The thing at Nolan by Ambrose beers to the south of where the road between
Leesville and Hardy and the state of Missouri crossed. The east fork of May
Creek stands an abandoned house. Nobody has lived in it since the summer of
eighteen seventy nine, and it is fast going to pieces. For some three
years before the date mentioned above, it was occupied by the family of Charles
May, from one of whose ancestors the creek near which it stands took its
name. Mister May's family consisted of a wife, an adult son, and
two young girls. The son's name was John. The names of the daughters
are unknown to the writer of this sketch. John May was of a morose
and surly disposition, not easily moved to anger, but having an uncommon gift
of sullen, implacable hate. His father was quite otherwise, of a sunny,
jovial disposition, but with a quick temper, like a sudden flame kindled
in a wisp of straw, which consumes it in a flash and is no
more. He cherished no resentments, and his anger gone, was quick to
make overtures for reconciliation. He had a brother living near by who was unlike
him in respect of all this, and it was a current witticism in the
neighborhood that John had inherited his disposition from his uncle. One day, a
misunderstanding arose between father and son. Harsh words ensued, and the father struck
the son full in the face with his fist. John quietly wiped away the
blood that followed the blow, fixed his eyes upon the already penitent offender,
and said, with cold composure, you will die for that. The words
were overheard by two brothers named Jackson, who were approaching the men at the
moment, but seeing them engaged in a quarrel, they retired apparently unobserved.
Charles May afterward related the unfortunate occurrence to his wife and explained that he had
apologized to the Sun for the hasty blow, but without avail. The young
man not only rejected his overtures, but refused to withdraw his terrible threat.
Nevertheless, there was no open rupture of relations. John continued living with the
family, and things went on very much as before. One Sunday morning in
June eighteen seventy nine, about two weeks after what has been related, May
Senior left the house immediately after breakfast. Taking a spade, he said he
was going to make an excavation at a certain spring in a wood about a
mile away, so that the cattle could obtain water. John remained in the
house for some hours, variously occupied in shaving himself, writing letters, and
reading a newspaper. His manner was very nearly what it usually was, perhaps
he was a trifle more sullen and surly. At two o'clock he left the
house. At five he returned for some reason not connected with any interest in
his movements, and which is not now recalled. The time of his departure
and that of his return were noted by his mother and sisters. As was
attested at his trial for murder, it was observed that his clothing was wet
in spots. As if so, the prosecution afterward pointed out he had been
removing blood stains from it. His manner was strange, his look wild.
He complained of illness, and going to his room, took to his bed.
May Senior did not return. Later that evening, the nearest neighbors were
aroused, and during that night and the following day a search was prosecuted through
the wood where the spring was It resulted in little but the discovery of both
men's footprints in the clay about the spring. John May, in the meantime,
had grown rapidly worse with what the local physician called brain fever, and
in his delirium, raved of murder, but did not say whom he conceived
to have been murdered, nor whom he imagined to have done the deed.
But his threat was recalled by the brothers Jackson, and he was arrested on
suspicion, and a deputy sheriff put in charge of him at his home.
Public opinion ran strongly against him, and but for his illness, he would
probably have been hanged by a mob. As it was. A meeting of
the neighbors was held on Tuesday, and a committee appointed to watch the case
and take such action at any time as circumstances might seem to warrant. On
Wednesday, all was changed. From the town of Nolan, eight miles away
came a story which put a quite different light on the matter. Nolan consisted
of a schoolhouse, a blacksmith's shop, a store, and a half dozen
dwellings. The store was kept by one Henry O'Dell, a cousin of the
elder May. On the afternoon of the Sunday of May's disappearance, mister Odell
and four of his neighbors, men of credibility, were sitting in the store,
smoking and talking. It was a warm day, and both the front
and the back door were open. At about three o'clock, Charles May,
who was well known to three of them, entered at the front door and
passed out at the rear. He was without hat or coat. He did
not look at them nor return their greeting, a circumstance which did not surprise,
for he was evidently seriously hurt. Above the left eyebrow was a wound,
a deep gash from which the blood flowed, covering the whole left side
of the face and neck, and saturating his light gray shirt. Oddly enough,
the thought uppermost in the mines of all was that he had been fighting
and was going to the brook directly at the back of the store to wash
himself. Perhaps there was a feeling of delicacy, a backwoods etiquette, which
restrained them from following him to offer assistance. The court records from which mainly
this narrative is drawn are silent as to anything but the fact. They waited
for him to return, but he did not return, bordering the brook behind
the store as a forest, extending for six miles back to the Medicine Lodge
Hills. As soon as it became known in the neighborhood of the missing man's
dwelling that he had been seen in Nolan, there was a marked alteration in
public sentiment and feeling. The Vigilance Committee went out of existence without the formality
of a resolution. Search along the wooded bottom lands of May Creek was stopped,
and nearly the entire male population of the region took to beating the bush
about Nolan and in the Medicine Lodge Hills, but of the missing man no
trace was found. One of the strangest circumstances of this strange case is the
formal indictment and trial of a man for murder of one whose body no human
being professed to have seen, one not known to be dead. We are
all more or less familiar with the vagaries and eccentricities of frontier law, but
this instance, it is thought, is unique. However that may be,
It is of record that, on recovering from his illness, John May was
indicted for the murder of his missing father. Counsel for the defense appears not
to have demurred, and the case was tried on its merits. The prosecution
was spiritless and perfunctory, the defense easily established with regard to the deceased an
alibi. If during the time in which John May must have killed Charles May,
if he killed him at all, Charles May was miles away from where
John May must have been, it is plain that the deceased must have come
to his death at the hands of someone else. John May was acquitted,
immediately left the country and has never been heard of from that day. Shortly
afterward, his mother and sisters removed to Saint Louis, the farm having passed
into the possession of a man who owns the land adjoining and has a dwelling
of his own. The May house has ever since been vacant and has the
somber reputation of being haunted. One day after the May family had left the
country, some boys playing in the woods along May Creek found concealed under a
mass of dead leaves, but partly exposed by the rooting of hogs, a
spade nearly new and bright, except for a spot on one edge, which
was rusted and stained with blood. The implement had the initials C M cut
into the handle. This discovery renewed in some degree the public excitement of a
few months before. The earth near the spot where the spade was found was
carefully examined, and the result was the finding of a dead body of a
man. It had been buried under two or three feet of soil, and
the spot covered with a layer of dead leaves and twigs. There was but
little decomposition, a fact attributed to some preservative property in the mineral bearing soil.
Above the left eyebrow was a wound, a deep gash from which blood
had flowed, covering the whole left side of the face and neck, and
saturating the light gray shirt. The skull had been cut through by the blow.
The body was that of Charles May. But what was it that passed
through mister Odell store at Nolan End? The thing at Nolan by Ambrose Beers