhat at the sight of a magnificent chariot of light wickerwood with wheels of dazzling white bronze. Its pole of white silver and curved, golden yoke gleamed blindingly in the sun, and its mounts, one grey stallion and one black pawed at the cobble street and waited patiently on their master. The captain wondered at what wealth this stranger boasted, for he had seen princes so equipped. “Aye, my lord. From time to time. But space is costly. Were you a simple traveler, we could fit traveler’s pack for little or no cost, but for such extravagance…”

“I would pay handsomely for space in the hold,” replied Cullen, drawing a hefty coin pouch from his belt. “I will sleep in the chariot, so you need not worry for cabin space for myself.”

Conle scratched his chin, and his eyes narrowed on the pouch.

“If you find this amount insufficient, I am sure you would not object to another hand on the ship.”

“You are a sailor, then?”

“It is a poor man in the isles who cannot call himself a sailor,” replied Cullen. “I could name every wave on the Muir Eiru, and I have dived for pearls in her reefs since I was a boy.”

Conle pondered a moment, measuring the mighty stature of the warrior and noting the young hands nonetheless calloused with years at the mast and the skin bronzed by years in the sun. He could not deny that a ship could always use another sailor. “So be it. You’ll work for your keep and answer to me and Cathbhar, the helmsman. My men will store your chariot and mounts. Report to the deck. We sail now to beat the tide!”

Cullen flashed his dazzling grin and bounded over the gangplank, casting his wolfish gaze over the wary crew. Catching the mingled gazes of curiosity, wariness, and even hostility, he smirked and swaggered forward. Taking hold of the rigging, his corded shoulders knotted as he dragged back the halyard. All the ship stood awestruck as the newcomer worked hand over hand and dragged the four-hundred-pound sail to its full height in four strokes and tied it off in the blink of an eye. He crossed the deck in swings and bounds, securing lines like a spider leaping between branches. The call went up from the captain, and crew scattered across the deck like ants to lend their hands to the task and guide the ship from the emerald harbors of Caladh Boglach while others brought Cullen’s chariot and horses aboard.

Cullen vanished within the crew like a drop of rain into the sea and shared equally with them in work and merriment. True to his boast, he was a sailor unmatched, bearing more than double the labor of every man aboard. In time, his name mingled in the shanties of the seamen who belted with bravado ever wilder ballads of his mighty deeds—that he would flog the waves to still them or thread the sails with lightning. Cullen only laughed and smiled and set his nose to the grindstone, never shirking or complaining and joining the crew in games of dice which he often won. At late nights or on calm days, he would seat himself against the mast and play the lively, trilling tunes of his bone pipes. In rain and storms, he would go belowdecks with his horses, Liath Macha and Dubh Sainglend, stroking their manes and singing softly to them.

His first night, he sat with an Achaean named Kastor beneath the lantern light and shared in news of other lands over pints of grog.

“There is news brewing that the raids of the Ishmaelites and Canaanites have pressed now beyond borders of Shem to the borders of Boii,” remarked Kastor before a swig of grog.

Cullen gave an incredulous look over the lip of his canteen. “I had thought the eastern tribes cared little for territory beyond Canaan. I knew the armies of Yeriho were expanding territory to the mountains, but those wars have long been blood feuds ascribed to the hill tribes over ancestral land. What interests could they have beyond the mountains?”

“There is news too that Canaan has hired mercenaries from the Northermen. Though their involvement is not so mysterious. They usually have little ambition beyond loot, and the Shemites are known for their craftsmanship and goldsmithing.”

“For the Northermen, no, but Canaan?” He shook his head. “These are strange days indeed if the sons of Ishmael have turned their gaze to the west.”

“And what of you?” Kastor put the question. “I had thought the peoples of Uladh and Pretan were too embroiled in civil wars and range skirmishes to seek work in the east. Do your lords and clan chiefs not pay you well?”

A sour look crossed Cullen’s face as he glanced up at the moon. “Their gold is as good as another’s…” he murmured.

“Then why come so far?”

Cullen’s gaze was lost for a moment staring down at his canteen. Finally, he shook his head and shrugged. “I do not know. Only that I feel driven hence. A tremble in my bones sets my feet to paths unknown. Once I was a dog prowling my master’s fields and licking the scraps from his table. Perhaps only leaving might I be a man.”

Kastor eyed the dark stranger narrowly, catching the gleam of the moon on his face like marble. He shuddered in spite of himself, and then as if to chide the impulse, he chuckled heartily. “Then be we men together, Cullen of Uladh! We sail not for scraps but for feasts!” He clapped the brawny shoulder with a hand, and both men shared a pint of grog and filled the night with song to the swaying of the ship. Thus, Cullen let good drink and merriment wash away his blacker thought to churn and vanish in bobbing waves of sea foam.

Cullen awoke suddenly and sat upright on his cot of straw and seal pelts. So light was his slumber, one could almost call it waiting. Oft he woke to the creak of an approaching foot or the whisper of a drawn blade, or felt, as becomes a man of wilds, the weight of another’s shade leering over him. Yet his eyes beheld naught but the shades of men swaying slightly in their hammocks or curling over in their cots. No sound heard he but the dull snores and gusty sighs of slumbering sailors and the groan of the swaying hull buffeted by rolling waves. He only listened intently; his nerves tensed like coiled springs as he glared into the blackness of the ship’s quarters.

Suddenly came the noise again, for faintly he knew it as in a dream. What groans and sighs shuddered the bones of a ship were nothing, but he knew a wind from a breath. Nor was that sigh one of soft or troubled sleep, but ghastly, low, and thrumming through the timbers as in a deep moan. The warrior rose, and sword in hand, crossed the swaying room and tread lightly up the aged steps. With his free left hand, he gently lifted the hatch and felt the sea spray icily against his face. The rain came lightly on the breeze in a hazy drizzle, and the sky growled and flickered with faint, blue light. No form lurked beyond the hatch. He drew further up and set the hatch gently down behind him as he swept his gaze over the glistening deck.

Cullen’s fingers clenched the hilt of his sword and listened again for the sound. He had met his share of stormy nights and heard the faint cries of sleepwalking men, or those inebriates gone to relieve themselves suddenly swept overboard by a stiff wind. He could not explain why he brought his sword with him, for no man would dare board on a procellous night such as this.

He felt a gust of wind knock against him, nearly staggering him, and on the scream of the gale sang a warbling, keening wail. Cullen felt his blood curdle at the noise that seemed to strike at ever nerve and coil down his spine like a snake. He whirled with a flash of his sword that glimmered in the dark rain and darted glances about the deck. His eyes fixed upon the quarterdeck where loomed a shade against the darkness, gangly with arms thrust wide and swaying in the wind like a scarecrow. He moved to cross the slippery deck to wake and warn the mad sailor there perched, when the ship pitched starboard at the crash of a wave that bowled him. He slid and felt his back slam against the mast, which he thrust an arm around the catch himself.

Shielding his face with his sword arm, he squinted into the darkness and bellowed over the wind, “Castor! Come down, you damn fool, before you drown!”

The green sky split with a peal of cobalt light that flashed upon the quarterdeck, and the keening wail shuddered across the deck in an earsplitting cry. For a terrible instant, Cullen saw the murky cloud blotted against the night blaze like green fire, and the eyeless face with mouth agape and arms flung wide to receive her prize. Castor screamed before the gnarled sight in tattered robes like rags bearing him to her bosom with clawlike fingers. Cullen burst across the deck like a gazelle, but even as he gripped the banister of the quarterdeck, he heard the scream of Castor, and the wail of the woman-thing rise and thin together into a knifelike pitch and saw the sailor’s body crumple to the deck in a loose, boneless heap.

Cullen leapt up the steps and bent over the corpse lying limp and damp with the ocean spray. Of the specter, only a memory of death scented the passing ocean spray like a fetid bog. On deck, the door of the coach burst open, and the captain flew out and swung upon the steps of the quarterdeck, dirk in hand and clad only in his trousers. When he saw the face of the dead sailor in Cullen’s arms, his face went ghastly pale. His feet followed a morbid impulse which drew him trembling forward with eyes bulging. Then he reeled back against the helm and gasped, “Ye gods, man! Hide that curse from my face! Let it rest in the deep. We shall say he drowned.”

Cullen scowled down into the dead face slack jawed with terror, gaping eyeless and rigid. What horror had Castor heard from the banshee? What secret had been so terrible as to take his tongue, and had that secret been truly for him?

The morning hid behind the bleak ceiling of sickly green and black that lashed the waves with violent gales that screamed across the deck. Had any man his time to think amidst the chaos and frantic scramble to lower the sails and tie off the lines, he might have wondered at the absence of the jovial Achaean. Neither the captain nor Cullen saw fit to inform them of their comrade’s ghastly demise. Let them fret over him later and let them think the waves took him. Better that than to stir up sailors’ superstitions and throw the crew into madness.

Cullen moved amongst them as he had before, leaping to his tasks with reckless speed and lending his might to any sailor that needed. Planting his feet on the swaying deck, he roped off and secured barrels to the starboard bow. At the instruction of the captain, he was given command among the crew, for he had an imposing presence and a power to inspire through sheer grit and the tenacity to which he set upon tasks. To him the crew heeded as if he spoke with the tongue of a prophet.

Cullen set his gaze ever to the rolling waves as if expecting the grim specter of yesternight to emerge again, beckoning him to the briny depths. He saw the broiling clouds tinted with golden streaks of lightning flashing violet and red behind the murky veil.

“Trim the sails! Track that bow starboard! We meet the eye of the wind!” bellowed the captain.

His first mate leaned in and whispered in his ear, “I like not those clouds yonder. We could be steering into a typhoon!”

“We’re too close to avoid it, I’m afraid. Not without turning this brig about-face. Best we can hope is to skirt it. Perhaps we can get away with a light rain,” murmured the captain in response.

The chatter of birds brought all eyes upward where a flock of gulls soared overhead. Their screams pierced the thick veil of snarling thunder and shrilled with the wind. Lightning cracked the sky like glass in a brilliant spiderweb of cobalt. The flash was swift and blinding, and the clouds burst with a torrent of crimson which swept across the deck and stained the sails. All hands scrambled back to escape the downpour.

“Blood! By the gods!” A sailor cried out in trembling voice.

“A sign! A sign, by Dagda!”

“The sky! The sky has marked us!”

Cullen stood amidst the quarterdeck scowling up at the masthead and the fluttering sails drenched in dark crimson. His feet were planted firmly upon the swaying deck where he stood stalwart and unblemished. Every man of the crew gazed upon him with mingled wonder and dread, some staggering away from him as if the plague had touched him, and others falling to their knees, petitioning their gods of sea and sky with muttered prayers. Still others looked upon him darkly, leering from bloodied corners or ducking beneath the hatchway to escape the cursed stains.

Cullen could not read the stars nor the auguries of blood and storm, but he could read the faces of men, for there were signs far more trustful than the inconstant undulations of sky and sea. His fingers rested upon the rounded pommel of his sword, and his eyes met theirs in a wolfish gaze not of threat but of knowledge. The blood was an omen, truly. The only question was for whom.

For nights to come, the stars hid behind a bleak cinereal ceiling, and black rains drenched the decks of the Moralltach. Men looked for blood in every step and in every sip. Cullen offered himself as watchman at each night, and none there would gainsay him. He sat against the prow, bound against the rain in his heavy cloak and watched the seas, but more so he watched the rainswept hold like a vulture. From time to time, he went below to tend his horses, but for the rest, he remained above, awaiting any further harbinger of spirit or flesh.

When, on a black and pluvial night, he stood on the prow where death had taken Castor swift and unawares, he sounded the call and roused the crew to behold the long shadow of a deeper blackness undulating against the cloudy sky. Sailors surged from the hold like ants, naked but for trousers and breeches as they burst from the hold and scrambled to position. Men emerged armed and ready lest some enemy had fallen upon them to plunder, and several rushed to the rainswept bulwark to see if an unfortunate had fallen overboard. When they saw the black shoreline ahead, a murmur rose among them with glances cast sidelong at Cullen by the ratlines, standing with arms crossed and staring ambiguously at the shore.

Captain Conle approached beside the grim Ulaid and stared with him through the rain and tossing seas. “Yon lies the shores of Armorica,” he murmured darkly. “We are still two leagues distant from Ubaid, and my men will not put ashore there for any price.”

“They may not wish to put ashore anywhere that I set off,” remarked Cullen with a grim smile. “I have seen their looks of late. I know the superstitions of sailors and the hex of harbinger. Perhaps they are right.”

“What will you do, then?”

Cullen stared for a moment in silence at the black horizon, a kind of fire in his eyes that he himself could not have explained. Finally, he spoke, “Put me off yonder. No man need lend me aid or set foot on the shore. I shall unload my horses and chariot myself, and you may put leagues between us.”

“You would set off alone? Armorica is a dark place, my friend. Their ships are small and go little beyond the north coasts, for tribal territories are sacred barriers oft contested and not to be trifled with.”

“It matters not.” Cullen leaned over the bulwark as if ready to leap headlong into the waters. “I will cross the lands and rivers if I must, and my chariot will carry me farther than most men.” Though he could not explain it, even to himself, Cullen caught the scent of death on the night breeze. A scintillant, opaline light began glimmering in his iridescent eyes, and his blood quickened. Danger! The test of mettle and might in a primordial land! The secrets of dark corners in wild and arcane dens! No man might bridle sea, but he knew to wrestle with land and stone would be a worthy challenge and yield wealthy rewards. He would meet the terror of spirits with the might of man on a chariot with gold emblazed and drawn by mighty steeds.

Share

At the Blackwood residence, three slaves dragged back the stone slab of a cistern beneath a rear corner of the house. Alice Blackwood observed the operation and covered her mouth to stifle a gag at the rank green water overflowing like pus, packed with leaves, and swarmed with flies. At a quick wave of her hand, the slaves began drawing water out with buckets and emptying the vile, coagulated sludge onto the ground. She turned at a call from the house and saw Rachel jogging towards her, staggering somewhat in the mud. For a moment, her heart skipped a beat as her thoughts turned to Ada alone in her bed, bundled and shivering.

“Miss Alice! Miss Alice, you got a caller!” called out Rachel.

Alice relaxed, motioned for the slaves to continue, and ordered her hired hand, Joseph, to pitch in. She hiked her skirt and jogged up to Rachel, who led her in through the back door. She was surprised to find August Banway waiting by the window.

August turned and bowed, his fingers clasping a broad-brimmed felt hat to his chest. He was clad in black trousers, a woolen work shirt, and a long brown coat, unlike his commonly colorful accouterments.

“August! This is unexpected. How are you?” greeted Alice cordially. She motioned to a chair by the window. “Would you like to sit? Rachel can take your coat and hat—”

“No, no. I—No,” August waved a hand and rubbed his mouth with a nervous look. “Thank you, Alice, but I…” His lips struggled to make words, and he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another.

Alice approached and stood before him with her head cocked in a look of concern. “Is something wrong, August? Gabriel won’t be back for another hour or so, but you’re welcome to—”

“Oh, no. I won’t trouble him. I just wanted to ask…Has Ada been…well?”

“Oh, she’s a bit under the weather, naturally, but she’s been coming along fine. Her fever is down considerably, and so is the swelling in her foot.” She saw August bite his lip and rub the back of his neck and felt confused.

“Then she hasn’t…shown any signs of, well, illness or the like?” queried August.

“Why, no. Thank God. None apart from the fever.” She narrowed her eyes with a look of concern. “Why?”

August plopped into a chair and leaned over, twiddling his thumbs between his knees. “Cora…well…She’s been very weak lately.”

“Weak?”

“She has had to…well…relieve herself quite frequently. To put it delicately…And last night, she…she was vomiting.”

“Vomiting?” Alice plopped into the chair beside him. Her look of concern now fiercely attentive.

“I’ve been trying to give her more water, to keep her strength up, but she hardly keeps anything down, and of course, so much of the water is tainted, we must boil it carefully.” His voice began to tremble.

“My God! The poor dear!” Alice put a hand to her mouth. “Has she seen the doctor?”

“Immediately. He’s not sure right now, but…It must have something to do with the water or this…miasma that seems to hang about. We’re keeping her bundled up, as dry as possible, but…God!” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and shuddered. “That’s part of why I came to check. I’m sorry, Alice, but things as they are, I don’t want to cause a panic. People are more stressed than ever, what with the storm, then the murder, and now the alcalde’s investigation—”

“I understand.” Alice put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for telling me. Have you contacted Malinda? I understand she was under the weather too before she went to San Antonio de Bexar to stay with relatives.”

August blinked at her a moment as if he hadn’t quite heard the question. Then, he smacked his forehead with a palm. “Ah! Of course. Yes. I’m sending a man today, assuming a courier will be available. God, but I hope she doesn’t choose now to come back.” He stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry, but I really must get back to Cora. I don’t like leaving her alone.” He walked with Alice to the door and took his cane back from Rachel. “Please give Ada my love. My prayers are with you all.”

“And you are in our prayers, of course.” Alice was somewhat taken aback at his sudden haste but reasoned that everyone’s nerves were on edge now, after all.

“Anything I can offer, any aid, labor, money. It is good to keep friends close in such times.” He jerked his head back at the threshold to add, “Do tell Gabriel I said so, and give him my well wishes.” He had flown down the steps and was taking the reins of his horse from a slave before Alice could even respond.

“Indeed, it has put us all on edge,” murmured Alice wonderingly as she watched him leave from the doorway.

August rode away at a brisk pace to try to diminish the swarms of mosquitoes. Before long, he had vanished beneath the drooping willows and pecans and arched his course back through Washington proper. He tried to keep his mount near the east side of the thoroughfare, keeping his gaze there or straight ahead in a dogged attempt to avoid glancing at the fires. He buried his mouth and nose in a handkerchief to strangle the stench of smoke and putrid, burning flesh.

Around the edges of town, towering bonfires beclouded the air with smoke amidst the symphony of bloated blowflies. The air was thick with the reek of burning flesh as dead cattle and horses were piled high in bloated, grisly pyres and set ablaze. The smoke coalesced into a vast, black nimbus and carved its way across the sky like God’s pillar of cloud. Its long finger stretched across the bedraggled buildings to scrape at the edge of the forest as if picking at a scab.

Deep into the interior, Israel Norman led the small expedition through the brackish puddles and thick brush, hacking away with a long, iron hooked brush knife, for which his fellows gave him a wide berth. Behind him, five volunteers, along with Charles Allcorn, John Davies, the alcalde and his two aides, kept pace with muskets slung over their shoulders. While far enough away from the stench of burning cattle, the party still had to choke back gags at the reek of gator grease which some of their number had smeared on their necks to ward off mosquitoes.

Israel leaned to hack away some palmettos before righting himself and calling out, “Hold!” The party drew to a halt, and Israel motioned for the two witnesses to come forward. When they had circled around the train and met him on either side, he indicated an area of low bushes between well-spaced live oaks. “Hereabouts, you’d say?”

“Yessir! Right there, exactly,” affirmed Charles with an enthusiastic nod. “See that pecan that’s all split off on the side there?” He indicated, and sure enough, there was a tall pecan split in twain at an angle to about the middle of the trunk. Its rather sizable half lay mashed into the mud and crumpled palmettos.

“That’s where ya found him?”

“Yessir. He was all tangled up in the branches.”

Israel trudged around the scene, inspecting it. He looked under the splintered trunk and moved around to squint into the trees behind it. “Well, he wasn’t done in here. I’d say he was washed down from…” He sent a slow glance around and dragged a finger through the air like a timepiece before settling somewhere further northeast through a copse of stalwart water oaks stripped nearly columnar of branches. “…thereabouts. Maybe some two or three miles. I’d need to talk to Doc Baird—get a better estimate on time of death, marks on the body…”

“Do so,” replied Hadley firmly. “In fact, I shall accompany you. My aides, Mister Camp and Mister King, shall oversee the search in our place for the time being. In the meantime, I have questions for the good doctor as well as the tavern keeper, Mister...”

***

“Baylor, is it?” Hadley sat across from the hefty, middle-aged tavern keeper with salt-and-pepper hair and a walrus mustache.

“Ernst Baylor,” replied the tavern keeper, rubbing his beefy left arm restlessly. He had a habit of rocking back and forth in his seat and sniffing compulsively. A nervous tic by all appearances.

“You are the owner and proprietor of the Royal Oak Tavern?”

“Yes sir. Lock, stock and key.”

“You brought the original business from Missouri, correct?”

“St. Louis. Yes. I purchased the business from the wife of my late employer, David Boone. I joined Austin’s three hundred in 1823 and arrived here two years later.”

“Yes, your employer, David Boone, who I understand died in 1818. A stroke, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Mr. Boone sadly died in his sleep. He was eighty-one years old, so I cannot say it was surprising, but no less devastating.”

“You were close with Mr. Boone?”

“Yes. I apprenticed under him when I was sixteen, and his wife woke me to confirm he was dead. I was nineteen at the time.”

“What of his wife? She gave you the business and simply…moved off?”

“Sold me the business. I have the bill of sale if you’d like to see it. She had no further connection with me afterwards and decided to go live with family in St. Genevieve. I understand she has a son-in-law who owns a lumber business out there.”

“Rather quick, wasn’t it? Newly come into ownership of your own business, readily established with regular clientele and reputation, and you decided to gamble immediately on a new colony in a place you have never been without friends or family?”

Baylor shrugged. “Didn’t we all gamble on opportunity coming here?”

“You had no family? No other connections within the colony?”

“My father died when I was fourteen, and I regularly send money to my mother, who lives with my uncle in Tennessee. The colony is sort of a new beginning for me, as it were.”

“Yes, as it was for many,” murmured Hadley. “Of course, new opportunity was the rallying cry of many a squatter. I understand it was in the name of opportunity that one James Britton Bailey leveled his musket in the face of our beloved empresario.”

“Yes sir. But unlike Brit Bailey, I have proof of my approval for a land grant from the Mexican government. I have a deed for my business and a copy of the bill of sale from Mrs. Boone.”

Hadley stooped over his desk and scrawled away with his quill. “You understand, Mr. Baylor, that it is not my intention to call into question your integrity nor to challenge your legal right to claim or business. Yet, it is possible that the murderer of Willem Van Buren might be a transient or someone with a tenuous history with the colony—a late comer, you might say—or most pressingly, a man dodging some legal or personal trouble by seeking a clean slate in a new territory. Bailey did as much when his antics made him an eyesore to the Kentucky legislature and his prospects in Tennessee turned out no better. Such men became a canker upon the community, believing that while the world was his oyster, so was his neighbor’s oyster his oyster. One need only consider the forgery scandal that led to his departure from Kentucky in the first place.”

“I don’t think I take your meaning, sir.”

Hadley leaned forward on his elbows, steepling his fingers on his chin. “I only say that in a murder investigation, one of the top priorities is motive. If a clear motive cannot readily be established, then investigations must tend towards uncovering people of dubious reputation or standing. A man might need be merely a scoundrel rather than a conspirator, and such a man is most likely to have done in the Van Buren boy, for I cannot but suspect that no reason of conspiracy could be contrived against a sixteen-year-old boy.”

“What about an accident?”

“I am more than open to such a possibility. After all, the newly returned Miss Ada Blackwood was nearly the victim of such an accident. Yet until I have cast significant doubt upon the notion of foul play or provided an appropriate perpetrator, I cannot put the minds of this community at ease. Nor can I put at ease the minds of the Texas legislature or the Mexican government.” He looked up at Baylor. “You may go, Mister Baylor. Though I must insist you suspend for now any plans of leaving Washington until this mess is cleared up. Mister Norman! Do be so kind as to see the gentleman out and bring in Doctor Baird.”

Baylor stood and bowed to the alcalde before trudging out the door past two militiamen. Before his footsteps could fade into the distance, Israel announced Doctor Thomas Baird.

Baird strode in—a broad-shouldered giant of a man, clad in a white shirt and black frock coat buttoned over his barrel-like chest. He removed his black bowler hat as he entered and took a seat at the behest of the alcalde.

“Doctor Baird, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Your medical expertise is of course vital to the success of this investigation, as I’m sure you understand. Perhaps you might shed some light on this tragedy.”

“I will help wherever I can, sir,” declared Baird confidently. He lifted his medical bag onto his lap. “I have, sir, the autopsy report on Willem Van Buren conducted after a viewing of the body by our local justice of the peace and handpicked members of the coroner’s jury. Mister…Norman, himself was party to this inquest.”

Israel found it difficult to meet the doctor’s gaze, only shifting on his feet and compressing his lips before giving a curt nod.

Baird fished a leather-bound ledger from his bag, slipped a small stack of parchment from within, lay it atop the ledger, and handed them both to the alcalde. “You will find the report signed by all members of the inquest, including myself and Mister Norman. If you should choose to follow up with those other members, I shall be more than happy to help facilitate.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Hadley nodded graciously and began flipping silently through the pages of the report. He scrutinized in silence for some ten minutes, never looking up or making a sound until he abruptly closed the ledger and slipped it into a drawer. “According to your report, the wound indicates an attack from long range.”

“Yes sir. About twenty feet judging by the clean hole it made in the boy’s head and the lack of a burn mark or powder stain. Judging by the angle, either he stood off some four feet to the right where he angled, or where he fired from was a slightly elevated range, possibly a hillock of some sort, angled down at the Van Buren boy. Some traces of wadding, possibly flax hemp, could be found in the wound, but nothing like special fabric or a piece of newspaper that could clue us into something like a specific ammunition pouch.”

“What about the bullet itself?”

“We managed to extract it. It was lodged just above the bridge of his nose and showed no signs of warping or flattening, meaning it was a clear shot. No ricochet. Frankly, sir, a ricochet landing that directly is a one in a million chance. We measured the weight and diameter of the ball and concluded it had been fired from a smoothbore military musket—a .75 inch caliber, to be exact, suggesting a Brown Bess. By the angle and position required, the boy probably suspected nothing before it was too late. Of course, since his body had certainly been washed away by the flood, it’s difficult to ascertain where exactly the shooting took place.”

“Do we have an estimated time of death? Were there any other markings on the body?”

“Only scratches caused by branches and such, but nothing serious. The fallen branches of that tree kept the body in place, and I doubt any animals have had much time to get to it in that position. By the time the body was recovered, the hands and feet were marked by deep maceration. What the locals call ‘washerwoman’s hands’. The pallor of the skin following liver mortis was a light red hue rather than deep purple, probably due to the chill of the floodwaters. After periods of submersion, rigor mortis was not as pronounced, either. All in all, my best estimate for time of death would be…oh…twelve hours before he was recovered.”

“The body has since been buried?”

“Oh, yes sir! Steeping in such awful conditions, not to mention the heat! Well, a high point was found some two hundred yards west of the Van Buren homestead after the floodwaters receded somewhat, and there he lies.”

“Very good. No need to tempt pestilence…Anyway, a body is no use to us now.” He caught their fleeting glances and straightened. “Do not mistake me, gentlemen. I am not callous nor cold towards the weight of this awful tragedy. Yet, if I am to provide any measure of peace and justice to this beleaguered town, I must act quickly and decisively. For now, the kinder emotions must give way to the rigor of investigation.” He rose from his chair to cast his stern gaze around the room. “If I do not cut out the cancer infecting this town, this wound will only fester and rot e’er winter rears its waxen countenance. If I am not decisive, then this town will never heal.” He raised a hand, and his voice carried with the high and resonant timbre of a fiery preacher, “God as my witness, I shall not rest nor give leave of this town until I see the murderer of Willem Van Buren swing from the highest oak! And from his final breath, may Washington itself steal a sigh of peace!”

The reverend, with the congregation, said amen, and so the hounds were set to work to dredge up the murderer of Willem Van Buren, even if the trail stretched to Houston or the beaches of the Gulf. From there, Israel Norman was commissioned to go forth and gather up a posse for Hadley, who would lead the charge with all the fervor of a colonel rallying his garrison to glory or death.

Beyond the grey windows of the inn, where rays of yellow sun began to pierce the dense grey curtain of smoke and clouds, a most unusual sight presented itself along the Brazos. Emerging from the distance on the brush-strewn river, an object like a white whale drifted swiftly along the brackish, bloated waters, puffing plumes of black smoke like spume from its back. No deliveries had been anticipated that day, being only three days since the storm, and much of the former influx of travelers had since moved on for greener pastures. The behemoth gradually drew near, growing and swelling until its multifarious black eyes could be seen as the spiderlike arrangement of windows across a double-decker prow. This was not the humble ferry of John W. Hall, but a gaudy, whitewashed sarcophagus whispering its way into port. An eerie bell chime sounded its arrival as it lilted easily into port.

From the ferry office, Andrew Hall was tracking shipments and schedules when he saw the new arrival was not a cargo but a passenger ferry. Naturally, this gave him some pause, given he thought no ferry would have been charted for Washington at that time. After all, the great wave of travelers and tradesmen that had come through days prior did so in anticipation of the tempestuous season, striving to beat its course and move on swiftly.

At the dock, freight workers gathered around the speculate on the unexpected visit. They watched as the gangplank was lowered and awaited the call to receive cargo. Instead, what they received was not cargo, but men. They watched bewildered at the sight of some fifty to a hundred men, both whites and Tejanos, pouring down the gangplank in droves.

Standing to meet them, who should be waiting but Crispin Bauer, accompanied by Cy Hoxey. Cy was as neat as he had ever been, wearing a threadbare cream coat over his typical shirt and suspenders accouterments. They watched as each man filed off the boat and congregated on the dock. The first wave was of a rougher sort, bearing some weapon or tool for farming or repair.

At their head was a rather large, imposing figure with chiseled, darkly pallid features and dull brown eyes. His broad form seemed hardly contained by the grey suit and slacks, and a long scar carved from his jawline to just between his ear and temple in a jagged, white line. This man took in the gathering of workers milling about and bellowed at them with a bearish roar. In seconds, the newcomers filed in, sorted and solemn as foot soldiers. The man shifted his gaze to Hoxey and Bauer, betraying only a kind of stony passivity. Even his eyes were almost fishlike as he approached and stretched a hand to Hoxey.

“Cy, I’d like you to meet Mister Van Dorn’s foreman, Mister Joshua Koepe,” introduced Bauer smoothly as if presenting a great lord.

“Ah, yes. A pleasure to meet you, Mister Koepe.” Cy offered a hand, which Koepe took mechanically. Cy could feel a chill in his bones at the sensation of that giant hand, as if a slight depression of two muscles would crumple his bones like paper.

Koepe gave a curt nod and blinked slowly. “A pleasure, Mister Hoxey.” He lifted his eyes to stare into the town as if mapping every brick and knot in every building on the surface of his brain.

“Ah, I, um, understand that Mister Van Dorn was to be arriving today, and, well, I was uncertain if it be by land or sea as it were,” Cy chuckled nervously. “So that I may welcome him, of course!”

“Indeed. Mister Van Dorn does usually accompany the workmen and cargo into port. A habit of his thorough nature. He wishes to ensure all things arrive smoothly and are organized to the letter,” Bauer’s thin voice stuck like a needle in the brain, though his face betrayed nothing but mild curiosity.

“Mister Van Dorn’s business in East Columbia took somewhat longer than expected,” replied Koepe mechanically. “He shall arrive by stagecoach sometime before this evening. It is my duty, of course, to ensure you have arranged quarters for him in the meantime.”

“But of course!” Bauer’s voice was suddenly blithe. “I have reserved an exemplary room for Mister Van Dorn at the Washington Inn. He shall neighbor the alcalde himself.”

Koeppe’s brow raised almost imperceptibly. “The alcalde is here? Mister Van Dorn would be pleased to call upon his friend.”

“I shall let Mr. Hadley know in swift course.” Bauer waved a hand. “Now, if you would follow me, Mister Hoxey and I would be pleased to direct your fellow foremen and any of the surveyors to the Washington Inn. We have a reserved lot adjacent to Mister Hoxey’s store where the crews may set up camp and your overseers may find room at the Hall and Lott Tavern across from Doc Baird’s office.

“Ah-h, y-yes. My…store.” Cy murmured deflated.

“Well!” Bauer clapped his hands together with a grin of satisfaction. “Let us gather the laborers to the field, for the Lord of Harvest is near.” With that, Bauer led Koeppe to the tavern whilst Cy oversaw the unloading of goods and packing them into wagons.

Civilians began congregating around the dock, watching and murmuring amongst themselves as the new workers divided into groups like worker ants, dispersing to different corners of town or unloading cargo. Then, at the fringes, Sheriff Munson arrived with four deputies in-tow.

Munson prowled around the fringes, hitching his thumbs into his suspenders and cocking his chin at the newcomers. He scanned the faces of the crowd as they poured down the gangplank and gathered in teams at the brusque command of Mister Koepp. His eyes were for every cramped corner, every lone sidewalk, and every dark alleyway, looking for the first errant twitch, the first sideways glance. He watched the heave of long crates on groaning pulleys and glanced at the corner of a warped and rickety freight shed. He felt a kind of static tingle at the base of his neck. For a moment, he could not explain it, like an afterimage on the back of his brain. His feet were moving, drifting around and through the milling throng. His eyes were fixed on the dark corner of the shed, the shadows warping and bending in the glare of the sun off the rippling river. In the rippling glare, there was a flash at the corner of the shed and a glimpse of dark eyes. His blood ran cold, and his hand instinctively jerked to his pistol. Did he not catch a shape in the glare? The waxen hue of a face like a theater mask, formless and smooth? His feet were jogging now, and he shouldered his way through crowds of onlookers and jostled past workers bearing crates and timber. Somewhere in the stream of the thoroughfare, he caught the back of a figure in a short brown jacket, a red bandana and broad, whitish felt hat, hunched and worming through the traffic of passing carts and pedestrians.

Through the busy streets, he could see the lean form hunched and weaseling through the street to the narrow corduroy road along the storefronts. He quickened his pace, straining to snatch a glimpse of that face again, to imprint on his memory as he had with everyone before. From twenty yards off, he caught fleeting glimpses through the traffic—the lean form, the threadbare jacket, and the mess of dark hair spilling from beneath the hat like seaweed. He gripped the pistol at his side, stroking the hammer with his thumb, but not cocking it. Catching the flutter of the coat as the target pivoted down an alley, he quickened his long strides to a sprint, hunching his shoulders and gripping the pistol until his knuckles whitened. Ducking between the two shops, he wound around in a kind of zigzag around the back and out front of a cabin in the vicinity where the market district thinned and spread out into private homes and offices.

He swung around through back lots and around penned goats and dogs. His heart sank for a moment before he glimpsed that pale hat slipping beneath clotheslines of white sheets fanning in the breeze. His breath grew heavier, and the blood started to pulse in his ears as he rushed forward. A pain shot up his side, and he half-spun as he felt the corner of a hitching post clip his hip. A horse snorted and jerked aside, nearly bowling him over with its flank, and he barely staggered aside to avoid it, catching himself on a picket fence. There, he glimpsed the figure ahead, swinging around a cabin to the northwest of him. He was caught between the impulse to remain quiet or call out for his quarry to halt, and the noise that came out was a kind of breathy hiss and snarl. His feet staggered in the slick grass and mud, and he let the momentum carry him forward in a run. The sudden silence of the private buildings was deafening above the drum of blood in his ears, and his darting eyes strained to maintain sight of the target. Sights and sounds around him, even smells served to distract his racing mind, throwing off his concentration—the scent of burnt tallow and smoking meat, the hiss of mingled voices through shuttered windows flying by, a dog barking somewhere, or was it two dogs? Sometimes it felt miles away, and others like it could snap out at his side any moment. Images and shadows flashed before him as he ran of blurred colors and shapes of leaf and wood and beast, crashing waves on a sea of scrambled emotions and thundering blood that threatened to smother the darting blot of a man ahead of him. Then the blot seemed to slip when they rounded a corner into a winding path between buildings. There was the momentary lean of the figure like a mast in a storm and the flash of a scrawny arm to brace itself. The sheriff’s pace quickened as the murky form slipped and seemed to topple sidelong through a patch of grass, and the split second was enough to close in. He stumbled to a halt around a building backed by nothing but a picket fence, tall grass, and a smattering of trees that gathered interminably onwards ever constricting and leaning further and further in upon one another until they twined and bent into a knotted wall of the encroaching forest. Thereon was no glimpse, no sound, not even the slightest rustle of life. Only the black glare of the wild copse that seemed to mock haughtily his burning limbs and stiff joints.

Share

Travis smelled the faint embers still burning. Shuffling heaps of charred wood with his boot, he estimated by the heat and lack of ash he must be no more than a couple of hours behind his quarry. A few yards beyond the small clearing, he found hoofprints leading northward into the swamplands, deep and fresh in the black gumbo clay.

“I reckon he’s bound for Velasco to charter a boat,” he muttered to himself. Then he shook his head. “Naw. He ain’t got money for a boat, and if they knew him between here and Waco, they would sure as hell know enough to collar him in Freeport.” He stood and dusted off his trousers with his hat. “I reckon he’s spooked enough to blaze a trail up to Jacksonville or Tyler. Shoot, he may even meander his way into Sodom, and wouldn’t that be just the haystack to hide that little needle? God Almighty!” he swore, spitting into the campfire. Then he jogged back to his horse, unhitched it from the tree and heaved himself into the saddle. There wasn’t anything for it but to cut west around Houston and try to head him off at Huntsville.

Before long, Travis tore through the woods like a man possessed. His instinct guided him mechanically, but his mind wandered elsewhere. Memories of little Carter played at the back of his mind, goading him on. He still remembered the chubby little face that smiled and giggled up at him when he made faces at him or chased him around the cabin back home. He had to remember it that way.

His appaloosa neither snorted nor whinnied even as it swatted away clouds of mosquitoes with its tail. With one hand, he guided the reins while the other rested firmly on the butt of his revolver, his nerves coiled for deadly retort to any of the serpents or red wolves that might cross his path.

In time, the setting sun at his back cast a crimson chiaroscuro through the cypress and pecan branches stretching with gnarled fingers across the woodland until the heavy darkness engulfed it entirely.

Travis listened to the sounds of the restless night, filled with the hooting of owls and the chirping of crickets. Somewhere (he hoped far) ahead, he heard the cacophonous yapping and howling of coyotes, but he feared them less than the territorial hogs that prowled those woodlands. He remembered Carter waking up to the sounds of the prairie night, how he jolted and shuddered at the screeching owls and bobcats that sounded so terribly like the screams of women and the groans of dying men. Travis had told his brother he had too active an imagination; he thought it was a nightmare that woke Carter up, that set his nerves on edge and got him wandering. He remembered the night he saw him—saw the look in his eyes behind those lank strands of dark hair. They were usually so full, wide and clear with wonder, his round face and pug nose dirty and flushed with color. He used to hate how the eyes followed his every move, how the shoulders slumped to mock his posture, and steps would stretch to match his stride.

A feeling of nausea suddenly crept from the back of his throat. Travis needed to find a place to camp. Already, he was feeling his body slump in the saddle and his eyes water and his body chafe from too many hours on the road.

He stopped to take a swig from his canteen, and then he heard it—a faint staccato beneath the whispering wind. It drew nearer, and he squinted ahead into the leaning nest of mossy pecan trees and palmettos. Instinctively, his hand pawed the butt of his revolver. Then he lifted his eyes to the road ahead, and there was another horse bearing a rider concealed in the darkness. He lifted his hand to hail him but recalled the darkness around them and merely called out, “Evening! I’m bound for Houston. My name’s Travis—Travis Baer.”

The figure reigned to an abrupt halt beneath the trees some twenty feet away, and Travis found himself following suit. The rider made no movement, and the only sign of life was the swish of his black steed’s tail and the mist from its nostrils as it snorted.

Travis felt a bit uneasy. Squinting into the darkness, he traced his finger along the butt of his revolver and leaned forward. “I say,” he called out, “How far to Angleton?”

The figure remained silent a while and rigid as stone atop his steed. Travis got the feeling the figure was matching his stare, trying to get a glimpse of his face by the shafts of moonlight. “You say your name was Baer?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And you said you was bound for Angleton?”

“I am.” Travis was beginning to grow impatient, and his body was aching and cramping. He gripped the saddle horn and rubbed his eyes with one hand.

A crack like thunder split the night, and Travis jerked aside with a hand to his ear. He felt warm blood from his grazed ear. “God,” he breathed in shock. He stared ahead incredulously into the empty night before half laughing in delirium, “God!” Two more cracks preceded the flash of unmistakable muzzle fire, and he heard two shots ring past his shoulder and his other ear. He jerked abruptly sidelong, skinned his smoke wagon, and the barking report of pistol fire scorched the air between them with the stench of gunpowder.

The attack came like a cloudburst and just as suddenly passed as the rider whirled on his mount and galloped through the trees, prompting Travis to give chase. The pair weaved haphazardly through the trees, exchanging withering reports of errant gunfire.

Travis felt his saddle slip backwards and wrapped his hands in the reins but felt himself carried sidelong all the same as his horse’s back legs buckled. In a moment, his flailing mount bore him to the ground, felled by a shot to the chest. Struggling beneath the flailing, snorting beast, he glanced ahead to see the rider’s silhouette in the moonlight turning back and pacing about a mile down the path.

Bracing a boot against his saddle, he pressed back, writhing and jerking until he at last dislodged himself. Scrambling through the mud, he staggered to his feet and rapid-fired from the hip as he stumbled sidelong through the trees. Biting back the burning pain throbbing in his freed leg, he slipped through the heavy mud, and finally turned away and lurched into a hobbling run. He didn’t know where he was going, what he was doing, if he was even being chased, but only that he must keep moving. Moving left no time for thinking. The air was heavy and oppressive. It stuck to his throat and coated his lungs; it stuck his clothes to his skin as he barreled heedlessly through the woods and burned his leg like a hot iron. Mad thoughts flitted errantly through his mind, ‘Carter, did you feel this when you ran—the heat like the devil was chasing you? Did the shadows snarl and claw at you with sylvan nails? Carter, did you do it? Carter, did you? Carter, why? Why? Why?’

He must have groped his way a mile through the sea of palmettos, sycamores, sedges, and rushes before he finally had to stop to quell the throbbing in his leg. While doing so, he took a moment to check the cylinder of his revolver. Emptying the spent shells, he reloaded and even filled in the last chamber, commonly left empty to prevent misfires while riding. He cast frenetic glances around the wood, struggling to regain his bearings, estimate his position, and ensure his attacker hadn’t caught up in the interim.

Lights glared murkily through the trees, and suddenly he noticed a vague shape looming ahead. A cabin! People! Shelter! He ran so quickly and staggeringly he practically fell through the forest. A log cabin sat hunched and looming amidst the trees and brush, like a crouching gargoyle lit dimly from within by the red glow of candles.

Staggering to its threshold, he beat his fists against the door, screaming hoarsely. His brain was feverish from the pain, and he felt himself swooning. “Please…for the love of God…” he gasped. “For the love…of God.” The door swung inward, his vision darkened, a black pool opened up at his feet, and he tumbled in.

When Travis woke, he thought he was dead. A faint trace of morning light beamed upon him, and a strange euphoria filled his whole body. “God,” he croaked, “am I dead?”

A musical laugh answered his inquiry. “No, hon, that’ll just be the laudanum. You was roughed up something awful, and that fever! Well, it’s all right now.”

He turned his head to look up at the speaker beside him. He saw a beautiful face with large, green eyes framed in a shower of golden curls beaming down at him. “You sure I ain’t dead, ma’am?”

The girl tittered and shook her head, stroking his forehead with a wet rag. “Well, I ain’t in the habit of addressing the dead.” She held a cup of cold water to his lips. “The good news is your fever’s gone down, but I had to splint your leg. I’m afraid you may have a slight fracture in your right thigh.” She dipped her rag in a bucket, wrung it out, and dabbed his cheeks. “Since you’re well enough to talk, maybe you can tell me what possessed you to go wandering around the swamp at night.”

Travis bit his lip and sat up. A glance around showed he was in a small feather bed in a narrow room with one window at the foot of the bed. He threw back the covers and saw the splint on his thigh. “How long have I been out?” he whispered. “I can’t waste time! The trail goes colder yet!” He swung the leg out of bed, snatched his newly cleaned trousers from the back of a chair, and dragged them on.

“Oh, come on now, hon. It ain’t good for you to be walking around on that leg!” insisted the girl, trying to push him back down. “

He rose to his feet despite her best efforts, looked around for his gun belt, and plucked it from the bedpost before hobbling to the door. His vision suddenly swam, and he swooned against the door for a moment. When he regained his composure, he buckled the gun belt around his waist again and checked the cylinder of his revolver before holstering it.

“Well,” sighed his hostess with some exasperation as she pressed around him through the door, “if you’ve really got that big a burr in your britches, you can at least get some food in ya and shake your cobwebs loose aforehand.” She led the way through the door into the parlor, where she motioned him to the table. “You sit here, and you can tell me what put you all broken and bedraggled at my doorstep day afore last.”

“I was looking for someone,” he replied somewhat guardedly.

“Who could you be looking for out here?” she chortled, scooping bacon and eggs onto a platter for him. “The nearest settlement from here is another twenty miles. That is assuming you are heading toward Houston or West Columbia?”

“My brother,” he said through a mouthful of eggs. He watched her move like a bee around the cabin, flitting hurriedly from corner to corner. Sometimes, she would reach out with her fingers as if to straighten or smooth something out, but would always sort of hover over the object, pantomiming the action. Without a reply, she abruptly dipped from the room, leaving Travis somewhat perplexed. He wondered if she’d even heard his answer. Clearing his throat, he leaned to look through the parlor door into the living room and asked, “Pardon me, ma’am, but ain’t it dangerous for you? Being out here alone, I mean?”

“Oh, I ain’t alone,” she replied with a giggle. She was draping quilts over the furniture and moving pots of magnolias to different corners of the room. “No, sir. I’m spoken for, but he’s out on a job right now.”

“Really? What does your husband do?”

“Oh, he ain’t my husband, not yet anyway. He’s a sort of jack of all trades, I suppose you could say.” She fluttered back into the parlor, opened the cupboard, and withdrew three sets of colorful embroideries. She then proceeded to place them on different dressers and shelves throughout the house.

“What about any other family? Parents? Grandparents?”

“Oh, they all passed on recently. Pox took them.” She glided back into the parlor again, took strips of flypaper from the cupboard and hung it from nails in the wall or ceiling. Finally, she returned to her seat at the table, compulsively brushing her hair with her fingers and smoothing out the creases in her dress.

Travis looked at her sympathetically and swallowed a bite of his food. “My condolences, ma’am. May I have your name, please?”

“Lenore,” she replied cheerily, “Lenore Mahan. You got anyone back home?” She stared, mesmerized, at him across the table. Her palms were crossed in front of her on the table, her fingers dancing and flexing like she was trying to get the feeling back into them. The way she sat unblinking with the golden curls spilling about her cheeks, she reminded Travis of a China doll.

“No, ma’am…family business denies me the finer pleasures in life for the moment.” He tugged at his shirt, feeling the sweat coming again. He cast his eyes around the room to pass off his discomfort, and he wondered about the flies hovering around. “Summer season brings all sorts of critters, don’t it?” he remarked.

“You said you were looking for your brother,” Lenore continued, not taking her eyes off him. “Did you lose him?”

“He ran off, but I suppose you could say it was me that lost him,” he murmured back.

“How so?”

“I done him wrong,” he replied ruefully. “I done others wrong in the process. Now I gotta find him to make it right.”

“What did you do wrong?” she was leaning over the table at him, and Travis got the unsettling feeling she was trying to read him.

“I needed to tell him things, like how to live. Our daddy died when he was a baby. I couldn’t do anything to help him. So, I said I’d do right by my little brother. I told him about the good things, the beautiful things, the things to set his eyes on. He seen the good, and he wanted it, like any man.” He felt his throat tighten, let the fork fall from his fingers and ran them through his hair to hide their trembling. “I didn’t…I didn’t teach him to go about it right. I taught him to want it, but I didn’t teach him how to love it.”

“What happened?” Lenore asked him steadily, not thinking or judging, but just taking everything in with those terrible green eyes.

“He broke something,” said Travis through clenched teeth. “He broke something you can’t fix.”

“What will you do when you find him?”

Travis reached for a mug of water. He stared at his plate like maggots were crawling all over it. “I’m gonna bring him home. That’s where he belongs. Everything will be alright once he’s back home.”

“I think the same thing.” She beamed. “I think the same thing about my man. It was my family that caused him trouble, but they passed now. Now he can come back, and all’s right as rain.”

“I hope so, ma’am.” He lifted the mug to his lips. A scent hit his nostrils like bitter almonds. He flung the mug against a wall, jerked to his feet, and whipped out his revolver.

Lenore gazed placidly up at him, her lovely smile still etched into her features. “Something wrong with the water?”

“Where is he?” demanded Travis with a snarl.

“Men have such a temper. Y’all can’t ask anything without throwing things around?”

Travis cocked the hammer back with a click and glared coldly. “Where. Is. He? I know the smell of cyanide. Where are you hiding him?”

“I had to be sure, you understand,” she chided sadly. “I was so excited! He could’ve come home and broke the news.”

“I said, where is he?”

“A family get-together. I knew that’s what brought him home.”

Travis leveled the barrel an inch from her nose and leaned in. “I ain’t asking again.”

“He don’t break things. He didn’t break me, he fixed me—fixed the whole family.” Her lips abruptly tightened, and her eyes flashed. The look was quick, but Travis caught it barely. He was half turned when he glimpsed two wide, rabbit-like eyes that held his gaze for a microsecond. “Carter!” he screamed. The eyes were already gone, and he caught only the back of a wiry figure ducking around the parlor door.

At that moment, the air was filled with the crackling thunder of rapid fire. Travis and Lenore fell to the floor, covering their heads as a volley of bullets perforated the woodwork of the cabin, crisscrossing above them.

Travis crawled across the floor until he came to the parlor door and then sprang up in a run out into the forest. His adrenaline got him just within the trees when the agony in his thigh toppled him over. Dragging himself up by a low branch of a leaning elm tree, he glanced back at the tumult of voices shouting behind him, gritted his teeth, and barreled headlong through the trees.

“Carter!” he screamed until his voice was hoarse, following the trail of trampled brush. His unholstered revolver dangled leaden at his side. He slipped in the mud that clung to his boots, trying to root him in place, and winced at the keen palmetto leaves that cut his cheeks and eyelids as he fell. He writhed and jerked forward until he broke free of the entanglement of thorny vines and weeds and staggered into another run.

Soon, the ground became muddier and more flooded until he was trudging knee deep through the swamp. His feet stumbled through rank pools and snake-haunted bogs, and decayed stumps arose in his path like stony, oceanic outcrops.

He didn’t hear it until he felt the blow behind his ear. As he fell sidelong against a bunch of palmettos, he only heard the noise echo sharply like an aftershock—that of a maniacal howl, “You thought you could hole-up in the sticks?” snarled a voice above him. “I’ll give you credit, the place suits you well, you damn hayseed!”

A boot came down to stomp his stomach, but Travis managed to jerk aside and hook his arm into the crook of the man’s leg. With a cry of rage, Travis lunged forward, flinging the assailant onto his back. He wasted no time, but rolled away and scrambled to his feet. He glanced just in time to dodge back from the overhead swing of his attacker’s rifle butt. He reacted quickly the moment the rifle smote the ground, kicking at his attacker’s hands and knocking the weapon away.

They met in a clench, wrestling each other to-and-fro, trying to trip each other up. Travis dealt blows to the man’s liver, doubling him sideways with pained yelps. The assailant retorted by hooking an arm in the crook of Travis’ leg and tripping him backwards. In a second, he straddled across Travis’ chest and gripped his throat with both hands.

“One thousand dollars!” sneered the assailant, spittle flecking his yellow teeth bared in a crooked grin. “For a sick freak like you! You know, I thought I was aiming at you until that horse went under ya. I figured, hell, that’s almost as good, until you weaseled your way into these trees. Did you think I’d give up, Carter? One thousand dollars buys a lot of grief!”

Travis strained through visions of red and black, swinging punches at his assailant’s ribs and reaching up to claw at his eyes. The world melted like wax, and he felt a fire sputtering in his brain. His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped like a fish as his limbs weakened, and the useless hands pawed impotently at the bounty hunter’s face.

Then, with a familiar crack, the bounty hunter’s body flew sideways as if propelled, and Travis lurched upright, gasping and retching for air. Scrambling across the ground, his fingers found the handle of his revolver. When he turned back over, swinging the barrel wide, he saw Carter about ten paces away in the brush, looking cleaner and healthier than Travis did after his long trek through the swamps.

Carter was taller than when he left, but somehow even scrawnier, like a scarecrow. His big, blue eyes were wide and restless, like a startled deer. His dark hair was streaked gray, and the puny derringer dangled from his finger at his side. He was barefoot, and his dirty trousers and linen nightshirt were too small for him. When he spoke, his voice, once high and cracking with puberty, was now low and gravelly. “I came to talk to you when you were laid-up. When you were well enough to hear me, well…I guess I didn’t wanna talk no more. I should’ve cleared the mix-up all the same. They just heard the name Baer, and that you were bound for Angleton. Naturally, they had you figured for me.”

Travis dragged himself to his feet, keeping the revolver trained on his brother. “I ain’t here to talk, Carter. I’m here to take you home.”

Carter shook his head slightly. A boyish smile played on his lips. “I won’t let mamma see me hung.”

“Dammit, Carter! This ain’t a negotiation!” snapped Travis. “I’ll tie your feet to my horse and drag you back to Waco if I have to.”

Carter shook his head again. “Not breathing, you won’t.”

“They was good to you, Carter!”

“I know they were good to me. That’s why I done it.”

“What do you mean? That don’t make any sense! You killed them because they was good to you?”

“It don’t feel right. It ain’t natural. What I feel—what I done—that came natural, almost like breathing. What they gave me—home, bread, water, bed—it burned like coals on my brain. It hurt to look at them smiling. It made me sick every time I looked into a mirror. They done wrong, doing right by me.”

“And the girl?” snapped Travis, the gun quivering in his hand. “It wasn’t enough they gave you a home, made you an apprentice, but for God’s sake! Why?”

Carter met his eyes steadily. There was sadness in them, but no shame. “You don’t know what it is—reading and dreaming about beauty like that—the sort of thing that only exists in storybooks. I offered everything. After so long just seeing it, imagining the purity, the virtue…She laughed at me, Travis.” He stared down at the grass like a bashful child. “She laughed, and I…I wanted to break something beautiful.”

Travis tried to swallow back the lump in his throat. “And Lenore? Her family?”

Carter was silent for a moment, and then his shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “I don’t know. I think it was just all that ‘right’. It made me sick again. I can’t be near it, Travis. I can’t. All I ever do is want, but the having doesn’t help. I don’t know why.” He bowed his head. “Having all the good just makes me see all the ugly inside. It’s better to just look from afar. I ain’t no good with it.” His body wavered like the last words deflated him, he staggered a bit and dropped to his knees, and then, like a child, whimpered, “Don’t tell momma.”

Travis felt the ice in his veins quell the burning in his brain. He stood and staggered over behind his brother. The heat like hell around him was suddenly nothing. He didn’t feel it. Looking down at Carter, he struggled to hate, to revile, but he couldn’t. He whispered gently, “I won’t tell momma.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he replied gently. “Let’s go home, Carter.” He pulled the trigger one last time.

Share

For those who have followed my Substack, you’re probably aware of my pulp novel originally serialized here on the site. In preparation for writing the sequel effort, I have finally gotten around to publishing an ebook copy now available on platforms like Kindle, Kobo, and of course at the Lulu bookstore. Physical and ebook copies can be purchased here on Amazon. I’ve unfortunately been slow on many of my projects by life, for lack of a better word. I only recently graduated university and now I hope to transfer to seminary, where my real work begins (by the Grace of God). In fact, much of my labor was devoted to my Capstone project on the morality inherent to pulp fiction which you can read here if you’re so inclined. I’ve also been pondering publication of a pocketbook variant of my latest novel akin to the yellow paperbacks of yore, so do let me know if any of y’all are interested.

That being said, what even is Rao-Bak? I’m glad you asked, amorphous voice on the Substackosphere. In two words: Texas Tarzan. If that leaves you scratching your pate, let me provide the blurb from the back of the book.

In the waning days of Spanish colonization, a family of Czech colonists is slain in the Piney Woods of East Texas. Only their infant son survives, rescued and raised by a mother red wolf as the feral boy, Rao-Bak. When Rao-Bak rescues a Neche princess from her captors, he finds himself caught at the nexus of a vast conflict between warring tribes and colonial powers vying for a stake in the New World.

The roots of this concept actually stemmed from my love of Westerns. After years of indulging in every form of fantasy adventure thrills, I got bit by the western bug and had a hankering for more rugged tales of survival and man versus nature adventures. I was in the mood for something a bit grittier, down to earth, and close to home regarding my local history and culture. I had noticed that for all the Westerns out there set in the great Lonestar State, you can probably count on one hand the amount not set in some windswept desert badlands populated by scorpions, a couple of tumbleweeds, and a herd of cacti (I’ve worked in the desert, by the way, and I saw plenty of mesquite trees, but no cacti). I always wondered where were the Westerns set in the salty wetlands and bayous of my home near the gulf or in the vast pine forests and sheer cliffs of East Texas where I was born?

It should come as no surprise that I am also a big fan of the Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs (which I had been reading around the time I conceived the concept for Rao-Bak) and which stimulated the pertinent query: how come all these feral child stories of adventure and survival like Tarzan or Kipling's Mowgli stories never take place in colonial America?

So you have the marriage of two concepts I believed untapped or at least vastly underused. That being the diversity of the Texas landscape and the integration of a classic trope with a less exotic but no less wild and untamed setting. Thus, Rao-Bak was born.

As a pulp story, you should know what you’re getting into. If you’re looking for a Dickensian play by play examination of various characters, life in colonial Texas, or complex family dramas and romance, this is not the book for you. Not that the main character is one dimensional by any means, but that his actions define him more than any deep, introspective dives into his psychology. The events of the story and his response to them paints the picture of his character more than any speech or treatise. This is above all because the story is paramount, and steady pacing must be maintained. That said, I think the narrative is pretty tight, maintaining a sense of building stakes and tension from the moment our lupine hero re-acquaints himself with the world of man.

While there may be fears of tripping headlong into Dances With Wolves territory (literally), the result is more like Tarzan meets Last of the Mohicans what with the tension between tribes, civilization versus savagery, nature versus humanity and heritage versus the sanctity of the individual, with a bit of the Mowgli stories sprinkled in. Like the novel in question, it features a hero exploring the same mortal conflict and survival struggles and questions of identity in a rapidly changing world and burgeoning national identity (in this case, a Texas national identity) and how the confluence of native and settler nations birthed a new people altogether. No one side is truly innocent, and all have their vices and atrocities, and in the middle is the lost child who belongs to both and neither at the same time. If that sounds complicated and overwrought, rest assured that these concepts are more implicit than explicit, not translated so much through character dialogue but through the events and actions of characters that shape the narrative. Action moves the plot forward, like any decent pulp yarn, and if you’re in the mood for action, you will not be disappointed. The action is swift, brutal, and bloody, but not grotesque. It's roots are not only in the gritty or visceral action of figures like Conan or Kull, but heavily into the kinds of action and adventure cinema from my childhood like Tall Tales, The Mask of Zorro, and even Pirates of the Caribbean. It wasn’t until I was in my teens that I discovered much of those had their roots in the fertile soil of pulp fiction, an entire category of literature seemingly tailor-made for me. But I already well explored my love for pulp fiction in a couple of essays, so feel free to check those out for further elucidation on that point.

At the end of the day, while the subtext is there, it is, at its heart, a fun adventure novel full of action and even a bit of gore to fill out a fun thirty minutes. And if the themes and characters are enough that you find them intriguing, you may even be tempted to return for repeat readings. If anyone can come away from Rao-Bak with that same feeling of fun and excitement, I consider myself well repaid.

God bless, and hail the Iron Age!

Share

Willem’s body was kept covered in cloth and sealed in its rough, cedar coffin, elevated on the church altar. The shade and ventilation would be useful for slowing the putrefaction that seemed to infect all in the bleak settlement of cedar cabins and whitewashed shops. His father, John Van Buren, kept nightly vigil over his son’s body, joined at times by his wife to sit and stare at the six-foot crate reposing beneath the flicker of candlelight.

Ada could not attend the day of the funeral, bedridden as she was. It is doubtful she would have wanted to if she could have. What would she have seen in the dull eyes of the solemn onlookers staring fixedly at the coffin beneath the accusatory finger of light through the high church window?

The funeral occurred on a Sunday, three days after the flood, populated only by the family of the departed, Mr. Van Buren’s closest associates, and Ada’s mother and father. All words belonged to the minister. No reflections, memories, or philosophy marked Willem’s service. Naught but solemn silence.

Mrs. Ellen Van Buren never looked at her son until the final hymn. Her eyes were strange, alert, and yet empty. Her eyes were not for the pit nor the coffin, nor even for her husband or the minister. Those eyes pierced the veil of trees and bodies, fixing ever on the dreary town drifting placid and dark amidst the waters that came annually to claim it. She saw only the mold and bloat of timber and eaves in every shop and house, like pustulant boils. Even when things dried, she thought of the warps and cracks that marked every surface. Every day fighting back the clawing fingers of growth and bracing against the fetid breath of the Brazos, it was as if the land were straining with every drop of rain or length of vine to drag civilization back into its bosom. She thought of the rot; she thought of the hate, the choking, the darkness…and she fought to keep from fleeing screaming into the trees like a madwoman.

Could her eyes have plumbed the veil of trees and shops deeper, could she have seen the lean form of Joshua Hadley through the cyclopean window in the top room of Washington Inn, would she have felt hope? Indeed, the wake of Hadley’s coming was not what one would call an atmosphere of hope. The eyes of pedestrians along or across the streets alternately hid their gaze beneath the dull window or gazed up at it transfixed, like suppliants before their god.

Beyond that window, Hadley held audience in his room at a desk drawn beside his bed which, by all appearances, might have gone unused. Those with him in the room, either standing or in chairs, were John W. Hall, Reverend Kenney, and the sheriff, Daniel Munson, silent and sour-faced.

Indeed, life in Washington seemed altogether disrupted, and this disruption attracted strangers like flies even as harvest clientele were already riding off ahead of the ill tidings they scented on the musty, mildew stench on the breeze. Wagons and coaches poured in and out of town, with an open wagon drawing up beside Hoxey’s Mercantile. Yet this wagon bore no supplies or provisions. Only a solitary occupant who stepped from the back, circled, and slipped a couple of bills to the driver before standing in the street and gazing up at the boarded-up shop front.

The man was of medium height, young, and round of face, almost cherubic were it not for the scruffy beard. His appearance marked him to the more rugged citizenry as something of a dandy in a bright red frock coat, white trousers, and bowler cap. One almost expected him to stand askance, leaning on some brass-headed cane with his chin jutted out. Yet while dressed a bit looser than the alcalde, his form was no less rigid and nigh mechanical. The leather ledger tucked beneath his arm gave him the bearing of a tax collector, if ever one was so finely dressed.

The man took in the storefront with his piercing blue eyes, standing perfectly still in his cockeyed position while the traffic of horses and carts in the thoroughfare cut to-and-fro behind. He stood as if awaiting some brass band to fold out and greet him with the mayor leading hosannas.

What eventually poked its head out to greet him was the slick, hawkish profile of Cy Hoxey casting wide a wary glance that softened with affected congeniality halfway through. The shopkeeper lurched and then abruptly strutted forward, extending a hand, his pale face waxen in the dull light of the cloudy morning. He intercepted his visitor halfway with a damp handshake. “Ah-ah! How do you do, sir? You will forgive my confusion. I had thought you were one of my suppliers.”

The man returned the shake curtly and stuffed his hand back into his pocket. “Alas for you, good sir. No. The wagon was not mine.” His tone was low, even, and unhurried.

“I see.” Cy was stroking his chin, his eyes flitting about as if finding it difficult to meet the gaze of the visitor. “Eh, well…Cy Hoxey, at your service.”

“I had thought so,” replied the visitor, plucking a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbing his face. He glanced down at his boots standing up to the ankles in brackish water.

Seeing no immediate follow up to the introduction, Cy’s mouth gaped open and shut a while like a catfish between nervous glances back at his store. Rubbing his clammy palms on his trousers, he gave a nervous chuckle. “Ah, might I…have the pleasure…of your name, good sir?”

“Bauer; Crispin Bauer,” replied the visitor as if hand-waving the formality.

“Ah, Mr. Bauer. Well, you have the advantage of me, knowing my name, but I confess you are unfamiliar to me.” Cy was rubbing his hands enough to generate sparks. “You are not, perhaps, an agent of the Commission House?”

“Commission House, sir?”

“From New Orleans.”

“No sir. I’m afraid you still mistake me. I represent the interests of a party with stakes along the Brazos. As you have some business dealings with a couple of our subsidiaries in San Felipe de Austin, you come highly recommended.”

Cy’s mouth twitched, and his fingers flexed compulsively. “Why, I-I am at your service, sir. Please! Step inside.” Taking Bauer’s bag, he led the way inside, ignoring the curious looks of his boy as he rounded the counter and entered the backroom office. It was a tight, boxy room lit by a solitary window in the back wall. Before it was a desk at which Cy hesitated a moment, making calculating gestures with his fingers. “Ah, oh! I am sorry. I had forgotten—. Let me get you a chair.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’d prefer to stand,” replied Bauer flatly.

Cy nodded and rounded the desk, never breaking eye contact. Facing Bauer from the opposite side of the desk, he hovered before his chair, leaning back and forth on his heels. “Well, ah, um…What can I do ya for, Mister Bauer?”

Bauer met his gaze with eyes that had not yet blinked since his arrival. “As I said, my employer owns stakes along the Brazos. He’s been investing stock in supporting companies and settlements in places like Velasco and San Felipe de Austin. He has had his eyes set on Washington for some time now as a major port of interest, and as of recent developments with this unfortunate flood, he has considered investing his interests here in infrastructure.”

Cy spread his hands. “Rather circumspect of your employer. Buying’s rather cheap just recently.”

“He’s looking to include you in his investment.”

“He wants to buy my store?”

“He wishes to purchase stock in your business in exchange for his connections and suppliers. At a word from my employer, manpower and resources can be made available to expand your business into a chain. My employer would receive a sixty percent share in ownership and proceeds of the original location, supplying resources at no extra charge. Your position as part owner and operator would be maintained as well as rights to recruit or terminate employees, granted that the same privilege may be extended to my employer to supply or subtract his own employees.”

Cy stared at him as if expecting a horn to sprout from his forehead. He half-laughed, “Good God, is that all? At such a split, what’s to keep me from being muscled out into the street, provided I would settle for such a blow to my proceeds?”

“The contract set would be final as regards both you and my employer. There would be no renegotiating of terms at any time following the arrangement. Shares would be agreed upon and set for both parties as non-negotiable.”

“And what a man is he, your employer!” chortled Cy, plopping down in his chair. “The market for property might be cheap at the moment, but the price for my trust is experiencing an all-time high. Why, I don’t even know his name!”

“Edwin Van Dorn,” replied Bauer casually, and his words seemed to suck the air out of the room. The silence filled every space, and a clamminess seemed to pervade despite the heat.

Cy’s expression appeared blank at first, and then his face blanched, and his fidgeting fingers gripped the arms of his chair. He folded trembling fingers, and his look was more nauseous. Slowly, his palms slid up and clasped before him as he leaned forward on the desk. “I…meant no disrespect by my…tone or manner or otherwise inhospitable state of mind. I mean that…You understand I am in much of a plight.”

“Naturally.”

“Naturally. That is, I am of course familiar with Mr. Van Dorn—that is, his position, his accomplishments, his wealth, his resources, his wealth—” Cy’s tongue was tripping over itself with a persistent tremor racking his body as if his bones were turning to jelly. “That is, I am…humbled that-that Mr. Van Dorn would so entrust to me, that is, would so favor me as to…”

“Then you find the terms agreeable?”

“Such a price is but a pittance if it means the favor of Mr. Van Dorn—most certainly, agreeable! I mean, to-to not trust the word of so prestigious a figure, a man so favored by the alcalde and enjoying his friendship, I—yes. I-I am so deeply humbled and-and privileged to be—of—use—to—him. Van Dorn—Mister Van Dorn...and to his agent!” Cy had to clamp his jaw shut to keep from babbling further.

“Good. Then it’s settled. I shall inform Mister Van Dorn of our arrangement on the morrow to officiate the contract. Once he arrives—”

“Mister Van Dorn is coming here?” Cy fairly squeaked.

“Oh, my, yes. He’s only staying in East Columbia to wrap up some contracts there before setting off. He will be here by tomorrow, I should think. Of course, I trust you will respect Mister Van Dorn’s privacy and let the trumpets sound his coming on the proper day, not before.”

“My lips are sealed, Mister Bauer.”

“Good. Then we can proceed.” Bauer withdrew his ledger, splayed it open, and turned it towards the shopkeeper. “As chief agent of Mister Van Dorn, I am authorized to present this contract for your signature. I present it now to give you time to look it over. If all terms laid out are satisfactory, we may proceed to fetch a notary. Any suggestions on that front?”

Cy’s hands hovered over the paper as he read, as if afraid to touch it. Twice his spectacles nearly slipped off his beaked nose, prompting him to keep a finger firmly pressed against the bridge of his nose. Three times he had to look the paper over again due to this error or the regular impulse to dart a glance up at Bauer, who merely watched patiently, placidly, and unblinkingly. As much to get out from beneath that unnerving stare as to eagerly assent to terms, he slid back his chair and rubbed his damp palms with a nervous, blinking smile. “Well! I—I-I suppose no time must be wasted—Mister Van Dorn’s arrival being so imminent. I must lay out the red carpet—but not announce! No. Of course, his privacy, yes. Ah. Um. We-We, um, might seek out Mister Banway as notary. Most respectable gentleman. Most respectable…”

“Now, to my first order of business…” Bauer checked his pocket watch and leaned forward. “Where might I locate your nearest saloon?”

A smile twitched at the corner of Cy’s mouth as he pushed back his chair and raised himself up. “You’ll find the Royal Oak Tavern across from the butchery. Allow me to escort you.”

Beyond the door of the office, the grocery boy swept and idled away the hour with the whistle of some nameless tune as the faint clop of hooves and squeaking of rickety cart wheels turned the gears of Washington outside. Only one moved against the current of bustling bodies, but his tread was one neither shambling nor somnambulant.

Israel Norman’s gait was not so much composed but of an uncommon rigidity like a ship’s mast. His formerly bedraggled appearance was cleaned, shaved, and dressed in a blue frock coat over a clean white linen shirt, cotton trousers and suspenders, and a wide brimmed felt hat. Some gazes were turned, at least those who could recognize the local inebriate in such a state. Others paid no heed, for he could hardly be recognized except for the dark rings under his eyes. Had some recognized Israel, they might have been shocked and a bit unsettled by the weapons he bore on his person, from the knife and pistol to the Kentucky long rifle strapped across his back. Israel himself took no notice of anyone, for his every step was as measured as if on a tightrope.

His stalwart tread brought him at length beside the dogtrot cabin of Doctor Baird, where a strange impulse induced him to pause. It must have been some quiet impulse, for he had no dealings with the man nor with the woman who stood huddled before the door. Nor was it by any means peculiar to observe one waiting before Dr. Baird’s door. Therefore, he reasoned, only a blind impulse could have so interrupted his purpose to make him turn and stare so.

The girl was small, barely to his shoulder, but by the figure of her fitted bodice tapering to the bustled skirt, he could determine this was no shy schoolgirl. She would rap her knuckles rapidly against the door between intervals of silence and susurrant words, like a worshiper at Mass.

Israel watched her stand there and repeat this peculiar ritual until the clatter of a passing cartwheel on the drowned street jerked his brain back to reality. Maintaining his mechanical posture, he tentatively approached some three paces behind her, removed his hat, and cleared his throat. The look in her eyes when she jerked around to face him was fleeting. Yet he recognized a kind of mania. He thought, perhaps, fear. Yet he glimpsed something keener beneath it which lodged his greeting in his throat. Then, in a split second, it was gone, and he saw only the doe-eyed stare of surprise dazzling beneath the bonnet.

“Oh, I…I’m sorry, sir. Did…did you come for an appointment too?” Her mousy voice was dazed and yet hinted at a fuller, musical timbre strangled beneath tense nerves.

Israel’s mouth moved ahead of his words like a gaping fish as he swiftly removed his hat. His lips were a lap ahead of the words by the time his voice caught up. “…on my way, you see…The alcalde has arrived from…Well, I thought I would…but I saw you, ah, you were waiting here, and…the doctor is on call.”

“O-Oh,” replied the girl, her face a befuddling amalgam of conflicting thoughts. Where the brows belied confusion, the eyes seemed agleam with a kind of relief, while her lips wavered between amusement and nervousness like a child caught at some scheme. “I see,” she replied quietly.

Israel felt himself tossed about in that tempest of emotions as he watched her face. The feeling, along with his current state and nagging memory of purpose, inspired him with a kind of nausea. Such it was that his babbling lips at last upon the nervous proclamation, “B-Begging your pardon, ma’am…I’m afraid you’ve caught me sober.”

The girl’s wavering lips parted in a musical giggle swiftly stifled by an embarrassed hand. She tucked a long envelope beneath her arm and stepped away from the stoop. “You are Mister Norman, aren’t you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You seem rather dapper today, Mister Norman. Are you meeting someone?”

“No—well—Yes. The…You see, the alcalde is arranging the militia and volunteers at the Washington Inn. To investigate the murder, the…the one of the Van Buren boy.”

“Oh.” Her look was grave. “Of course. How awful…Then you’re volunteering?”

“I am.” Israel shifted a bit from one foot to another. For a moment, he could only lean to-and-fro on his heels in uncomfortable silence as his lips made a thin line.

“W-Well, if the doctor is not in for the moment, I suppose I should carry out my errands at Hoxey’s,” spoke the girl hurriedly, turning to leave.

“Ah, pardon me, ma’am!” Israel motioned a moment with a wave of his hand and circled around beside her. “I’m sorry. You have the advantage of me. I did not catch your name.”

The girl tucked the envelope further beneath her arm as if she suspected some bandito would spring like a cricket from the mud and snatch it from her. “Alice Foster.”

“I wonder, Miss Foster…since we happen to be bound the same way, if, well…would you object to my company a while longer?”

Alice offered a weak smile, giving a slight nod of assent as she turned, and the pair walked leisurely in-step with each other down the muddy thoroughfare. Yet her eyes began twitching side to side with increasing fervor as they drew further and further away from the doctor’s cabin.

Israel, noticing this, could not help but wonder if his reputation as the local inebriate had made her suspicious of him. The thought that her acquiescence to his offer could have been motivated by mistaken intentions was enough to send his stomach into somersaults. “Ah, I, erm, hope I don’t impose on you, miss.”

She turned up her head and blinked those doe eyes at him, seeming for a moment vacant as if she had only just noticed him. “Impose? I do not see how you could have imposed on me, Mister Norman.”

“Only, you seem a bit…distracted. I hope I am not so objectionable.” Israel offered a cockeyed grin.

“Oh! No. Not at all!” insisted Alice, reddening a bit around her ears. “I do appreciate the company. I really do. It seems a luxury, and I find myself unaccustomed, as it were.”

“Are you really in such want of company, Miss Foster? Have you no family in town?”

“Only an aunt. She’s quite old now, and I run errands for her.”

“What of your parents?”

“My father passed when I was thirteen. My mother lives with my cousin in Knoxville. She’s…She’s unwell. Has been since my father died.”

“Well, what brought you and your aunt to Washington?” He stopped her abruptly to avoid the path of a passing cart.

“Why, Dr. Baird, actually. He’s my aunt’s benefactor. When my father died, he promised to help set us up here since Washington was growing, and he had a promising stake here as the town’s physician.”

“Then…if he is your benefactor, what do you take to him so regularly?”

Alice gazed ahead, taking in the traffic of laborers and buyers gathering supplies amidst the black, brackish water and smearing their necks with gator grease to repel the clouds of mosquitos hovering like a plague around them. “Oh, all sorts of things. I sometimes help deliver prescriptions, gather payments…no singular thing, I suppose.”

“Are you well, Miss Foster?”

“Why, of course, I am, Mister Norman,” she laughed. “I said I deliver prescriptions. I didn’t say for myself.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Israel’s brow furrowed concernedly, “but I only ask on account of your pallor.”

“My pallor?”

“Yes. You…Again, begging your pardon…You looked a bit green around the gills just now.”

Alice’s lips twitched in an ever-changing mosaic of ambiguity. When she dragged the corners of her mouth into a crooked smile, she waved a hand, or perhaps was merely swatting at the mosquitoes. “These awful pests! Almost as bad as the smell.”

Israel stammered for words, “If-If I have said anything to offend, Miss Foster, I have achieved the opposite of my intentions.”

Alice’s lids lowered, and her smile weakened. She continued to gaze forward as if suddenly the town no longer lay before her but leagues of placid sea. “Don’t mind me, Mister Norman. I’m an incorrigible melancholic, and this gloomy atmosphere exacerbates that deficiency.”

Israel seemed to suddenly notice his hat still clutched at his side and lifted it back to his head. “Times as they are, ma’am, chances are you’ve come by it honest.”

Together, the pair continued on through the thoroughfare, making small and awkward chatter. Yet in both was a new composure in their formerly rigid gait. In the nervous pallor of their cheeks was a fresh glow, like the sun that loomed above and promised new things even as the waters retreated beneath its glare.

For Thomas Collins, the glare was one accusing. It narrowed through a hole in the roof of the otherwise tenebrous cabin, burning its accusatory finger into his forehead.His supine form stretched out along the roughhewn bench; his forearm relaxed across his brow. His formerly pallid features had regained some color centered in the crimson band that encircled his brow. His jaw set, and his wide eyes stared up at the dark ceiling. Beads of perspiration stood out like raindrops on his brow, and he felt the splinters in the bench prickle against his neck and jab into his back like a bed of nails. The sweltering air in the boxy room clung heavy and sticky to his clothes, burning his body like an oven. In the long hours of inebriate sweat and madness, he lay stretched upon a cold bed with a festering fury crouching over him like a gargoyle that smiled and slavered down at him with familiar eyes. How like his own were those eyes—how like another’s that made him sick. How he wished to claw out those eyes and cast that weight off his chest.

He heard the jangle of keys and the dull click of the lock, but made no move to acknowledge them as the door groaned open. He only flinched at the harsh sunlight now pouring through in waves. The cabin echoed harshly with the scrape of a chair dragged across the floor, followed by a clatter as it wobbled upright beside him. He heard the oafish grunts and deep sigh of Sheriff Munson as he plopped into the seat and leaned over at his prisoner, twiddling his thumbs.

Munson’s lips made a thin line, and his cheeks puffed out as he stared at Thomas. The way he stared, he might have been awaiting signs of sudden movement or mere signs of life. When several seconds had passed without movement or word from Thomas, he removed his hat to swat away some flies before resting it on his knee. “Are you lucid, Mister Collins?” he grunted.

Thomas blinked, but did not take his eyes off the ceiling. “Profoundly, Sheriff,” he replied softly, as if his mind were leagues away.

Munson stared at him a moment in silence before continuing. “Those hysterics of yours in the thoroughfare…damn fine timing you’ve chosen. You know ain’t a damn person in this town that ain’t got their own scruples to settle, be it with courts or fisticuffs. But you know, sir, most any man, woman, child, godless savage, or even the beasts of the forest know better than to choose the settlement of grievances in the wake of a damned equinoctial gale!” His formerly dry tone fairly snarled now, and he leaned in to glower over the supine young man. “So…need I worry about you in the interim, Mister Collins? Have we permission to rebuild things before you go tearing them down?”

Thomas was dull-eyed and stiff as a wax figure. His only semblance of sentience was the subtle movement of his lips as he murmured, “Yes, sir.”

Munson stood, fished in his pocket, and pitched the quirt into the middle of the floor. “Take a bath, Thomas. You’re beginning to stink.”

Thomas stared down at the quirt like a man whose cat has brought him a dead mouse. Slowly sitting up, he leaned down and picked it up, turning it in his fingers. Finally, he stood up, dangling the quirt from his fingers and marched stiffly past the sheriff, emerging into the sultry, white morning. He trudged with leaden steps through the deep waters, brushing by the jostling traffic that continued on unabated, heedless of his existence.

Munson walked after him a couple of yards just to ensure that he didn’t decide to bolt after some pedestrian. Then, he stopped beside the livery and watched as the young man disappeared within the ebb and flow of the crowd. From there, he turned and diverted his way towards the high gables of the cedar shingled roof of the Royal Oak.

Back in the upper room of the tavern, Hall and the Reverend Kenney sat on either side of Hadley at the desk. Before them, two young men occupied chairs in the center of the room. Hadley kept quill and ink and stacks of parchment before him. Like an automaton, his body hardly moved, but for the mechanical sway of his hand over the parchment and the occasional downward glance of his eyes as he did so.

“Your names, sirs?” Hadley’s thin voice was as mechanical and precise as his mannerisms. His fingers flitted across the parchment as they replied with Charles Thomas Allcorn and John Henry Davies. “Occupations?”

“Carpentry,” replied Charles mildly.

“Farming, sir,” replied John, his fingers rubbing together between his knees. He had the look of a man perpetually trying to swallow an apple whole.

“In what capacity were you engaged when you happened upon the body of Willem Van Buren yesterday morning?”

“Searching for a horse, sir,” replied John with a shrug.

“A horse?”

“John’s horse. It got loose in a panic during the storm. Of course, we considered the possibility that it had died after being caught out in the storm, but felt we must be sure,” put in Charles.

“Can anyone corroborate your whereabouts the previous night?”

“Why, no, sir. I live alone, and John’s wife was repairing linen while we went searching. We both returned to his house some ten minutes after the first rain hit.”

“Did you all remain under the same roof?”

“Yes, sir,” replied John. “My wife and I weren’t gonna send him home in a storm. We arranged a bedroll upstairs.”

“So, the following morning, you both went looking for the horse?”

“Yes sir. I’d venture around six thirty.”

“You were armed when you brought the body back. Was there a reason you would go armed the morning after a flood to find a horse that may or may not be dead?”

“Of course, sir. For snakes and wild hogs that might be in none too good a mood after a gullywasher like that,” snorted Charles.

“How long would you say it was before you happened upon the body?”

“Oh, a good twenty minutes, I’d say.” Charles cocked his chin at his companion. “That sound about right, John?”

John was working his jaw a bit and scratching at his scruff, never taking his eyes off the alcalde. “Yeah. Twenty minutes. Maybe a bit more. We practically tripped over the poor boy when we found him half tangled under some brush.”

“Where was this?”

“About a mile southwest of the thicket?”

“Have you any notion what would bring that poor boy that close to the thicket, or how his body could have been washed down that far by the flood?”

“Why…no, sir. We figured maybe those other three kids might, but I understand a couple of them are doing poorly.”

“Yes. Well…” Hadley tapped his quill on the desk. “I aim to pursue that avenue of inquiry posthaste. In fact, I should like to examine our recently recovered third witness. A…” Hadley whipped a page out from the middle of the stack before him and leaned back to peruse it by the pale light of the window behind him. “Miss Ada Blackwood. Yes, I do believe I shall make a call upon the Blackwoods quite soon…quite soon, indeed.”

Share

My obvious fascination with pulp fiction can be credited largely to its status as a unique development of American Literature which served as the genesis for much of American pop culture. I find its themes and storytelling capability on par with the depth and quality found in classic novels and even mythology. I also believe it is an incredibly overlooked or even denigrated genre of literature, due largely to latter-day stereotypes, that deserves its proper respect. I first became acquainted with pulp fiction through my pastor, which gives it an interesting connection to my church experience. Perhaps that explains much of the spiritual significance I often apply to pulp fiction, much like how others apply spiritual significance to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien or the art of DaVinci and Michelangelo. When I grew up in the Baptist church, I rarely found anyone interested in literature to the degree that I was. As such, I rarely had anyone to talk to about these things and often vented factoids to a polite but baffled audience who could not connect to it for perceived lack of relevance. When I converted and joined the Lutheran Church, I was encouraged to be open about my interests with my pastor, who I found was an even bigger nerd than I was. I remember talking to him about a fantasy movie I had recently watched called Solomon Kane, which he giddily revealed to me was based on stories of the eponymous hero written by the very same author who wrote Conan the Barbarian. From there, I imbibed deeply in the works of Robert E. Howard, and through him was exposed to the broader realm of pulp fiction. In exploring pulp fiction, I realized there was an entire category of literature that catered to the interests of my youth like action, adventure, science fiction, fantasy, etc. What is more, I found their content and themes morally uplifting and their characters admirable and aspirational like the literary and cinematic heroes of my childhood.

A good example can be found in Red Shadows, Robert E. Howard’s first success, and what could be considered the first sword and sorcery story. What makes this an exemplar text is its blend of mythic fantasy, horror, swashbuckling adventure, and a protagonist who exemplifies the apex of binary morality. Red Shadows begins with the hero, Solomon Kane, finding a young girl violated and mortally wounded on the side of the road. After the girl tells him that the carnage wrought upon her and her village was by the bandit Le Loup, she dies in his arms. At this moment, Kane lays her aside and proclaims his intent to avenge her, a girl he has never known and never will.

“‘I ran. He, the Wolf, pursued me—and—caught me—’ The words died away in a shuddering silence. ‘I understand, child. Then—?’ ‘Then—he—he—stabbed me—with his dagger—oh, blessed saints!—mercy—’ Suddenly the slim form went limp. The man eased her to the earth, and touched her brow lightly. ‘Dead!’ he muttered. Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled upon his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils. ‘Men shall die for this,’ he said coldly.”

-Red Shadows, Howard

In this story, we are given a succinct introduction to Kane, establishing him as a man of firm moral principles, compassion, a potent impartial sense of justice, and extraordinary character. Immediately afterward, we see him put his sense of justice and righteous anger into action, and find he is also a dangerous and tenacious man of great skill. In his first encounter with Le Loup, whom he has been tracking across Europe, Kane’s fanatically chivalrous values are directly addressed. It is there we see Kane’s motivation and values made clear and how illogically they appear to an immoral world.

“‘Who was the girl?’ he asked idly, ‘Your wife?’ ‘I never saw her before,’ answered Kane. ‘Nom d’un nom!’ swore the bandit. ‘What sort of a man are you, Monsieur, who takes up a feud of this sort merely to avenge a wench unknown to you?’ ‘That, sir, is my own affair; it is sufficient that I do so.’ Kane could not have explained, even to himself, nor did he ever seek an explanation within himself. A true fanatic, his promptings were reasons enough for his actions.”

-Red Shadows, Howard

Here we see the uncompromising binary morality endemic to the pulp hero. What makes these especially notable is that they are not done for personal reasons. The girl was not Kane’s friend, lover, relative, or any other form of acquaintance. Rather, he is driven to avenge her solely by a moral instinct.

“He did not understand. All his life he had roamed about the world aiding the weak and fighting oppression, he neither knew nor questioned why. That was his obsession, his driving force of life. Cruelty and tyranny to the weak sent a red blaze of fury, fierce and lasting, through his soul. When the full flame of his hatred was wakened and loosed, there was no rest for him until his vengeance had been fulfilled to the uttermost. If he thought of it at all, he considered himself a fulfiller of God’s judgment, a vessel of wrath to be emptied upon the souls of the unrighteous. Yet in the full sense of the word Solomon Kane was not wholly a Puritan, though he thought of himself as such.”

-Red Shadows, Howard

Le Loup even mocks his outdated chivalrous principles by nicknaming him Monsieur Galahad (Howard, 40). We even see that Kane’s fixation on Le Loup is more than monomania, and his crusade is more symbolic than personal. “Though he did not realize it, the Wolf was more than merely an enemy to him; the bandit symbolized, to Kane, all the things against which the Puritan had fought all his life: cruelty, outrage, oppression and tyranny.” In fact, it is Kane’s monomaniacal focus on a moral crusade that keeps him ever wandering the earth as an itinerant redresser of wrongs. Unlike his literary successor, Conan, he experiences no pleasure from battle nor from taking a life, even an evil one.

“Kane mechanically cleansed his sword on his tattered garments. The trail ended here, and Kane was conscious of a strange feeling of futility. He always felt that, after he had killed a foe. Somehow it always seemed that no real good had been wrought; as if the foe had, after all, escaped his just vengeance.”

-Red Shadows, Howard

This is of course endemic in the drive of a pulp hero. A creed or moral compunction drives them to utilize extraordinary means to square the scales of justice, even if it means no peace or comfort for themselves.

The fantasy element of Red Shadows is subtle and not immediate, as is common with sword and sorcery tales. The story initially begins as a straightforward, Victorian revenge plot, wherein Kane pursues LeLoup for years across Europe and finally into Africa. Once in Africa, the story takes a turn towards horror and fantasy. Kane is captured by an African tribe aligned with LeLoup, and he witnesses the miracle of an African wizard, N’Longa, who possesses the body of a dead man. “The ju-ju man sagged in his bonds; his head drooped upon his chest…All eyes were turned upon the dead man upon the altar, for the corpse had begun to move!” This blend of stark realism with heroic adventure, low fantasy, and horror is what helps make up the sword and sorcery genre. The emphasis of an extraordinary yet mortal hero pitted against mysterious, unearthly forces, testing brain and brawn against supernatural threats is part and parcel of the genre. As the first of Howard’s tales to pioneer the sword and sorcery genre, predating even characters like Conan and Kull, this story is of eminent importance to the development of pulp fantasy.

Another example comes in the form of The Black Master; the eighth Shadow novel by the character’s original creator, Walter B. Gibson, and an example of a superhero story from the world’s first superhero. What makes this an exemplar text is its introduction of a supervillain who is truly the evil equivalent of the hero. It is the first time the Shadow truly meets his match. “Never before had The Shadow encountered a foe so worthy of his prowess. Until this all-important moment, The Black Master had checked The Shadow at every turn.” (The Black Master, Gibson) It is also an example of Walter B. Gibson deconstructing the genre he only just invented. There is direct confrontation and debate over The Shadow’s brand of justice and whether the Master’s is any different. It is the origin of the “We’re not so different, you and I” trope.

“‘…Let me ask you—and you may reply if you wish. Why do you seek to destroy me?’ The Shadow laughed in a low, hissing tone. ‘I seek to destroy you…because you are a creature of crime! You have brought death upon those who have not deserved it!’ ‘You, too, have resorted to crime’…‘Not unless the end has justified the means!’…‘You are the only man in all the world who is like myself. Why should we care for human life? To me, human beings are stupid, useless creatures, with which the earth is overburdened. I know no pity. You too are pitiless.’ ‘Only when I meet those who deserve no pity.’ ‘None deserve pity…Those who seek pity are mere creatures. You would not ask for pity! Nor would I! There is only one emotion that I have ever known. That is vengeance!’”

-The Black Master, Gibson

From this quote, we find a commonality with Solomon Kane in the Shadow’s upholding of a firm, binary morality. We also see a clear delineation between the hero and villain’s motives. That being justice and revenge. We get to see other superhero elements reflected in this story. For example, the Shadow uses special substances hidden in the lining of his cape to escape his stone prison. This could definitely be seen as a predecessor of the superhero utility belt, especially from his plagiarized scion, Batman.

“The Shadow dug at the lining of his coat…The lining dropped, and into his cupped hand poured a mass of fine black powder…Next, he ripped the lining on the other side of his cloak…A grayish powder came from this place of concealment. It was added to the mound of black. With the corner of another cracker, the Shadow mixed the two ingredients.”

-The Black Master, Gibson

The Black Master, while a prime example of early superheroes, serves also as an example of the crime genre of pulps. It could be seen as the place where the adventure pulps of people like Edgar Rice Burroughs bleed over into the crime and mystery pulps of people like Raymond Chandler.

The Big Sleep is possibly the most famous novel by Raymond Chandler, and a literary cornerstone of what would become the genre of film noir. What makes this an exemplar text is its complex plot and idiosyncratic, but no less morally binary, hero. We see Marlowe as a man of principles in a cutthroat world, or what Chandler would call, “a knight in dirty armor.” He even throws out Carmen when she tries to seduce him. He acts as the chaste knight who shuns lustful temptations rather than attempting to take advantage of a woman or give in to her wiles. “Night before last when I got home she was in my apartment. She’d kidded the manager into letting her in to wait for me. She was in my bed—naked. I threw her out on her ear…” (The Big Sleep, Chandler) Like Solomon Kane, it frames the morally upright hero against a backdrop of moral desolation. For Kane, he seeks justice and is guided by his faith through the dark lands of Africa haunted by savagery and witchcraft. For Marlowe, he strives to remain incorruptible and untarnished in the grit and corruption of the moral wasteland of Los Angeles. No matter how often he insists his only interest is money, his conscience will never let him take the easy way out. This could be seen as carrying on the moral undercurrent of pulp fiction, demonstrating they are more akin to complex morality plays than the grand guignol they are often characterized as.

“‘All right,’ I went on heavily. ‘Will you take her away? Somewhere far off from here where they can handle her type, where they will keep guns and knives and fancy drinks away from her? Hell, she might even get herself cured, you know. It’s been done.’”

-The Big Sleep, Chandler

Despite his dry wit and morbid sense of humor, Marlowe is an incorruptible figure who turns down an easy payout because he feels compelled to finish the job. He keeps on the job for the principle of it, even throwing Vivian Sternwood’s insults back in her face and mocking her for framing him as money grubbing and vulgar.

“Uh-huh. I’m a very smart guy. I haven’t a feeling or a scruple in the world. All I have the itch for is money. I am so money greedy that for twenty-five bucks a day and expenses, mostly gasoline and whiskey, I do my thinking myself, what there is of it; I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops and of Eddie Mars and his pals, I dodge bullets and eat saps, and say thank you very much, if you have any more trouble, I hope you’ll think of me, I’ll just leave one of my cards in case anything comes up. I do all this for twenty-five bucks a day—and maybe just a little to protect what little pride a broken and sick old man has left in his blood, in the thought that his blood is not poison, and that although his two little girls are a trifle wild, as many nice girls are these days, they are not perverts or killers. And that makes me a son of a bitch. All right. I don’t care anything about that. I’ve been called that by people of all sizes and shapes, including your little sister. She called me worse than that for not getting into bed with her. I got five hundred dollars from your father, which I didn’t ask for, but he can afford to give it to me. I can get another thousand for finding Mr. Rusty Regan, if I could find him. Now you offer me fifteen grand. That makes me a big shot. With fifteen grand I could own a home and a new car and four suits of clothes. I might even take a vacation without worrying about losing a case. That’s fine. What are you offering it to me for? Can I go on being a son of a bitch, or do I have to become a gentleman, like that lush that passed out in his car the other night?”

-The Big Sleep, Chandler

The crime pulp elements of The Big Sleep can be seen in the emphasis on sensational crime, corruption, and sexual intrigue. The mansion of the Sternwoods conceals the perversion of Carmen, the youngest Sternwood daughter. Simultaneously, nightclubs, streets, and gas stations become seedy settings for violence and hotbeds of criminal activity. The overarching concept appears to be moral decay that lurks beneath opulent upper-class society and the conflict between integrity and corruption.

“There were floor cushions, bits of odd silk tossed around, as if whoever lived there had to have a piece he could reach out and thumb. There was a broad low divan of old rose tapestry. It had a wad of clothes on it, including lilac-colored silk underwear…There was a black desk with carved gargoyles at the corners and behind it a yellow satin cushion on a polished black chair with carved arms and back. The room contained an odd assortment of odors, of which the most emphatic at the moment seemed to be the pungent aftermath of cordite and the sickish aroma of ether.”

-The Big Sleep, Chandler

The contrast of opulence and perversion is utilized not for exploitation, but to provide the dark backdrop for our hero to shine against. So, we see these seedier elements of pulp are certainly there and baked into the theme and setting but are not glorified. Rather, they provide a moral contrast and a mire for the hero to extricate himself from or to explore. Even the wealthy oil tycoon, General Sternwood, does not thrive in his wickedness and bitterly reflects his misspent life.

“‘A nice state of affairs when a man has to enjoy his vices by proxy…You are looking at a very dull survival of a rather gaudy life, a cripple paralyzed in both legs and with only half of his lower belly. There is very little I can eat, and my sleep is so close to waking that it is hardly worth the name. I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider, and the orchids are an excuse for the heat…”

-The Big Sleep, Chandler

Tarzan of the Apes, the most famous creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs, is a prime exemplar of the adventure pulp genre. What makes this an exemplar text is its focus on action, exotic adventure, romance, and a larger-than-life hero. Tarzan codified the noble savage archetype that would come to influence the likes of Howard’s Conan. “‘This is not an African jungle,’ she said. ‘You are no longer a savage beast. You are a gentleman, and gentlemen do not kill in cold blood.’ ‘I am still a wild beast at heart,’ he said in a low voice, as though to himself.” (Burroughs, 242) It provided a mythic template reminiscent of the myths of Romulus or Herakles. The core conflict within the narrative is the restoration of moral order through one’s own strength and instinctive virtue. The idea is that nobility is not merely a consequence of situation, like where or to whom you were born. Rather, it is an earned quality and consequence of tests of might and mettle, of brain and brawn. “‘You do not know him as I do. I tell you that he is a gentleman.’… ‘…He is only a beast of the jungle, Miss Porter.’… ‘Beast?’ she murmured. ‘Then God make me a beast; for, man or beast, I am yours.’” (Burroughs, 188) Tarzan himself is an archetype of the ideal, western man. That is to say, intelligent, honest, a quick learner, powerful, self-made, independent and unbound by the shackles of propriety or tradition. These elements help cement him as an exemplar of a pulp hero. Particularly the fact that he is a self-made man, and therefore an aspirational figure. By simply studying the old books he discovered in the wreck of his former family home, he learns to read, and from trial and error, he accumulates a host of survival skills.

“When he discovered the arrangement of words in alphabetical order he delighted in searching for and finding the combinations with which he was familiar, and the words which followed them, their definitions, led him still further into the mazes of erudition….From then on his progress was rapid. With the help of the great dictionary and the active intelligence of a healthy mind endowed by inheritance with more than ordinary reasoning powers he shrewdly guessed at much which he could not really understand, and more often than not, his guesses were close to the mark of truth.”

-Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs

Tarzan acts on what is right at the time rather than in self-interest or even a well-defined creed. This can be seen when he keeps his identity a secret, sacrificing his happiness for the sake of Jane’s, while someone like Conan would have tossed the maiden over his shoulder and rode off laughing into the sunset, presumably while being pursued by hordes of enemies.

“Tarzan took the envelope and tore it open. The message was from D’Arnot. It read: Fingerprints prove you Greystoke. Congratulations. D’ARNOT. As Tarzan finished reading, Clayton entered and came toward him with extended hand. Here was the man who had Tarzan’s title, and Tarzan’s estates, and was going to marry the woman whom Tarzan loved—the woman who loved Tarzan. A single word from Tarzan would make a great difference in this man’s life. It would take away his title and his lands and his castles, and—it would take them away from Jane Porter also. ‘I say, old man,’ cried Clayton, ‘I haven’t had a chance to thank you for all you’ve done for us. It seems as though you had your hands full saving our lives in Africa and here. I’m awfully glad you came on here. We must get better acquainted. I often thought about you, you know, and the remarkable circumstances of your environment. If it’s any of my business, how the devil did you ever get into that bally jungle?’ ‘I was born there,’ said Tarzan, quietly. ‘My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn’t tell me much about it. I never knew who my father was.’”

-Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs

It is this capacity for self-sacrifice that punctuates his heroic nature. After demonstrating a willingness to put his life on the line for the woman he loves, to rescue strangers from the perils of the jungle, to cross oceans and hostile jungles to find her, he gives her up in the end to secure her happiness. This concept of a noble savage, a self-made man developing a natural strength and ingenuity, honest and uncorrupted by civilization, echoes the pioneering spirit of the Old West. He is the epitome of the struggle between man and nature and an archetypal ideal of man as he should be. His virtues were inherent and self-taught, like protection of the innocent and mastery over fear.

“I do not exactly understand wat you mean by fear…Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have power to harm him.”

-Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs

The adventure pulp elements of Tarzan of the apes center largely on the exotic locale and survivalist narrative. The fact that the child of an English aristocrat must fend for himself in the heart of a perilous African jungle. Tarzan must pit himself against the beasts of the jungle and learn to adapt and overcome his vulnerabilities in the wild. Other elements include the subplot of the buried gold he finds from the mutineers who stranded the Porters.

“Tarzan of the Apes had a man’s figure and a man’s brain, but he was an ape by training and environment. His brain told him that the chest contained something valuable, or the men would not have hidden it. His training had taught him to imitate whatever was new and unusual, and now the natural curiosity, which is as common to men as to apes, prompted him to open the chest and examine its contents.”

-Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs

Finally, there is defending Jane, his damsel in distress, from beasts of the wild and returning her to her father. “Jane…watched the primordial ape battle with the primeval man for possession of a woman—for her.” (Burroughs, 161-162) Tarzan embodies a truly classical form of heroism, the knightly archetype slaying a dragon to rescue his fair maiden. He is noble, risking his life for her and wooing her, and even Jane recognizes his chivalrous nature almost immediately.

“When, with closed eyes, she commenced to speculate upon the future, and terrifying fears were conjured by a vivid imagination, she had but to raise her lids and look upon that noble face so close to hers to dissipate the last remnant of apprehension. No, he could never harm her; of that she was convinced when she translated the fine features and the frank, brave eyes above her into the chivalry which they proclaimed.”

-Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs

This readily evokes comparisons to Chandler’s own reflections on the nature of the pulp hero.

“He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.”

-The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler

Tarzan evokes these heroic qualifiers perfectly. He is a virtuous man by instinct and never touts his virtues or exposits them. He is the best man in his world, the jungle which he survived from birth and tamed in his adulthood. He is a good enough man for any world, casting aside considerations of propriety, etiquette and social class to ensure justice is done.

“I interfered, Professor Porter…because your daughter does not love Mr. Canler—she does not wish to marry him. That is enough for me to know…And further…you need not fear that your pride will suffer, Professor Porter, for you will be able to pay the Canler person what you owe him the moment you reach home…Your treasure has been found.”

-Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs

While passionate in his love for Jane, often bluntly expressing it to the point of kissing her unexpectedly when they first met, he will not force his love. He is dashing and capable of wooing the woman he loves, seeking to understand her and her world in order to be worthy of her. In all things, he is a man of honor.

Bruce Watson’s article, Tarzan the Eternal, covers the history of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ eponymous ape man as well as his character John Carter of Mars. It gives a detailed biography of Burroughs and of how the appeal of pulp literature inspired his career. Most notably, it gives some insight into his writing process and formulas for plot and world building.

“For most of his stories, he would always begin by making a work sheet of his fantasy realm, listing characters, places and creatures. He would sketch detailed maps and create entire alphabets, currency exchange rates, time zones and whole glossaries of native language. Meticulous as a major, he recorded the exact minute he finished his writing and the number of words he had written, usually more than 4,000, or 20 double-spaced pages, per day.”

-Tarzan the Eternal, Watson

Burroughs also kept an annual word count to exercise his prose, leading to him writing four hundred and thirteen thousand words in 1913 and four hundred thousand words in 1914. The article also examines the influence of Darwinism and social Darwinism on the creation of Tarzan. There is also an overview of the types of science fiction scenarios he dabbled in as he went on.

“His fertile mind bred scenarios that read like tabloid headlines: Mad Professor Creates Monster Men! Shipwrecked Boston Brahmin Meets Cave Girl on Desert Island! Yet he thickened his plots with a soldier’s command of detail. Dabbling in science fiction, he imagined immortality pellets, atomic energy and gamma ray lasers, but he never strayed long from the swashbuckling heroism that was the pulp fan’s meat and potatoes.”

-Tarzan the Eternal, Watson

The article goes on to detail the massive pop culture impact Tarzan had in film and the impact Burroughs had on the development of science fiction. It also recounts the rut Burroughs was in financially even while Tarzan took pop culture by storm around him. When World War II hit, Burroughs used his fame garnered through Tarzan to become the nation’s oldest war correspondent. The article goes on to describe how Tarzan evolved into an archetype that even found its way into dictionaries. “…defining a “Tarzan” as ‘a strong agile person of heroic proportions and bearing.’” (Watson, 62) The article concludes giving an answer from Burroughs as to why Tarzan became an enduring icon of literature.

“Tarzan’s appeal, he said, is escape. Escape from ‘the narrow confines of the city streets,’ escape from “the restrictions of man-made laws, and the inhibitions that society has placed upon us. We would each like to be Tarzan. At least I would; I admit it.”

-Tarzan the Eternal, Watson

This escapist element is a key factor in pulp fiction and possibly the most important one. The aspirational nature of these pulp heroes is the combination of freedom and unwavering virtue. People do not simply aspire to be like Tarzan because he is strong. After all, even apes like Kerchak and Terkoz were strong, yet brutish and cruel. Nor can you lay it purely at Tarzan’s cunning, for even the villains of the story like Sabor the lioness display a sense of cunning, and yet are predatory. Rather, people aspire to the uses of his strength and talents such as rescuing a fair maiden and defending her from foes both savage and civilized. Anyone could imagine a mundane tale in a more realistic setting that would explore these ideas, but the use of the fantastic and exotic permits us to mythologize our aspirations. They entertain and enthrall us so that the lessons stick all the better in our minds, and they enable us to better share these tales with future generations.

I gave my own two cents on the enduring quality of the Ape Man here, which you may check out if you feel so inclined.

To make a more explicitly thematic examination of pulp heroism, Raymond Chandler’s The Simple Art of Murder is a critical essay that examines the virtues of a noir mystery compared to a traditional British mystery. It is an examination of the art of detective stories and crime fiction, including an examination of his contemporary, Dashiell Hammett. Hammett is his primary source used to explicate the claims he makes regarding the style and philosophy of mystery writing.

“Hammett wrote at first…for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street. Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they were and made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes.”

-The simple art of Murder, Chandler

What makes this an exemplar secondary source is the examination of the art of pulp detective and crime fiction from the perspective of one of its most celebrated contributors. Most especially, it provides a definitive statement on the character of the pulp detective, which could be applied as a statement on the moral character of most pulp heroes. It provides an explicit statement of the moral backbone of pulp fiction. Specifically, it makes a value statement on the importance of the redemptive quality of the story over descending into pure titillation. “In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man.” (Chandler, 33) From there, the essay gives a sort of manifesto of the pulp detective. It presents the balance that must be struck between moral virtue and the brutal realism of a corrupt world. The hero in this case must be neither a sentimentalist nor a nihilist. Chandler especially emphasizes the need for the hero to be “a man of honor.”

“But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.”

-The simple art of Murder, Chandler

In this essay, we see that pulp, however dark in tone and subject matter, must possess a moral undercurrent. It is not about gray men in a gray world, but about rough, yet morally upright characters struggling to remain virtuous in a corrupt world. It also emphasizes the humanity of pulp heroes and how a “common” man, however rough around the edges, may fill in the role of a sort of chivalrous knight errant.

“He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in.”

-The simple art of Murder, Chandler

Per Chandler’s description, the hero, while flawed, is still an aspirational figure. While the hero is as chivalrous as any knight, he can still meet the common man at his level, making him more real to regular people. This makes him more vivid and relatable than we might think a hero of more lofty station, like the knights of Arthurian tales. It is often this down-to-earth quality that we find so recurrent in pulp heroes across genres. While pulp heroes may have extraordinary qualities like exceptional skill or genius, like Solomon Kane and The Shadow, their humanity is always emphasized. After all, what makes these heroes aspirational is not that they are perfect, but that they suffer flaws and limitations of humanity and yet rise above them. These limitations could be physical, emotional, or psychological. For Kane, his righteous fury may prevent him from acting at a pivotal moment, allowing a villain to slip away.

“‘You are right, Monsieur.’ Le Loup was sparring now for time; casually he edged backward inch by inch, with such consummate acting skill that he aroused no suspicion even in the hawk who watched him. ‘Monsieur,’ said he, “possibly you will say that you are merely a noble cavalier, wandering about like a true Galahad, protecting the weaker; but you and I know different. There on the floor is the equivalent to an emperor’s ransom. Let us divide it peaceably; then if you like not my company, why—nom d’un nom!—we can go our separate ways.’ Kane leaned forward, a terrible brooding threat growing in his cold eyes. He seemed like a great condor about to launch himself upon his victim. ‘Sir, do you assume me to be as great a villain as yourself?’ Suddenly Le Loup threw back his head, his eyes dancing and leaping with a wild mockery and a kind of insane recklessness. His shout of laughter sent the echoes flying. ‘Gods of hell! No, you fool, I do not class you with myself! Mon Dieu, Monsieur Kane, you have a task indeed if you intend to avenge all the wenches who have known my favors!’ ‘Shades of death! Shall I waste time in parleying with this base scoundrel!’ Kane snarled in a voice suddenly blood-thirsting, and his lean frame flashed forward like a bent bow suddenly released. At the same instant Le Loup with a wild laugh bounded backward with a movement as swift as Kane’s. His timing was perfect; his back-flung hands struck the table and hurled it aside, plunging the cave into darkness as the candle toppled and went out. Kane’s rapier sang like an arrow in the dark as he thrust blindly and ferociously. ‘Adieu, Monsieur Galahad!’ The taunt came from somewhere in front of him, but Kane, plunging toward the sound with the savage fury of baffled wrath, caromed against a blank wall that did not yield to his blow. From somewhere seemed to come an echo of a mocking laugh.”

-Red Shadows, Howard

For The Shadow, despite his genius and almost supernatural skill, he can still be outsmarted, trapped, or wounded.

“Superman though he was, no escape was possible. The overpowering gas found its victim. The Shadow sank into unconsciousness, an outstretched form garbed in a flowing cloak, his features still hidden beneath the forward-tilted brim of his soft hat. From the opening above came a low, mirthful chuckle. The Black Master was gloating over the capture of his foe.”

-The Black Master, Gibson

Yet no matter what they endure or how they are tempted, these heroes remain virtuous and upright. This runs contrary to the common mis portrayal of pulp fiction as being exemplars of “gray morality”. The binary morality of the pulp hero is baked into its very DNA, right down to explicit philosophies of the authors and even explicitly reflected in much of the pulp prose.

“Let me strive every moment of my life, to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage.
Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.”

-Doc Savage

Yet this heroic underpinning is often subverted or ignored by modern critics and academics who fail to undersand or contextualize pulp in its proper eras or audiences.

Patrice Louinet’s article Robert E. Howard, Founding Father of Modern Fantasy for the First Time Again examines the life and works of Robert E. Howard and argues for his status as the founding father of the fantasy genre. It looks at the trajectory of his career and the enduring legacy of his work, especially Conan the Barbarian. The article brings up unsympathetic and occasionally bad faith critiques of Howard’s work in the new millennium as well as the complicated publication history of his works after his death.

“France’s best-known Fantasy festival, the Imaginales, held yearly in Epinal, seized the opportunity to schedule a Howard panel… Three French novelists—Henri Loevenbruck, Erik Wietzel and Pierre Pelot— were among the panelists. Loevenbruck was a peculiarly odd choice since, by his own admission, he had never read a Conan story nor, for that matter, a single Howard line. Pelot summed up his ideas on the character by stating that Conan was a “macho,” “devoid of any brains, or almost.” Loevenbruck—minutes after declaring he had never read Howard—proceeded to compare the Texan to Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Sacha Guitry (alluding to perceived racist overtones).”

-Patrice Louinet

There is an examination of the rise of Howard in esteem of pop culture and literary critics. It even argues that from 2006 to 2009 perception of Howard changed from dismissal as a lower form of fiction to being regarded as a fantasy giant on equal footing with J.R.R. Tolkien. (Louinet, 168) Evidence used includes letters from Howard himself, various panels on Howard in France at Imaginales, and quotes from various critics like Don Herron. Herron himself even compares to Hammett, an author whose technique forms the groundwork of Chandler’s The Simple Art of Murder essay.

“…the parallels to be made between the accomplishments of Dashiell Hammett, father of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, and those of Howard. Hammett, in the words of Raymond Chandler, “took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley... He wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street.” Howard did exactly the same thing for Fantasy. The Texan took what was an essentially European genre in its values and style, and Americanized it, bringing it in phase with the world he lived in and echoing the bleak perspective of a reader in the throes of the Great Depression.”

-Patrice Louinet

This goes far to not only establish Howard as an equal to Tolkien, emphasizing the impact he had on modern fantasy, but demonstrates the enduring legacy of pulp fiction. It also illustrates the bias critics and academia had (and many still have) against Howard and the bad faith arguments made about his work. These same dismissals and critiques have been made at the broader swathe of pulp fiction, calling them brainless or exploitative without realizing just how many “classics” or great novels were originally published as pulps like Dune, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, and The Most Dangerous Game.

Will Murray’s Master of Mystery: The Rise of the Shadow and Dark Avenger: The Strange Saga of the Shadow recount the history of the pulp superhero, The Shadow. The books track his origins from the radio to various forms of media and examine his enduring impact on pop culture. For instance, The Shadow was the first figure to spearhead the establishment of pulp magazines whose stories focused on the adventures of one character alone. (Murray, 8) They examine what the character was like in his earliest incarnation on the radio and how Walter B. Gibson was commissioned to create pulp novels of him. The books frame the Shadow’s literary origins as being an attempt by Street and Smith to protect their copyright of the character. (Murray, 11-12) They elucidate how his origin in the beginnings of The Great Depression impacted his widespread appeal and success. In the throes of Prohibition, Americans no longer glorified the contemporary depictions of gangsters in movies and magazines. They no longer sought a Robin Hood-like hero that once colored their perception of gangsters. Rather, they were hungry for an avenging hero to clean up the streets. Walter B. Gibson himself elaborated on this fact.

“That was really part of the inspiration of it…You see, that was the time when mobsmen were coming along. Because of Prohibition, we had all the mobs. The Saint Valentine’s Day massacre. All that type of stuff. And the idea was to have somebody formidable enough to go out and beat the gangs.”

-Will Murray

The books go on to elucidate the person and prestige of Walter B. Gibson. Gibson was a newspaperman and ghostwriter who they asked to churn out four Shadow novels as quickly as possible. (Murray, 13) He was first commissioned for a sixty-thousand-word story, after which, if they liked it, they would commission three more to establish the magazine as a quarterly. It reveals his creative process with the character and covers other figures who worked with him or after him that handled shaping the character. Naturally, The Shadow being merely a radio announcer before, Gibson had to craft a persona whole cloth.

“For that, I needed an outstanding character and I had been thinking of one who would be a mystery in himself, moving into the affairs of lesser folk much to their amazement…By combining Houdini’s penchant for escapes with the hypnotic power of Tibetan mystics, plus the knowledge shared by Thurston and Blackstone in the creation of illusions, such a character would have unlimited scope when confronted by surprise situations, yet all could be brought within the range of credibility.”

-Walter B. Gibson

Gibson’s acquaintance with Blackstone the Magician and his passion for the art of stage magic influenced his methods of developing The Shadow’s range of seemingly supernatural skills while keeping them firmly grounded in plausibility. (Murray, 38) He even worked as a ghostwriter for Howard Thurston, who was America’s most popular magician, and Harry Houdini. (Murray, 39) The book also gives insight into Gibson’s technique for writing Shadow novels. This primarily involved a practice of narrative distance by Gibson to create what he called “mysterioso atmosphere,” in order to keep The Shadow a mysterious figure to readers. (Murray, 47) He would allow readers to watch what The Shadow did but never hear what he thought. Often, Gibson achieved this by creating proxy heroes for the books. (Murray, 48) The audience would follow them while The Shadow lurked in the background, watching and manipulating events, and taking direct action when rescue was required. This maintained the mystique of the character. Murray particularly provides information on Gibson’s difficulty developing The Shadow as a character while retaining this mystique. The book talks about how even after The Shadow’s true identity was revealed as Kent Allard, too many people knew him more by his alter ego, Lamont Cranston (Murray, 51). Since there was little occasion to use the Allard alias as he went on, he settled into just using the Cranston alter ego because people were more familiar with it. Apart from interviewing Gibson himself, there are interviews also with other figures responsible for The Shadow’s development and documentation. This includes the original editor of the pulps, John L. Nanovic, Gibson’s successor, Theodore Tinsley, Shadow Magazine cover artist Graves Gladney, and the magazine interior artist Edd Cartier. The books also cover the connection between The Shadow and Batman. They examine all the stories, characters, and pulp gimmicks Batman purloined from the former (Murray, 195-198). Even Bill Finger, co-creator of Batman later admitted to reworking a Shadow story called Partners of Peril for Batman’s debut, The Case of the Chemical Syndicate. (Murray, 198) Even Batman’s persona was drawn from the repeated batlike descriptions of The Shadow throughout Partners of Peril. “A Blackness emerged from the open rear window. Up the beamed outer wall of the English timbered house crept a tall, batlike figure that clung and climbed like a huge bird etched against a cliff.” (Murray, 198) Another example from Gibson’s original book hammers the comparison home. “Over the dark outline of The Shadow’s body, bats wheeled and squeaked in the lonely steeple. The wind made strange crooning noises. But neither the wind nor the bats could drown the whispered sound of The Shadow’s grim mirth.” (Murray, 199) Bob Kane even copied artwork from the novel, originally drawn by Tom Lovell, of the hero being trapped in a giant, glass bell and reused it for Batman. The books also cover the seven phases of The Shadow’s development from 1931 to 1949. They examine specific stories and explain the formation of the character in the mind of Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow is a figure of profound importance to pulp, as he was arguably the first proper incarnation of the superhero. While some may argue for Zorro or the Scarlet Pimpernel as candidates for this honor, I tend to disagree. This is because if we included those characters, one could easily claim The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, or even The Lone Ranger could be counted as among the first superheroes. These are obviously heroes, but not what I would call superheroes. Suffice it to say, my contention is that The Shadow is the first figure to definitively embody the concept and create a bona fide genre. Even in his early days, he spawned countless knockoffs like The Spider and Secret Agent X. (Murray, 36) Gibson even described Batman as, “a clowned-up version of The Shadow.” (Murray, 261)

Volumes one and two of Jonathan W. Sweet’s Beginner’s Guide to Pulp Fiction serve as a basic primer on pulp magazines and their heroes that achieved prominence in the first half of the twentieth century. The books tackle this on a genre basis and by examining certain authors like Isaac Asimov and Robert Bloch who embody those genres (Sweet 10-16). These author entries are very brief and give a general overview of each author’s contribution to the broader pulp landscape. Each generally focuses on the specific works of an author and/or some unique fact about them or their technique. For example, in volume one, it credits Walter B. Gibson with penning almost three hundred Shadow novels (Sweet 41). At the height of The Shadow’s fame, Gibson is estimated to have been writing as much as ten thousand words a day to meet demand from Street and Smith. Several of them also list the specific magazines these authors contributed to. The genre entries in volume one cover hero and villain pulps. Those in volume two cover action and adventure, aviation, detective and crime, horror and weird fiction, and spicy pulps. The books define and provide historical context for the development of pulp fiction. From them we learn a general overview of this history, such as Argosy’s place as the first pulp magazine when it was reworked as an all-fiction magazine in 1896 and the paper replaced with cheap pulp stock (Sweet, 6). The books also trace the peaks and valleys in pulp popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s (Sweet, 7-8). Through exploring the history of pulp through a specific timeframe, we get context for world events that guided the development of pulps while giving a list of significant authors and influential and popular categories of pulps. While the books acknowledge the profession of pulp writing had more than its fair share of hacks, that is not to say the pulps were devoid of quality. Rather, there were some exemplary writers who earned a living by writing pulps or began in pulp before earning greater fame and success. (Sweet, 10) From these examples, we find many in the oft maligned profession of pulp not only earned their living with it, but often moved on to be established, big name authors or work in Hollywood. An example given is Dwight D. Babcock, a contemporary and fellow contributor with Hammett and Chandler to Black Mask magazine. (Sweet, 12) Babcock would go on to write screenplays for Hollywood in the 1940s, working on films like The Mummy’s Curse and House of Dracula and scripting episodes for shows like Roy Rogers, Dick Tracy, and The Adventures of Superman in the 1950s and early 1960s. (Sweet, 13) Even Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, which Alfred Hitchcock would later adapt into the acclaimed film, was influenced by and corresponded with fellow pulp legend H.P. Lovecraft before achieving acclaim for himself and going on to write television and movie screenplays. (Sweet, 15-16) Similarly, Ray Bradbury got his start in pulp science fiction and fantasy magazines like Astounding Science Fiction and Weird Tales before going on to write novels like Fahrenheit .451 and Martian Chronicles (Sweet, 19). Through their examples we not only see the legitimacy of pulp writers and their talent, but get a glimpse of how their work went on to influence broader, American pop culture. Pulp fiction was not a flash in the pan phenomenon or a seedy, underground literary movement on par with the exploitation genre. Rather, it was the genesis of much of American pop culture whose influence can be seen across all kinds of media from comics, to films and television.

Perhaps it is this ignorance of American history and pop culture that blinds so many academics and contemporary critics to the true heroic merits of pulp fiction. Indeed, their knowledge is often fragmentary and biased towards the rarer, more obscure pulp yarns typically of the crime genre alone. Jay Hopler’s review article of Hard Boiled: Working Class Readers and Pulp Magazines, attempts to examine and critique detective pulps within the context of their time periods in order to comprehend their appeal. Hopler prefaces his exploration of the pulps by relating the general perspective of academics he had encountered regarding pulp fiction. Peers and colleagues alike dismissed pulp as “garbage” fiction and, “…that it was completely worthless, not just as art, but even as schlock fiction.” (Hopler, 459) The implication is that the authors of pulp fiction wrote for lower classes of society, “who, according to the June 1933 issue of Vanity Fair, ‘move their lips when they read’…” (Hopler, 459) Only the likes of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ross McDonald were apparently deemed worthy of regard. (Hopler, 460) Hopler himself goes on to criticize the eponymous anthology of pulps he decided to check out as shallow and formulaic storytelling filled with one dimensional characters,

“that meandered from one almost-sexual encounter to another and, no matter what the plot was or where the story was set, someone inevitably ended up unconscious in an alley behind some strip bar or juke joint where guys named Sal or Eddie poured a beer no matter what the order was.”

-Hopler, Hard Boiled: Working Class Readers and Pulp Magazines

However, upon his read of Hard Boiled, he came to understand the backgrounds and reading practices of pulp readers in the time of those stories. These readers were mostly black Americans, immigrants, the poor, and working class people who usually had little to no access to advanced literacy or the power of cultural production. (Hopler, 460-461) Hard Boiled apparently asserted that pulps were concerned with pigeonholing women into traditional roles while allowing men to assert their masculinity in order to maintain the status quo. This is all a roundabout way Hopler uses to claim that the pulps are “of their time.”

I can certainly credit Hopler for his willingness to contextualize these pulps within their original time. However, I find he still devolves too much into chronological snobbery, only finding any real merit in the pulps through their appeal to disaffected minority groups and the poor. A rather troubling assertion if you think about it, for that would seem to imply that the appeal of literature he sees as “shallow” and “formulaic” with “stock characters aimlessly ambling from one erotic encounter to another” can suddenly be understood since it applied specially to minority groups. Whoops. He couples this with a rather uncharitable reading that pulp readers from the twenties to the forties concerned themselves with landing jobs that gave them as much money and freedom as possible while, “asserting their manliness and keeping women in their traditional places.” (Hopler, 461) The article seems concerned also with attempting to rationalize the “problematic” qualities of pulp with the fact that it was popular among minority groups, saying the author, “even explores some of the possible reasons why a genre characterized by misogyny and homophobia seems to be of particular interest to contemporary women and minority writers.” (Hopler, 462) I would note that Hopler appears to paint the majority of pulp fiction with a broad brush inspired primarily by a single anthology he read. To denigrate the prose of pulp fiction based on a single anthology of purely Crime pulps is simply ignorant. Anyone who perused the purple prose of Walter B. Gibson’s Shadow novels or Robert E. Howard’s eloquent and mythic prose of Solomon Kane could tell you this is a gross oversimplification of the pulps and displays an ignorance of the writers and their pedigrees. He gives leeway to Hammett, Chandler, and McDonald, but says nothing of titans like Gibson, Dent, or James M. Cain, the first two of which had a far stronger impact on not only pulp itself, but on American culture. He offers no regard to the moral merits of pulps or the more abstract ideas explored by many of the greats like justice, redemption, faith, self-improvement, integrity, the sanctity of the individual, or the search for a higher purpose in life.

Pulp fiction is an oft overlooked staple of Americana rife with deceptively deep themes of heroism, aspiration, binary morality, self-improvement, integrity, the sanctity of the individual, and the search for a higher purpose in life. Scholarship of pulp fiction would improve significantly if more focus were put on trying to understand it within its corresponding time period. Furthermore, a broader approach that takes a more abstract look at the themes inherent to pulp fiction instead of trite, overdone framings through social criteria like race, gender, sexuality, politics, etc. would prevent prospective scholars from missing the forest for the trees. Pulp scholarship offers us a set of unique microcosms of individual periods in American thought, philosophy, and history that broaden our understanding of the development and uniqueness of American pop culture. It also gives us an understanding of the unique experiences of Americans throughout time that informed upon our entertainment and values. For broader audiences, this can affirm in their minds a sense of unified cultural identity rather than an ambiguous melting pot of incongruous ideas.

Share

My pulp novel, Rao-Bak: The Wolf-Son, is available for purchase! A lost child raised by wolves grows to be the wild prince of the Piney Woods and finds himself caught in the middle of a war between competing tribes and colonial powers fighting for a stake in the fertile soil of the New World.

Cover art by

Purchase a paperback copy now. Digital coming soon:

• Amazon

• Lulu

The room was clean, whitewashed, and decorated with a mirror over a desk cluttered with parchment and boxes of quills. Every available corner but the bed was taken up by sets of pine bookshelves stuffed with colorful hardcovers. She recognized it all immediately. It was her own room back home in Washington. The light of day through the windows filled the room with a warm, golden glow, and for the first time, she felt relaxed. She tried to think back to before, to the woods, to the shot, to the house, to Abel, but it all felt distant, vague, all a dream.

Things came flooding back—broken thoughts, sights, sounds…pain. She lifted a hand to her head, and her dull fingers cringed back as they brushed the bandage on the side of her head. She felt the wrapping beneath her jaw and over her head like someone with a toothache. Craning her neck up, she turned her gaze to the window and glimpsed the ripe apple trees of her father’s orchard outside. Craning her head forward and propping up on an elbow, she thew back the sheets and saw her foot bound up and elevated on a pair of pillows. She was wearing one of her nightgowns, and she felt fresh despite her bruises and sore ankle.

Craning back her head, she tried to call out, but what came out was more of a croak. She swallowed, cleared her throat, licked her lips, and tried again. “Hello!” Her voice was hoarse, but she managed to cry out. In seconds, she heard the tramp of feet quickly upstairs, and before long, the family servant, Miss Rachel, was bustling in.

“Oh, thank God, Miss Ada! You ain’t been awake for two days!” gasped Rachel, rushing forward and propping Ada upright against her pillow. She was a slender, middle-aged woman in a checkered dress, apron, and neckerchief who had known Ada since she was a baby. She pressed the back of her hand to Ada’s forehead and cheeks. “I’mma tell your mamma you awake, miss, and then I’ll fetch the doctor. So, you just hold on here.”

“Rachel,” Ada gripped the old woman’s sleeve. “Some water first, please.”

Rachel quickly fetched a mug and pitcher, poured Ada a glass of water, and set the pitcher on the bedside table. She helped hold it for her as the girl guzzled it eagerly down. When she set it aside, she looked down at her and spoke soothingly, “How ya feeling, child?”

“Throat’s a bit sore…but better,” croaked Ada. “My foot’s sore too.”

“I daresay so after you been walking around on a sprained ankle in the woods for two days.” Rachel shook her head. “Thank God that shot barely missed you.”

“Shot?” Ada asked groggily, her hand brushing the bandages again.

“Mm-hm. Two young fellas out with that posse. They was looking for the man that dun shot that poor Van Buren boy, Lord rest his soul.”

Ada felt her stomach shoot to her throat. “And Cora? And Peter? What of them?”

Rachel put a hand on Ada’s arm. “Oh, don’t you worry, miss. They come back safe enough, but poor Miss Cora, she got a fever like you, but something fierce.”

Ada swallowed bitterly, feeling sick to her stomach. She hardly heard Rachel hurrying out of the room and downstairs to get her breakfast and possibly to bring her mother or father. She felt like drifting off again, but instead of sleep, a heaviness weighed down on her, sinking her like lead into the mattress. The very air felt heavy with the humidity. Before long, she heard the hurried tramp of multiple pairs of feet up the stairs, and soon her mother came rushing in.

Alice Blackwood (formerly Alice Albrecht) was a fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty even nearing middle age as she was. While she spoke fluent English with as clear an accent as the most cultured aristocrat, she had a habit of falling back into her native German during periods of extreme emotional duress or periodic moodiness. Ada’s father would sometimes lead his daughter away by the shoulder when she couldn’t find her mother, murmuring that she was “making a German spectacle of herself.”

Well, Alice Blackwood was certainly living up to that spectacle. She fell upon her daughter’s bed and embraced her, near to tears and babbling in German.

“Mir geht’s gut, Mama. Mir geht’s gut,” Ada assured her with some of the sparse German she had picked up. “Mein Fuß tut nur ein bisschen weh.”

“Oh! Mein armes Mädchen!” Her mother relaxed her grip a bit and moved around to make sure she didn’t sit against the sprained ankle. “We thought at first the storm had carried you off. Then, when poor Cora came home and told us about that madman, mein Gott!” She brushed a lock of hair from Ada’s face and caressed her cheek. “I cannot imagine how it must’ve been, running cold, terrified, and with a sprained ankle!”

Rachel brought up hot soup, and Ada was doted upon, receiving news of the town, her father, and home as she ate. A few minutes later, Rachel opened the bedroom door for the barrel-chested doctor, Thomas Baird.

“Good morning, Ada.” His voice had a deep rumble to it like a bear, but his red cheeks and good-natured smile accentuated by the slick, handlebar mustache, gave him a grandfatherly appearance. He set his bag next to the bed, pulled up a chair, and rolled his sleeves up to the elbows of his bulky forearms. “How are we today? You had quite the sprain yesterday.”

“Just sore,” Ada rasped, “and my ankle still hurts.”

“Hmm,” mused the doctor, feeling her forehead with the back of his hand. “Open your mouth for me, dear.” He took her gently by the jaw and squinted into her mouth. Then he leaned over, plucked a long, wooden stethoscope from the bag, and leaned in to listen. “Breathe in, please.” When she took in a deep, raspy breath, he hm’d again. Then, after shifting positions and trying again twice more, he sat upright, took out his pocket watch, and checked her pulse. “A slight fever, some sore throat, but pulse appears normal. No chills, young miss?”

Ada shook her head.

“Just your throat and ankle then?”

She nodded again.

“Well, I will prescribe some Sappington’s pills to stave off any malaria. For the cough, I suggest some cowslip tea, and for the fever, a steady diet of chicken soup.” He smiled down at her. “For the ankle, we need only balance your humors.” He put a comforting hand on her wrist. “I’m going to perform a little bloodletting, my dear. Unpleasant, I know, but it will keep the swelling down and draw off that inflammation.” He made quick work of it, but that made it no less unpleasant.

Ada bit her lip and did not cry out when he cut her. Before she knew it, it was over, and he was binding her foot up again.

“There, now, that’s a good girl. Nothing to it, eh?” He smiled assuring at her. “Now, the rest is very simple. We’ll keep this leg elevated for, oh, two days to a week, depending on when the inflammation subsides. For five minutes, four times a day, you must pour cold water over your ankle to reduce heat and tension. I’ll give some embrocation and poultices to your mother for the pain and lingering soreness.” He stood and bowed to Mrs. Blackwood.

“Thank you, Doctor.” Ada’s mother clasped his hands. “Would you like some wine or coffee in the parlor?”

“Ah, coffee would be wonderful, Mrs. Blackwood. I must leave soon after, though. I’m due to call on Mrs. Cain in an hour.”

Ada listened to their footsteps fading back downstairs and leaned back with a sigh to stare up at the whitewashed ceiling. She thought for a while, staring at nothing, and soon realized she could not sleep again despite her weariness.

The mind, after all, is not still in sleep, but chugs on at a steady pace, shuffling disparate images, sounds, and fragmented memories to lull us into peaceful repose. An empty mind is a train without fuel, and the eyes remain open receptacles, straining to catch every drop of something, anything, to keep it going.

She finally opened the drawer of her bedside table and fished around until she plucked out a small, blue book—Walpole’s Castle of Otranto. She turned it over in her hand for a while. Then, she slipped it back into the drawer, fished around some more, and withdrew a small, red notebook and two pencils. With a sigh, she propped herself up on her pillow, and soon the only sound was the faint scratching of pencil on parchment.

Beyond the flooded fields of her family plantation, Washington was a town as active as it had ever been, and yet also as silent as if the whole place had been washed away in the storm. It was a day to restock, rebuild, and reenforce. The water had gone down some, but still lay about ankle-deep or just below the knee in some places. The land was choked up with clouds of mosquitos and flies, and the flood lines could be seen as high as four feet along the sides of buildings.

Planks were laid between buildings, and people lined the sides of buildings, scraping off the muck left behind. Businessmen stood on the porches of their establishments shoveling off refuse or stripped the interiors of the buildings down to studs. Smoke filled the air as some families burned ruined mattresses while they hung bedding and rugs to dry. The smell of algae and wet wood dominated, and the further you went, the more the pungent stench of death contributed, where the bloated corpses of cows and chickens had to be dragged from the water. Merchants like Cy Hoxey were tallying up lost inventory, and already, court sessions were being arranged to resolve flood-related disputes or to extend or deny credit.

Cy was sorting through boxes and tossing refuse. He and his boy carried supplies upstairs and scraped muck off the walls into buckets. When the product most at risk was brought topside, he sent his boy upstairs to mind the counter. He waited until the footsteps faded away before creeping to where he had arranged a stack of new crates. He hauled a couple of crates off each other and squinted down at them. Shaking his head, he fished in his vest pocket until he produced a match, which he struck off the edge of the crate. Cupping a hand around the tiny flame, he leaned in and grinned at the sight of a notch in the center of the lid. In the store above, one could hardly hear the groan of a crowbar.

In the world above, a tension hung over Washington—a tension only exacerbated by the rank pools of brackish water, the floating corpses of drowned beasts, and the thick fog of mosquitoes. It was the gathering of a new storm—one whose eye was centered squarely on the cabin of Dr. Baird, the temporary tomb of Willem Van Buren. In any other instance, this bullet and body would have been just a needle in a haystack, lost for weeks or maybe even months when the floodwaters at last receded and some poor unfortunate happened upon him on a hunt.

Had the Van Buren boy been discovered drowned or crushed by a tree, the atmosphere would merely have been one of somber reflection. A town together may bear up a tragedy just as it may bear itself up from the face of imminent disaster. As an uncle or son might be expected to fill the shoes of a fallen head of a household or to help, comfort, or even compensate a family member in time of loss, so a neighbor would be expected to lend his labors, his sympathies, and prayers to another more unfortunate. That Willem Van Buren was borne down by lead and not by waves, however, made a great noise. That noise was a cacophony that drowned out all comfort and consolation in deafening silence. Every man looked to his own labors with naught but a side glance for his neighbor.

The clatter and splash of galloping hooves interrupted the quiet drudgery, and a trio of riders parted the street traffic like the Red Sea. Their long duster overcoats billowed behind them like sails, and their black bolero hats tilted low over their noses. They made no call to the pedestrians to make way or shout ill news to the sleepy building like Paul Revere. Yet their presence caused every man to pause in his labors and stare long after them. Perhaps it was the snowy Sabino horses they mounted that so captured their attention. The trio pulled up and dismounted before The Royal Oak, tethering their horses to a hitching rail out front before swaggering in. Their leader, the man who introduced himself as Joshua Hadley, was alcalde for the Washington Municipality who had ridden from his prairie home nearly twenty miles northeast to offer assistance.

Hadley stepped down from his horse and tucked his top hat beneath one arm. He was a roughly middle-aged specimen whose blue, fitted frock coat over a white waistcoat and stiff cravat gave him the stiff appearance of a wind-up toy or gaudy automaton. He was greeted by the town’s founder, John W. Hall, who had brought Reverend Kenney along for the discussion. The whole time Hadley spoke to them, he stood, feet planted firmly in place, and only turned and bent slightly at the waist occasionally to indicate who he spoke to.

To any who might recognize him, Hadley’s arrival might spell good or ill tidings for the denizens of Washington. There was a desire for aid in the shadow of the hurricane, and there was a desire to uncover the murder of Willem Van Buren, but there was also a desire to avoid further wearing on the frayed nerves of the citizenry. To this end, Hadley stifled any further remark with a raised hand and directed his hosts to show him into the tavern. Yet inside, upon being recognized by besotted constituents, he promptly received a flood of queries and disputes from the harried farmers, stockmen, and traders. He could only wave a polite and assuring hand to them as he followed his hosts upstairs, that he would arrange to examine their cases by appointment. “Endeavor to persevere, friends,” he bade them with an encouraging shake of his gloved fist. “Restitution is come in good time.” There were those who proffered their emphatic anxieties over Karankawa attacks amidst the disaster, but these too he patted down with a soothing wave of his hands, assuring them that the assistance of minutemen recruited by Colonel Austin as empresario was already being arranged. A call went out to gather the prominent landowners and officials of Washington to confer with the alcalde so that measures could be taken to bring aid and reconstruction.

One figure was absent, and that was Gabriel Blackwood. Blackwood had remained at the harbor office even after receiving news of the alcalde. Upon determining that he had properly greased the wheels of his operation and prepared an itinerary, he gave it over to his business partner, Andrew Hall, and made tracks for home. He quickly gathered his papers, locked his desk and office, saddled his horse, and trotted homeward through the thoroughfare.

He wondered if he might intercept the good doctor on his way. Earlier that day, he had received word of Ada’s discovery and near-fatal mischance. In his anxiety and relief, he had put off much of his morning’s operations to look after her until urgent pleas from Mr. Hall at last extricated him from his daughter’s bedside. He tried to comfort himself that she was alive and home, but his thoughts ever turned to the fear, the awful worry, the horror of the Van Buren boy’s death, the remorse and fury at his daughter’s suffering. When he cleared the town proper, he spurred his horse into a gallop, determined to be there for his daughter when she awoke. His eyes strained through the trees as if trying to snag and pull the house towards him, feeling all the while as if the road were stretching beneath his horse’s hooves until it felt his home could be a whole county away. He didn’t know why, but when the peak of his house came into view, he half expected a distant shout and the rushing forward of wailing women blubbering news his brain intentionally beclouded. The worst was at the forefront of his mind, but he dared not acknowledge it. He swallowed it down and forced it to the pit of his stomach where it could fester like an ulcer. He consigned the psychology to the biological impulses of an overwrought nervous system, an undercooked meal, or poor sleep. For the sake of his nerves, he must convince himself there was more of gravy than of grave about his anxieties.

The sound reached his ears moments before he saw it—the sound of hooves ahead. Rounding a corner, he glimpsed the back view of an Appaloosa trotting beneath the shade of the arching tree canopy. He spurred his horse forward, and when the rider glanced back at him, he recognized immediately the face of Felix Collins.

Felix drew his horse across the path and hailed Blackwood, who was forced to rein in his own horse. “Mister Blackwood! Forgive my impertinence, sir, but—”

“Collins, I owe you a great debt for bringing my daughter safely home,” interrupted Blackwood patiently, “but my duties for today are to be reserved for my family and my daughter.”

“I understand, sir, but…”

“I am not ignorant of your travails, Collins, but my first duty is to my family. Surely, in light of this disaster, all our duties must be to ourselves and our own?”

“Sir, please, I understand and would never wish to trouble you so in these circumstances,” pleaded Felix. “Yet even you saw fit to make time to ensure the stability of your operations. Everyone needs help now, Blackwood, and in this flood, I’m doing all I can to stay afloat.”

“I understand.” Blackwood spoke to him like a parent attempting to calm an unruly child. “We are all suffering in the wake of this flood. It has disrupted all business, and I am perfectly willing to lend any aid to the best of my ability. Yet you understand that without your brother’s consent as a co-owner of your father’s business I can pursue no further negotiations.”

“Sir,” Felix’s voice was grave. “What must I do? Without the benefits of a joint partnership, our business is losing money and resources by the day. We all must rebuild. Yet how am I to do so? I have no connections, no suppliers, only local clients, and they cannot lend a hand in replenishing my stock or receiving aid from San Antonio de Bexar or San Felipe de Austin. I have to draw from the land, and what can it give me now?”

Blackwood bit his lip and gazed up with a sigh. When he spoke again, his voice was firm yet reassuring. “We can speak tomorrow. I’ll put a meeting in for seven thirty, and we can discuss aid and, perhaps, connecting you with one of my suppliers in Brazoria. Tomorrow, Felix.

Felix looked relieved and then sheepish, shifting around in his saddle. “Then, sir, with your permission…I have but one more request.”

Blackwood sighed. “What is it, Felix?”

“May I come and…proffer my well wishes and my…apologies to your daughter?”

“We already settled that. No one blames you…”

“Nevertheless,” Felix cut in, “I should like the opportunity to proffer my apologies to her as well and to see that she is alright. I feel I owe her that.”

Blackwood studied him for a moment. Then his gaze softened, and he nodded. “That is kind of you, Felix. If we may forgo further discussion of business for the day, then I would welcome you as a neighbor, as a guest, in my house.”

Blackwood continued on with Felix, keeping pace with his appaloosa down the long drive and finally to the porch, where his slave Abram rushed forward to take his horse’s reins. When Abram told him Ada was awake, he quickly dismounted and rushed inside with Felix keeping a respectable pace behind him.

Ada was sitting up in her bed, leaning back against a pile of pillows with her copy of Castle of Otranto in her hands. When she heard her father enter from the landing, she beamed at him and quickly dropped the book next to her. When he embraced her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder, feeling home at last.

Blackwood felt the weight of the world fall off his shoulders as he held his daughter tight and brushed her red locks with a gentle hand. He had no words, no exclamation, no questions, but merely sat there rocking slightly back and forth and hugging his daughter tight. When his wife ascended the stairs to meet him, she looked warmly upon her husband, stood beside him, and placed her hand on his shoulder. After a moment, she turned and beckoned Felix to enter.

Felix crossed to the end of the bed and held his hat in his hands. “I am glad to see you safe, Miss Ada. I…wanted…as I told your father…I wanted to express my pleasure at seeing you alive and well and to extend to you my sincerest apologies.”

Ada cocked her head at him. “Apologize for what, Mr. Collins?”

Felix rubbed the back of his neck with a hand. “Well, there’s no nice way to put it…It was my shot that clipped you in the woods. Damn fool mistake. I saw those birds fly up and drew a bead on them, but, well, I’m afraid you stumbled out into my crossfire.”

“Then it sounds like the blame is mine, Mr. Collins.”

“No, ma’am. I wasn’t being careful. Too eager. I got startled when they flew up and was in a hurry to nail one of them.” He gave a short, exasperated sigh on his own behalf. “Hell, my…own brother had taken point in the hunt. My mistake could’ve just as easily got him killed.”

“Your brother was with you?”

“Yes ma’am. While we’re both proficient hunters in our own right, I’m afraid we never do well together.” He shrugged with an apologetic smile. “When news got around about the Van Buren boy’s murder, we developed a bit of a hair trigger. Not pleasant knowing there’s a madman loose in the woods.” He bowed his head. “Anyway, I’m awful sorry, miss. I’ll certainly be more careful from here on.”

Ada smiled. “I can’t say I’ve been any more careful than you, Mr. Collins. At least Barnabas Beasley could say he was sleepwalking. Me?” she grimaced. “My damn fool curiosity caused a lot more problems than an itchy trigger finger did.”

“Ada!” her mother protested. “You didn’t cause anything!”

“She’s right, miss,” agreed Felix. “No good will come from thinking that way.”

Ada touched his hand. “Then no good will come from you blaming yourself. You brought me home, Mr. Collins, and that’s all that matters.”

“Well, you’re right about one thing, miss.” Felix took her hand. “All that matters is you’re home and thank God for it.”

So, the family and Felix considered themselves reconciled, and when the room was left behind to permit Ada some rest, Blackwood even invited Felix to dinner sometime when things were in order again. Forging his path back home, Felix felt his spirits lifted, considering that he might have made a friend in the Blackwoods. Even trotting back through the ravaged thoroughfare, he felt almost euphoric, like he’d managed to get a new lease on life even as everything else collapsed around him. Gazing around at the drenched streets and somber faces of weary men cleaning out refuse, he felt suddenly that things didn’t look so hopeless. After all, they were alive, weren’t they? Well, for the most part. What he soon recognized was that it was not a sense of self-satisfaction in the face of communal tragedy, but a sense of hope, being no longer a man adrift and uncertain.

Not that he was one to lord his good fortune over others. For Felix Collins, good fortune had a sweeter taste when shared, and with his good fortune, he felt he could achieve anything. He drew up to the Royal Oak Tavern, tied off his horse, and swaggered in to where gloomy faces drooped over mugs of frothing beer. Slapping a handful of silver pesos onto the counter, he proclaimed loudly, “Bartender! A round for the house!”

That got the attention of the room, and bleary faces swung around to stare at him like Christ before the Twelve. Then mugs were raised in a cheer, and a crowd broke like a wave upon the bar.

“What’s the occasion, son?” hollered the bartender with a raised brow as he quickly filled orders.

“Only goodwill in trying times,” replied Felix, raising his own mug, “and a reminder that we’re all in this together!”

“Endeavor to persevere!” came a shout from the back, which was met with laughter and hurrahs. The bartender finally slid a mug over to Felix, who raised it first in salute and then to his lips.

Felix’s throat abruptly tightened, and his neck snapped back, spilling his beer over his shirt. He felt his body topple backwards and saw the world rolling past him amidst cries of surprise and confusion. His heels dug for purchase on the floor but kicked uselessly beneath him. Then he felt the sunlight on his face and a shove at his back that sent him careening down the stairs. He rolled over in the mud, nursing the impact on his ribs, and lifted his head to get his bearings. The world around him was spinning, and his hand jerked out impulsively to find some object to brace against. He heard the snap seconds before he felt the searing pain across his neck. He gasped and rolled over, clutching the back of his neck, and then felt the pain lash across his gut. He tried to get his bearings, but every effort to gather himself was interrupted by the stinging sensation on his body. The sounds of shouts reached his ears, and he glanced around to see. His body contorted into the dirt and writhed at the sting across his ear and cheek. No matter where he turned, the sting was there, snapping across his hands and limbs and neck until he curled into a fetal position. “For the love of God!” he managed to scream, feeling the lash in the crooks of his knees and across his knuckles.

The click of a pistol and a booming voice cut through the chaos. “Mister Collins! Drop that damn whip afore I flog you with it!”

Felix darted a gaze from behind his cringing arm to see his brother Thomas looming over him. Only it wasn’t Thomas. Not with those eyes. A feral wolf might have looked more human. What Felix saw in those unblinking eyes could not even be called fury. Fury was never so cold and lifeless, and yet wide with attention. He wished he could have seen a sign—the baring of his teeth, the crimson of his face, the throbbing of a vein in his neck. The gaze was not even accusing; merely alert and knowing. Were it not for the clenched fist around the black handle of the quirt raised above him, the attack could almost be called mechanical.

Thomas stared at his brother; the quirt frozen in midair above his head. He was pale as death, and his face was set like stone. The whole time he stared, he never blinked once.

“I ain’t warning you again, son! Best drop that quirt, or we’ll see if a musket ball is big enough to knock some sense into that thick head of yours!” The sheriff stepped forward slowly.

Thomas’ fingers loosened one by one until the quirt was dangling between his thumb and forefinger. Finally, it splashed into the watery street, and the sheriff moved forward to restrain him while the whole town watched on in silence.

Share

So, for ages, man spent his days in darkness. In those days, they dwelt as one great tribe, and their numbers became as sand on the seashore. The servants of Baal-Sagath came to them in dreams, and they became disciples of his perverse pleasures. They worshipped the purloined flames and fed their children to them. They set fields alight for festivals and sacrifices. So, the first council fire was built for man, the One Tribe, a mighty nation. In those days, men lived surrounding the inland sea of Tlaxiii and built harbors there.

The chieftain Nezetchol was a mighty hunter, and it was by his might and craft that the peoples were subdued and gathered under his scepter. In the days of his youth, the tribe had been governed by an elder council and pagan priests who sacrificed regularly to their gods. When he saw their offerings did nothing, he determined to build an altar great enough to summon their blessings. He gathered the people to him and declared the wonders he would make, for if heaven would close itself to them, then he would go himself to heaven to assail the sky vaults and take their birthright back. He looked to the great forests around and bade his people bring him offerings of wood and stone to make offerings to the gods for his great undertaking. With their offerings, he made altars for sacrifice. When he had sacrificed, he bade his men take up wood and stone to build his city and a great ziggurat reaching to the stars. From clay, sand, and stone, they built for themselves a vast city along the bank of the sea, and called it Ukte’tsi (Heaven’s Wound). Yet swamps and marshes made a poor foundation for such a project. So Nezetchol ordered that islands be built in the marshes and even in the gulf waters. He built for himself a palace of stone, and beside it set to work on the ziggurat, the temple which would be the heart of his city.

The Ukte’tsi became great among the races of men, for they cultivated vast farmlands of beans, corn, and maize. For these, they created more artificial islands in surrounding lakebeds, cultivating floating gardens from stationary plots built up from the bottom of freshwater lakes. Building for themselves the first longboats, they quickly dominated the riverways, hunting trout and catfish with their long pikes and lances. The government of the Ukte’tsi quickly evolved into a caste system. Specialized communities sprang up in the city and throughout the region, and with the mining of copper, gold, and lapis lazuli came the rise of artisan communities. These included everything from woodworkers to stone carvers to feather workers. Those of the higher caste of artisans dwelt in the center of the city. Just beyond them lived the wealthy farmers, and on the outskirts lived the hunters and fishermen. Some fishermen even lived in solitary cabins or shack communities on the many, manmade islands, several of which could only be reached by boat or raft. These also created the first barges which carried goods up the Tsetsuomn’ah and Dhe’nah rivers. They even learned to divert the course of streams to water the city.

In those days came a prophet, Hayenwah son of Atodaho warning of the chief’s pride and rebuking the wicked ways of his people. He dressed in rags and roamed the streets, beating his drum in lament for the people. He warned that the blood of their sons would drown the land, and Apo-Akan would swallow it up in his wrath. Yet none would listen, for their prophets and their chief declared that with their sacrifices and so kingly a glorious they would waft a pleasing scent to the spirits of the air, and they would drag back the clouds and retake the light once lost which would be guarded heavily by the king and his generations to come. So, Nezetchol made his first sacrifice and took the heart of Hayenwah, and so the prophet died with prayers still on his lips. From then on, Nezetchol claimed only the blood of human sacrifices would please the spirits, and so they must tantalize them with further offerings. For years he bade them bring to him the blood of prophets, for they angered their gods. Nezetchol decreed only those of his house—of his family and of his wife’s family—might enjoy the sacred rite of kingship, that his reign might last eternally.

This wickedness sullied the house of Nezetchol for two hundred years through betrayal, murder, and incestuous marriage, and his line alone kept the throne. He rejected the ways of Apo-Akan and built for himself the high totems to gods of bird, beast and air, and even surrounding communities, those not assimilated into the city of Ukte’tsi, began adopting these totems, which would become a scourge to the land for millennia to come. As years went on and his successors followed, they declared first that the blood of warriors would only do, not weak prophets. So began the factions and wars of surrounding tribes who wanted no part in the kingdom of Ukte’tsi. These took to the hills and valleys that surrounded the land of Galvunden (now called Xotolco Valley), where Nezetchol had built his kingdom.

Finally, only the blood of their children, their most precious possessions, would prove a suitable offering. By lot, children were chosen from every house and marked the sacrifices for every month. They engaged in orgies most vile, taking women for temple prostitutes, and concubines were selected to keep their numbers from dwindling with their constant sacrifices. They sacrificed to summon Nahuktena that he might swallow the heavens and bring to them the lost light. As those of the people began to scatter (mostly followers of the prophets) to the surrounding hills and vales to escape sacrifice, the Ukte’tsi sent regular raids into the surrounding territory to round up the diaspora. Small revolutions occurred here and there, but they were quickly put down or driven into hiding. In time, they permitted those outside to grow and establish settlements along the outskirts but exacted from them a hefty tribute and treated them as little more than cattle bred for labor and sacrifice. Those faithful to Apo-Akan were persecuted as a dangerous and divisive sect or cult. It was in these days men learned magic—a perverse craft unlike the miracles of the faithful, for these were the days before the coming of the Blessed Ones.

Then, in the days of the king, Tnoch’tin of Ukte’tsi, men groaned beneath the power of Ukte’tsi and dreamed of casting off his yoke. The faithful lifted their voices to Apo-Akan, while others who had fled petitioned the spirits of the air to sunder the city of the oppressors. These latter cried out for the misery of their caste, not for the abominations of false gods. The vassals cried out, for they were not rulers, and their passions were stirred to rebellion. Though the vassals all considered themselves of one people, indeed one tribe, of Ukte’tsi, factions of clan leadership had already begun to divide them internally. Their confederation was one of suffering, but never could it overcome the ancient enmity of rivalries and disputes over farmland. Yet they shared the grazing lands and the cattle, and they took wives from within these clans, for the higher castes of Ukte’tsi refused to mingle with them.

One such clan arose, the clan of Ta’aten, cousin of Nezetchol, who laid claim that his family were the true heirs of Nezetchol. This, they claimed, was because Nezetchol had taken a cousin, the daughter of Cohactehn, to bed and so sired him in the house of Ta’aten. However, it had been claimed that her husband, Devii, had been the boy’s father, and this indiscretion had been concealed for some years. Yet now Ta’aten claimed a right to the throne, stirring up dissent among the lower castes. He demanded that the games of ollmatzi, a ritualistic ballgame of the Ukte’tsi, be declared to determine who the gods favored to lead them. The challenge was accepted by Tnoch’tin who arranged them with the coming of the full moon. Yet when night had fallen, he sent forth men into the camp of Ta’aten to the tent of Saiichi, the challenger, as he slept. Taking him each by the arms and legs, they pinned him in his cot as Tzatl, the king’s general, struck off his head with an axe. The following day, Tnoch’tin held his games, kicking around the head of Saiichi in the dust of the court.

Aggrieved at the loss of Saiichi and incensed at the betrayal of Tnoch’tin, the clan of Ta’aten took up arms, capturing the priests of Ukte’tsi and tearing them limb from limb. These limbs they strung up and lifted on pikes as banners and bore them against the warriors of Tnoch’tin. They claimed the farmlands and amassed an army from the diaspora. “What portion have we in Nezetchol? Go now, every man, to his house and dust off his stoop, for this is the house of Ta’aten, and he will permit no vermin to dwell there.” This call to “dust off” their stoop was a pointed call to arms against Tnoch’tin, that Ukte’tsi was their birthright, and that the line of Nezetchol would be cleaned out. So began the First War of Galvunden, and for twenty years it ravaged the valleys.

Three clans followed Ta’aten—the clan of his cousin, Zoah’aten, the clan of Xoczitli his father-in-law, and the clan of Zaniiei, his mother-in-law. They claimed for themselves the surrounding territories of the Moj’yveh Steppe, the Araphn’ya Plains, and the Lama’ourre Steppe and divided them as counties amongst themselves under the Ta’aten Confederacy. Then the three chieftains met at the eastern border of the neighboring N’Kata Valley, and behind the wall of mountains they set their camp, fortifying the mountain paths. From the high places they took with arrows, slings, and atlatls, pinching off the forces of Tnoch’tin in the narrow valleys and casting stones upon them from the cliffs and goat paths. They moved among the trees and boulders, picking off the forces of General Tlal, and they coated their arrows with the poison of dart frogs. They blocked the narrow road with fallen trees and forced the enemy to pitch camp and fortify on the road. Then, at night, they threw panic into the camps of the Ukte’tsi, fashioning for themselves death whistles of ceramic from the clay of the riverbanks. The valleys echoed with their unearthly shrieks, and the forces of Ukte’tsi thought that demons had fallen upon them in the night. Some, even in their madness and the blinding darkness, turned their hatchets and clubs upon the skulls of their comrades. The forces of Ukte’tsi were forced into retreat and fell back to the banks of the Tsetuomn’ah.

Three times they tried again to take the pass, and three times they were repelled to the river. The war carried on for three months without success, and grumbling arose in Ukte’tsi. Tnoch’tin was running out of food for his troops and the people of the city without access to the outer farmlands. Furthermore, his weakness increased in the eyes of his troops and generals, and he feared desertion from the former and insurrection from the latter. In full might, this rebellion might easily have been put down, for none could compare to the fortified city of Ukte’tsi, but division was sown in the palace of Ukte’tsi, and the heirs of Tnoch’tin disputed over succession while Tnoch’tin himself had divided his attention with the war. The heir apparent of Tnoch’tin, his son Xail, was married to Senaii, daughter of Tnoch’tin’s brother Moctzeimin after her husband, T’licte, was poisoned to prevent another family’s claim to the throne. The family of T’licte was likewise done away with. His father and sons were invited to fish with Tnoch’tin in the river Tsetuomn’ah beyond the valley, and when they had come to the riverway at the edge of the Izhmeer Forest which bordered the left side of the valley, Tnoch’tin bound T’licte’s father and sons, knelt them upon the bank of Tsetuomn’ah, and smote off their heads. He bid their bodies be cast into the river, that they be carried off far from the valley. So, the line of Xail was preserved, and Tnoch’tin prevented further claimants to the throne, ensuring the reign of his family would not be usurped by T’licte. Thenceforth, the royal family took no spouses from those outside the line of Tnoch’tin and his father, and the royal family only augmented this limitation by taking occasional concubines from the women of Galvunden. This tradition would remain until the day of the Sundering, when mankind was at last divided.

The provinces from the N’kata Valley in the Kihiite Mountain Range to the Moj’yveh Steppe had joined or were overtaken by the followers of Ta’aten. Tnoch’tin’s forces were being beaten back by the rebels. Their persistent ambushes laid waste to his forces, and he feared they would press their way soon into Ukte’tsi itself. Without the farms on the outskirts to provide the city with food, his kingdom became famished, and threats of desertion loomed. At last, Tnoch’tin knew he must put an end to this conflict soon. So, he issued a decree to his commanders, “Let every people of the Ta’aten be driven like swine into the sea from N’Kata to Moj’yveh. Carry forth fire and the spear into every habitation until nothing is left standing and the Tsetsuomn’ah swells with their blood. You are hereby ordered to put to the axe all under seventy summers, including every beast of their fields. Yet let the brothers of Saiichi, these usurpers, be brought alive to Ukte’tsi, for such royal contenders will make a most royal offering to the gods.”

This order carried to General Tzatl who assembled his seven lieutenants, men of great renown. The chief of these was Yarechtli, and it was he who received the order to set torch to the forest brush and to the fields on the outskirts. With reeds and pitch, they set the corn and maize aflame, even just beyond the city on the marshy islands, such that Tnoch’tin himself could see their glow from the windows of his palace. Ash fell like rain over the countryside and over Ukte’tsi like snow, and men, women, and children fled from burning huts only to meet the arrows of Tzatl. The men tried to corral the women and children behind them and give back the shots of Tzatl, but the fire surged up around them, and smoke filled their lungs. Some, especially the elderly and the sick, did not escape the conflagration and burned to death in their homes. The brothers of Saiichi—Atza, Coactl, Xihtuil, and Cyochiplli—were taken alive as prisoners according to the command of Tzatl. The infant son of Coactl was torn from the arms of his mother and cast back into the inferno of his hut. Those who escaped, some fifty women, children, and elderly, were driven to the forests and hills, where fever and the prowling jaguar took them. It is said that the valleys that remain still echo with their cries, and the earth and mountains where their blood was shed to this day never grow with aught but creeping things and loom black and empty before the bowl-like canyon where once their people dwelt. The soil that remains is like ash, and mountain winds churn it up like fog in the valleys.

The brothers of Saiichi were borne back to Ukte’tsi, hands bound, and necks roped to one another in a chain by wooden collars. They were beaten with switches and paraded like cattle through the streets. Then Tnoch’tin mocked them, bowing and dancing before them, jeering, “Hail to the chief! Hail to the chief of straw! To the chief of moles! How gracious of you to poke your head up for us, your divine majesty! Come with me! Come with me to the high place, your highness, and see your kingdom better from above!” They led the brothers to the ziggurat, the temple of Nezetchol, and at its peak, they stretched them upon the altar one by one, cut out their hearts, and struck off their heads so that they careened down the temple steps like fruit shaken from a tree. Even the youngest brother, a lad of a mere thirteen summers, was not spared this massacre. His cry went up, as did those of the scattered remnants who perished alone in the forests, sick and starving, and his blood mingled with his brothers’ on the steps of the ziggurat, and there was no end to the abominations of Tnoch’tin and his people. So, the clan of Ta’aten was wiped from history, and only the stones bore their memory.

In the later years of Tnoch’tin’s reign, his daughter Itzel fell in love with a lieutenant of her personal guard named Karuk. For six months they were able to conceal their affair, and when it at last became clear she could hide it no longer, she threw herself before the king, declaring that she was with child. “Name the father,” commanded Tnoch’tin, for Itzel had to this point remained unmarried. Yet she refused. “Oh, my lord and father, I cannot name him, for I know then that his life will be forfeit, and what then shall become of this child? Shall the king’s grandson be left to the sun and rain to perish like a peasant in the belly of a jaguar? Be it not so!”

“What then would you have me do?” asked the king.

“Only give me your solemn oath before the gods that you shall not harm him or his child. Swear it, or I shall say nothing,” she demanded.

“I have other daughters,” replied Tnoch’tin wryly.

“And what shall they do if I or my own perish for my indiscretion? They shall say Tnoch’tin’s is a house of eunuchs, for no daughter of this house would hereafter dare to give themselves to another, or they would flee to the hills and valleys to chance the wild beasts e’er they tested a father’s wrath.”

The king grumbled but raised his hand. “By all the gods of blood and sky, I swear neither you nor your child nor even this man may come to harm. Yet will it be said that Tnoch’tin is not a king? Perhaps he is rather a peddler of cheap flesh, and his palace is but a house for harlots.”

“I swear by the gods, he is a noble man and not one of low birth. Only say you have given me to a noble—a loyal servant who will prove a most loyal son, a man who has shed his blood and the blood of others on your account. How much stronger shall his loyalty be once tied by the bonds of kinship? Let the house of Tnoch’tin invite the strong, and it shall beget the strong.”

So, he gave his consent and declared to the people that he had arranged the marriage of Karuk to his daughter, for he was a loyal man who had distinguished himself in battle and shed his own blood freely for his king. Thereafter, he established an exception to the law and decreed that only commanding officers in service to the king who had so distinguished themselves might win the hand of a princess or noble lady of the king’s house. Thus, for a time, there came a tradition of commanding officers of the Galvunden army improving their station by marrying into the royal family.

Eager to please his father-in-law, Karuk submitted himself to the king and became a trusted advisor. By the gifts he bestowed generously upon his in-laws and by the entreaties of Itzel, he was appointed sole command of the king’s personal guard. He took upon himself the duties and privileges of recruiting and expanding the army of Galvunden. Then, he gathered for himself a centralized troop of cohorts into a single, fortified camp at the edge of the city called Karuktlect, meaning Sons of Karuk, establishing them ostensibly as the guard dogs of the royal family. In the early mornings, he would assemble his cohorts at the center of the camp and perform demonstrations. He would march them around the market squares and wealthy quarters of the city, leading at the head. In the noonday hours, he called forth the able-bodied men from their labors and took a census of them. Of these he kept strict record and bade them bring every concern to him, for he was the king’s liaison. In this way, he also kept a record of their debts and collected or forgave as he saw fit. So, he set himself up as a judge throughout the land.

There were those who sought to petition the king for their problems or even to bring complaints against Karuk. There were even those in the king’s inner circle who tried to bring these concerns to him. Yet these were anticipated by Karuk, who controlled physical access to the king and imprisoned, interrogated, and forced them to make confessions to trumped-up charges. These were summarily executed or kept imprisoned, and their belongings were seized by Karuklect. By this method, Karuk came into much wealth and land, some of which he divided amongst his cohorts, and he greased the palms of nobles with bribes of gold. He swaggered over the citizens and those in the countryside. By flatteries and gifts of wealth, he secured a place in the heart of the king such that when the princes brought their complaints of him (for they needed no intermediary to see their father), it only fueled the king’s paranoia and hardened his heart towards his sons. Indeed, the sons themselves felt resentment against Karuk and against their father for the favors he bestowed upon his general and that his word was favored over theirs.

With assurance that not even the king’s sons could shake his influence, Karuk became bolder and more brazen in his lust for power. He even went so far as to erect statues of himself in the city squares and at the borders of Galvunden, calling himself the “guard dog” of the royal family. His brazenness reached its peak when he seduced Tlei’li, the wife of Itzal, brother of Xail, drawing her into his plots. Itzal became infected with a kind of consumption that followed him for two years. In the time that it lasted, he became paranoid, refusing to eat the food prepared by any of the cooks in his father’s house. Instead, he sent his mother to bring him fruit from the marketplace and would only draw water from the palace well with his own hands. For a time, though he lost some weight, his condition did improve. His mind became frantic. A kind of madness possessed him, and he raved at nights and, on occasion, set upon some hapless servant, screaming of treason. Other nights he awoke the palace running from shadows down the long, pillared halls screaming, “Murder! Away, ye gods! What putrid meat for sacrifice!” When he at last succumbed, gibbering in spasms on his bed, it was declared that a fever had taken him. His final words had been the frantic gasps that “a dog is loose in the palace.”

It was at this, the height of his power and influence, that the eyes of Karuk saw further than his grasp, and he hungered for the throne. He asserted his presence in every quarter of the palace, and finally, the whispers of a coup reached the ears of the queen. Bringing these tiding to her mother-in-law, both went to confront the king in the wake of his sons death. “Who is the king of Galvunden, gatekeeper?” demanded his mother.

“Old woman, you rave,” growled Tnoch’tin on his couch. “What do you take me for? Or are you so blind with age that you confuse me for a servant?”

“A king who cedes his crown to a subject is naught but a gatekeeper to his own palace, for that alone does he now command. Or have you ceded that too to your son, Karuk?”

His wife joined in with her fury. “Who is it now buried on our grounds? Where is he to whom I sang in his cradle? Whom I nursed at my breast? Need I ask him? Mayhap our bed is thy sole domain. Turn thy ear, Tnoch’tin! Do you not hear it? The cries of your son still echo in this house! Perhaps you could not hear it for the laughter?”

“What insolence! Laughter?” roared Tnoch’tin.

“Laughter! They laugh at you, Tnoch’tin! The king is on holiday while his dog sits atop the throne. When will you take it back, Lord Gatekeeper? Beware, lest he bite thy hand. Where are thy forces, Tnoch’tin? Where are thy guards?”

Then Tnoch’tin’s heart was cold with fear, for he perceived that the numbers and fortifications of Karuklect had grown, and the army itself was in danger of finding itself under his thumb. He saw the statues at every corner and feared that his name would be washed away like mud in the rain. When news arrived from one of his servants of a whispered coup, he knew that he could not suppress the schemes of Karuk by open retaliation. So, scheming with his high priest, he arranged that Karuk should meet with him in the palace courtyard to carry out the lottery for sacrifice. He gathered them all, the whole city, before the palace and declared that Tnoch’tin himself would put his name in the lottery, despite the sacred decree which forbade royalty from participating in the drawing. “Am I not thy king? Art thou not my people? What king would ask of his people what he would not himself sacrifice?” Tnoch’tin even permitted one of Karuk’s lieutenants to draw the lot.

Yet the lots had been rigged by the high priest so that whatever lot was drawn, Karuk would be the sole choice. When his name was announced, he could not oppose the sacred rites and will of the gods. His sole comfort was that the family of the sacrifice would be cared for thereafter and be honored by all for generations to come. Like a lamb, he submitted to his fate, and he made no cry when they plucked the heart from his chest. Then they smote the head from his shoulders and cast his body down the stairs of the ziggurat.

Yet even after, Tnoch’tin would not permit any of the line of Karuk to remain. He would permit no son to rise in his place and hold sway over his army. The forces of the king, by his decree, fell upon Karuklect by night and slaughtered every man of them. They then felled every building in the settlement and hewed the wood and bodies to splinters. The wood they buried in the ground, and the flesh they fed to dogs. Their bones, weapons, and armor they buried or shattered with stones.

That same night, Tnoch’tin’s personal guard entered the house of Karuk by night. They butchered his family, the women and children, and burned their bodies in the courtyard of the palace. The heads of his children were hung above the door of his house as a warning to all usurpers that the judgement of the gods had fallen upon Karuk and his family. This dishonor would follow the house of Tnoch’tin for generations to come, and the land itself would become sick with the blood of this massacre.

Share

My pulp novel, Rao-Bak: The Wolf-Son, is available for purchase! A lost child raised by wolves grows to be the wild prince of the Piney Woods and finds himself caught in the middle of a war between competing tribes and colonial powers fighting for a stake in the fertile soil of the New World.

Cover art by Cordelle Walker

Purchase a paperback copy now. Digital coming soon:

• Amazon

• Lulu

Note: This is the beginning of an experimental prehistory for a mythological America. What this will be is a prototype for a sort of American-inspired Middle Earth, attempting to do for America (specifically the Southwest and especially Texas) what the Silmarillion did for England. I open this up for critique, and hope this’ll be a good thought exercise for developing an American fantasy. Naturally, I expect most of this to change significantly over time.

In the Beginning, the great sea covered the earth, and the beasts of the water hatched and thrived under the eye of Apo-Akan. Deep in the midst of the waters lay the great bed of the sea, sprouting with coral. Beneath this seabed curled the mighty form of Nahuktena, the great serpent over whom Apo-Akan cast a deep sleep. Many say when man went wrong, and Apo-Akan cursed them, he swore to one day awaken the serpent, who would thrash the earth to pieces and sail away to distant stars, leaving only the faithful to remain with Apo-Akan. Yet so great was the love of Apo-Akan that he wished to have beings with which to share it. Yet with his great love came infinite wisdom and foresight, and he wept, for he knew many of his creations would envy his power and rebel in spite against him. In his weeping, he poured out his heart in a song of lament, and his voice poured forth in a great cloud that whirled and coalesced into the Mortal Sphere. Yet this sphere was but a hazy shadow of life and darkness. Apo-Akan spoke to the stork, bird of air and water, and bid him dive with a seed to the seabed and, there, plant it. So, Stork obeyed and plunged deep into the darkest recesses of the ocean with the seed clutched in his talons. He dove deeper than any man has ever before, until the sea was black as night, where even the light of Apo-Akan could not shine through.

Now Nahuktena had many children with the spirits of the deep, and these were the beasts that dwelt in darkness in the depths, including the great leviathans and behemoths that prey upon ships and churn the waves to storms. They saw Stork and plotted to snatch this emissary of Apo-Akan who had banished their father to the depths. The great serpents slithered forth and coiled around stork, seeking to entrap him and plunge in with their fangs. Yet stork was as lithe and swift as they, and he slipped through their coils and swept away amidst the coral. There, he plunged his beak deep into the seabed and swept up again, leaving the seed. For days, the children of Nahuktena sought the seed to no avail, and it grew until its roots were too deep for even them to pull. The roots entrapped Nahuktena and grew upward into the great World Tree whose branches grew above the waters and whose roots swelled the earth until it breached the surface. So, the one vast island was born upon the back of Nahuktena, whose fire stoked deep within until vast mountains pierced the surface, some boiling with his endless fire.

The World Tree’s branches reached up through the soil, sprouted, and shed seeds. Some became the grasses of the fields, and others became more trees, planting the vast forests. Apo-Akan sent the winds with his breath, bending the branches and scattering the seeds across the land, where sprouted more greenery until they smote the spines of the great mountains. Then he sent Beaver to carve trenches for the rivers and streams that the water might feed the land. Finally, he plucked a hair from his beard and buried it beneath the shade of a great pine. For months, he shook the water from the sky vaults, showering the land. Then, when the beasts cried out for fear that they would be swept away by the floods, Apo-Akan heeded their cries and abated. Lighting his great lamp over the earth, he sent warmth to chase away the storm. Then, he commanded coyote, the first of his creatures, to dig where he had planted the hair. Coyote obeyed and dug until he found the naked form of a man curled in the soil. Apo-Akan declared, “Sons, behold thy shepherd. He will guide thy herds and flocks and packs, and he shall tend the fields and trees. Yet like the great rains he will swell over thee as did the flood, and many shall die. Mountains shall fall with trees, and he shall bend the rivers and drink the lakes until much that was is no more.”

Coyote curled around him, warmed him, and brought him food until the man began to walk, like a newborn, on all fours. So, coyote nursed the man and taught him to live until his hunger for higher branches and their lush fruit taught him to stand. He named the beasts, tended and subdued them. Yet his heart was heavy, for in the beasts he found no fellowship. So, Apo-Akan told him he must give a part to become a whole. The man thought and then asked Apo-Akan if a finger would do. Apo-Akan accepted and took the third finger of his hand. This became a seed, which coyote planted, and by the light of the moon, a large bud grew. It bloomed into a beautiful lily while the man slept, and a woman stepped forth. Coyote led her to the man, and she slept beside him, warmed by his body. When they awoke the next day and the man saw her, he rejoiced and took her for his wife. Together, the heavens joined in their wedding song—the firstborn of Apo-Akan, the Dihe.

To each of the Wychah Vohlk Apo-Akan gave the duty to love and lead his new children in the way of truth that the spheres of Mortal and Celestial might be combined into one new realm. To carry out this task he appointed his greatest lieutenants of the Wychah Vohlk, Mani’taan and Ga’akt-Baal, to carry the tablets of the law down to them and set them on the highest peak where all humanity could see. Yet Ga’akt-Baal became jealous of these new creations and grumbled against Apo-Akan for bestowing this new favor on them. Apo-Akan spoke to him, saying, “Ga’akt-Baal, have I not made thee all with my love, and do I not share that love with thee all? These people are thy brothers. They were born of my love as ye were, and are ye not then one with them? Therefore, love them as I have loved thee, and ye both shall stand at my side in honor, and thy honor in my house shall be without peer.” Mani’taan took his father’s words to heart and loved the mortals as his brothers. Yet Ga’akt-Baal despised them and resented his father, for he desired the power and authority of Apo-Akan and was jealous that these lesser beings would share in his birthright.

Mani’taan spoke to his brother, imploring him, “My brother, wherefore sneer thee at our father? Is not his love enough? Hath he not given all to thee from his heart and made thee ruler over these? Our father’s power abounds from his love, and therefore wilt thou not be mighty if thee love as he?” But Ga’akt-Baal sneered at his brother’s words, “I cannot abide with thee. If father’s tears hath grown them like the Spring grass, then his tears shall sweep them away like the Summer rain.” So it was that he wanted not the father’s love, but his gifts. A birthright he perceived had been taken from him and bestowed upon the meek and mortal, and Ga’akt-Baal feared in his heart that man would one day grow too numerous and that he would be called upon to serve them—he, one of the firstborn of the Great Shepherd.

Ga’akt-Baal left his brother and spread his words of scorn and bitterness to his other brothers. Some replied as Mani’taan had, chiding him for his grumbling and exhorting him to humble himself and love his new brothers. Yet others shared his bitterness and confided with him. Together they plotted and schemed until Ga’akt-Baal was ready to set his plan to action.

Ga’akt-Baal sent his voice through the spheres to a man named Dynma, greeting him warmly. “Peace be upon thee, brother Dynma. What task has so wracked thy body in sweat? Is not the winter chill newly come?” Dynma replied, “Aye, so it has, but see here I sweat in my labor to make fire as Mani’taan thy brother taught us.” Ga’akt-Baal scoffed, “What cruel humor my brother hath to set thee toiling over a twig!” “But sir,” Dynma replied, “hath not Apo-Akan himself sent this instruction by thy brother, and hath he not set thy brother as a teacher over us?” “Aye, and he laughs too! For while ye toil and sweat to warm thyself and cook thy meals, my father basks before a great council fire where my brothers gather with him to share his light and warmth. Truly, he hath such fire in abundance but will not deign to share with thee, for he sees thee as the lowest of creation. Forsooth, hath he not set me and my brother as rulers over thee? Yet wherefore shouldst thou not partake in equal portion? Wherefore shouldst thou not sit with Him at his council fire. Are ye not his sons too? Yet I will share this fire with thee, my brother, for I do love thee greater.”

Dynma heeded the words of Ga’akt-Baal and followed his voice to the towering mountain peak where Apo-Akan’s fire touched the world and warmed it. “See thou the great flame yon? The tongue which licks the purple peak? ‘Tis the tassel of Apo-Akan’s cloak. Thou need but pluck it from his hem, and ‘tis thine.” Now Dynma was a great hunter and skilled marksman, and he took aim with his bow and severed the tongue of flame with his arrow. When it struck the peak, it scorched it black, and Dynma hurriedly gathered the flame in a pot and hurried back down. As he went, the fire began to dwindle, and Ga’akt-Baal periodically urged him to stop and pluck the branches and twigs of bushes to feed it. When he returned to his people, he showed them the fire he took and told them how Ga’akt-Baal had instructed him.

The people cheered and praised the Wychah Vohlk, but quickly fell to quarreling over the fire. They snatched and fought over the pot, taking branches to divvy up flames for themselves. Yet their greed and malice stoked the flame so that it burned them, and some were even consumed by it, for Apo-Akan’s flame burned hotly against wickedness and sought to burn away the imperfections. Finally, they trapped the fire in an oven built of clay as Ga’akt-Baal instructed, but none could tame or master it. Ga’akt-Baal instructed them to fashion great weapons for themselves in the flame and armor that would blind Apo-Akan with its sheen. Then they might strut proudly in his presence as equals and command hosts of Wychah Volk. He showed them how to contain the fire with wicked rites and oaths of allegiance to him by which he imparted his power to them. So was witchcraft and sorcery first introduced into the world, and its first proponent was Dynma. “I have taken the fire; I have brought it hence, and therefore I shall master it and teach it to thee. I shall find the hidden knowledge of Apo-Akan and create just as he.” So, Dynma sought to create new men in their own image that they might be lords and gods over them.

They sacrificed their elderly and their children to the fire. Dynma cast his own father and son into the flames, basking in their warmth until the flame roared blackly before them. With their sacrifices and dark arts, they formed mangled amalgams of the celestanae bound in twisted facsimiles of themselves and imbued with their envy, lust, and bitterness. Ga’akt-Baal breathed life into their mouths and the creations howled into being with rabid abandon. They set upon people and tore them to pieces or possessed others and made them the avatars for their vices. These spirits became the furies of wickedness and served as emissaries of Ga’akt-Baal throughout the world driving men to devolve into sinful passions. Many who recognized the madness and destruction of the furies they had created stomped and spat on the fire until it abated, but they felt fury and bitterness towards Apo-Akan that his power had so wounded them and that they had no portion in it. So, they lifted up their voices and cursed Apo-Akan, shaking their fists at the sky. They cursed the warm light which lit the earth and called it hot and oppressive. “We have sampled thy fire! What little thou gave to warm us wouldst have surely consumed us in our sleep! Wouldst thou one day swallow us in thy great light above? Take it hence! Put away thy glare, and we shall take the earth for ourselves as our rightful portion!”

Then Apo-Akan’s wrath burned hotly against them, and he said unto them, “Verily, it shall be as thee say. For as my light was not enough for thee, ye greedily sought thy birthright, and to what end? To forge thy swords and train thy points at me? Yet wilt ye put out fire with fire? How callously ye gave thy precious ones to the flame and made stumbling blocks of their bones! For what hath ye done this? For the warmth that I have freely shared? Thou hast taken what I wouldst have shared and sought to bridle what I wouldst have taught thee to hold. Verily, I shall hence give thee thy earned measure. I shall heed the cries of my righteous dead, and ye shall dwell in the world ye hath forged.” So, a powerful wind blew from Apo-Akan’s mouth which tore the land and rent the very mountains asunder, blackening the ground until the spine of the earth lay exposed in a vast mountain range. Finally, the sun itself flickered out by the force of his breath, and the world was enveloped in darkness. The earth remained thus for three thousand years, and the people suffered in an endless frost that covered the land. They dwelt in caves in the earth and mountains devolving into a baser form of life driven to madness and bestial savagery.

Mani’taan tore his hair, beat his breast, and led the loyal celestanae in a song of mourning that thundered through the darkness above the earth. For seven years he mourned mankind hidden behind the veil of night, calling to them and begging that they strive to repent and seek Apo-Akan. Apo-Akan heard his mourning and called him forth with words of comfort, “My son, who among thy brethren here or below can compare with thy love? I have heard thy mourning, but I have shaken the spheres with my weeping. They are thy brethren, but are they not my children also? Do I not know them each by the hairs of their head? Didst I not know them from their first cries and call thee all round to celebrate and sing at every new birth? Yet they have rejected me and demanded my departure, and so I have done as they asked and turned away my face. They have rejected me, and they have rejected thee as well. Yet I will make a covenant with thee—I shall not strike them from this world, but they shall live on, and I shall not turn away they that seek me out. I shall send thee all to speak to them in dreams and whisper in their minds until they call for me. For they that return to me, to them I shall return their portion.”

Then Mani’taan was comforted, and his grief turned to rage against his brother Ga’akt-Baal. He gathered his loyal brethren together and cried out, “What portion hath Ga’akt-Baal with us? That limb hath festered and poisoned the body. Come therefore and let us cut it away! He hath bought his portion with their blood, and he shall plough his wickedness there!” So, Mani’taan led his loyal brothers against Ga’akt-Baal and his followers, and a battle unlike any other occurred. The ichor of the Wychah Vohlk fell in golden rain upon the earth, and where it fell there sprung a land of verdant forests and lush pastures. It soaked into the earth and swelled it until springs burst forth and created rivers and lakes. Ga’akt-Baal’s forces were at last overwhelmed, and Mani’taan smote his thigh in combat, crippling him forever. Mani’taan then cast him burning to the earth like a falling star. The fall of Ga’akt-Baal rent a hole in the fabric of the cosmos, and he smote the earth with such force that the spheres tore and scarred over him, crystallizing into a new sphere which became limbo. His followers were soon cast down after him, and Apo-Akan spoke words of promise that though they fell to earth they wouldn’t have free reign to assail mankind. His holy promise sealed the fallen Wychah Vohlk there behind a crystal door, whence Apo-Akan would send his faithful Wychah Vohlk to carry on the battle for men’s souls where the earth would not be harmed.

Ga’akt-Baal and his followers, the Unadwelt, would send forth their ego to be born anew into the bodies of beasts to wreak havoc upon the world. These unnatural monsters born from the wombs of birds and beasts became the Bent Beasts—monsters of legend who terrorized the earth and the dwellings of man, feasting on their flesh and defiling the innocent until the age of heroes when great men writ their names on history as noble judges of the earth. Apo-Akan divested Ga’akt-Baal of his holy name—a name he had given him in love—and named him Baal-Sagath, the dark dreamer.

Share

My pulp novel, Rao-Bak: The Wolf-Son, is available for purchase! A lost child raised by wolves grows to be the wild prince of the Piney Woods and finds himself caught in the middle of a war between competing tribes and colonial powers fighting for a stake in the fertile soil of the New World.

Cover art by Cordelle Walker

Purchase a paperback copy now. Digital coming soon:

• Amazon

• Lulu

The prime difficulty in looking to the natives to craft a uniquely American mythology is the lack of cultural cohesion between them. The Cherokee are different from the Navajo, who are different from the Hopi, who are different from the Karankawa, who are different from the Aztecs, and so on. What’s more, their values are different. To utilize all of these alone would create a morally/culturally confused story, to say the least. The tribes of America were more spread out and distinct, developing more on their own, distinct paths than through the kind of sociocultural interactions and shared history of people like the Celts, Germans, Saxons, Nords, etc. (The slavic people seem to me the most unique among these groups, but in their history, I am still a neophyte) To understand that, we kind of have to remind ourselves just how big America is. I’m sure you’ve seen all the memes about the size of Texas, how many countries you can fit in it and so on. Yet it’s a valid point in a way. In Texas alone, you could fit up to ten European countries. Over 90% of Europe as a whole could fit into the landmass of America. As my Granny once said, The sun is riz, the sun is set, and here I is in Texas yet. Exacerbating the problem is that until the arrival of the Europeans, most native tribes were so primitive that they hadn’t even discovered the wheel. They were occasionally pictographic but relied mostly on an ever changing, inconsistent and often propagandistic oral culture.

Just as many people accuse settlers of crafting a mythology of “manifest destiny” in order to take over native land, so also natives crafted myths of divine birthright—that their god/gods had bequeathed the land to their ancestors, when in fact it the result owed more to centuries of war and genocide long before the first white man set foot on the continent.

I do not mention this to diminish or excuse evil deeds committed by either side, but to emphasize the nuance of the issue. To tackle the idea of American mythology, if one were to address these issues in some form, you would have to be truthful and contextualize the colonial indigenous wars as just another thread in the complex web of conquests and cultures (as Thomas Sowell addressed in his book of the same name) that have defined world history for eons. The point is, one could argue that this theme would be essential to the crafting of an American mythological narrative, but I’d only hesitate to do so for two reasons: 1) I’d hate to trivialize, intentionally or not, the motives and actions of either side and devolve into a puerile bias, and 2) I’d hate to devolve into a kind of propaganda for either side. There’s a reason Tolkien hated allegory, and I feel one should follow suit in this case.

So, then, what to do? How do you utilize the disparate cultures and mythologies of such a diverse native diaspora? How do you marry those concepts with the diverse European cultures and mythologies? To answer that, one must get to the core of how each of these factors make up the cohesive whole of the American cultural identity. Yet you cannot even reduce it all down to that, since America is less a collection of states and territories that make up a country, but a set of regions and unique, state cultures that frankly operate almost as countries themselves. It’d be less like making a mythology for England a’la Tolkien, and more like making a mythology for the entirety of Europe. Texas alone is a volatile mix of Scots-Irish, English, and Germano-Slavic, not to mention the Spanish and native Mexican influences. The point is, how do you balance these? How far do you delve into either the European or native cultural identities that make up the American cultural identity?

To answer that question, we should probably try to narrow down the various kinds of native cultures into a set of basic categories rather than perusing every bit of cultural minutiae that makes each one unique. A titanic, task, I know, but perhaps we could find a way to boil them down a bit. Broadly speaking, academics tend to group indian cultures of North America by geographic region. Those are:

• Californian tribes

• Plateau tribes

• Great Basin tribes

• Pacific Northwest Coast tribes

• Southwestern tribes

• Aridomerican tribes

• Plains tribes

• Northeastern Woodlands tribes

• Alaskan natives

• Hawaiian natives

There are, however, broader regional categorizations as illustrated by the diagram below.

I won’t dig into the disputed details and differing combinations. I’m only going with what academics in general seem to accept as being the proper arrangement of American indian cultural groups. Nor will I list every tribe from those examples, or we’d be here for months. Suffice it to say, there is less cultural cohesion among the native diaspora of North America than in Europe.

There is, however, potential in such a varied cultural diaspora and equally varied geographic regions. This diverse array of tribes and cultures does offer a sort of template in the way of crafting a unique panoply of civilizations and cultures tied to regions and influenced by geography and nature akin to Tolkien’s Hobbits or Rohan. Texas alone cannot be merely summarized by one geographic feature. Too many people focus on the deserts and badlands of the border or panhandle. As a native Texan who never saw a desert until I was about twenty five, I feel a bit indignant. What about the marshes, bayous, lush forests, and coastlines of my home in the Gulf of America? What about the towering, pine forests, cliffs, and rolling hills of East Texas where I was born?

Of course we could never evoke all of these disparate cultures in a Tolkenian mythic setting. That would be like Tolkien making a mythology not just for England, but all of Europe or Eurasia. Should one then focus on a state or regional level?

From an aesthetic viewpoint, there is also a vested interest in forgoing certain prominent European elements that would overshadow the homegrown Americanisms that make our country unique. From this viewpoint, One might believe castles, a nigh indispensable artifact of medievalism, might require some replacement. After all, America has never had castles, the rolling hills, deep valleys, cliffs, and omnipresent forests made it not exactly practical. Don’t believe me? Why do you think Britain’s tactic of vast line, square, or column formations that had worked across their home continent of Europe were less effective in America? Why were ambush tactics of the less trained and supplied colonists able to pick them off? America was too densely wooded. Our rugged hills and impassable swamps were too different from the mostly flat and open European countrysides. Paths could be easily blocked by fallen trees to slow the army’s advance, making them sitting ducks for colonial riflemen. Harsh winters and tropical summers were also a bane to British military tactics. Our lack of immense labor forces provided by a feudal system along with a lack of stonecutting resources made the creation of castles untenable (especially in an age of cannon-warfare). Castles were used by land-holding lords as instruments of a feudal government. However, America was not founded by kings and lords, but by colonists seeking to create a new social and governmental structure motivated by a desire for liberty. Nor was America founded by a set of warring tribes or clans in the same sense as the Ango-Saxons or celts had, establishing kingdoms or setting themselves up as rulers in any sense. Colonists who came sought independence. They wished to distance themselves from a monarchical system of rule as much as possible so that they could be left alone to raise family and crops in peace and worship as they pleased. Hence these beginnings were not so advantageous to anyone wishing to establish a feudalistic society. Stone quarries were also not half as bountiful as timber.

So, is there no precedent for castles in a geographically American setting? I wouldn’t say that. In fact, I would argue there is a rather unique precedent that both combines a prominent facet of Americana while evoking a medieval aesthetic: forts. You may scoff at comparing any American fort to any of the ornate, imposing castles of Europe. Yet I would point out that the earliest castles in Europe were not at all like those. I’m here talking about motte and bailey castles.

Here is your American Rohan, of sorts, though the inclusion of horses is something I'm unsure about (After all, they had been locally extinct on the continent for at least 10,000 years before they were reintroduced by Europeans). You have your more rural cities and kingdoms here, but what about more ornate ones? What about our Gondor? A more unique angle would be to look more to mesoamerican or pueblo aesthetics. Instead of castles and keeps, what about ziggurats and vast cities hewn into cliffs? Not to say stone castles or keeps couldn’t still have a basis in an American inspired landscape. Just not to as great an extent as American forts. However, the existence of Spanish missions like the Alamo and Presidio la Bahia do lend some credibility to the inclusion of castles or keeps on an American inspired medieval landscape.

Again, aesthetic balance comes glaringly into question. The world, after all, must not feel too European with its stone castles, steel clad knights and horses. Yet it also cannot feel too Native with just a retooling of their disparate mythologies and cultures. After all, natives are far from a monoculture themselves, and their Mythologies and cosmologies are vastly different. The same problem arises in leaning into a primarily European aesthetic, because even our European heritage cannot be distilled to any one or even handfull of European cultures. It’s just as difficult to combine or distill elements of Celtic, Germanic, or Slavic into a singular culture. Likewise, you wouldn't want to just make cultures that are just analogues of different European cultures. Here, one could look to Tolkien, who, while writing ostensibly an English mythology, combined elements of Nordic and celtic to fill in the blanks. Not only was he heavily influenced by Beowulf, but also by the Finnish Kalevala and the Volsung Saga—aka: non-English/Anglo-Saxon sources.

Depending on the author, the story could be centered in a particular, regional influence. One could write a broader mythology for America, but with a dramatic center that flows out from their own personal, state/regional culture. Start with something like Texas or Virginia as the foundation and work your way outward from there. Tolkien himself took from a variety of European cultures in crafting Middle-Earth, but always the center was in his Anglo-Saxon heritage. Always he hearkened back to England reflected in the Shire, and even Rohan, which many would call his most Nordic or Danish setting, evoked strongly the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Beowulf. One need only look at the language and names of Rohan which draw directly from an Old English linguistic pattern and tradition. The description of Theoden’s Hall evokes much of Hrothgar’s Hrerot. The oaths taken by characters such as Merry and Theoden evoke Anglo-Saxon traditions. The concept of wyrd or a person’s fate can be seen reflected in the lives of characters like Frodo, Bilbo, and Gollum. Aragorn himself is an example of wyrd being a throughline in the story, as he is the prophesied heir of Isildur. This can be seen referenced in the poem crafted by Bilbo in Fellowship of the Ring.

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.”

-Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring

Another question arises regarding the use of foundational texts. After all, Tolkien took from famous myths and epics like Beowulf, the Kalevala, the Prose Edda, or the Mabinogion. Yet to dip too deep into the well of European epics is to risk making an American mythology too European. Lucky for us in the states that we have our own Beowulf of sorts, and that would be The Song of Hiawatha. This epic poem composed by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was inspired by the oral traditions of the Ojibwe trickster figure and folk hero Nanabozho, as well as material accumulated in his friendship with the Ojibwe chief Kahge-ga-gah-bowh, and encounters with the Sauk leader Black Hawk, and other Sauk people. The story tells of the eponymous hero’s tragic romance with the Dakota woman Minnehaha, and his mythic exploits, such as the slaying of the evil magician Pearl-Feather. It even ends with a similar fate to the hero of Kalevala, wherein Hiawatha rides westward in his canoe and leaves forever.

We also have the Mayan Popol Vuh, which features (among other tales) the twins, Hun-Hunahpu and Vucub-Hunahpu who are invited to the Mayan underworld to play a ballgame with the lords of the underworld. It also features the Mayan myth of creation. Herein we find a sort of Mayan Silmarillion, presenting a foundational, sacred narrative featuring a creation myth, a heroic cycle, and a chronicle of the K’iche’ people which introduces the god Gucumatz. Already you have, at the very least, a template for a kind of American Silmarillion.

Beyond these, it is difficult to locate any comprehensive, epic narratives to build an American mythic canon of sorts. This actually connects to another point of consideration, which is the development of heroes for this archetypal, mythic America. While the epics offer little inspiration in this regard, apart from Hiawatha, we have a bountiful source of mythic inspiration in American folk heroes, both real and apocryphal. As many like to point out, our real heroes from Davy Crockett, to Jim Bowie, to Wild Bill Hickock, to Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday have acquired their own mythic flavor over the past couple of centuries. To say nothing of all the accounts of American outlaws like Jesse James and Billy the Kid. Beyond these mythologized accounts of real people, we also have characters of pure myth, often conceived as archetypes of a given region, culture, profession, etc. These would include heroes like Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Captain Alfred Bulltop Stormalong. These are our American Robin Hoods, King Arthurs, Siegfrieds or Herakles.

So, while we may not possess a comprehensive mythic canon or singular pantheon of mythic deities or ancient heroes, the rich tradition of American tall tales and folk heroes more than helps fill out the mythos and establish a unique, American cultural identity. One that is tied directly to our pioneering history. These archtypes could be used as models for the crafting of mythic heroes in American-inspired fantasy, similar to the Arthurian and Germainic hero archetypes that helped Tolkien to craft Aragorn.

This pioneering history brings to bearing a primary difference in the European, Tolkienian mythological tradition and the American mythological and folkloric tradition. A European or even Slavic mythic tradition focuses often on kings, dynasties, and other such noble lines like King Arthur, Aeneas, Romulus, or Brutus of Troy. They are tales of grand, mythic quests replete with prophecies (again tying into the concept of wyrd) and battles for kingdoms, like the Bohemian Legends of Libuse and Premsyl, the Maidens’ War, or Křesomysl and Horymír. If I could sum up the primary thematic undercurrent of American mythology and folklore, it would be survival. There are two main types of American folk heroes. On one end, rather than men blessed by the gods, many American heroes are ostensibly normal men driven by a desire to excel. On the other end, several American heroes are men of extraordinary ability shaped by or archetypal of the wild, untamed environs around them that they, most importantly, bridled with civilization. Rather than being called upon to fulfil prophetic purpose, the drive of American mythic heroes is more internal. Where Tolkien’s heroes travel across Middle Earth, marveling at its wonders, braving its horrors, and realizing, as Gandalf said of Bilbo, that they are only little people in a very wide world, American heroes seek to bridle nature and overcome by their sheer tenacity and force of will. I do not, by the way, frame either in a negative context. Far from it. Both are equally important and engaging. Both are equally aspirational and fascinating. They are simply different approaches defned by different tempraments, cultures, and historical backgrounds. For Tolkien, there are grand designs and destinies that bind all peoples together, great and small, and all have their role to play in preserving or destroying civilization. For American literature, individuals strike out on their own to rise or fall by their own efforts and carve a place for themselves in a harsh land. Tolkien’s hobbits are at last joining the broader history of great civilizations of men, elves and dwarves. American heroes are making history, reshaping the land a’la Paul Bunyan, defying the odds to tame a savage land and bring the light of God to pagan peoples. They come from no lines of royalty but make of themselves rulers and noble lines. Such is to be expected of so young a nation compared to the older nations of Europe with centuries of rising and falling kingdoms and shared history between peoples. One need only look at the heroes of Robert E. Howard like Conan and Solomon Kane. Conan is a barbarian warrior who travels the world, forging his own path to survival, wealth, and glory by the edge of his sword until he wins a kingdom by his own hand, even deliberately mocking the concept of hereditary monarchy and landed nobility.

“‘Compensation!’ It was a gust of deep laughter from Conan’s mighty chest. ‘The price of infamy and treachery! I am a barbarian, so I shall sell my kingdom and its people for life and your filthy gold? Ha! How did you come to your crown, you and that black-faced pig beside you? Your fathers did the fighting and the suffering, and handed their crowns to you on golden platters. What you inherited without lifting a finger—except to poison a few brothers—I fought for. You sit on satin and guzzle wine the people sweat for, and talk of divine rights of sovereignty—bah! I climbed out of the abyss of naked barbarism to the throne and in that climb I spilt my blood as freely as I spilt that of others. If either of us has the right to rule men, by Crom, it is I! How have you proved yourselves my superiors? I found Aquilonia in the grip of a pig like you—one who traced his genealogy for a thousand years. The land was torn with the wars of the barons, and the people cried out under oppression and taxation. Today no Aquilonian noble dares maltreat the humblest of my subjects, and the taxes of the people are lighter than anywhere else in the world.’”

-Howard, The Scarlet Citadel

The most notable thematic difference can be found in the concept of the New World versus the Old World. Unlike the Old World with its ancient histories and sagas spanning generations of old lineages following vast legacies of fated glory, the New World is shrouded in mystery and the terror and thrill of the unknown. Old World heroes are bound by destiny, or wyrd, with prophesies of chosen ones of royal or magical lineage.

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

The American mythological framework embodies the fact that civilization is made by the people, by communities, not by rulers. It was not the American government who tamed and brought civilization to the old west, but pioneers who set their stake and built shared communities. The people civilized themselves and established law and order to permit the establishment of government, not the other way around. Due to the lack of definition and enforcement of property rights on the frontier before it was surveyed or opened for sale by the federal government, “extralegal” organizations for protection and the enforcement of justice were established via land clubs or claims associations.

The point being that in american history and folklore there is a recurrent theme of the sanctity of the individual and the importance of community as opposed to the glory of great rulers.

Not that all our heroes are, strictly speaking, virtuous. After all, every nation has its share of trickster figures like Jack, Anansi the Spider and Renard the Fox who embody cleverness, ingenuity, and tenacity required to survive. Even mythic heroes like Odysseus and Sun Wukong embody these traits similarly. Americans also have the native traditions of trickster figures like Coyote and Raven as well as the trickster figures of slave folklore like Bre’er Rabbit all using brains rather than brawn to survive. These are archetypes as intrinsic to mythological and folkloric frameworks as Kings and Queens.

Of course themes and aesthetics are one thing, but to truly inject some lifeblood into a world like this would require a vastly detailed history and defined cosmology. In essence, one would have to craft a Silmarillion before crafting a Lord of the Rings. The cosmology defines the themes of the story and the nature of the world. Was it created by random chance? With purpose? By a cruel god? By a benevolent god? From where do man and nature flow in this universe, and what is their relationship with one another? What is their relationship with the creator or creators? This further establishes the ethics of your universe which influences the ethics of your characters. What is the heirarchy of virtue and vice? This of course hearkens back to the theoretical cultures established in this world. What are their values and traditions? Who are their heroes, villains, enemies, and allies? This would require the creation of certain cultural artifacts like laments, war chants, blessings, prayers or half-remembered myths and cultural habits. Where is this world’s Atlantis or Numenor (El Dorado or accounts of lost colonies come to mind)? Is history preserved in writing, monuments, pictographs, oral tradition, hymns, folk songs and ballads?

The last three are intrinsic to the American identity. One need only look at The Star Spangled Banner, Johnny Horton’s historical farce The Battle of New Orleans, The Ballad of Casey Jones, The Ballad of John Henry, or even the gunfighter ballads and narrative songs of modern singers like Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash. Hymns are equally important, giving voice to the struggles of faithful believers and the values they prioritized or that inspired them to persevere, like I Sing the Mighty Power of God, Amazing Grace, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, or Alas! and Did My Saviour Bleed. These religious and folkloric musical traditions are easily comprable to the musical and poetic traditions that composed Anglo-Saxon folklore, history, and literature like Caedmon’s Hymn, Dream of the Rood, or The Battle of Maldon. One need only follow this same mold to evoke lore and tradition of an American-inspired fantasy world. Like the cosmology, this musical tradition gives us an understanding of what these theoretical cultures value and what inspires the heroes and peoples therein to perservere like Tolkien’s Lay of Luthien or his dwarven ballads.

This all seems like a lot of disparate traditions, cultures, histories, myths, folklore and styles that would simply be too complicated to craft into a coherent, unified mythology, but Tolkien has proved that such synthesis is possible by synthesizing mythic strands of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Norse into a singular, coherent secondary myth. One need only combine American historical and folkloric narratives of the frontier, the west, the founding, or the various wars and marry the concept with the landscape of America—our canyons, forests, deserts, gulf marshes, and Appalacians. These are the elements in need of unified, mythic articulation. Our mythology is inextricably tied to the land. Robert E. Howard had the right idea, I think. One could only imagine how far he might have taken it had he lived long enough. The only other who comes close to attempting this mythologization of America would be L. Frank Baum, but even then, I would classify his uniquely American fantasy as an example of American fairytales akin to the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen rather than an American mythology.

While some might argue America is simply too young of a country, I would argue that we require only imaginative depth, not antiquity. It would not overwrite existing traditions of settlers or natives, but synthesize them to give a full picture of our historical heritage. We must find the common thread that binds them all. My goal in observing this is not to oversimplify, overwrite or propagandize, but to demonstrate that a mythic framework could be useful to solidifying our national identity, especially in an era of constant cultural fragmentation and over-politicization of history. We must encourage imagination and a sense of belonging and remind ourselves of a unified, American ideal that allows us to stand proud as our own, unique culture rather than being dismissed as a glorified bag of holding for disparate nationalities and cultures. We require a shared imaginitive inheritance rooted in the landscape of America. More importantly, it would open the door for the establishment of a unique, American, mythological canon akin to the Greeks, Romans, Celts, etc.

Remember too that what I am proposing here is not a definite cure for the problems facing the establishment of American mythology, but I am merely bringing a set of observations to the table which are open for discussion and critique. I’m proposing that the establishment of such a mythology is eminently possible. I’m sure there are plenty of other questions or problems I’ve overlooked in the course of this “essay” (more of a rambling, stream of consciousness screed, to be honest). Which is why I would like to engage with you all on this. What are the barriers that stand in our way, and how might we overcome them? No dooming is allowed! Fortune favors the bold, after all. With that in mind, who knows? We may at last have our American Tolkien and pave the way for the evolution of uniquely American fantasy.

Share

My pulp novel, Rao-Bak: The Wolf-Son, is available for purchase! A lost child raised by wolves grows to be the wild prince of the Piney Woods and finds himself caught in the middle of a war between competing tribes and colonial powers fighting for a stake in the fertile soil of the New World.

Cover art by

Purchase a paperback copy now. Digital coming soon:

• Amazon

• Lulu

  

As they moved beneath the light canopy of trees spread widely through the grounds, Ada noticed more of the buildings formerly concealed behind the vast sea of brush. She tried to keep her posture as calm and upright as possible, but occasionally wobbled on the numbed nerves of her ankle that crept up her calf. Despite her infirmity, she kept well attentive to Abel and the few words he traded on their walk.

“My father died when I was three years of age, and my mother followed him four years later,” he explained. “I recall him very little, but I recall my mother and I alone here after. I do not recall ever seeing her leave, but I suppose she must have on occasion to feed me.”

“She did not go to the others in the settlement? You were really unaware of them?” queried Ada with some incredulity.

“I never left the property. I always remained with a servant or two. If there were a settlement or neighbors, they never called on us. I had thought Washington might be the town, but it has not been around so long, to my reckoning. Moreover, you are the first to know that I even lived hereabouts.”

“What of the servants, slaves, anyone who tended the grounds?”

“When my mother died, they drifted off one by one. There was a question of my inheritance, as I was the only man of the house and had not yet come of age. Some nights they would serve me dinner or tuck me in, saying, Good night, young master, and then, the following morning they would vanish.”

“They just left you? How heartless!”

“I was told most of the staff were being sent ahead of me either to prepare me a place elsewhere or to seek new employment. I was told that an uncle of mine would come to take me away somewhere until I came of age, and another would take charge of the estate in my place.” His voice drifted off as if mesmerized. “Then, one morning, I awoke and was alone. I supposed my uncle would come for me later that day, but he never did. I supposed he had been held up, so I waited. I was so sure that…” He gaped a moment, like his tongue had suddenly glued to his jaw, and then he pressed his lips together.

They were passing a sprawling patch of tall grass and weeds that had perhaps once been a field of some sort. They turned from there and moved along a path between a rickety shed and two overgrown cabins, one long, one short. Spanish moss hung like dusky veils from their eaves. Here and there lay a plow overturned and webbed with roots and long vines slowly subsuming the aged metal back within the bosom of the earth. Ada began to even notice patches of an old brick path along the trail, half-swallowed by grass and clay. Some cabins had collapsed, leaving only the chimney bases standing like monuments leaning in the clay. Stains along the buildings and trees, and silt deposits hither and yon throughout the grounds marked the passage of many floods.

Ada felt an eerie silence over all that seemed to creep into her very bones. She felt no pain, but her leg quivered like a bowstring with each step. The patches of moss on the ground muffled their tread. She smelled the earthy, sweet, and sour stench of mold and decay amongst sprouting magnolia and honeysuckle.

“I am…afraid I have no gardens or orchards through which to stroll,” spoke Abel apologetically, clearing his throat. “No golden fields to crown my home with regal splendor. I hope I do not bore you.”

“Oh, no!” insisted Ada. “It’s quite pleasant out now. It always is after a heavy rain.” She looked around and at the ground, pitted here and there with deep puddles of brackish brown water. Her ears were ringing with the buzz of cicadas all around. She glanced around and saw a couple of the roofs caved in and silently thanked God she had not run into one of them for shelter.

“Pleasant?” queried Abel as if the word were alien to him.

“I think it has…character to it,” tried Ada. “A…rustic charm.”

Abel snickered. “Yes. That’s certainly one way to put it.” He glanced over at a crumbling stone chimney base sprouting from a pile of weeds. “Watch your feet. There could be nails or some such debris scattered about.”

Ada shifted closer to him, almost shoulder to shoulder. Her eyes scanned the ground, but constantly caught some root or vine that led her curious gaze to trace its path to some leaning oak with iron hooks or rings embedded into its scarred trunk, or up the sides of crumbling masonry. Splinters of wood pointed up like teeth from some of the exposed brick foundations. Here and there lay fragments of broken crockery and rusted hinges, strewn and sinking gradually into the mud. Open sheds with warped beams gaped at them with crooked doorways. The fragments of civilization seemed twisted and open, like a voiceless scream of pain. Over all hung that same musty, sickly saccharine scent. “If I may ask,” she put quietly, “what exactly did your family raise here?” Abel raised a hand and pointed ahead with a long finger, and Ada followed his gesture to a pair of brick structures connected by a tin-roofed walkway. She plodded over to one of the leaning doorways and saw, within, a row of rusted, bowl-shaped kettles. One was filled with brackish water tinted red with rust.

“My father raised, um…sugarcane. If there indeed were a mysterious town hereabouts, then I’m sure he operated with them,” he murmured. The way he looked around at the ruins of his family home, one would think it had already vanished into the clay.

They wandered until they could see the house ahead, some two hundred feet and stopped before a rusty bell dangling from a wooden frame swollen with moisture. “I’m afraid there’s, ahem, not much else to show,” put Abel apologetically. “There’s the old, um, slave quarters, curing house, uh, stable, but it’s all more-or-less the same.” He shrugged. “I would walk you to the barn, but that might be a bit too out of the way. How’s your ankle?”

Ada rocked side-to-side and winced. “Still a bit sensitive, but I can walk well enough.” She braced her cheek against a palm and groaned. “Oh, I must find my way back home soon. My mother and father are certain to be frantic about me, and…poor Cora…and Peter. I must find out if they have made it safely.”

Abel’s face was expressionless. Even his eyes seemed dulled and indecipherable. “Do you know your way home?”

“Not at all!” sighed Ada. “What’s more, I don’t know how to circumvent the floodwaters. Or perhaps if there is a path not so deep.”

Abel scratched his chin. “Perhaps. The water is certainly lower now. If we cross the fields, I know a way roundabout to Washington that shouldn’t be too deep.”

“Right!” Ada declared decisively. “Then allow me to get dressed again, and we can be off.”

“Oh. Is the dress uncomfortable?” Abel seemed surprised and a little embarrassed.

“Not at all,” Ada laughed, “but my family might think it strange if I returned home after taking shelter from the storm in a new dress.”

“R-Right! Of course!” Abel turned around to the house as if to make sure it was still there and then turned to Ada and gestured ahead with a hand. “Shall we?”

Together, they returned to the back porch and entered the parlor. There, Ada excused herself back upstairs. When she reached the landing, she had a sudden thought. Walking back to the door of the roost, she decided to give it a quick inspection. She might as well, after all.

Opening the door, she saw the short stairway that led to a closet-shaped room. Hobbling up top, she gasped with delight. The room was small, only enough for one person, and she nearly had to hunch to enter. The only contents were a chair, a candle, and a small stack of books, which she, of course, perused. They were weathered copies of The Count of Monte Cristo, Leatherstocking Tales, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She smiled to herself, wondering if Abel had been sitting there reading when she staggered up through the rain. At any rate, she knew what he had been doing when she ran into him later that night.

When she had at last returned to her room and changed back into her original clothes, she tried to ignore the itching from the dirt caught in them. Then, she returned downstairs to find Abel awaiting her in the foyer.

Abel had also apparently taken time to change (though she hadn’t heard him go up or down from his room). He was dressed in leather ankle boots, a red cotton vest, a short wool jacket weather-darkened to a dusky earth tone, a red bandana, and a broad-brimmed, sun-bleached felt hat. The clothes were well mended but clearly aged, giving him the appearance of Stingy Jack. He only lacked the lantern. At his side, he carried a rusty hatchet.

As they stepped onto the front porch, Ada had the impulse to look at the door, recalling the strange design she had felt on the doorknob. When Abel closed the door and turned away, Ada noticed the brass knob dulled to a sepia gleam and realized the design she had felt the night before when she grasped it was an engraved motif of a rose, and the faceplate beneath it was embossed, as she had thought, with winding patterns of thorny vines. Together, they decamped from the stoop and down the long path from the porch.

Taking a roundabout path from the old slave quarters and overseer’s house, they trod on some land that was a bit higher so that the water only came to their ankles. Before long, they found themselves approaching the border of the tall, grassy patch that was once the plantation fields. “Watch for snakes hereabouts,” warned Abel. “Moccasin snakes are common in the fields.” Then he led her slowly through the vast grass field. Here and there, Ada could hear cicadas chirping, and she kept close to Abel while watching her feet.

“Abel,” she murmured.

“Yes?”

“You’re sure no one lives near here…right?”

“What?” He half laughed as he glanced back at her.

“I mean…” She bit her lip for a moment. “No one, perhaps, lives near the thicket?”

“I never knew anyone to cross the thicket until I met you,” he replied. “I’ve been in and out of it for some time now to scavenge or hunt. The only time I saw anyone near it was when that boy wandered off.”

“You’re sure?”

“I oughta know.” He stopped to look back at her. “Why?”

Ada stared at him uncertainly. “You…You didn’t see me yesterday? In the woods? Late afternoon before I fled to your house?”

“Why…no.” A hint of concern edged his tone, and he turned to look at her. “I saw you approach through the rain from the window of the roost. I heard the door slam when you came in. I had no idea you were with anyone until you told me this morning.” He leaned in to try to catch her drooping gaze. “Why, Ada? Did something happen on your way here?”

Ada swallowed something back and covered it with a smile. “Oh, nothing. I’m sure I was just seeing things. You know, the storm, lightning, darkness…Anyway, it’s nothing.” She waved it away with a hand, then took his arm and urged him forward beside her. How could she tell him? About the awful moment before the storm? Of Willem’s limp body and the shadow of a figure digging at the clay like a madman? No. Better if Abel stayed out of it. She’d narrowly avoided danger that day. No use inciting his curiosity when it could get him killed. She tried changing the subject. “Oh, by the way, I’ve been curious all morning—what is in the locked room?”

“The locked room?”

“Beside the roost.”

He blinked inscrutably for a moment and then lifted his head, gazing nowhere in particular. “Oh…! Ah, yes, I see. The room beside the roost. Well, there’s a hole.”

“A hole?”

“In the floor, yes. A leak in the ceiling went unattended too long, and I, well…” He gave a nervous laugh. “I’m afraid my foot went through the floor. That was when I was a boy. Years went by, and the leak and…bad air made the floor worse, I’m afraid.” He scratched the back of his head. “I cannot trust the structural integrity, and the bed got so mildewed that I locked it up and abandoned it.”

“A hole in the floor.”

“Yes.”

“I see,” Ada shrugged. “Well, I can understand that. I just hope the rot doesn’t spread.”

“Yes, as do I,” agreed Abel quietly.

Ada glanced down at the hatchet dangling from his belt and silently wished he had a musket to go with it. She could hardly believe he had survived so long without one. Then she remembered what old man Bell had said about supposedly encountering Abel while hunting. It struck her that despite his meek personality and haggard appearance, there might be a more animalistic side to a boy who’d lived alone in the woods for so long. She was tempted to ask if he really caught prey with his bare hands, but decided against it.

Before long, they crossed through the field and entered the dismal tree line beyond. The forest was quiet but for the occasional caw of a crow in the treetops. Not long after, they were nearly up to their knees in brackish water, trying not to choke on clouds of mosquitoes. Abel eventually gave Ada his bandana to protect her neck against the pests.

Abel led the way, clearing brush with his hatchet. He had to watch his feet more than usual, and Ada had to catch him by his belt a couple of times when he tripped. Just because they couldn’t see the brush, after all, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Once in a while, Abel’s foot would sink where the ground gave way or had been altered by the flood.

Ada’s eyes scanned the area constantly, trying to recognize some path or catch the faint outline of cabins in the distance. Yet she had seen all at night or in a panic, and even had the conditions been favorable before, the hurricane had since altered the surroundings. Her eyes darted upwards at the retching caw of a raven fluttering from a branch. Her eyes widened at the glimpse of black buzzards circling somewhere above. She tried moving quicker, feeling the water and her skirt dragging at her legs.

“Watch your step,” warned Abel, sloshing forward, trying to keep pace. “You don’t want to injure an ankle again—woah!” He had to grab Ada’s forearm as he tripped forward and nearly dragged her into the water anyway. Ada had to lean back fully and plant her heels to keep upright. Abel fell to one knee and threw out a hand to brace himself in the water. He jerked it back instantly and swore, “Gah! Dammit!” He braced on Ada’s shoulder as he tried to regain his footing.

Ada let out a stifled laugh. “Oh, God, Abel! You didn’t twist an ankle too?”

“No,” he grunted, flicking his hand in front of him as if trying to shake the pain off with the water. “No, I felt a splinter or something. Look.” He held up his hand, showing the blood trickling from a cut along the edge of his palm.

“Oh!” Ada took his hand to examine and then locked her eyes ahead. “Oh,” she repeated, but quieter this time.

Even in proximity, it would’ve been difficult to notice. One would dismiss it as a broken stump sticking from the water. Yet a keen observer could recognize the broken teeth of boards risen from the water in front of them.

“What is that?” queried Ada in quiet thoughtfulness.

Abel leaned down and tried to wiggle a board with a hand but found it firm. “Thank God I didn’t fall prone,” he remarked with a shudder. “Look! Another over yonder.”

Ada took in the scene, following the trail of broken boards with her eyes. “It’s like a…wall of some sort. Or was…” She squinted as she traced the path of boards in a rough ‘U’ shape. Abel braced an arm around her shoulder, and she braced one around his side, and together they walked carefully forward. It was then Ada noticed that the area before them was a small, square clearing. “Look there,” came Abel’s voice, and she darted a glance to where he pointed. She saw the line of boards continued around in a perimeter of approximately sixty square feet. “Is that a…wall?” she remarked under her breath.

Abel looked around, snatched up a fallen branch, and stripped some of the smaller branches off with his pocketknife. Then he held the base before him and prodded the water as he moved tentatively forward. A quarter of the way in, he thrust the branch forward abruptly and leaned back, bracing himself before he could tumble in. He edged back carefully, reaching out a hand until he grasped a slender sapling behind him and hauled himself back to Ada’s side. “It’s rather washed out there, I think,” he remarked. “Probably this was mostly buried until the flood hit.”

“What is it?” asked Ada eagerly.

“An old shack or house of some sort, I think,” he replied, leading her further away from the sudden decline.

“Abel!” Ada gripped his arm with sudden inspiration. “The town! What if…?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied grimly. He narrowed his eyes at the rippling brown water. “It’s not unlikely there was a homestead or two nearby, but I’m not sure about a town.” He glanced back as if checking whether his home was in sight. “Still, it’s worth a look—once the floodwaters have receded, of course.”

Ada couldn’t drag her gaze from the dark pool. She stared as if she expected something to bubble up to the surface. It felt almost as if the town itself could be hidden down there—a wild, marshy Texas Atlantis. Though she had struggled to draw herself out, a perverse part of her urged her to dive back in. She shuddered and clutched Abel’s arm. “Lead on, please,” she murmured under her breath.

Abel took her hand and led her again through the brush. Together, they struggled and sloshed their way through the floodwaters. They continued some way in silence before Ada spoke.

“Abel…”

“Yes?” He gave a flitting glance back but seemed concentrated on the area before him.

“What will you do after this?”

“Do?” he seemed genuinely confused. “Same as you, I suppose; return home and change into something warm and dry.”

“Well…why not stay awhile?”

Abel stopped and turned to look at her, his expression characteristically inscrutable. By the look in his eyes, you would think he had forgotten she was there. “Stay…? Where?”

“In Washington, of course.” Ada stumbled around in front to face him. Her steps crossed awkwardly, and she swayed forward with a gasp. She felt Abel grab for her, and they gripped each other’s forearms, steepling awkwardly like a game of London Bridge.

“In…Washington?” Abel was finding it hard to keep his footing. Ada’s question had derailed his train of thought.

“Yes, in Washington. You saved my life, cared for me, gave me shelter. I’m sure my family and the people would…”

“No.” His answer was flat, dull, almost monotonous. He braced there for a few seconds and then took a tentative step forward, bringing Ada upright again. “No, I’m…I told you, I’m…I’m flattered, Miss Blackwood, but…”

“But what? You think people of similar…peculiarities have not coexisted with us? There are good Christian people who—”

“It’s not…” Abel stopped, pressing his lips together a moment. “As strange as it may seem, my deformity is the least of my concerns.”

“What others could there possibly be?” Ada had taken an incredulous tone, such as her mother took when she knew she was being unruly or unreasonable.

Abel locked shoulders with her, gripped a tree branch with his free hand, and hauled them both forward. They stood still for a moment beside the tree, trying to restore their footing. “I am naturally reclusive, Ada. I do not do well around people.”

“How would you know? You’ve been around no one but your mother and servants. And my father is a good man. He’d happily—”

“I do not doubt it, but…” Abel stood still, his eyes staring blankly ahead. He seemed almost mystified, tuning his ears to the eerie quiet of the woods. “Ada, do you…do you know yourself?”

“What?” She permitted a short scoff and stared at him in bewilderment. “What kind of question is that?”

“I mean…” His lips twisted, struggling to form the words. “I mean…do you know why you do what you do? I mean, always?”

“You’re saying you don’t know why you won’t go?”

“No, I mean…Yes, but…” He dug his long fingers into his scalp and bit his lip. Finally, his eyes screwed shut in concentration, and he rotated his hand before him as if conducting some invisible orchestra. “I mean that…you remember the harvest dance? When your friend was frightened?”

“Yes,” Ada blinked for a moment and stared. “She had nearly forgotten that night. Yet now she supposed…Well, of course, when Rebekkah Craven had screamed about a face. It had been so long, but—well, of course, it had obviously been Abel. Yet she was puzzled. “Yes. Becky had seen a face in the dark. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” His voice wavered a bit nervously, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I…well, I had always listened to the celebration outside—near a window or something.” He waved a hand as if coaxing the words from his lips. “I, well, I’d been to look at one of your…harvest festivals before. Though only a couple of times. I would peek through windows or press my ear to the wall and listen…” His voice seemed far-off now, and something like a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “One year, I just…listened. The next year, I got a little bolder. I started peeking at the door. The next year, I would hide in the loft and watch from a pile of hay or crouching on a rafter. But, well…” He gave a humorless laugh and shrugged. “I got a little…greedy. Maybe part of me thought I could conceal myself in the crowd, mill about in anonymity and watch…” His voice trailed off, and then he murmured sadly. “But you’re not statues, are you?” He shook his head and closed his eyes, breathing through his nose. “When your friend saw me…I didn’t leave because I frightened her. I left because I was frightened.”

“Well, anyone would be frightened of a misunderstanding…”

“No, you don’t understand.” He bit his lip. “When they all looked around, in the dim light of that barn…they frightened me.”

“Why?” Ada was now thoroughly lost and cocked her head at him. “You thought they would panic or attack?”

“No-no-no.” Abel was shaking his head helplessly, his hand raised beside his ear as if it were ringing. “I love to watch them, Ada. I love to follow their movements, to hear their voices and their laughter. I love to see the colors of gowns fluttering about in the candlelight and listen to the song of fiddles playing the night away.” His eyes opened, and such a stare was in them, like he’d recalled some terrible nightmare. “But their eyes…” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it. When I look at them, I see something.”

“See what?” Ada murmured. She searched his eyes for some glimmer or motion.

He met her eyes with an almost childlike gaze. “You remember when you saw my statues last night? You recall their…their pantomime? That frozen movement in the dark?”

“Yes,” she offered a smile and gripped his sleeve. “But they’re very lovely in the daytime.”

He shook his head. “You recall that feeling, though? In the dark? Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Washington to me is beautiful,” he spoke wistfully. “Just as these woods, even this awful brush in all its chaos, are beautiful to me. All of this,” he cast his gaze around, “is pulsing with life. Even the storms are beautiful to me. The howling wind and hissing rain lull me to sleep many a night. It’s real.” His voice lowered, and a faint tremor lurked at the back of it. “Yet the people…when I see their eyes, when I see their smiles, it’s like a pitcher plant, bright and sweet…until the fly tries to land and slides inexorably down.” He rubbed his face absently. “There’s something under it all…frightens me. Like some danger I can smell but not see. Something…I don’t know. Something is living behind those eyes…and it frightens me. I can’t explain it.”

“Everyone has things they don’t say, Abel. Not every secret is a danger.”

“Oh?” he spoke with an earnestness that surprised her, and he looked deeply into her eyes. “Don’t you ever see a closed door or shuttered window and wonder what lives behind it? Don’t you ever wake up nights and wonder at alien sounds? Alien smells? Ada, there are things I won’t even say to myself—things I dare not think lest I perfuse them and grant them life. I watch the people, I listen to them…but in every flicker of candlelight, in every shoulder glance from a stoop, I see it flash there for a moment.”

“What do you mean, Abel? See what?”

“It’s all…” His lips struggled to form the words. “…unreal. Artifice. Like those statues in my home. Their emptiness is sterile, clean, and always what they are they show. Yet…when I look in a mirror, I see nothing, and I wonder if it is only unreal to me.”

“Well, you must get to know people,” she replied with an incredulous smile and a shake of her head. “It seems to me you suffer from not knowing others and not knowing yourself.”

“And knowing others would help me to know myself?”

“People create what they know,” she replied authoritatively, finger raised like a schoolteacher. “How can I write of the denizens of our mysterious inn or the goings-on of former generations if I do not observe, converse, and interact with the world around me? If you cannot do that, Abel, then the world will always be unreal to you, and your craft will always feel a pantomime.” She took his arm and gazed deeply into his eyes. “People are fascinating if you only give them a chance. Others find you frightening, but I’ve come to know you.”

“And you no longer find me frightening?”

“No,” she grinned and nudged him with an elbow. “Only odd.”

A lopsided grin tugged at the corner of Abel’s mouth. “You know, I still haven’t decided yet whether you’re odd or not.”

“Take it from me,” Ada smirked, “I’m infectiously peculiar.”

Abel motioned for her to step forward, and he draped her arm across his shoulder to help haul her forward like a crutch. “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

Ada laughed, and they staggered on together. Before long, the trees thinned out apace, and soon, the dark line of the thicket loomed ahead. The silence around was stifling. No wind, no birds, even the flow of the river had been submerged beneath the black floodwaters that listed lazily by, almost imperceptibly. Ada stared at the blackened leaves and broken twigs drifting by on the glassy surface of the floodwaters.

Ada jolted and gasped at a chuckling cry and a rustling like sheets in the wind. She jerked her head up to see the black wings of a raven flutter overhead. Something made her glance down at the placid water, but she only saw the clouds of brighter soil kicking up with every step in the black flood. She glanced back up at the slender, stubby trees stretching up with naked branches to the sky. The grip of Abel’s fingers on her shoulder brought her back to reality. She traced the line of his raised arm to the long, white finger pointing forward.

There it was. In the distance stretched the tangled line of the thicket, not so dark as it had seemed the evening before. The wood was ashen, smooth, with a texture almost like stone. It didn’t even seem damp. Its length seemed to stretch interminably, like a vast equator dividing the forest. The sediment built up and sloshed in a thin line along its side like a beaver dam.

Abel led her to the gnarled wall of prickling, crooked branches and hefted his hatchet. “I can try my best to hack a way through for you. You could wait here or keep behind me. Only keep clear of my arm.”

“I’ll wait here,” Ada decided with a nod, and permitted herself to be led to the wall, which she leaned on and hooked an arm around one of the branches.

Abel made sure she was stable, then stood a few paces down from her, well out of reach, and with a grunt, waded in and began hacking away at the thicket. He grunted and staggered his way through the process, ripping branches away and tossing them behind him or stomping them aside. The hatchet made dull ringing noises before him. Before long, he was clearing a narrow path that seemed to sidewind through the leaning dogwood and tangled roots and yaupon. Then he stopped.

Ada waited a moment for him to speak, but nothing came. She couldn’t even hear the rustle of his movement in the branches. She leaned into the hewn entrance and called out, “Abel? What is it? A snake?”

“No…” He dragged the word contemplatively and let it hang for a moment. Then there was a rustle, and he hissed, “Listen.”

Ada perked an ear to the silence. Then she heard it—a faint barking. “A dog?”

“I’d rather not get maimed for my trouble,” grunted Abel. “Dogs have no less aversion to me than anyone else does.” He writhed his way back out and slipped the hatchet back into his belt. “This could be good news, though! Someone from Washington could be nearby. Now, it’s a tight fit, but considerably easier than when you last tried, I assure you.” He stood up straight and took on a more formal air. “I presume you can find your way from here? It’s not too far off, and…at any rate, you’re in familiar territory.”

“Then you’re really not coming?” Ada felt disappointed. “Why ever not? I told you, my family would—”

“I’m…sorry, Ada,” he cut her off with a hand. “Try to understand. To be looked at…” he offered a weak smile, “I can only handle so many at a time. In fact, I must implore that you tell no one I am here.”

“Abel,” she implored.

“I can’t. I just…can’t.” His eyes dropped, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Anyway, the way from here won’t be so bad, and I’m sure your family has the town searching high and low for you.” He glanced around, squinting and pressing his lips together. “At any rate…this would be a hell of a story, wouldn’t it?”

“But you told me not to mention…”

“I mean, you could…I don’t know, extrapolate from this experience in the pursuit of future narrative exploits. Only make me tall, dark, and handsome, would you? It’d be a nice change from Black Jack.”

Ada tittered and beamed back at him. “Well, permit me a moment’s gracefulness after a most ungraceful performance last night.” She curtsied in her ragged dress. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Thorne.”

“The pleasure was mine, Miss Blackwood.” He gave back a short bow and grinned. He watched her turn and sidle partway into the thicket. Then he cleared his throat. “Ada…”

Ada stopped and glanced back at him.

“If you should lose your way again, hereabouts…perhaps you might now know your way.”

“Perhaps,” she replied.

“And perhaps…” He scratched a finger at the base of his throat. “Well…my door is always open.” He shrugged and rocked back on the balls of his feet. “Perhaps you’d like to show me your writing sometime.”

Ada’s brows raised, and her smile showed teeth. “Perhaps.” With that, she sidled her way through the brush, cinching her skirt tight with one hand to prevent it from catching on the branches. Difficult though it was, the lack of wind and rain and the presence of sunlight eased her journey back considerably, and Abel’s path cut most of the way through. When she staggered out through the other side, the air felt heavier. She almost expected the other side to be teeming with life after leaving the largely open and silent forest beyond the thicket. Apart from the denser foliage and clustered trees, it was all largely the same. She wondered how far away her point of entry had been. She saw no sign of the fallen tree that had marked her hasty entrance. Not that it would have made her navigation home easier.

She turned back to the thicket, not so eerie now, but mystical, and she called out, “Abel.” No reply came. She didn’t need one. “God bless you!” With that, she turned and trudged back through the brush straight back towards home. Without anyone to lean on, the progress was slower and clumsier. Twice she lost her balance and fell forward into the water. Yet her journey back was not so difficult and chaotic as it had been yesternight. She could hardly believe it had only been an evening. Indulging in an ironic chuckle, she staggered and leaned against a thin tree. She jolted again at the sound of rustling, but smiled at the flap of another bird fluttering overhead. She heard a booming noise through the trees and jerked her head around. Her ear rang with a sudden whizzing, and the corner of the tree burst in a spray of splinters. She collapsed backward with a gasp, arms flailing, the shot still screaming in her ear as the water surged over her.

Share

If you like these stories, please give my new, serialized, southern-gothic novel Thorne a try. Much of it is based on these very stories.

Pt. 1 here

Share

Washington on the Brazos, a town poised on the brink of a desperate war for independence where a strong capital might arise if not for all the dirty little secrets. Ada Blackwood loves dirty little secrets--drama, intrigue, daring action, anything to thrill her youthful imagination. She's especially intrigued by the tales of her home's local boogeyman: Black Jack and a lost colony of mysterious predecessors said to have moved on or vanished without a trace. Yet when her curiosity takes a turn for the worst and drives her through the doors of a manor that should not be there, she is thrust into a quest for redemption in a world of dark and daring adventure, family curses, and young love where the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Ch. I

Ch. 2

Ch. 3

Ch. 4

Ch. 5

Ch. 6

Ch. 7

Ch. 8

Ch. 9

Ch. 10

Share

Her flight was a bit easier in shirt and trousers as opposed to her dress. Yet it meant nothing if she could not find her way. She felt the familiar cold seep into her bones and rushing now over her bare feet. The shrill whistle of the wind drowned out her thoughts, and the heavy rain flogged her back in stinging torrents. She felt she couldn’t escape it. The house was everywhere; the woods were a mere extension of the grounds—another chamber to lose herself in like a rat in a maze. The whole wood galloped behind her.

Where once the tangling vines and branches entangled her like a web, now the rising waters pushed her back. Now the black clay caught at her feet, to drag her under. The swirling debris of the forest blew into her eyes and mouth, so that she could not even scream. She dragged at branches and vines to haul herself up as the water climbed higher and higher. Her shirt and coat billowed around her as she sank. Her feet caught on roots that, rather than twist her ankle as before, anchored and tripped her, dragging her head beneath the water.

She bobbed out with frantic gasps and plunged beneath dirty brown waters running black in the cloudy night. Her brain reeled as the water rushed into her mouth and nostrils. The trees, along with the waves that dragged her across the fallen branches, bushes, and palmettos that raked her back, strangled the flickering lightning. Then, she felt the crack of a heavy branch across her back, and she plunged forward into the murky flood, borne inexorably down by the terrific weight of the fallen firmament. Her outstretched arms strained in vain to push herself above the surface, and her grasping fingers found no purchase. She felt the burning pain of her sprained ankle climbing up her leg again.

The panic and pain forced her screams and hyperventilating gasps, and bloodstains of crimson dotted the deepening darkness around her. The darkness fed into her, choked her, consumed her as the last gasps of air fled her lips in a bubbling spew. She saw the moon above as she sank. She knew not how. Yet the white of the moon loomed above the glassy surface of the water. The moon that seemed to swell like a sponge overhead until it seemed it would plummet into the water with her. Her heart sick with despair, she reached up through the tangled fingers of crooked branches to grasp the last shred of light that winked above. The moon…the moon amongst the weeds…how close…how close… Darkness took her, her limbs grew numb, and all she knew was the faint chill around her and the sense that she was falling deeper, deeper, deeper into nothing. She gazed at the twinkling moon above that continued to swell and grow until she caught a fleeting glimpse of something more. The man…The man…in the moon…

The cold and placid darkness boiled, churned and swam with winking stars like sea foam. For a life age, she was nothing—just a grain of sand tossed about by the dark ocean waves, a patch of seaweed bobbing beneath the placid stars. The noise around was faint, susurrant, and yet resonant like a conch pressed to a child’s ear.

Then, the stars melted and streaked by like comets. The darkness ran like ink, and with a shock the world came rushing back. Like a swimmer breaching the waves, she jerked upright back to reality, vomiting the brackish spume. Then her throat tightened as if her lungs deflated, and she threw back her head in a single, retching gasp of bitter, leaden air that made her teeth ache. She rolled to her side and dragged retching gasps, feeling the damp grass and clay press cooly against her cheek. Then, her breathing slowed, her eyes rolled back, and her haggard, weary body burned with strain. She felt herself sinking as the weight of her weariness bore her down to merciful slumber, and all was dark and silent again.

***

The world came winking back in a canvas of mottled reds and whites like an impressionist painting gradually taking shape. The dark blots spread and deepened like a stain, and the crimson gathered and focused on the center like pooling mercury. She watched it, drifting towards it, trying to discern something through the haze. As the spots faded and coalesced, the colors took on a brighter, warmer glow. Then, she heard the crackling of wood, and the world abruptly snapped back into focus.

The unreality of it all filled her with a stark terror almost as great as when she was drowning. Had she been drowning? Was it all a dream as she slept in that strange bed piled with discarded clothes? A nightmare induced by the trauma of the evening’s events? A fever brought on by the pouring rain? The consequences of an overactive imagination and a morbid turn of mind? Was she simply going mad? She glanced around the room from where she lay, and that’s when she noticed the bed was clear. The clothes had been cleared into a corner of the wall, and she rested now beneath a pile of colorful, checkered quilts. She threw her gaze at the glow of the blazing hearth. A lump lodged in her throat, and her limbs tensed up like bowstrings.

A figure sat Indian style before the hearth, hunched and spiderlike with its back to her. Its damp, black hair hung in matted tangles around its shoulders, and it appeared to be dressed in a heavy black coat. Ada shuddered at the sharp sounds, like a violent crack as sharp as bone, followed by the soft grind and smack of chewing. The sound mingled with the crackling pop of the fire and lent it a visceral quality that turned her stomach. The pattern of noise continued, with the character showing little to no signs of movement apart from occasional, slight shifts at the shoulders.

Ada watched him in tense silence as if it were Polyphemus himself crouched and crunching on the bones of Odysseus’ men. Her breath caught as the lanky frame rose to full height, and she glimpsed between its legs before the hearth leaned a rucksack brimming with red apples. Her tension was numbed now by confusion as she watched the figure cross slowly to a corner beside the hearth, drag forth a tarnished copper ashbin, lift the lid, and drop an apple core into it with a clatter.

The figure set the bin to one side and made a motion like wiping his mouth with a sleeve. Then, he spoke, and his sonorous voice cut through the gloom like a carillon bell. “I would advise against repeating your flight for the night. The storm is making a hell of the river right now, and I do not fancy another swim.” His accent had that same rustic tinge born of the Gaelic Isles, especially in how he rolled his ‘r’s. Yet there was also a kind of rigid formality in his broader enunciation that suggested more the Anglo-Saxon. “Not to mention you’re already in danger of a fever, what with being drenched coming in and going out.” There was silence between them for a space, and then he spoke again, “Are you hungry?”

Ada did not answer. The entire scene seemed unreal to her, and the images of the eerie figures downstairs played constantly upon her mind. Her throat tightened as he rose again, and she expected him to turn around and fix her with those black eyes again. She did not know if she could bear to see that ghoulish face again. Yet she could not deny the night’s events had made her famished.

Her mysterious host sighed deeply and lifted the bag of apples. Then, he backed slowly toward the bed. Ada trembled and dragged the covers beneath her eyes, but the fatigue and fear rooted her in place. She watched as he stopped about a foot from the bed, his back still to her. Then she saw his thin, white hand stretch out to the small bedside table and then slide back, revealing a plump, red apple where he had left it. Then, he shuffled towards the door, gripped the knob, and stopped.

“If you wish to read,” came his clear voice again, but a bit lower, scarcely above a murmur, “I have set your books against the wall on the other side of the bed.” He lifted a finger towards the opposite wall, and then let his arm dangle at his side. Then, he set the bag of apples next to the door, bid a terse, “Good night,” and closed the door behind him.

Ada was left ambivalent by his passage, though it might have been more because of her weariness. She stared at the door in a kind of daze, her body too spent from grief and fear to feel anything but that it was all a dream. Some quiet part of herself whispered that she would wake again the following morning and find herself snug in her bed at home. Even the hurricane seemed now a distant memory. The whole effect was like a numbing feeling, and she could only lie back and stare at the darkened ceiling while the flickering candle burned lower and dimmed the room like dusk. When sleep took her, she did not know until the musical trill of birdsong stirred her eyes to wake.

The room filled with the pale light of morning, still straining through the dismal veil of placid grey sky. The storm had left its lingering traces in the air like clouds of dust after a stampede. The air was still, and all was unnaturally quiet. Wisps of smoke curled up from the ashes and embers in the fireplace. By the light through the window, she could see that the plaster of her bedroom walls was exposed in a couple of corners (one near the hearth), revealing whitewashed brick beneath.

Ada propped herself on her forearm and rubbed her eyes with her other hand. Then, her eyes were drawn to the opposite end of the bed where lay a floral dress of blue cotton and a matching bonnet. They appeared old, yet unfaded and cleanly pressed, as if they had been prepared long ago but never worn. She found no stockings or shoes with the ensemble, so she made do with it and approached the door barefoot after dressing.

She gingerly turned the knob and pulled the door inwards, peeking out into the hall again. All was as it had been before, but in the light of day presented more of a drab, grey appearance than the menacing gloom it had taken on in the night, enhanced by the gleam of light through the hovering dust particles. Setting a foot gently out into the hallway, she could not suppress the groan that sounded from the floorboards. She froze on the threshold, as if expecting something to come bursting through one of the other rooms like a trapdoor spider. Yet the other doors were all closed and silent. By the time she made it to the middle of the landing, she was confident that nothing else occupied the upper story with her.

The ground floor was likewise. The quiet gloom settled almost like a fog throughout the building. She recoiled a bit from the parlor, averting her gaze from it as best she could and turning instead into the dining hall. There, she stopped cold. It was not the room itself that gave her pause. The peeling, gilded wallpaper, faded red carpet, and dusty chandelier were about what one would expect from a house of this make and affluence. Even the few carved figures seated here and there at the long table were to be expected. Rather, it was the head of the table, backed by the long window facing the porch, where a jug and cup of milk, and a steaming plate of beans, salted pork, and eggs before a cast-iron pot and skillet of cornbread caught her eye.

For all her quirks of personality, Ada was still very much a proper young girl. She was as ordered and delicate as other girls her age, a rather disarming trait that ill prepared others for her compulsive writing and fits of inspiration that sent her scurrying off, crouching in a corner like a gargoyle, and scribbling away at one of her many journals. Despite those quirks, she was a figure of grace and ladylike comportment to be proud of. Yet her etiquette had gotten stuck in the mud some two miles back through the woods around the time she twisted her ankle.

Hobbling over to the high-backed chair, she plopped down and furiously shoveled spoonfuls of beans into her mouth in a thoroughly unladylike manner. It took her only seconds to scarf those down before she cut a cake of cornbread for herself and began wolfing that down between bites of pork and eggs. She ate like an urchin and did not care a hang. It took a good three heaping portions of beans and cornbread and half a jug of milk before she could start acting civilized again.

Dropping the silverware on the table, she leaned back with a sigh and allowed her brain to focus. Then her ears reddened, and she bowed her head, murmuring a sheepish, belated blessing. She glanced around as if expecting her host to wander into the room abruptly or some hereto unseen servant to bustle in and clear the table. While she had relaxed and recovered some from the fear and panic of the night before, she still sat uneasily. She wondered what her host’s intentions were and what he might require of her. She thought of that ghastly face and shuddered at the thought that she might see it again peeking around a corner or waiting for her in a doorway. Then, she thought of her father and mother, who must be searching frantically for her, and of poor Cora and Peter. She must get home, but how? She did not know the way. The grim realization dawned upon her that her life might still lie in the hands of her frightening host.

She finally decided no good ideas would come to her sitting, and so decided she might as well explore the grounds. So, she returned upstairs and scrounged around her bedroom, checking in the closet and beneath her bed until she found a pair of thick boots. Then she returned downstairs and pondered for some time in the entrance hall. Stopping for a moment before the door to the dogtrot, she breathed softly through pursed lips and smoothed out her skirt, bracing herself. Then, steeling her nerves, she lifted her chin and opened the door.

Sunlight glimmered through the drops of fallen rain dripping from the edges of the awning that canopied the open breezeway. The statues stood there as before in pantomime of frolics and ambulation. Only now, in the light of day with a lucid mind, could she admire their lifelike craftsmanship. A glance around to the left showed her a view of the front yard, and her breath caught at the sight of fallen branches, some as big as a horse, strewn hither and yon, and a titanic oak torn by its roots to prostrate itself across the path to the front door. Luckily, the oak had fallen between two of the trees that gauntleted either side of the path. She recognized now that these leafless wretches she had seen the night before were in fact barren apple trees like in her father’s orchard at home.

She started a bit at the sound of dull, rhythmic blows that echoed out in a sequence and then stopped. She looked around for a space, and after a brief interval of silence, they sounded again somewhere to her right. Turning around and seeing nothing but the looming willows bent with bearded moss. Then, the sequence echoed again, and she craned her head up, thinking she heard it above her, before bringing the movement full around and to her right when she realized the echo came from behind the house. She stiffened for a moment and then shook it off, set her jaw firmly, and attempted to stroll gracefully around the corner. Unfortunately, this proved a rather awkward exercise, for a young lady certainly cannot stroll anywhere, much less with any considerable grace, wearing work boots fitted for a grown man without tripping up regularly on her skirt or her own feet. It could be said then that she plodded, despite her best efforts, around the corner, struggling not to topple over when her boots got caught in the soft clay.

Keeping near the siding with a bracing hand, she managed to round the corner with the grace of a newborn foal. There, she stopped to look at the back porch and its familiar, if more peculiar, occupant.

The figure stood leaning around a rather sizeable trunk of cypress, picking away at it in slivers and chunks with a mallet and chisel. Of course, you could hardly tell now that it was cypress but for the furrows around its base where the large roots had been hewn off.

Ada could see that the sculptor was clearly her gloomy host, but she was struck by how the light and circumstances had somewhat changed her impression. She could see he was not quite as tall as she had formerly imagined. In fact, by his height and build, he could hardly be more than a couple of years older than her. Where before she had thought him gaunt and craven looking, she saw now he was merely wiry, not so spiderlike now, but like a scarecrow. Yet his frame suggested one of good health. However, his hands and forearms, she could now see from the rolled-up sleeves of his white shirt, were possibly even paler in the dull light of day. If anything, the waxen sheen of his flesh took on a more translucent hue in the daytime. Apart from his shirt, he wore only a pair of grey suspenders and perched barefoot atop his stool. His black hair still hung about his shoulders like seaweed. Ada half anticipated half dreaded the glance of that formless face, fighting feelings of dread and morbid curiosity.

Then, good Christian sense overtook her, and she chided herself quietly with a scowl. The boy, whatever his appearance, had plucked her from the jaws of death itself and given her food and lodging. Could she now shun his hospitality for a deformity? Shame on you, Ada! She inwardly rebuked. By night, in tempest and confusion, is understandable, but am I to persist in folly with a clear mind? What might any man or beast do in the face of tragic circumstances? Why, what an ass am I! A gold ring in a pig’s snout if I should marvel at men’s scars in stinking taverns and yet blanch vainly at my savior’s deformity. Properly chastised, she smoothed out her skirt with her hands, crossed them over it, and strolled forward.

The sculptor’s body seemed to sense for a moment but continued his work normally, making no gesture or sign that he noticed the approach of his guest. He continued to chip away at the wood, if a bit clumsier. Even when she stood directly behind him, he only showed signs of slower and a bit more deliberate progress.

Ada cleared her throat and lifted her gaze to look at him. “Good morning,” she said politely.

The sculptor stopped a moment as if considering, then shifted his tools to one hand and dug around in his trouser pocket until he produced a dingy rag and appeared to dab his face with it. “Good morning,” he replied in the same sonorous tenor. His voice was full, and yet had a distant quality, like an echo down a well. It was almost too old for so young a speaker. After a pause, he cleared his throat. “I…hope you slept well despite the…circumstances.” His cadence was awkward despite his resonant voice, as if he were trying to catch words flying by him at a hundred miles an hour.

“I slept very well, thank you.” She was a bit unsure of the veracity of that statement, still feeling in a bit of a daze. She cleared her throat and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “Thank you for the meal. It was delicious.”

He made a noise she took as something approximating a “you’re welcome” and slipped the hammer and chisel into his belt. He dug around in his pocket and produced a kind of narrow pick that he started using to make precise engravings in what Ada assumed was the face of the statue.

“My name is Ada Blackwood,” declared Ada, moving to curtsey before realizing he wouldn’t see it and simply smoothing out her skirt again. “Might I have your name?”

Her host paused, leaning against the trunk, holding his pick in front of him. His hand appeared to waver a moment before she heard a swallow followed by the barely murmured, “Abel.”

“Just Abel?” pressed Ada, as her governess had when she was a child. She recalled the tone perfectly, somewhere between sarcasm and a warning, and almost felt the compulsive need to correct her tone and repeat it.

Abel seemed to tilt his head as if striving to remember. “Abel Thorne,” he reiterated flatly and made subtle engravings with the pick. “Though I believe the children of Washington call me Jack or something.”

“Black Jack,” corrected Ada, like some demagogue of local superstition.

Abel made a light noise, something like a tittering smirk. “Black Jack,” he repeated with a hint of amusement. “Good Lord. They make me sound like a pirate.”

Ada couldn’t repress a giggle. “Nothing more glamorous than being a legend. A king could hardly hope for better.”

“A king, eh?” mused Abel, blowing away some wood chips. “King Thorne of the Thicket. Has a ring to it, I’ll admit.” He stepped down from the stool and moved to an adjoining table while keeping his back to Ada. “I think you were a bit frightened by my projects last night. I must apologize.”

“Oh, no!” Ada insisted, struggling to find the words. “It was just the, um…Well, it was so dark, and the storm…I had…” Her voice trailed off sadly, and she had to repress the tears that threatened to burst from her eyes, “a stressful night.”

Abel was dusting his palms off on his thighs. “Hm,” he muttered as if the chaos of yesternight had not occurred to him. “Stressful. Yes. I could understand I’m not the sort you want to run into on a dark night, much less a stormy one.” He let out a quiet laugh and gazed up at the gloomy sky with his hands on his hips. “Oh, I remember that poor boy,” he chuckled. “I thought it was dark enough that he wouldn’t see and, well…” he waved a hand. “Ah, anyway. No harm done. How is your ankle?”

Ada leaned on it a bit testily. “Oh, my daddy put down a horse for less, but he can’t resist my winning smile.” She grinned to show it. She leaned around to get a better look through the dark locks.

Abel turned his head a bit to avoid her. “Perhaps not. I can’t have you high tailing it again on that foot.”

“I’m sure you could catch me before I got too far,” quipped Ada with a winning smile. “I told you, it was dark, and I was stressed. After last night, I could take anything.”

Abel kept his head turned.

“Oh, come now. My mother always said I had a morbid turn of mind. I promise I’ll only swoon this time,” she insisted.

Abel smirked and scratched his head.

Ada crossed her arms. “Look here, I gave my word, didn’t I? Now I have no intention of conversing with the back of your head all day.”

Abel was silent for a moment and then sighed down to his feet. Hanging his head so that his locks hung like moss over his face, he turned slowly towards her.

“If you please, Mr. Thorne. My eyes aren’t in my toes,” Ada pressed, again in the manner her governess often employed when she told her to keep her chin up.

Abel stuck his hands in his pockets and shifted on his feet. Then, he lifted his head, and Ada felt her breath catch again. To look at him, one could hardly guess he was even human. He was a thing unformed, like modeler’s clay fashioned into a waxen homunculus, and yet devoid of all traits that could be said to be distinctive. His face was smooth, hairless, and masklike, like a wad of cartilage stretched over bone with eyes large, deep-set, and black.

Ada breathed slowly and gripped the sides of her skirt, but she kept her gaze steady. Her mind recalled somewhat the night’s previous terror, but in the light of day it gave way more to a sense of awe. She remembered the lines of men’s faces and what they told her, of the droop in their jowls or the crinkle at the corners of their eyes when they smiled. A person’s face was a tableau of the weathered storms and blistering heat, of lines of laughter or age. The arch of a brow or curl of a lip could speak volumes to a person’s characters as could their bearing and demeanor. Yet of his she could find nothing. But for the gleam of the dark eyes, his face seemed altogether lifeless. Clearing her throat again, she stepped back apace and curtseyed a bit. “I would like to thank you for saving my life, Mr. Thorne.”

Abel blinked at her and returned a short bow of his own. “You are most welcome, Miss Blackwood,” he replied in kind. He glanced around and bit his lip as if struggling for something to say. “I…hope your estimation of my craft will suffer no lingering effect from the unfortunate circumstances of yesternight.”

Ada looked at the chiseled wood and the rough outlines of an eye and nose that had begun to appear on its surface. “I think they would look lovely painted.”

Abel glanced at the wood and narrowed his eyes as if the thought had never occurred to him. He scratched his chin with a hand and mused, “Yes…Now that you mention it…I suppose that would give a bit more life to them. Interesting.” He trailed off, somewhere lost in thought. Then he turned abruptly to her. “At any rate, certainly less frightening, eh? I’ll consider it.” He turned back to the table, poured himself a glass of water from a jug, and took a swig. “I saw you had, um, collected some books from my study,” he went on, offering Ada a cup.

“Ah, yes,” she replied, taking the cup and waiting until he had filled it. “I’m sure it must’ve been quite rude of me to go rooting around in people’s things, but—”

“No-no, not at all,” insisted Abel, pausing for a sip and wiping his mouth. “Ut conclave sine libris ita corpus sine anima, Miss Blackwood.”

“A room without books is like a body without a soul,” quoted Ada.

“Ah, you know your Latin?” remarked Abel in an approving tone.

“Some. My tutor says I’m a lethal understudy. Were you taught?”

Abel chuckled. “Ah. When you’re alone for so long, a library becomes your first playmate. My only one, rather. I suppose that’s just a way of saying I have a lot of time on my hands.”

“Have you read all of those books?”

“All of them,” he confirmed with a hint of pride. “If necessity is the mother of invention, then boredom is the mother of labor.” He flitted a hand to his project. “As you may have perhaps noticed.”

“You must be very bored,” remarked Ada, more in genuine wonder than in sarcasm.

Abel snorted. “How eloquently you put it! Yes. Boredom. I wear my boredom on my sleeve, don’t I?”

“There are worse things to do when bored,” replied Ada with a shrug.

“Indeed,” murmured Abel, stepping over and toasting with a clatter of their cups. “Here’s to boredom, then.”

“To boredom,” she giggled back and gulped from her cup.

Abel sat at the table, and Ada took the seat across from him. “I’m just glad you didn’t run into the cistern last night.”

Ada’s head jerked up. “Cistern?”

Abel motioned to the right towards the dining hall, and Ada saw the brick rim of a cistern some twelve feet from the wall thereabouts. “It’s covered, but I wouldn’t trust the wood. I was worried you might fall into it in your flight last night.”

Ada shuddered at bad memories that began to surface. She tried her best to suppress them by living in the present. It was the only way she could refrain from bursting into tears. Then, looking around from the back porch, she could see other buildings partially hidden among the trees and tall grass, including a large barn overgrown with moss and weeds, some hundred feet away from the back door. “How long have you lived here?” she queried with a sense of wonder.

“My whole life,” replied Abel with a shrug.

A spark came into Ada’s eye, and she leaned over the table at him. “Were you part of the former colony?”

“Former colony?” His tone and eyes conveyed genuine confusion. “Why…I’m not aware of any former colony.”

Ada squinted into his eyes. “How old are you?”

Abel cocked his head back in genuine consideration. “Nineteen, I think. Though I’ve been alone for so long, it’s hard to remember.”

Ada looked around. “Did your family build this house?”

“My father did,” elaborated Abel with a hint of pride. “Some three years before I was born. The house itself was imported from Holland when he decided to stake his claim here.”

“You’re Dutch, then?”

“Oh, no. My family was from Devon. So, my mother said anyway. My father was an artisan, you see—a-a carpenter.” He tapped his pick on his palm and scoffed lightly at himself. “Ah, but I suppose that isn’t so surprising now, is it?”

Ada smiled.

“Well, anyway, I’m not good for much else, so I must while away my waking hours with whittling lest I go mad.” He tapped his pick against the wood with a dull knock. “Less of an art, really, and more of a scrimshaw. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, and so on.”

“Why not earn for yourself then?” posited Ada earnestly. “You obviously have talent, and I’m sure it would be better to peruse the shops rather than scrounge through basements and cellars or tackling hogs with your bare hands.”

“Ah. Being as I am, I do not think I am suited for civilized company.” He motioned around his face with a hand. “I might frighten the children.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I, ah, noticed you write often. I am to understand that women do much, um…journaling. You…certainly must have a lot to write about now.”

Ada grinned. “Oh, not journaling really. I just love writing.”

“Writing what?”

“Sometimes just descriptions—trying to bring the life out of a beautiful day or dreary night beside the fireplace. I try to make something of them, but in the end, they’re just—well—pretty thoughts.” She sighed and slumped back with a cheek propped against her fist. “What a story I’d have to put down now. If only I had brought it along.”

Abel scratched his chin. “Is it so hard to tell stories? I thought the frontier would be fertile ground for tales of Indian raids and ghastly hauntings.”

“Oh, it is! There are!” corrected Ada eagerly. “But…” Her fingers twitched from proffered palms as if striving to snatch the words from thin air. “I remain so long in the shadow of great tales. I cannot live one. I can repeat or repurpose the words of others to tell of worlds I do not know and never will. Yet I cannot summon words to my command as true writers. I cannot craft tales of my own.” She slumped back in her chair. “I have no tongue for poetry or verse. I could write of comfortable home lives, dramas of courtship, or plucky heroes rising above the throes of poverty. Why be an Emily Dickenson or a Jane Austen when I could be a Radcliffe or a Shelley? The best thrill comes from the most danger, I say. What danger is there from Mr. Darcy?” She shook her head. “No. I wish to write adventure and danger, or not at all. I want to write like the pioneers of Plymouth—honest, visceral, and to the point. I want others to gasp and shudder in their seats.”

Abel gave a small, breathy laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. I…rather like pleasant stories. I get enough danger out here, thank you kindly.” He stopped as he noticed her giving him a peculiar look. He shifted a bit uncomfortably when it held longer, and then he remarked, “Is something wrong?”

Ada laughed. A full-bodied laugh that slumped her over onto the table. The sound was so shocking in its intensity and so unexpected that you would think she had just had a stroke.

Abel stared at her and gave a short laugh of disbelief. “It is rather funny, but have you heard the one about the tube and the foolish Dutchman?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that,” replied Ada, waving a hand and suppressing another chortle. “It’s just that this is such a pleasant conversation to be having with a ghost.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment, given how out of practice I am. It would seem the morning does me some credit. I am not so spectral in the sunlight, but merely a ghoul.” He stood and dusted his trousers before standing proper before his guest. “You know, Miss Blackwood, I fear boredom creeps on apace.”

Ada favored him with a lopsided, puzzled grin. “Boredom, Mr. Thorne? I hope not with me.”

“No. I fear it is with myself. I’m afraid too long sitting has cut off circulation to my brain and I must get it flowing again. Will you take the air with me?” He offered a hand. “Perhaps if I show you the grounds, you might find your way with more safety should you stumble hereabouts on some other gloomy evening.”

Ada looked at him a moment, trying to read something in his tone, not from distrust, but to dig as deep as she could through the air of mystique. Yet Abel’s manner bespoke one of a more direct temperament—one who spoke plainly and to the point and expected others to do likewise. Despite frustrated attempts to read between the lines, she found his sincerity refreshing and took his hand gracefully. “I think that sounds lovely, Mr. Thorne.”

Share

This book is exactly what it sounds like—a creepy collection of oral folklore handed down from generation to generation and put to pen by Texas journalist and librarian, Catherine Munson Foster. These were the myths and legends of my youth, of many places I have had occasion to drive by on trips to see relatives or on regular commute, and I’m excited to bring them to a broader audience!

I hope you all enjoy, and forgive me if my pronunciation is off. I’ve never done audiobooks before. If you like these stories, please give my new, serialized, southern-gothic novel Thorne a try. Much of it is based on these very stories.

Share

She recoiled from dark fingers that clawed at her cheeks and eyes and snagged at her skirt to drag her back—down—in—to swallow her up or net her like a spider. The lightning crackled above a mocking, broken laugh, and the howling wind buffeted her about proliferous brush. The cold wind whipped at her hair and skirt, pushing her, entangling her like a fly in the weeds and vines. Entangling her for whatever followed behind…or whatever awaited ahead. Every tug of a branch or root was like the tug of a church bell alerting everything to her presence. What would reach for her first?

A bolt of lightning cracked the sky like glass in an instant, awful flash of blinding incandescence, such that she felt the static in her hair and on her skin. Then through the cracks in the firmament bled the pouring rain. The shower beat down upon her, nearly staggering her to the ground in an instant. All at once, she felt the chill of the deluge and the heat of the boiling air in hellish contrast. Her ears filled with a crackling sound like static, and she wondered if she were going deaf. Then she cast her eyes upwards and threw herself back with a scream as a huge bough of oak came crashing down towards her. She covered her eyes with her arms as a lashing gust of wind nearly blinded her with rooted scatter. Around her, twigs, bark and rot tore loose and screamed through the air as if the forest itself were splitting at the seams. There was no fantasy in this for her, no romance, no glory, no thrill—only fear, only horror.

She threw herself against a pecan trunk and gripped for dear life with both arms. Her fingernails dug into the bark as she cast her gaze around, struggling to sight her companions through the maelstrom. She screamed their names, but her voice was swallowed up by the wind. In every thunderclap, she heard the crack of a musket shot; in every rolling peal, she heard the tramp of pursuing feet; in every howling breeze, she heard the hateful laughter. She threw her gaze around to pierce the tempestuous, sylvan veil, looking for landmarks she could recognize or even a dirt road to give her a clear path.

Bursting through a clump of bushes, she barely dodged the strike of a branch whipping back that could have blinded her and staggered forward. She tripped on her skirt and fell forward, her arms flailing blindly ahead. Then they caught something. She felt the dull impact of wood and felt her hands catch upon a net of mossy branches. It was like a net caught her and nearly repelled her.

She leaned there a moment, feeling the soft moss on her cheek as the rain flogged her back. Then she staggered back and gazed up dumbfounded. Before her stretched the thicket—a wide barrier of woodland that seemed almost to close in upon itself. The trees leaned and snaked together in almost a wall packed in with enough vegetation to smother a hog. Moss and thorny vines packed in and strung across the branches and trunks like mortar to seal the way. Yet here and there, someone small enough might squeeze through a narrow gap like the eye of a needle.

Pale and drenched like a drowned rat, she stood a moment before the thicket in a kind of awe. Here was no faerie realm, but a fortress that defied all light, laughed in the face of civilized man. Here was the wall at the end of the world, where man stopped cold his relentless pursuit and nature held its sway. She felt her steps stagger slowly back.

She heard the groan behind her, and then the cracking, splintering cacophony as of ship lines snapping beneath the storm. She glanced up for but a moment to see a black, mossy monolith roaring down upon her, and with a scream, dove headlong into the thicket. The deafening crash trembled the ground beneath her in a spray of clay and sediment. She felt the impact a mere three yards diagonally of her as it tore through a portion of the thicket. She covered her face against the crashing branches and spraying leaves and then scurried like a rat through the Gordian knot of the thicket.

Ada writhed and squirmed, catching her hair in the branches, cutting her face, and rending portions of her filthy skirt that caught here and there. Immediately she regretted plumbing the awful coppice, but the crashing, rending cacophony around her drove her incessantly on. It was too late now to turn back. Madness drove her thrashing through the seemingly interminable thicket, cutting her cheeks and hands on branches and knocking her knees and ankles against trunks and roots. A root caught and twisted her ankle, and she collapsed forwards with a gasp, closing her eyes against the sharp branches and palmetto leaves. Above, she heard the crashing of branches upon the canopy of the thicket, raining splintered wood down upon her. Then, like a drowning man gasping for air, she breached the edge of the thicket and collapsed to the earth. Only she had to jerk her head up immediately to spew the brackish water, and she felt the icy chill soak through her dress and pool around her.

She realized she was near the river, and yet this was both a boon and a bane to her struggle. For though the river could be her path home, she could also be rushing headlong into the coming flood. Even now as she stood, the water was pooling around her ankles, and she could see it rushing through the trees like rapids towards her. Yet no time to think! She must find the bank and follow its course at a distance back. Only in that way could she find Washington again.

The trees seemed to leap out at her from the swirling mist that whistled ahead. Yet the trees seemed sturdier, or the thicket was dense enough to barricade the brunt of the tempest for now. The rising water was now the greatest challenge. She must find shelter and warmth soon. If the flood didn’t kill her, the pneumonia surely would.

Then she saw it—a dark shape in the trees shrouded by the tempestuous haze. She saw also that it stood firm and did not waver in the wind. A copse of sturdy oaks, perhaps? At any rate, a possible bulwark within to shelter herself and catch her breath for the time being. She dragged herself, limping on her twisted ankle, bearing towards the distant shape like a lighthouse beacon. As she drew near, the shape stretched and swelled in size like an ink stain amidst the trees. Then as she drew nearer, the shape became more tangible, taking on shape like cement pouring into a frame. Her pace slowed as the size took on a solid frame and loomed before her like a Parthenon in the trees. Though she soon realized it was not as tall as it was wide, betraying hidden depths into the vast canopy of gnarled sycamores that shaded it from behind. Finally, she stopped, taken aback as if in a dream, before the long front of a dismal domicile.

The huge façade was of pier-and-beam elevation with a raised porch and balcony over the front gable and a warped stairway. Jutting from the top of the roof was a boxy, glassed-in cupola like a cyclopean eye or the head of an old lighthouse. The porch itself was columned with four square porch posts dressed and painted a tarnished hue that, whatever formerly, now sickened with a kind of black and dull green. Whatever its weathered state, its position was well situated with the wall of trees to the rear, and its elevated beams permitted the flow of water underneath. Its towering chimney seemed bound at the hip to its right side, held together by the grapevines and poison ivy coiling across the bricks like a python. Its wooden shingles trembled and shuddered against the wind and stray branches that snapped and cascaded across the roof like tumbleweeds.

Ada strained down the long pathway that led to the house, flanked on either side by a row of barren trees that reminded her morbidly of her father’s orchard back home. When she ascended the stoop, she collapsed beneath the long front of the house and shivered beneath the shade of the porch. There, all her pain came back. It came in agonizing rushes that throbbed up from her ankle. Her joints and muscles ached from the strain, and her skin burned from the flogging rain. She lay there awhile, nursing her pain and shivering like an urchin.

She might have lain there all-day drifting into a troubled yet welcome slumber. Yet she forced herself, trembling, to her knees and hung onto the tarnished brass handle like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood. Her fingers felt the ridges of some sort of insignia or pattern wrought into the ovular knob. She blinked her eyes and squinted at the backplate, which appeared engraved with something like a cluster of thorny vines. “Please!” she panted, practically hanging off the knob and pressing her forehead against the weathered door. “Please!” she panted again, this time under her breath. “For the love…of God…” She felt the knob turn and heard the click. Then she fell forward and braced her hands against the threshold, catching herself as the door swung inwards on hinges that made not a sound. Darkness gaped forth. Her fingers crept up the doorjamb, and she dug her nails in and hauled herself up shakily, to her feet. Hugging her arms, she lurched inside, her breath shuddering from the cold of her drenched dress.

It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, and she stood stock still before the open door. She found herself in a boxy entrance hall that ended at another door that normally would go outside again, but instead seemed to stretch into a darkened extension, judging by the glass partition at the top of the door. A kind of closed dogtrot domicile. To her right, a stairwell of faded walnut, like the hall, vanished along the wall to a second-story landing, and just before the end of the stairs was a door that presumably led into a dining hall. Yet a passage to the left caught her eye, for it led into what appeared to be a square parlor where the fireplace was. Therein, she found a moth-eaten sofa and scattered chairs, some knocked over here and there haphazardly. One corner held a worm-eaten cabinet, and in another was set what appeared to be a rosewood box piano. All around hung the musty, earthy smell that seemed to radiate from the worm-eaten floor. Yet she detected a faint trace of something else beneath it all—a latent pungency, a sickly-sweet scent as of spilled molasses or old fruit left in the sun.

A faint squeaking sounded somewhere nearby, and she supposed it was rats. Then the door snapped shut, shrouding her in darkness, and she choked off a short shriek with a hand over her mouth. She held rigid in the darkness, her fingers digging into her cheeks, and then the peal of lightning flashed eerily through a violet glass window at the end of the first flight of stairs. Turning warily left, she entered the parlor and maneuvered around the toppled chairs to the large fireplace. She could only stare at it longingly, tantalized by the yawning hearth that whispered memories of warmth.

Then, a brilliant flash of lightning lit the space for an instant, and she staggered against the hearth with a stifled scream. She saw them for but a moment. Or had she seen them? Was it the play of shadows through the trees? All was black again, and she stood there in the darkness, hugging her clammy arms and breathing shallowly. All at once, the space around did not feel abandoned. She felt things in the corner—shapes—frozen shapes, like spiders lurking at the corners of a great web. She groped behind her at the hearth until her fingers grasped the cold iron of a poker. Then she stood there stock-still, hardly breathing but staring into the blackness for the first flicker of a shadow. The snarling thunder echoed through the room, and she could hear her heart in her throat. All was still. She raised the poker and flexed her fingers around the handle. She felt watched, surrounded. Why didn’t they take her? Why didn’t they do something? Could she have imagined it? No, she felt them. They were there. She heard the rolling thunder crash like waves upon the roof, and lightning burst the blackness again for a split second. Ada convulsed and dropped the poker with a short gasp that sharpened to a shriek at the end before her hands cut it off.

Figures frozen and pale in the flicker of light. Four she supposed, still and quiet in the beshadowed corners. The imprint of their shape was on her brain, and she saw now their outlines lurking in the shadows.

“Who are you?” came her tremulous cry. “Show yourselves!” When she received no answer, she slid slowly forward on shuffling feet and stooped to pick up the poker again. There was now only the hiss and patter of falling rain. When she stepped forward, every creak of the aged boards like the tremolo pluck of spider silk in her ears tightened her chest. For ages, she crept like that until she felt the corner of the piano. Drawing herself behind it, she sat on the bench and scooted towards the window. She felt a cold sensation and creeping feeling. She felt it like a finger over her naked nerves and trembled and then noticed a sensation along her shoulder and thigh. Her attention was fixated on the dark shapes around the room in some vain hope that they would vanish or explain themselves under prolonged scrutiny. Yet the longer she looked, the more they took shape, and the more human they became. The sensation along her side came again, and she felt the tingle of something like spider legs on her thigh. She jerked aside and darted a glance to see the thing at her thigh, but her eyes were arrested by a single eye. A single empty eye that seemed to catch her in a sideways glance. She jerked aside and felt the spider legs brush along her thigh, and with a scream skittered back, toppling off the bench. To her horror, the thing beside her made a clattering noise like it was launching itself from its seat. She scrambled and kicked back, but the thing threw itself upon her until the empty eyes met hers in a cold embrace. She threw it, kicked back with her feet and crawled frantically away, feeling at any moment its putrid fingers might come grasping at her leg. Yet, in her frenzy, she threw her shoulder against the door and heard the latch. She could almost hear the hissing, skittering spider legs of the thing behind her and struggled to her feet, making abortive attempts to open the door without realizing her conflicting impulses had impeded her flight. Her hands knew to fumble with the handle, but her feet knew only their frantic flight forwards. A flash of lightning tore a glance back over her shoulder, and she saw the silent figures lurching in on silent feet, their glassy eyes staring. Why didn’t they speak? She felt herself sliding down and crawling against the door, clawing at it with her nails, trying to pry her fingers into the jamb as she felt their shadows loom over her. She felt their icy breath on her neck, and at once, she contorted in on herself, covering her face with her hands and kicking back with her feet. Then her breath caught at the deafening clap of thunder, and she was still. For seconds that felt like hours, she lay curled and knotted there, her mouth agape and her muscles tensed. Yet she heard nothing; se felt nothing. Had they waited to watch her like crouching leopards until she dared a glance? Did they wait in wide-eyed anticipation, their wide grins white and eager to catch her frightened eyes before the plunge? She turned her trembling gaze back and saw…nothing.

The darkness behind her was still, and the shadows of strange figures stood sentinel as they had before. Then she turned her gaze to one side and saw the fallen attacker curled beside her and stared at it through the blackness. For a terrible moment, she waited—waited for the glare of lightning to reveal a rotted face staring with hollow eyes and slack-jawed grin. The lightning flashed again, and the cackling thunder roared in ghastly triumph. The face she saw was not of flesh. Nor even was it air, as spirits are wont to guise themselves like faint impressions in mist and smoke. What first drenched her nerves like a bucket of ice water were the placid features. A serenity was there—even a kindness. She blinked and narrowed her eyes through the gloom, and then another flicker through the window revealed a make not of flesh but wood. Slowly, she dragged herself to her feet as if in a dream. Her body felt as if it were filled with air. Had she died? No, the pain in her ankle told her that. Perhaps it was the pain that suddenly brought the world into focus. In the flicker of light through the window, she beheld a model—a sculpture of smooth oak.

Getting to her knees, Ada waited and watched patiently, gathering impressions by the intermittent flickers of lightning. It was a sculpture of a woman, proud and regal, in a flowing, laced gown. Her hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head, and her posture was of one sitting straight, and with fingers forwards as if playing. When Ada dragged herself, limping back onto one foot, she leaned against the piano and took in both the sculpture and the bench it had previously occupied. For indeed, she could see it had formerly occupied the bench before she had disturbed it, its outstretched fingers hovering over the ivory keys in fixed pantomime. She threw her gaze around the room, her eyes adjusting to the darkness and aided by the intermittent flashes of lightning. She saw other figures, also seemingly of wood, standing hither and thither in varied pantomime. A couple were bound together in the ecstasy of dance, and others stood or were seated beside one another, their mouths agape in wordless merriment or turned to one another in serious conversation. All were so fluid and lifelike that she half-expected the scene to resume in movement any minute.

Ada hugged her arms with a shuddering sigh and was abruptly reminded of her clammy, drenched skin. She realized her only chance at warmth might lay in the living quarters, which meant she would have to ascend the stairway. With tentative steps, she crept back through the door, leaving the frozen revelers behind, crossing to the first step and lifting a foot lightly upon it. The groan that echoed seemed to come from the entire house and throbbed up her spine like an electric shock. She steeled herself, gripping the banister with both hands and leaning on it as she limped slowly, steadily upwards. The numbness of the cold was beginning to fade from her twisted ankle, and the pain came clawing back up her calf. Sucking in her breath between her teeth, she continued her staggering pace upwards until she reached the top of the flight. There, she slid to the floor and sat against the banister. Catching her breath and stretching out her twisted foot, she gazed up at the violet window that flickered with lightning above her. She stared up at the last flight like a desert hermit at a distant oasis. “God Almighty, Ada!” she half laughed to herself between belabored gasps. “You drag your…soaked and sorry self through a…raging hurricane…but find yourself stymied…by stairs?” Then she turned and crawled the final flight up to the second-story landing. There, she found that the broad landing was connected at either end to two short, plastered hallways, and between them ahead of her, it extended to a pair of glass-paned doors that led to the balcony.

The only light was that which glowed from the window of the first flight and another pair of tall windows from the floor to the fourteen-foot ceiling above, flanking a door presumably leading to the second-story balcony. Ada moved trepidatiously across the warped cedar floor of the hallway that creaked shrilly with every furtive step. All the while, she heard the dull moan of the wind and faint hiss of rain outside, rattling the shingles like chattering teeth. From what she recalled of the exterior of the house and the doors she counted now to her right, she concluded that it was a twelve-room abode whose decrepit, yet gargantuan stature hinted at a haunt of some former affluence.

Shuffling to the room beside the roost, she found it locked tight. Her heart skipped a beat at the horrifying thought that they all could be locked. Her anxieties subsided quickly when she tried the door across from it on the other side of the balcony entrance. The door sighed smoothly open without resistance, and she found a whitewashed room and a bed with dusty sheets and a moth-eaten quilt piled on top with frayed shirts, threadbare trousers, and grey, old jackets. There were no pillows to be seen. Again, she cast a despondent glance at the cold fireplace crowded with piles of ash like sand dunes. Finally, dragging herself to the edge of the bed, she removed her torn and drenched garments and slipped on a woolen shirt and coat and a pair of trousers from the bed. As rough, dirty, and irritating as the garments were, better to be irritated than to catch her death of cold. Oh, if only for a match! Nothing for it, then. She checked the bed for cockroaches or brown recluses, shoving the piles of clothes to the floor and kicking them around to inspect them. She checked the bed for same and finally piled the clothes back on again, slipped beneath the covers, and nestled beneath the weighty garments with chattering teeth. There, she squirmed and kicked restlessly to get warm blood flowing back to her limbs. It served a twofold purpose, both to generate warmth and to wear her out enough to relax.

Then, as her nerves relaxed, and the warmth cleared her head, the flood of memories was permitted back into her mind. Then, her heart sank to the pit of her stomach, and the image of Willem’s glazed eyes staring dumbly into the treetops etched itself into her brain. She clawed at the sheets and kicked as if struggling to escape the memory. “Oh—God…God!” she whimpered, clawing at the sheets and rubbing her face against the mattress. She felt a sudden urge to vomit, and her body heaved with stifled gags. “God, no…Please, no…” she sobbed, clawing at her scalp as if to scratch away the memory. “I’m sorry! I’m so—sorry!” She found it difficult to catch her breath and felt suddenly as if she were drowning. She dragged her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Mamma…Papa…please,” she sobbed under her breath. “Please, God! Please!” She was a raw nerve, battered by scattered thoughts and feelings she dared not consider lest she go mad. All she could do was weep and moan her broken words to God, even if she could not make them coherent.

She listened to the battering gusts of wind and rain rattling the roof and windows and heard the creaks and groans of the house itself and was reminded again of a ship at sea. When sleep took her, it was unawares. For all she knew, she simply stared into endless darkness until she jerked awake once again, half-shocked that any interval of sleep had come at all. It was as if the room had imprinted itself on her eyelids. Yet, in the sudden glow of light adjacent to her, she recognized that she had awakened.

Not the light of the sun, but the glow of the fireplace. She jerked her sheet back up to her chin with a squeaking gasp. Then she stared in dazed bewilderment. Was it a dream? Slipping her feet gingerly from the bed, she put her weight on the sprained ankle and felt the twinge that shot from her leg to her brain. It was real! Staggering forward, she collapsed to her knees and basked in the crackling glow of the fire. For a moment, the warmth chased away all considerations, confusions, and anxieties.

Her head cleared up enough to think, but not of her present predicament. Rather, she fretted over Cora and Peter, praying they made it home in the storm, that they managed to get help. Poor Willem. She clasped her knees to her breast and stared into the flames. And what of mother and father? She was certain they would be searching madly for her even now. Yet how would they brave this hurricane? Or had they already given her up for dead? What of that madman in the forest?

This last thought gave her a start, and a horrifying notion presented itself. What if this house were his abode? What if he was some mad forest hermit, and she had unwittingly entered his den? What was she to do? Yet this place seemed to show no signs of being lived in for years. That left the question…Who had started the fire?

She felt her skin crawl and jerked around to stare at the door. Not only was it still closed, but she had heard no sound of the latch or furtive feet gaining entry. What madman would steal in upon his sleeping victim solely to light a fire? A terrible thought sent a shock up her spine, and she darted to the door and tried the handle. The door opened as smoothly and silently as had the main door below. Peering out into the hallway, she saw nothing but the faint outlines of rooms on the beshadowed landing. She pressed the door quietly shut and leaned against it thoughtfully. She glanced repeatedly between the door and the bed until, doggedly, deciding she would meet whoever and whatever was in the house head-on rather than risk entrapment. For all she knew, the mysterious inhabitant could be a mere vagrant or fellow refugee from the storm. In the latter case, it would be wise to acquaint herself, since two heads are better than one in such a scenario.

Atop the fireplace, she found a tinderbox, and beneath the bed she found a box of candles. Finding no candleholder, she wrapped her hand in an old shirt for protection, took up a candle and lit it for her journey. She tried to find a blunt object nearby that might serve in her defense but found nothing that would fit the bill. “Well, tooth and nail then, by God,” she murmured. Once prepared, she sucked in a breath through her nose and steeled her spine. Then, she opened the door again and slipped into the hallway.

On the landing, she looked around, trying to ignore the howling wind and rain lashing at the roof and the clatter of hail against the balcony windows. Her eyes fell upon the only other room she had not checked upstairs. It was the one across from the locked room and to the left of the stairwell. What caught her eye was a little detail that made her heart race—the door was ajar. It had not been ajar before. Of that much, she was certain. With furtive steps, she crossed the landing and placed her free hand on the door. A glance through the crack revealed nothing but darkness. Only stale air greeted her and almost gagged her. Hearing and seeing no movement beyond the threshold, she felt slightly emboldened by curiosity and slowly crossed into the room.

The room was something like a study and simultaneously the most cluttered and clean room in the house thus far. Its cleanliness was apparent in the lack of dust compared to the others. What furniture and shelves therein were polished to a sheen, and long, blue silk curtains veiled the tall window at the back of the room. Its clutter, however, came from books—stacks of them. Every shelf was practically overflowing with them.

Immediately, she was drawn to the books, gliding over to the shelves and browsing their spines by candlelight. Many were so faded that she had to pluck them out and open them to discover their titles. In a moment, her fears were chased away at the sight of Poe, Hugo, and Dumas. Like old friends, they filled her with a sense of calm familiarity. She determined that she should chase away the phantoms of dangers past by losing herself in other worlds. What more could a young girl do? Rooting around a while, she came away with a Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, and (to her delight) a leather-bound copy of Ivanhoe.

She found too, in the room, a small, tin candleholder, which she set her candle in and gripped by the small finger loop. She heard the brush of something beneath her feet as she stepped in and glanced down to see wood shavings scattered around and some swept into piles in corners or beside bookshelves. A desk beside the door was stacked on either end with books, and the middle was strewn here and there with dried candle wax and beeswax hanging over the edge of the table.

She turned sharply at a distant creak. The practical side of her spoke, telling her that the owner of the wretched estate must be wandering around below. At any rate, she was still determined to meet her host, and perhaps the presence of human company might make the place feel more lived in and allay her anxieties. She already felt immeasurable relief at the knowledge that another human being occupied this dismal abode. She gave no thought to what kind of human being might dwell there. Had she thought more about it and not been blinded by fear, she might have suspected that this mysterious owner or fellow refugee might in fact be the very madman to whom she owed her present predicament.

Bearing her candle aloft like an acolyte, she slipped back out onto the landing, hauling her trove beneath one arm. Her eyes fell upon the locked room and noticed something beside it she had not before—a doorway. Upon further consideration, she concluded it must lead to the cupola she had seen from the outside. After the ordeal she had endured and her much-needed rest, she had quite forgotten about that peculiar feature. Simple curiosity was the only impetus that drove her to approach the door—a kind of mechanical impulse. An abrupt confusion clouded her brain like a boxer catching a clip on the chin. The hand that turned the knob was numb, and when the creak of the door jolted her back to reality, she hardly recognized what was happening when the passage was laid bare. Her foot moved impulsively forward with the action but stopped on the threshold. A figure of wax took up the frame. The shock came and flew by with an exasperated sigh that faded quickly. Her body tensed involuntarily, and she stared. The eyes. Where were they? The features—melted, smooth—caught the gleam of candlelight. Did it melt even now? By the light? No, it leaned. Perhaps to topple over. Then raised the head to look upon her with a waxen mouth that gaped and rasped.

A scream tore from her tightened throat, and the shadow of a thin, white hand fell over her face. Her legs gave out, and she toppled backwards onto the floor, unable now to hear the roaring thunder over her frantic screams as she scrambled backwards. The figure seemed to stagger forward with her, catching itself spiderlike on all fours and fixing her with those hollow eyes through strands of black hair like hanging moss. She heard its gasp as it lifted its hollow eyes to fix upon her, and she dropped the books and struggled to her feet with her hands upon the banister. Swinging herself onto the stairs, she felt the agony in her ankle, and her foot pivoted awkwardly, nearly careening her down the steps. She hobbled and ran, slipping on the second flight and plummeting headlong. She curled up as she felt the rolling impacts on her ribs and skull knocking her to-and-fro. When she sprawled into the entrance hall, she tried to drag herself up, but saw the world spinning. She managed to prop herself on her forearms and drag herself forward, her heart racing at the sound of tramping feet behind. She heard a cry that echoed behind her, but the words, if words at all, were beaten down beneath the rattling thunder. Throwing a brief glance over her shoulder, she saw to her horror the pasty mask of the ghastly fiend looming amidst tangles of mossy, dark hair, seeming to hover from the top of the first flight of stairs.

Forgetting any attempt to exit the door, she bolted around the corner, threw open the back door and ran barefoot onto the black path of the shaded dogtrot. Jerking back with a squeaking gasp, she stared ahead at the long dogtrot to the kitchen. Before her, more wooden facsimiles collected beneath the shade, whipped by the howling maelstrom. Their figures likewise to those within, fashioned and positioned in the appearance of conversation and laughter, led children by the hand or smiled down at diminutive canines barking at their side. Swerving to one side, she cut across the grass and found herself as before, running for dear life through the storm from a new and inexplicable horror at her back.

The river! The river! She must find the river—the river that would lead her way back home. So, her frenzied flight carried her breathlessly through the trees where the cold, brown waters of the flood rushed across her feet.

Share

Ada and her mother hardly needed a day to finish the inventory. This, of course, left Ada little to do in the coming days but wait. Yet, she refused to do so, cooped up in her room. Likewise, she had no desire to go downtown to the hustle and bustle of markets and ferries. So, she instead agreed to accompany Cora and two young men who were sons of her father’s business associates. One young man was a Dutch boy by name of Willem Van Buren, and another was a lad of Scots-Irish descent by name of Peter Crain.

Willem was a tall and sturdy farm boy, as blonde haired and blue eyed as his surname might suggest. He had a stout disposition and rugged quality as befit a lad who tended cattle. His shoulders were broad, and his strong forearms suggested one who’d had to reign in an unruly horse or two. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled up behind his elbows, a pair of grey trousers with suspenders, and a pair of heavy, leather boots.

Peter was a shorter, slimmer fellow with bright red hair and freckles. He had a lopsided smile and dressed in a yellow vest, blue coat, and pair of brown trousers.

Ada got along well with boys. Not because she was by any means a flirt. In fact, the thought of romance never once interested her beyond the drama of a dime novel or the dark tragedies of Mr. Poe. Even in those cases, she rarely concerned herself with the romantic inclinations of the heroine or damsel in distress. More so she admired the qualities of the hero—his chivalry, nobility, undying love, and sense of self sacrifice. These things stirred her heart, but she recognized it as a thrill or sense of admiration rather than a girlish infatuation. Her love of such heroic narratives and daring exploits gave her much in common with local boys, who found her an engaging conversationalist and avid listener.

Willem and Peter both appreciated these qualities and were more than willing to trade ghoulish ghost stories and thrilling adventure tales of the frontier. Both boys often lamented their fathers preventing their enlistment. They were hot-blooded and eager to bring back the head of the puff-shirted, poncy Napoleon of the West. Of course, they sated their lust for glory on hunts for hogs or white-tailed deer and took great pride in chasing off the coyotes that preyed on their chickens or cattle.

Cora might have been a little jealous of the attention given to Ada, but Ada, of course, knew that Peter harbored more than a passing affection for Cora. Ada never gave a thought to romance where she was concerned. It was not that the idea held no appeal for her, but simply that she had been too caught up in her youthful imaginings to consider it. Fictional romance was thrilling. Real romance was quaint, and her head was often too far into the clouds to consider anything that had not the least touch of the fantastic. At the very least, her mind must be stimulated by curiosity if not fascination.

Right now, Ada’s fascination directed her towards the thicket. To her, it was a nexus of imagination. It had all the mystique and exotic allure of Marco Polo’s Orient and all the danger and hidden peril of the wild frontier. Together with Cora and the boys, they imagined it some undiscovered country and themselves the great pioneers who would discover and name it. Of course, their imaginings also inevitably included Black Jack.

“Perhaps it’s a fae realm,” suggested Peter. “My grandmother told me about the banshee who cries out at night and foretells death to any that hears her.”

“Black Jack’s not a ‘she’ though,” objected Willem. “And anyway, he don’t make any noise from what I’ve heard. Certainly not a wail.”

“He could be a redcap,” suggested Peter after some consideration. “They’re short elves with long teeth, fiery, red eyes, and long hair. They kill travelers and soaks his cap in their blood. He’s got long hair…”

“But his eyes ain’t fiery. They’re black, and he ain’t short at all. He’s a longshanks if ever I heard of one,” objected Willem.

“Why must we always talk of such morbid things?” groaned Cora. “Poor Ada already had a bout of sleepwalking and a bona fide nightmare from such ghost tales.”

“Whadda you think he is, then?’ challenged Peter.

“Them redskins got all kinds of demons they go on about. Take your pick. Whadda you think, Ada?”

Ada’s eyes gazed up and around at the cloudy sky. Her smile was almost whimsical. “I think…He’s a ghost.”

“Ghost, huh?”

“Maybe a ghoul.”

“Ghoul, she says.”

“But I dunno what he could’ve been before.”

“Well, that ain’t like you, Ada,” remarked Peter. “You usually have all kinds of theories about stuff. Like Jean Lafitte or all them goblin tales you hear at the Royal Oak.”

“Most say he’s from the thicket,” she recounted thoughtfully. “We don’t know what’s across there, but they say the colony before ours was set o’er yonder. I think they all got a disease, or the injuns killed them.”

“Or they got ate,” interjected Willem. “They got starved like them fellas from Massachusetts. Y’know, the whalers? A gigantic whale sunk their boat afore they even tried anything. Like it knew who they was.”

“Oh, stop it, Willem,” Cora shuddered. “I swear! Why can’t we have nicer tales like Grandma brought from the old country? Stuff about faeries, gnomes, or beautiful water spirits?”

“Cause whatever water spirits float around the muddy Brazos ain’t any I’d like to meet,” remarked Peter, wrinkling his nose.

“Anyway, y’know how them whalers stayed so long at sea they ate each other? Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe the first group got starved by the injuns, or they couldn’t figure out how to farm proper and just started eating—”

“Oh, stop it!” huffed Cora, already looking green around the gills. “You’re positively awful. Just awful!”

“Why don’t we look?” queried Ada, pointedly.

“Look where?” asked Cora.

“At what?” added Willem.

“The thicket, of course,” replied Ada with a grin.

“And get scalped by injuns?” scoffed Peter.

“There ain’t been injuns within fifty miles of here for about as long as we’ve been alive,” chided Ada.

“You don’t know what’s past there, Ada,” shuddered Cora.

“Oh, it’s just within sight of the town. Martha’s family lives hardly three miles from there,” insisted Ada.

“He can leap ten feet and eats raw meat!”

“And injuns can outrun horses and eat raw buffalo. So, what makes him special?” Peter scoffed.

“All them people died, y’know,” Cora piped up. “Maybe they got a disease or something, and it’s still there, and we could catch it and bring it into town.”

“Ain’t no disease hanging around there now,” Ada scoffed with a wave of her hand. “If there was, we’d have got it long ago. We’ve been eating animals that come out of there and drinking water that come through there. We ought to have had a plague by now.”

“Well, you can look, but I won’t,” declared Cora, waving her hands in disgust. “Could be snakes or a hog den, and I don’t plan on getting bit or gored for my curiosity.”

“Well! Some brave pioneers y’all are!” Ada shook her head. “All that talk about how you wanna go bring back Santa Anna’s head on a platter, and you can’t even cross a twelve-mile stretch of brush in your own backyard!” She about-faced and struck out through the woods, hiking her skirt against the brush and palmettos. “Well, I’m going.”

“Don’t you have enough ghoulish tales to tell without becoming one?” exclaimed Cora in exasperation.

“Aw, hell,” swore Willem. “C’mon, then!” With that, he jogged after her with Peter throwing Cora an unsure glance and then scurrying close behind him.

“Ohhh! Pioneers my foot!” blustered Cora, punctuating the statement with a stomp and then darting off after them.

Far above, the impassive sky darkened to a roiling, vertiginous green and dusky gray like crashing waves of smoke. The breeze whispered through the treetops with a tone of warning. There was a slight clamminess in the air, clashing with the heat that seemed to radiate up from the grass. The branches and palmettos leaned into one another, stitched together by a vast network of vines and greedy roots battling for dominance in the clay. All told, that chaos was nigh impossible to plumb without a hatchet, which necessitated the girls going home first to change into shorter dresses. The boys also took time to retrieve their hatchets from home before meeting back up at the edge of the town square.

Soon, they left the market square and reached the outskirts, where the finer houses thinned out to a smattering of squat cabins hunched beneath the shade of leaning oaks and pecans. You caught them here and there out of the corner of your eye as you passed beneath the moss-bearded boughs. Some were so shrouded by the trees and brush they seemed to wink out at you for a moment before vanishing again, leading you to wonder if you’d really seen them at all. In fact, the deeper they went, Ada began to wonder if maybe a whole settlement disappearing without a trace wasn’t so mysterious a notion after all. The land near the Brazos wasn’t so idyllic as one might expect on an autumn day. The treetops were not brilliantly painted with a regal splendor of gold and bronze. The air was too damp for that. What died, withered and dulled to an ashen hue to be trampled and forgotten in the clay. Barren branches lifted suppliant fingers to the sullen sky, knotted and bent to drink what fleeting rays would seep from the impassive empyrean.

As the brush grew thicker and the canopy overhead leaned in more and more to strangle the faint rays of light, the trio had to watch lest they collide with the veritable empire of gossamer pagodas throbbing beneath the long legs of banana spiders. Both boys took the lead whilst keeping well enough apart and hewing a path through the thick grapevines and poison ivy with their hatchets.

“How has your mother been, Cora?” Ada tried to show consideration and a bit of solidarity with her friend, who was obviously a tagalong on this particular adventure.

Cora’s vexed expression turned to something of a forlorn smile. “Oh, well enough, I suppose. I haven’t seen her since the morning before you came over. Father said yesterday that she’s taken a trip to see some relatives in San Antonio. He thinks the drier climate will do her some good, and she could stay with my aunt Lydia for a while.”

“You didn’t bid her goodbye?”

“No, she left quite early. She worried I might catch whatever ailment she had, and then father would have had to send me with her. The autumn air has made her feverish of late.” She squeezed Ada’s hand and perked up a bit. “But father says she will write to me, and perhaps we might go to join her for Christmas, and then she will come back with us.”

“Well, that would be a wonderful present now, wouldn’t it?” Ada replied with a smile, draping an arm around her friend’s shoulder. Then she halted and blinked her eyes before staring rightward. For a moment, she did not know why she stared. Her body appeared to react before her mind caught up. For a moment, she could not see the forest for the trees. She felt Cora tug her skirt and glimpsed her face, which betrayed neither fear nor shock, but a kind of dazed and mystified look. She gazed at the trees again and blinked at a spot that seemed to distinguish itself amidst the brush and trunks.

“Whatsa matter?” queried Peter in a measured voice. He had enough caution to not broadcast their presence lest unsavory things lurk by. “Hog? Bobcat?”

Willem carefully edged his way around, taking wide steps over fallen branches and worming his way between brush. When he stood next to Ada, he gave a questioning look, swept his gaze around, and froze.

“What is it?” hissed Peter quietly. Then he stretched out a leg to step over a log. Willem’s hiss and emphatic wave stopped his foot midair. “What, by God?”

“It’s a man,” hissed back Willem.

“A man?”

“Looks like one.”

Peter spread his hands. “So, it’s a man.”

The sound of sharp thuds and scrapes hushed them, and they strained their ears in brief silence.

“What’s he look like?” hissed Peter.

“I dunno,” replied Willem. “Just a shape in the brush. I think it’s a man.”

“You think?” Peter was annoyed. “I thought you said it was?”

“I dunno, Pete! It sure walks like a man!” hissed back Willem.

“What if it’s a bear?”

“Ain’t no bears round here, stupid!”

“Shhh!”

Ada was silent all the while, her attention engrossed in piercing the sylvan veil. The figure was distant enough that they could make out little more than a general shape and a wide-brimmed hat of some sort. The figure appeared to be kneeling and digging at the ground, like a dog, with its fingers.

“What’s he doing?” whispered Peter, craning his head.

“I dun told ya, I think he’s digging,” hissed back Willem.

“We could get down a bit closer.”

“Nuh-uh! I like him well enough from here, thank you very much,” snapped back Cora nervously.

“Whatsa matter? He’s probably just hunting.”

“Hey, Pete, maybe we should just git back home. It’s looking like a right toad strangler by them clouds,” whispered Willem, already half-turned to go back through the brush.

“Why’re we whispering? Could be old Bell out hunting, for all we know.”

“Or Black Jack!” whispered Cora, her hands jittering with urgency.

“Black Jack only comes out at night, Cora. Everybody knows that. Maybe he’s just a hunter digging for a deer trap or the like.”

“Look, Pete, c’mon! That storm might be coming, and I don’t wanna be here when it hits—”

“Leggo of my shirt, Willem!”

“Hold still, dammit! Yer making too much noise!”

“Both of y’all stop. Let’s just think—” Ada tried to quiet the scuffle.

“Not ‘til he let’s go!”

“Oh, both of you stop, let’s just—” Cora pleaded, trembling and darting glances back through the trees.

“I’m telling ya to—!”

“Ow!”

“Stop!”

“Leggo!”

The boys in their scuffle were tangled up in some prickly vines and recoiled, bumping against each other.

“Got-dang!”

“Ah!”

“Git off!”

Peter dragged up a foot to disentangle it from the vines, striking his tendon against a thin stump of dogwood. His flailing arms fumbled for a nearby branch, but in vain. He toppled backwards into the palmettos and rolled around to get back up.

“Ah! Dammit, Pete! Will you—?” Willem reached out to his friend and then stopped. Ada saw his head jerk up and stare forward. A slight motion of his hand at his side indicated that they should remain put. He stretched a foot out in a wider stance to brace himself. The thunder rolled overhead, bringing a brief gust of wind that made him shudder. He grabbed a thin dogwood trunk to brace himself and raised his other hand. “Howdy,” he called out with a kind of reserved uncertainty. His head craned around to get a better look through the brush. The thunder growled overhead, and he shivered at the cool breeze that smelled of salt. “Sorry. We was just lookin’—”

Ada jolted at the crack echoing through the treetops and the snarl of the gloomy sky and instinctively jerked her head up. She felt the movement a second before she heard a sound like a rock dropping into the grass. She cleared her head with a shake and looked up for falling leaves where a branch fell.

But there were no leaves.

A shrill noise caused her body to tense up and her hand to jerk impulsively to her ear. Then she turned to her side and realized it was Cora screaming. It seemed the light dimmed around her suddenly, and she wondered if she were fainting. She felt a grip on her arm and cast her head down. She saw the movement of something there, then concluded Willem had fallen. That awful stump! She felt her arm jerked sharply back and nearly jerked a look back in dazed annoyance. Then Cora’s screaming jerked her gaze back sideways. She glimpsed delicate fingers clawing at the white cheeks, with wide eyes downcast. She followed them to the dirt—the dirt where Willem lay. Why was there blood on his head? Then she saw the eyes glazed with shock, like a deer. She felt herself being dragged back, and the world came sharply into focus with Willem limp in the grass, his eyes wide but seeing nothing. It was as she felt herself dragged back, running and stumbling through the brush, seeing the blur of the brush swiping at her as she ran, her mind came sharply back into focus, and a scream warbled out in a moaning wail.

Share

Themes of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry embody the primary components of what befits a heroic lifestyle. These components were Comitatus, the Lord, Warriors, Mead-Hall, Ring-Giver, Harp, Hawk, Hounds, Swords and Anglo-Saxon social ethics during that period. The social ethics included loyalty, courage, self-denial, blood vengeance, and wergild.

Beowulf, in particular, exhibits loyalty as the unifying factor of society. This trait lies at the heart of Beowulf and connects disparate episodes of the narrative.

“Thus must a kinsman do, in no way should he weave a net of malice for the other with secret guile, nor devise death for his close companion. The nephew was very loyal to Hygelac, a man hardy in battles, and each was mindful of the other’s welfare.”-

-Beowulf

In such ways, the Beowulf poet makes this theme explicit throughout the narrative. Without loyalty, Beowulf’s heroic actions cease to be, along with his friends, or enemies. This concern for loyalty reflects the concerns of early eleventh century English leaders. Beowulf was likely copied out to promote this ethic. Furthermore, Anglo-Saxon concepts of vengeance, courage, self-denial, or heroism would vanish as well without loyalty. The text of Beowulf seems concerned with utilizing Germanic past to contemplate praiseworthy conduct and social order in a universe under God’s rule. Beowulf offers a look into Anglo-Saxon civilization where social bonds were strictly upheld, and where breaking those bonds incurred severe punishment. War is also a leading, recurring theme of Anglo-Saxon poetry. This coincides with their epic nature and depictions of heroic figures like Beowulf or Christ. Portrayals of battles are not so romanticized as Homeric epics and depict battle as a chaotic amalgam of vigorous scenes shrouded in the murky fog of war. Even despite this, however, war is idealized as heroism rather than wanton slaughter. Beowulf himself demonstrates this when he fights to save Hrothgar’s men and sacrifices his life slaying the dragon to defend his kingdom.

Their poetry also dealt with psychospiritual concepts, such as in the Dream of the Rood. The poem presents the link between mind and spirit by presenting the image of the cross in a vision. It also demonstrates how, through the cross, the community can be connected in a collective enlightenment. Each participant bears the cross individually in his own heart, which makes him a participant in the universal community of veneration. Rather than being drowned out by the community, the individual serves as an essential piece of the community. All of these communal concepts find their center in the figure of Christ, who is depicted as a mighty king, betrayed and sacrificed for humanity’s sake.

“They laid him down, bone-weary, and stood by his body’s head;

they watched the Lord of heaven there, who rested a while,

weary from his mighty battle. They began to build a tomb for him

in the sight of his slayer; they carved it from bright stone,

and set within the Lord of victories. They began to sing a dirge for him,

wretched at evening, when they wished to travel hence,

weary, from the glorious Lord––he rested there with little company.

And as we stood there, weeping, a long while

fixed in our station, the song ascended

from those warriors. The corpse grew cold,

the fair life-house. Then they began to fell us

all to the earth––a terrible fate!”

-Anonymous, Dream of the Rood

Poetic conventions of Anglo-Saxon bear particular markers of heroic speech styles. These include, an “envelope or ring structure, parallelism (or anaphora), chiastic patterning, enjambed (or enveloping or plurilinear) alliteration, generative composition, bracketing patterns, and maxims.” In heroic poetry, we also find the synthesis of pagan oral and heroic tradition with literate Christian religious allegory. An example would be the “open heavens” in the poems Christ and Satan, Andreas, Guthlac A, and Solomon and Saturn I. The central theme of this allegory is that heaven is open to the righteous, and we should never lose sight of that ultimate goal. Other themes include “Exile,” “The Beasts of Battle,” “Traditional Opening,” “Travelers Recognize Their Goal,” “Sea Voyage,” or “The Contending Throng.” However, the “open heavens” theme is a uniquely Christian traditional theme. The other tropes could be seen as carryovers from a shared poetic tradition with Old Norse literature.

The Beasts of Battle, for instance, is a poetic trope emphasizing the carrion beasts like the wolf, raven, and eagle that follow warriors into battle to feast on the bodies of the slain. Despite this connection, the beasts themselves are not connected to pagan mythology or theology in the actual poems. In fact, they share a connection with Christian hagiography. A good example would be the wolf and eagle that guard the bodies of martyrs from other carrion at the explicit command of Christ in John Lyndgate’s The Life of Saint Alban and Saint Amphibal. In other words, while the literary connection and technique might be pagan in origin, the thematic usage and specific imagery of the beasts is Christian in origin. We find here a blending of literary traditions to craft Christian literature rather than simply stretching the skin of Christianity over the bones of paganism.

From the earliest discernible point of its creation, English literature has acted as a direct response to the Bible. This is exemplified in the first recorded Anglo-Saxon poem, Caedmon’s Hymn, along with Dream of the Rood. The Junius Manuscript also includes four poems called Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan, respectively. Anglo-Saxon literature often functioned as a secondary form of Bible translation. As T.S. Eliot so succinctly put it,

“The Bible has had a literary effect upon English literature not because it has been considered as literature, but because it has been considered as the report of the Word of God.”

-(T.S. Eliot)Leonard Neidorf, ‘VII Æthelred and the Genesis of the Beowulf Manuscript’

This factor would lead to the copious library of fourteenth and fifteenth century Corpus Cristi Biblical plays. The introduction of the Bible to the Anglo-Saxons can also be credited with the advent of bookmaking in their previously oral culture. This was done because reading Scripture was essential to the church and its services. Thanks to the introduction of Latin through Scripture, Anglo-Saxon England joined the mainstream of western European culture. This Biblical heritage is imprinted all over Anglo-Saxon heroic literature. Beowulf fights Grendel, who is a descendant of Cain, and The Dream of the Rood is a Christian visionary poem emphasizing the Sacrifice of Christ.

Anglo-Saxon poetry is the available written documentation of oral Germanic culture that was prevalent in England from the fifth to twelfth century. It also demonstrates these heroic values while serving as major historical sources. An example of this comes in the form of The Battle of Maldon poem, which serves as our primary source of the event in question. It emphasizes themes of loyalty, bravery, and duty while recounting the heroic feats of Earl Bearnoth and his men in striving to repel Viking invaders.

“Bryhtwold spoke out, heaving his shield
(he was an old comrade), brandishing his spear;
very boldly he advised the warriors:
“Resolution should be the tougher, keener the heart,
the mind should be greater when our power diminishes.
Here lies our lord, all chopped up,
a good man on the gravel. He will always regret it,
he who thinks to turn away from this war-play.
I am old in life—I don’t wish to wander away,
but I’m going to lie down by the side of my lord,
beside these beloved men.” (309-19)

So Æthelgar’s son emboldened them all,
Godric to the fight. Often he let go of his spear,
the slaughtering spear flying into the Vikings,
so he went forth, first in that crowd,
hewing and maiming, until he perished in the battle.
This certainly was not the Godric who flew from the fight…”

-Anonymous, Battle of Maldon

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also contains several historical poems, and the most famous of these is The Battle of Brunanburh. This poem is a panegyric on King Athelstan’s 937 A.D. victory over an alliance of Scots and Norsemen. The advantage of this literature over historiography is literature lends voice to historical characters, which makes them more vivid. It gives us an idea of how they spoke and thought, and what their cultural beliefs and practices looked like in action. However, one should not assume that a complete understanding of historic Anglo-Saxon culture can be gleaned from just these poems. Beyond direct, historical accounts, certain works spoke allegorically and thematically to contemporary issues in the history of Saxony. Grendel’s raid on Hrerot, slaying and plundering before returning home was probably a familiar concept to Saxons who suffered under Viking raids during Aethelred’s reign. Grendel is even shown capable of snatching away thirty thanes and getting away scot-free. This hearkens to Wulfstan’s Sermo lupi ad Anglos, wherein he claims a single Viking can defeat ten Englishmen in battle. He also claims the Vikings can return to their ships with all their plunder, similar to how Grendel flees with his captive thanes to his lair. In fact, the poem is believed to be an encouragement for Saxons to return to past social bonds and values thought to have fostered societal interconnectivity. Hence, the reason Grendel is ultimately defeated is because loyalty brought Beowulf to Hrothgar’s aid in return for aiding his father, Ecgtheow. This concern with loyalty can be understood contextually with the high desertion rate suffered in those days. This is why Wiglaf chides Beowulf’s other retainers for deserting him in battle with the dragon. He even emphasizes death as better than disgrace, since he will now divest them of their land rights.

The source of these medieval heroic lifestyles in Anglo-Saxon literature is their love of battles and disdain for peace, admiration of courage and condemnation of cowardice, exchange of gifts for heroic deeds, and extreme emphasis on fame. This cultural perspective required that a short life should be rewarded with eternal fame and informed on how Anglo-Saxons lived, behaved, and determined a system of moral judgements, ethics, traditions, and manners. In a general sense, we could understand the various heroic phases of life in the Anglo-Saxon world from poems like Beowulf. This includes the materialistic phase as a fusion of variegated components of war and heroism like weapons, horses, ships, and halls. It also includes the ethical phase as a collection of ideals like loyalty, generosity, gifts exchange, courage, and prowess.

Afful, Maame Aba, and Enoch Kofi Osei. “Battle of Maldon in 991.” World History Edu, 5 Feb. 2025, worldhistoryedu.com/battle-of-maldon-in-991/.

BATTLES, P. Christian Traditional Themes and the Cynewulfian Sociolect in Old English Verse. Studies in Philology, [s. l.], v. 119, n. 4, p. 1–25, 2022. DOI 10.1353/sip.2022.0017. Disponível em: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=e17103a1-e5ee-33e5-9d36- 7eaeba31564f.

“The Old English Period.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 22 May 2024, www.britannica.com/art/English-literature/The-Old-English-period.

Jeffrey, David Lyle. “The English Cultural Bible.” Journal of Religion, vol. 75, no. 4, Oct. 1995, p. 540. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1086/489682.

Mize, Britt. “The Mental Container and the Cross of Christ: Revelation and Community in The Dream of the Rood.” Studies in Philology, vol. 107, no. 2, 2010, pp. 131–78. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25681414.

Neidorf, Leonard. “VII Æthelred and the Genesis of the Beowulf Manuscript.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 89, no. 2/3, Mar. 2010, pp. 119–39. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=2df0cf7f-539d-3140-b254-7931c3cff38c.

Niles, John D. “Understanding Beowulf: Oral Poetry Acts.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 106, no. 420, 1993, pp. 131–55. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/541965.

Singh, Pallavi. “Anglo Saxon Period (410 CE-1066 CE) Literature and History.” Literature and Criticism, Literatureandcriticism.com, 27 May 2024, www.literatureandcriticism.com/the-anglo-saxon-period-literature-and-history/#christianization- of-anglo-saxon-england-597-ce-approximately.

Tolman, Albert H. “The Style of Anglo-Saxon Poetry.” Transactions and Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 3, 1887, pp. 17–47. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/456016. Accessed 1 May 2025.

Zuraikat, Malek J. “A Perusal of Alterity in Old English Poetry.” Journal of Mu’tah Lil-Buḥūth Wad-Dirāsāt: Humanities & Social Sciences Series, vol. 35, no. 2, Mar. 2020, pp. 13–26. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=af72833c-31e3-3634-ac6d-ee2e8d2ef16e.

Share