A Horseman in the Sky - Ambrose Bierce

A Horseman in the Sky

-      Ambrose Bierce

      Ambrose Bierce was an American Journalist, short story writer and Satirist. This short story is all about impact of civil war on life people by the character of a soldier and his act of killing the horseman. 

     In time of civil war a young man named Carter Druse has joined United Army of the North. He informed his father about it but not his mother because she was ill. His father has allowed him to do what he wanted and what he thinks. As per Carter Druse his duty was to join United Army and he joined it. After few days he was lying on the side of road, the gun was in his hand and he was sleeping there. The road was near to his father’s house. There was a giant cliff near Carter Druse was lying. Soldiers were waiting for night to attack enemies. Carter’s duty to take care of the place that no one from enemy soldiers could enter at the place. Suddenly a man came in grey uniform with horse and that horseman was looking in the valley. Carter saw this but was not able to see the face of that man and thought that he was enemy and he shot the horseman. When he saw the face of Horseman, he fainted with shock.

      When Carter waked up, his officer was with him and they were far from the cliff. Carter has looked towards the cliff and he was able to see the horseman and this time he aimed horse and shot that horse. The officer has seen this and he got afraid because he saw a man riding horse from cliff to the sky. The officer went back to his camp without telling anything to anybody. He realised that may be this is some divine signal about the end of the world because of war.

When Sergeant asked Carter about the horseman, he replied,

'Did you fire?' the sergeant whispered.

     'Yes.'

     'At what?'

     'A horse. It was standing on yonder rock - pretty far out. You see it is no longer there. It went over the cliff.'

     The man's face was white, but he showed no other sign of emotion. Having answered, he turned away his eyes and said no more. The sergeant did not understand.

     'See here, Druse,' he said, after a moment's silence, 'it's no use making a mystery. I order you to report. Was there anybody on the horse?'

     'Yes.'

     'Well?'

     'My father.'

     The sergeant rose to his feet and walked away. 'Good God!' he said.

       This story tells us the cruel truth of war. In war, emotions have not any place and Carter has shot the horseman without knowing the purpose of that man for being there. The plot has interesting part when Carter is sleeping and when he awake he has seen the man and shot him, it symbolically presents that in war people don’t think before taking any action and when they wake from their sleep they realize they have done something wrong. On the other side when Carter saw again Horseman on the cliff and this time he shot the horse, not the man which presents horse as the symbol. He wanted to kill the reason of the war not people. There are good description of horseman as a heroic personality and his death by falling from cliff.