Dark Valley Destiny

by Unknown

  Years later, in 1934, Howard based his story "Pigeons from Hell" upon these tales. In it a New Englander, Griswell, and his friend Branner, wandering the Deep South on vacation, stop for the night at a deserted mansion. As they approach, "pigeons rose from the balustrades in a fluttering, feathery crowd and swept away with a low thunder of beating wings."48 Inside, Branner is mysteriously murdered and Griswell becomes involved in the voodooistic revenge of a former Negro servant for the cruelties of her onetime mistress. This story, not sold until a year after Howard's death, proved to be one of his most popular tales of supernatural menace.

  When Isaac Howard first settled in Cross Cut, his practice, like that of Dr. Chambers, covered a large rural area around the meeting point of Brown, Coleman, and Callahan counties. Both men visited their patients by buggy, driving the light vehicles along the graded dirt roads to the staccato beat of their horses' hooves.

  Soon after Dr. Howard's arrival, Dr. Chambers began to find these far-flung journeys in all weathers onerous. He felt that his patients' demands kept him too much away from his family, with whom he had a close relationship. Consequently he gave up his medical practice and bought the local drugstore. Dr. Howard, likewise finding the long and lonely buggy rides time-consuming and tiresome, became one of the first men in the region to own an automobile. He bought a Model T Ford and hired a workman, Ben Gunn, to teach him how to drive.

  All that winter Dr. Howard kept the Chambers family laughing with yarns about his travels with Gunn. Although Ben was at the wheel, the doctor would tell him where to go. He directed his driver across pastures, through post-oak flats, or around cedar brakes, until the hard-pressed Gunn began to collide with the landscape. Isaac Howard told the Cham-berses:

  You know, Ben didn't know any more about driving the car than I did, and here I was hiring him to teach me to drive! I looked back one time, and it looked like Christmastime. It looked just like the stars were shining on those little trees, where the boy was switching that old Ford back and forth and knocking the hub caps off. He didn't miss a tree.49

  When Dr. Howard became a motorist, he stabled his carriage and horses —a spirited pair of "Spanish" ponies—in the Chamberses' barn. Versatile though the Model T was, it could reach only those patients who lived along the better-kept roads. When rain turned the roads into deep-rutted, slimy mud, with water-filled potholes deep enough to swallow a whole wheel, Dr. Howard drove his car to the Chamberses' place and hitched up his horses and buggy. Later, as the roads improved, he relied entirely on the automobile, even though cars of the time often required the services of a strong dray when they had engine trouble or slipped off the bank of a narrow dirt road.

  In time Dick Pentecost, who had moved to Arizona after renting his Cross Cut house to the Howards, decided to settle permanently in the West. He notified the Howards that he had sold the house to Elijah De Busk and that it would no longer be available to them.

  In compliance with Pentecost's wishes, the Howards vacated the property and moved to Burkett, a village six miles west of Cross Cut, in Coleman County. Dr. Howard probably welcomed the move, if for no reason other than his liking for change. His dalliance with the Newton women—if it ever existed save in the doctor's mind—was drawing to a close. Mrs. Newton was recovering. Annie Newton was teaching out of town, returning home only for vacations, when her time was filled with the attentions of young Porter J. Davis, whom she married "in 1920.

  There is some uncertainty about just where the Howards first set up housekeeping in Burkett. Several of the townspeople remember Mrs.

  Robert E. Howard, Dr. Isaac M. Howard, Dr. and Mrs. Solomon R. Chambers, Galveston, Texas, probably 1918

  Howard and Robert reading or playing together in a small gazebo on the lawn of the Cochran house, a large dual dwelling belonging to old Dr. Cochran. People tend to think in pictures, and the summer morning tableau of a mother in a white embroidered cotton dress seated beside a young boy in white shirt and knickers was an appealing sight still remembered by several residents of Burkett.50

  Whether the Howards briefly occupied half the Cochran place before they found the Pentecost house in Cross Cut, or whether this was a way station on their move to their Burkett home, we do not know. The former seems more likely.51 In any case, during their two-year stay in Burkett, the Howards lived in a big white house a stone's throw from the Pecan Bayou, which was visible from their porch. The porch, on which Robert used to sit and read, was extensive and surrounded by banisters. Set on a two-acre lot, the house was a single-story structure with a T-shaped floor plan. The living room, occupying the center of the cross-bar, was flanked on either side by a bedroom, while the dining room and kitchen formed the stem.

  The cistern, standing on an L-shaped porch at the back of the house, collected rain water from the roof, water that was evidently more potable than that from the cistern of the Cross Cut house. In the back yard stood a dirt cellar, a barn for the milch cow and horses, a buggy shed, and of course the privy. As in the house at Cross Cut, heat was supplied by an enormous fireplace in the living room and the cookstove in the kitchen.

  The move to Burkett caused no great change in Robert's life. He continued to see the same friends, to indulge the same fantasies, and to plow his way through countless books. He found a new playmate in Burkett, a boy named Loren Crocker, and the two eleven-year-olds had much business together. Every day they made their rounds, cutting across the L. L. Morgans' back yard on their way to the Post Office— a counter flanked by rows of mailboxes, at one end of the postmistress's living room. After collecting the mail, the boys would walk back through the village, stopping at Morgan's drugstore for a soda or a dish of ice cream before going home. On some days, being short of funds, they contented themselves with a penny candy or two.

  At the Burkett school, probably under the influence of Austin Newton and Earl Baker, Robert decided to try team sports. He went out for basketball but was quickly dropped from the team for persistent roughness. He could not understand the principles of team play. He saw his own function as a player personally to take possession of the ball and shoot the basket himself. Thus he reduced the game to a one-to-one combat, rushing upon the boy who possessed the ball and bowling over anyone who got in the way.52 After that, he was not encouraged to take part in team play—even in baseball, for which he had some liking. Later on, as an adult, he disparaged team sports as favoring the physical development of a chosen few, while the rest of the students grew flabby as spectators. Nevertheless he himself became an enthusiastic sports fan.53 He attended many football games, but his favorite sport remained boxing, a one-to-one contest.

  If the move to Burkett caused no immediate change in Robert Howard's life, it ultimately marked the beginning of a major transition. Both his father and his mother were becoming ill, and their competition for Robert's love and concern began in earnest. Mrs. Howard's tuberculosis became active again—if, indeed, it had ever been arrested—and more and more she took to her bed to recover her strength. Her increasing fatigue made greater demands on her husband's time, just when the doctor himself was showing the first signs of illness.

  Isaac Howard's symptoms were not noticeable at first because of the customs of the community. Whenever the preacher or the doctor dropped in, it was common practice to offer him food. When he first settled in Cross Cut, Dr. Howard took advantage of this custom only when necessary, since Hester was a splendid cook, and the doctor enjoyed eating at home. But before the family moved to Burkett, Isaac Howard had begun to eat wherever he went. Norris Chambers remembered: "Always my mother, and later my wife and mother, asked if he had eaten, and usually fixed him a good meal. He was a hearty eater, and nothing seemed to disagree with him."54

  If the host was slow in offering a repast, the doctor brought up the subject himself. One of the Newton boys writes: "Anytime Dr. Howard came to our house, he came in the door telling my mother he was hungry, and that he wanted ham or chicken, and always hot biscuits and gravy."55

&
nbsp; Late one night in Cross Plains, Isaac Howard cadged the entire half of a yellow-meated watermelon from the Jack Scotts without offering the family a bite. The Scotts were saying good night to friends with whom they had been playing cards when Dr. Howard appeared, went directly into the kitchen—where he discovered the melon—sat down, and ate it all. The Scotts remember the incident with a mixture of humor and exasperation, because they had not even tasted the melon, a gift from a friend.56

  Some gossips surmised that Hester did not feed her husband properly; and this view was supported by the doctor's frequent appearances at a patient's door, announcing: "Heck has just kicked me out!" before sitting down to a second supper. But this was unfair to Hester. The doctor's chronic hunger was not a comment on her cooking but rather a symptom of his failing health. Since, despite his colossal intake, Dr. Howard never got fat, we may infer that he suffered from a metabolic dysfunction—either a high metabolism, which burned up his food before his body could store it in the form of fat, or some other condition that limited his absorption of food.

  Exaggerated appetite is a typical symptom of diabetes. Since Isaac Howard developed diabetes later in life and since it contributed to his eventual death, a good guess is that this condition began to develop in Burkett, when the stresses of his life began to pile up. His marriage was failing; his wife was ill. His mother had lately died, much to Hester's relief. Not long before, Hester had rather callously remarked about the aged, blind Eliza Henry Howard: "She won't die, and she can't get well. She just won't die!"57

  Besides his other stresses, Isaac and Hester had entered into open competition for Robert's love and approval. Anxieties like these tend to elevate the blood sugar in those who have a familial disposition toward diabetes, because the body fails to supply the insulin necessary for the utilization of sugars. The patient, in effect, is starving in the midst of plenty. He may suffer from chronic, unappeasable hunger. Excessive thirst may also occur, and weight loss is common.

  In Burkett the Howards resumed the long family rides, either in the buggy or in the car. These rides were reminiscent of their Graford days. Here in this isolated capsule of the moving vehicle, the Howards seemed to establish a camaraderie they found nowhere else. For, these highly verbal people, the drives provided a situation in which they could talk with each other. Mrs. Howard probably entertained them by reciting poetry, for which she had a prodigious memory. According to Dr. Howard: "She loved poetry. Written poetry by sheets and reams, almost books of it, were stored in her memory so that from Robert's babyhood he had heard its recital day by day. She was a lover of the beautiful."58 Her presence on these jaunts, incidentally, made sure that Isaac had fewer chances to be alone with Robert.

  Dr. Howard no doubt contributed local gossip and tall tales, while Robert embellished the historical episodes of his reading with imaginative elaborations. Indian legends took on new dimensions with his telling-

  It was during these rides that Robert began to emerge as a gifted storyteller. Dr. Howard, in yarning with his cronies, sometimes quoted Robert's contributions to the conversation, retelling them half in pride and half in competition with the doctor's own tall tales. Isaac Howard said:

  . . . often in our rides I had but to suggest some historical theme, and he looked it up and talked interestingly and revealed a wide knowledge of history of which I had only a smattering. And on and on until he seemed to exhaust every bit of everything about that particular bit of history. Robert had a wonderful memory as well as a vivid imagination.59

  Klsie Burns, in a position closely to observe the Howard family, sensed that these long drives were something apart from routine activities. She wrote: "Frequently they stopped on their return at some shady spot near a stream and spread lunch which had been carefully prepared, and the little family seemed to live in a world of their own for a while."60

  Robert and his coterie of playmates were joined in Burkett by a pet raccoon, "which Patches seems to understand is one of the family." Mrs. Burns remembered:

  ... many romps and spills are enjoyed by the trio, Robert ever manifesting kindness and consideration for his pets. After a time the coon becomes so mischievous that the family holds council and agrees reluctantly to return him to his native haunts along the Pecan Bayou.61

  Late in 1917, Dr. Howard delivered the Chamberses' new baby, Nor-ri«, and thereafter Dr. Chambers became restless. As he had earlier discovered that the active practice of medicine kept him away from home more than he liked, so now he found his duties at the drugstore too confining. After the Armistice of November 11, 1918, he decided to move his family to Galveston, on the Gulf of Mexico, and take up truck farming.

  During the preceding summer, a plague of grasshoppers devastated Burkett. Indeed, this scourge might have prompted Dr. Chambers to leave the hail, floods, drouths, sandstorms, tornadoes, boll weevils, and other ills of West Central Texas, which Robert later called "this hard, drab land."

  What was an ill wind to Dr. Chambers and the local farmers was pure joy to the predatory mammals and birds. Coyotes feasted on grasshoppers until their bellies bulged, while Robert's raccoon stuffed himself with the insects until he could hardly waddle. Feeling his oats—or rather his grasshoppers—he made more mischief than ever, which behavior probably hastened his return to the wild. He had never been really tame, and Robert had taken some nasty bites and scratches from him. When released he departed, said Robert later, without a backward glance.62

  So passed the years of the First World War, with Robert Howard working his way through the grades of the Cross Cut and Burkett schools; exploring the countryside afoot and on horseback; developing a large, well-muscled preadolescent frame; thinking up tales of derring-do; imagining himself a cowboy, an Indian, a pirate, a Viking, or a highwayman; persuading other boys to act out his playlets; sparring with Austin Newton and Earl Baker; showing off with his knife; reading whatever he could get his hands on; and serving as a bone of contention between his ill-matched parents.

  A year after the war ended, the Howards decided to buy a house in Cross Plains, Callahan County, twelve miles northeast of Burkett and six north of Cross Cut. Cross Plains was a good choice for the Howards' permanent home. The doctor could maintain his practice, because under the energetic, if boundlessly corrupt, governor of Texas, "Farmer Jim" Ferguson, the roads were being rapidly improved. Moreover, the high | school at Cross Plains had better facilities than the school in Burkett, and the Howards were ambitious for their son. Dr. Howard expected Robert to study medicine and follow in his footsteps, despite the fact that the boy had shown no aptitude in that direction. Finally, if Mrs. Howard; was to remain at home, the family dwelling would have to b*e modified j to give her the best chance of recovery and to protect the rest of the family from her tubercular infection.

  So, in September 1919, the doctor bought a house in Cross Plains from Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Coffman. The price was $1,500, of which Isaac Howard paid $500 down and the rest in promissory notes at 10% interest.63 The doctor set about remodeling the house, installing electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, and a glassed-in sleeping porch.

  The new house, a white wooden one-story structure, stood on the western edge of town, on State Route 36, the road to Abilene. This house would remain Robert Howard's home for the rest of his life.

  VI. THE VIOLENT LAND

  From Sonora to Del Rio is a hundred barren miles

  Where the sotol weave and shimmer in the sun—

  Like a horde of rearing serpents swaying down the bare defiles

  When the scarlet, silver webs of dawn are spun.

  There are little 'dobe ranchoes brooding far along the sky, On the sullen dreary bosoms of the hills; Not a wolf to break the silence, not a desert bird to fly; Where the silence is so utter that it thrills.1

  Before the admission of Alaska to statehood, Texas was the largest state in the union. With 265,896 square miles, it is larger than the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Italy combined. Most of the state is flat, with a
slight roll. The few hilly sections, like those west of Austin, are easily overlooked in the immensity of the plains.

  In the Southwest, from the Pecos River to El Paso and including the Big Bend region, where the Rio Grande makes a wide detour southward, the land is mountainous. Although its rugged peaks do not achieve the overall height, they compare in bulk with those of the Rockies and the Sierras. The highest point in the state is Guadalupe Peak, just inside the border from New Mexico, with an altitude of 8,751 feet or 2,290 meters.

  Walking in seven-league boots, the legendary Pecos Bill could stride across Texas by way of a giant stairway, which rises from southeast to northwest by a series of lifts and plateaus. These western lands step up from the coastal plains, which frame the Gulf of Mexico from Brownsville to the Louisiana border, rising every fifty to one hundred miles by a series of escarpments or faults hundreds of feet high. From below, these escarpments look like mountain walls; but once the top has been gained, the country opens out into broad, flat plateaus, through which rivers like the Brazos, the Pecos, and the Colorado have gouged deep canyons.

  If he paused at the threshold of his climb, the mythical traveler would find himself in Fort Worth, which, despite its central position in the state, advertises itself as "where the West begins." There is some truth in this claim. Although the Ninety-eighth Meridian officially demarcates West Texas, the dividing line between the blackland farms of East Texas and the grasslands of the West runs between Fort Worth and its easterly neighbor Dallas.

  The first giant step lies just west of Fort Worth, where it separates the watershed of the Brazos from the lands drained by the Trinity River. The step extends south and curves around to the west, becoming the great Balcones Escarpment.2

  After four giant steps westward, the traveler finds himself on the Callahan Divide, which separates the waters of the Colorado from those of the Brazos. Here in Callahan County, in the village of Cross Plains, Robert Howard grew to manhood and died. The staircase culminates in the Cap Rock, a broad mesa beginning just beyond Lubbock and rising by gentle slopes to the Continental Divide near Gallup, New Mexico.