Few American lives have elicited
more tales, rumors, and folklores than that of Henry McCarty. I would go so far
as to say that of all the famous Americans who have lived such a short life
span—two meager decades—McCarty has the most amount of words written about him.
He perhaps has also influenced more authors than any other old west figure. And
despite all this, he remains one of the most elusive figures of the old west.
So who is Henry McCarty? History knows him as one Billy the Kid. The foremost
scholar of Billy the Kid, Frederick Nolan, claims “Few American lives have more
successfully resisted research than that of Billy the Kid.” (Nolan 3). Evidence
for this lies in the fact that The Kid did not receive serious scholarly attention
until nearly 100 years after his death.
Why
is that? What makes Billy the Kid so fascinating that for the better part of
the 20th century his life has resisted serious research and remained in the
mainstream arena of folklore and myth? No scholar of the Kid seems to have a
definitive answer to that question. It might simply be that facts are not as
exciting as the mysterious. Regardless, from the late 1950s to the present day
reliable research, scholarly articles and books have been written and new
historical documents uncovered. Granted, the mythos remains and makes for
wonderful movies and exciting novels but we now live in what should be
considered a more enlightened era with regard to our understanding of The Kid.
There
was a long period of time where scarcely a word was written or spoken about
Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County Wars. This span occurred between the death
of the infamous sheriff (Pat Garrett) who killed Billy the Kid in 1908 until 1925
when Harvey Fergusson raised the question in an American Mercury article, “Who remembers Billy the Kid?”
Apparently, the Kid’s reputation had faded and Fergusson wondered why (Nolan
295). All this would soon change in 1926 when Walter Noble Burns published The Saga of Billy the Kid, and the Kid would once again be thrust
into the limelight of folklore and myth. This was the very book that sparked
interest in the mind of a young boy who would later become the premier scholar
of Billy the Kid studies, Frederick Nolan. Moreover, Walter Noble Burns, with
his flamboyant style and highly exaggerated account of Billy the Kid, would
also influence a series of western writers of the early to mid twentieth
century. One in particular was a popular pulp fiction writer from Cross Plains , Texas
named Robert E. Howard. Although the focus of Howard’s writing had pretty much
been the fantasy and action adventure genres, Burn’s book would ultimately set
Howard in a new creative direction.
It is no secret to
Robert E. Howard aficionados that Howard had a serious interest in the Old
West. This interest became so predominant toward the latter years of his life
he shifted his writing career in the direction of publishing western stories
and even proclaimed in correspondence to August Derleth:
“I’m seriously contemplating
devoting all my time and efforts to western writing, abandoning all other forms
of work entirely; the older I get the more my thoughts and interests are drawn
back over the trails of the past; so much has been written, but there is so
much that should be written.” (Howard Letters
2: 372).
In studies about
Robert E. Howard’s western writing career there is no definitive time frame or
specific cause that pushed Howard in the direction of western tales. Howard had
written westerns in his earlier years and sporadically throughout his fantasy
and action adventure years, but what made him tell Derleth that he wanted to
devote all his time to western writing? There was likely no single factor or
date, rather a series of events that hinged upon at least one thing—Walter
Noble Burn’s book The Saga of Billy the
Kid.
Walter Noble Burns
was born October 24th, 1872. As a teenager he became a junior
reporter for the Louisville ,
KY Evening Post. (Nolan 295).
This led Burns into a fairly long career as a writer and reporter which
eventually led him to Chicago where he would work for both the Chicago Examiner
and Chicago Tribune. It was his work with the Tribune that would launch him
into his most famous research and work. In 1923 Burns would visit New Mexico to interview various people who were still alive during the
Lincoln County Wars and the days of Billy the Kid. This research would ultimately
end up in Burns’ book The Saga of Billy
the Kid (from here on referred to as SBK).
SBK was the
definitive book about Billy the Kid’s life until the late 1950s and early 1960s
when scholars took pen in hand and began seriously researching the Lincoln
County Wars. Today SBK is considered nothing but a novel work on the Lincoln
County Wars. It has all but been dismissed as exaggerations, myths, and fun
folklore. Regardless, from 1926, the year SBK was published, to the early
1960s, Burns’ work set the tone for movies, western pulp stories, dime novels,
and even magazine articles about Billy the Kid.
When SBK was published it quickly
became a national best seller, rivaling the sales of other popular books of its day. In just a few short months Nolan
explains,
“[Burns’] book topped the bestseller list on the newly formed Book of the Month
Club, whose judges—among them Dorothy Canfield, Heywood Broun, and William
Allen White—proclaimed it to be full of ‘the vivid reality of the moving
pictures without the infusion of false sentiment and . . . melodrama. It was,
they felt, ‘a chronicle such as the Elizabethans wrote and read.” (Nolan 296).
Regarding the
book’s accuracy nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, those
whom Burns had interviewed (all close friends of Billy the Kid or spouses of
those who rode with him) declared the book to be nothing but exaggerated
stories and false facts. George Coe who was so disturbed by the contents of
Burns’ book wrote a more accurate account of his time spent with The Kid. But,
unlike Burn’s book, Coe’s work drifted into near obscurity.
Despite the
protests of the Lincoln County War witnesses whom Burns interviewed, and
despite their own written accounts attempting to counter Burns’ book, SBK
continued to sell widely. Then the film rights for Burns’ book were bought by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and would soon be made into a major motion picture, setting
those exaggerations, myths, and folklores into motion for several decades to
follow. But as important, Burns’ book would soon be absorbed into the western pulps
and dime novels from the 1920s to the late 1950s. Writers such as Max Brand,
Luke Short, Zane Grey, Edwin Corle, and Robert E. Howard, would all be influenced
by Walter Noble Burns’ book.
Walter Noble Burns |
Robert E. Howard
certainly owned a copy of The Saga of
Billy the Kid. Howard mentions the book in a July 1935 letter to H.P.
Lovecraft. In fact, Howard quotes from the book in that letter using details
about the Lincoln County Wars that correspond with details from SBK. And, even
though Burns’ book is not mentioned by Howard until that July 1935 letter to
H.P. Lovecraft, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that Howard owned and
used Burns’ book quite a few years prior to it being mentioned in that letter.
But when, approximately, did Howard purchase Burns’ book and why is it important to know that approximate time
frame?
I think there were
three factors in Howard’s life that caused him to slowly gain a serious interest
in frontier and old west history. First, the purchase of Burns’ book was one
of, if not the strongest factor to
shift Howard’s interest toward the old west. Two, around this same time Tevis
Clyde Smith, one of Howard’s close friends, began research on local western
frontier history. And three, changes in pulp markets and writing trends were
occurring. Because of all these factors Howard began an ongoing effort from
this approximate time frame to the end of his life to break into the western
pulp fiction market.
Two-Gun Howard and the Western Tale
Robert
E. Howard always had a healthy interest in gunfighters and the Old West. At age
15 Howard created a western gunfighter by the name of Steve Allison (Glenn Lord
72). This character would later be revived in 1933, in the middle of Howard’s
shifting interests toward western stories and western history. But the fact
that Howard had created such a character at such a young age is quite telling.
It at least demonstrates his interest in western motifs and characters all the
way back to his teenage years. The first story Robert E. Howard ever submitted
for professional publishing was to a magazine called Western Story. The story was titled Bill Smalley and the Power of the Human Eye and as Howard scholar
Rusty Burke points out:
“Although the story is a tale of
the North Woods, it is nevertheless interesting that his first professional
submission was to a magazine of western fiction.” (Howard introduction
xi)
This story was
submitted for publication in 1921 and although it was rejected, for a few years
afterward Howard spent time not only writing more western style tales but also
submitting them to various places for publication. In 1922 “‘Golden Hope’
Christmas” and “West is West” were
both submitted to and published by the Brownwood High School
newspaper called The Tattler. With
these Howard saw moderate success and might have received some cash prizes.
Then, in 1924 Howard submitted another western story titled “44-40 or Fight” to
Western Story magazine. Again, they
rejected his story. However, that same year the newly established pulp fiction
magazine Weird Tales accepted the
work that would essentially launch Howard’s career—“Spear and Fang.” With the
promise of publication to his first real national magazine, and Howard’s story
“The Hyena and The Lost Race” accepted by that same magazine in December 1924, Howard’s
attention fell almost solely on the fantasy and action/adventure market. The market
that Howard would use to launch his writing career.
From 1924 to 1928
there is no record in correspondence or otherwise of Howard writing a western
story. The closest thing to a western or pioneer/historical work Howard would
attempt to write and actually publish during this “quiet” period is his short
essay titled “What the Nation Owes the South”, picked up by the Brownwood Bulletin in 1923. And that
essay is not actually a western even though it deals with frontier/Civil War
type issues.
Then, in 1928 two western stories surfaced: “Spanish Gold on a Devil Horse” submitted to Argosy and Adventure (both rejected the story) and “Drums of Sunset” submitted
to The Cross Plains Review (which accepted
the story), the local newspaper in Howard’s hometown of Cross Plains , Texas .
The former story is interesting because it is actually set in a fictional
version of Cross Plains called “Lost Plains,” and deals with actual regional
places and issues. I draw attention to
these details because around this time one of Howard’s close friends, Tevis
Clyde Smith, began to interview locals, visit Courthouses, and dig up
historical documents on local frontier life. By autumn of 1930 Smith began to
submit articles to local newspapers (Roehm introduction
xxii). On several occasions Howard would join his friend on these outings.
In mid 1929 Howard
wrote a story titled “The Extermination of Yellow Donory.” It is the first
record we have where Howard mentions Billy the Kid. Howard seems to have used
Burns’ description of The Kid to describe his own character, Joey Donory. Even
though Billy the Kid is small, Burns paints him in such a light that he ends up
being larger than life despite his actual stature. In that same vein Howard
writes:
“Born and bred in an environment
where men were large and imposing, his [Joey Donory] lack of size was bad
enough, but his handicaps were more than physical.
“An’ it ain’t so much me bein’
thataway. Most of the real bad hombres wasn’t so big. Lookit Billy the Kid; no
bigger’n what I be.” (Howard 38)
In his description of Billy the Kid
and other gunfighters Burns’ writes:
“He [Billy the Kid] was five feet
eight inches tall, slender, and well proportioned. He was unusually strong for
his inches, having for a small man quite powerful arms and shoulders.
. . . It may be remarked further, as a matter of incidental interest, that
the West’s bad men were never heavy, stolid, lowering brutes.” (Burns 59
& 60, emphasis mine)
It’s interesting how Howard
compares the size of his main character, Joey Donory, to that of Billy the Kid
using similar phrasing as Burns did in his work. Burns goes on to detail how
other men, such as Pat Garrett, were tall, large, etc. but Billy due to his
size, speed and accuracy with a gun, equaled himself among these larger men. This
is just a small example of how Howard used Burns’ book. I will also demonstrate
that Howard took details directly out of Burns’ book when he discussed the life
of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln county Wars in several of his letters to H.P.
Lovecraft.
The Purchase of Burns’
Book and How Howard Used It
Argosy Bookstore, New York City |
There is no definitive date for
when Robert E. Howard purchased SBK. In fact, there is no definite place
either. The only two bookstores Howard mentions in his letters are Argosy,
located in New York City , and Von Blon’s
Bookstore in Waco , TX . It is well known that Howard ordered
many of his books through the mail. I think if
he bought SBK from Argosy it would have been between late 1928 and early to mid
1929. Howard was certainly ordering books from Argosy at that time because, in
a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith from early April 1930 Howard declares,
“The Argosy pipple [sic, intentional due to the joking
nature of the letter] enrage me highly by their damned discriminating attitude.
I haven’t gotten their latest catalogue no more as nothing, They always send
their other customers theirs before they send me one.” (Howard Letters 1: 30)
The language in
this letter, their latest and always, clearly seem to indicate that
Howard had been ordering from Argosy for some time.
If Howard bought Burns’ book from Von
Blon’s then it is likely that he purchased the book before writing The Extermination
of Yellow Donory in 1929. As I have demonstrated above, the mention of
Billy the Kid and the similar phrasing with SKB would place a date prior to
mid-1929. But it should also be noted
that Howard was buying books from Von Blon’s much earlier than 1929. In a
letter to Harold Preece dated August 1928, Howard mentions Von Blon’s
Bookstore. “Waco ’s
a Hell of a town, isn’t it? Likely you’ve discovered Von Blon’s bookstore
already. The Prussian has some good books sometimes.” Once again the language
indicates that Howard had shopped there before.
With the dates of
these letters and the clear indication that Howard was shopping from both
bookstores for some time, either location is a strong candidate. Even so, the
date of The Extermination of Yellow Donory and its mention of Billy the Kid
certainly helps provide an approximate time frame of when SKB was purchased,
between early 1928 to mid 1929, two to three years after its initial
publication.
By September 1930
Howard declares to his friend, Tevis Clyde Smith, that he is going to write “a
history of the early Texan days sometime, entitled: An Unborn Empire or something like that.” (Howard Letters 2: 68). In that same letter
Howard asks Smith if he can use some of his articles for research and
reference. This is crucial because just a few months later, January 1931, in a
letter to H.P. Lovecraft, Howard writes about the Lincoln County Wars using the
same writing style as Burns in SKB, and providing details that he could have
only known through Burns’ book. What this indicates is that Smith’s research on
the western frontier coupled with SKB are already setting in motion the change
that will take place in Howard’s interest and writing direction. And this is
all occurring between 1928 and 1931.
In between the two
letters mentioned above (one to Smith, the other to HPL) Howard mentions Billy
the Kid in another letter to Lovecraft dated October 1930. Howard is discussing
James Franklin Norfleet. He details their meeting each other, describes
Norfleet’s physical features, and then compares him as a gunman to Billy the
Kid, along with other gunmen such as John Wesley Hardin, Sam Bass, and Al
Jennings. He then waxes eloquently about gunfighters and their mannerisms and
characteristics. And even though the topics during this period of
correspondence between Howard and Lovecraft predominantly circle around the
Celts, or Romans, or medieval and ancient civilizations, Howard always manages
to turn the conversations back to Texas ,
frontier life, cattlemen, gunfighters, or the old west.
Escape from McSween's House Artwork by Peter Rogers |
There is no
question that from this point, October 1930, Howard is demonstrating a dominant
interest in Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County Wars, and the old west. And by
January 1931, Howard is actually using the details from Burns’ book in that
particular letter to H.P. Lovecraft. In fact, the names, events, details, and descriptions
are used in such a manner that it makes me think that Howard actually had the
book in front of him as he wrote the letter. Below is a chart that compares
Howard’s letter to Lovecraft and certain details from the burning of McSween’s
home during the Lincoln County Wars.
The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard
Vol. 2 (Howard 2: 152)
|
The Saga of Billy the Kid
(Burns 126-140) |
“The night is forked with leaping tongues of crimson
flame.” (p. 152)
|
“Fiery little tongues were curling eagerly about the
woodwork as if relishing appetizing food.” (p. 126)
|
“The walls are beginning to crumble, the roof is falling.”
(p. 152)
|
“Portions of the red hot adobe walls had fallen outward
leaving two great gaps.” (p. 129)
|
“For three days and nights they have waged a fruitless
battle with the defenders, now since treachery has fired the adobe house,
their turn has come at last.” (p. 152)
|
From page 134 to 136 Burns describes three days passing,
the house is described as all but burned completely down save for three rooms
and a doorway out.
|
“Hidden behind walls and stable, eager and blood-maddened,
crouch the Murphy men, rifles at the ready.” (p. 152)
|
“The Murphy men had closed in under cover of darkness. They
crouched behind the McSween stable and beneath the shelter of the adobe wall
that shut off the stable lot from the backyard.” (p. 136-137)
|
“They kept their eyes and rifle muzzles fixed hard on the
single door. Before that door, in the red glare of the climbing flames lie
McSween, Harvey Morris, Semora, Romero and Salazar in pools of their own
blood, where the bullets struck them down as they rushed from the burning
house . . . four dead, one—Salazar badly wounded.” (p. 152)
|
“He [Billy the Kid] threw open
the back door, while flames turned night into day, Harvey Morris and
Francisco Semora rushed out to fall dead before a blaze of rifles from the
adobe wall. Vincent Romero was the next to try, and the next to die. (p. 137)
|
“O’Folliard, Skurlock, Gonzales and Chavez have made the
dash and somehow raced through that rain of lead and escaped in the darkness.”
(p. 152)
|
“Out of the door, one after the other, plunged Tom
O’Folliard, Doc Skurlock, Jose Chavez y Chavez, Ignacio Gonzales and Ygenio
Salazar. Salazar was cut down, dangerously wounded; he lay limp and
motionless, feigning death [Refer back to Howard’s quote about Salazar] . . .
As by a miracle all but Salazar ran the gauntlet of bullets, tumbled over the
back wall and escaped.” (p. 138-139)
|
“Bob Beckwith, whose bullet
struck down McSween . . .” (p. 152)
|
“I got him,” shouted Bob Beckwith, waving his smoking rifle
. . . “I got McSween.” (p. 138)
|
“Now is the peak of the red
drama, for in that blazing snare lurks one man [Billy the Kid]. The watchers
grip their rifles until their knuckles show white . . . The flames roar and
toss; soon he [Billy the Kid] must leap through if he would not be burned
like a rat in a trap.” (p. 152)
|
“There was an ominous silence off
at the side along the adobe wall. His [Billy the Kid] lurking unseen foes
were waiting for him, their rifles ready, their fingers on the trigger.
Flames were bursting through the walls and ceiling of the room, he [Billy the
Kid] braced himself for the start. (p. 139)
|
“Bob Beckwith curses and his eyes dance with madness. He
killed McSween, now to his everlasting glory he must kill Billy the Kid . . .
A mad rattle of rifle-fire volleys and the air is filled with singing lead.
Through that howling hail of death the Kid races and his own guns are
spurting jets of fire. Bob Beckwith falls across the wall, stone dead.” (p.
152)
|
“Fire poured from the muzzles of his [Billy the Kid’s]
forty-fours in continuous streaks. Bob Beackwith, slayer of McSween, fell
dead across the wall, his rifle clattering on the ground, head and arms
dangling downward limply. (p. 140)
|
Not only does
Howard keep the sequence used by Burns, but the details are, for the most part,
the same. And, in subsequent letters to Lovecraft when the Lincoln County Wars
are brought up, Howard uses Burns’ book to tell the story. In these same
letters more frequent discussions about the west, Texas history, and gunfighters ensue.
Examples of this can be seen in his letters dated February 1931 in which Howard
discusses John Chisum, the Lincoln County Wars, and The Kid; June 1931 Howard
discusses the types of guns that won the old west; August of 1931 Howard
discusses Texas frontier history at great length; December 9, 1931 Howard
discusses Kit Carson and Bigfoot Wallace; May 24, 1932 Howard discusses Bill
Hickok and Billy the Kid; August 9, 1932 Howard discusses Pat Garrett, Wyatt
Earp, Billy the Kid, etc. This trend continues in his letters until it culminates
in a trip Howard took with his friend Truett Vinson to New Mexico , in the summer of 1935. By then
Howard is all but completely focused on writing western stories.
Even though Robert
E. Howard had sporadically written and published western stories from his first
submission in 1921 to the end of his life, several prominent Howard scholars
place Howard’s transitional interest of the old west and western stories at the
same time as Tevis Clyde Smith’s publication Frontier’s Generation in March of 1931. Based on the evidence
above, I propose a revised transitional date: in the late 20s, around late 1928
to early to mid-1929. And while Smith’s research and publication played an
important role in Howard’s transition, I think Burns’ book, The Saga of Billy the Kid is the key
factor that caused Howard’s transition. In fact, I think the influence Burns’
book had on Howard cannot be overstated. Especially since Howard seems to adopt
Burns’ writing style in several of his western stories. Research and proof of
which I’ll reserve for another time and another paper.
Based on the above
dates, correspondence, and the progressive build up of western stories written
and published from 1928 to Howard’s death in 1936, and a few years beyond,
there is a clear trend of Howard shifting his interest toward the old west and
western stories. It’s just a matter of time before Howard will take this
interest and apply it to his storytelling, breaking full swing into the western
markets.
Historical Corrections and Burns’ Book
While Walter Noble
Burns’ account of Billy the Kid certainly had a interesting impact on writers
of the mid-20th Century, it left a false historical wake that would
not be corrected until over 30 years after its initial publication. With
renewed interest from scholars about Billy the Kid in the late 50s and early
60s, various facts, myths, and folklores would soon be corrected. From the 21st
century, we certainly have the advantage of looking back over history and
seeing where errors were made, watching how they were corrected, and moving
forward with better information.
Of course, Robert
E. Howard did not have that luxury. He was informed about Billy the Kid from
the various circulated myths, exaggerated tales, and erroneous facts that were
merely highlighted by Burns’ book. On the one hand, this had a positive effect
on his writing. Howard wrote with this exaggerated tone, used exaggerated
facts, and painted his western stories in such a way as to make them far more
interesting than merely dry facts and events. On the other hand, a lot of what
Howard wrote about Billy the Kid was just erroneous. This being the case,
anyone who reads Howard’s letters where he discusses Billy the Kid, should take
those letters with several grains of salt. While they are quite interesting to
read, and read like a good story, they are wrought with inaccurate details,
many that Howard borrowed from Burns.
Even so, were it
not for Walter Noble Burn’s book The Saga
of Billy the Kid, I do not think Howard would have developed the way he did
when it came time for him to settle into regularly writing his western stories.
Not that Burns was the sole influence on how and why Howard wrote westerns, but
the impact Burns’ book had on Howard’s western writing can certainly be seen. I
also think that Burns’ book played the key role in Howard’s interest of the old
west and western tales. An interest that ultimately led him to declare to his
longtime correspondent, H.P. Lovecraft, in a letter dated May 13, 1936, about a
month before Howard’s death, “I find it more and more difficult to write anything
but western yarns.” (Howard Letters 3: 446)
Works Cited
Burke, Rusty. Introduction. The End of the Trail: Western
Stories. Lincoln : U of Nebraska , 2005. Ix-Xviii. Print.
Burns, Walter Noble. The
Saga of Billy the Kid. Garden City, NY: Garden City, 1926. Print.
Coe, George W. Frontier
Fighter: The Autobiography of George W. Coe Who Fought and Rode with Billy the
Kid. Ed. Doyce B. Nunis. Chicago : Lakeside , 1984. Print.
Derie, Bobby, comp. The
Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard: Index and Addenda. Plano , TX :
Robert E. Howard Foundation, 2015. Print.
Herron, Don, ed. The
Dark Barbarian: The Writings of Robert E. Howard: A Critical Anthology. Westport , CT : Greenwood , 1984. Print.
Howard, Robert E. The
Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard. Ed. Rob Roehm. Vol. 1-3. Plano , TX :
Robert E. Howard Foundation, 2007. Print.
Howard, Robert E. Sentiment: An Olio of Rarer Works. Ed. Rob
Roehm. Plano , TX : Robert E. Howard Foundation, 2009.
Print.
Howard, Robert E. Western
Tales. Ed. Rob Roehm. Plano ,
TX : Robert E. Howard Foundation,
2013. Print.
Lord, Glenn, ed. The
Last Celt: A Bio-Bibliography of Robert E. Howard. West Kingston , Rhode Island :
Donald M. Grant, 1976. Print.
Nolan, Frederick W. The
West of Billy the Kid. Norman : U of Oklahoma , 1998. Print.
Smith, Tevis C. So Far
the Poet & Other Writings. Ed. Rob Roehm and Rusty Burke. Plano , TX :
Robert E. Howard Foundation, 2010. Print.
Smith, Tevis Clyde.
Frontier's Generation: The Pioneer History of Brown County ,
with Sidelights on the Surrounding Territory. New and Enlarged ed. Brownwood , TX : Moore Printing, 1980.
Print.
Wallis, Michael. Billy
the Kid: The Endless Ride. New
York : W W Norton, 2008. Print.
*This article was previously published at REH: Two-Gun Raconteur
Excellent post, Todd.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Keith.
ReplyDelete