It’s been a while since I posted anything, and so I was going to do an update. The I realized it was Manly Wade Wellman’s birthday (b. May 21, 1903) and instead could write about something that would be of interest to people.
“The Finger of Halugra” is vintage Wellman, but it may not be familiar to many of you. It was originally written in the early 70s for a small press publication that folded before the story could see print. The story languished in Wellman’s files and wasn’t rediscovered until some years after the author’s death, when Karl Edward Wagner came across it. The story first saw print in another small press publication, Deathrealm, in the spring 1995 issue. It was reprinted in The Best New Horror Volume 7 (AKA The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume 7). Sin’s Doorway is the only collection of Wellman’s in which “The Finger of Halugra” has appeared. And that collection is out of print and never had an electronic edition, although copies can be had on the secondary market.
The story concerns a statue on a pinnacle beside an isolated ridge that supposedly has a finger that can heal. A small time crook named Sugg Harpole is sent by his boss to remove the finger and bring it back. Halugra is the name of the statue, and legend says it was carved by the Indians before the coming of the white settlers. Anyone who touches the finger will be healed, even if they are almost dead.
Manly Wade Wellman
Sugg manages to jump over to the pinnacle and retrieve the finger. He’s been hiking and camping out in the elements for several nights and is coming down with a cold. It turns out the finger works.
On the way back down the mountain, Sugg thinks he’s being followed. Of course retrieving the finger wasn’t going to be that easy.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable story, and it deserves to be more widely known. Wellman had a unique voice, one that no one has duplicated. He was a master of the short story. If you haven’t read his work, “The Finger of Halugra” is a good place to start. Best New Horror 7 is available in both print and electronic editions.
Good to see you back, Keith!
Thanks. Good to be back.
Wellman pretty much covered the field as a pulp author. I remember him most for the “Silver John” stories from the 1950s and later, but in the 1940s he was writing Rocket-and-Raygun stories for Startling. It has been a long time since I read one of those, but I remember them as being good of their type. I recall back in Junior High I was reading one of those R&R stories and happened to notice that the classmate in the next seat was reading a straight adventure novel that he had checked out from the school library. tThe author was the same on I was reading, Wellman. As I recall, that novel was set in the ante bellum South. Nowadays, I wonder of it might have prefigured some of the things that make late Wellman so special.
I wish someone would collect some of Wellman’s nonfantasy work. I’d like to read some of it.
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