Black Canaan

Black Canaan By Robert E. Howard

1. Call from Canaan
"Trouble on Tularoosa Creek!" A warning to send cold fear along the
spine of any man who was raised in that isolated back-country, called
Canaan, that lies between Tularoosa and Black River-to send him
racing back to that swamp-bordered region, wherever the word might
reach him.
It was only a whisper from the withered lips of a shuffling black crone,
who vanished among the throng before I could seize her; but it was
enough. No need to seek confirmation; no need to inquire by what
mysterious, black-folk way the word had come to her. No need to
inquire what obscure forces worked to unseal those wrinkled lips to a
Black River man. It was enough that the warning had been given-and
understood.
Understood? How could any Black River man fail to understand that
warning? It could have but one meaning-old hates seething again in the
jungle-deeps of the swamplands, dark shadows slipping through the
cypress, and massacre stalking out of the black, mysterious village that
broods on the moss-festooned shore of sullen Tularoosa.
Within an hour New Orleans was falling further behind me with every
turn of the churning wheel. To every man born in Canaan, there is
always an invisible tie that draws him back whenever his homeland is
imperiled by the murky shadow that has lurked in its jungled recesses
for more than half a century.
The fastest boats I could get seemed maddeningly slow for that race up
the big river, and up the smaller, more turbulent stream. I was burning
with impatience when I stepped off on the Sharpsvil le landing, with
the last fifteen miles of my journey yet to make. It was past midnight,

but I 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 of the
stable, Joe Lafely, yawning and gaping in the light of the lantern he
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 a
shut-mouthed clan. No one outside knows what goes on in there."
The night swallowed his lantern and his stammering voice as I headed
west along the pike.
The moon set red through the black pines. Owls hooted away off in the
woods, and somewhere a hound howled his ancient wistfulness to the
night. In the darkness that foreruns dawn I crossed Nigger Head Creek,
a streak of shining black fringed by walls of solid shadows. My horse's
hooves splashed through the shallow water and clinked on the wet
stones, startlingly loud in the stillness. Behind Nigger Head Creek
began the countrymen called Canaan
Heading in the same swamp, miles to the north, that gives birth to
Tularoosa, Nigger Head flows due south to ioin Black River a few
miles west of Sharpsville, while the Tularoosa runs westward to meet
the same river at a higher point. The trend of Black River is from
northwest to southeast; so these three streams form the great irregular
triangle known as Canaan.
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