By ROBERT E. HOWARD
A tale of the Southern swamps, and voodoo
brought from blackest Africa—a spine-freezing,
blood-chilling story of a beautiful
quadroon girl who wielded bitter magic.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales June 1936.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
1. Call From Canaan
"Trouble on Tularoosa Creek!" A warning to send cold fear along thespine of any man who was raised in that isolated back-country, calledCanaan, that lies between Tularoosa and Black River—to send him racingback to that swamp-bordered region, wherever the word might reach him.
It was only a whisper from the withered lips of a shuffling blackcrone, who vanished among the throng before I could seize her; butit was enough. No need to seek confirmation; no need to inquire bywhat mysterious, black-folk way the word had come to her. No need toinquire what obscure forces worked to unseal those wrinkled lips to aBlack River man. It was enough that the warning had been given—andunderstood.
Understood? How could any Black River man fail to understand thatwarning? It could have but one meaning—old hates seething again inthe jungle-deeps of the swamplands, dark shadows slipping through thecypress, and massacre stalking out of the black, mysterious villagethat broods on the moss-festooned shore of sullen Tularoosa.
Within an hour New Orleans was falling further behind me with everyturn of the churning wheel. To every man born in Canaan, there isalways an invisible tie that draws him back whenever his homeland isimperiled by the murky shadow that has lurked in its jungled recessesfor more than half a century.
The fastest boats I could get seemed maddeningly slow for that race upthe big river, and up the smaller, more turbulent stream. I was burningwith impatience when I stepped off on the Sharpsville landing, with thelast fifteen miles of my journey yet to make. It was past midnight, butI hurried to the livery stable where, by tradition half a century old,there is always a Buckner horse, day or night.
As a sleepy black boy fastened the cinches, I turned to the owner ofthe stable, Joe Lafely, yawning and gaping in the light of the lanternhe upheld. "There are rumors of trouble on Tularoosa?"
He paled in the lantern-light.
"I don't know. I've heard talk. But you people in Canaan are ashut-mouthed clan. No one outside knows what goes on in there——"
The night swallowed his lantern and his stammering voice as I headedwest along the pike.
The moon set red through the black pines. Owls hooted away off in thewoods, and somewhere a hound howled his ancient wistfulness to thenight. In the darkness that foreruns dawn I crossed Nigger Head Creek,a streak of shining black fringed by walls of solid shadows. My horse'shoofs splashed through the shallow water and clinked on the wet stones,startlingly loud in the stillness. Beyond Nigger Head Creek began thecountry men called Canaan.
Heading in the same swamp, miles to the north, that gives birth toTularoosa, Nigger Head flows due south to join Black River a few mileswest of Sharpsville, while the Tularoosa runs westward to meet the sameriver at a higher point. The trend of Black River is from northwest tosoutheast; so these three streams form the great irregular triangleknown as Canaan.
In Canaan lived the sons and daughters of the white frontiersmen whofirst settled the country, and the sons and daughters of their slaves.Joe Lafely was right; we were an isolated, shut-m