This post is brought to you by Strange Detectives, a collection of ghostbreaker mysteries by G. W. Thomas. Meet Dr. Drayk who solves a weird mystery from Canada. Here are Richard Delamare and his Watson, Bainbridge in four occult tales filled with terror and laughter. We also get The Athenodorians, a secret organization of sleuths led by Baron von Klanstein, who lives in Wellman House in New England. His daughter Orestia is not so housebound, flying around the United States in a bi-plane to wield her sword in the interests of the human race. They solve “The Case of Phantom Legion” as well as “The Case of the Blue Man”. This collection is guaranteed to thrill Horror and Mystery fans alike. Check out the companion volume, Strange Adventures.
Manly Wade Wellman is famous for creating supernatural detectives including Judge Keith Pursuivant, John Thunstone, Sgt. Jaeger, John Corbett and his masterwork, Silver John. All these men face off against evil with a knowledge of the arcane and a fierce determination to protect humanity. Protect us from what? Monsters, of course. No good occult detective series lacks for monsters. (I did a whole catalogue of Wellman’s in “Creatures High and Low” here.) One of my all-time favorite monsters is on that list: The Shonokins. They deserve more attention, so here we are!
Enter John Thunstone
“The Shonokins” (Weird Tales, March 1945) is Wellman’s first tale of the Shonokins. It begins with John Thunstone meeting with a medium he has had dealings with in the past. Sabine Loel warns him that the Shonokins are coming for him. Thunstone sends her away for her own safety. When he gets home to his New York hotel he finds a strange set-up of two figures in his room. One is a parody of himself, moustache and all. The other is a Shonokin that stands with his foot on Thunstone’s throat.
The occult detective knows better than to touch the Shonokin figure. He drags it by the carpet beneath, and places it in a closet. He seals the closet with wax and a mystic ring. After this we get a run-down on his adversaries. The Shonokins claim to be the original inhabitants of North America, chased into hiding by the invading Native Americans. They are descended from the Neanderthal line of hominids. They have certain differences from humans: a cat-like pupil and their ring finger is longer than their middle finger. They are also short and hairy. The Shonokins have only one fear: their own dead.
There is a thumping noise in the closet. The Shonokins phone John, challenging him. Thunstone accepts the call and meets them in a room below his own. He defeats them with a vision of crows summoned to drive them off. The carrion birds remind them of their dead, which they fear. One of the Shonokins is dead, the magic-user who had powered the dummy locked in the closet.
Wellman makes no secret of his inspiration. Strangely, it is H. G. Wells. 1921’s “The Grisly Folk” (The Storyteller April 1921) tells of Cromagnon cavemen who face off against Neanderthals. This is the same piece that also inspired Wellman’s Hok the Mighty series and Robert E. Howard’s first tale, “Spear and Fang”. Unlike these cavemen stories, Wellman has projected the Neanderthal evolution into the present day.
Thunstone Victorious
“Shonokin Town” (Weird Tales, July 1946) was bound to happen since the Shonokins were just too much fun to be done with. Again we get all the Shonokin characteristics but Wellman adds more. Dr. Munford Smollett goes to Thunstone after a harrowing misadventure. The doctor had chosen the quiet town of Araby in the Zoar Valley for a rest cure. When he gets off the train, he is attacked by Shonokins, who have taken the town as their own.
Thunstone sneaks off the train to investigate and bumps into Kent “Crash” Collins, who has followed him. Collins is a friend of the doctor. Thunstone sends him away, saying that it will be better if he doesn’t have to worry for two. The detective uses two spells to make himself at least partly invisible. He hides and watches. The Shonokins are busy with some kind of ritual. Unfortunately, they have captured Crash and prepare to sacrifice him to two strange gigantic spirits that form out of an old castle-like tower. (This is the scene that A. R. Tilburne illustrates in his wonky style.) Four Shonokins dress in parody clothing (of the rich man, the soldier, the professor and the priest) as mock-protectors of the sacrificial victim. Thunstone watches this strangeness, wishing H. P. Lovecraft was alive to see it. Then he wants his friend Jules de Grandin to be there to stand beside him. (Previous Thunstone tales mention de Grandin in what I call the Ghostbreaker Mythos. Lovecraft has been added in this story.)
Thunstone attacks. He is a large bear of a man. Unlike most ghostbreakers before him, he does not entirely rely on magic but uses his fists as well. He breaks up the ceremony by grabbing a Shonokin and breaking his back over his knee Bane-style. This freaks out all the others since they can’t stand being near their own dead. He offers the corpse to the two towering wraiths. They too flee. He unties Crash. Collins admits he wasn’t worried because he knew Thunstone would come.
A more action-oriented tale than the first, “Shonokin Town” sets up a re-write of sorts in the 1980 novel After Dark, which will feature the town of Immer. More on that below.
From the Other POV
“The Pineys” (Weird Tales, September 1950) is not a Thunstone adventure but a later traditional Horror story. Wellman quickly equates the Pineys with the Shonokins, explaining that the name Shonokin means “Pine Man” in a Native American tongue. The first tale took place in New York City and the second off a rail line from NYC. This story takes place in North Carolina. The Shonokins moved South as their author did too. Wellman relocated from the Big Apple to Chapel Hill, NC in 1947.
The cast of this tale include Forest Manager, Beau Sawtelle, and his blonde niece, Terry. The two are headed to Piney’s Grove to investigate the superior health of the forest in that area. The locals give them strange looks when they ask for directions. They are warned about the Pineys, supernatural spirits that haunt the woods. They claim the king of the Pineys can appear human.
The story is being narrated by the third member of the party, Mac, a drifter the duo picked up along the way. When the visitors arrive at Piney’s Grove they set up camp. They discuss the Shonokins and their Neanderthal ancestors. They talk about how Beau’s job of protecting the woods should make the Pineys friendlier. Mac points out that the forest management will ultimately lead to logging. Terry admits her own belief in the supernatural and drops a circle of enchanted powder she has brought. The Piney should not be able to step over the circle.
The Shonokins come in the night. They can’t cross the magical circle but Mac points out that only works for the one outside the ring. Pineys appear from the ground and trees inside the circle. Beau and Terry will be killed, Mac tells them. He admits he is the king of the Pineys.
Not the scariest thing ever published in Weird Tales but by the 1950s it may be one of the better stories. What struck me about this tale was how its basic structure must have inspired Karl Edward Wagner’s “.022 Swift”. The idea of a secret member of an ancient race operating in a group exploring a remote location is the same but Wagner uses the plot to achieve an even more poignant ending. Manly, surely, must have applauded the tale. Wagner was his friend, agent and publisher in the 1970s.
Enter John of the Silver Strings
Which bring us to the Shonokins’ biggest adventure in After Dark (1980). John Thunstone had been replaced by John the Balladeer (also known as Silver John) by 1951. Though Wellman would write about both men after that date, his fame was centered on the Silver John stories that appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction beginning in 1951. In the late 1970s, Manly wrote novels about both detectives with the second being about Shonokins. He ties the two series together by mentioning Thunstone as a friend of the character Jackson Warren.
The novel begins with John going to singing contest. There he meets Callie Gray and Jackson Warren. Callie is a singer and guitar player. Warren is ten-fifteen years older than Callie, and obviously in love with her. John wins the prize by singing “The Murder Bull”, a creepy Texas ballad but doesn’t care for the strange men putting on the contest. They are short, covered in long coats and wear gloves. He meets Brooke Altic, their leader, and gets a creepy vibe. When John refuses to add any money when the hat is passed around, he joins Warren, who also refuses, for a discussion about Shonokins. Here John learns that the strange men are of a race that purports to pre-date the Native Americans. The money is being raised to support their efforts at taking back the North American continent.
John follows Warren to Callie’s father’s property. Ben Gray is a feisty mountain man who instantly invites John to stay. Ben has been having trouble with his neighbors, the Shonokins. They have offered to buy his land. Even more, they want the alexandrite stone that Mr. Ben keeps in his pocket as a good luck charm. When Gray refuses their offers, they resort to violence. Ben chases off three gunmen. Later, they return in the night to try bribing John to join them as their spokesmen, to meet with the president of the United States. John refuses and they get violent again. Ben shoots one of them as they flee.
The next day John follows a weird track the Shonokins are building. When John steps on the track he feels a kind of electricity in his body. He finds the dead Shonokin as well as a strange, balanced boulder that generates terrific energy. He goes all the way to the end and the town of Immer, abandoned but now home to the Shonokins. There he sees houses that aren’t houses but gardinels, man-eaters that look like buildings. The flowers outside the houses bear hand-shaped flowers that he surmises feed on blood. He also runs into Brooke Altic, who tries again to recruit him. Only the dead body on the track forces him away. John partly buries the dead Shonokin before running into Jackson Warren, who has a theory that the trail is a form of the “Old Straight Track” from England as well as a ley line. (Wellman mentions Willy Ley, which is a nice little nod to an old Pulp-writing friend.) The men figure it has something to do with the old legend that it can be used to resurrect the dead.
John deals with the human neighbors around Mr. Ben’s property, allies of the Shonokins. Sim Drogus stands to make some money if Ben sells his property, as the Shonokin track would run through both properties. Hazel Techery is a witch, that John defeats twice, sending her weasel-like familiar away. Hazel joins the crew inside the house as the Shonokins close their net. The finale of the book is the stand-off between both sides, with John defending the house with his magical knowledge. But it is Jackson Warren who saves them, using the alexandrite to fuel a spell to the Five Kings of the North. Brooke Altic, who has thrown fire arrows and weather spells at the besieged, gets a bullet in the head from Hazel Techery, who is now free of evil. Callie and Jackson decide to wed, with John standing up with Warren as best man. Once again, John is matchmaker, yet to marry his own sweetheart Evadare.
After Dark is a fun read. (And a fun re-read, as I had read it decades ago.) Not much new information is given about the Shonokins, though Wellman does tie them to many of his other monsters like the gardinels and familiars. The creation of a magical track to resurrect their dead is perhaps the only really new idea. If the Shonokins could remove their fear of their dead then they would be unstoppable. The other fact that MWW addresses is why there are no female Shonokins. We learn they want Hazel and Callie as brood mares for new members of their race. This grim form of slavery adds an extra layer of evil to Brooke Altic’s many offers of profit.
Conclusion
With After Dark, we leave the Shonokins. Of all of Silver John’s enemies, they were perhaps the most interesting and worthy of so many tales. Wellman created a strange blend of Neanderthal pre-history, leprechaun-like faery-ness and Pulpy monster evil in their existence. We don’t see them ultimately defeated, only stymied for now (sequel possibility that was never followed). I like to imagine an unwritten novel that brought John Thunstone and Silver John together along with John Corbett (and a guest appearance by an elderly Judge Keith Pursuivant) in a finale duel with the Shonokins. We can dream. Manly Wade Wellman’s legacy of cool ghostbreakers make that easy to do.
Check out the Wild Inc. Super-saga…
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