Ambrose Bierce - Can Such Things Be?

“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.”

Rough notes of this tale were found among the papers of the late Leigh Bierce. It is printed here with such revision only as the author might himself have made in transcription.