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 down

into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back,
the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. 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 the ties supporting the rails of the
railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers
of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a
deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an
officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each
end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as "support," that
is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the
forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal and unnatural position,
enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of
these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they
merely 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, was lost to view.
Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream
was open ground—a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree
trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded
the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope
between the bridge and fort were the spectators—a single company of infantry
in line, at "parade rest," the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels
inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed 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 his right. Excepting the group of
four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the
bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the
stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with
folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no
sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received
with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him.
In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-
five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which
was that of a planter. His features were good—a straight nose, firm mouth,
broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back,
falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a
moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark
gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in
one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The
liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and
gentlemen are not excluded.

The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside
and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant
turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that
officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the
condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank,
which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the
civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held
in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant.
At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt
and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement
commended itself to his judgement as simple and effective. His face had not
been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast
footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing
madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and
his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What
a sluggish stream!

He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and
children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists
under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the
piece of drift—all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new
disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he
could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like
the stroke of a 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 impatience and—he knew not
why—apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the
delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds
increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife;
he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.

He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If I could free
my hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and spring into the
stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach
the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as
yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's
farthest advance."

As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed
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 highly respected

Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician,
he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern
cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate
here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had
fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed
under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger
life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt,
would come, as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could.
No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no
adventure to perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a
civilian who was at heart 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 bench
near 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 happy to serve him
with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband
approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.
 "The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and are getting
ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in
order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an
order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that 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 single sentinel
at this end of the bridge."

"Suppose a man—a civilian and student of hanging—should elude the

picket 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 is now dry and would burn like
tinder."

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked
her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after
nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from
which he had come. He was a Federal scout.

III

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost

consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened
—ages later, it seemed to him—by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his
throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to
shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs.
These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to
beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of
pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he
was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness—of congestion. These
sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature
was 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 a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with
terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud
splash; a frightful roaring 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 had
fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about
his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from 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 saw above him a gleam of light, but how
distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter
and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten,
and he knew that he was rising toward the surface—knew it with reluctance,
for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought,
"that is not 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 wrist apprised
him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as
an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome.
What splendid effort!—what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that
was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated
upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched
them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the
noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations
resembling those of a water snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he
shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been
succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached
horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly,
gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was
racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient
hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with
quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge;
his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and
with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught 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 awful disturbance of his
organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of
things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their
separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the
stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—he
saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray
spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic 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 water spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their
boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he
heard the rush of its body parting the water.

He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the
visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he
saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant,
the two privates, his executioners. They were in 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 water smartly
within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a
second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a
light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw
the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the
rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that
gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them.
Nevertheless, this one had missed.

A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was
again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear,
high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him 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 dread significance of that deliberate,
drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant 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 his ears

like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and,
rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened,
oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and
hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar
and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.
 As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a
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 from the barrels, turned in the
air, and thrust into their sockets. The two 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 arms and legs;
he thought with the rapidity of lightning:

"The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a second
time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has 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 air
to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A
rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him,
strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook his
head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot
humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and
smashing the branches in the forest beyond.

"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they will use a
charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will 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 by their 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 a velocity 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 of the stream—the southern bank—and behind a
projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of
his motion, the abrasion 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 himself in
handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he
could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the
bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement,
inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. 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 in that enchanting spot until retaken.
 A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head
roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random
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. The forest
seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a
woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There
was something uncanny in the revelation.

By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of his wife

and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he
knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it
seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much
as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the
trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a
point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up
through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and
grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were 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 in an 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 had bruised it. His eyes
felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with
thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into
the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue—he could
no longer feel the roadway 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 a delirium.
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 must have traveled the entire night. As
he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of
female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from
the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a
smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how
beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about 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 gently
from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.