Part 38 (1/2)
”You have neighbors.”
”So I have,” Wilkinson agreed, ”but they are not here and I cannot go for them unless you allow me.”
”It matters not,” Brown snapped. ”Get ready, sir.”
Wilkinson took up his boots to pull them on when Brown signaled his men to drag him out.
Without further words they seized him and hurried into the darkness.
They dragged him a few yards from the house into a clump of dead brush.
Weiner was the chosen headsman. He swung his big savage figure before Wilkinson and his cutla.s.s flashed in the starlight.
The woman inside the darkened house heard the crash of the blade against the skull and the dying groan from the lips of the father of her babies.
When the body crumpled, Weiner knelt, plunged his knife into the throat, turned it and severed the jugular vein.
Standing over the body John Brown spoke to one of his men.
”The horses, saddles and bridles from the stable--quick!”
The huntsman hurried to the stable and took Wilkinson's horse.
It was two o'clock before they reached the home of James Harris on the other side of the Pottawattomie. Harris lived on the highway and kept a rude frontier boarding place where travelers stopped for the night.
With him lived Dutch Henry Sherman and his brother, William.
Brown had no difficulty in entering this humble one-room house. It was never locked. The latch string was outside.
Without knocking Brown lifted the latch and sprang into the room with his son, Owen, and another armed huntsman.
He surveyed the room. In one bed lay Harris, his wife and child. In two other beds were three men, William Sherman, John Whitman and a stranger who had stopped for the night and had given no name.
”You are our prisoners,” Brown announced. ”It is useless for you to resist.”
The old man stood by one bed with drawn saber and Owen stood by the other while Weiner searched the room. He found two rifles and a bowie knife which he pa.s.sed through the door to the guard outside.
Brown ordered the stranger out first. He kept him but a few minutes and brought him back. He next ordered Harris to follow him.
Brown confronted his prisoner in the yard. A swordsman stood close by his side to catch his nod.
”Where is Dutch Henry Sherman?”
”On the plains hunting for lost cattle.”
”You are telling me the truth?” Brown asked, boring him through with his terrible eyes.
”The truth, sir!”
He studied Harris by the light of his lantern.