A very superstitious man

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In May 1875 several newspapers from Paris are relating the death at the Grand-Hôtel of an american millionnaire, a banker named John Burke. He was attributing his fortune to a lucky talisman. He searched several years for the talisman he wanted : a hanged man's rope, a highly desired item. In the early 1860's he attended the arrest in Omaha of a terrible thug, a herculean black man ; the mob came, took him out of jail and lynched the man on a long branch of a tree, which was above a deep lake. Burke decided that it was this rope that he wanted. He waited 48 hours and came during the night. There was a terrible wind pushing the clouds, and times to times a moonlight was showing the dead body swinging above the lake, with a vulture on his head. He fixed his knife to a stick, climbed on the branch, and started to cut the rope near the neck of the dead. However... the wind... a bad move... and a moment later he was sitted on the shoulders of the dead body. The rope was half cut, the branch was bending, the lake was deep and the vultures hungry. The only positive point was that he had still his knife. Holding the rope with the right hand, he ended to cut it with the left hand and the dead body felt in the lake, doing a big splash. Then he managed to climb on the branch. Soon after he started to make a fortune that he attributed to the rope and ordered to have it buried with him. Doctor Bayle, who embalmed him, respected his will. This was sounding like a fake news. I had a look at the archives of Paris online, and not a John Burke died in the neighborhood of the Grand-Hôtel in 1875. Done. There are a couple of anglicism inside the text testifying of a foreign origin. There was no more than a handful of Americans able to write a short and good horror novel like this one in the 1870's. I thought at Ambrose Bierce, who was in England in 1875, but could not find a similar novel. I summed up, but you have the synopsis. The vultures are called "birds". If somebody has an idea, you will get my lastful gratitude. Have you a talisman ? What is it ? I bought a "buho de la suerte" in Spain, an owl bringing luck. However I wonder if we can buy a good lucky talisman ? If it works, why somebody would sell it ? I guess a four-leaf clover, an iron horse, or anything found is better. Including a hanged man's rope, but they are starting to be rare.