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 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 _débris_ 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.”