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Crooked Bone

Gerald Kersh

First published August 1968
Type Short Fiction
Length Novelette

Synopsis

The story is set in a prison colony from which the only escape is swimming across an impassible river, and then traversing the jungle where an Indian tribe lives. The narrator is a man sentenced there for life. He thinks he has found the means of escape by making friends with the Indians; he has a bone said to be safe-conduct through their forest. He gives it to another prisoner he is fond of. He doesn't learn what became of that man's escape attempt until long afterward.

Notes

First published in the Saturday Evening Post, August 10, 1968.

Publications (9)

Date Publication Publisher Type Page
August 1968 The Saturday Evening Post, August 10, 1968 MAGAZINE 64
1969 A Month of Mystery Random House / BCE Anthology 310
1969 A Month of Mystery Random House Anthology 330
January 1969 Argosy, January 1969 IPC Magazines MAGAZINE 2
1970 A Month of Mystery Max Reinhardt Anthology 336
February 1972 Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Terror Time: More Tales from a Month of Mystery Dell Anthology 153
1973 A Month of Mystery: Book Two Pan Books Anthology 134
January 1979 Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January 1979 Davis Publications MAGAZINE 89
November 2006 The World, the Flesh, & the Devil: Fantastical Writings Volume 1 Ash-Tree Press Collection 202