El Head is a Western Myth.
There are legends and stories about him from various cultures in the American
Southwest: Native American, Hispanic, Cowboy and Mormon. The most common image
of El Head is that of a disembodied head wearing a US Calvary hat riding in the
saddle of a golden palomino surrounded by a strange blue glow. Strapped to
either side of the saddle are two arms, the hands of which carry six shooters.
Tied to the rear of the horse is a headless and armless body
Until quite recently the
legend of El Head consisted of scattered and seemingly unrelated stories,
fables, folk tales and legends from among a variety of peoples in the
Southwestern, Western and Border States of the United States of America. Portions of these stories served as the source
material for a series of western horror novels by Grant Faust. These novels
were the basis for the six or so films based on the Legends of El Head. Three
of these films were made in the sixties A PRICE ON THE HEAD , HEAD
HUNTERS OF THE WEST and THE VENGEANCE OF EL HEAD starring Burt
Lancaster in the lead role.
The. most complete collection of El Head stories I have ever seen is in T.R. Famiglia's very underrated BORDER MYTHS (Arizona Free Press, 1964) which contains five El Head legends: “El Jefe and the Cabelllo Diablo", “Vengeance of El Diablo Cabeza”, “El Muerte dello Murceilago", "Fuego Lagarto y El Jefe" and “Cabelleros de la Cabeza"
EL Head is generally regarded as something of an obscure, western ghost or horror tale, often referred to as the Southwestern Headless Horseman or the Boogie Man of the Border. El Head is regarded by many folklorists as not genuine western lore but rather as a story imposed upon western lore. This viewpoint however disregards the Native American and Hispanic legends.
Much of the problem derives from the character's nomenclature. El Head is a bastard phrasing, an awkward combination of Spanish and English, which , although not uncommon in that part of the country, usually is not so maladroit. Native American accounts refer to El Head by a variety of names but close examination of his descriptive passages buried within the tales prove references to the same being.
There is of course the wild improbability of the legend. A man, an engineer and soldier by trade, is thrown together by chance with four very different companions, most of whom have some trouble with the law. They find a deposit of gold in hidden valley in the Nevada desert and form a partnership, becoming blood brothers in some versions.
The gold mine is not that extensive and after a month or so the mine is played out. Some versions claim that the man who would become El Head sabotaged the mine so that it appeared played out and his partners killed him in revenge. Other versions claim that the partners were overcome with greed and killed him for his share of the gold.
Whatever the reason, El Head was killed in a very brutal method. He was tied to a cross made of mining timbers, scalped, his legs were broken, his arms and then his head were blown off with shotgun blasts. Yet somehow he remained alive as a disembodied head and a decapitated and dismembered corpse with mobile arms.
This tale was considered more fantastic at the turn of the century than it is now. In the 1870's and 1880's the element of Uranium was virtually unknown and the often bizarre aftereffects of atomic. Radiation were ignored or disbelieved. The modern era is all too well versed with the bizarre effects of radiation; from the creation of atomic vampires, giants ants, tarantulas, scorpions, grasshoppers to the dead being reanimated from a fallen radioactive satellite to the revival of a hitherto unknown prehistoric reptile with radioactive vision and breath.
El Head was considered nothing more than a series of tales until in 1994, when a researcher discovered a cache of paper stored inside an old safe in Stout, Colorado. Upon these were written the supposed memoirs of Paul Crane, the man known as El Head.
These papers, not yet authenticated, were dictated to Crane's Mexican manservant, Dio Fuerte. They tied together many of the legends of El Head and fill in gaps of his story.
Many of the stories about El Head were merely myths or exaggerations of real events.
From internal evidence we do
know that the man who called himself El Head went to West Point and received an Engineering Degree. During the Civil War he served in
the Confederate Army. He was captured by the North and accepted a position in
the Union Army to fight Indians out west as a Galvanized Yankee. He never
mentions having fought during the Mexican War so we can assume that he
graduated West Point after that point. Most of the West Point Graduate
from 1848 to 1859 are accounted for in the war record. We can only surmise that
Paul Crane was listed as dead under his true name or else lied about his war
experiences
After a month the mine was played out. On the night before they were to leave the valley Crane's four partners tied him to a cross sparred stake. Blaming him for the small amount of gold that they had gotten from the valley, they tortured him to death. First they blew off his arms with shotgun blasts, they broke his legs and knees with a baseball bat, they scalped his chin and finally blew his head off with a shotgun blast and left him for dead.
From the context of his tales and the description of his body, one supposes that he was killed in a valley filled with a radiation similar to that which revived the dead in rural Pennsylvania in1968 or which gave, Ed Gein, the supervillain known as Necromancer his powers.
The Curie Factor is what causes the bizarre effects of radiation from the creation of atomic vampires, giants ants, tarantulas, scorpions, grasshoppers to the dead being reanimated from a fallen radioactive satellite to the revival of a hitherto unknown prehistoric reptile with radioactive vision and breath. It was first discovered in Paris of 1923 when the world famous Scientist Marie Curie was discovered to have been transformed into a Vampire by radioactivity. Approximately 56 people fell victim to the Vampire Queen of Paris before she was finally guillotined and her body incinerated.
The Curie Factor is an odd genetic marker found in certain blood types 0, AB and RH positive that appears to be virological in nature yet is for the most part benign. It is still not certain whether the Curie Factor is simply an indicator of high mutability in an individual or the cause. Genetic experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War Two attempted to eradicate the Curie Factor from the subjects blood make up. The results were without exception fatal.
Although the Curie Factor appears to be genetic in origin, once irradiated it can be transmitted easily by blood serum exchange to an individual in the high risk blood types. Since the high risk blood types are also the most common blood types, there is a high probability of mutagenic change once blood is exchanged.
The most common form of mutagenic change that takes place upon irradiation of the Curie Factor is physical deformation. For example a person may become a vampire, a werewolf or even a giant. Others experience subtle physical changes to the brain. This can cause drastic personality changes, increase or decrease intelligence and stimulate unknown portions of the brain thereby giving the subject psionic abilities. In rare cases, an ordinary joe accidently irradiated becomes an evil genius gifted with psionic abilties. Gein the Necromancer was one of these as was Dahmer, the King of Cannibal Zombies.
El Head was also one of these. Despite being a bodiless head, El Head had formidable mental powers such as telekinesis, clairvoyance, telepathy, animal communication and control. This coupled with an mechanical genius that was far advanced of the science of his time.
Also you must know that he was not totally immobilized several inches of vertebrae, trachea and larynx trailed below his neck stump. He could operate these much like an octopus or squid moves its tentacles.
Then there were the arms, despite being severed from his body, his hands and arms remained viable and mobile. He could move them about by remote control and use them to operate simple machinery such as firearms.
Despite his powers he had some severe limitations on them. He was unable to travel more than 200 feet from his body before falling into a coma so he had to carry his decaying corpse wherever he went. He was severely limited in his range of telepathy, someone had to be in direct facial view before he could even scan their minds. He was never able to really achieve any sort of finesse with his telekinesis, he could erect force shields and move objects but fine manipulation was beyond his powers. Plus use of his psionic abilities gave him headache so severe that he was blinded by the pain.
Although he had the ability to make people his puppets and to communicate and control certain animals there was also a hitch in this. The people had to eat of his flesh, so he often had to use subterfuge or force to get them to swallow a bit of his flesh. Also not every one was subject to his control even if they ate of his flesh. This leads to speculation that it was related to the Curie Factor and that his psionic abilities could to a certain extent control the Curie Factor.
As for animal communication it was confined to birds of the corvidae family which consist of Crow, Raven, Jackdaw, Magpies, jays and the like. The only other animal that he is known to have controlled his horse Brimstone but that maybe because the horse had undergone a mutagenic change at the same time as he.
The Crane papers relate how as the disembodied El Head, Crane tracked down and killed his three partners, who had also become mutated by the radioactive valley. He used fiendish torture devices, designed by his engineer trained mind, driven mad by an obsession for vengeance.
El Head's four blood brothers and betrayers were Donegal Ryan, Uri Davidovich, Ross Irving and Bear Marks. Of these three achieved some sort of fame on their own.
Donegal Ryan became well known in the Utah, Nevada area as the proprietor of Doc Ryan's Medicine Show, a combination of circus and religious revival. Ryan preached his belief that he was the Last Prophet of the End Times It is said that he had stigmata on his hands, feet and forehead.He even penned a book called the Newest Testament. He was destroyed by El Head in 1874.
Uri Davidovich was a former member of the Tzar's secret police living in exile in America.He was an actor and a gambler by inclination after leaving El Head he took his share of gold and traveled to San Francisco. Eventually he became a leader in the San Francisco underworld but this was only a means to and end. His true vocation in life was to have Alaska secede from the United States with him installed as its Tzar. Oddly enough, he nearly succeeded until El Head came to San Francisco.
Ross Irving was a former slave from the Indian territory who was also part Cherokee. He was instrumental in bringing baseball to prominence in Minnesota and might have been one of the few black players to reach the majors in the 1880's had El Head not stepped up to the plate.
Bear Marks was a half White, half Choctaw with a penchant for reading dime novels. He is the one of the two members who underwent drastic mutagenic changes. He also is the only one that turned over a new leaf. He changed his name to Marco Deloso and moved near El Paso. He became a crime fighter and avenger of wrongs known as El Murceilago. El Head still destroyed him.
Crane tracked Donegal Ryan to a town called Redemption City, Utah and killed him in a press which slowly crushed him to death while draining the blood out of him. The blood was then used as ink to print Ryan's Newest Testament.
Next he caught up with Davidovich in what would later be known as Las Vegas. Using yet another device of his making, El Head baked and froze Davidovich, leaving a charred corpse encased in a block of ice.
For Ross Irving, El Head combined psychological as well as physical torture. El Head used much of his wealth to start up a professional baseball team in Arizona. Using proxies El Head induced Ross Irving to join his team, where upon Irving became a local star, El Head arranged for Irving's humiliation by providing evidence of him throwing games and taking bribes.
El Head allowed Irving to live under this cloud of disrepute until he was barred from the game of baseball. El Head then had his henchmen, by then called Head's Hunters capture Irving for his meeting with the Grim Reaper.
The device used to kill Ross Irving could have revolutionized baseball had El Head chosen to use it for good instead of evil. El Head created an automatic pitching machine, which could be set at a variety of pitches at various speeds and aimed at different areas of the batter's box.
El Head achieved vengeance on the last remaining partner down in Texas, near the Mexican border. According to his memoirs, Crane felt badly about his vengeance on Bear Marks but was compelled by forces beyond his understanding.
As El Head and his troops traveled towards Mexico they heard tales about the masked avenger who rode along the border.
This avenger was a stout man who dressed all in black leathers and wore a black hood with small pointed ears at the top. The apparition had reddish eyes and sharp fanged teeth carried a black bullwhip and a huge roan horse named Petirrojo. It was El Murceilago by the border people upon hearing this, El Head knew he had found his man. Bear Marks was living out his fantasy of being El Murceilago.
El Head heard many good things about this El Murceilago and how helped various crimes and right various wrongs. El Head rode into Gotico Aldea, a town near El Murceilago's usual route of travel. El Head devised a plan that would lure El Murceilago to him but without revealing his true identity or true motivations.
El Head had a few of his minions begin muscling in on various criminal operations in several nearby towns and villages with the ultimate goal commandeering and expanding these operations.
The three men were Jacob Nathony also known as the Clown because of his previous involvement in a circus. Denby Sovellk also known as Half-A-Face because of a war injury left the right side of his face as a massed clump of scar tissue and the Dog Soldier, a man who used war mastiffs as enforcers.
The Clown became head of a protection racket over the three towns, Half-A-Face came to control the gambling and numbers rackets, whereas Dog Soldiers took over the Vice and fencing operations in the three towns. Soon after getting a taste of illicit success the three criminals rebuked to their ties to El Head and to each other and became involved in a tripartite war to control all the rackets.
El Murceilago and El Head were drawn into this criminal war. El Murceilago in his role as self appointed defender and vigilante and El Head as he attempted to rectify the situation he had caused to get his vengeance back on track.
El Head bought a small ranch centrally located to all three of the towns, using his mental powers and sending out two of his elite Head Hunters began to influence events as he desired. Head's Hunters, who by having shared blood with him gained bizarre powers began solo vigilante forays against the three renegade Head's Hunter's eventually teaming up with El Murceilago.
The two Head's Hunter's were Silent Pete and Ron Staiks also called Mucho Macho by the Hispanics. Silent Pete could move rapidly, almost twice the speed of a normal man yet the radioactive blood had also left him with a spastic, flighty nature. He was also prone to spells of massive mucoid production so vast he nearly drowned on his own snot. He described it as having a funny wet feeling in the back of his throat.
Ron Stacks on the other hand was physically deformed by his blood sharing. His left eye twitched constantly, his mouth drooled and stuttered when he spoke and his hips were so twisted so that he seemed to always be walking sideways. Yet he had also gained superhuman strength and a nearly impervious skin.
Eventually the Clown and Half-A-Face were driven away and killed by Head's Hunters.
In Apice, Texas a final showdown came between El Murceilago, the Dog Soldier and El Head.
Dog Soldier's army of criminals and prostitutes had surrounded El Murceilago and Silent Pete in a small adobe cantina and were moving in for the kill. Down the street was the newly built Apice Opera House which was giving a performance of new works from Europe.
To the background music of Wagner's "Siegfried's Death and Funeral March", El Head rode down
down the street astride his yellow horse suffused with a blue glow, like the burning Brimstone of his name. Reins in his mouth, severed arms lashed to the saddle sides and grasping blazing six shooters, El Head rode deep into Dog Soldier's and scattered them.
People fled from the apparition of a disembodied Head wearing a U.S. Calvary slouch hat and gripping horse reins in his mouth, upon the rear of the horse was tied a mouldering, aromatic corpse.
El Head was face to face with Dog Soldier and out of ammunition. Dog Soldier sicced his war mastiffs on El Head. In an agonizing use of his powers, El Head plunged deep into both canine minds and set them against the other. The two dogs tore each apart in front of their master.
Dog Soldier watched silently as his pets devoured one another, silently he worked his mouth and a deep, thick white foam formed on his lips and flowed down his chin. With a wolfish cry he bared his teeth revealing that he had all canines. He dove at El Head. So quick was the attack that El Head did not have time to subdue him mentally.
Dog Solider was nearly upon El Head when El Murceilago broke loose from his captivity and shot him down.
El Head felt grateful to El Murceilago and so tempered his vengeance by allowing Bear Marks to live. His vengeance was to publicly expose Bear Marks as El Murceilago in various newspapers. Along with the expose, several eminent doctors describe Bear Marks' desire to become Murceilago as a sort of mental aberrations derived from feelings of absolute inferiority and inadequacy.
One doctor stated that his garish costume reflected latent homosexuality.
El Head felt saddened but not at all guilty upon hearing that Bear Marks hung himself with his El Murceilago cape.
His vengeance completed, El Head decided to settle down. In Nebraska he acquired the famed Circle K horse and cattle ranch by first terrorizing the inhabitants by having Head's Hunters pose as masked night riders. El Head offered to drive away the marauders by using Head's Hunters as a security force. Once in place the security force drove away Missy Karan and her elderly father from the ranch. Missy Karan swore revenge.
Upon acquiring the Circle K, El Head became a ruthless land baron, acquiring more and more land, usually by terrorism and by forced buyouts. He became a law unto himself but soon became bored with being a feudal lord. He spent much of his time tinkering with various machines.
His ruthless acquisition of land soon ran him against the Indians. El Head settled these disputes by personal combat with the Hikowia champion, a half German named War Lance Schmidner. El Head used many advanced technological tricks to win against War Lance
EL Head's downfall in the late eighteen eighties began with the thievery of his body which weakened him considerably. Although, most of his body was recovered the damage had been done and El Head had been irreparably weakened.
Head's Hunters deserted him, taking other employment. Finally he was ousted from the Circle K by a band of U.S.Marshals and Texas Rangers at the behest of Missy Karan.
El Head spent his final days riding through out of the Southwest with his faithful companion, Lizard Boy. He searched for and finally found a way to free himself of the terrible radioactive curse upon him.
El Head's last device hastened his own decay and he fell into entropy on the last day of 1899.
Rumors of his demise may have been exaggerated, there are stories of El Head in the Philippines during the Insurrection and that he became a leader of a tribe of Head Hunters near Borneo. Some sources state that he was around during World War II only to be killed in the Hiroshima or Nagasaki explosions.
The man known as Lizard Boy finished the last entry in Crane memoirs. Of Lizard Boy's final fate nothing is known. How the papers ended in a safe in Stout, Colorado is also unknown at this time, hopefully further research will uncover some of these mysteries.
The following narrative is Paul Crane's dictated memoirs along with El Head fables and stories. Wherever possible when an episode in the memoirs coincide with an El Head tale, the memoir and the tale will run consecutively. Otherwise the memoirs and the tales will be arranged in chronological order so far as can be determined.
Whenever incidences in the memoirs or the tales are corroborated by contemporary sources they will be sited as will any significant historical information.
Many readers will find Paul Crane, an interesting if despicable character. He was morally ambivalent, often heroic and often criminal in his actions. He was certainly a bad man yet not altogether an evil one.
Considering however that while he survived his torturous ordeal and his victims did not, one can make the argument that his quest for vengeance was excessive and ultimately meaningless.
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