Black Canaan 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 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 Sharpsville 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. * * * * *