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INTRODUCTION, by Damon C. Sasser

Barbarians and Indians: The American Frontier Meets the Hyborian Frontier

Robert E. Howard was born and raised in Texas during the early 1900s, a time not too far removed from the days of the Old Frontier. While growing up, Howard talked to many old timers who still recalled the days when Indians were a threat to the frontiersmen and danger lurked at every turn of the road. Howard’s bookshelf was also well stocked with books on the West and the colorful characters that populated it. So it’s not surprising that he wrote so convincingly of it, particularly during the later years of his short writing career.

This seventh volume of Weird Works contains “Beyond the Black River,” universally recognized as one of the best Conan stories How­ard wrote. This tale was a departure from Howard’s other stories of the Cimmerian in that it takes place in the lush forests and the winding rivers of the far-flung Pictish Wilderness. The buckskin-clad Aquilonian settlers and log structures are strangely out of place in “Black River;” a big departure from the exotic settings of other Conan stories. But this is just what Howard was trying to do — break the mold and expand the possibilities by bringing the American frontier to his imaginary Hyborian world. Further, this Conan story has no sexy females in it, either as heroine or villainess, but neither did it skimp on the other elements of a good Conan yarn — sorcery, intrigue and mayhem.

Here is a statement made by Howard to girlfriend Novalyne Price in 1935 shortly after selling “Beyond the Black River” to Weird Tales that reflects his fervent desire to write a definitive novel of the American Frontier:

“I wouldn’t say this to anybody but you, but, by God, I know what I can do. I love this country, and I know damn well I can write about it. I know damn well I can write a novel that will move, be about people facing real odds.” He became exuberant. “I tried that yarn out to see what Wright would do about it. I was afraid he wouldn’t take it, but he did! By God, he took it!”

The plot of “Black River” is a classic one, a story of a modern civilization pushing deep into the frontier, infringing on the territory of the local inhabitants and their way of life. While there are some parallels with James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mo­hicans, Howard, did not own a copy of the book. However, it is certainly possible he read it in school or “borrowed” it during one of his many late night forays to public libraries in the surrounding towns. It’s easy to see where Fort Tuscelan and the Picts could be substituted for Cooper’s Fort Will Henry and the French and the Hurons, with the Pictish Wilderness taking the place of Colonial New York state. Howard did own copies of several books by Robert W. Chambers, another writer of frontier fiction. He even derives a few names from Chambers’ books for “Beyond the Black River.”

The story is fast-paced with Conan and the settlers fighting an evil Pictish wizard named Zogar Sag, as well as the united tribes of Picts who are intent on driving the settlers out of their territory. It’s a violent death-race as Conan and his fighting companion Balthus cut and slash their way to the settlement in an effort to warn the ­settlers and get them to safety. Of particular interest here are the characters of Balthus and Slasher, who appear to be Hyborian döp­pel­gangers for Howard and his dog Patches. By the end of the story, the conflict between the settlers and the Picts has cost many lives and nearly wiped out the Aquilonian frontiersmen. One of the few wounded surviving foresters speaks these words that are usually attributed to Conan:

“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarism must ultimately triumph.”

It’s a reference on the outcome of this tale as well as Howard’s own beliefs that modern civilization was a decadent and dying venture, and that it would be purged by barbarism, just as civilizations of the past had fallen under the sandaled feet of various barbarian hordes.

A Western-like setting was also used for the Conan story “Jewels of Gwahlur.” It takes place in an underground natural cavern setting filled with fantastic caves and subterranean rivers, much like Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, which Howard visited shortly before writing this story. Howard, still excited from his visit to the caverns, writes to H. P. Lovecraft:

“God what a story you could write after such an exploration! . . . Anything seemed possible in that monstrous twilight underworld, seven hundred and fifty feet below the earth. If some animate monster had risen horrifically from among the dimness of the columns and spread his taloned anthropomorphic hands above the throng, I do not believe that anyone would have been particularly surprised.”

The plot of this tale involves Conan scheming to outwit a rival, Thutmekri, and steal the treasure of an evil priest named Bit Yakin, who has a gang of violent gray semi-intelligent apes as his servants. Of course there is a pretty slave girl named Muriela in­volved, which complicates things somewhat for Conan. Howard channels his enthusiasm from his trip out west into “Jewels” and again brings a bit of the American Frontier to his Hyborian world.

With “Shadows in Zamboula” Howard abandons his Western locales and returns to more conventional Hyborian terrain — a god-forsaken desert town named Zamboula located in an area comparable to the present day Middle East. But even here one can easily imagine Conan as a down-on-his-luck gunfighter, with little more to his name than his weapon, being taken advantage of by the evil saloon/hotel owner. Unlike a typical western story, “Sha­dows” features bad men of a difference sort, with Conan facing men more barbaric than he in the form of blood-thirsty cannibals, an assassin who strangles women and children and a sorcerer who delights in tormenting a girl with four deadly cobras. Needless to say, all are meted out justice in Conan’s own unique way by the end of the story.

In addition to these three Conan stories, two more offerings from Howard round out this collection: “The Grisly Horror,” a tale of shuddering terror in the piney woods and slimy marshes of the Old South, and the round robin weird fantasy story “The Challenge from Beyond.” All of these stories will send you to far away frontiers where men struggle with the ages old conflict between good and evil and leave you wanting more.