"An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge"

This is a cool story.  While Ambrose Bierce is currently not as popular as Poe or revered as Twain, he crafted a story that is engaging in both its entertainment and its thought.  We anticipate and cheer for Peyton's escape as Bierce shows with great imagery and psychological thought the desperation to escape home. "The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder, he was now swimming vigorously with the current.  His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning."  We think he has pulled a Maximus, but then we gasp as the narrator quickly and coldly tell us "Peyton Farquahar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge."  Done, over, dead.  So what was this "Occurrence" that happened on the bridge?  At least Maximus was able to kill the evil Commodus before falling to his death.  Maximus died a here, but what does Peyton die?