Speaker 1: The thing at Nolan by Ambrose Bierce. To the south
of where the road between Lesville and Hardie 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 sonny, 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
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 Odell, 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 minds 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 head. 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's store at Nolan End? The Thing at Nolan by
Ambrose Bierce