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"Fort Worth, Texas--Where The West Begins." I had heard this claim all my life. However, I didn't realize how true it was until the fall 1965 when at 18 I first drove past Fort Worth on my way to Lubbock, Texas, and my freshman semester at Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University).
At that time, the future looked fairly set for me. I was to be a chemistry major and would eventually study to get a doctorate. College would reveal the secrets of life. Little did I realize that within two years I would be majoring in journalism with a government minor or that with the encouragement of my future wife, Lana, eventually try my hand at writing fiction--something I had always wanted to do.
That was later on, this day I was driving through the "West" with hometown friend Larry Underwood on our way to "knowledge." While I had flown over this portion of Texas before, I had never really seen it. East Texas was my home--hills straining to be mountains, pine forests and red clay. This land was different. Trees, if one could be found, were stunted. Black and white oaks gave way to post and red oaks. Mesquites were to be found everywhere. Rocks were as prominent as grass when it came to ground cover. All in all, I wasn't impressed.
Somewhere along the way, I saw a road sign that pointed the way to Cross Plains, Texas. A wave of gooseflesh worked up my spine--a spark of excitement amid the dreary landscape. Cross Plains--the home of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan The Barbarian! I didn't mention the sign to my friend, Conan or Howard weren't generally known in 65 and I doubted he would have cared even if I had explained the significance of that sign.
I, however, did know Conan. I first ran into the name in the fanzine Amra while seeking information on Fritz Leiber's fantasy duo Gray Mouser and Fafhrd in my early teens. Thanks to mailbox friend Dennis Lien, I even had a hardback collection of Conan stories which he had found for a dime at a library sale and sent to me. (In 1980, I finally met Dennis at the Boston World Science Fiction Convention and thanked him personally for this treasure I still own--he didn't remember sending the book.)
Between Leiber's tales and the Conan yarns I became a Sword and Sorcery fan. Howard became a personal hero. Like me he was Texan--and he had written tales that set fire to the imagination the same as I wanted to do one day. He hadn't lived on the East or West Coasts as other writers I admired. He had been born and written his stories here in Texas. It was a bond forged as can only be forged by a young mind searching for something solid that assures "I can do that, too."
On this day, a two questions shoved into my head--how could this harsh terrain have been the birthplace of Conan The Barbarian? What did Howard see here that brought forth the mighty sword-swinging hero? I had no answers, but merely silently shook my head.
Since 1965 I have driven through that same country at least twice a year. I've even traveled through Cross Plains and Brownwood where Howard is buried. Always the same questions echoed in my head. Never could I find the answers I wanted. I've tasted the water and it was there. I've walked and hiked a bit through the country and couldn't find Conan waiting with sword and shield ready to send foe into the arms of death.
For some reason those questions hung with me in late May this year as I drove to the Davis Mountains of Texas' Big Bend for a week of rugged near-desert scenery and telescope gazing at night. For 13 years I have been traveling to the Davis Mountains and have learned to love the harsh terrain where once Comanche and Apache reigned and the Butterfield Stage rolled westward toward California.
Reaching the top of a mountain called High Lonesome and the getaway home of friend who allows us to share his hideaway, I looked out over mountain and plain and realized how much this land had become a part of me. A morning walk some years back had given birth to a short story "Flypaper." Here on this mountain I had plotted the novel Comes The Hunter and a breakfast with aging ranchers in the town of Fort Davis immediately brought to mind the scenario that would be the Spur Award finalist Before Honor.
An ironic smile touched my mouth as my imagination saw a lone horseman with sword slung on his hip and shield strapped to his back move across the plains. I could hear him mutter a curse to his god "Crom" for the unrelenting sun that burned down on him.
And if I listened carefully with head cocked into the wind I could hear an amused chuckled of one once called Robert E. Howard.
Geo. W. Proctor
June 7, 1998
Arlington, Texas
