What May Happen In A Field Of Wild Oats

Categories: THE DAMNED THING
Scary Books: The Best Ghost Stories
: AMBROSE BIERCE

". . . The sun had hardly risen when we left the house. We were looking

for quail, each with a shotgun, but we had only one dog. Morgan said

that our best ground was beyond a certain ridge that he pointed out, and

we crossed it by a trail through the _chaparral_. On the other side was

comparatively level ground, thickly covered with wild oats. As we

emerged from the _chaparral_ Morgan was but a few yards in advance.

Su denly we heard, at a little distance to our right and partly in

front, a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we

could see were violently agitated.



"'We've started a deer,' I said. 'I wish we had brought a rifle.'



"Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching the agitated

_chaparral_, said nothing, but had cocked both barrels of his gun and

was holding it in readiness to aim. I thought him a trifle excited,

which surprised me, for he had a reputation for exceptional coolness,

even in moments of sudden and imminent peril.



"'O, come,' I said. 'You are not going to fill up a deer with

quail-shot, are you?'



"Still he did not reply; but catching a sight of his face as he turned

it slightly toward me I was struck by the intensity of his look. Then I

understood that we had serious business in hand and my first conjecture

was that we had 'jumped' a grizzly. I advanced to Morgan's side, cocking

my piece as I moved.



"The bushes were now quiet and the sounds had ceased, but Morgan was as

attentive to the place as before.



"'What is it? What the devil is it?' I asked.



"'That Damned Thing!' he replied, without turning his head. His voice

was husky and unnatural. He trembled visibly.



"I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the

place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way. I can

hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which

not only bent it, but pressed it down--crushed it so that it did not

rise; and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us.



"Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me so strangely as this

unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon, yet I am unable to recall any

sense of fear. I remember--and tell it here because, singularly enough,

I recollected it then--that once in looking carelessly out of an open

window I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a

group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size

as the others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and

detail seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification of

the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified me. We

so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any

seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning

of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless movement of the

herbage and the slow, undeviating approach of the line of disturbances

were distinctly disquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened,

and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw his

gun to his shoulder and fire both barrels at the agitated grain! Before

the smoke of the discharge had cleared away I heard a loud savage cry--a

scream like that of a wild animal--and flinging his gun upon the ground

Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same instant I

was thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in

the smoke--some soft, heavy substance that seemed thrown against me with

great force.



"Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to

have been struck from my hands, I heard Morgan crying out as if in

mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage

sounds as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I

struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan's retreat;

and may Heaven in mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a

distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee,

his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in

disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side,

backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the

hand--at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times,

as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a

part of his body; it was as if he had been partly blotted out--I cannot

otherwise express it--then a shifting of his position would bring it all

into view again.



"All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time

Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler vanquished by

superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him not always

distinctly. During the entire incident his shouts and curses were heard,

as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I

had never heard from the throat of man or brute!



"For a moment only I stood irresolute, then throwing down my gun I ran

forward to my friend's assistance. I had a vague belief that he was

suffering from a fit, or some form of convulsion. Before I could reach

his side he was down and quiet. All sounds had ceased, but with a

feeling of such terror as even these awful events had not inspired I now

saw again the mysterious movement of the wild oats, prolonging itself

from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of a

wood. It was only when it had reached the wood that I was able to

withdraw my eyes and look at my companion. He was dead."