“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Back in 2022, I covered three different Pulp genres of Robert E. Howard. The third looked at one of my REH favorites – the Adventure Pulps. I talked about Kirby O’Donnell’s “Gold from Tartary.” You can read that here.

Howard had created El Borak as teen, and refined him years later, with “The Daughter of Erlik Khan” appearing in December of 1934. El Borak is his best-known ‘Cowboy of the East,’ and rivals Conan as my favorite REH character. But Howard found it impossible to break into the higher-paying Adventure pulps, and only four of his seven El Borak stories saw print during his lifetime. Two were published not long after his suicide, while the other two lay unpublished for decades.

Kirby O’Donnell was a similar character to El Borak, and he saw print first, with “Swords of Shahrazar in the October, 1934 issue of Top-Notch Magazine. I talked about that publication in my prior essay. Curiously, “Swords” was actually a direct sequel to “Gold from Tartary,” which appeared after “Swords,” in the January, 1935 issue of Thrilling Adventures.

“Swords” was about twice as long as “Gold,” and maybe that played into the decision to pass on it. But it certainly flows smoother to read “Gold,” then “Swords.”

I mentioned in “Gold” that Howard starts thing off FAST. Here, O’Donnell had awoken to a stealthy footstep near his room in the palace of forgotten Shahrazar. And in paragraph four, was “a great black body hurtling at him from the shadows, the gleam of a plunging knife.”

Howard was terrific at writing fight scene and blade fights:

“And simultaneously he himself moved in a blinding blur of speed. A shift of his whole body avoided the stroke, and as the blade licked past, splitting on thin air, his kindhjal, driven with desperate energy, sank its full length in the black torso.

An agonized groan was choked by a rush of blood in the dusky throat.”

The first three paragraphs set the exotic locale, and an air of menace in the still night. And then BAM!, it’s action time. Howard excelled at this.

THERE BE SPOILERS

These stories were printed about 90 years ago. And they’re easily available in Del Rey’s El Borak and Other Desert Adventures. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to read them. I’m gonna try to not give away everything, but you might want to read the two stories before you read my two essays about them.

END OF SPOILER WARNING

O’Donnell uses his steely thews (Howard really liked the word ‘thews’) to carry the body to the hidden treasure vault, activates the secret opening, and dumps the body into the river flowing underneath. Turns out the man was a servant of a shadowy emissary who O’Donnell had thwarted in “Gold.” And that emissary – Suleiman Pasha – had followed O’Donnell into the secret vault and threatens to reveal to Prince Bahadur that O’Donnell had gotten rid of the treasure, which he has surmised. O’Donnell wasn’t exactly at his best here.

Pasha blackmails O’Donnell into doing his bidding, which coincides with the Prince’s desire to obtain some papers left by a dying British spy in a nearby village. O’Donnell agrees to get them, but Pasha demands they be brought to him, not Prince Bahadur. He sets off with fifty warriors, figuring out how to sort out delivery of the plans after he obtains them.

It feels like El Borak would have somehow powered his way through the situation with Pasha. He takes charge of situations. O’Donnell is a bad ass: No way around that. But he seems to respond to events, not control them. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s just something that feels different, which is worth noting, since these are similar characters in similar types of stories.

Dave Hardy referred to O’Donnell, El Borak, and Steve Clarney, as Howard’s ‘Gunfighters of the East.’ I like that. Just sticking with this O’Donnell story, it’s got action, an exotic locale, with an overlay of international intrigue. Howard packed a lot into these short stories.

O’Donnell needs to lead his troops (who are with him to handle any pesky local tribesmen) and obtain the secret papers without giving away their importance. They’re held by a friendly chief. But a rival tribe has routed that chief and taken over, and he has the papers (nobody can read them, so their value is still unknown).

There’s action as O’Donnell rescues one side in a battle he comes across en route, then finds himself enduring a medieval-like siege from that same side. And the resulting Mexican standoff results in a mano-a-mano battle with the toweringly huge enemy chief. Howard was terrific at writing mass, and individual, battle. His action scenes absolutely crackle. He writes sword fighting exceptionally well, be it crusader Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, puritan Solomon Kane, or eastern cowboy El Borak.

The tension, the obstacles, the danger, continue to pile up. Those are elements of these Howard stories, with the hero never seeming to be able to get clear of difficulty, until the successful resolution at the end.

O’Donnell came to Shahrazar as a treasure hunter, but finds himself torn between loyalty to the faithful band that has battled with him on this mission, and getting the secret papers to the authorities, saving the entire region from war and death. Howard provides a neat solution, and there will be one more O’Donnell story.

I enjoy El Borak and Kirby O’ Donnell, and I like the one Steve Clarney story. L. Sprague de Camp adapted El Borak and O’Donnell stories into Conan pastiches, and they’re pretty good. But I prefer the ‘Cowboys of the East’ versions.

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2024 Series (10)

Will Murray on Dashiell Hammett’s Elusive Glass Key
Ya Gotta Ask – Reprise
Rex Stout’s “The Mother of Invention”
Dime Detective, August, 1941
John D. MacDonald’s “Ring Around the Readhead”
Harboiled Manila – Raoul Whitfield’s Jo Gar
7 Upcoming A (Black) Gat in the Hand Attractions
Paul Cain’s Fast One (my intro)
Dashiell Hammett – The Girl with the Silver Eyes (my intro)
Richard Demming’s Manville Moon

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2023 Series (15)

Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023
Will Murray on Hammett Didn’t Write “The Diamond Wager”
Dashiell Hammett – ZigZags of Treachery (my intro)
Ten Pulp Things I Think I Think
Evan Lewis on Cleve Adams
T,T, Flynn’s Mike & Trixie (The ‘Lost Intro’)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part I (Breckenridge Elkins)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part II
William Patrick Murray on Supernatural Westerns, and Crossing Genres
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘Getting Away With Murder (And ‘A Black (Gat)’ turns 100!)
James Reasoner on Robert E. Howard’s Trail Towns of the old West
Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane
Paul Bishop on The Fists of Robert E. Howard
John Lawrence’s Cass Blue
Dave Hardy on REH’s El Borak

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2022 Series (16)
Asimov – Sci Fi Meets the Police Procedural
The Adventures of Christopher London
Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard
Spicy Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Thrilling Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”
Tracer Bullet
Shovel’s Painful Predicament
Back Porch Pulp #1
Wally Conger on ‘The Hollywood Troubleshooter Saga’
Arsenic and Old Lace
David Dodge
Glen Cook’s Garrett, PI
John Leslie’s Key West Private Eye
Back Porch Pulp #2
Norbert Davis’ Max Latin

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2021 Series (7 )

The Forgotten Black Masker – Norbert Davis
Appaloosa
A (Black) Gat in the Hand is Back!
Black Mask – March, 1932
Three Gun Terry Mack & Carroll John Daly
Bounty Hunters & Bail Bondsmen
Norbert Davis in Black Mask – Volume 1

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2020 Series (21)
Hardboiled May on TCM
Some Hardboiled streaming options
Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell)
Hardboiled June on TCM
Bullets or Ballots (Humphrey Bogart)
Phililp Marlowe – Private Eye (Powers Boothe)
Cool and Lam
All Through the Night (Bogart)
Dick Powell as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
Hardboiled July on TCM
YTJD – The Emily Braddock Matter (John Lund)
Richard Diamond – The Betty Moran Case (Dick Powell)
Bold Venture (Bogart & Bacall)
Hardboiled August on TCM
Norbert Davis – ‘Have one on the House’
with Steven H Silver: C.M. Kornbluth’s Pulp
Norbert Davis – ‘Don’t You Cry for Me’
Talking About Philip Marlowe
Steven H Silver Asks you to Name This Movie
Cajun Hardboiled – Dave Robicheaux
More Cool & Lam from Hard Case Crime

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2019 Series (15)
Back Deck Pulp Returns
A (Black) Gat in the Hand Returns
Will Murray on Doc Savage
Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane
Paul Bishop on Lance Spearman
A Man Called Spade
Hard Boiled Holmes
Duane Spurlock on T.T. Flynn
Andrew Salmon on Montreal Noir
Frank Schildiner on The Bad Guys of Pulp
Steve Scott on John D. MacDonald’s ‘Park Falkner’
William Patrick Murray on The Spider
John D. MacDonald & Mickey Spillane
Norbert Davis goes West(ern)
Bill Crider on The Brass Cupcake

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2018 Series (32)
George Harmon Coxe
Raoul Whitfield
Some Hard Boiled Anthologies
Frederick Nebel’s Donahue
Thomas Walsh
Black Mask – January, 1935
Norbert Davis’ Ben Shaley
D.L. Champion’s Rex Sackler
Dime Detective – August, 1939
Back Deck Pulp #1
W.T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox
Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Phantom Crook (Ed Jenkins)
Day Keene
Black Mask – October, 1933
Back Deck Pulp #2
Black Mask – Spring, 2017
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘The Shrieking Skeleton’
Frank Schildiner’s ‘Max Allen Collins & The Hard Boiled Hero’
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Campbell Gault
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: More Cool & Lam From Hard Case Crime
MORE Cool & Lam!!!!
Thomas Parker’s ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part One)
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part Two)
William Patrick Maynard’s ‘The Yellow Peril’
Andrew P Salmon’s ‘Frederick C. Davis’
Rory Gallagher’s ‘Continental Op’
Back Deck Pulp #3
Back Deck Pulp #4
Back Deck Pulp #5
Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw on Writing
Back Deck Pulp #6
The Black Mask Dinner

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.