My favorite murder by Ambrose Bierce. Having murdered my mother under circumstances of singular
atrocity, I was arrested and put upon my trial, which lasted seven years.
In charging the jury, the judge of the Court of Acquittal remarked that
it was one of the most ghastly crimes that he had ever been called upon
to explain. Away. At this, my attorney rose and said, may
it please your honor, crimes are ghastly or agreeable only by comparison. If
you were familiar with the details of my client's previous murder of his uncle,
you would discern in his later offense. If offense it may be called something
in the nature of tender forbearren and filial consideration for the feelings of the victim.
The appalling ferocity of the former assassination was indeed inconsistent with any hypothesis but
that of guilt. And had it not been for the fact that the honorable
judge before whom he was tried was the president of a life insurance company that
took risks on hanging, and in which my client held a policy, it
is hard to see how he could decently have been acquitted If your honor would
like to hear about it for instruction and guidance of your Honor's mind. This
unfortunate man, my client will consent to give himself the pain of relating it
under oath. The district attorney said, your Honor, I object. Such
a statement would be in the nature of evidence, and the testimony in this
case is closed. The prisoner's statement should have been introduced three years ago,
in the spring of eighteen eighty one. In a statutory sense, said the
judge. You are right, and in the court of objections and technicalities you
would get a ruling in your favor, but not in a court of acquittal.
The objection is overruled. I accept, said the district attorney. You
cannot do that. The judge said, I must remind you that in order
to take an exception, you must first get this case transferred for a time
to the Court of Exceptions on a formal motion duly supported by affidavits. A
motion to that effect by your predecessor in office was denied by me during the
first year of this trial. Mister Clerk swear the prisoner. The customary oath
having been administered, I made the following statement, which impressed the judge with
so strong a sense of the comparative triviality of the offense for which I was
on trial, that he made no further search for mitigating circumstances, but simply
instructed the jury to acquit, and I left the court without a stain upon
my reputation. I was born in eighteen fifty six in Calamacky, Michigan,
of honest and reputable parents, one of whom Heaven has mercifully spared to comfort
me in my later years. In eighteen sixty seven, the family came to
California and settled near Nigger Head, where my father opened a road agency and
prospered beyond the dreams of avarice. He was a reticent, saturnine man then,
though his increasing years have now somewhat relaxed the austerity of his disposition,
and I believe that nothing but his memory of the sad event for which I
am now on trial prevents him from manifesting a genuine hilarity. Four years after
we had set up the road agency, an itinerant preacher came along, and,
having no other way to pay for the night's lodging that we gave him,
favored us with an exhortation of such power that, praise God, we
were all converted to religion. My father at once sent for his brother,
the honorable William Ridley of Stockton, and on his arrival, turned over the
agency to him, charging him nothing for the franchise nor plant, the latter
consisting of a Winchester rifle, a sawed off shotgun, and an assortment of
masks made out of flower sacks. The family then moved to Ghost Rock and
opened a dance house. It was called the Saint's Rest Hurdy Gurdy, and
the proceedings each night began with prayer. It was there that my now sainted
mother, by her grace in the dance, acquired the sobriquet of the Bucking
Walrus. In the fall of seventy five, I had occasion to visit Coyote
on the road to Mahala, and took the stage at Ghost Rock. There
were four other passengers about three miles beyond Niggerhead, persons whom I identified as
my uncle William and his two sons, held up the stage. Finding nothing
in the express box, they went through the passengers. I acted a most
honorable part in the affair, placing myself in life mine with the others holding
up my hands and permitting myself to be deprived of forty dollars and a gold
watch. From my behavior, no one could have suspected that I knew the
gentleman who gave the entertainment. A few days later, when I went to
Niggerhead and asked for the return of my money and watch, my uncle and
cousins swore they knew nothing of the matter, and they affected a belief that
my father and I had done the job ourselves in dishonest violation of commercial good
faith. Uncle William even threatened to retaliate by starting an opposition dance house at
Ghost Rock, as the Saint's rest had become rather unpopular. I saw that
this assuredly ruin it and prove a paying enterprise, so I told my uncle
that I was willing to overlook the past if he would take me into the
scheme and keep the partnership a secret from my father. This fair offer he
rejected, and I then perceived that it would be better and more satisfactory if
he were dead. My plans to that end were soon perfected, and communicating
them to my dear parents, I had the gratification of receiving their approval,
my father said he was proud of me, and my mother promised that although
her religion forbade her to assist in taking human life, I should have the
advantage of her prayers for my six As a preliminary measure, looking to my
security in case of detection, I made an application for membership in that powerful
order, the Knights of Murder, and in due course was received as a
member of the Ghost Rock Commandery. On the day that my probation ended,
I was for the first time permitted to inspect the records of the order and
learn who belonged to it, all the rights of initiation having been conducted in
masks. Fancy my delight when, in looking over the role of membership I
found the third name to be that of my uncle, who indeed was Junior
Vice Chancellor of the Order. Here was an opportunity eating my wildest dreams to
murder. I could add insubordination and treachery. It was what my good mother
would have called a special providence. At about this time something occurred which caused
my cup of joy, already full, to overflow on all sides. A
circular cataract of bliss three men strangers in that locality, were arrested for the
stage robbery in which I had lost my money and watch. They were brought
to trial, and, despite my efforts to clear them and fasten the guilt
upon three of the most respectable and worthy citizens of ghost Rock, convicted on
the clearest proof, the murder would now be as wanton and reasonless as I
could wish. One morning, I shouldered my Winchester rifle, and, going
over to my uncle's house near Nigger Head, asked my Aunt Mary, his
wife, if he were at home, adding that I had come to kill
him. My aunt replied, with her peculiar smile, that so many gentlemen
called on that errand and were afterward carried away without having performed it, that
I must excuse her for doubting my good faith in the matter. She said,
I did not look as if I would kill anybody, so as a
proof of good faith, I leveled my rifle and wounded a Chinaman who happened
to be passing the house. She said she knew whole families that could do
a thing of that kind, but Bill Ridley was a horse of another color.
She said, however, that I would find him over on the other
side of the creek in the sheep lot, and she added that she hoped
the best man would win. My aunt Mary was one of the most fair
minded women that I have ever met. I found my uncle down on his
knees, engaged in skinning a sheep. Seeing that he had neither gun nor
pistol handy, I had not the heart to shoot him, so I approached
him, greeted him pleasantly, and struck him a powerful blow on the head
with the butt of my rifle. I have a very good livery, and
Uncle William lay down on his side, then rolled over on his back,
spread out his fingers, and shivered. Before he could recover the use of
his limbs, I seized the knife that he had been using and cut his
hamstrings. You know doubtless that when you sever the tendo achilles, the patient
has no further use of his leg. It is just the same as if
he had no leg. Well, I parted them both, and when he
revived, he was at my service. As soon as he comprehended the situation,
he said, Samuel, you have got the drop on me and can
afford to be generous. I have only one thing to ask of you,
and that is that you carry me to the house and finish me in the
bosom of my family. I told him I thought that a pretty reasonable request,
and I would do so if he would let me put him into a
wheat sack. He would be easier to carry that way, and if we
were seen by the neighbors en route, it would cause less remark. He
agreed to that, and going to the barn, I got a sack.
This, however, did not fit him. It was too short and much
wider than he. So I bent his legs, forced his knees up against
his breast, and got him into it that way, tying the sack above
his head. He was a heavy man, and I had all that I
could do to get him on my back. But I staggered along for some
distance until I came to a swing that some of the children had suspended to
the branch of an oak. Here I laid him down and sat upon him
to rest, and the sight of the rope gave me a happy inspiration.
In twenty minutes, my uncle, still in the sack, swung free to
the sport of the wind. I had taken down the rope, tied one
end tightly about the mouth of the bag, thrown the other across the limb,
and hauled him up about five feet from the ground, fastening the other
end of the rope, also about the mouth of the sack. I had
the satisfaction to see my uncle converted into a large, fine pendulum. I
must add that he was not himself entirely aware of the nature of the change
that he had undergone in his relation to the exterior world. Though in justice
to a good man's memory, I ought to say that I do not think
he would, in any case have wasted much of my time in vain remonstrance.
Uncle William had a ram that was famous in all that region. As
a fighter. It was in a state of chronic constitutional indignation. Some deep
disappointment in early life had soured its disposition, and it had declared war upon
the whole world. To say that it would but anything accessible is but faintly
to express the nature and scope of its military activity. The universe was its
antagonist, its methods that of a projectile. It fought like the angels and
devils in mid air, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird, describing a parabolic
curve, and descending upon its victim at just the exact angle of incidence to
make the most of its velocity and weight. Its momentum calculated in foot tons,
was something incredible. It had been seen to destroy a four year old
bull by a single impact upon that animal's gnarly forehead. No stone wall had
ever been known to resist its downward swoop. There were no trees tough enough
to stay it. It would splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors
in the dust. This irascible and implacable brute, this incarnate thunderbolt, this
monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in the shade of an
adjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory. It was with a view
to summoning it forth to the field of honor, that I suspended its master
in the manner described. Having completed my preparations, I parted to the avuncular
pendulum a gentle oscillation, and, retiring to cover behind a contiguous rock,
lifted up my voice in a long, rasping cry, whose diminishing final note
was drowned in a noise like that of a swearing cat, which emanated from
the sack. Instantly, that formidable sheep was upon its feet and had taken
in the military situation at a glance. In a few moments it had approached,
stamping to within fifty yards of the swinging foeman, who, now retreating
and anon advancing, seemed to invite the fray. Suddenly I saw the beast's
head drop earthward, as if depressed by the weight of its enormous horns.
Then a dim, white, wavy streak of sheep prolonged itself from that spot
in a generally horizontal direction to within about four yards of a point immediately beneath
the enemy. There it struck sharply upward, and before it had faded from
my gaze at the place whence it had set out, I heard a horrid
thump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward with a slack
rope higher than the limb to which he was attached. Here the rope tautened
with a jerk, resting his flight, and back he swung in a breathless
curve to the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, a
heap of indistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but pulling itself together and dodging
as its antagonist swept downward. It retired at random, alternately shaking its head
and stamping its fore feet. When it had backed about the same distance as
that from which it had delivered the assault, it paused, again, bowed
its head as if in prayer for victory, and again shot forward, dimly
visible as before, a prolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with a
sharp ascension. Its course this time was at a right angle to its former
one, and its impatience so great that it struck the enemy before he had
nearly reached the lowest point of his arc. In consequence, he went flying
round and round in a horizontal circle whose radius was about equal to half the
length of the rope, which I forgot to say was nearly twenty feet long.
His shrieks, crescendo in approach and diminuendo in recession, made the rapidity
of his revolution more obvious to the ear than to the eye. He had
evidently not yet been struck in a vital spot. His posture, the sack,
and the distance from the ground at which he hung compelled the ram to
operate upon his lower extremities and the end of his back, like a plant
that has struck its root into some poisonous mineral. My poor uncle was dying
slowly upward. After delivering its second blow, the ram had not again retired.
The fever of battle burned hot in its heart. Its brain was intoxicated
with the whine of strife. Like a pugilist who, in his rage forgets
his skill and fights ineffectively at half arm's length. The angry beast endeavored to
reach its fleeting foe by awkward vertical leaps as he passed overhead, sometimes indeed
succeeding in striking him feebly, but more frequently overthrown by its own misguided eagerness.
But as the impetus was exhausted and the man's circles narrowed in scope and
diminished in speed, bringing him nearer to the ground, these tactics produced better
results, eliciting a superior quality of screams, which I greatly enjoyed. Suddenly,
as if the bugles had sung truce, the ram suspended hostilities and walked
away, thoughtfully, wrinkling and smoothing its great aquiline nose, and occasionally cropping
a bunch of grass and slowly munching it. It seemed to have tired of
war's alarms, and resolved to beat the sword into a plowshare and cultivate the
arts of peace. Steadily, it held its course away from the field of
Fame until it had gained a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile.
There it stopped and stood with its rear to the foe, chewing its cud,
and apparently half asleep. I observed, however, an occasional slight turn
of its head, as if its apathy were more affected than real. Meantime,
Uncle William's shrieks had abated with his motion, and nothing was heard from
him but long, low moans, and at long intervals my name uttered in
pleading tones, exceedingly grateful to my ear. Evidently the man had not the
faintest notion of what was being done to him, and was inexpressibly terrified.
When death comes, cloaked in mystery, he is terrible. Indeed, little
by little my uncle's oscillations diminished, and finally he hung motionless. I went
to him and was about to give him the coote grass when I heard and
felt a succession of smart shocks, which shook the ground like a series of
light earthquakes, and turning in the direction of the ram, saw a long
cloud of dust approaching me with inconceivable rapidity and alarming effect. At a distance
of some thirty yards away. It stopped short, and from the near end
of it rose into the air what I at first thought was a great white
bird. Its ascent was so smooth and easy and regular that I could not
realize its extraordinary celerity, and was lost in admiration of its grace. To
this day, the impression remains that it was a slow, deliberate movement the
ram, for it was that animal being upborne by some power other than its
own impetus, and supported through the successive stages of its flight with infinite tenderness
and care. My eyes followed its progress through the air with unspeakable pleasure,
all the greater by contrast with my former terror of its approach. By land.
Onward and upward, the noble animal sailed, its head bent down almost
between its knees, its fore feet thrown back, its hinder legs trailing to
rear like the legs of a soaring heron. At a height of forty or
fifty feet, as fond recollection presents it to view, it attained its zenith,
and appeared to remain an instant stationary, then tilting suddenly forward without altering
the relative position of its parts. It shot downward on a steeper and steeper
course with augmenting velocity, passed immediately above me with a noise like the rush
of a cannon shot, and struck my poor uncle almost squarely on the top
of the head. So frightful was the impact that not only the man's neck
was broken, but the rope too, and the body of the deceased,
forced against the earth, was crushed to pulp beneath the awful front of that
meteoric sheep. The concussion stopped all the clocks between lone hand and Dutch dans,
and Professor Davidson, a distinguished authority in matters seismic, who happened to
be in the vicinity, promptly explained that the vibrations were from north to southwest
altogether. I cannot help thinking that in point of artistic atrocity, my murder
of Uncle William has seldom been excelled, and of my favorite murder by Ambrose bears