Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  In Canaan lived the sons and daughters of the white frontiersmen who first settled the country, and the sons and daughters of their slaves. Joe Lafely was right; we were an isolated, shut-mouthed breed. Self-sufficient, jealous of our seclusion and independence.

  Beyond Nigger Head the woods thickened, the road narrowed, winding through unfenced pinelands, broken by live-oaks and cypresses. There was no sound except the soft clop-clop of hoofs in the thin dust, the creak of the saddle. Then someone laughed throatily in the shadows.

  I drew up and peered into the trees. The moon had set and dawn was not yet come, but a faint glow quivered among the trees, and by it I made out a dim figure under the moss-hung branches. My hand instinctively sought the butt of one of the dueling-pistols I wore, and the action brought another low, musical laugh, mocking yet seductive. I glimpsed a brown face, a pair of scintillant eyes, white teeth displayed in an insolent smile.

  “Who the devil are you?” I demanded.

  “Why do you ride so late, Kirby Buckner?” Taunting laughter bubbled in the voice. The accent was foreign and unfamiliar; a faintly negroid twang was there, but it was rich and sensuous as the rounded body of its owner. In the lustrous pile of dusky hair a great white blossom glimmered palely in the darkness.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “You’re a long way from any darky cabin. And you’re a stranger to me.

  “I came to Canaan since you went away,” she answered. “My cabin is on the Tularoosa. But now I’ve lost my way. And my poor brother has hurt his leg and cannot walk.”

  “Where is your brother?” I asked, uneasily. Her perfect English was disquieting to me, accustomed as I was to the dialect of the black folk.

  “Back in the woods, there — far back!” She indicated the black depths with a swaying motion of her supple body rather than a gesture of her hand, smiling audaciously as she did so.

  I knew there was no injured brother, and she knew I knew it, and laughed at me. But a strange turmoil of conflicting emotions stirred in me. I had never before paid any attention to a black or brown woman. But this quadroon girl was different from any I had ever seen. Her features were regular as a white woman’s, and her speech was not that of a common wench. Yet she was barbaric, in the open lure of her smile, in the gleam of her eyes, in the shameless posturing of her voluptuous body. Every gesture, every motion she made set her apart from the ordinary run of women; her beauty was untamed and lawless, meant to madden rather than to soothe, to make a man blind and dizzy, to rouse in him all the unreined passions that are his heritage from his ape ancestors.

  I hardly remember dismounting and tying my horse. My blood pounded suffocatingly through the veins in my temples as I scowled down at her, suspicious yet fascinated.

  “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

  With a provocative laugh, she seized my hand and drew me deeper into the shadows. Fascinated by the lights gleaming in her dark eyes, I was hardly aware of her action.

  “Who does not know Kirby Buckner?” she laughed. “All the people of Canaan speak of you, white or black. Come! My poor brother longs to look upon you!” And she laughed with malicious triumph.

  It was this brazen effrontery that brought me to my senses. Its cynical mockery broke the almost hypnotic spell in which I had fallen.

  I stopped short, throwing her hand aside, snarling: “What devil’s game are you up to, wench?”

  Instantly the smiling siren was changed to a blood-mad jungle cat. Her eyes flamed murderously, her red lips writhed in a snarl as she leaped back, crying out shrilly. A rush of bare feet answered her call. The first faint light of dawn struck through the branches, revealing my assailants, three gaunt black giants. I saw the gleaming whites of their eyes, their bare glistening teeth, the sheen of naked steel in their hands.

  My first bullet crashed through the head of the tallest man, knocking him dead in full stride. My second pistol snapped — the cap had somehow slipped from the nipple. I dashed it into a black face, and as the man fell, half stunned, I whipped out my bowie knife and closed with the other. I parried his stab and my counter-stroke ripped across the belly-muscles. He screamed like a swamp-panther and made a wild grab for my knife wrist, but I stuck him in the mouth with my clenched left fist, and felt his lips split and his teeth crumble under the impact as he reeled backward, his knife waving wildly. Before he could regain his balance I was after him, thrusting, and got home under his ribs. He groaned and slipped to the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

  I wheeled about, looking for the other. He was just rising, blood streaming down his face and neck. As I started for him he sounded a panicky yell and plunged into the underbrush. The crashing of his blind flight came back to me, muffled with distance. The girl was gone.

  * * *

  2. THE STRANGER ON TULAROOSA

  THE CURIOUS GLOW that had first showed me the quadroon girl had vanished. In my confusion I had forgotten it. But I did not waste time on vain conjecture as to its source, as I groped my way back to the road. Mystery had come to the pinelands and a ghostly light that hovered among the trees was only part of it.

  My horse snorted and pulled against his tether, frightened by the smell of blood that hung in the heavy damp air. Hoofs clattered down the road, forms bulked in the growing light. Voices challenged.

  “Who’s that? Step out and name yourself, before we shoot!”

  “Hold on, Esau!” I called. “It’s me — Kirby Buckner”’

  “Kirby Buckner, by thunder!” ejaculated Esau McBride, lowering his pistol. The tall rangy forms of the other riders loomed behind him.

  “We heard a shot,” said McBride. “We was ridin’ patrol on the roads around Grimesville like we’ve been ridin’ every night for a week now — ever since they killed Ridge Jackson.”

  “Who killed Ridge Jackson?”

  “The swamp niggers. That’s all we know. Ridge come out of the woods early one mornin’ and knocked at Cap’n Sorley’s door. Cap’n says he was the color of ashes. He hollered for the Cap’n for God’s sake to let him in, he had somethin’ awful to tell him. Well, the Cap’n started down to open the door, but before he’d got down the stairs he heard an awful row among the dogs outside, and a man screamed he reckoned was Ridge. And when he got to the door, there wasn’t nothin’ but a dead dog layin’ in the yard with his head knocked in, and the others all goin’ crazy. They found Ridge later, out in the pines a few hundred yards from the house. From the way the ground and the bushes was tore up, he’d been dragged that far by four or five men. Maybe they got tired of haulin’ him along. Anyway, they beat his head into a pulp and left him layin’ there.”

  “I’ll be damned!” I muttered. “Well, there’s a couple of niggers lying back there in the brush. I want to see if you know them. I don’t.”

  A moment later we were standing in the tiny glade, now white in the growing dawn. A black shape sprawled on the matted pine needles, his head in a pool of blood and brains. There were wide smears of blood on the ground and bushes on the other side of the little clearing, but the wounded black was gone.

  McBride turned the carcass with his foot.

  “One of them niggers that came in with Saul Stark,” he muttered.

  “Who the devil’s that?” I demanded.

  “Strange nigger that moved in since you went down the river last time. Come from South Carolina, he says. Lives in that old cabin in the Neck — you know, the shack where Colonel Reynolds’ niggers used to live.”

  “Suppose you ride on to Grimesville with me, Esau, “‘ I said, “and tell me about this business as we ride. The rest of you might scout around and see if you can find a wounded nigger in the brush.”

  The agreed without question; the Buckners have always been tacitly considered leaders in Canaan, and it came natural for me to offer suggestions. Nobody gives orders to white men in Canaan.

  “I reckoned you’d be showin’ up soars,” opined McBride, as we rode along the whitening road. “You usual
ly manage to keep up with what’s happenin’ in Canaan.”

  “What is happening?” I inquired. “I don’t know anything. An old black woman dropped me the word in New Orleans that there was trouble. Naturally I came home as fast as I could. Three strange niggers waylaid me—” I was curiously disinclined to mention the woman. “And now you tell me somebody killed Ridge Jackson. What’s it all about?”

  “The swamp niggers killed Ridge to shut his mouth,” announced McBride. “That’s the only way to figure it. They must have been close behind him when he knocked on Cap’n Sorley’s door. Ridge worked for Cap’n Sorley most of his life; he thought a lot of the old man. Some kind of deviltry’s bein’ brewed up in the swamps, and Ridge wanted to warn the Cap’n. That’s the way I figure it.”

  “Warn him about what?”

  “We don’t know,” confessed McBride. “That’s why we’re all on edge. It must be an uprisin’.”

  That word was enough to strike chill fear into the heart of any Canaan- dweller. The blacks had risen in 1845, and the red terror of that revolt was not forgotten, nor the three lesser rebellions before it, when the slaves rose and spread fire and slaughter from Tularoosa to the shores of Black River. The fear of a black uprising lurked for ever in the depths of that forgotten back-country; the very children absorbed it in their cradles.

  “What makes you think it might be an uprising?” I asked.

  “The niggers have all quit the fields, for one thing. They’ve all got business in Goshen. I ain’t seen a nigger nigh Grimesville for a week. The town niggers have pulled out.”

  In Canaan we still draw a distinction born in antebellum days. “Town niggers are descendants of the houseservants of the old days, and most of them live in or near Grimesville There are not many, compared to the mass of “swamp niggers” who dwell on tiny farms along the creeks and the edge of the swamps, or in the black village of Goshen, on the Tularoosa. They are descendants of the field-hands of other days, and, untouched by the mellow civilization which refined the natures of the house-servants, they remain as primitive as their African ancestors.”

  “Where have the town niggers gone?” I asked.

  “Nobody knows. They lit out a week ago. Probably hidin’ down on Black River. If we win, they’ll come back. If we don’t, they’ll take refuge in Sharpsville.”

  I found his matter-of-factness a bit ghastly, as if the actuality of the uprising were an assured fact.

  “Well, what have you done?” I demanded.

  “Ain’t much we could do,” he confessed. “The niggers ain’t made no open move, outside of killin’ Ridge Jackson; and we couldn’t prove who done that, or why they done it.

  “They ain’t done nothin’ but clear out. But that’s mighty suspicious. We can’t keep from thinkin’ Saul Stark’s behind it.”

  “Who is this fellow?” I asked.

  “I told you all I know, already. He got permission to settle in that old deserted cabin on the Neck; a great big black devil that talks better English than I like to hear a nigger talk. But he was respectful enough. He had three or four big South Carolina bucks with him, and a brown wench which we don’t know whether she’s his daughter, sister, wife or What. He ain’t been in to Grimesville but that one time, and a few weeks after he came to Canaan, the niggers begun actin’ curious. Some of the boys wanted to ride over to Goshen and have a show-down, but that’s takin’ a desperate chance.”

  I knew he was thinking of a ghastly tale told us by our grandfathers of how a punitive expedition from Grimesville was once ambushed and butchered among the dense thickets that masked Goshen, then a rendezvous for runaway slaves, while another red-handed band devastated Grimesville, left defenseless by that reckless invasion.

  “Might take all the men to get Saul Stark,” said McBride. “And we don’t dare leave the town unprotected. But we’ll soon have to — hello, what’s this?”

  We had emerged from the trees and were just entering the village of Grimesville, the community center of the white population of Canaan. It was not pretentious. Log cabins, neat and whitewashed, were plentiful enough. Small cottages clustered about big, old-fashioned houses which sheltered the rude aristocracy of that backwoods democracy. All the “planter” families lived “in town.” “The country” was occupied by their tenants, and by the small independent farmers, white and black.

  A small log cabin stood near the point where the road wound out of the deep forest. Voices emanated from it, in accents of menace, and a tall lanky figure, rifle in hand, stood at the door.

  “Howdy, Esau!” this man hailed us. “By golly, if it ain’t Kirby Buckner! Glad to see you, Kirby.”

  “‘What’s up, Dick?” asked McBride.

  “Got a nigger in the shack, tryin’ to make him talk. Bill Reynolds seen him sneakin’ past the edge of town about daylight, and nabbed him.”

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Tope Sorley. John Willoughby’s gone after a blacksnake.”

  With a smothered oath I swung off my horse and strode in, followed by McBride. Half a dozen men in boots and gunbelts clustered about a pathetic figure cowering on an old broken bunk. Tope Sorley (his forebears had adopted the name of the family that owned them, in slave days) was a pitiable sight just then. His skin was ashy, his teeth chattered spasmodically, and his eyes seemed to be trying to roll back into his head.

  “Here’s Kirby!” ejaculated one of the men as I pushed my way through the group. “I’ll bet he’ll make this coon talk!”

  “Here comes John with the blacksnake!” shouted someone, and a tremor ran through Tope Sorley’s shivering body.

  I pushed aside the butt of the ugly whip thrust eagerly into my hand.

  “Tope,” I said, “you’ve worked one of my father’s farms for years. Has any Buckner ever treated you any way but square?”

  “Nossuh,” came faintly.

  “Then what are you afraid of? Why don’t you speak up? Something’s going on in the swamps. You know, and I want you to tell us why the town niggers have all run away, why Ridge Jackson was killed, why the swamp niggers are acting so mysteriously.”

  “And what kind of devilment that cussed Saul Stark’s cookin’ up over on Tularoosa!” shouted one of the men.

  Tope seemed to shrink into himself at the mention of Stark.

  “I don’t dast,” he shuddered. “He’d put me in de swamp!”

  “Who?” I demanded. “Stark? Is Stark a conjer man?”

  Tope sank his head in his hands and did not answer. I laid my hand on his shoulder.

  “Tope,” I said, “you know if you’ll talk, we’ll protect you. If you don’t talk, I don’t think Stark can treat you much rougher than these men are likely to. Now spill itwhat’s it all about?”

  He lifted desperate eyes.

  “You-all got to lemme stay here,” he shuddered. “And guard me, and gimme money to git away on when de trouble’s over.”

  “We’ll do all that,” I agreed instantly. “You can stay right here in this cabin, until you’re ready to leave for New Orleans or wherever you want to go.”

  He capitulated, collapsed, and words tumbled from his livid lips.

  “Saul Stark’s a conjer man. He come here because it’s way off in back- country. He aim to kill all de white folks in Canaan.”

  A growl rose from the group, such a growl as rises unbidden from the throat of the wolf-pack that scents peril.

  “He aim to make hisself king of Canaan. He sent me to spy dis mornin’ to see if Mistah Kirby got through. He sent men to waylay him on de road, cause he knowed Mistah Kirby was comin’ back to Canaan. Niggers makin’ voodoo on Tularoosa, for weeks now. Ridge Jackson was goin’ to tell Cap’n Sorley; so Stark’s niggers foller him and kill him. That make Stark mad. He ain’t want to kill Ridge; he want to put him in de swamp with Tunk Bixby and de others.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  Far out in the woods rose a strange, shrill cry, like the cry of a bird. But no suc
h bird ever called before in Canaan. Tope cried out as if in answer, and shriveled into himself. He sank down on the bunk in a veritable palsy of fear.

  “That was a signal!” I snapped. “Some of you go out there.”

  Half a dozen men hastened to follow my suggestion, and I returned to the task of making Tope renew his revelations. It was useless. Some hideous fear had sealed his lips. He lay shuddering like a stricken animal, and did not even seem to hear our questions. No one suggested the use of the blacksnake. Anyone could see the Negro was paralyzed with terror.

  Presently the searchers returned empty-handed. They had seen no one, and the thick carpet of pine needles showed no foot-prints. The men looked at me expectantly. As Colonel Buckner’s son, leadership was expected of me.

  “What about it, Kirby?” asked McBride. “Breckinridge and the others have just rode in. They couldn’t find that nigger you cut up.”

  “There was another’ nigger I hit with a pistol,” I said. “Maybe he came back and helped him.” Still I could not bring myself to mention the brown girl. “Leave Tope alone. Maybe he’ll get over his scare after a while. Better keep a guard in the cabin all the time. The swamp niggers may try to get him as they got Ridge Jackson. Better scour the roads around the town, Esau; there may be some of them hiding in the woods.”

  “I will. I reckon you’ll want to be gettin’ up to the house, now, and seein’ your folks.”

  “Yes. And I want to swap these toys for a couple of .44s. Then I’m going to ride out and tell the country people to come into Grimesville. If it’s to be an uprising, we don’t know when it will commence.”

  “You’re not goin’ alone!” protested McBride.

  “I’ll be all right,” I answered impatiently. “All this may not amount to anything, but it’s best to be on the safe side. That’s why I’m going after the country folks. No, I don’t want anybody to go with me. Just in case the niggers do get crazy enough to attack the town, you’ll need every man you’ve got. But if I can get hold of some of the swamp niggers and talk to them, I don’t think there’ll be any attack.”