AN ARREST
by Ambrose Bierce
Having murdered his brother-in-law, Orrin Brower
of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice. From the
county jail where he had been confined to await
his trial he had escaped by knocking down his
jailer with an iron bar, robbing him of his keys
and, opening the outer door, walking out into the
night. The jailer being unarmed, Brower got no
weapon with which to defend his recovered liberty.
As soon as he was out of the town he had the folly
to enter a forest; this was many years ago, when
that region was wilder than it is now.
The night was pretty dark, with neither moon nor
stars visible, and as Brower had never dwelt
thereabout, and knew nothing of the lay of the
land, he was, naturally, not long in losing himself.
He could not have said if he were getting farther
away from the town or going back to it--a most
important matter to Orrin Brower. He knew that
in either case a posse of citizens with a pack of
bloodhounds would soon be on his track and his
chance of escape was very slender; but he did
not wish to assist in his own pursuit. Even an
added hour of freedom was worth having.
Suddenly he emerged from the forest into an old
road, and there before him saw, indistinctly,
the figure of a man, motionless in the gloom.
It was too late to retreat: the fugitive felt
that at the first movement back toward the wood
he would be, as he afterward explained, "filled
with buckshot." So the two stood there like
trees, Brower nearly suffocated by the activity
of his own heart; the other--the emotions of the
other are not recorded.
A moment later--it may have been an hour--the
moon sailed into a patch of unclouded sky and
the hunted man saw that visible embodiment of
Law lift an arm and point significantly toward
and beyond him. He understood. Turning his back
to his captor, he walked submissively away in
the direction indicated, looking to neither the
right nor the left; hardly daring to breathe,
his head and back actually aching with a prophecy
of buckshot.
Brower was as courageous a criminal as ever
lived to be hanged; that was shown by the
conditions of awful personal peril in which he
had coolly killed his brother-in-law. It is
needless to relate them here; they came out at
his trial, and the revelation of his calmness
in confronting them came near to saving his
neck. But what would you have?--when a brave
man is beaten, he submits.
So they pursued their journey jailward along
the old road through the woods. Only once did
Brower venture a turn of the head: just once,
when he was in deep shadow and he knew that the
other was in moonlight, he looked backward. His
captor was Burton Duff, the jailer, as white as
death and bearing upon his brow the livid mark
of the iron bar. Orrin Brower had no further
curiosity.
Eventually they entered the town, which was all
alight, but deserted; only the women and children
remained, and they were off the streets. Straight
toward the jail the criminal held his way. Straight
up to the main entrance he walked, laid his hand
upon the knob of the heavy iron door, pushed it
open without command, entered and found himself
in the presence of a half-dozen armed men. Then
he turned. Nobody else entered.
On a table in the corridor lay the dead body of
Burton Duff.
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
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