BLOOD LUST: Robert E. Howard's Spicy Adventures

[Recent blogs have consisted of excerpts from my original fiction, in the interests of self-promotion. This time I am offering another of my essays on Robert E. Howard. "Blood Lust" was originally published in The Cimmerian in 2005, and was very well received. It went on to win The Cimmerian's Hyrkanian Award. The version here is slightly longer than the one that appeared in print, so worth reading even if you're already familiar with the printed version. This version Copyright 2009 by Charles Hoffman.]

“The girl looked up at him, her face like a dim white rose in the dark…
“`Tell me.’ His voice was soft, soothing, as one speaks to a babe.
“`Le Loup,” she gasped, her voice swiftly growing weaker. ‘He and his men --descended upon our village-- a mile up the valley. They robbed --slew-- burned…I ran. He, the Wolf, pursued me --and-- caught me--’ The words died away in a shuddering silence.
“`I understand, child. Then--?’
“`Then --he --he --stabbed me--with his dagger--oh, blessed saints! --mercy--’
“Suddenly the slim form went limp. The man eased her to the earth, and touched her brow lightly.
“`Dead!’ he muttered.
“Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.
“`Men shall die for this,’ he said coldly.”

--“Red Shadows” Weird Tales, August 1928


“…He laughed at her struggles as his arms savored each intimate charm. ‘I’m no tell-tale, nor blackmailer! I’m not threatenin’ you. I don’t have to!’
“His mouth crushing hers thirstily --the way his muscular arms defeated her frenzied struggles-- was enough to convince her. But, jerking her mouth free, she stormed defiantly: ‘Damn you, let me go! I’ll kill you…you can’t--’
“Her defiance broke in a despairing shriek as she realized the futility of her resistance.
“Presently, as he looked down at her where she lay weeping in rage, shame and humiliation, he started to speak; then he changed his mind, shrugged his shoulders and headed for the door.
“There was no mercy in the game she played, and she had no reason to expect any.”

--“Murderer’s Grog” Spicy-Adventure Stories, January 1937


What a difference eight years make!

The first quotation is from one of Robert E. Howard’s best-known stories, “Red Shadows.” It served to introduce readers to one of Howard’s most memorable heroes, the dour Puritan swordsman, Solomon Kane, a religious fanatic so morally upright that he takes it upon himself to protect all in peril and stamp out evil wherever he finds it. In “Red Shadows,” he seeks to avenge a girl ravaged by a vicious bandit called Le Loup, Kane’s opposite, an amoral thrill-seeker who lives to gratify his lustful appetites at the expense of those weaker than himself.

The second quotation is from the denouement of “Murderer’s Grog” by “Sam Walser.” This story features a very different sort of protagonist, one Wild Bill Clanton, described by the author as a “sailor, gun-runner, blackbirder, pearl-poacher, and fighting man deluxe.” One might also add “serial rapist” to Clanton’s resume-- “Murderer’s Grog” is not the only story in which Clanton forces himself on a woman.

The irony of the contrast between Solomon Kane and Wild Bill Clanton would have been lost on any who chanced to read both these stories upon their original publications in the pulp fiction magazines of the 1920s and `30s --such readers would have had no way of knowing that Robert E. Howard and Sam Walser were one and the same. Walser was a pseudonym --an ancestor’s name-- that Howard used for the Wild Bill Clanton series written in the final phase of his career. Debuting in Weird Tales back in 1928, Solomon Kane had been the first of Howard’s heroes to appear in print. Premiering in Spicy-Adventure Stories in April 1936, a mere two months before Howard’s death, Wild Bill Clanton was most likely the last of Howard’s heroes the author saw introduced. (He may or may not have lived to see his western hero Buckner J. Grimes debut in the June 1936 issue of Cowboy Stories.)

So how was it that the creator of Solomon Kane came at the last to write a series of tales in which, essentially, Le Loup is the hero? In the beginning, it was solely for the money. Weird Tales was never a financially secure publication; it teetered on the verge of bankruptcy throughout its thirty-year history. Payment to authors was often late, and this considerably worsened during the Depression. Early in 1935, Howard was burdened by medical expenses for his aging mother, including a serious operation. At the time of his greatest need, payment from Weird Tales continued to grow ever more unreliable. Weird Tales had been paying Howard in a series of monthly installments, but these were cut off just as his need was greatest. On May 6, 1935, Howard sent “an urgent plea for money” to editor Farnsworth Wright that concluded, “A monthly check from Weird Tales may well mean for me the difference between a life that is at least endurable --and God alone knows what.” Wright responded with part of the money, but Weird Tales owed Howard over a thousand dollars at the time of his death.

Desperate for more dependable sources of income, Howard looked about for fresh markets to tap. To that end he had previously engaged fellow pulp writer Otis Adelbert Kline as his literary agent. Now, in 1935, he followed the lead of his friend and colleague, E. Hoffmann Price. Price was a star contributor to the lucrative “spicy stories” market. The so-called “spicy” pulps were a line of magazines that featured fairly standard genre stories, but with the added ingredient of sex. Of course, for the most part the sex in the spicy magazines was tame, even quaint, by today’s standards. Erotic titillation was furnished mostly by the trappings of sex; the heroine’s scanty undergarments, her inviting boudoir, passionate attitude and so forth. Any actual sexual activity was left to the reader’s imagination. Sexual episodes were indicated by a sentence trailing off in ellipses… followed by a discreet line drop before the story resumed in the next paragraph. Both the cover paintings and the interior illustrations hinted that the magazine’s contents were hot stuff, but the actual stories always seemed to promise more than they delivered. Even so, they were condemned by prudish critics as an affront to decency.

The company that published the spicy line was, as a business tactic for avoiding official censure, known variously as the Trojan Publishing Company or Culture Publications. The first spicy title was Spicy Detective Stories, its premiere issue dated April 1934. It was joined in July by Spicy Mystery Stories and Spicy-Adventure Stories. The last of the primary spicy magazines was Spicy Western Stories, which did not appear until 1936. Companion magazines from the same publisher included Snappy Adventure Stories, Snappy Detective Stories, and Snappy Mystery Stories. The “Snappy” titles were not appreciably different from those bearing the “Spicy” imprint.

Most pulp writers who submitted work to the spicy titles did so --like Howard-- under pseudonyms. E. Hoffmann Price was bold enough to allow his work for the spicy pulps to appear under his real name. In fact, the spicies were Price’s single biggest pulp market, with over a hundred and fifty stories published in them over the years. Price wrote for Spicy Western as well as for Spicy-Adventure. According to Glenn Lord, Price revealed that most of the stories published in the spicies were actually provided by a select inner circle of half a dozen writers utilizing a vast array of pseudonyms. Price asserted that for an outsider attempting to crack that inner circle, it was as difficult as for the proverbial rich man entering the gates of Heaven. Even so, Robert E. Howard did it handily.

Howard found in the spicy pulps just the sort of reliable revenue source that he so desperately needed. For one thing, the pay was good. Spicy-Adventure paid at the rate of one cent per word to its better authors, quite generous by the standards of the day. More important, however, was the promptness of payment. Authors were paid upon editorial acceptance of their material in contrast to Weird Tales’ editorial policy of payment upon publication. With Spicy-Adventure, Howard’s main complaint was that stories could be no longer than 5500 words. For the most part, however, he found the arrangement satisfactory enough to entertain plans to contribute to Spicy Mystery and Spicy Detective as well.

Altogether, Howard wrote eight spicy stories and a synopsis for an additional unwritten story. Of the eight completed stories, six feature the hot-blooded rogue, Wild Bill Clanton. Five of the Clanton stories appeared in Spicy-Adventure. The additional Clanton story, the two unrelated tales, and the synopsis remained unpublished for decades after Howard’s death, finally appearing in the `70s and `80s.

The first Clanton story, “The Girl on the Hell Ship” was received by the Otis Adelbert Kline literary agency on October 7, 1935, and duly forwarded to Frank Armer at the Trojan/Culture publishing group the next day. Otto Binder was at the time the Kline agency’s New York representative. Binder sold additional Clanton stories to Spicy-Adventure, including “The Purple Heart of Erlik” around December of 1935 and “The Dragon of Kao Tsu” in February 1936.

In a letter to Novalyne Price dated February 14, 1936 --Valentine’s Day-- Howard wrote at length about the spicy pulps, describing his work to date and detailing the editorial requirements:

“…A nice balance must be maintained --the stuff must be hot enough to make the readers bat their eyes, but not too hot to get the censors on them. They have some definite taboos. No degeneracy, for instance. No sadism or masochism. Though extremely fond of semi-nude ladies, they prefer her to retain some garment ordinarily --like a coyly revealing chemise. However this taboo isn’t iron-clad, for I’ve violated it in nearly every story I’ve sold to them. I’ve found a good formula is to strip the heroine gradually --she loses part of her clothes in one episode, some more in the next, and so on until the climax finds her in a state of tantalizing innocence. Certain words are taboo, also, although up to a certain point considerable frankness in discussing the female anatomy is allowed. The hero should be an American, and the action should take place in some exotic clime. I’ve laid my yarns in the South Seas, in Tebessa in Algeria, in Shanghai, and in Singapore…My character is Wild Bill Clanton, a pirate, gun-runner, smuggler, a pearl-thief and slaver, and carefully avoids all moral scruples in his dealings with the ladies.”

Novalyne had once chided Howard for making heroes of such disreputable figures as gunfighter John Wesley Hardin. In his unabashed description of Clanton as such a scoundrel, Howard may have been subtly needling Novalyne. Note that Howard bluntly calls Clanton a “slaver” rather than using the charming euphemism “blackbirder.” Moreover, this occupation appears at the end of Clanton’s resume, right before mention of his lack of moral scruples in regards to women.

The Wild Bill Clanton series began to appear in Spicy-Adventure Stories starting with the April 1936 issue. Howard was already dead by the time most of them saw print. Interestingly, the six Clanton stories can be divided into three pairs, grouped by location and plot devices. “The Girl on the Hell Ship” and “Ship in Mutiny” are set in the South Seas. Closely linked, these two episodes tell how Clanton seizes and retains command of the Saucy Wench, and feature the only recurring character apart from the hero, the beautiful and headstrong “Celtic-Latin” hellcat Raquel O’Shane, distinguished from paler Howard sex goddesses by a splash of Hispanic blood that presumably accounts for her stormy temper. The next two stories, “The Purple Heart of Erlik” and “The Dragon of Kao Tsu,” transpire in the Oriental port cities of Shanghai and Singapore, respectively. Each unfolds as a caper to acquire a priceless relic. The final pair of tales consists of “Desert Blood” and “Murderer’s Grog.” The former takes place in French Algeria, the latter in British India. Both involve gun-running and exotic femmes fatale.

“The Girl on the Hell Ship” was retitled “She Devil” by the editor of Spicy-Adventure Stories, and featured as the lead story in the April 1936 issue. The story was also chosen for the cover illustration. As was often the case in the pulps, the cover did not accurately reflect the contents of the story. In fact, the editor may have simply used a painting he had on hand, hence the need to change the story’s title. Instead of a ship in the South Pacific, the cover depicts a tavern in the Yukon or some such place. Gruff male patrons are clad in furs and other heavy clothing. A young brunette girl prances merrily through their midst, cheerfully raising a shot glass. Seemingly impervious to cold that make tough men huddle in furs, the cover girl is clad only in a red bra and microskirt, stockings and garters.

Readers familiar with Howard’s work will recognize plot elements in “She Devil” that the author employed previously in the Conan story, “The Pool of the Black One” (Weird Tales, October 1933). Like Clanton, Conan appears after swimming to a ship, having abandoned a leaky boat. Both protagonists were in that situation as the result of earlier predicaments. Aboard ship, Conan meets the pirate captain, Zaporavo, who has abandoned his usual trade to sail into unknown waters. Zaporavo, like the tyrannical Bully Harrigan encountered by Clanton, broods over maps and charts as he searches for some mysterious treasure kept secret from the crew. In both stories, the captain meets his fate after landfall on an island. Conan and Clanton assume command of their respective ships, which must take flight from the island’s dangers. Conan also appropriates Zaporavo’s sultry mistress, Sancha. Sancha is from Zingara, Howard’s Hyborian Age counterpart of seventeenth-century Spain. Like Raquel O’Shane, she is possessed of fiery Latin blood.

The other interesting aspect of “She Devil” is the manner in which Raquel O’Shane mentally compares Bill Clanton to Bully Harrigan; “He was a man at least, not a beast like Harrigan.” Harrigan is described as “a bellowing, red-eyed, hairy monstrosity,” broad as a door” with “a chest and arms muscled and hairy as an ape’s.” Not a pretty picture, but Clanton engages in the same shady enterprises as Harrigan, is just as ruthless, and more devious. But the author holds up Clanton as a superior type, reflected in his appearance. “Clean-waisted” is a term Howard sometimes uses to physically distinguish a brawny hero from a brawny villain. Raquel is immediately taken by Clanton’s rugged good looks. To be fair, however, she has also had to constantly avoid being pummeled and slapped around by Harrigan. “That’s no way to treat a lady!” Clanton asserts gallantly. He is not one to physically abuse women --yet. That aspect of his personality only emerges in the subsequent stories.

“Ship in Mutiny” is a direct sequel to “She Devil.” Notably, it’s the only Clanton story never to appear in the pages of Spicy-Adventure Stories. Commentators on this usually blame Raquel. Editorial policy dictated that the hero should remain footloose, savoring the charms of many women rather than staying more or less monogamous. In “Ship in Mutiny” Clanton does enjoy passionate sex with the island princess Lailu but, faithful in his fashion, returns to Raquel. The editorial mandate was clear; Raquel had to go. She does not reappear in any of the remaining episodes.

In considering the rejection of “Ship in Mutiny” by Spicy-Adventure, commentators tend to look no further. However, other factors may have contributed to its unsuitability. In a letter to H. P. Lovecraft dated December 5, 1935, Howard complained that writing for the spicy pulps “requires a deft, jaunty style foreign to my natural style.” The first story, “She Devil,” was written in this jaunty style, with touches of playfulness and humor. “Ship in Mutiny,” on the other hand, is more typical of Howard’s prose, grimmer and more intense.

The sexual element is more pronounced than in the previous story. In most pulp fiction, the hero inevitably gets the girl; there is little in the way of sexual tension. But Howard recognized the potential of sexual tension to enhance the overall suspense. Thus the villain Tanoa lusts mightily after Raquel, even as Clanton is aroused by Lailu. Passages speak of eager hands itching to cup velvety breasts. Raquel is in danger of being lured away from Raquel by Lailu’s ample charms.

Of course, the pulp fiction double standard is in effect. Clanton actually bedding a woman of another race is perfectly understandable; boys will be boys. But when a nonwhite man even lusts after a white woman, his desire alone is usually a death sentence. In due course, Clanton fights and kills the island chief Tanoa. Clanton had previously rescued Raquel from a Kanaka native in “She Devil,” but that bout was just a warm-up for Tanoa. Tanoa is a half-breed whose European education includes “boxing in Oxford.” In several stories, Howard introduces a barbaric character who has had the benefit of some sort of civilized education or training; such a character is always presented as an especially dangerous foe. Most notable is a virtually identical character, Santos, for the Sailor Steve Costigan story, “Fist and Fang” (Fight Stories, May 1930). Other such characters could be said to include John De Albor from “Moon of Zembabwei” (Weird Tales, February 1935, as “The Grisly Horror”), or for that matter, Conan himself.

Perhaps it is this mingling of civilized and barbaric traits that accounts for Tanoa’s extreme viciousness. In addition to making the story a little too hot, Howard may have violated the publisher’s stricture against sadomasochistic elements. When Clanton is Tanoa’s captive, the half-breed villain declares, “We’ll find the girl and make her watch while I skin him alive! I’ll make a garment of his hide and force her to wear it always about her loins to remind her how her lover died!” It is a sadistic fantasy worthy of the Marquis himself.

The other two spicy stories written by Howard and unpublished in his lifetime do not feature Wild Bill Clanton. They are “Guns of Khartum” and “Daughters of Feud.” Both merit some comment. “Guns of Khartum” is perhaps most notable for its background. It is set in the Sudan in 1885, during the fall of the besieged city of Khartum. The ten-month siege of Khartum was the culmination of an uprising of Islamic militants led by a religious figure called the Mahdi. The famed British military hero Chinese Gordon perished when Khartum fell. In Howard’s story, an American ivory hunter named Emmett Corcoran is one of the defenders of Khartum. Corcoran battles the Islamic hordes, a French renegade in league with them, and even the Mahdi himself. In a calm during the storm, he finds time for heated sex with both a virtuous white woman and a sinister woman of color.

The tale is anything but “jaunty.” An editor may well have deemed it excessive. The physical and emotional violence is unrelenting, and the sexual content is very intense. Just offstage, white city-dwellers are being slaughtered by non-white invaders. In the aftermath of the siege, the blonde heroine is enslaved in a harem for five months. At one point, the hero beds a woman he finds sexually alluring but otherwise despises. This last incident is certainly a commonplace situation, but perhaps a little too real for the spicy pulps.

In his Valentine’s Day letter to Novalyne Price, Howard mentions setting spicy stories in the South Seas, Algeria, Shanghai, and Singapore. He then mentions yet another story, this one taking place in Kentucky. This last setting is a bet of a jarring note, coming after a string of exotic locales. Kentucky seems an unlikely backdrop for glamour and intrigue. Passion crosses all boundaries, however, as Howard sought to demonstrate in a story titled “Daughters of Feud.”

The subject of feuds between rival clans fascinated Howard to some extent, and he sometimes incorporated it into his fiction. One of the Breckinridge Elkins humorous westerns is entitled “The Feud Buster.” “The Valley of the Lost” and “The Man on the Ground” are horror stories with western setting, and a feud is part of the background in each. Most notably, a feud between factions in a lost city is the subject of “Red Nails,” Howard’s final Conan tale. A feud could even serve as a catalyst for the events of a spicy story.

In “Daughters of Feud,” Braxton Brent is the new schoolteacher in the rural backwater of Whiskey Run (which is not identified as specifically being in Kentucky in the actual story.) He presides over a one-room schoolhouse in which all ages are taught --from tots to nubile nineteen-year-old girls. Two of the latter, daughters of rival feuding families, erupt into a catfight in the middle of class. Dark-haired Ann and fair-haired Joan tear at each other, ripping garments, exposing breathtaking expanses of quivering young flesh, etc. Brent breaks them up and, to maintain discipline among the other unruly students, must administer corporal punishment. After class, he takes each girl in turn to the woodshed, which embroils him in trouble with both feuding families. Things are further complicated when he is overcome with passion for the untamed rustic beauty of Joan.

Howard told Novalyne that the editors said his Kentucky story was “too hot for them to handle.” They might well have added “too rough” and “too kinky.” The lovemaking between Brent and Joan is a tad more explicit than was commonplace in 1936. However, the more objectionable elements would have been the rough stuff. The hero is threatened with castration and the heroine is threatened with gang rape. Brent’s whipping of nineteen-year-old Ann’s naked buttocks with a leather strap is described in loving detail. To protect Brent from charges of partiality, Joan displays her own marked buttocks, which she had actually lashed herself with a switch.

The instances of whipping and self-flagellation in this story are no mere matter of happenstance. Howard’s personal library included such volumes as Experiences of Flagellation, A History of the Rod, and Curiosa of Flagellants and History of Flagellation. He also wrote poetry like “Limericks to Spank By” and “Good Mistress Brown,” the latter concerning the spanking of an adult woman. This does seem to indicate that Howard’s sexual interests extended beyond a simple taste for vanilla. These particular interests, however, are by no means rare. The spanking of a grown woman is often part of a “taming of the shrew” scenario in books and movies. Those who share the interest ate titillated, with the rest of the audience none the wiser. In the movie McLintock! John Wayne spanks Maureen O’Hara --clad in soaking wet undergarments-- in front of the whole town. The film is considered wholesome family entertainment.

Returning to the saga of Wild Bill Clanton, we come to the second pair of stories, “The Purple Heart of Erlik” and “The Dragon of Kao Tsu.” These twin tales unfold in exotic Far Eastern ports teeming with danger and intrigue. Rare artifacts of great value are sought by an assortment of colorful characters. Sinister, inscrutable Oriental villains add a dash of mystery and menace. Such is the very essence of pulp fiction. It is also the sort of thing a master like Howard could write in his sleep.

“The Purple Heart of Erlik” (Spicy-Adventure Stories, November 1936) takes place in Shanghai. Wild Bill Clanton has become a darker character since we saw him last. He does not actually rape the story’s heroine, Arline Ellis, but not for want of trying. When Clanton meets Arline in Shanghai, he tells her, “I’ve made a point to run into you in a dozen ports, and you always act like I had the plague…I came to Shanghai just because I heard you were here…” In contemporary parlance, he has been stalking her. Now comes the moment of truth, “If I didn’t think you were so good-looking, I’d smack your ears back!…Now are you going to be nice or do I have to get rough?…Nobody interferes with anything that goes on in alleys behind dumps like the
Bordeaux…Any woman caught here’s fair prey.”

Arline escapes thanks to the handy pitcher she breaks over Clanton’s head. For some reason, this scene was chosen for an illustration in the pages of Spicy-Adventure. The quote from the story that accompanies the picture reads, “Not even Wild Bill Clanton could stand up under a clout like that.” Clanton has an unfortunate tendency to get hit over the head in these stories. He is stunned by a pitcher and a gun barrel, both wielded by women. On other occasions, he is knocked cold by a belaying pin and a rifle butt that hits him hard enough to break the stock. Clanton will be lucky indeed not to suffer from some form of brain damage later in life.

One can only speculate as to why Howard portrayed Clanton as such a bastard. At the time he was writing the Clanton series, Howard was also writing the humorous western adventures of the powerful but good-natured Breckinridge Elkins. Nearly a score of these stories appeared in Action Stories during the final phases of Howard’s career. After writing so many stories about a character who is constantly being lied to and taken advantage of, the author may have indulged the urge to create a character who was nobody’s fool. Invisible behind the Sam Walser pseudonym, Howard was free to give reign to his darker impulses.

“The Dragon of Kao Tsu” (Spicy-Adventure Stories, September 1936) finds Wild Bill in Singapore. Not surprisingly, he lusts after the wealthy heiress Marianne Allison throughout the story. This time, however, his lust is further fueled by class resentment: “Probably it had never occurred to Old Man Allison’s pampered daughter Marianne that a man on Clanton’s social plane would even think of making a pass at her, but he had to clench his hands to keep them off her.” Remarkably, Clanton is on his best behavior: “[T]here was a limit to even his audacity, and he didn’t dare try any rough stuff on the daughter of Old Man Allison, millionaire and wooly wolf of finance that the old devil was.” Marianne enjoys being in charge: “Feeling perfectly safe from him, she took a feminine delight in tantalizing him. She was aware of her effect on him, and she enjoyed seeing the veins in his forehead swell with frustrated emotion.”

Eventually though, Clanton gains the upper hand. Marianne becomes indebted to him, and has a scandal to avoid. Clanton suggests that, instead of money, she pay her debt with her body. Marianne feigns agreement, then reneges --by striking Clanton on the head with a gun barrel. Though momentarily stunned, Clanton is able to prevent Marianne from fleeing. Swearing that she’ll keep at least one bargain, he then takes her by force. “`You don’t dare!’ she gasped, as he drew her roughly to him. ‘You don’t dare--’ …Bill Clanton didn’t even bother to reply to her ridiculous assertion.” Afterwards, he teases her about associating with men like himself. “Her reply was unprintable, but the look in her eyes contradicted her words as she took his arm and together they went out to the street.” The End.

So it’s really all okay. Or is it? Nowadays, of course, glib rationalizations like the one Howard uses ---her lips said, “No,” but her eyes said, “Yes” -- are deemed unacceptable. No means no. Another such rationalization is “he knew her better than she knew herself.” This one is applicable to James Bond in the movie Goldfinger, in which Bond forces himself on Pussy Galore and saves the American economy by doing so. This scene occurs in one of the most popular movies ever made, a film produced decades after Howard’s death. It was not condemned when the movie was released nor, as far as I know, since. Also, the romance of the popular characters Luke and Laura on the soap opera General Hospital began with a rape, and other sympathetic rapists have been featured on daytime dramas aimed at a primarily female audience. Lest we judge Howard too harshly, we must take this into consideration.

This is not to suggest that Howard just sort of unknowingly blundered into the rape scenes that occur in the Clanton series. He knew exactly what he was doing. In the synopsis for his unwritten spicy story, the hero is held up by a girl and Howard bluntly states “he knocked the pistol out of her hand and raped her.” Interestingly, the girl falls in love with the hero. As in “The Dragon of Kao Tsu,” all’s well that ends well.

In his Valentine’s Day letter, Howard informs Novalyne Price that in the spicies, a favorite formula is for the hero to accomplish what only the villain attempts in conventional yarns. This indicates that not only were rapes by the protagonist tolerated by the editors, but also that such scenes may have been fairly commonplace. Considerable scrutiny is required to adequately account for shifts in attitudes from one era to another. At one time topless women were taboo in motion pictures; now they are a familiar fixture. Conversely, nude baby photos, once so sweet and innocent, are now regarded with suspicion. The sexual attitudes of times gone by can seem odd, ironic or mystifying to people of later eras. As an example, consider these editorial guidelines from Frank Armer, publisher of the Trojan/Culture line of Spicy magazines (reproduced in the Cryptic Publications chapbook Risqué Stories #5):

1. In describing breasts of a female character, avoid anatomical descriptions.
2. If it is necessary for the story to have a girl give herself to a man, or be taken by him, do not go too carefully into details.
3. Whenever possible, avoid complete nudity of the female characters. You can have a girl strip down to her underwear, or transparent negligee or nightgown, or the thin, torn shreds of her garments. But while the girl is alive and in contact with a man, we do not want complete nudity.
4. A nude female corpse is allowable, of course.

It is therefore difficult to gauge Howard’s personal attitudes concerning rape based on the fiction he wrote for the spicy pulps. He may have been following a common magazine format for commercial reasons, or he may have simply been in a bad mood. To be fair, one should look at how he handles the subject in his other fiction. We have previously noted that a rape/murder became the catalyst of Solomon Kane’s quest for vengeance in “Red Shadows.” The matter of rape is also touched on in a pair of stories featuring Howard’s best-known creation. Between Solomon Kane and Wild Bill Clanton, there was Conan. Howard began writing the Conan series in 1932, roughly four years after the appearance of Kane in print and four years before the appearance of Clanton. The two stories of interest at present are “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” and “The Vale of Lost Women.” Neither saw print during Howard’s lifetime. Perhaps they were a bit too hot for the pages of Weird Tales.

“The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” is set in the far North, where Conan encounters Atlai, the daughter of the god Ymir. The siren-like Atali lures men to their doom. Conan escapes Atali’s trap, but Atali barely escapes subsequent rape by Conan. In this story, Howard suggests that Conan was under a spell, and the author allows no actual rape to take place. In “The Vale of Lost Women,” Conan agrees to aid the virgin Livia, who offers her body as an inducement. He ultimately releases her from her agreement, stating that he has never taken a woman against her will and that holding Livia to such a bargain would be no different that forcing her. For the most part, rape or abuse of women, even by villains, is not a prominent fixture in the fiction of Robert E. Howard.

The third and final pair of Wild Bill Clanton adventures is comprised of “Desert Blood” and “Murderer’s Grog.” In both, Clanton is a “fish out of water” in the sense that these exploits find him, not at sea or in port, but further inland. Both plots involve gun-running. In both we meet exotic femme fatales who seem to spend much of their time lolling about on couches, cushions and divans while wearing revealing costumes.

“Murderer’s Grog” is much darker than “Desert Blood,” however. It appears to have been written a good deal later, when time was running out for Howard. In the Valentine’s Day letter, Howard remarks, “I’ve laid my yarns in the South Seas, in Tebessa in Algeria, in Shanghai and in Singapore.” If the order Howard mentions these locales reflects the order that their respective stories were composed (and in the case of the other episodes, it does), then “Desert Blood” was the third Clanton story to be written, after “She Devil” and “Ship in Mutiny” but before “The Purple Heart of Erlik” and “The Dragon of Kao Tsu.” The fact that Clanton displays better character in “Desert Blood” than in either “Erlik” or “Kao Tsu” also suggests earlier composition. Moreover, the Valentine’s Day letter does not mention the setting for “Murderer’s Grog.” That story only arrived at the Kline literary agency two and a half months later, on April 27, 1936. Otto Binder subsequently sold it to Spicy-Adventure in May. Therefore it does seem likely that it was written after a hiatus of weeks or months following the composition of the rest of the Clanton series. This makes “Murderer’s Grog” one of the last stories Robert E. Howard ever wrote.

The earlier story, “Desert Blood,” was actually the second Clanton story to be published. It appeared in Spicy-Adventure Stories for June 1936. Howard may or may not have lived to see it in print.

Set in Algeria, “Desert Blood” opens in the chambers of the local temptress Zouza. There Zouza successfully rebuffs the advances of Clanton, her feminine wiles enabling her to manipulate him. Preying on his vanity, she is able to convince him that only by killing a lion can he prove his manhood and win her. One would think that Wild Bill Clanton, famed as a brawler and womanizer, would possess greater self-esteem, but he submits to her terms. Leaving Zouza’s chambers, Clanton immediately runs into a woman he has met in his travels. She is Augusta Evans, an American schoolteacher (like Novalyne Price) vacationing abroad. Attractive but prim and aloof, she too rebuffs Clanton. Having gotten the cold shoulder twice in less than an hour, Clanton heads for a seedy dive to drink away his frustrations.

After a bout of hard drinking, Clanton comes to his senses on the back of a mule taking him into the desert to meet his guide for the lion-hunting safari. He does not recall setting out. The safari turns out to be a ruse to get rid of Clanton, who ends up captured by the desert sheik Ahmed. Ahmed, Zouza, and another seductress, Zulaykha, are part of a plot to appropriate Clanton’s cargo of guns. Clanton is rescued by the Bedouin beauty Aicha, disguised in western garb. In the epilog, Clanton learns that Aicha appropriated her garments from Augusta Evans, last seen riding naked on a runaway donkey back towards town.

It is admittedly possible that Howard had a certain schoolteacher ex-girlfriend in mind when he created Augusta Evans. Augusta’s embarrassing predicament at the end of the story could even be viewed as a sadistic humiliation fantasy. On the other hand, taking a pompous character down a peg has long been a staple of slapstick comedy. I tend to favor the latter notion.

“Desert Blood” is fairly upbeat in tone, even “jaunty.” For once, Clanton is given an unselfish motive for his undertakings. Regarding his current gun-running, we are told “there was more than money involved. He had a genuine sympathy for these mountain tribesmen, fighting for their lives against a ruthless European power.” Sympathy for the underdog is a redeeming trait shared by a number of Howard’s more roguish protagonists. Moreover, in both his El Borak adventures and in his correspondence with Lovecraft, REH expresses anti-imperialist sentiments. In “Desert Blood,” the rakish Clanton also displays uncharacteristic warmth towards Aicha.

Similarly, Clanton is atypically circumspect in dealing with the local temptress of the tale, Zouza. When Zouza rejects him, we are told that “it was easy to seen that she was not prompted by a coquettish whim, rising from a desire to be deliciously mastered after a mock resistance.” This indicates that Clanton is somehow able to discern the difference, and is possibly intended to mitigate the sort of behavior he exhibits towards the likes of Arline Ellis and Marianne Allison. Clanton makes no move to coerce Zouza. On the contrary, he caves in to her silly demands.

For some reason, I was given to wonder about the possible inspiration for this sequence. Much has been made of Howard’s advice to H. P. Lovecraft concerning writing for the spicies; “Just write up one of your own sex adventures altered to fit the plot.” This comment has been viewed as bluster, or a playful attempt to tweak the puritanical Lovecraft, but most often dismissed with a baffled shrug. One can only offer conjecture as to what Howard actually meant by this remark.

Conceivably, he was simply describing, in admittedly grandiose terms, a process by which he took a mundane incident and inflated it to heroic proportions for fictional purposes. Perhaps the Zouza episode, for example, was inspired by some instance in which Howard went out of his way to appease a female, to the point of doing something he would normally never consider. In the more colorful world of Wild Bill Clanton, the same sort of appeasement might entail killing a lion to impress an exotic mystery woman.

Whatever the case, “Desert Blood” is one of the spicier Clanton adventures. Wild Bill encounters no less than four alluring females, and those are just among the principle characters. In the background there are also “half a dozen dancing girls who had just enough Sudanese blood in them to impart an untamed voluptuousness found only in mixed breeds.” This talk of blood imparting untamed voluptuousness is part of a motif that runs through the story and indeed the entire series. The title “Desert Blood” has less to do with actual blood spilt in the fight scenes than with blood as a metaphor for the libido. Clanton’s first sight of Aicha sets “his already hot blood a-riot.” When Zulaykha offers herself, “not even the realization that only a miracle could keep his severed head from rolling in the sand within the next hour could cool the customary ardor of his reckless blood.” Just as in the South Seas, when the “magnificent figure” of Lailu “drove a pulse of passion through his blood in spite of his plight.” In Singapore, the mere sight of Marianne Allison crossing her legs “made the blood boil to his head.” There was no place in the pages of Spicy-Adventure Stories for either crude talk of “blue balls” or timid, clinical references to “raging hormones.” “Blood” was by far a more apt metaphor for passion. “Blood” alone could denote either sex or violence. It was a strong word Robert E. Howard made frequent, skillful use of.

“Murderer’s Grog” did not appear in Spicy-Adventure until the January 1937 issue. By that time, Howard had been moldering in his grave for half a year, the feast over, the lamps expired. “Murderer’s Grog” lingered like a bad aftertaste. Befitting its title, the last of Wild Bill Clanton’s exploits is a bitter hangover of a story. The bare bones of the plot are stark: Clanton attempts to rape a woman and is thwarted, but after a night at the bottle he resolves to try again and is successful. Fleshed out, the story is like a dark shadow of “Desert Blood.” The plot and location are similar, but the tone is redolent of bitterness and pain.

“Murderer’s Grog” takes place in British India, recalling the French Algeria setting of “Desert Blood.” Clanton is on another gun-running mission. Once again the story opens with Clanton’s visit to a local femme fatale. Sonya Ormanoff is a mysterious adventuress involved in secret dealings. Like Zouza, she enjoys lounging around in a revealing costume. Also like Zouza, Sonya attempts to brush Clanton off though she had previously displayed an interest in him. This time, however, Clanton is not to be distracted by a snipe-hunting trip. He carries her roughly to the couch and begins to undo her clothes, but gets no further. Sonya has burly male henchmen at her beck and call. Though Clanton fights ferociously, he is overwhelmed by their numbers. He is thrown out of Sonya’s apartment and down a flight of stairs. Sonya’s maid follows him into the courtyard “to indulge in the age-old feminine sport of taunting the fallen.”

As in the previous story, Clanton seeks to drown his troubles at this point. Once again, he heads for a vice den to brood, ogle dancing girls, and drink. Wild Bill’s hard drinking has been duly noted throughout the series. In “She Devil,” we are told that “liquor was to him what moonlight and perfume are to some men.” Indeed, the very sight of bottles of booze make Clanton’s eyes glisten. In “The Dragon of Kao Tsu,” Clanton is drinking in a bar when first seen. Eyeing Marianne Allison’s figure as she walks away from him causes Clanton to "moan with despair and grab the whiskey bottle.” In “Desert Blood,” Clanton retires to a hideaway where he “sat and drank and drank and drank…” As a result of that particular binge, he experiences a lapse of memory symptomatic of a problem drinker. Now Clanton’s career as a drinking man reaches a culmination in a story whose very title speaks of strong drink.

Swaggering into a local dive, Clanton demands “'something liquid with a kick.'” When he repeats his demand for “'liquid dynamite,'” he is offered brandy and even opium. Unknown to Clanton, he has enemies nearby, rival gun dealers. They bribe the bartender to serve him a concoction called bhang. Bhang is known as the drink of murder, capable of inducing homicidal madness. Clanton’s foes hope it will cause him to attack a British official he had a run-in with earlier. His subsequent arrest would get him out of the way.

Clanton drinks the bhang and calls for more. Soon he flies into a rage, abusing a dancer and challenging any man in the house to a fight. When no one takes up the challenge, he storms out. But instead of seeking out the British official, he heads back to Sonya Ormanoff. He fights his way through the henchmen. At the end of the tale, Clanton rapes Sonya and leaves her in tears before heading off to complete his gun deal. Here ends the saga of Wild Bill Clanton.

This time there is no question of the woman’s eyes belying her protests, or of Clanton intuitively discerning here repressed desire. Instead, Clanton simply dismisses her sobbing and abject humiliation with a shrug of his shoulders. No excuse is offered for his behavior, other than the revelation that Sonya was a Communist and plotted his downfall. But Clanton knew neither of these things the first time he attempted to take her. Neither was the bhang, the rage-inducing “murderer’s grog,” a factor by the end. Howard goes out of his way to mention that the fight with Sonya’s henchmen cleared Clanton’s head, and that he is in full command of his faculties when he rapes Sonya. The one truly extenuating circumstance, the malign influence of the murderer’s grog, is discarded by the author like an empty beer can.

Sonya Ormanoff is a character who deserved better treatment, by Howard as well as Clanton. We are told that she is a white woman who lives among the natives. “She was blond, with a glorious wealth of light gold hair, and her flesh was a purely white as unstained Northern snow.” Using terms like “purely white” and “unstained” serve to make Clanton’s defilement of Sonya seem all the more heinous. Sonya is comfortable in a foreign milieu and at ease wearing Eastern garb. Sonya had the potential to be the most interesting of all the Clanton women, a female counterpart to Howard adventurers like El Borak and Kirby O’Donnell. Instead, she is treated like a cheap throwaway.

After raping Sonya, Clanton muses, “There was no mercy in the game she played, and she had no reason to expect any.” And in the real world, that is the plain truth of the matter. A man who traffics with dangerous individuals runs the risk of being beaten up and/or killed. A woman who does so runs the risk of rape in addition to being beaten up and/or killed. But in the “jaunty” pages of Spicy-Adventure Stories, it is an extremely harsh lesson for a female character to learn at the hands of the story’s hero.

The bold adventuress Sonya Ormanoff is humbled in “Murderer’s Grog,” but Clanton himself seems little better off. As introduced in “She Devil,” Wild Bill Clanton is a self-assured winner. He starts out with nothing but a pair of pants and within twenty-four hours acquires an alluring lover and his own ship. In “Murderer’s Grog,” he is beleaguered and at bay. “Smoldering rage at the world in general, smarting vanity, and thwarted desire combined to make Bill Clanton a raging demon.” He give in to brooding and bitterly cursing his fate. “‘The British!’ raged Clanton, clenching his huge fists. ‘Always the damned British--’” This from a man who, in “Ship in Mutiny,” had nary a worry at all about escaping a British warship that was hunting him down.

Emblematic of Clanton’s desperation is his isolation from his natural element --the sea. The first pair of Clanton tales takes place in the South Seas, the second pair in Oriental port cities. “Desert Blood” takes place further inland, but only a hundred miles or so. “Murderer’s Grog,” on the other hand, is set far from any ocean. We are told that Clanton came to India from Russia, bringing his guns by camel train all the way through landlocked Afghanistan. “Desert Blood” contains a number of references to his identity as a seafarer. Clanton is “a man of the sea” whose face is “browned by the sun of the Seven Seas.” In “Murderer’s Grog,” however, there is but a lone fleeting mention of him walking with “the lurching roll of a seaman” as he heads off in search of liquor to drown his misery.

Clanton begins the series as a rogue and ends as a scoundrel. His later behavior is certain to be regarded as reprehensible by many modern readers, especially if they’re women. Naturally enough, he receives no comeuppance in stories written for the spicy pulps of yesteryear. Still, in “Murderer’s Grog,” he seems a man without a future. Given his drinking binges and repeated head injuries, he may well end up the toughest mug in the nursing home.

Howard began writing spicy stories as Sam Walser late in his career for purely commercial reasons. At the same time, he was busy with other projects as well. His humorous western tales of Breckinridge Elkins were popular with readers of Action Stories, and he created similar westerns for other magazines. Shortly before his death he sold the first installments in a new western series that had been commissioned by the editor of the prestigious and high-paying Argosy. Ultimately he was successful in recouping his finances. June 1936 saw Howard stories published in no less than five different magazines --Action Stories, Cowboy Stories, Spicy-Adventure Stories, Thrilling Mystery, and Weird Tales. In “Lone Star Fictioneer,” an essay recounting Howard’s writing career published in The Last Celt, Glenn Lord notes, “By the spring of 1936, he was enjoying an all-time high in sales.” David Drake echoes this fact in his introduction to the Howard paperback collection Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors, observing, “By 1936, Howard was selling regularly to Argosy, one of the top three pulp markets of the day. Robert E. Howard was thirty years old, and his career was about to take off.”

By most accounts, then, Howard’s career was back on track. But how did Howard himself feel about it? In another letter to Novalyne Price, written in late February 1936, he speaks of “my mother’s life ebbing away before my eyes, with my father breaking up and aging before me with the worry and strain we both labor under, and I myself faced with the wreckage of all my life’s plans and labors, and the utter ruin of my career.” (emphasis added) The fact that he went on to take his life a few months later indicates that Howard’s mood did not improve along with his finances. Perhaps money was not everything. Tales of heroic fantasy Howard written a year or more before were still appearing in Weird Tales. Now, these only served to remind him of his glory days.

The fiction of Robert E. Howard is for the most part lacking in misogynistic elements. Not so the fiction of Sam Walser. In the vast range of fiction Howard wrote under his own name, whenever a woman suffers, we are most often meant to feel empathy. This holds true whether in the case of the sadistic abuse of Joan in the horror story “Pigeons from Hell,” or in regards to the terror experienced by Yasmina at the hands of the Master of Yimsha in the Conan adventure, “The People of the Black Circle.” But in one of Howard’s final stories, “Murderer’s Grog,” we find the author in a bitter mood indeed. In the spring of 1936, Robert E. Howard saw the world becoming a very dark place. On June 11, he turned out the last light as he left it.

Guns of the Border Region -- Chapter Three

[The novel Guns of the Border Region is now nearing completion, so I decided to post another chapter. It takes place in the future history I've outlined in Twilight's Last Gleaming. New readers can scroll down for previous chapters of the novel. It's a work in progress; I've moved a little of the information from Chapter One to this chapter, since posting that chapter. You can also scroll down to read various portions of the future history, or a short version of the entire history. With the novel, I'm attempting to package my ideas in an entertaining, commercially viable form. The story takes place in the next century after the US has broken apart, and concerns the exploits of the sexy girl outlaw Shadow and her encounters with various dangerous characters. Think of it as "The Road Warrior" meets "Pulp Fiction." Copyright 2009 by Charles Hoffman.

CHAPTER THREE -- INDIAN SUMMER

Weirton was, if anything, an even wilder and rougher town than Steubenville, but Shadow and Christian tried to stay out of trouble. They planned to spend the following day and another night there to rest up before finally heading into Westsylvania.

Having checked into the Gilman during the dark hours before dawn, they slept till well past noon. Upon arising the oddly-matched pair went to a late lunch. On Shadow’s recommendation, they ate at a small diner on the main drag with a full deli counter. The place was called Isaly’s, and like everything else in Weirton, it was old. Upon entering Christian took note of the chrome fixtures and the small marble tiles of the floor, mentally identifying the deli’s furnishings as late art deco or mid 20th Century modern.

Shadow ordered sandwiches of some pinkish-colored luncheon meat, sliced paper thin, that she referred to as “chipped ham.” Christian was not familiar with it, but it seemed to Shadow that it was to his liking. Just to make sure, she asked, “Enjoying your lunch, Church-boy?”

Christian looked at her oddly, as though annoyed, but didn’t reply with his mouth full. Instead, he just nodded.

Shadow’s plans for the evening involved taking Christian to a series of dive bars. They would keep to the background. Shadow wasn’t looking for more action; she merely wanted to point out to Christian how things went down in those places. If they were to be traveling together, she wanted him to acquire more in the way of street awareness.

Entering the first such place, she guided him to a small table in a dimly-lit area near the back. The location commanded a good view of the entire place, including exits, and limited the directions from which others could approach them. Shadow instructed Christian to wait at the table. She returned momentarily with two beers.
“I don’t actually drink,” he told her.

“You were drinking last night.”

“I was trying to blend in.”

“Well, try blending in some more. Drink up, Church-boy.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Don’t all you people in the Confederacy go to church all the time?”

“Not all the time. What about you?”

Shadow quaffed part of her beer before answering. “I’ve seen a lot of bad shit, sonny. If there’s a God he can kiss my rosy red ass.”

“Does everyone in the Border Region feel that way?”

“Nah, most of `em are Christian. They’re just not nuts about it.”

Christian didn’t deign to reply to this last remark. He had been praying for her last night, when she’d burst in on him, but he didn’t tell her that.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Shadow informed him, “I have good friends among the Amish.” The comment was aimed at smoothing things over. That was unusual for her. Normally, if people didn’t like something she said, they could go fuck themselves. Suddenly angry at herself, she felt moved to add, “And besides, I had plenty of your good Christian brethren come over from the Confederacy to buy my wares.”

“What sort of wares?” Christian gasped, paling as though this might be something he really didn’t care to hear about.

“Marijuana,” she said flatly, “That’s what I did all summer before heading back home by way of Wheeling. I was growing and selling pot in Transylvania.”
If Christian felt any disapproval concerning the actual revelation, it didn‘t show on his face. Instead he simply remarked, “I never understood why that part of the Border Region was called ‘Transylvania.’ The name makes me think of the one in Europe. You know…”

“Ah, yes. ‘Land of dark forests, dread mountains and black unfathomed lakes,’” Shadow replied playfully, quoting from some movie she had seen, “The home of Count Dracula.” Then her tone became more somber. “Too bad the real Dracula isn’t still around.”

Christian nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. The historical Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, had actually ruled the neighboring kingdom of Wallachia. A warrior prince, he had expelled the Muslim forces of the Ottoman Empire from the regions that later became Romania. Not that it had mattered in the long run. Romania and its neighbors east, west, north and south had all ultimately been subsumed into the Islamic Federation of Europe, the leviathan that had smashed the Old Union
Christian finally took that drink. “So how did ‘Transylvania’ get to be the name of what used to be the northern part of Kentucky of all places?” he asked.
Shadow explained. “Transylvania”, which simply meant “the land beyond the forest,” had been the name of a short-lived colony in the 18th Century. It had been established in the region later known as Kentucky. The Transylvania Colony had been founded by Richard Henderson in 1775, after he purchased the land from the local Indians. The area had been explored by no less a trailblazer than Daniel Boone himself. In the following year 1776, however, Virginia, which then claimed all lands to its west, invalidated Henderson’s purchase. Otherwise, Transylvania might have become a fourteenth colony and one of the original United States. A college named Transylvania University was founded in Lexington, Kentucky (later Lexington, Transylvania) in 1780, and famous alumni included Stephen Austin and Jefferson Davis. It was still in operation, and Shadow had visited the campus. By the late 21st Century, following the aftermath of World War III, the northern counties of Kentucky were commonly seen as part of the Border Region. When the Old Union was formally dissolved, they seceded from their parent state and adopted the old name of Transylvania.

Shadow went on to explain a little more about her livelihood, in an effort to forestall any further misunderstandings on Christian’s part. She had staked out some land deep in the woods of a remote rural county in western Transylvania to cultivate her marijuana crop. This was not a problem with such local authorities as existed in the sparsely inhabited region. She had selected the area with that in mind, but a more important consideration was its proximity to the Confederacy states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas. There was little to prevent pot-smokers in outlying rural areas of the Border Region from growing their own supply, which they also commonly used in barter. While some of Shadow’s customers did hail from the Region, the majority were Confederates in search of forbidden fruit. Among the latter, the more daring ones smuggled their purchases back home. However, it was also common to hole up in a rundown motel or some such place within the Border Region for weekend pot parties. That way they steered clear of possible discovery and censure by their more righteous neighbors and peers back home, which would entail denunciation from the pulpit as well as legal consequences.

During the growing season, Shadow lived an isolated backwoods existence. That was why she had been eager to go on a tear in Wheeling, to relieve the pent-up tension of long, lonely months. Not that she had been a total hermit; there had been visits to such taverns as could be found along the rural roads and in the tiny hamlets that dotted the region. And she had neighbors close by, a gay couple occupying a small cabin. In return for a cut of the profits, they helped Shadow out and kept an eye on things when she was abroad during the off-season.

It was important to have partners. After all, it was not like Shadow had the drug trade to herself. There were others in nearby areas who would be happy to force her out, alive or dead, and grab her share of the market. Therefore she had wisely invested in things like guard dogs and night vision goggles, not to mention a shit-load of weapons.

In undertaking these measures, Shadow was merely exercising reasonable caution. She was not unduly worried about a drug war breaking out. Most of the other dealers concentrated on the manufacture and sale of harder drugs, something Shadow wanted no part of. That being the case, she was not in direct competition with them. The hard drug trade was both easier and more profitable. Still, its appeal was limited to the rougher outlaw elements of the Border Region. Shadow’s marijuana, on the other hand, was sought by the sort of mostly-respectable, fairly well-to-do Confederacy citizen that would give a wide berth to anything harder. That was a market worth getting a piece of, so Shadow did have some cause for concern. Therefore she had entered into a mutual-defense pact with other small-time marijuana growers in the region. It was important for her, her partners, and her associates to maintain a strong posture, so as not to tempt rivals by appearing weak. In the absence of that temptation, the status quo would be maintained and peace would prevail.

An outbreak of drug violence was something to be avoided. It would cause nearby Confederates to shun the Border Region like the plague, thus defeating the purpose of seizing the local marijuana trade. It would also force the local militia of the western Transylvania counties to band together to settle the matter. In doing so they would eschew such niceties as arrests and trials and so forth. No one wanted that.

Shadow gauged Christian’s reactions as she explained all this. He just sat quietly, taking it all in. That was good; he knew when to talk and when to listen. Based on what she had observed of him so far, she pegged him as naïve and clueless, but a fast learner. She now commenced to continue his education in the ways of the world.
Their vantage point in the bar afforded them a good view of the various patrons. Shadow instructed Christian in regards to the different types that frequented such places, explaining what their mannerisms and quirks revealed about them. She started with the fairly obvious; the loud drunk and the quiet drunk. In her opinion, loud drunks were basically insecure, needing to prove to themselves that they were having a good time. Insecurity was indicative of other personality problems, which could be a source of trouble. From there she described the various levels of intoxication, from buzzed to plastered, and how judgment and motor skills were affected at each level. She added her personal observations, such as how whiskey drunks were meaner than beer drunks. The real players in the outlaw trade were better at holding their booze. Shadow explained some more of the differences between pros and amateurs. Amateurs tended to be heedless; pros were always observant.

Taking their leave of the first joint, they moved on to one with more action. There Shadow taught Christian the basics of body language, as well as what various tattoos and modes of dress revealed about an individual’s personality, group affiliation, and culture. The second place also had gambling and more women. Therefore it was a perfect laboratory for the study of how fights broke out. Hardcore troublemakers, those who went out looking to indulge their penchant for mayhem, would start the ball rolling on the flimsiest of pretexts. These could be spotted a mile off, and an experienced street-fighter would be prepared for anything they might throw at them. The unwary, however, could be drawn into a violent confrontation without even realizing they were headed that way. This could come about whether the other guy had started out looking for trouble or not. Immersed in that volatile witches’ brew of booze, women, money, and a highly-charged atmosphere, egos grew large and tempers grew short.

Shadow now explained the difference between fights and combat. Fights were to establish dominance. People could and did get injured in them, sometimes severely, occasionally fatally. But there was a certain code about these things. Once a clear victor emerged, it was over and the matter settled. The former foes might even end up drinking together. Combat was a different story, however. Once somebody pulled a gun or a knife --and nearly everyone in Weirton was packing something-- it was combat, a matter of life or death. When it got to that point, the proprietor would usually haul out a sawed-off shotgun from behind the bar, force everyone to settle down, and eject the troublemakers. Every now and then some hardcore psycho would start shit looking to make a kill. These were rare cases; once someone acquired the psycho reputation, their days were numbered. Some civic-minded individual would take said psycho down by bushwhacking him when no one else was around.

Life-and-death combats were far from nightly occurrences in the vice dens of the Border Region, even in Weirton. The norm was the so-called “friendly” brawl, although such a fracas could hardly be described as a good clean fight. Shadow hoped Christian would catch a live demonstration of one here tonight, and so he did. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, it was as a participant, not a spectator.
They were at the bar ordering drinks when a guy came over and started hitting on Shadow. He either hadn’t noticed Christian, or didn’t care. Clad in jeans and a leather vest that left his thickly-muscled arms bare, he looked to be a typical Weirton tough. As such, his pick-up banter left much to be desired.

“Hiya, babe. Haven’t seen you before. People around here call me Big Jim.”

“Really?” Shadow replied coolly. “Big Jim” was actually only average height, and therefore shorter than Shadow. She devoutly hoped that he wasn’t going to explain that his nickname actually referred to his dick.

If Big Jim took notice of her icy tone, he gave no indication of it. “Waddaya say you and me grab ourselves a cozy little booth and get to know each other better?”

“Uh, thanks, but I’m already with someone.”

Big Jim raised an eyebrow as he looked Christian over. With his clean-cut looks and square-john duds, the latter looked as out of place as if he were wearing a powder blue tuxedo and had gotten lost on the way to the prom.

“Who’s this, your kid brother?” Jim snarled. “Why don’t you lose this wimp and get with a real man?”

“Because I’d rather fuck my kid brother,” she told him.

“Okay skank, fuck you. I don’t need skunk pussy like you anyway. Adios, bitch.”

Big Jim turned to walk away. Just then Shadow was startled to hear another voice ring out sharply at her side, cutting through the bar’s din.

“That is no way to speak to a lady! You, sir, are no gentleman!”

It was Church-boy, sure enough. Thanks, Big Mouth, Shadow thought, Now I’m going to have to fight this asshole to get you out of this.

Big Jim turned back towards them, grinning. “Yeah, and what are you gonna do about it?”

In answer, Christian stepped back smoothly into a boxing stance, chin lowered, guard raised, bobbing lightly on his feet. Shadow was surprised. Clearly the boy had some training. (He later informed her that he had “boxed a little in college.”) The crowd cleared a space for them as Big Jim advanced.

As he stomped forward, Big Jim cocked back his fist to deliver a roundhouse right. He thought so little of his opponent that he was going for a one-punch knockout. Christian glided in to meet him, putting him off his stride with two quick left jabs to the kisser. Catching on quickly that kid brother had some moves, Big Jim danced back in time to avoid the right cross Christian launched as a follow-up.

First blood to Church-boy, Shadow thought, watching with the other bystanders. But she knew that his moment of glory was destined to be short-lived. Christian was fighting like he was in the ring. In actuality he was moving about on a concrete floor slippery with spilled drinks, hemmed in by the crowd, with broken glass here and there as well as hard furnishings to trip over and fall against. Moreover, his opponent could hardly be expected to abide by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. Shadow realized, to her horror, that Christian probably didn’t even know enough to guard against a ball shot. It was true that Big Jim would be in hot water if he allowed a trained boxer to get up to speed. The trouble was that no street-fighter worth his salt was going to let that happen.

Big Jim renewed his attack, unclenching his fists and wading back in with open hands. Going for the grapple, Shadow thought. Nor was she wrong. Jim knew that if he went in fast, grabbed kid brother and hurled him to the ground, it wouldn’t matter how good a boxer the kid was.

With no room to backpeddle, Christian had no choice but to try to intercept his opponent. Stepping up, he attempted to nail Jim with a straight punch to the face. Jim deflected the blow by swatting it aside, then grabbed Christian’s shirt front with both hands and jerked him roughly off balance. He kicked at Christian’s instep, causing him to tumble to the floor. Christian went down hard, but twisted to avoid striking his head against the floor. He was momentarily stunned, and Big Jim gave him no time to recover his wits much less regain his feet. Christian could only curl into a ball as Jim commenced to viciously kick and stomp him. Wearing heavy boots, Jim would be able to grind his fallen foe into paste in fairly short order.

He doubtless would have done so had not Shadow intervened. She began to move the second Christian hit the floor and was on Big Jim in a flash. She smashed the heel of her open palm into the side of Jim’s head to loosen him up, then flipped him onto the bar and rained hammer-fists onto his upturned face until he stopped squirming. It was a simple technique, crude but effective; she struck with the bottom of her clenched fist over and over just like she was pounding a table. Big Jim slid off the bar and dropped to the floor like a sack of manure. Christian had already risen, and Shadow’s quick inspection found no signs of serious injury.

Shadow decided to call it a night after that. She knew that she ought to be mad at Christian, but couldn’t bring herself to rebuke him. For one thing, she’d learned that Church-boy wasn’t a total creampuff. And there was something else she had noticed. Big Jim had belittled Christian, and Christian had let it slide. It had only been when Jim had insulted her that Christian had called him out. She couldn’t help but feel touched by that.

Back at the hotel, Shadow examined Christian more closely for cuts, abrasions and signs of a concussion. He stubbornly refused to take his underwear off, but she still considered the examination satisfactory.

Before they retired to their separate rooms, she kissed him goodnight. She felt that he ought to be kissed since he had just lost his bar fight cherry.

#

They cleared out of Weirton the next morning. Christian’s face was unmarked from the fight, but the side of his body was one big bruise. Pulled muscles made bike riding difficult. Shadow had some first aid supplies in one of her saddle bags, including a variety of meds. She gave him a pill that made the pain go far, far away. Then they headed east on old Route 22.

The Weirton city limits ended at the state line. Once they were out of town, they were in Westsylvania. At last, Shadow thought contentedly, There’s no place like home. Once Weirton had fallen behind them, Shadow relaxed. She even allowed Christian to see her smile.

The weather was warm and sultry. Shadow rode without her duster. A few weeks earlier, it had been rather chilly. Now the sun blazed hotly in a clear cobalt sky, illuminating the autumn foliage of the surrounding countryside. Leaves of bright yellow, deep reds, vivid orange and gold dazzled the sight. The scent of new-mown hay was in the air. Occasionally one saw patches of pumpkins and squash. Indian summer had come to Westsylvania.

After several miles of gradual uphill travel they reached a high crest. Shadow reined in her horse at the side of the road but did not dismount. Christian stopped alongside her. He thought she looked magnificent sitting there astride the stallion, but Shadow directed his gaze elsewhere. With a wave of her hand, she indicated the landscape stretching out below. It was a patchwork of hills, woods and farmland dotted with a few tiny hamlets. The riot of autumn colors created a breathtaking vista.

“Take a look, Churchy,” she told him, “October in Westsylvania will make you feel great to be alive.”

So will spring in North Carolina, Christian thought to himself. And to his surprise he felt a sudden longing to show it to her one day. For now, though, he had to admit that these rolling hills, painted in their sere autumn leaves, were a glorious sight. The land possessed a vibrant natural beauty distinct even from the wilds of West Virginia he had passed through.

For Shadow, this was the best time to be back. Westsylvania autumn eased the mind and warmed the heart. She considered it a form of recompense. Summer and winter here toughened the spirit. The region had long been known for its brutal temperature extremes. Humid sweltering summers followed bitter cold winters, sometimes seeming to skip spring altogether. It was a climate that had felled many a pioneer. Shadow’s own childhood memories of summer were crowded with rank weeds and maddening insects. For every fond memory of a snowy winter wonderland, there were a dozen more of when there was no snow --just frigid rain, icy winds and blasting sleet. Then the land had looked as cold and dark, hard and barren as a lump of coal. Autumn, however, always brought to her a somber sense of peace, as though she had come home to some golden Valhalla.

Shadow and Christian continued on their way, taking their time. They stopped at stores, motels and diners along the way so Christian could inquire about his runaway girlfriend, Angel. Shadow told him this would be a good place to begin his search. Meadville and Erie were due north. Both were located in the narrow corridor, still part of old Pennsylvania, that linked the Islamic states of the Northeast to those of the Midwest. Using either Meadville or Erie as a jumping-off point, Angel could head east towards New York or west towards Chicago. Assuming, of course, that her ultimate destination lay within the Islamic States of America.

Shadow gauged Christian’s reaction to the notion and watched his face grow dark with repressed anger. Ah ha! She had known he was holding back the whole story, and had suspected something of the sort. To her mind, Christianity could be strict and repressive enough for anyone. Even so, she knew that many women and men converted to Islam because of a need for “structure,” whatever the hell that was. Shadow refused to waste time even thinking about what they meant by that. Instead, she thought about the saccharine little candy-ass in the picture Christian had shown her. “Angel” looked like just the sort to walk right over a nice guy like Christian to get to some bastard who would treat her like shit. Some women were like that.

Rather than upset Christian further, Shadow kept these last thoughts to herself. They spent the night in an old abandoned house, one of the many to be found in semi-rural areas of the Border Region. Inside, they gathered broken bits of wooden furniture and heaped it in the fireplace along with fallen branches from the yard. It caught fire easily, and Christian and Shadow unrolled their sleeping bags before the crackling blaze. They retired after a simple foodpaste supper. Shadow slept lightly as always, ears alert for intruders. Of course, the horse tethered out back would raise a ruckus if anything came around, but Shadow’s habit of light sleeping was deeply ingrained.

Christian awoke the next morning to find that Shadow had risen some time previous. “I’ve fed and watered Incitatus,” she told him, “We need to get going.” She now informed him of their next destination. She would be heading into downtown Pittsburgh to take care of some business. Christian’s curiosity was piqued. Greater Pittsburgh, which encompassed all of Allegheny County and some adjacent regions, was arguably the most eminent of the Border Region’s so-called “city-states.” Downtown Pittsburgh itself would be the largest urban area Christian would encounter since leaving the Confederacy.

As they were preparing to depart, Christian noticed Shadow packing both her gun and her bowie knife into one of her horse’s saddlebags. In the major city-states, law and order held far stronger sway than in the outlying regions. Shadow, however, never went anywhere completely naked of weapons. She carried a small but deadly Spyderco folding knife clipped to her pants waist and concealed by her utility belt.
Shortly after setting out, the travelers took their leave of the main route they had been traversing. Further on, it had been rendered impassible during the war and remained closed to this day. They proceeded instead along Noblestown Road, a long narrow byway that wound its way through the hills and suburbs.

Presently Shadow and Christian entered the Pittsburgh city limits. They approached the downtown area through a section called West End. The buildings along the main drag here were old, but the activity and commerce Christian observed conveyed a sense of renewal. He looked forward to seeing the heart of the city, but as yet the downtown area still remained hidden by the surrounding hills.

At length they passed beneath a railroad bridge at a place called West End Circle to emerge onto a busy highway that ran along the banks of the Ohio River. Since reaching the greater Pittsburgh area, Christian had begun to notice more motor vehicles on the roads. Most were official and emergency vehicles powered by the latest generation of hybrid engines. There were numerous horse-drawn and peddle-powered conveyances as well. The pair merged into the traffic swarming along the thoroughfare.

Up ahead, in the vast triangle where the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers formed the Ohio, lay downtown Pittsburgh. The travelers paused by the roadside for a few minutes to better appreciate their view of the Pittsburgh skyline. It was a new sight to Christian, but not to Shadow. Her grandfather had come from Pittsburgh. In his day the city’s skyline had been dominated by the sixty-story rust-colored shaft of the U.S. Steel Building. Shadow’s grandfather considered the long-ago demise of Pittsburgh’s steel industry a milestone that heralded the decline of the Old Union. The Steel Building suffered serious structural damage during the War. Shadow’s grandfather had lived to see it demolished.

Now the most imposing structure on the Pittsburgh skyline was the massive complex that Christian mentally dubbed “the Black Castle.” Consisting of a central forty-story tower surrounded by smaller buildings of matching design, the complex was a neo-Gothic fortress constructed of black glass. For all its sharp angles and smooth glossy surfaces, it suggested the spires and battlements of some strange castle to be found on an alien world. Since the glass was opaque from the outside, the buildings had no visible windows. Shadow informed Christian that the complex was actually called PPG Place, and that it had been built as the corporate headquarters of a major glass company. Construction had been completed in 1984. To Christian, the Black Castle looked as though it had been hewn by giants from cyclopean cliffs of jet or obsidian, then honed and polished to a high gloss.

He was still staring at the Black Castle when Shadow spurred Incitatus into motion. Christian followed the great stallion on his bicycle. Their route took them along the shadowy base of Mt. Washington and onto the Fort Pitt Bridge. The bridge led over the Monongahela River and into downtown Pittsburgh. At one time a tunnel through the mountain had opened onto the bridge, providing direct access to the downtown area from communities to the south. The Fort Pitt Tunnel had been collapsed during the War, however, and never rebuilt. Now travelers were forced to circumvent Mt. Washington by various alternate routes.

Crossing over the bridge, Christian felt a sense of relief upon reaching a major outpost of civilization. The bridge led directly onto Liberty Avenue, one of the downtown area’s main arteries. As Christian and Shadow made their way up the street, he noticed that an older mode of transportation, the trolley, had made a comeback. Throngs of pedestrians crowded busy sidewalks. Christian mentally likened the scene to Renaissance Italy, when a vital new culture began to emerge amidst the ruins of a fallen empire.

The pair proceeded uptown several blocks to a multi-level parking garage, part of which had been converted to stables. There Shadow corralled the pinto and Christian stowed his bicycle. They passed a number of automobiles parked on a different level of the same structure. Some of the makes and models were unfamiliar to Christian, and he pointed these out to Shadow.

“ISA imports,” she remarked, “Say what you want about the Islamic States, but some of the best cars in the world are coming out of Detroit these days.”
After departing the garage, the pair headed back down Liberty Avenue on foot. Shadow led the way. She took Christian down a side street into a small park-like square surrounded by various taverns, eateries and market places. “This is Market Square,” she informed him, “The whole Border Region actually got its start here.”
Shadow recounted how the first small demonstration protesting the adoption of Islamic law in Pennsylvania had assembled in the square. From this had sprung the Westsylvania secession movement. Christian had, of course, read of the Pennsylvania Uprising. He recalled how the old state of Pennsylvania had been torn asunder by rioting and rebellion which spread to other affected states following the Special Election of 2081.

Christian pointed to a curious blue flag fluttering on a nearby flagpole. In the center of the blue field was the emblem of an eagle, surrounded by thirteen six-pointed stars. “I saw that flag a lot in West Virginia too,” he said. Shadow explained that the flag had originated in the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, when farmers of the Western Pennsylvania frontier had revolted against an excise tax on whiskey levied by the George Washington administration. During the Pennsylvania Uprising nearly three centuries later, the Whiskey Rebellion flag was carried by Freedom Marchers marching on the state capital of Harrisburg. In the following decades, it came to be flown from Transylvania to Westsylvania as kind of an unofficial flag of the Border Region.

From Market Square they proceeded to PPG Place, the “Black Castle” that Christian had found so ominous. As they crossed the vast open courtyard, Christian gaped pensively at the smooth black glass walls that loomed up eerily about him. He wondered what business Shadow had in such a place.

As it turned out, she had an account at a bank branch located within the complex. It was here that she deposited a good portion of the rather large sum of cash she had been carrying in her utility belt. The New American Confederacy, the Free Republic of Alaska, and the Border Region all made use of a common currency (the “American Dollar”), although in practice the currency of the Islamic States was also commonly accepted in transactions in northern parts of the Border Region. Shadow had a number of bank accounts here and there in the more civilized parts of the Region. Elsewhere she had buried hidden caches of jewelry and silver dollars from the Old Union.

At the bank, Christian deposited two thousand dollars into Shadow’s account --payment for two weeks of service as guide and bodyguard. He had ample funds loaded onto cards that could be used in the manner of old-time travelers’ checks. He also used one of his cards to withdraw some cash. Online banking was pretty much a thing of the past in most of the Border Region. During the War, telecommunications networks had been devastated, both by direct enemy action and sabotage, as thoroughly as the physical infrastructure. Afterwards, Federal recovery aid was cut to the rebellious areas that eventually formed the Border Region. Now the extent of telecommunications and other basic services varied widely from county to county. There were local intranets in operation, but only the largest population centers had full access to the world-wide web.

After their banking was completed, Shadow took Christian to lunch at a place called the Oyster House on Market Square. The place was actually an incredibly ancient tavern with some tables for diners. Furnishings were of old, darkly stained wood adorned with brass fixtures. The walls were decorated with framed group photographs of contestants in the Miss America Pageant. This was a beauty contest that had been held annually throughout the 20th Century in Atlantic City, now a part of the Islamic States of America. Shadow informed her companion that the Oyster House was actually the oldest restaurant in Pittsburgh and had long been famed for its giant-sized fish sandwiches.

Christian expressed surprise that seafood was available so far into the Border Region. “Pittsburgh gets a lot of stuff shipped in by rail,” she told him, “A lot of railway routes were wrecked during the War. Horseshoe Curve to the east of here was totally demolished, for instance, and new routes had to go around it. Of course, the rail lines pass through some pretty dark territory without much in the way of law and order. So the rail barons made arrangements with authorities in some of the Podunk counties to house private security personnel on their turf to protect the railroad interests. It’s something I might look into when I get too old for this shit and want a regular job. But I can’t believe how much Pittsburgh is booming. It’s even bigger now than when I was through here just last year.”

Corporations had discovered that there were benefits to doing business in the Border Region. In Pittsburgh they could take advantage of a free-wheeling Hong Kong-type environment free for the most part from burdensome regulations and restrictions. They were also poised to conduct commerce with both the Christian South and the Islamic North, as the Confederacy and the ISA were commonly referred to in the Border Region. The Region’s most vital urban centers were Pittsburgh, the largest city in Westsylvania; Cincinnati, located at the convergence of southern Ohio, southern Indiana and Transylvania; and Wheeling, the crossroads boomtown in West Virginia’s northern panhandle.

After lunch, Shadow and Christian took up the search for Christian’s runaway sweetheart. Once again Shadow felt like telling him that it was a stupid waste of time, a totally random scattershot approach to what amounted to a hunt for a needle in a haystack. But she didn’t. What the hell do you care? she asked herself, You’re getting paid.

At her suggestion, they checked in with local law enforcement. Angel had taken off of her own free will and there was no law against an adult doing that, so they kept mum about the details and identified her as a “missing person.” Christian showed his pictures and furnished other vital information. Neither the Pittsburgh Police nor the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Department found any data to indicate that Angel had been processed by the local courts, jails, or hospitals. This reduced somewhat the possibility that she had come to harm or fallen in with serious bad company.

Shadow and Christian spent the night in a downtown fleabag called the Edison Hotel. The concierge was obviously bewildered by Christian’s insistence on separate rooms. The first floor of the hotel housed a small strip club. Before they turned in, Shadow suggested showing Angel’s pictures to the management and the strippers on the off chance that any of them had information concerning her. Christian adamantly refused to even consider the notion. “My fiancée wouldn’t associate with women like that!” he snorted.

“Shouldn’t that be ex-fiancée, Church-boy?” she snapped back, angry and offended. She thought, You stupid naïve little twinkie. Do really think that that prissy stick-up-her-ass little bitch of yours is as pure as the driven snow? She said, “Look, it’s pretty obvious you don’t know her as well as you thought you did. You’d be surprised where a chick on the run will turn. Now I know it’s past your bedtime, so why don’t you turn in? I’m going down to the bar for a drink. I’ll be up in a little bit.”

#

By the following morning, Shadow was over her anger. She took Christian to breakfast at a nearby coffee shop called the White Tower to make up. She didn’t bother to tell him about how she had filled in for one of the strippers who didn’t show up for work and had raked in some more dough.

Afterwards, they took their leave of downtown Pittsburgh and proceeded on horse and bike to the city’s Oakland district. Most of Pittsburgh’s universities and colleges were located in Oakland. Christian had proved somewhat more agreeable to Shadow’s recommendation that they make inquiries at local chapters of Angel’s sorority than he had concerning her previous suggestion about the strip club. Upon reaching Oakland, Christian expressed curiosity concerning the only really tall building thereabouts. Shadow informed him that it was called the Cathedral of Learning and was the central structure of the vast University of Pittsburgh campus. To Christian’s mind the Cathedral was aptly named; it was a forty-story skyscraper built in the late Gothic revival style. He hoped to examine it more closely. In his teens Christian had aspired to become an architect, but had caved in to parental pressure to follow a safer career path.

In addition to the sorority chapters, they checked with various campus organizations and examined a number of bulletin boards. They spent two days in Oakland, uncovering no leads but enjoying the college environment. Shadow turned Christian on to the delights of the crunchy natural-casing frankfurter at a place called Original Hot Dog, popular with students. Afterwards they went to the nearby Carnegie Museum to view dinosaur fossils.

This is too much like a date, Shadow thought to herself. Time to head back into the boonies.

#

The next day they were on the road again, Shadow astride Incitatus and Christian pedaling his bicycle. Shadow’s gun and bowie knife were once more secure in their accustomed places on her belt. They were headed east into an uncommonly picturesque rural region called the Laurel Highlands. Here the autumn foliage seemed to Christian even more resplendent than that which he had seen thus far. They passed vineyards and apple orchards, saw rows of sheaves and yellow cornstalks where harvest was being gathered. Smoke curled from cottage and farmhouse chimneys. They were not all that far out of Pittsburgh, but to Christian it was as though the city lie a million miles behind them and existed in another age.

Christian felt moved to comment on the patchwork nature of the Border Region, how it encompassed teeming, fairly modern city-states, isolated primitive backwaters, and everything in between. This brought a smile from Shadow.

“Yeah, it’s not this or that,” she said, “It’s something else. I guess that’s why they call it the Border Region.”

As they passed through the outskirts of a town called Latrobe, Christian noted a pleasant yeasty scent that hung in the air all around.

“That’s hops,” Shadow informed him, “From the brewery. This is where they make 33.”

“33?”

“That beer you were swilling the other night.”

During the 20th Century, the Latrobe Brewery had produced a pale lager called Rolling Rock. Originally a local brew, it grew in popularity and came to be distributed throughout the Old Union. Early in the 21st Century a major national brewing company had purchased the Rolling Rock brand name and moved production of the beer to New Jersey. Now, over a hundred years later, New Jersey was part of the Islamic States of America. No alcoholic beverages, including the ersatz Rolling Rock, were produced there any longer. About twenty years ago, however, a group of enterprising Westsylvanians had refurbished and reopened the old Latrobe Brewery. The beer they made there was brewed identically to the original Rolling Rock. The name of their brew derived from the enigmatic number “33” that had appeared on Rolling Rock bottles.

Skirting Latrobe, the travelers headed further into the Laurel Highlands. Their trek took them due east. Less than two days ride brought them within sight of Johnstown. They spent the night in a nearby motel, turning in early. They lit out for Johnstown shortly after daybreak.

Johnstown was an old community, and glancing at its many extant ancient structures Christian and Shadow alike felt its vast age. Once it had been a vital part of the Old Union’s industrial heartland, a major producer of steel before Pittsburgh opened its first mill. With the waning of the steel age, Johnstown, like so much of the area, collapsed into rust and ruin. But unlike Weirton and Steubenville, there was also a sense of renewal here.

Manufacturers of various products had in recent years opened branch plants in Johnstown and environs. Christian was duly impressed by the presence of well-known companies, headquartered in Atlanta and other commercial centers in the Confederacy, who ran facilities here and elsewhere in Westsylvania. It was part of an emerging trend in the Border Region. With so many of the old major roads of the Region still in a state of disrepair, and with no central government to facilitate reconstruction, there was a need to circumvent the long-distance transportation of goods. The establishment of numerous small manufacturing facilities here and there saw that local areas were well-supplied. Places like Johnstown stood to benefit. Johnstown, including its satellite communities in Cambria County, was starting to come into its own as a minor city-state.

Christian and Shadow made the usual inquiries concerning Angel with local authorities, and with local businesses catering to travelers, with the usual negative results. The next day they were on their way again. This time their route veered north-by-northeast through increasingly mountainous terrain, towards Altoona.
Their journey took them past the ruins of Horseshoe Curve, just five miles west of Altoona. Here, as the name implied, a railroad line had looped through a rugged mountainside area that encircled a small valley on three sides. The rail line had originally been established to link the eastern and western portions of the old state of Pennsylvania, and Horseshoe Curve had been constructed with great difficulty. An impressive engineering feat, it had been targeted for destruction by saboteurs during the Second World War of the 20th Century. During the Third World War of 2079, enemy agents finally succeeded in burying Horseshoe Curve in an avalanche.

Shadow and Christian arrived in Altoona the following morning and spent the day there. Altoona, like Johnstown, was beginning to emerge as a small Westsylvania city-state. During dinner at a small local diner, Christian wondered aloud what would happen if Johnstown and Altoona pooled their resources.

“They have, to a certain extent,” Shadow told him, “A lot of neighboring fiefdoms form mutual aid alliances for things like emergency services and law enforcement. That’s not unusual at all. Commerce is a little different, though. Altoona and Johnstown have worked together to improve the roads between them, and done some other stuff. Conceivably they could grow into one big metro area and maybe even rival Pittsburgh someday.”

“What’s stopping them?” asked Christian.

“Politics. They’re in two different counties, so that means two different sets of county commissioners, in addition to the two mayors. You have to look at the nature of the Border Region as a whole. West Virginia is the only part of it where there’s a central state government. That’s because West Virginia was an entire state of the Old Union that opted out of the New American Confederacy. It was commonly seen as culturally part of the Border Region anyway, and when the Union was formally dissolved, that made it official. West Virginia is practically a sovereign nation almost, with the governor as its president, but everywhere else in the Region --Westsylvania, Transylvania, southern Ohio, South Indiana, South Illinois-- the biggest political entity, geographically speaking, is the county. When you cross a county line here, you’re basically entering a separate little mini-nation. That makes for some interesting ramifications.

“In rural counties where you just have these little flyspeck communities like Podunk and West Bumfuck, the county commissioners hold sway. But in Allegheny County, for example, the Mayor of Pittsburgh is the big boss. The Allegheny County Commissioners may try to wrest power from a weak mayor, or try to put their own man in the office. This is like a red flag, though, and the opposition parties are quick to make political hay out of it. As a rule, though, you don’t find weak mayors in Pittsburgh. Elections involve a lot of in-fighting, and when the dust settles the strongest guy standing gets the job. Last year the Mayor attended this big conference with the Governor of West Virginia, and acted like he was the King of Westsylvania or something. What a dick! But I digress…

“It’s in places like Altoona that things get interesting, because the balance of power between the mayor and the county commissioners is more evenly divided. In both Cambria County and here in Blair County you have what amounts to a big town surrounded by smaller towns. But once someplace like Johnstown or Altoona starts being touted as a city-state, the county commissioners don’t like it because it implies that the mayor is the de facto ruler of the whole county --which, in cases like this, he usually is. The point is, these guys are assholes. They’re all looking to become these petty dukes and barons. Any progress occurs in little bursts and spurts.”

Christian digested all this, then asked, “Is there any chance somebody with enough guts and vision could clean up Weirton and Steubenville, and start to make something of them?”

“I doubt it. Wheeling is where the big action is in the West Virginia panhandle area. They’re lucky to lap up any leftovers. They stay alive by catering to the riff-raff.”

“I really appreciate everything you’ve shown me and taught me about the Border Region,” Christian told her, “I hadn’t really realized how colorful and diverse it was. In Pittsburgh the thought occurred to me that it’s sort of like Renaissance Italy, made up of all these separate principalities. It wasn’t like what I thought at all.”

#

After supper, Shadow took Christian up to a high hill that offered a view of most of Altoona. Shades of evening were darkening the sky, and lights were beginning to come on all over town.

“I wanted you to see this,” she told him, “Once you leave here and head east further into the mountains, there’s no more city-states or wannabe city-states. That ends here. These are the last electric lights you’re gonna see. From here on, people make use of oil lamps, candles, and firelight. The country folk have gone back to simpler ways. After the War, they looked to the Amish to learn self-sufficiency and that became their way of life. It’s all dark territory up ahead.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked, half-knowing.

“Because you can’t go where I’m going. You won’t find the girl there anyway. I recommend heading back west, maybe by a more northerly route. You’ll be making a big circle through the area, but I think you’d have a better chance of finding leads. Just hook up with some other travelers who are headed that way. Or get yourself another guide.”

“But I want to go with you.”

“Why? I explained why that won’t help your search. And don’t bother offering me any more money. You’ve paid me more than enough.”

“But…”

“Look, I’m headed for the New Settlements. Do you know what they are? They’re up in the mountains on the very fringe of the Border Region. After that, on the other side of the Alleghenies, Pennsylvania begins, in the Islamic States. The New Settlements are like the last frontier. They are most definitely not Renaissance Italy. They’re not even like simple Amish country. We’re talking log cabins, okay? Still want to go with me?”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

“My heart just tells me that that’s the right way to go.”

Oh brother, Shadow thought, What the hell is it with this guy? Taking a moment to reflect, she considered the possibility that Christian saw himself as some sort of tormented romantic hero. She knew that much of the popular fiction produced in the Confederacy was simple-minded sentimental garbage, rife with sugary romantic delusions. A steady diet of that insipid crap could make anyone sappy. So maybe he fancied himself a knight on a hopeless Quixotic quest that he had to see through to the bitter end. Then another possibility suggested itself. Maybe he was starting to sour on his runaway Angel and looking to trade up for something better. Like her. Maybe deep down he was dying to make it with her, even if he didn’t fully understand the promptings of his “heart” (read “balls”) himself. The notion appealed to her vanity.

“Okay Church-boy, you’re on,” she told him, “There might be trouble on the road ahead, in which case I might need a little backup. We’ll hit the hay early and set out for the New Settlements at first light.”

#

They arose early the next morning and checked out of the last motel east of Altoona. During the night Shadow had considered leaving quietly before Christian woke up, hopefully causing him to abandon his reckless notion of accompanying her to the New Settlements. But knowing him, he’d just follow whatever he considered her probable route and try to catch her again. He could end up God-knows-where, and anything might befall him. She didn’t need that possibility preying on her mind.
As they were preparing to depart, she told him, “Before we leave the area, I’d like to find someone who has some firearms for sale. Where we’re going, it would be better if you were armed.”

“But I have a gun,” he replied, much to her surprise, “I packed one in case I found myself in some place really dangerous. It’s in one of my bike’s saddlebags.”

“Well, a lot of good it’s doing in there! Get it out.”

It took Christian a few minutes to comply; the gun was buried in the bottom of the bag under various other items. When he finally produced it, Shadow checked it out. It was a dinky little .32 revolver from some no-name firearms company. Better than nothing, she thought. She decided which of the many pockets of Christian’s jacket would furnish easiest access to the weapon, and instructed him to carry it there.

Once he had the piece squared away, she told him, “I have a gift for you.”

The gift was something she had found in her own saddlebags after rummaging through them. She hadn’t even been sure that she still had it, but knew that it would be perfect for Christian if she could find it. It was an eighteen-inch length of chain with a small steel weight affixed to either end. Christian examined it, quickly divining its purpose.

“It’s called a manriki-gusarai,” she informed him, “It was an actual ninja weapon back in feudal Japan.”

Shadow figured it would be a good weapon for Christian to carry. She didn’t have time to teach him the intricacies of knife-fighting, and knew that the manriki-gusarai would serve him well as back-up or in situations where firearms were inappropriate. It was fairly easy to utilize, and could be employed with devastating effect. A person could hold one end of the chain and whip the other weighted end about like a chain mace. If it where whirled in a spinning motion before striking, the centrifugal force could generate skull-cracking impact. Or one could grasp the chain in the middle and strike with both weights.

“You have to layer your weapons,” Shadow told Christian by way of instruction, “Don’t have your gun, you go for your knife or your bludgeon. Don’t have those, you have to rely on your empty hand skills. Different things for different situations. You don‘t take a knife to a gun fight, as they say. If trouble goes down in one of the settlements, you‘ll most likely be using your fists or the manriki-gusarai. But if we run into trouble on the road, you may as well haul out your piece and start blasting. Just follow my lead.”

She also taught him the best way to carry the manriki-gusarai. “This is my special fast-draw method,” she informed him, “I invented it. If you just put the whole thing in one pocket, it’ll get all tangled up and you’ll never get it out.”

Shadow’s carry method involved placing one end of the chain in the rear pants pocket, and the other end in the front pocket. This left a few inches of the middle of the chain exposed; to casual onlookers, it just looked like the chain on a trucker’s wallet. To draw the weapon, one need only insert the ring finger and the pinky between the chain and the pants to draw it loose, then grasp it with the other fingers and thumb while whipping it free. “You just whip it out and smack your mark across the face with both weights,” she told Christian, “I guarantee he’ll be seein’ stars. Then you can shift your grip to one end of the chain if you want.”

Christian spent about a quarter of an hour familiarizing himself with the weapon. “Manriki-gusarai” was a bit of a mouthful, so he mentally referred to it as his “ninja chain.” He practiced wielding it and drawing it.

“That’s pretty much all there is to it,” Shadow said, “It’s pretty straightforward. Ready?”

Christian nodded.

Shadow strode over to Incitatus, inserted a booted foot into the stirrup, and swung herself into the saddle. She started off down the road without looking back to see if Christian was following. Christian got on his bike and began pedaling.
The blue summits of the Allegheny Mountains loomed up ahead of them in the morning mists.

Sample Chapter--Twilight's Last Gleaming: Part One

[I'm back. I missed a couple of the monthly updates, due to the Christmas holidays and other demands on my attention during January. This is another selection from my future history, Twilight's Last Gleaming. In fact, it is the very first chapter of the entire history. In my history, and the novels I'm basing on it, the United States is defeated in a war with the Islamic Federation of Europe. In reading or viewing fiction about future societies, one is often given pause to ask, "How does something like this get started?" (Logan's Run is a good example here.) I've endeavored to create a plausible scenario based on present day events. Copyright 2008 by Charles Hoffman]


1--THE ROOTS AND FORMATION OF THE ISLAMIC FEDERATION OF EUROPE


In the year 2076, the United States of America was preparing to celebrate its Tercentennial (or “Tricentennial”, as it was commonly referred to.) At this time, the greatest external threat facing the United States was the Islamic Federation of Europe. The Islamic Federation had existed as a formal political entity for less than two decades, but its roots went back much further.

At the dawn of the 21st Century, considerable Muslim populations already existed in almost all European nations. For the most part, they were concentrated in Eastern European areas such as the Balkans. Albania’s population of over 3 million was 70 percent Sunni Muslim. Bosnia was home to a million and a half Muslims, or 40 percent of its population. The Kosovo region’s population of 2 million was 90 percent Muslim. Turkey, linking Europe and Asia, had a large population of almost 70 million, 99 percent of whom were Muslim. These areas had once been a part of the Ottoman Empire, or had been in close contact with it. Islam had predominated there for centuries.

By the late 20th Century, however, Islam had made remarkable inroads into Western Europe as well. Sizable Muslim minorities existed in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, in the Alpine nations of Austria and Switzerland, and even the Scandinavian countries of Denmark and Sweden.

The once-formidable Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had straddled half of Europe and all of Asia like a vast colossus. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia relinquished its hold on over a dozen smaller nations that reasserted their autonomy. These included such Islamic Asian countries as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. In Russia, Christians and Muslims had co-existed for centuries. With the fall of communism there came a resurgence of ethnic and religious identity among the various peoples. Approximately 20 million Muslims lived in Russia, a million or so residing in Moscow.

Of the Western European nations, France had the largest Muslim population. Official French government estimates placed the figure at 4 to 5 million, or approximately 8 percent of the total population. However, many analysts regarded these figures as misleading. In accordance with French law, census figures did not identify citizens by race, religion, or ethnicity. The actual number of French Muslims in the year 2000 may have approached or even exceeded 8 million, close to 12 percent of the population. The majority traced their ancestry to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, formerly North African colonies held by the French.

Germany’s 3 million Muslims accounted for 4 percent of its population. Most were descended from Turks who arrived as early as the 1960s under a “guest worker” program and had not been expected to become permanent residents. Their ranks were further swelled by refugees from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Balkan refugees, as well as others in flight from Iran, Iraq, and Somalia, also sought asylum in Denmark during the `80s and `90s. There they joined Muslims who had come from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Morocco, and Pakistan in the 1970s in search of work. By 2000, Muslims from many nations comprised 5 percent of the Danish population. An additional million Muslims accounted for 6 percent of the population of the Netherlands. They had begun to emigrate there half a century earlier from former Dutch colonies, and tended to congregate in the larger urban centers. By 2015 they had achieved majority status in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague.

Muslims also gained strong footholds in Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and other Western European states. By 2020, they were enjoying a remarkable resurgence in Spain, where the Moors had ruled throughout the Middle Ages. Once they became the majority in Spain and Portugal, additional waves of African Muslims surged up through Morocco into Spain, and from there into the rest of Europe. From the East, Asian Muslims passed through Turkey on their way to the Balkan states and points west.

By and large, European Muslims did not assimilate into the cultures of their adopted countries. They retained the cultural identities of their ancestral homelands. More often than not they congealed into ghettos to form a disadvantaged underclass. This inevitably led to social strife. Disenfranchised youths were drawn to the militant tenets of Islamic fundamentalism, which had seen a resurgence during the latter part of the 20th Century. This pairing of alienation with religious and political extremism bore bitter fruits as the 21st Century dawned.

In March 2004, bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid killed almost 200 people and wounded hundreds more. A radical Islamic group with roots in Morocco came under investigation. Taking place three days before a national election, the Madrid bombings had an intimidating effect on Spanish foreign policy that resulted in a curtailment of support to American military efforts in the Middle East.

In September 2005, Muslims took to the streets throughout the Islamic world in violent protest over editorial cartoons published in a Danish newspaper that many deemed blasphemous. Riots in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan killed 139 people. The Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria were burned. The cartoonists were forced into hiding.

In October and November 2005, riots broke out in the heavily Muslim suburbs of Paris due to widespread dissatisfaction among disgruntled Muslim youths. The rioting quickly spread to Marseille, Cannes, Nice, and many other French cities and towns. Churches, schools and businesses were vandalized. The rampage went on for nearly a fortnight before French President Jacques Chirac declared a national state of emergency. When the violence subsided, several people had been killed, hundreds had been injured, and over four thousand arrests had been made.

In September 2006, remarks by Pope Benedict XVI sparked another spate of violent protests. In a lecture on theology, the Pope quoted a 14th Century Byzantine Emperor who had made remarks critical of Islam. Thousands erupted into protest and the Pope was burned in effigy. Churches were firebombed and a nun was killed.
Reaction to the rising Muslim tide in Europe by indigenous Europeans was muted. Official government policy and media commentary concerning both Muslim immigration and subsequent social problems tended to be circumspect. This may have owed something to a collective guilt over Europe’s history of imperialist exploitation of former colonies, various pogroms, and, in the case of Germany, history’s most notorious attempt at total genocide. Socially liberal countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands adopted a policy of multiculturalism, essentially conferring a validity to the foreign cultures of recent immigrants that was equal to the long-standing indigenous cultures. In Germany and Austria, Islam was included in the public school curriculum.

Islam gradually achieved greater and greater prominence in all areas of public life throughout the European states. This trend did not go unprotested by concerned citizens of old European ancestry, even if such voices were frequently stifled one way or another. Brigitte Bardot, a French former actress of once-great renown, was tried and convicted for “inciting racial hatred” in such writings as an article entitled “An Open Letter to My Lost France” and her best-selling book, Un Cri Dans le Silence (A Cry in the Silence). Bardot lamented the demise of indigenous French culture, citing among other things the proliferation of mosques in France while Christian congregations dwindled. Payment of hefty fines allowed the then-elderly Bardot to avoid prison incarceration.

Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was not so fortunate. Van Gogh had directed a documentary depicting the oppression of Islamic women. He was shot and stabbed to death in the streets of Amsterdam in broad daylight by a young Dutch Muslim who had taken offense at the film. Van Gogh was a descendent of the brother of painter Vincent van Gogh, and a fairly well known figure in his own right. His death incited violence between Christians and Muslims that caused both mosques and churches to go up in flames.

In the final analysis, however, the occasional voice crying in the dark could do little to forestall the inevitable. Islamic culture came to supplant Western culture in Europe. Even as Muslim populations soared, the population of indigenous Europeans went into steep decline. By the turn of the 21st Century, birthrates among indigenous peoples had fallen to below replacement levels in every European nation. Replacement level was determined to be an average of 2.1 children per woman. In 2006, the German government’s Federal Statistics Office reported that the decline of Germany’s population was “irreversible.” Also in 2006, the Brussels Journal predicted that one third of all European children would be born to Muslim parents by 2025. The Journal estimated that there would be 100 million European Muslims by that year.

As it turned out, such estimates proved to be altogether too conservative. The actual Muslim population of Europe in 2025 was closer to 150 million. Two additional factors accounted for this. The greater by far was an ever-increasing number of immigrants from the traditional Islamic world. As indigenous populations aged, the old came to far outnumber the young. With more of the former retiring every year, a further influx of immigrants was actually needed to shore up the tax base and maintain essential services. By 2025 it was common to refer to the indigenous peoples of Germany, France, Austria, etc., as “the Elder Races.” The Muslim citizens of those same nations referred to themselves as “the New Breed.” The term “Elder Races” was occasionally diplomatically employed in official channels to convey some measure of respect and appreciation. In common usage, however, it carried connotations of antiquity, frailty, senility, and irrelevancy. “The New Breed,” on the other hand, denoted the strength, boldness, and vitality of youth.

This undoubtedly contributed to the secondary factor underlying the spread of Islam throughout Europe: conversion. The dwindling population of young indigenous Europeans felt alienated from what they viewed as a staid and dying culture. Consequently, they converted to Islam in great numbers.

Even as early as the turn of the 21st Century, when they still comprised an ethnic and religious minority, European Muslims were already making their presence felt throughout the public sector. Able to vote and hold office in their adopted countries, they began to sway elections and determine government policy. As a result, they were granted concessions that further enabled them to increase their numbers and influence. The historic rivalry between Islam and Christianity, dating from the Middle Ages, was the basis of an inherited grudge on the part of Muslims towards the society they were infiltrating. Combined with exposure to the secularized, socially permissive culture of late 20th Century / early 21st Century Europe, this engendered a deep-seated contempt for the mores and values of Western European civilization. Subsequent generations of Muslims, born and raised in Europe, absorbed this sense of hostility in their cradles. For the most part, the New Breed had little use for the traditions and institutions of the Elder Races.

In 2033, Germany became the first Western European nation to designate itself an “Islamic Republic.” France and Russia soon followed suit. Previously, a number of the Eastern Balkan countries had formally declared themselves to be Islamic theocracies.

The Islamic Federation of Europe grew vine-like upon the framework of the old European Union. In doing so, it inherited an efficient bureaucracy already in place. This was the legacy of a century of military and commercial alliances.

The first attempt at European unification came about as a result of the World Wars that were waged between 1914 and 1945. The whole continent had been ravaged, with tens of millions killed and cities reduced to rubble. Statesmen and intellectuals sought diplomatic means to forestall further devastation. Western European nations entered into a military alliance with the nations of North America as a deterrent to possible aggression by the Soviet Union. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949. The notion of a separate European union to allow nations to pool resources and address common problems was first proposed by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in 1950.

The first step towards what would become the European Union was the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951, followed by the European Economic Community (EEC), to regulate commerce. In the meantime, West Germany joined NATO in 1955, prompting the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites, including East Germany, to join a military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact.

In 1967, the ESC and the EEC merged and became known as the European Community. This body successfully standardized exchange rates and other economic practices. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact fell apart. The following year, the Treaty of Maastricht established the European Union. The Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2003) streamlined the organization and created provisions for a common European citizenship, a common currency, and a constitution. In 2002, the Euro replaced the national currencies of most of the member nations. Initially comprised of Western European nations, the Union began admitting Eastern European nations in the early 21st Century.

The admission of Turkey to the European Union in 2015 added 70 million Muslims to the population of the Union. As citizens of the EU, Turks could cross over all of Europe’s international boundaries in search of work and other opportunities. As a voting block 70 million strong, they tipped the scales decisively in favor of Muslims in Union-wide elections. Turkey also served as the bridge by which many Asian Muslims found their way into Europe. The population of Europe had already begun to shift in favor of the New Breed as the Elder Races began dying off. The evolution of the European Union into the Islamic Federation was inevitable.

The final transformation and the establishment of the Islamic Federation of Europe (IFE) as a formal political entity was the work of many hands. However, two remarkable figures stand out; Abdullah Al Hamza, a Frenchman, and Yar Ali Ghazi, a German. Abdullah Al Hamza was a professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne. He also held advanced degrees in economics and political science, was widely published in academia and the popular press, and was regarded as one of Europe’s leading intellectuals. Yar Ali Ghazi was the forceful and dynamic president of the Islamic Republic of Germany.

The New Breed’s most eminent political theorist, Abdullah Al Hamza became the chief architect of the Islamic Federation of Europe. It was he who coined the widely quoted maxim “Retain and modify what is useful” in regards to Elder European social, political, scientific, and philosophic institutions. Al Hamza was the key figure at the yearlong Berlin Conference (2056 – 57) that oversaw the metamorphosis of the European Union into the IFE.

In his opening address to the Conference, Al Hamza asserted that Europe had been a Muslim-majority continent since the admission of Turkey to the EU, and that Muslims were now the majority in nearly all of the individual European nations. Indeed, many had already been reconstituted as Islamic republics. The character of European civilization had undergone a profound change in the last century, and the political structure of a unified European state must reflect the new order.

The work of the Conference consisted largely of dismantling all the previous European alliances that were still extant and subsuming the component bureaucracies into the auspices of the Islamic Federation of Europe. Member nations were required to subordinate their national sovereignty to the central government of the Federation. In several European nations, such as the United Kingdom, Muslims were still minorities, albeit sizable ones. Such nations were not excluded from membership, provided that the nation as a whole relinquished its sovereignty and submitted to the rule of Islamic law. No European nation with an indigenous majority elected to do so, but by the 2050s these were few in number. The only Western European countries to remain outside of the Islamic Federation were the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Finland, and Iceland.

On January 1, 2058, the Islamic Federation of Europe took its place among the great nations of the world. Yar Ali Ghazi was sworn in as its first president, and Abdullah Al Hamza became Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Thanks to the efficiency of mid-21st Century telecommunications, the problem of which city should serve as the Federation capital was avoided. Instead, various arms of government were headquartered in Berlin, Paris, and Geneva. The triple capitals were linked by special bullet trains that affected convenient rapid transit for officials. As president, Yar Ali Ghazi welded the Federation into a band of steel. Power was consolidated under the strong central authority of the chief executive and the ruling council. More ominously as far as the Western Hemisphere was concerned, the IFE inherited the formidable arsenals of both the former NATO powers and the Warsaw Pact nations.

Sample Chapter: Twilight's Last Gleaming, Part One

[Here is another sample chapter from Part One of Twilight's Last Gleaming. It is preceded by 3. The Spread of Islam Elsewhere in the World and followed by 5. Mexico Grows in Prominence. I left the previous installment up for more than a month because I thought it very relevent to the Wall Street bailout and its implications. The chapter I have just posted below I think will be of interest due to the current proposed bailout of the American auto industry. Copyright 2008 by Charles Hoffman.]

4--AMERICAN DEPENDENCE ON MIDDLE EASTERN OIL AND ITS REPERCUSSIONS

The early decades of the 21st Century saw an increasing number of Muslim Americans elected or appointed to government positions on the Federal, state, and local levels. Many served with distinction. Even so, the growing power of Islam throughout the Eastern Hemisphere was viewed with mounting alarm in America, both by average citizens and officialdom. Unfortunately, the United States had failed to break its dependence on Middle Eastern oil, a holdover from the previous century.

By 1970, the American consumer had long since come to take the gasoline that fueled his car for granted as a cheap, readily available commodity. During the middle period of the 20th Century, from roughly 1945 to 1973, the average American enjoyed a prosperity not seen before or since. With cheap fuel in abundance, the automobile became, not just a means of transportation, but a key accessory to an affluent lifestyle. It was common for motorists to enjoy the convenience of “drive-in” restaurants, banks, and theaters. An efficient system of interstate highways made it possible for Americans to easily travel throughout their vast country in their personal vehicles.

This carefree era came to an abrupt halt in the 1970s, when the price of crude petroleum increased tenfold seemingly overnight. It was a momentous change that came about because of the volatile political climate of the Middle East.

Oil-rich Middle Eastern nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia were members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC was founded in 1960 as a business organization aimed at regulating oil production and commerce, and included non-Arab nations elsewhere in the world, most notably Venezuela. In the 1970s, OPEC went from being a mere business enterprise to wielding real political clout. It was then that the Arab members founded an overlapping agency, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Victories by the Jewish state of Israel in the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973 left Arab countries in the region seething with resentment. Their wrath was directed at nations who had furnished Israel with aid and support, primarily the United States of America. In retaliation OAPEC launched the Oil Embargo of 1973. Petroleum production was curtailed and sales to the West were halted for five months.

The Arab Oil Embargo sent shockwaves through American society. Americans had become accustomed to services designed to maximize their convenience. Now they were forced to pull their cars into block-long lines as they awaited entry into service stations to refuel their vehicles. They were stunned, perplexed, and utterly bewildered. They were told by political leaders that they must “conserve” for the first time since the Second World War. During the post-war era, many Americans had relocated to sprawling suburbs located some distance from the workplace. Now the gasoline necessary for lengthy daily commutes proved to be a considerably more burdensome expense. This “energy crisis” also placed limits on electricity produced by fossil fuels and created shortages of heating oil needed for many homes during the bitter cold Northeastern winters. In the years immediately following, the nation’s economy suffered in no small measure, reaching its lowest point since the Great Depression. Runaway inflation ravaged budgets and savings. Unemployment was widespread. Though not as widely reported, underemployment was also a major social problem. Recent college graduates entering a shrinking job market found that their expensive degrees were worthless. As the “Roaring Twenties” had been followed by the Depression in the `30s, so the “Swinging Sixties” were followed in the `70s by the “Recession,” as it was euphemistically called.

America was still licking its wounds from the `73 Embargo when the Shah of Iran was toppled in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Once again the flow of Mid East oil to America was choked off. Once again, hapless motorists were forced to form long lines at gas stations. The economy plummeted further. Americans who had come of age during the booming 1950s and `60s were overwhelmed with despair. President Jimmy Carter, whom the electorate had looked to as a beacon of hope, was finally moved to admit that the nation was in the grip of a spiritual malaise.

One sensible adaptation to steeper gasoline prices was the introduction of more fuel-efficient vehicles. The American automobile industry was sluggish when it came to making this conversion. Consequently, the Japanese auto industry made remarkable inroads into the American marketplace during the 1970s and `80s. The Japanese manufacturers offered vehicles that boasted superior gas mileage. Many Japanese models also garnered a reputation for better overall quality. American manufacturers arrogantly chose to ignore market trends, yet wondered why affordable, fuel-efficient, well-built “foreign cars” were finding such favor with American consumers. Instead of improving their products, they promoted the slogan, “Buy American.” The implication was that purchasing foreign goods hurt the American economy. No mention was made of the fact that Japanese auto companies opened manufacturing plants in economically depressed areas of the United States such as Ohio and Tennessee, even as the manufacture of certain American models was outsourced to Mexico. This petulance culminated in a brief period of “Japan-bashing” in the early 1990s. The American business community promoted the notion that unfair Japanese competition was responsible for American economic woes. A popular quotation asserted that “the Japanese regard business as war.” Apparently the assumption was that business in America was conducted in the manner of a gentlemanly sport. In any event, such propaganda did little to curtail the popularity of Japanese automobiles. As one anonymous consumer quoted in Business World put it, “It’s a sad day for America when these car companies have to resort to a bogus appeal to patriotism to sell their over-priced, inferior junk.”

Smaller, more fuel-efficient cars were eventually offered by all manufacturers. However, the United States remained in thrall to Mid-East oil producers. The main reasons were twofold. On one hand, sizable petroleum reserves in Alaska and off the coast remained untapped due to ecological concerns. On the other, alternative energy sources never got off the ground due to the shortsightedness of business leaders in the private sector.

Offshore oil drilling met with frequent opposition due to the possibilities of harm to marine life, damage to the oceanic ecosystem, and the despoiling of coastal areas. Ecology activists likewise opposed the encroachment of oil-drilling into hitherto pristine areas of the Alaskan wilderness. The largest oilfield in North America lie beneath the north slope of Alaska. A portion of this region had been tapped by American oil companies. However much of this same enormous oil bed lie under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The ANWR had been set aside to remain an unspoiled habitat for threatened species of indigenous fauna such as caribou and polar bears. Advocates of oil drilling in the ANWR asserted that less than 8 percent of the Reserve would be affected by the drilling and that the petroleum thus produced would greatly alleviate US dependence on imported oil. Opponents countered by insisting that the ANWR would suffer irrevocable widespread damage from the development that would take place and the amount of oil yielded would, at best, provide marginal relief for the country’s energy demands. A bitterly controversial issue, the question of whether to drill or not to drill in the ANWR was passed on from administration to administration.

Some quarters called for a sensible compromise that would have made allowances for a certain amount of oil drilling, carefully implemented, as a stopgap measure to buy time while the energy and automotive industries redoubled their research and development efforts aimed at engineering alternative energy technologies. Skeptics were quick to insist that tapping the ANWR for oil would furnish business leaders with a convenient excuse not to undertake such a costly and demanding effort.

In support of their argument, these skeptics cited the sluggishness of the American automotive industry when it came to marketing smaller, more fuel efficient cars in the first place, as well as their gradual return to the marketing of large, even massive, vehicles once the energy crisis of the 1970s had abated. The 1980s and `90s saw a resurgence of relative prosperity to the American economy, at least in some segments. The long gas lines of the ‘70s receded into a distant faded memory. American auto companies favored the production of larger, costlier vehicles over fuel-efficient economy cars because the former were more profitable for the manufacturer. By the late `90s one out of every five vehicles sold in America was a light pickup truck or a sport utility vehicle. Both were bulky motor vehicles that consumed great quantities of fuel in the manner of the “gas guzzlers” of an earlier era. Sport utility vehicles (commonly abbreviated as SUVs) tended to be oversized and ostentatious, and were especially popular among the more affluent American motorists.

Such consumers received a shock in the summer of 2006 when the price of gasoline shot up to well over $3.00 per gallon. This development was greeted with alarm. Decades earlier, the manipulation of oil prices by OPEC was seen primarily as a matter of business, the political origins of the 1973 embargo notwithstanding. That is, it was perceived as natural that a region technologically backward but rich in raw materials would wish to exploit its key asset to best advantage. Americans may not have liked the way OPEC controlled Middle Eastern petroleum, but they thought they understood it. But following the series of terrorist incidents that culminated in the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, this outlook had changed. Americans now viewed the most oil-rich region on the planet as being dominated by Islamic fundamentalists, fanatics bristling with hostility towards America and the West. This left US citizens with a disagreeable feeling of vulnerability. There were increasing demands that the United States “free itself” from “foreign oil.”

In the fall of 2006, gasoline prices dropped back down to what most Americans had come to regard as acceptable levels. Then in 2008, prices soared to over $4.00 per gallon. Business double talk about mysterious market forces went over the heads of average American consumers but helped to placate them nonetheless. The pattern of rising and falling gasoline prices was repeated many times during the following years and decades. The mentors who guided petroleum production in the Middle Eastern states were shrewd enough to keep America off balance. Fuel prices were raised when a need was perceived to exert pressure on the Western nations, then lowered when it was deemed prudent to lull the West back into complacency. In this manner, the oil-producing nations of the Middle East were able to string the West along well into the 21st Century.