'The Country of the Knife' is a story in the El Borak series about a Texan gunman in early 20th Century Afghanistan. Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas in 1906. During his youth, his family moved between a variety of Texan boomtowns, and Howard - a bookish and somewhat introverted child - was steeped in the violent myths and legends of the Old South.