The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [116]
“Ike Whitter,” said the sheriff. “You are a prisoner, under suspicion of murder. Come along peaceable.”
“Haw,” snorted Ike Whitter. “The devil ye say. You’d better jist slope away from here, sheriff, cause I’m liable to git dangerous toward ary man that would point pistols at me.”
“I’m only doin my duty,” the sheriff said, somewhat apologetically. “The people of this here county have appointed me to keep order. You have did a crime. Grubbin out a eyeball here and there is one thing, but murder is a hoss of a different feather. It is my bounden duty to remit ye to the county jail.”
Ike Whitter leered. “Wal, reckon ye got the drap on me.” He held out his wrists. “Put on the handcuffs.”
The sheriff, in order to fish out his handcuffs, had to return one of his two revolvers to its holster, and as he did so, Ike Whitter slapped the other one out of his hand, then hit the sheriff a swipe on his ear that laid him out, then extracted one of his eyeballs. The sheriff, screaming “Oh, Ike, Lordy, don’t kill me!” made a hasty retreat. When the sheriff returned to Jasper and reported what had happened to him, it aroused so much interest and was considered so newsworthy that a printing press was brought from Harrison and Newton County’s first newspaper, the Jasper Disaster, was established, with a banner headline on its first issue: SHERIFF HALF-BLINDED BY STAY MORE MALEFACTOR.
Other items reported were scattered incidents of poisoning, arson, shooting, lynching, prostitution and insanity, as well as a few wedding and birthday announcements, and the meeting of the Grange. Copies of the first issue reached Stay More, and one of Ike Whitter’s few cronies read the front page to Ike, who could not read, and Ike was considerably impressed that there was such a thing as a newspaper and even more impressed, and immensely flattered, that he dominated the first issue of it. He took the front page and nailed it to the front of the Ingledew General Merchandise Store, for all eyes to see, but the eyes were not seeing it because they were staying home out of fear of him. He had the town to himself. Willis Ingledew turned the store over to John and went off to see the St. Louis World’s Fair. John Ingledew managed the store for only a few days until Ike Whitter came in and began helping himself to Vienna sausages and crackers and anything else he desired. John went to his father, Isaac, and complained, “Paw, somethin’s got to be done about Ike Whitter.”
Isaac, as taciturn in his late fifties as he ever was, suggested laconically, “Lynch him.”
John went around the village, talking to all the men. Most of them did not wish to meddle with Ike Whitter, but John succeeded in recruiting, in addition to his older brothers Denton and Monroe, one Dinsmore, one Chism, one Coe, one Plowright, and one Swain. These eight men took their rifles and coils of rope and marched upon the Ingledew General Store, where they found Ike Whitter and two of his cronies sitting on the porch, eating can after can of confiscated sardines. Ike Whitter had his rifle in his lap, and at the approach of the lynch mob he raised it and began firing at them, wounding one Coe and one Dinsmore. The only place the lynch mob could take cover was Jacob Ingledew’s house, where Jacob’s ladyfriend now lived alone, severely frightened by the sound of gunfire. They told her to take cover in a back room; then they manned the windows of the three front rooms, breaking out the panes and firing across the