NORTHWESTWARDLY 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 inpenetrable growth of
manzanita and chemisal, are parted by nothing but the width of the watercourse.
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 centre 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 weather-boarding, had served as fuel in the camp fires of
hunters; as had also, probably, the kerbing 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.
Every one 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 some one 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 moustache; 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 course 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
bone-plate 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
moustache.
“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
