Speaker 1: 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 forbearance 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 excit sception, 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 Calamacki, 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 nigger Head, 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 line 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 was
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 success. 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 exce 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
deay 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 ham strings. 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 hearted 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 foemen, who, now retreating and
anon advancing, seemed to invite the fray. Suddenly I saw
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 forefeet. 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 is 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 cut grass, when I heard and felt
a succession of smart shocks which shook the ground like
a series of light earthquakes, and tarning 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 Bierce