The secret of Macarger's Gulch
North Westwardly from Indian Hill, about nine miles as the crow
flies, is Macarger's Gulch. It is not much of a gulch--a mere
depression between two wooded ridges of inconsiderable height. From
its mouth up to its head--for gulches, like rivers, have an anatomy
of their own--the distance does not exceed two miles, and the width
at bottom is at only one place more than a dozen yards; for most of
the distance on either side of the little brook which drains it in
winter, and goes dry in the early spring, there is no level ground at
all; the steep slopes of the hills, covered with an almost
impenetrable growth of manzanita and chemisal, are parted by nothing
but the width of the water course. No one but an occasional
enterprising hunter of the vicinity ever goes into Macarger's Gulch,
and five miles away it is unknown, even by name. Within that
distance in any direction are far more conspicuous topographical
features without names, and one might try in vain to ascertain by
local inquiry the origin of the name of this one.
About midway between the head and the mouth of Macarger's Gulch, the
hill on the right as you ascend is cloven by another gulch, a short
dry one, and at the junction of the two is a level space of two or
three acres, and there a few years ago stood an old board house
containing one small room. How the component parts of the house, few
and simple as they were, had been assembled at that almost
inaccessible point is a problem in the solution of which there would
be greater satisfaction than advantage. Possibly the creek bed is a
reformed road. It is certain that the gulch was at one time pretty
thoroughly prospected by miners, who must have had some means of
getting in with at least pack animals carrying tools and supplies;
their profits, apparently, were not such as would have justified any
considerable outlay to connect Macarger's Gulch with any center of
civilization enjoying the distinction of a sawmill. The house,
however, was there, most of it. It lacked a door and a window frame,
and the chimney of mud and stones had fallen into an unlovely heap,
overgrown with rank weeds. Such humble furniture as there may once
have been and much of the lower weatherboarding, had served as fuel
in the camp fires of hunters; as had also, probably, the curbing of
an old well, which at the time I write of existed in the form of a
rather wide but not very deep depression near by.
One afternoon in the summer of 1874, I passed up Macarger's Gulch
from the narrow valley into which it opens, by following the dry bed
of the brook. I was quail-shooting and had made a bag of about a
dozen birds by the time I had reached the house described, of whose
existence I was until then unaware. After rather carelessly
inspecting the ruin I resumed my sport, and having fairly good
success prolonged it until near sunset, when it occurred to me that I
was a long way from any human habitation--too far to reach one by
nightfall. But in my game bag was food, and the old house would
afford shelter, if shelter were needed on a warm and dewless night in
the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, where one may sleep in comfort on
the pine needles, without covering. I am fond of solitude and love
the night, so my resolution to "camp out" was soon taken, and by the
time that it was dark I had made my bed of boughs and grasses in a
corner of the room and was roasting a quail at a fire that I had
kindled on the hearth. The smoke escaped out of the ruined chimney,
the light illuminated the room with a kindly glow, and as I ate my
simple meal of plain bird and drank the remains of a bottle of red
wine which had served me all the afternoon in place of the water,
which the region did not supply, I experienced a sense of comfort
which better fare and accommodations do not always give.
Nevertheless, there was something lacking. I had a sense of comfort,
but not of security. I detected myself staring more frequently at
the open doorway and blank window than I could find warrant for
doing. Outside these apertures all was black, and I was unable to
repress a certain feeling of apprehension as my fancy pictured the
outer world and filled it with unfriendly entities, natural and
supernatural--chief among which, in their respective classes, were
the grizzly bear, which I knew was occasionally still seen in that
region, and the ghost, which I had reason to think was not.
Unfortunately, our feelings do not always respect the law of
probabilities, and to me that evening, the possible and the
impossible were equally disquieting.
Everyone who has had experience in the matter must have observed that
one confronts the actual and imaginary perils of the night with far
less apprehension in the open air than in a house with an open
doorway. I felt this now as I lay on my leafy couch in a corner of
the room next to the chimney and permitted my fire to die out. So
strong became my sense of the presence of something malign and
menacing in the place, that I found myself almost unable to withdraw
my eyes from the opening, as in the deepening darkness it became more
and more indistinct. And when the last little flame flickered and
went out I grasped the shotgun which I had laid at my side and
actually turned the muzzle in the direction of the now invisible
entrance, my thumb on one of the hammers, ready to cock the piece, my
breath suspended, my muscles rigid and tense. But later I laid down
the weapon with a sense of shame and mortification. What did I fear,
and why?--I, to whom the night had been
a more familiar face
Than that of man -
I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from which none of
us is altogether free had given to solitude and darkness and silence
only a more alluring interest and charm! I was unable to comprehend
my folly, and losing in the conjecture the thing conjectured of, I
fell asleep. And then I dreamed.
I was in a great city in a foreign land--a city whose people were of
my own race, with minor differences of speech and costume; yet
precisely what these were I could not say; my sense of them was
indistinct. The city was dominated by a great castle upon an
overlooking height whose name I knew, but could not speak. I walked
through many streets, some broad and straight with high, modern
buildings, some narrow, gloomy, and tortuous, between the gables of
quaint old houses whose overhanging stories, elaborately ornamented
with carvings in wood and stone, almost met above my head.
I sought someone whom I had never seen, yet knew that I should
recognize when found. My quest was not aimless and fortuitous; it
had a definite method. I turned from one street into another without
hesitation and threaded a maze of intricate passages, devoid of the
fear of losing my way.
Presently I stopped before a low door in a plain stone house which
might have been the dwelling of an artisan of the better sort, and
without announcing myself, entered. The room, rather sparely
furnished, and lighted by a single window with small diamond-shaped
panes, had but two occupants; a man and a woman. They took no notice
of my intrusion, a circumstance which, in the manner of dreams,
appeared entirely natural. They were not conversing; they sat apart,
unoccupied and sullen.
The woman was young and rather stout, with fine large eyes and a
certain grave beauty; my memory of her expression is exceedingly
vivid, but in dreams one does not observe the details of faces.
About her shoulders was a plaid shawl. The man was older, dark, with
an evil face made more forbidding by a long scar extending from near
the left temple diagonally downward into the black mustache; though
in my dreams it seemed rather to haunt the face as a thing apart--I
can express it no otherwise--than to belong to it. The moment that I
found the man and woman I knew them to be husband and wife.
What followed, I remember indistinctly; all was confused and
inconsistent--made so, I think, by gleams of consciousness. It was
as if two pictures, the scene of my dream, and my actual
surroundings, had been blended, one overlying the other, until the
former, gradually fading, disappeared, and I was broad awake in the
deserted cabin, entirely and tranquilly conscious of my situation.
My foolish fear was gone, and opening my eyes I saw that my fire, not
altogether burned out, had revived by the falling of a stick and was
again lighting the room. I had probably slept only a few minutes,
but my commonplace dream had somehow so strongly impressed me that I
was no longer drowsy; and after a little while I rose, pushed the
embers of my fire together, and lighting my pipe proceeded in a
rather ludicrously methodical way to meditate upon my vision.
It would have puzzled me then to say in what respect it was worth
attention. In the first moment of serious thought that I gave to the
matter I recognized the city of my dream as Edinburgh, where I had
never been; so if the dream was a memory it was a memory of pictures
and description. The recognition somehow deeply impressed me; it was
as if something in my mind insisted rebelliously against will and
reason on the importance of all this. And that faculty, whatever it
was, asserted also a control of my speech. "Surely," I said aloud,
quite involuntarily, "the MacGregors must have come here from
Edinburgh."
At the moment, neither the substance of this remark nor the fact of
my making it, surprised me in the least; it seemed entirely natural
that I should know the name of my dreamfolk and something of their
history. But the absurdity of it all soon dawned upon me: I laughed
aloud, knocked the ashes from my pipe and again stretched myself upon
my bed of boughs and grass, where I lay staring absently into my
failing fire, with no further thought of either my dream or my
surroundings. Suddenly the single remaining flame crouched for a
moment, then, springing upward, lifted itself clear of its embers and
expired in air. The darkness was absolute.
At that instant--almost, it seemed, before the gleam of the blaze had
faded from my eyes--there was a dull, dead sound, as of some heavy
body falling upon the floor, which shook beneath me as I lay. I
sprang to a sitting posture and groped at my side for my gun; my
notion was that some wild beast had leaped in through the open
window. While the flimsy structure was still shaking from the impact
I heard the sound of blows, the scuffling of feet upon the floor, and
then--it seemed to come from almost within reach of my hand, the
sharp shrieking of a woman in mortal agony. So horrible a cry I had
never heard nor conceived; it utterly unnerved me; I was conscious
for a moment of nothing but my own terror! Fortunately my hand now
found the weapon of which it was in search, and the familiar touch
somewhat restored me. I leaped to my feet, straining my eyes to
pierce the darkness. The violent sounds had ceased, but more
terrible than these, I heard, at what seemed long intervals, the
faint intermittent gasping of some living, dying thing!
As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light of the coals in the
fireplace, I saw first the shapes of the door and window, looking
blacker than the black of the walls. Next, the distinction between
wall and floor became discernible, and at last I was sensible to the
form and full expanse of the floor from end to end and side to side.
Nothing was visible and the silence was unbroken.
With a hand that shook a little, the other still grasping my gun, I
restored my fire and made a critical examination of the place. There
was nowhere any sign that the cabin had been entered. My own tracks
were visible in the dust covering the floor, but there were no
others. I relit my pipe, provided fresh fuel by ripping a thin board
or two from the inside of the house--I did not care to go into the
darkness out of doors--and passed the rest of the night smoking and
thinking, and feeding my fire; not for added years of life would I
have permitted that little flame to expire again.
Some years afterward I met in Sacramento a man named Morgan, to whom
I had a note of introduction from a friend in San Francisco. Dining
with him one evening at his home I observed various "trophies" upon
the wall, indicating that he was fond of shooting. It turned out
that he was, and in relating some of his feats he mentioned having
been in the region of my adventure.
"Mr. Morgan," I asked abruptly, "do you know a place up there called
Macarger's Gulch?"
"I have good reason to," he replied; "it was I who gave to the
newspapers, last year, the accounts of the finding of the skeleton
there."
I had not heard of it; the accounts had been published, it appeared,
while I was absent in the East.
"By the way," said Morgan, "the name of the gulch is a corruption; it
should have been called 'MacGregor's.' My dear," he added, speaking
to his wife, "Mr. Elderson has upset his wine."
That was hardly accurate--I had simply dropped it, glass and all.
"There was an old shanty once in the gulch," Morgan resumed when the
ruin wrought by my awkwardness had been repaired, "but just
previously to my visit it had been blown down, or rather blown away,
for its debris was scattered all about, the very floor being parted,
plank from plank. Between two of the sleepers still in position I
and my companion observed the remnant of a plaid shawl, and examining
it found that it was wrapped about the shoulders of the body of a
woman, of which but little remained besides the bones, partly covered
with fragments of clothing, and brown dry skin. But we will spare
Mrs. Morgan," he added with a smile. The lady had indeed exhibited
signs of disgust rather than sympathy.
"It is necessary to say, however," he went on, "that the skull was
fractured in several places, as by blows of some blunt instrument;
and that instrument itself--a pick-handle, still stained with blood--
lay under the boards near by."
Mr. Morgan turned to his wife. "Pardon me, my dear," he said with
affected solemnity, "for mentioning these disagreeable particulars,
the natural though regrettable incidents of a conjugal quarrel--
resulting, doubtless, from the luckless wife's insubordination."
"I ought to be able to overlook it," the lady replied with composure;
"you have so many times asked me to in those very words."
I thought he seemed rather glad to go on with his story.
"From these and other circumstances," he said, "the coroner's jury
found that the deceased, Janet MacGregor, came to her death from
blows inflicted by some person to the jury unknown; but it was added
that the evidence pointed strongly to her husband, Thomas MacGregor,
as the guilty person. But Thomas MacGregor has never been found nor
heard of. It was learned that the couple came from Edinburgh, but
not--my dear, do you not observe that Mr. Elderson's boneplate has
water in it?"
I had deposited a chicken bone in my finger bowl.
"In a little cupboard I found a photograph of MacGregor, but it did
not lead to his capture."
"Will you let me see it?" I said.
The picture showed a dark man with an evil face made more forbidding
by a long scar extending from near the temple diagonally downward
into the black mustache.
"By the way, Mr. Elderson," said my affable host, "may I know why you
asked about 'Macarger's Gulch'?"
"I lost a mule near there once," I replied, "and the mischance has--
has quite--upset me."
"My dear," said Mr. Morgan, with the mechanical intonation of an
interpreter translating, "the loss of Mr. Elderson's mule has
peppered his coffee."
-THE END-
Ambrose Bierce's short story: The secret of Macarger's Gulch
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