Can Such Things Be? By Ambrose Bierce
AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA
For there be divers sorts of death - some wherein the body
remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit.
This commonly occurreth only in solitude (such is God’s
will) and, none seeing the end, we say the man is lost, or gone
on a long journey - which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath
happened in sight of many, as abundant testimony showeth. In one
kind of death the spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known
to do while yet the body was in vigor for many years. Sometimes,
as is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after a
season is raised up again in that place where the body did
decay.
Pondering these words of Hali (whom God rest) and questioning
their full meaning, as one who, having an intimation, yet doubts
if there be not something behind, other than that which he has
discerned, I noted not whither I had strayed until a sudden chill
wind striking my face revived in me a sense of my surroundings.
I observed with astonishment that everything seemed unfamiliar.
On every side of me stretched a bleak and desolate expanse of
plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of sere grass, which
rustled and whistled in the autumn wind with heaven knows what
mysterious and disquieting suggestion. Protruded at long
intervals above it, stood strangely shaped and somber-colored
rocks, which seemed to have an understanding with one another and
to exchange looks of uncomfortable significance, as if they had
reared their heads to watch the issue of some foreseen event. A
few blasted trees here and there appeared as leaders in this
malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation.
The day, I thought, must be far advanced, though the sun was
invisible; and although sensible that the air was raw and chill
my consciousness of that fact was rather mental than physical - I
had no feeling of discomfort. Over all the dismal landscape a
canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung like a visible curse. In
all this there were a menace and a portent - a hint of evil, an
intimation of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was none. The
wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the gray
grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other
sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal
place.
I observed in the herbage a number of weather-worn stones,
evidently shaped with tools. They were broken, covered with moss
and half sunken in the earth. Some lay prostrate, some leaned at
various angles, none was vertical. They were obviously
headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer
existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled
all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where
some pompous tomb or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble
defiance at oblivion. So old seemed these relics, these vestiges
of vanity and memorials of affection and piety, so battered and
worn and stained - so neglected, deserted, forgotten the place,
that I could not help thinking myself the discoverer of the
burial-ground of a prehistoric race of men whose very name was
long extinct.
Filled with these reflections, I was for some time heedless of
the sequence of my own experiences, but soon I thought,
“How came I hither?” A moment’s reflection
seemed to make this all clear and explain at the same time,
though in a disquieting way, the singular character with which my
fancy had invested all that I saw or heard. I was ill. I
remembered now that I had been prostrated by a sudden fever, and
that my family had told me that in my periods of delirium I had
constantly cried out for liberty and air, and had been held in
bed to prevent my escape out-of-doors. Now I had eluded the
vigilance of my attendants and had wandered hither to - to
where? I could not conjecture. Clearly I was at a considerable
distance from the city where I dwelt - the ancient and famous
city of Carcosa.
No signs of human life were anywhere visible nor audible; no
rising smoke, no watch-dog’s bark, no lowing of cattle, no
shouts of children at play - nothing but that dismal
burial-place, with its air of mystery and dread, due to my own
disordered brain. Was I not becoming again delirious, there
beyond human aid? Was it not indeed all an illusion of my
madness? I called aloud the names of my wives and sons, reached
out my hands in search of theirs, even as I walked among the
crumbling stones and in the withered grass.
A noise behind me caused me to turn about. A wild animal - a
lynx - was approaching. The thought came to me: If I break down
here in the desert - if the fever return and I fail, this beast
will be at my throat. I sprang toward it, shouting. It trotted
tranquilly by within a hand’s breadth of me and disappeared
behind a rock.
A moment later a man’s head appeared to rise out of the
ground a short distance away. He was ascending the farther slope
of a low hill whose crest was hardly to be distinguished from the
general level. His whole figure soon came into view against the
background of gray cloud. He was half naked, half clad in
skins. His hair was unkempt, his beard long and ragged. In one
hand he carried a bow and arrow; the other held a blazing torch
with a long trail of black smoke. He walked slowly and with
caution, as if he feared falling into some open grave concealed
by the tall grass. This strange apparition surprised but did not
alarm, and taking such a course as to intercept him I met him
almost face to face, accosting him with the familiar salutation,
“God keep you.”
He gave no heed, nor did he arrest his pace.
“Good stranger,” I continued, “I am ill and
lost. Direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa.”
The man broke into a barbarous chant in an unknown tongue,
passing on and away.
An owl on the branch of a decayed tree hooted dismally and was
answered by another in the distance. Looking upward, I saw
through a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades! In
all this there was a hint of night - the lynx, the man with the
torch, the owl. Yet I saw - I saw even the stars in absence of
the darkness. I saw, but was apparently not seen nor heard.
Under what awful spell did I exist?
I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously to
consider what it were best to do. That I was mad I could no
longer doubt, yet recognized a ground of doubt in the
conviction. Of fever I had no trace. I had, withal, a sense of
exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to me - a feeling of
mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemed all alert; I
could feel the air as a ponderous substance; I could hear the
silence.
A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I
sat held inclosed in its grasp a slab of stone, a part of which
protruded into a recess formed by another root. The stone was
thus partly protected from the weather, though greatly
decomposed. Its edges were worn round, its corners eaten away,
its surface deeply furrowed and scaled. Glittering particles of
mica were visible in the earth about it - vestiges of its
decomposition. This stone had apparently marked the grave out of
which the tree had sprung ages ago. The tree’s exacting
roots had robbed the grave and made the stone a prisoner.
A sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and twigs from the uppermost
face of the stone; I saw the low-relief letters of an inscription
and bent to read it. God in Heaven! my name in full! -
the date of my birth! - the date of my death!
A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as
I sprang to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in the rosy
east. I stood between the tree and his broad red disk - no
shadow darkened the trunk!
A chorus of howling wolves saluted the dawn. I saw them sitting
on their haunches, singly and in groups, on the summits of
irregular mounds and tumuli filling a half of my desert prospect
and extending to the horizon. And then I knew that these were
ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa.
Such are the facts imparted to the medium Bayrolles by the spirit
Hoseib Alar Robardin.
THE STRANGER
A man stepped out of the darkness into the little illuminated
circle about our failing campfire and seated himself upon a
rock.
“You are not the first to explore this region,” he
said, gravely.
Nobody controverted his statement; he was himself proof of its
truth, for he was not of our party and must have been somewhere
near when we camped. Moreover, he must have companions not far
away; it was not a place where one would be living or traveling
alone. For more than a week we had seen, besides ourselves and
our animals, only such living things as rattlesnakes and horned
toads. In an Arizona desert one does not long coexist with only
such creatures as these: one must have pack animals, supplies,
arms - “an outfit.” And all these imply comrades.
It was perhaps a doubt as to what manner of men this
unceremonious stranger’s comrades might be, together with
something in his words interpretable as a challenge, that caused
every man of our half-dozen “gentlemen adventurers”
to rise to a sitting posture and lay his hand upon a weapon - an
act signifying, in that time and place, a policy of expectation.
The stranger gave the matter no attention and began again to
speak in the same deliberate, uninflected monotone in which he
had delivered his first sentence:
“Thirty years ago Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W.
Kent and Berry Davis, all of Tucson, crossed the Santa Catalina
mountains and traveled due west, as nearly as the configuration
of the country permitted. We were prospecting and it was our
intention, if we found nothing, to push through to the Gila river
at some point near Big Bend, where we understood there was a
settlement. We had a good outfit but no guide - just Ramon
Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry
Davis.”
The man repeated the names slowly and distinctly, as if to fix
them in the memories of his audience, every member of which was
now attentively observing him, but with a slackened apprehension
regarding his possible companions somewhere in the darkness that
seemed to enclose us like a black wall; in the manner of this
volunteer historian was no suggestion of an unfriendly purpose.
His act was rather that of a harmless lunatic than an enemy. We
were not so new to the country as not to know that the solitary
life of many a plainsman had a tendency to develop eccentricities
of conduct and character not always easily distinguishable from
mental aberration. A man is like a tree: in a forest of his
fellows he will grow as straight as his generic and individual
nature permits; alone in the open, he yields to the deforming
stresses and tortions that environ him. Some such thoughts were
in my mind as I watched the man from the shadow of my hat, pulled
low to shut out the firelight. A witless fellow, no doubt, but
what could he be doing there in the heart of a desert?
Having undertaken to tell this story, I wish that I could
describe the man’s appearance; that would be a natural
thing to do. Unfortunately, and somewhat strangely, I find
myself unable to do so with any degree of confidence, for
afterward no two of us agreed as to what he wore and how he
looked; and when I try to set down my own impressions they elude
me. Anyone can tell some kind of story; narration is one of the
elemental powers of the race. But the talent for description is
a gift.
Nobody having broken silence the visitor went on to say:
“This country was not then what it is now. There was not a
ranch between the Gila and the Gulf. There was a little game
here and there in the mountains, and near the infrequent
water-holes grass enough to keep our animals from starvation. If
we should be so fortunate as to encounter no Indians we might get
through. But within a week the purpose of the expedition had
altered from discovery of wealth to preservation of life. We had
gone too far to go back, for what was ahead could be no worse
than what was behind; so we pushed on, riding by night to avoid
Indians and the intolerable heat, and concealing ourselves by day
as best we could. Sometimes, having exhausted our supply of wild
meat and emptied our casks, we were days without food or drink;
then a water-hole or a shallow pool in the bottom of an
arroyo so restored our strength and sanity that we were
able to shoot some of the wild animals that sought it also.
Sometimes it was a bear, sometimes an antelope, a coyote, a
cougar - that was as God pleased; all were food.
“One morning as we skirted a mountain range, seeking a
practicable pass, we were attacked by a band of Apaches who had
followed our trail up a gulch - it is not far from here. Knowing
that they outnumbered us ten to one, they took none of their
usual cowardly precautions, but dashed upon us at a gallop,
firing and yelling. Fighting was out of the question: we urged
our feeble animals up the gulch as far as there was footing for a
hoof, then threw ourselves out of our saddles and took to the
chaparral on one of the slopes, abandoning our entire
outfit to the enemy. But we retained our rifles, every man -
Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry
Davis.”
“Same old crowd,” said the humorist of our party. He
was an Eastern man, unfamiliar with the decent observances of
social intercourse. A gesture of disapproval from our leader
silenced him and the stranger proceeded with his tale:
“The savages dismounted also, and some of them ran up the
gulch beyond the point at which we had left it, cutting off
further retreat in that direction and forcing us on up the side.
Unfortunately the chaparral extended only a short distance
up the slope, and as we came into the open ground above we took
the fire of a dozen rifles; but Apaches shoot badly when in a
hurry, and God so willed it that none of us fell. Twenty yards
up the slope, beyond the edge of the brush, were vertical cliffs,
in which, directly in front of us, was a narrow opening. Into
that we ran, finding ourselves in a cavern about as large as an
ordinary room in a house. Here for a time we were safe: a single
man with a repeating rifle could defend the entrance against all
the Apaches in the land. But against hunger and thirst we had no
defense. Courage we still had, but hope was a memory.
“Not one of those Indians did we afterward see, but by the
smoke and glare of their fires in the gulch we knew that by day
and by night they watched with ready rifles in the edge of the
bush - knew that if we made a sortie not a man of us would live
to take three steps into the open. For three days, watching in
turn, we held out before our suffering became insupportable.
Then - it was the morning of the fourth day - Ramon Gallegos
said:
“‘Senores, I know not well of the good God and what
please him. I have live without religion, and I am not acquaint
with that of you. Pardon, senores, if I shock you, but for me
the time is come to beat the game of the Apache.’
“He knelt upon the rock floor of the cave and pressed his
pistol against his temple. ‘Madre de Dios,’ he said,
‘comes now the soul of Ramon Gallegos.’
“And so he left us - William Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry
Davis.
“I was the leader: it was for me to speak.
“‘He was a brave man,’ I said - ‘he knew
when to die, and how. It is foolish to go mad from thirst and
fall by Apache bullets, or be skinned alive - it is in bad
taste. Let us join Ramon Gallegos.’
“‘That is right,’ said William Shaw.
“‘That is right,’ said George W. Kent.
“I straightened the limbs of Ramon Gallegos and put a
handkerchief over his face. Then William Shaw said: ‘I
should like to look like that - a little while.’
“And George W. Kent said that he felt that way, too.
“‘It shall be so,’ I said: ‘the red
devils will wait a week. William Shaw and George W. Kent, draw
and kneel.’
“They did so and I stood before them.
“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said I.
“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said William
Shaw.
“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said George W.
Kent.
“‘Forgive us our sins,’ said I.
“‘Forgive us our sins,’ said they.
“‘And receive our souls.’
“‘And receive our souls.’
“‘Amen!’
“‘Amen!’
“I laid them beside Ramon Gallegos and covered their
faces.”
There was a quick commotion on the opposite side of the campfire:
one of our party had sprung to his feet, pistol in hand.
“And you!” he shouted - “you dared to
escape? - you dare to be alive? You cowardly hound, I’ll
send you to join them if I hang for it!”
But with the leap of a panther the captain was upon him, grasping
his wrist. “Hold it in, Sam Yountsey, hold it
in!”
We were now all upon our feet - except the stranger, who sat
motionless and apparently inattentive. Some one seized
Yountsey’s other arm.
“Captain,” I said, “there is something wrong
here. This fellow is either a lunatic or merely a liar - just a
plain, every-day liar whom Yountsey has no call to kill. If this
man was of that party it had five members, one of whom - probably
himself - he has not named.”
“Yes,” said the captain, releasing the insurgent, who
sat down, “there is something - unusual. Years ago four
dead bodies of white men, scalped and shamefully mutilated, were
found about the mouth of that cave. They are buried there; I
have seen the graves - we shall all see them
to-morrow.”
The stranger rose, standing tall in the light of the expiring
fire, which in our breathless attention to his story we had
neglected to keep going.
“There were four,” he said - “Ramon Gallegos,
William Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry Davis.”
With this reiterated roll-call of the dead he walked into the
darkness and we saw him no more.
At that moment one of our party, who had been on guard, strode in
among us, rifle in hand and somewhat excited.
“Captain,” he said, “for the last half-hour
three men have been standing out there on the
mesa.” He pointed in the direction taken by the
stranger. “I could see them distinctly, for the moon is
up, but as they had no guns and I had them covered with mine I
thought it was their move. They have made none, but, damn it!
they have got on to my nerves.”
“Go back to your post, and stay till you see them
again,” said the captain. “The rest of you lie down
again, or I’ll kick you all into the fire.”
The sentinel obediently withdrew, swearing, and did not return.
As we were arranging our blankets the fiery Yountsey said:
“I beg your pardon, Captain, but who the devil do you take
them to be?”
“Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw and George W.
Kent.”
“But how about Berry Davis? I ought to have shot
him.”
“Quite needless; you couldn’t have made him any
deader. Go to sleep.”
End of the Project Gutenberg eText Can Such Things Be?