Introduction
“The Man on the Ground” is a short story by Robert Ervin Howard where two men are fighting a final duel. First published in Weird Tales 1933 July. Howard earned $20 for the story.
It is a brief short story (under 2200 words) set in Texas about two men (Cal Reynolds & Esau Brill) who have been feuding for so long that no one really knows how their feud began.
The story begins like this:
Cal Reynolds shifted his tobacco quid to the other side of his mouth as he squinted down the dull blue barrel of his Winchester. His jaws worked methodically, their movement ceasing as he found his bead. He froze into rigid immobility; then his finger hooked on the trigger. The crack of the shot sent the echoes rattling among the hills, and like a louder echo came an answering shot. Reynolds flinched down, flattening his rangy body against the earth, swearing softly. A gray flake jumped from one of the rocks near his head, the ricocheting bullet whining off into space. Reynolds involuntarily shivered. The sound was as deadly as the singing of an unseen rattler.
From the letters
In a letter (#253) to August Derleth, ca. after July 9, 1933, he mentions the story:
Thanks for your comments concerning “The Man on the Ground”; I rather like the yarn, myself, because of its efforts at realism.
To Carl Jacobi (letter #297), ca. Summer 1934, we learn:
You ask me why I do not use Texas settings more in my stories. I really should, since Texas is the only region I know by first hand experience. Three of my yarns in Weird Tales have been laid in Texas: “The Horror From the Mound”, “The Man on the Ground” and “Old Garfield’s Heart”. Sometimes too thorough a knowledge of a subject is a handicap (not that I claim to be an authority on the Southwest, or anything like that; but I was born here and have lived here all my life.) for fiction writing.
Published in:
- WEIRD TALES VOLUME 22 NUMBER 1, Popular Fiction Publishing Company, July 1933
- THE DARK MAN AND OTHERS, Arkham House, 1963 (Accidentally published incomplete)
- HISTOIRES D’OUTRE-MONDE, Casterman, 1966 (French)
- THE DARK MAN AND OTHERS, Lancer, 1972 (n.d.)
- FEH 5: DE STEM VAN EL-LIL, A. W. Bruna & Zoon, 1972 (Dutch)
- WEIRD TALES VOLUME 47 NUMBER 2, Weird Tales, Los Angeles, Fall 1973
- PIGEONS FROM HELL, Zebra, June 1976
- THE 14TH FONTANA BOOK OF GREAT GHOST STORIES, Fontana, November 1978
- THE DARK MAN OMNIBUS, Volume 1, Panther, 1978
- GETTING EVEN, Bobbs-Merrill, 1978
- PIGEONS FROM HELL, Ace, 1979
- THE RAVEN #1, The Sowers of the Thunder, December 1981 (German & Hungarian)
- LE TERTRE MAUDIT, NeO, November 1985 (French)
- LE TERTRE MAUDIT, Fleuve Noir, October 1991 (French)
- CIEN BESTII, Wydawnictwo PiK, 1994 (Polish)
- NIE KOPCIE MI GROBU, Wydawnictwo Andor, 1994 (Polish)
- TRAILS IN DARKNESS, Baen, June 1996 (restored text)
- THE END OF THE TRAIL: WESTERN STORIES, Bison Books, April 2005
- THE WEIRD WRITINGS OF ROBERT E. HOWARD Volume 1, Girasol Collectables, January 2006
- VALLEY OF THE WORM, Wildside Press, April 2006
- THE BEST OF ROBERT E. HOWARD VOLUME 2: GRIM LANDS, Del Rey, November 2007
- THE HORROR STORIES OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, Del Rey, October 2008
- Z DIVOKÉHO ZÁPADU, Albatros Media, June 2009 (Czech)
- LES DIEUX DE BAL-SAGOTH, Bragelonne, March 2010 (French)
- THE HORROR STORIES OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, Tantor Media, Inc., March 2010 (audio)
- THE HORROR STORIES OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, Subterranean Press, March 2011
- SHADOWS OVER TEXAS: THREE PULP FICTION HORROR CLASSICS, Nuelow Games, December 2011
- TOTE ERINNERN SICH, Festa Verlag, September 2012 (German)
- ROBERT E. HOWARD FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER V7N3, Robert E. Howard Foundation, Fall 2013 (typescript, draft)
- WESTERN TALES, REH Foundation Press, December 2013
- PULP REPLICA: WEIRD TALES V22N1, Girasol Collectables, February 2015
- THE SHADOW KINGDOM AND OTHER WEIRD TALES, Ulwencreutz Media, October 2015
- I FIGLI DELLA NOTTE. RACCONTI DELL’ORRORE VOLUME 2, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, December 2015 (Italian)
- БОГИ БАЛ-САГОТА (THE GODS OF BAL-SAGOTH), AST, November 2017 (Russian)
- WEST STREGATO, Salirandra, October 2021 (Italian)