CHAPTER XIX
The dark figures secured the horses, bridles and saddles and moved to the next appointed crime.
The stolen horses were put in charge of the two sons, who had refused to take part in the events of the night. They were ordered to follow the huntsmen carefully.
Again they crept through the night and approached the home of Wilkinson, the member of the Legislature from the County. Brown had carefully surveyed his place and felt sure of a successful attack unless the house should be alarmed by a surly dog which no member of his surveying party had been able to approach.
When they arrived within two hundred yards of the gate, it was one o'clock. Brown carefully watched the house for ten minutes to see that no light gleamed through a window or a chink. The wife had been sick with the measles when the survey was made. There was no sign of a light.
Salmon and Owen Brown were sent by the men on a protest to Brown.
Salmon was spokesman.
"We've got something to say to you, Father, before we take out
Wilkinson—"
"Well?" the old man growled.
"You gave every man strict orders to fire no guns or revolver unless necessary—didn't you?"
"I did."
"You fired the only shot heard to-night."
"I'll not do it again. I didn't intend to. I don't know why I did it.
Stick to my order."
"See that you stick to it," the boy persisted.
"I will. Use only your knives and cutlasses. The cutlass first always."
The men began to move slowly forward.
Brown called softly.
"Just a minute. This dog of Wilkinson's is sure to bark. Don't stop to try to kill him. Rush the house double quick and pay no attention to his barking—"
"If he bites?" Owen asked.
"Take a chance, don't try to kill him—Wilkinson might wake. Now, all together—rush the house!"
They rushed the house at two hundred yards. They had taken but ten steps when the dog barked so furiously Brown called a halt. They waited.
Then, minutes later the dog raged, approaching the house and retreating. His wild cry of alarm rang with sinister echo through the woods. The faithful brute was calling his master and mistress to arms.
Still the man inside slept. The Territory of Kansas to this time had been as free from crime as any state on its border. The lawmaker had never felt a moment's uneasiness.
Footsteps approached the door. The sick woman saw the shadow of a man pass the window. The starlight sharply silhouetted his face against the black background.
Some one knocked on the door.
The woman asked:
"Who's that?"
No one answered.
"Henry, Henry!" she called tensely.
"Well?" the husband answered.
"There's somebody knocking at the door."
Wilkinson half raised in bed.
"Who is that?"
A voice replied:
"We've lost the road. We want you to tell us the way to Dutch Henry's."
Wilkinson began to call the directions.
"We can't understand—"
"You can't miss the way."
"Come out and show us!"
The request was given in tones so sharp there could be no mistake. It was a command not a plea.
"I'll have to go and tell them," he said to his wife.
"For God's sake, don't open that door," she whispered.
"It's best."
She seized and held him.
"You shall not go!"
Wilkinson sought to temporize.
"I'm not dressed," he called. "I can tell you the way as well without going outdoors."
The men stepped back from the door and held a consultation. John Brown at once returned and began his catechism:
"You are Wilkinson, the Member of the Legislature?"
"I am, sir."
"You are opposed to the Free Soil Party?"
"I am."
The answers were sharp to the point of curtness and his daring roused the wrath of Brown to instant action.
"You're my prisoner, sir."
He waited an instant for an answer and, getting none, asked:
"Do you surrender?"
"Gentlemen, I do."
"Open the door!"
"In just a minute."
"Open it—"
"When I've made a light."
"We've got a light. Open that door or we'll smash it!"
Again the sick woman caught his arm.
"Don't do it!"
"It's better not to resist," he answered, opening the door.
Brown held the lantern in his face.
"Put on your clothes."
Wilkinson began to dress.
The men covered him with drawn revolvers. The sick woman sank limply on the edge of the bed.
"Are there any more men in this house?" Brown asked sharply.
"No."
"Have you any arms?"
"Only a quail gun."
"Search the place."
The guard searched the rooms, ransacking drawers and chests. They took everything of value they could find, including the shotgun and powder flask.
The sick woman at length recovered her power of speech and turned to
Brown.
"If you've arrested my husband for anything, he's a law-abiding man. You can let him stay here with me until morning."
"No!" Brown growled.
"I'm sick and helpless. I can't stay here by myself."
"Let me stay with my wife, gentlemen," Wilkinson pleaded, "until I can get some one to wait on her and I'll remain on parole until you return or I'll meet you anywhere you say."
Brown looked at the woman and at the little children trembling by her side and curtly answered:
"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 cutlass 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 passed 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.
"Have you ever helped a Southern settler to enter the Territory of
Kansas?"
"No."
"Did you take any hand in the troubles at Lawrence?"
"I've never been to Lawrence."
"Have you ever done the Free State Party any harm?"
"No. I don't take no part in politics."
"Have you ever intended to do that party any harm?"
"I don't know nothin' about politics or parties."
"What are you doing living here among these Southern settlers?"
"Because I can get better wages."
"Any horses, bridles, or saddles?"
"I've one horse."
"Saddle him and bring him here."
A swordsman walked by his side while he caught and saddled his horse and delivered him to his captors.
Brown went back into the house and brought out William Sherman. Harris was ordered back to bed, and a new guard was placed inside until the ceremony with Sherman should be ended.
It was brief.
Brown had no questions to ask this man. He was the brother of Henry Sherman, the most hated member of the settlement. Brown called Thompson and Weiner and spoke in tones of quick command.
"Take him down to the Pottawattomie Creek. I want this man's blood to mingle with its waters and flow to the sea!"
The doomed man did not hear the sentence of his judge. The two huntsmen caught his arms and rushed him to the banks of the creek. He stood for a moment trembling and dazed. Not a word had passed his lips. Not one had passed his guards.
They loosed their grip on his arms, stepped back and two cutlasses whistled through the air in a single stroke. The double blow was so swiftly and evenly delivered that the body stood erect until the second stroke of the sharpened blades had cut off one hand and split open the breast.
When the body fell at the feet of the huntsmen they seized the quivering limbs and hurled them into the creek.
They reported at once to their Captain. He stood in front of the house with his restless gaze sweeping the highway for any possible, belated traveler. The one hope uppermost in his mind was that Dutch Henry Sherman might return with his lost cattle in time.
He raised his lantern and looked at his watch. The men who had butchered
William Sherman stood with red swords for orders.
Brown had not yet uttered a word. He knew that the work on the bank of the Pottawattomie was done. The attitude of his swordsmen was sufficient.
He asked but one question.
"You threw him into the water?"
"Yes."
"Good."
He closed his silver watch with a snap.
"It's nearly four o'clock. We have no more time for work to-night. Back to camp."
The men turned to repeat his orders.
"Wait!"
His order rang like vibrant metal.
The men stopped.
"We'll mount the horses we have taken, and march single file. I'll ride the horse taken here. Bring him to the door."
With quick springing step Brown entered the house where the husband and wife and the two lodgers were still shivering under the eye of the guard with drawn sword.
The leader's voice rang with a note of triumph.
"You people whose lives have been spared will stay in this house until sunrise. And the less you say about what's happened to-night the longer you'll live."
He turned to his guard.
"Come on."
Brown had just mounted his horse to lead the procession back to the camp in the ravine, when the first peal of thunder in a spring shower crashed overhead.
He glanced up and saw that the sky was being rapidly overcast by swiftly moving clouds. A few stars still glimmered directly above.
The storm without was an incident of slight importance. The rain would give him a chance to test the men inside. He ordered his followers to take refuge in the long shed under which Harris stabled the horses and vehicles of travelers.
He stationed a sentinel at the door of the house.
His orders were clear.
"Cut down in his tracks without a word, the man who dares to come out."
The swordsman threw a saddle blanket around his shoulders and took his place at the doorway.
The storm broke in fury. In five minutes the heavens were a sea of flame. The thunder rolled over the ravine, the hills, the plains in deafening peals. Flash after flash, roar after roar, an endless throb of earth and air from the titanic bombardment from the skies. The flaming sky was sublime—a changing, flashing, trembling splendor.
Townsley was the only coward in the group of stolid figures standing under the shed. He watched by the lightning the expression of Brown's face with awe. There was something terrible in the joy that flamed in his eyes. Never had he seen such a look on human face. He forgot the storm and forgot his fears of cyclones and lightning strokes in the fascination with which he watched the seamed, weather-beaten features of the man who had just committed the foulest deed in the annals of American frontier life. There was in his shifting eyes no shadow of doubt, of fear, of uncertainty. There was only the look of satisfaction, of supreme triumph. The coward caught the spark of red that flashed from his soul.
For a moment he regretted that he had not joined the bloody work with his own hand. He was ashamed of his pity for the stark masses of flesh that still lay on the deluged earth. In spite of the contagion of Brown's mind which he felt pulling him with resistless power, his own weaker intellect kept playing pranks with his memory.
He recalled the position of the bodies which they had left in the darkness. He had seen them by the light of the lantern which Brown had flashed each time before leaving. He remembered with a shiver that the two Doyle boys had died with their big soft blue eyes wide open, staring upward at the starlit skies. He wondered if the rain had beaten their eyelids down.
A blinding flash filled the sky and lighted every nook and corner of the woods and fields. He shook at its glare and put his hand over his eyes. For a moment he could see nothing but the wide staring gaze upward of those stalwart young bodies. He shivered and turned away from the leader.
The next moment found him again watching the look of victory on the terrible face.
As the lightning played about Brown's form he wondered at the impression of age he gave with his face turned away and his figure motionless. He was barely fifty-seven and yet he looked seventy-five, until he moved.
The moment his wiry body moved there was something uncanny in the impression he gave of a wild animal caught in human form.
Brown had tired waiting for the shower to pass and had begun to pace back and forth with his swinging, springy step. When he passed, Townsley instinctively drew aside. He knew that he was a coward and yet he couldn't feel the consciousness of cowardice in giving this man room. It was common sense.
The storm passed as swiftly as it came.
Without a word the leader gave the signal. His men mounted the stolen horses. With Townsley's grays and Weiner's pony the huntsmen returned to the camp in the ravine, a procession of cavalry.
The eastern sky was whitening with the first touch of the coming sun when they dismounted.
The leader ordered the fire built and a hearty breakfast cooked for each man. As was his custom he wandered from the camp alone, his arms gripped behind his stooped back. He climbed the hill, stood on its crest and watched the prairie.
The storm had passed from west to east. On the eastern horizon a low fringe of clouds was still slowly moving. They lay in long ribbons of dazzling light. The sun's rays flashed through them every color of the rainbow. Now they were a deep purple, growing brighter with each moment, until every flower in the waving fields was touched with its glory. The purple melted into orange; the waving fields were set with dazzling buttercups; the buttercups became poppies. And then the mounting sun kissed the clouds again. They blushed scarlet, and the fields were red.
The grim face gave no sign that he saw the glory and beauty of a wonderful Sabbath morning. His figure was rigid. His eyes set. A sweet odor seemed to come from the scarlet rays of the sun. The man lifted his head in surprise to find the direction from which the perfume came.
He looked at the ground and saw that he was standing in a bed of ripening wild strawberries.
He turned from the sunrise, stooped and ate the fruit. He was ravenously hungry. His hunger satisfied, he walked deliberately back to camp as the white light of day flooded the clean fields and woods.
He called his men about the fire and searched for marks of the night's work. As the full rim of the sun crept over the eastern hills and its first rays quivered on the surface of the water, the huntsmen knelt by the bank of the Pottawattomie and washed the stains from their swords, hands and clothes.
Breakfast finished, the leader divided among his headsmen the goods stolen from his victims and called his men to Sunday prayers.
With folded hands and head erect in the attitude of victory he read from memory a passage from the old Hebrew prophet, singing in triumph over the enemies of the Lord. From the scripture recitation, given in tones so cold and impersonal that they made Townsley shiver, his voice drifted into prayer:
"We thank thee, oh, Lord, God of Hosts, for the glorious victory Thou hast given us this night over Thy enemies. We have heard Thy voice. We have obeyed Thy commands. The wicked have been laid low. And Thy glory shines throughout the world on this beautiful Sabbath morning. Make strong, oh, God, the arms of Thy children for the work that is yet before them. Thou art a jealous God. Thou dost rejoice always in blood offerings on Thy altars. We have this night brought to Thee and laid before Thy face the five offerings which the sins of man have demanded. May this blood seem good in Thy sight, oh, God, as it is glorious in the eyes of Thy servant whom Thou hast anointed to do Thy will. May it be as seed sown in good ground. May it bring forth a harvest whose red glory shall cover the earth, even as the rays of the sun have baptized our skies this morning. We wait the coming of Thy Kingdom, oh, Lord, God of Hosts. Speed the day we humbly pray. Amen."
Townsley's eyes had gradually opened at the tones of weird, religious ecstasy with which the last sentences of the prayer were spoken. He was staring at Brown's face. It was radiant with a strange joy. He had not smiled; but he was happy for a moment. His happiness was so unusual, so sharply in contrast with his habitual mood, the sight of it chilled Townsley's soul.