“Vultures of Wahpeton” is one of the few stories by Robert E. Howard where we definitely know of his real
life model. Howard wrote to August Derleth about the story and stated “my main character was drawn from
Hendry Brown.”
Originally published as “Vultures of Whapeton” in December 1936, this erroneous spelling of the title
was repeated with the 1973 hardcover and the 1975 paperback. This is ironically amusing as the outlaw
sheriff “Hendry Brown” was actually named “Henry Brown.” The added “d” was the result of an erroneous
New Mexico court record.
Most of the discussion around this story has centered on its similarity in theme to Howard’s “The
Shadow Kingdom.” Both stories feature a hidden evil becoming known to the protagonist and his struggle
to overcome that evil. For Kull it is sorcerous lizard men, for Steve Corcoran it is a criminal gang ran by the
town’s sheriff. Fred Blosser’s “When Kull Rode the Range” published in The Dark Man #5 is the most
thorough examination of this idea. But where Kull was fighting the evil from the outside, Corcoran joined
forces with the evil.
This story was one of Howard’s few attempts at realistic western fiction instead of humorous western
fiction. That he chose to have his hero be tempted by greed and join forces with “the Vultures” instead of
nobly fighting them is interesting. It is also interesting just how much of the real life story of Henry Brown
contributed to this work of fiction.
Howard wrote: “The phenomenon of an outlaw looting a section under the guise of an officer of the law
was not unknown in the early West…. These sort of conditions led to a peculiar state of affairs in Caldwell,
Kansas, back in the early ‘80’s. The city marshal stood in with the toughs, but, to placate the honest
elements, always appointed some man for his deputy who was not on the inside, and who sincerely tried to
establish law and order. These deputies were quickly killed, if not with the aid, at least with the permission
of the marshal. Then one day he hired a stranger from New Mexico, and presented him as a burnt offering
to the wild gang. But that stranger happened to be Hendry Brown, a former partner of Billy the Kid, one of
the warriors of the Bloody Lincoln County War, and one of the deadliest gunmen that ever wore leather.”
Howard’s sourcebook for Henry Brown was of dubious historical accuracy. Arguably he somewhat
suspected as much when he wrote to Tevis Clyde Smith: “When I was in Fort Worth I got a book, Lead and
Likker, by O. P. White. Good stuff, told with a zip, and apparently authentic – in spots…[my emphasis].”
Later Howard wrote: “Hendry Brown, Billy the Kid's pal, was a law in Kansas, too – when they hanged him
for robbing a bank in a neighboring town, he was still wearing his Marshall's star. He's worth a book
himself – a lean, lithe, blond devil, handsome as a classical young pagan, soulless and deadly as a rattler.
Utterly without fear, he shot his way out of traps and confronted perils with heroism worthy to be sung by
Homer – and again he killed causelessly and in cold blood, simply to see his victims fall and quiver.”
The real Henry Brown was from Missouri. Quick and deadly with a gun and knowledgeable in farming
and ranching he headed out west, where he became involved in the Lincoln County War. Originally a
Murphy employee, Brown switched sides after a dispute over his pay, and worked for Tunstall where he
met Billy the Kid. After Tunstall’s murder both became a part of Dick Brewer’s regulators. The regulators
were at first a legal posse tracking down Tunstall’s murderers. They captured two of them, Billy Morton and
Frank Baker. A regulator, William McCloskey, was seen as preparing to help the two men escape. Henry
Brown is believed to have started a melee when he shot McCloskey. Billy the Kid and others fired in turn.
Morton, Baker, and McCloskey all perished.
Henry Brown was present at most of the famous episodes of the Lincoln County War. The killing of
Sheriff Brady, the epic shootout at Blazer’s Mill, and the final fiery conclusion at McSween’s home
(although Brown was not in the house, he was providing cover-fire protection from an adjoining
warehouse). Brown never achieved the fame of The Kid though. Most likely this is due to his ignoble
end.
In 1878, Brown and The Kid parted ways. Brown worked at various ranches until 1879 when he returned
to Texas. New indictments had been issued for several of the Lincoln County War veterans. Brown was on
the list. Brown kept pretty quiet in Tacosa. It is believed he did cowboy work for a while and later did
deputy work. Then he moved to Caldwell.
Caldwell, Kansas was a wild town. Howard and O. P. White were correct in saying law officer after law
officer was being killed there. George Flatt died while ambushed on Main Street, Frank Hunt in the Red
Light Saloon, Mike Meagher in a street fight, George Brown also in the Red Light. The town business
faction wanted law and order. Bat Carr and Henry Brown became the Marshall and Assistant City Marshall
respectively. The town newspaper didn’t mention Brown’s connection with Billy the Kid but they did say,
“he is one of the quickest men on the trigger in the Southwest.” Carr and Brown cleaned up the town.
Brown played second banana to Carr’s charisma just as he had earlier with Billy the Kid.
Howard’s story opens with the killing of a deputy in the town of Wahpeton. Sheriff John Middleton
addresses the crowd, “Maybe this killing is an ultimatum on me. All right, I’ve got an answer ready, I’ve got
a new deputy, and you won’t find him so easy as Grimes. I’m fighting fire with fire from here on. I’m riding
out of the Gulch early in the morning, and when I come back, I’ll have a man with me. A gunfighter from
Texas!”
The man Middleton was bringing in was Billy Glanton, who bears a physical resemblance to Henry
Brown. “The horseman was a supple youth of medium height, and his hat did not conceal the fact that his
hair was yellow and curly. His wide eyes were ingenuous, and an infectious smile curved his lips.” Howard
kills off this Henry Brown lookalike in a shootout with the black haired and blue-eyed Steve Corcoran.
Middleton observed the killing and offers Corcoran the job of deputy. Howard is replacing the real Henry
Brown with his preferred version of events.
Corcoran goes on to Wahpeton with Middleton. Middleton tells Corcoran about the outlaw gang, the
Vultures, which are terrorizing the town. Corcoran meets the oxymoronically named Glory Bland. Later he
gets his initiation by fire. Corcoran eventually learns the truth about Middleton and is recruited to join his
criminal conspiracy.
Howard’s narration of events in the story parallels what he knew and wrote about Brown in his letters:
“The way they generally trapped the deputy was to start a commotion in a saloon. Ordinarily the deputy ran
in and saw one drunk - apparently - standing in the center of the saloon and shooting at the ceiling, while a
large gang looked on from the bar. When the deputy started to arrest the drunk, the lights suddenly went
out, and when they were lit again, there was a deputy with several lead slugs through him. But Brown was
wise. When the commotion started he didn’t rush in blindly, turn his back on the gang at the bar and collar
the drunk. Your real gunman was always a man of keen perceptions and a high order of intelligence.”
Here is how Howard had Corcoran explain it in the story: “Purty crude,” he criticized. “I don’t see how
anybody could fall for a trick that stale. Man plays drunk and starts shootin’ at the roof. Officer comes in to
arrest him. When the officer’s back’s turned, somebody shoots out the light, and the drunk falls to the
floor to get out of the line of fire. Three or four men planted along the bar start blastin’ away in the dark at
the place where the law’s standin’, and out of eighteen or twenty-four shots, some’s bound to connect.”
Howard uses quite a bit of the real life Henry Brown in this story. Steve Corcoran, like Henry Brown,
wears a two-gun rig. The real life John Middleton was a fellow regulator of Brown and Billy the Kid, and
Caldwell’s local leader was a man named Colonel Jennison. In Howard’s fictional version of events the
local leader is named Colonel Hopkins. Clearly Howard was influenced by what he had read of Brown’s life
and was attempting realistic western fiction in this tale.
Henry Brown’s boss, Marshall Bat Carr, was not a lawman involved in an outlaw conspiracy though.
History records Carr as an honest lawman that eventually left his post, leaving Brown the job. Rumor has it
that Brown just up and plucked the star from Carr’s chest one-day. While that story probably isn’t true, it is
true that Brown was getting ambitious and probably had something to do with Carr’s eventual leaving of
Caldwell. Ben Wheeler was now the assistant city Marshall. Henry took a wife and was on the way to
respectability in the history books.
Carr and Brown had cleaned up Caldwell pretty well together. Brown’s tenure as Marshall was not
uneventful though. One of Brown’s more famous acts of law enforcement was the shooting of an Indian
named Spotted Horse. Spotted Horse was traveling with his wife and demanded food at several places,
finally pulling out a gun to get his way. Brown confronted the man and Spotted Horse reached for his
weapon. Brown was apparently rattled; it took him four shots to find his mark.
Brown and Wheeler kept tight order generating enough fines from rough cowhands to pay both their
salaries. A gambler, Newt Boyce, came from Texas to settle in Caldwell. The gambler somehow knew of
Brown’s past. The famous cowboy-detective Charlie Siringo also knowing of Brown’s past had settled in
Caldwell. Brown and Siringo were friends. Brown and Boyce weren’t. Brown shot Boyce dead in a
gunfight. There were rumors that Boyce “knew too much.”
In the story, Howard has Corcoran recruited by Middleton to help him deal with Ace Brent, a gambler
who is trying to usurp Middleton as leader of the gang. Brent is eventually killed in the story; but not by
Corcoran. Howard is diverging from real life events more and more as he tells his story.
Brown never felt the weight of the men he killed but he did feel the weight of his marriage. He bought
a new home and now had the burden of a mortgage he could barely afford. The neighboring town of
Medicine Lodge had a bank. Brown, like criminals before and after him, realized that a bank was where the
money was. Brown, Wheeler, and two cowboys, William Smith and John Wesley had a plan.
Brown asked for a leave of absence supposedly to chase down and collect the reward on some wanted
criminals. Brown had done this before so it wasn’t particularly unusual. The four men met up and rode to
Medicine Lodge. Smith remained with the horses, while Brown and Wheeler went into the bank. Wesley
guarded a side door. The bankers, George Geppert and Wylie Payne were surprised. Payne reached for a
pistol but was no match for Brown’s quick draw. Payne dropped from the hit. Geppert then reacted and
Wheeler shot him dead.
The shots were heard by the armed townsfolk and general hell broke loose. The would-be bank
robbers dashed for the horses with a posse in full pursuit. If it had not rained heavily the previous night
and had they fresher horses they might have gotten away. But they didn’t.
Brown and his men came up with a story that the robbery was an inside job. Howard mentions this in
one of his letters: “A friend of [Brown’s] was cashier in a bank at Medicine Lodge. He revealed to Brown
that he had taken the bank's money, and was bound to be discovered. He begged Brown to stage a
robbery, in order to cover the shortage. Brown rode over with three deputies in broad open daylight, still
wearing his marshal's badge. Hardly had they entered the bank, when the president, who they thought
many miles from the town, entered the building. The cashier had assured them that he was gone; and so
he was, but had returned for some reason or other, before setting out on his journey. Men like Brown are
alert and suspicious as a wolf. Instantly concluding that it was a trap of some kind, and that the cashier had
betrayed them, Brown killed the cashier, and then shot down the president.” No one in the town believed
this story at the time and no proof of embezzlement was ever found. It is generally believed that it was just
an attempt to forestall an angry mob.
While waiting in jail, Brown had time to write to his wife: “… Do not go back on me; if you do it will kill
me. Be true to me as long as you live, and come to see me if you think enough of me. … I thought we
could take in the money and not have any trouble with it; but a man’s fondest hopes are sometimes broken
with trouble. If a mob does not kill us we will come out all right after while.”
Here is Howard continuing on the last moments of Henry Brown: “A mob, led by an ex-Texas Ranger,
was instantly on their heels, and they were to run to earth not far from the town. Officers were there, too,
but unable to control the mob. What happened is not entirely clear as to details; but three men were
hanged and one was shot as he made a break for the horse. That man was Hendry Brown. There is reason
to believe that he parleyed with the officers, and they, realizing that the robbery had been made with the
intention of aiding a friend, rather than any desire of theft, gave him the opportunity to make the break so
that he could perish by lead instead of rope. He knew he couldn’t get away; all he asked was to be shot
rather than hanged.” Real life events were grimmer than Howard realized.
The mob came at night and the law of Medicine Lodge did not feel obligated to protect the prisoners.
The cell doors were opened and Brown somehow got through the crowd and ran toward the street before
being nearly blasted in half from a double-barreled shotgun. Wheeler was shot at such close range his
vest caught fire. Wheeler, Wesley, and Smith were strung up and hung. Wheeler is supposed to have
begged for his life. Screaming “My God! My God!” before the noose silenced him forever. It has been said
that the crowd was so angry that Brown escaped the hanging that they strung up his torn dead corpse to
join the others.
“Vultures of Wahpeton” had borrowed elements of Henry Brown’s tragic story but Howard turns it into a
redemptive tale once Corcoran’s sense of honor rubs against Middleton’s plans. Corcoran comes into
conflict with fellow Vultures and the honest citizens formed their own vigilante justice. Middleton and
Corcoran plan to get while the getting is good but events conspire against them. Middleton kills Glory and
Corcoran kills Middleton. Corcoran is nauseated by the events but decides to rush off into the night.
Howard writes: “But he must stir. There would be prisoners, eager to talk. Their speech would weave a
noose about his neck.” Like Brown, Corcoran fears the noose.
Howard wrote two endings to this story. And the editor of Smashing Novels published both! In the
“happy” ending, Glory Bland survives. The “realistic” ending is the one usually reprinted with the main
text of the story. It is arguably the more dramatic ending, as the editor said.
Corcoran had been part of a criminal conspiracy and has seen and participated in the deaths of many
men. Howard, in another act of myth-making, has this “soulless and deadly” gunfighter suffering a great
loss, and thereby purging himself of evil through this violent trial of fire. As Howard put it: “The lights of
the camp, the roar of the distant voices fell away behind him and before him lay what wild destiny he could
not guess. But the night was full of haunting shadows, and within him grew a strange pain, like a
revelation, perhaps it was his soul, at last awakening.”
| “Soulless and Deadly” by Gary Romeo |
REH: Two-Gun Raconteur
The Definitive Howard Journal
The Definitive Howard Journal
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