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My Favorite Murder ...........................................................................................................................................1

Ambrose Bierce.......................................................................................................................................1

HAVING murdered my mother under circumstances of singular atrocity, I was arrested and put upon my

trial, which lasted seven years. In charging the jury, the judge of the Court of Acquittal remarked that it was

one of the most ghastly crimes that he had ever been called upon to explain away.

"May it please your Honor, crimes are ghastly or agreeable only by comparison. If you were familiar with the

details of my client's previous murder of his uncle you would discern in his later offense (if offense it may be

called) something in the nature of tender forbearance and filial consideration for the feelings of the victim.

The appalling ferocity of the former assassination was indeed inconsistent with any hypothesis but that of

guilt; and had it not been for the fact that the honorable judge before whom he was tried was the president of

a life insurance company that took risks on hanging, and in which my client held a policy, it is hard to see

how he could decently have been acquitted. If your Honor would like to hear about it for instruction and

guidance of your Honor's mind, this unfortunate man, my client, will consent to give himself the pain of

The district attorney said: "Your Honor, I object. Such a statement would be in the nature of evidence, and

the testimony in this case is closed. The prisoner's statement should have been introduced three years ago, in

"In a statutory sense," said the judge, "you are right, and in the Court of Objections and Technicalities you

would get a ruling in your favor. But not in a Court of Acquittal. The objection is overruled."

"You cannot do that," the judge said. "I must remind you that in order to take an exception you must first get

this case transferred for a time to the Court of Exceptions on a formal motion duly supported by affidavits. A

motion to that effect by your predecessor in office was denied by me during the first year of this trial. Mr.

The customary oath having been administered, I made the following statement, which impressed the judge

with so strong a sense of the comparative triviality of the offense for which I was on trial that he made no

further search for mitigating circumstances, but simply instructed the jury to acquit, and I left the court,

"I was born in I856 in Kalamakee, Mich., of honest and reputable parents, one of whom Heaven has

mercifully spared to comfort me in my later years. In I867 the family came to California and settled near

Nigger Head, where my father opened a road agency and prospered beyond the dreams of avarice. He was a

reticent, saturnine man then, though his increasing years have now somewhat relaxed the austerity of his

disposition, and I believe that nothing but his memory of the sad event for which I am now on trial prevents

"Four years after we had set up the road agency an itinerant preacher came along, and having no other way to

pay for the night's lodging that we gave him, favored us with an exhortation of such power that, praise God,

we were all converted to religion. My father at once sent for his brother the Hon. William Ridley of Stockton,

and on his arrival turned over the agency to him, charging him nothing for the franchise nor plant the

latter consisting of a Winchester rifle, a sawedoff shotgun, and an assortment of masks made out of flour

sacks. The family then moved to Ghost Rock and opened a dance house. It was called 'The Saints' Rest

HurdyGurdy,' and the proceedings each night began with prayer. It was there that my now sainted mother,

"In the fall of '75 I had occasion to visit Coyote, on the road to Mahala, and took the stage at Ghost Rock.

There were four other passengers. About three miles beyond Nigger Head, persons whom I identified as my

Uncle William and his two sons held up the stage. Finding nothing in the express box, they went through the

passengers. I acted a most honorable part in the affair, placing myself in line with the others, holding up my

hands and permitting myself to be deprived of forty dollars and a gold watch. From my behavior no one

could have suspected that I knew the gentlemen who gave the entertainment. A few days later, when I went to

Nigger Head and asked for the return of my money and watch my uncle and cousins swore they knew nothing

of the matter, and they affected a belief that my father and I had done the job ourselves in dishonest violation

of commercial good faith. Uncle William even threatened to retaliate by starting an opposition dance house at

Ghost Rock. As 'The Saints' Rest' had become rather unpopular, I saw that this would assuredly ruin it and

prove a paying enterprise, so I told my uncle that I was willing to overlook the past if he would take me into

the scheme and keep the partnership a secret from my father. This fair offer he rejected, and I then perceived

"My plans to that end were soon perfected, and communicating them to my dear parents I had the

gratification of receiving their approval. My father said he was proud of me, and my mother promised that

although her religion forbade her to assist in taking human life I should have the advantage of her prayers for

my success. As a preliminary measure looking to my security in case of detection I made an application for

membership in that powerful order, the Knights of Murder, and in due course was received as a member of

the Ghost Rock commandery. On the day that my probation ended I was for the first time permitted to inspect

the records of the order and learn who belonged to it all the rites of initiation having been conducted in

masks. Fancy my delight when, in looking over the roll of membership, I found the third name to be that of

my uncle, who indeed was junior vicechancellor of the order! Here was an opportunity exceeding my

wildest dreams to murder I could add insubordination and treachery. It was what my good mother would

"At about this time something occurred which caused my cup of joy, already full, to overflow on all sides, a

circular cataract of bliss. Three men, strangers in that locality, were arrested for the stage robbery in which I

had lost my money and watch. They were brought to trial and, despite my efforts to clear them and fasten the

guilt upon three of the most respectable and worthy citizens of Ghost Rock, convicted on the clearest proof.

"One morning I shouldered my Winchester rifle, and going over to my uncle's house, near Nigger Head,

asked my Aunt Mary, his wife, if he were at home, adding that I had come to kill him. My aunt replied with

her peculiar smile that so many gentleman called on that errand and were afterward carried away without

having performed it that I must excuse her for doubting my good faith in the matter. She said I did not look as

if I would kill anybody, so, as a proof of good faith I leveled my rifle and wounded a Chinaman who

happened to be passing the house. She said she knew whole families that could do a thing of that kind, but

Bill Ridley was a horse of another color. She said, however, that I would find him over on the other side of

the creek in the sheep lot; and she added that she hoped the best man would win.

"I found my uncle down on his knees engaged in skinning a sheep. Seeing that he had neither gun nor pistol

handy I had not the heart to shoot him, so I approached him, greeted him pleasantly and struck him a

powerful blow on the head with the butt of my rifle. I have a very good delivery and Uncle William lay down

on his side, then rolled over on his back, spread out his fingers and shivered. Before he could recover the use

of his limbs I seized the knife that he had been using and cut his hamstrings. You know, doubtless, that when

you sever the tend o achillis the patient has no further use of his leg; it is just the same as if he had no leg.

Well, I parted them both, and when he revived he was at my service. As soon as he comprehended the

" 'Samuel, you have got the drop on me and can afford to be generous. I have only one thing to ask of you,

and that is that you carry me to the house and finish me in the bosom of my family.'

"I told him I thought that a pretty reasonable request and I would do so if he would let me put him into a

wheat sack; he would be easier to carry that way and if we were seen by the neighbors en route it would

cause less remark. He agreed to that, and going to the barn I got a sack. This, however, did not fit him; it was

too short and much wider than he; so I bent his legs, forced his knees up against his breast and got him into it

that way, tying the sack above his head. He was a heavy man and I had all that I could do to get him on my

back, but I staggered along for some distance until I came to a swing that some of the children had suspended

to the branch of an oak. Here I laid him down and sat upon him to rest, and the sight of the rope gave me a

happy inspiration. In twenty minutes my uncle, still in the sack, swung free to the sport of the wind.

"I had taken down the rope, tied one end tightly about the mouth of the bag, thrown the other across the limb

and hauled him up about five feet from the ground. Fastening the other end of the rope also about the mouth

of the sack, I had the satisfaction to see my uncle converted into a large, fine pendulum. I must add that he

was not himself entirely aware of the nature of the change that he had undergone in his relation to the exterior

world, though in justice to a good man's memory I ought to say that I do not think he would in any case have

"Uncle William had a ram that was famous in all that region as a fighter. It was in a state of chronic

constitutional indignation. Some deep disappointment in early life had soured its disposition and it had

declared war upon the whole world. To say that it would butt anything accessible is but faintly to express the

nature and scope of its military activity: the universe was its antagonist; its methods that of a projectile. It

fought like the angels and devils, in midair, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird, describing a parabolic curve

and descending upon its victim at just the exact angle of incidence to make the most of its velocity and

weight. Its momentum, calculated in foottons, was something incredible. It had been seen to destroy a four

year old bull by a single impact upon that animal's gnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been known to

resist its downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it would splinter them into

matchwood and defile their leafy honors in the dust. This irascible and implacable brute this incarnate

thunderbolt this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in the shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming

dreams of conquest and glory. It was with a view to summoning it forth to the field of honor that I suspended

"Having completed my preparations, I imparted to the avuncular pendulum a gentle oscillation, and retiring

to cover behind a contiguous rock, lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry whose diminishing final note was

drowned in a noise like that of a swearing cat, which emanated from the sack. Instantly that formidable sheep

was upon its feet and had taken in the military situation at a glance. In a few moments it had approached,

stamping, to within fifty yards of the swinging foeman, who, now retreating and anon advancing, seemed to

invite the fray. Suddenly I saw the beast's head drop earthward as if depressed by the weight of its enormous

horns; then a dim, white, wavy streak of sheep prolonged itself from that spot in a generally horizontal

direction to within about four yards of a point immediately beneath the enemy. There it struck sharply

upward, and before it had faded from my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horrid thump and a

piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a slack rope higher than the limb to which he was

attached. Here the rope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight, and back he swung in a breathless curve to

the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, a heap of indistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but pulling

itself together and dodging as its antagonist swept downward it retired at random, alternately shaking its head

and stamping its forefeet. When it had backed about the same distance as that from which it had delivered

the assault it paused again, bowed its head as if in prayer for victory and again shot forward, dimly visible as

before a prolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with a sharp ascension. Its course

this time was at a right angle to its former one, and its impatience so great that it struck the enemy before he

had nearly reached the lowest point of his arc. In consequence he went flying round and round in a horizontal

circle whose radius was about equal to half the length of the rope, which I forgot to say was nearly twenty

feet long. His shrieks, crescendo in approach and diminuiendo in recession, made the rapidity of his

revolution more obvious to the ear than to the eye. He had evidently not yet been struck in a vital spot. His

posture in the sack and the distance from the ground at which he hung compelled the ram to operate upon his

lower extremities and the end of his back. Like a plant that has struck its root into some poisonous mineral,

"After delivering its second blow the ram had not again retired. The fever of battle burned hot in its heart; its

brain was intoxicated with the wine of strife. Like a pugilist who in his rage forgets his skill and fights

ineffectively at halfarm's length, the angry beast endeavored to reach its fleeting foe by awkward vertical

leaps as he passed overhead, sometimes, indeed, succeeding in striking him feebly, but more frequently

overthrown by its own misguided eagerness. But as the impetus was exhausted and the man's circles

narrowed in scope and diminished in speed, bringing him nearer to the ground, these tactics produced better

"Suddenly, as if the bugles had sung truce, the ram suspended hostilities and walked away, thoughtfully

wrinkling and smoothing its great aquiline nose, and occasionally cropping a bunch of grass and slowly

munching it. It seemed to have tired of war's alarms and resolved to beat the sword into a plowshare and

cultivate the arts of peace. Steadily it held its course away from the field of fame until it had gained a distance

of nearly a quarter of a mile. There it stopped and stood with its rear to the foe, chewing its cud and

apparently half asleep. I observed, however, an occasional slight turn of its head, as if its apathy were more

"Meantime Uncle William's shrieks had abated with his motion, and nothing was heard from him but long,

low moans, and at long intervals my name, uttered in pleading tones exceedingly grateful to my ear.

Evidently the man had not the faintest notion of what was being done to him, and was inexpressibly terrified.

When Death comes cloaked in mystery he is terrible indeed. Little by little my uncle's oscillations

diminished, and finally he hung motionless. I went to him and was about to give him the coup de grace, when

I heard and felt a succession of smart shocks which shook the ground like a series of light earthquakes, and

turning in the direction of the ram, saw a long cloud of dust approaching me with inconceivable rapidity and

alarming effect! At a distance of some thirty yards away it stopped short, and from the near end of it rose into

the air what I at first thought a great white bird. Its ascent was so smooth and easy and regular that I could not

realize its extraordinary celerity, and was lost in admiration of its grace. To this day the impression remains

that it was a slow, deliberate movement, the ram for it was that animal being upborne by some power

other than its own impetus, and supported through the successive stages of its flight with infinite tenderness

and care. My eyes followed its progress through the air with unspeakable pleasure, all the greater by contrast

with my former terror of its approach by land. Onward and upward the noble animal sailed, its head bent

down almost between its knees, its forefeet thrown back, its hinder legs trailing to rear like the legs of a

"At a height of forty or fifty feet, as fond recollection presents it to view, it attained its zenith and appeared to

remain an instant stationary; then, tilting suddenly forward without altering the relative position of its parts, it

shot downward on a steeper and steeper course with augmenting velocity, passed immediately above me with

a noise like the rush of a cannon shot and struck my poor uncle almost squarely on the top of the head! So

frightful was the impact that not only the man's neck was broken, but the rope too; and the body of the

deceased, forced against the earth, was crushed to pulp beneath the awful front of that meteoric sheep! The

concussion stopped all the clocks between Lone Hand and Dutch Dan's, and Professor Davidson, a

distinguished authority in matters seismic, who happened to be in the vicinity, promptly explained that the

"Altogether, I cannot help thinking that in point of artistic atrocity my murder of Uncle William has seldom