Two Old Pros
“Spotted Satan” was a jungle horror-adventure that appeared in one of the final Farnsworth Wright issues of Weird Tales (January 1940). The authors were two familiar names on the contents page, Otis Adelbert Kline and E. Hoffman Price. How the two men divided the work is hard to tell but Hoffman brought his expert knowledge of foreign places, requiring the editor to use a lot of asterisks and footnotes of explanation. Kline can be seen more in the novella’s conclusion, which I will discuss in full later.
“Spotted Satan” was not their first collaboration for Weird Tales but their fourth, having written “Thirsty Blades”(February 1930) and “The Cyclops of Xoatl” in December 1936 as well as “Dragoman’s Jest” for Weird Tales‘ sister magazine, Oriental Tales, Winter 1932. Most of these collaborations received the coveted cover illustration.
New York Offices
This cover story appeared at an odd time for Weird Tales. The company had been purchased by Delany who moved the offices to New York. He also had acquired the long-running Short Stories from Doubleday & Doran, and had Dorothy McIlwraith edit both publications. Delany was more profit-minded than the previous owners and made changes. One of these was to make the magazine bi-monthly. Another was to add more pages. At the same time that the magazine got bigger, its classic “The Eyrie” letter column was combined with the “Weird Tales Club”, dropping such things as rating the top story of the issue. Because of this, we don’t know how “Spotted Satan” did with readers.
Pulp Reputations
Kline and Hoffman were well-known at Weird Tales, being friends of Wright’s, but they also were professional Pulpsters selling to better paying markets. Kline began as a WT sub-editor under Edwin Baird but sold his Edgar Rice Burroughs knock-offs to Argosy. (Some of these would appear in Weird Tales too.) Kline sold regularly to Science Fiction magazines and he wrote a series of Arab adventures for Weird Tales‘ sister magazine, Oriental Tales.
Price made his reputation in the adventure magazines with highly accurate and detailed stories set in Arab lands. Unlike some Pulpsters, Price was not a “New York cowboy” writer, meaning a person who faked it. His expertise was based on experience. Jack Williamson called him “a real live soldier of fortune” in his 1984 autobiography. This included schooling at West Point, actual war experience in WWI as well as in Mexico and the Phillipines. A fencer, an Orientalist and a student of Arabic, Price could bring a true sense of a place in his fiction. He wrote for all kinds of markets: adventures, detective, war and supernatural. He was the only one to meet both H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
Off to the Jungle
The story “Spotted Satan” is set in Burma. Harrison Steele is hired to go to a remote teak logging camp and kill a leopard that has the locals spooked. As in all his adventures, he takes his sidekick, the immense Achmet, an Afghan warrior of devote Muslim belief and large sexual appetite. On the way to the camp, an assassin tries to kill Steele in his sleep. Fortunately, Achmet appears in time to slay the dacoit. Steele realizes that this supposedly supernatural monster has human helpers.
Not long after arriving at Urruwaddy Camp, the two men encounter the leopard:
“The grandfather of leopards!” …The white glare confirmed the Afghan’s words; but for the jet-black spots that dotted the sleek, tawny hide, Steele would have thought that it was a tiger that growled and bared fangs like ivory simitars. Its jaws dripped red, and its tail lashed in slow, menacing cadence as its muscles rippled beneath its silky hide. But more striking than its feline savagery and unusual size was the wrath and menace it radiated. Steele felt the fury of the creature as though it emanated waves of tangible force.
Steele gets two good shots at the creature but mysteriously misses both times. The leopard flees into the night.
Kirby – Cat or Man?
Later the duo meet Kirby, the camp boss. They learn that the loggers are deserting because they believe the leopard is a “Spotted Satan”, a nat or supernatural being of terrible power. The problems started after Kirby bulldozed a sacred grove for a road. The local wizards cursed the camp.
Kirby is unfriendly. Achmet and Steele immediately get a weird vibe from him. He has almond-shaped eyes and claw-like fingernails. His movements are cat-like and silent. Kirby spends every night searching for the beast but he never appears when the beast does. The locals think he is the were-leopard.
Powell, the man who hired Steele, shows up. He has learned that Kirby lied about his references and actually worked for a rival logging company. Powell wants to fire the man but Steele talks him out of it. Kirby continues to hunt the night for the beast.
Final Stand-Off
More attacks follow. Again, Steele tries to shoot the creature but apparently misses again. After killing a visiting dancing girl, her twin sister allows herself to be used as bait. While Achmet is off in the jungle the leopard comes into camp. Steele shoots it with his rifle to no effect. Even the pistol with silver bullets that Achmet got from a local shaman does no good. Only as the beast is trying to decide whether to kill either Steele or the girl does Achmet jump from the tree in which he is hiding. Using his scimitar he cuts the beast in half.
Upon death the body becomes foggy and the illusion is lifted. The dead thing on the ground is Kirby (to no one’s surprise). Steele begins to piece together what was really going on. Kirby was not actually a were-creature, because that is impossible. Instead, his appearance and demeanor had cast such a hypnotic effect on all who saw him that they were hypnotised into seeing a leopard. Steele kept missing because he was shooting a leopard when he really was firing at a man. The slugs probably went between his legs. There was no way Kirby’s illusion could stop Achmet’s mighty blade.
Pick of the Pulps
Kline and Price’s ending to “Spotted Satan” determined which magazine it appeared in. This was mostly a Weird Tales ending with its semi-supernatural explanation. If they had wanted to sell to a magazine like Action Stories or Thrilling Adventure, the situation would have been more like The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Kirby being a blackguard using a trained leopard for the attacks. Instead, we get this odd almost-SF explanation of mass hypnosis (Kline’s influence?), where the man is not really a leopard but those who see him think he is. I’m not sure what Weird Tales readers thought of this but I know I didn’t care for it. A good were-beast is not out of place in WT. The authors worked harder to try and give the supernatural element some grounding in logic.
Collaborating For Fun and Profit
Both authors enjoyed a good collaboration. They appeared together in the colossal writers’ jam known as Cosmos, producing Part 8. “Volunteers From Venus” (Fantasy Magazine, January 1934). Kline had written the novel The Secret Kingdom with his brother Allen S. Kline (Amazing Stories, October November December 1929), “Meteor-Men of Mars” (Planet Stories, Winter 1942) with Harry Cord, and “Return of the Undead” (Weird Tales, July 1943) with Frank Belknap Long. Price famously wrote the Cthulhu Mythos tale “Through the Gate of the Silver Key” (Weird Tales, July 1934) with H. P. Lovecraft and “Dawn of Discord” and “House of Monoceros” (Spicy Mystery Stories, February 1941) with Clark Ashton Smith.
Kline and Price would team up one last time for “Satans on Saturn” for Argosy in November 1940.
One Last Note
The relationship between Steele and Achmet rang an instant bell with me. Robert E. Howard wrote a story called “The Fire of Asshurbanipal” (Weird Tales, December 1936) that featured American adventurer, Steve Clarney and his tall Afghan friend, Yar Ali. The story appeared after Howard’s suicide. The man who sold that story was Otis Adelbert Kline. (OAK had been Howard’s literary agent since 1933.) Kline and Price’s duo seem to be cut from the same cloth. I have to wonder if the two writers, both friends of the Texan, had Clarney and Yar Ali in mind when they wrote this one?
