“The Hound of Pedro” (Weird Tales, November 1938)

Bloch, Robert. “The Hound of Pedro.” Weird Tales, November 1938, pp. 563-572.
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tales_v32n05_1938-11/page/n53/mode/2up

This story is set in the fictional town of Novorros, which seems to be somewhere in New Spain, in 1717. The sleepy town desert town has been invaded by Black Pedro Dominguez and his band of thugs. They demand total control and begin murdering anyone who resists, starting with the priest who graciously welcomes them to town a moment before Pedro kills him and takes the Mission compound for himself. They demand proceeds from the nearby gold mine and also women. Rumors of Black Pedro’s unspeakable deeds begin to spread through the town, and the few who resist are met with creative, humiliating, and painful deaths. At the heart of it is the dog who is Pedro’s companion. It seems to have supernatural abilities, to be able to communicate with its master, to travel quickly and silently, and to understand the speech of the local people and report back to its master. There are also terrifying monthly rituals that require a young woman who enters Black Pedro’s compound and never reemerges. Another rebellion is underway, this time more organized and led by Don Manuel Digron, a loyal subject of the Inquisition and of “the Mother Church” (569). 

Digron and his men break through the stronghold’s defenses while the ritual is underway and find Black Pedro and his assistants in the dungeon appealing to “Ahriman, Lord of Beasts and men” (571) while the dead woman is strapped to a table. They attack both Pedro and the hound, killing the man and wounding the beast, who escapes up the stairs. The rebels upstairs capture the hound, bury it up to its neck in the ground, and tortured it. The final image is of Digron and the hound face to face as the beast asks for mercy and identifies himself as Black Pedro himself!
​
This story is a mix of a lot f things. It is a western, for sure, with a band of outlaws who arrive in a town to terrorize and rob it. The standard fare ensues with the bad guys being bad and the good guys cowering, mostly, and powerless. It features the white hat riding to the rescue in the form of Don Digron and his men. The depiction of the hound and, at the end, the scene below the Mission where Black Pedro and the dog are somehow harvesting the life force of the young woman—that’s where things get supernatural. The appeal to Ahriman is a strange cultural moment, as well. According to my close friend, Wikipedia, that’s Zoroastrianism’s personification of destruction and evil. The “Moor” in the story had not been too well defined, but once the ritual sacrifice begins near the end of the story, it becomes clear that the Moor is an integral part of the plan. He tells Black Pedro: “I have brought you wealth,” pursued the Moor. “And I must have my due, as our bond with your Lucifer demands. Here we have found the blood of maidens and other useful things, and I may carry out my bargain undisturbed. That was our agreement with the Master before the Altar — wealth for you, and mantic power for me, and souls for Him” (570). That’s a mix of a lot of ideas, for sure, but we get the idea that supernatural deeds are afoot. Overall, this story is a fun mash-up of several genres that works well. Ove r the years, it has been translated into French, Spanish, and German and has been included in several anthologies.