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AN OCCURANCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE AMBROSE BIERSE I
A
man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the
swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists
bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout
cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some
loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway
supplied a footing for him and his executioners--two private soldiers of the
Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy
sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in
the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the
bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as "support," that
is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the
forearm thrown straight across the chest--a formal and unnatural position,
enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of
these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they
merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it. Beyond one
of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a
forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was
an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground--a gentle
acclivity topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles,
with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon
commanding the bridge. Midway of the slope between the bridge and fort were the
spectators--a single company of infantry in line, at "parade rest,"
the butts of the rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward
against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieu tenant
stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left
hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the
bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily,
motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been
statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent,
observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary
who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of
respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette
silence and fixity are forms of deference. The
man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of
age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a
planter. His features were good--a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead,
from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears
to the collar of his well-fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed
beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly
expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the
hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes
provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded. The
preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each
drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the
captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn
moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant
standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the
cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not
quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the
captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former
the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down
between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and
effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a
moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the
swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing
driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How
slowly it appeared to move, What a sluggish stream! He
closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children.
The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks
at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of
drift--all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance.
Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither
ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of
a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He
wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by--it seemed
both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell.
He awaited each stroke with impatience and--he knew not why--apprehension. The
intervals of silence grew progressively longer, the delays became maddening.
With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness.
They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he
heard was the ticking of his watch. He
unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If I could free my
hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and spring into the
stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the
bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside
their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's farthest
advance." As
these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the
doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the
sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside. II
Peyton
Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama
family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician he was
naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause.
Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here,
had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the
disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the
inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life
of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt,
would come, as it comes to all in war time. Meanwhile he did what he could. No
service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the South, no adventure too
perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who
was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification
assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in
love and war. One
evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the
entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a
drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only toe, happy to serve him with her own
white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty
horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front. "The
Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and are getting
ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in
order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an
order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught
interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily
hanged. I saw the order." "How
far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?" Farquhar asked. "About
thirty miles." "Is
there no force on this side the creek?" "Only
a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this
end of the bridge." "Suppose
a man--a civilian and student of hanging--should elude the picket post and
perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Farquhar, smiling, "what
could he accomplish?" The
soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "I
observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood
against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn
like tow." The
lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her
ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after
nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from
which he had come. He was a Federal scout. III
As
Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness
and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened--ages later, it
seemed to him--by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a
sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck
downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to
flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably
rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an
intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a
feeling of fulness--of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by
thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power
only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed
in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without
material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a
vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him
shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his
ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that
the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional
strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the
water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!--the idea
seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a
gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the
light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to
grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface--knew it
with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged and
drowned," he thought? "that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be
shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair." He
was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that
he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler
might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What
splendid effort!--what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a
fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward,
the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a
new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck.
They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those
of a water snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted
these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the
direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was
on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying
to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an
insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command.
They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the
surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his
chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs
engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek! He
was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed,
preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his
organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things
never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their
separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the
stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf--saw
the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the grey
spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors
in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats
that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies'
wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their
boat--all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he
heard the rush of its body parting the water. He
had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world
seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge,
the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two
privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They
shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but
did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and
horrible, their forms gigantic. Suddenly
he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few
inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report,
and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of
blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man
on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed
that it was a grey eye and remembered having read that grey eyes were keenest,
and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed. A
counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again
looking into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear,
high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the
water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the
beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps
enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated
chant; the lieu. tenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How
coldly and pitilessly--with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and
enforcing tranquillity in the men--with what accurately measured inter vals fell
those cruel words: "Attention,
company! . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready! . . . Aim! . . . Fire!" Farquhar
dived--dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice
of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of the volley and, rising again
toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating
slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away,
continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was
uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out. As
he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time
under water; he was perceptibly farther down stream nearer to safety. The
soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in
the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust
into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and
ineffectually. The
hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with
the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with
the rapidity of lightning. The
officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a second
time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already
given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!" An
appalling plash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound,
diminuendo, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in
an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A
rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him,
strangled him! The cannon had taken a hand in the game. As he shook his head
free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming
through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the
branches in the forest beyond. "They
will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they will use a
charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me--the
report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun." Suddenly
he felt himself whirled round and round--spinning like a top. The water, the
banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men--all were commingled
and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal
streaks of color--that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was
being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and
sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank
of the stream--the southern bank--and behind a projecting point which concealed
him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of
his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his
fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it.
It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful
which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he
noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their
blooms. A strange, roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and
the wind made in their branches the music of Ĉolian harps. He had no wish to
perfect his escape--was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.
A
whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him
from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang
to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest. All
that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed
interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road.
He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny
in the revelation. By
nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and
children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to
be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it
seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as
the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees
formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point,
like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through
this rift in the wood, shone great garden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped
in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which
had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of
singular noises, among which--once, twice, and again--he distinctly heard
whispers in an unknown tongue. His
neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew
that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt
congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he
relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold
air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue--he could no longer
feel the roadway beneath his feet! Doubtless,
despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees
another scene--perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the
gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the
morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the
gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments;
his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet
him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable
joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He
springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a
stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about
him with a sound like the shock of a cannon--then all is darkness and silence! Peyton
Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side
beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge. |
