A Man With Two Lives
The American West, a landscape etched with hardship and heroism, is fertile ground for tales that blur the line between reality and the uncanny. One such story, recounted by Ambrose Bierce, the celebrated author known for his dark and satirical wit, involves a man named David William Duck, an Illinois resident more commonly known as "Dead Duck." Duck’s narrative, a chilling blend of survival and mistaken identity, transports us back to the tumultuous era of the Indian Wars and a soldier’s desperate struggle for survival. This narrative will delve into the incredible story of A Man With Two Lives.
The year is 1866. The setting is the vast and unforgiving territory surrounding Fort Phil Kearney in Wyoming, a lonely outpost besieged by the simmering tensions between the U.S. Army and the Sioux Nation. Private David William Duck, a soldier of the Eighteenth Infantry under the command of Colonel Carrington, found himself thrust into the heart of this conflict. The fort, a strategic point on the Bozeman Trail, was a constant target of Native American raids, a testament to the fierce resistance against the encroachment upon their ancestral lands. The air crackled with unease, a sense of impending doom that would soon materialize in the devastating Fetterman Massacre.
The Fetterman Massacre, a tragic and avoidable loss of life, became the catalyst for Duck’s extraordinary ordeal. Captain Fetterman, a man known for his bravery but also his recklessness, disobeyed direct orders and led a detachment of eighty-one men into a carefully laid ambush by the Sioux warriors. None survived. In the aftermath of this disaster, Private Duck was tasked with a perilous mission: to carry vital dispatches to Fort C. F. Smith, located on the distant Big Horn River. Knowing the risks, he chose to travel alone, armed with a Henry rifle and a meager three days’ worth of rations. The land was swarming with hostile Native Americans, making every step a gamble against discovery and death. Duck sought to navigate the treacherous landscape under the cover of darkness, seeking refuge in the most inconspicuous places he could find before the break of dawn.
His choice of concealment led him to what appeared to be a narrow canyon, a passage carved through a range of rocky hills. The canyon floor was littered with large boulders, remnants of ancient geological upheavals. Seeking refuge behind one of these boulders, nestled within a thicket of sagebrush, Duck prepared to rest. Exhaustion quickly overtook him, and he drifted into a deep sleep. However, his respite was short-lived. The sound of a rifle shot shattered the stillness of the morning, the bullet impacting the boulder just above his head. A band of Native Americans, skilled trackers, had followed his trail and nearly encircled him. The shot, fired by a warrior positioned on the hillside, was a near miss, but it served its purpose: it revealed Duck’s location. In that moment, A Man With Two Lives was thrown back into the desperate fight for survival.
Springing to his feet, Duck found himself in a maelstrom of gunfire. Bullets whizzed past him as he darted and weaved through the sagebrush, desperately trying to find cover. What struck him as odd was the lack of pursuit. The Native American warriors remained hidden, firing from a distance. The reason for their hesitation soon became horrifyingly clear. Duck’s supposed canyon was not a throughway but a dead end. He had unwittingly entered a cul-de-sac, a natural trap formed by a concave rock face. He was caught like a bear in a pen. His pursuers needed only to wait. This is a story of A Man With Two Lives.
For two agonizing days and nights, Duck endured a living hell. Crouching behind a rock, partially shielded by a sparse growth of mesquite, with the towering cliff at his back, he fought a desperate battle against thirst, despair, and the relentless barrage of gunfire. Sleep was an unaffordable luxury. The lack of it added to his torment, blurring the lines between reality and hallucination. He remembers the morning of the third day, a day he knew would be his last. In a haze of desperation and delirium, he charged into the open, firing his repeating rifle blindly, without any clear target. That was the last thing he remembered of the fight. He did not know at the time that he will become A Man With Two Lives.
The next memory that surfaced was that of pulling himself out of a river at nightfall. He was naked, disoriented, and utterly ignorant of his location. Driven by a primal instinct to survive, he walked north throughout the night, his body chilled and his feet raw. At daybreak, he stumbled upon Fort C. F. Smith, his original destination, but without the crucial dispatches he was tasked to deliver. The first person he encountered was Sergeant William Briscoe, a familiar face. Briscoe’s reaction was one of utter disbelief, compounded by a perplexing question: "Who the devil are you?"
"Dave Duck," he responded, his voice hoarse and weak, "who should I be?"
Briscoe stared at him, bewildered. "You do look it," he said, instinctively recoiling slightly. "What’s up?" Duck recounted his harrowing ordeal, the ambush, the desperate fight, and the agonizing thirst. Briscoe listened in stunned silence, then delivered a bombshell: "My dear fellow, if you are Dave Duck, I ought to inform you that I buried you two months ago. I was out with a small scouting party and found your body, full of bullet holes and newly scalped – somewhat mutilated otherwise, too, I am sorry to say – right where you say you made your fight. Come to my tent, and I’ll show you your clothing and some letters I took from your person; the commandant has your dispatches."
Briscoe kept his word. He presented Duck with his clothing, which he resolutely put on, and the letters he had carried, which he placed in his pocket. Briscoe then escorted him to the commandant, who listened to his story with cold skepticism and ordered Briscoe to take him to the guardhouse. On the way, Duck turned to Briscoe, his mind reeling. "Bill Briscoe, did you really and truly bury the dead body that you found in these togs?"
"Sure," Briscoe replied, "just as I told you. It was Dave Duck, all right; most of us knew him. And now, you damned impostor, you’d better tell me who you are."
"I’d give something to know," Duck replied, his voice laced with a mixture of confusion and desperation. This story explains A Man With Two Lives.
A week later, Duck escaped from the guardhouse and fled the region as quickly as possible. He later returned twice, attempting to locate the fateful canyon where he had made his stand, but his efforts were fruitless. The landscape had swallowed the location whole.
The story of David William Duck, the soldier who seemingly returned from the dead, remains an enigma. Was he truly David William Duck, or was he an impostor, a man who had somehow acquired Duck’s identity and clothing? Was he a victim of mistaken identity, a casualty of war whose story had been tragically conflated with that of another soldier? Or was there something more… something supernatural at play? Whatever the truth, the tale of A Man With Two Lives serves as a chilling reminder of the harsh realities of the American West, where survival was a constant struggle and where the lines between life and death, reality and illusion, often blurred. This is the story of A Man With Two Lives. This eerie narrative continues to be known as A Man With Two Lives.