"Unreliable Narrator"

AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE
by Ambrose Bierce
THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION, 1988

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking downinto the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled hisneck. 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 theties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for himand his executioners--two private soldiers of the Federal army,directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputysheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. Asentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in theposition known as "support," that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straightacross the chest--a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these twomen to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; theymerely 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, waslost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. Theother bank of the stream was open ground--a gentle slope topped witha stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannoncommanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge andfort were the spectators--a single company of infantry in line, at"parade rest," the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrelsinclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the handscrossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line,the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon hisright. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not aman moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless.The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statuesto adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent,observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is adignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formalmanifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. Inthe code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms ofdeference.
The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge fromhis habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good--astraight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, darkhair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collarof his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointedbeard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had akindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whoseneck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. Theliberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds ofpersons, and gentlemen are not excluded.
The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers steppedaside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing.The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himselfimmediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing onthe two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-tiesof the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but notquite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by theweight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At asignal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank wouldtilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangementcommended itself to his judgement as simple and effective. His facehad not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his"unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling waterof the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancingdriftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down thecurrent. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife andchildren. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the broodingmists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, thesoldiers, the piece of drift--all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thoughtof his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke ofa 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 new stroke with impatienceand--he knew not why--apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greaterinfrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurthis ear like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What heheard was the ticking of his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If I couldfree my hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and springinto the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. Myhome, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and littleones are still beyond the invader's farthest advance."
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, wereflashed 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 highlyrespected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slaveowners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist andardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperiousnature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him fromtaking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under theinglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, thelarger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. Thatopportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him toperform in the aid of the South, no adventure to perilous for him toundertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was atheart 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 benchnear 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 too happyto serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerlyfor news from the front.
"The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and aregetting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creekbridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. Thecommandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaringthat 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 of the creek?"
"Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a singlesentinel at this end of the bridge."
"Suppose a man--a civilian and student of hanging--should elude thepicket 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 isnow dry and would burn like tinder."
The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. Hethanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. Anhour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, goingnorthward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federalscout.
III
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lostconsciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened--ages later, it seemed to him--by the pain of a sharppressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen,poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through everyfiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along welldefined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapidperiodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating himto an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious ofnothing but a feeling of fullness--of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his naturewas 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 avast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightfulroaring 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 hadfallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the waterfrom 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 sawabove him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was amere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that hewas rising toward the surface--knew it with reluctance, for he was nowvery comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought, "that isnot 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 wristapprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave thestruggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of ajuggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!--whatmagnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor!Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, thehands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched themwith a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon thenoose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside,its undulations resembling those of a water snake. "Put it back, putit back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for theundoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he hadyet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, hisheart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying toforce itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenchedwith an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heedto the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downwardstrokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; hiseyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively,and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a greatdraught 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 awfuldisturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them thatthey made record of things never before perceived. He felt theripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck.He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individualtrees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf--he saw the veryinsects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted theprismatic 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 waterspiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat--all these madeaudible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard therush of its body parting the water.
He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment thevisible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point,and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, thecaptain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They werein 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 watersmartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face withspray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels withhis rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from themuzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridgegazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed thatit was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes werekeenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this onehad missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he wasagain looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The soundof a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behindhim 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 dreadsignificance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; thelieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly--with what an even, calm intonation, presaging,and enforcing tranquility in the men--with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:
"Company! . . . Attention! . . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready!. . .Aim! . . . Fire!"
Farquhar dived--dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in hisears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits ofmetal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some ofthem touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuingtheir descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it wasuncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had beena long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream--nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn fromthe barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. Thetwo 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 armsand legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning:
"The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error asecond time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. Hehas probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me,I cannot dodge them all!"
An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud,rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the airto the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river toits deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in thegame. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, andin an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forestbeyond.
"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they willuse a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smokewill 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 bytheir 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 avelocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank ofthe stream--the southern bank--and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, theabrasion 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 himselfin handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies,emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did notresemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noteda definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of theirblooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of AEolian harps.He had not wish to perfect his escape--he was content to remain inthat enchanting spot until retaken.
A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above hishead roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him arandom 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. Theforest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, noteven a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild aregion. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of hiswife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led himin what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide andstraight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fieldsbordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of adog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formeda straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point,like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked upthrough this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars lookingunfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure theywere 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 inan 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 hadbruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them.His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrustingit forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly theturf had carpeted the untraveled avenue--he could no longer feel theroadway 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 adelirium. 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 musthave traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passesup the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda tomeet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smileof ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, howbeautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he isabout 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 gentlyfrom side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge