Black John Invokes the Gods

By James B. Hendryx

A stranger named "John Smith" comes to Halfaday and its band of outlaws with a tale of how he's had to flee his gold claim after being falsely accused of robbing and murdering the man one claim over.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Aug 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781479461806

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Table of Contents

BLACK JOHN INVOKES THE GODS

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

BLACK JOHN INVOKES THE GODS

JAMES B. HENDRYX

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2021 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Short Stories, July 25, 1944.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

INTRODUCTION

James Beardsley Hendryx, (1880–1963) was an American author of western fiction. He was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota in 1880, where he grew up. After attended local schools in Sauk Centre, he went on to the University of Minneapolis, but left after two years to pursue a career as a writer. Like many beginning writers, he found little success, and ended up working at a variety of odd jobs—salesman, tan bark buyer, cowboy, and construction foreman, among others. He got his break a small newspaper in Springfield, Ohio and then became a special writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

He found his field in western writing, and a home for his work in the pulp magazines, publishing a string of tales including his popular Black John series. In all, he produced more than 40 novels, dozens of short stories, and one screenplay. All of his work was in the western or frontier fiction genre, much of it set in Canada, Alaska, or Montana. His novels portrayed Canada as a relatively lawful and orderly place with reliable police and civilized court system. He compared this unfavorably to Alaska and Montana, which he saw as relatively lawless places where criminals could find a safe haven. This attitude was reflected in much of his work.

He wrote a series of books based on Corporal Downey of the Northwest Mounted Police. Another series centred on Halfaday Creek and he wrote a series of juvenile books called the Connnie Morgan series.

He married Hermione Flagler in 1915. They had a daughter, Hermione, born in 1918, a daughter, Betty, born in 1921 and a son, James. He died in Traverse City, Michigan on March 1, 1963, at the age of 82.

—Karl Wurf

Rockville, Maryland

CHAPTER 1

OLD CUSH folded the month-old newspaper and laid it on the back-bar, as Black John Smith crossed the floor and elevated his foot to the battered brass before the bar of Cushing’s Fort, the combined trading post and saloon that served the little band of outlawed men that had grown up on Halfaday Creek, close against the Yukon-Alaska border. It beats hell, he said, how Siwashes gits pushed around.

What do you mean—pushed around? the big man asked, picking up the leather dice box and rolling three aces onto the bar.

Cush picked up the dice, returned them to the box, and shook three treys. Horse on me, he admitted, and after casting the dice three times and only getting three deuces, put the box on the back bar, and set out a bottle and two glasses. I’ll buy the drinks. Makin’ a man beat three deuces in three, would be jest a waste of time.

Black John grinned. What use are you goin’ to put this here time to that we’ve saved? he asked, as he filled his glass and shoved the bottle toward the other.

Well, hell—a man had ort to save time whenever he kin, Cush said. "Cripes, that’s what all these