By 1932, Howard
had turned his attention closer to home and, along with his friend
Clyde Smith (who went on to write several books of local history)
he had begun to explore the pioneer days of Texas. At first he
wrote several very good weird stories with a regional background,
such as ‘The Horror from the Mound,’ ‘Old Garfield’s
Heart,’ and ‘The Man on the Ground.’ However,
in 1934, his most successful western hero, Breckenridge Elkins
of Bear Creek, Nevada, burst onto the scene. Elkins was a huge
mountain of a man whose rollicking adventures recall the tall
tales of Pecos Bill. True to form, Howard started with a familiar
scenario. ‘Mountain Man,’ which appeared in the March/April
1934 issue of Action Stories, has Elkins mixed up in a prize-fight
due to a case of mistaken identity. It’s a Steve Costigan
yarn transplanted to a Western frontier town with dialogue that
crackles with wit and an uncanny ear for local dialects. The story’s
delightful, earthy sense of humor shows another side of Howard,
and one with which most readers, who are inclined to think of
him as dark and brooding, are sadly unfamiliar. Breckenridge Elkins
appeared in every issue of Action Stories for over two years and
proved so popular that when the editor moved over to Argosy, he
asked Howard to create another series along the same lines for
that magazine.
Also in 1934, a new schoolteacher arrived in Cross Plains, who
would play a major role in Robert E. Howard’s life. He had
met Novalyne Price a little over a year earlier after being introduced
to her by their mutual friend Clyde Smith. Upon moving to Cross
Plains, Novalyne made several attempts to call Howard, only to
be told by his mother that he could not come to the phone or was
out of town. At last, tiring of these brush-offs, she talked her
cousin into giving her a ride to the Howard home, where she was
greeted rather coolly by his father but somewhat more eagerly
by Robert. This was the start of a sometimes affectionate, sometimes
stormy relationship. For the first time there was someone locally
who shared Howard’s interests - and she was a woman! However,
his insistence upon personally caring for his ailing mother, whom
Novalyne felt would benefit more from the services of a professional
nurse, rankled at her, as did his refusal to attend social events.
Marriage often entered their minds and was even occasionally discussed,
but they did not entertain the same feelings at the same time.
When she would think she was in love, he would insist he needed
his freedom. When he thought he was ready for love, she saw only
their differences. They were both passionate, fiercely independent
people, which made for an intense and exciting relationship, but
one that was impossible to sustain. In the spring of 1936, Novalyne
was accepted into the graduate program in education at Louisiana
State and left Cross Plains.
It has been argued that the strong-willed young schoolteacher
may have inspired Howard’s creation of his feisty women
warriors, particularly Dark Agnes de la Fere (‘Sword Woman’)
and Valeria of the Red Brotherhood (‘Red Nails’),
but this cannot be entirely the case. As early as 1928, ‘The
Isle of Pirates’ Doom’ had featured the swashbuckling
Helen Tavrel, who boasted, “I am probably the finest pistol
shot in the world, but the blade is my darling.” Then there’s
Bêlit, the ‘Queen of the Black Coast,’ leader
of a band of corsairs that roamed the Hyborian Age seas, and Conan’s
first love. And in ‘The Shadow of the Vulture’ (Oriental
Stories, January 1934) appeared Red Sonya of Rogatino, the fiery-tressed
Russian who is found in the thick of the fighting during Suleyman
the Great’s siege of Vienna in 1529 (armored somewhat more
appropriately than her comic-book namesake). However, Valeria,
and especially Agnes, assert most positively Howard’s proto-feminist
views. “Ever the man in men!” cries Agnes, when Guiscard
de Clisson urges her to don her petticoats. “Let a woman
know her proper place; let her milk and spin and sew and bake
and bear children, not look beyond her threshold or the command
of her lord and master! Bah! I spit on you all! There is no man
alive who can face me with weapons and live, and before I die,
I’ll prove it to the world!”