<P> The setting with a cliff is essential for the story to work . Having been a topographical officer in the Civil War, Bierce describes the setting in much detail, showing his talent for topographical rendering . The image of a falling Confederate officer is supposed to present (for Federals a thousand feet below) "a grandly grotesque image that seems to herald the Apocalypse". </P> <P> Bierce apparently considered "A Horseman in the Sky" one of his strongest stories, because he chose to begin his Tales of Soldiers and Civilians with this story . From a Freudian perspective, "A Horseman in the Sky" exemplifies "Bierce's compulsive acts of patricide". Bierce's biographers admit that he "wrote too many stories about sons killing fathers", as evidenced by stories in his so - called "Patricide Club". </P> <P> Carlos Fuentes's novel The Old Gringo (1985), a fictionalized account of Bierce's disappearance, contains numerous allusions to "A Horseman in the Sky". </P>

A horseman in the sky by ambrose bierce summary