Again in England, Caraway settled with apparent satisfaction into the marginal occupation of tutor to children of an emerging class of well to do burgher merchants. Young John taught clearly, maintained discipline, and was appropriately appreciative of his employers' importance.
The stories following from the mainland were accepted as young blood excitements, probably exaggerations, and certainly exemplary warnings to the arrogant French that attacking an Englishman was ill-advised. After all, in the heat of battle . . .
All continued admirably through a third year. The elder Caraway departed earth's bondings and the oldest brother, the heir of course, continued the supplementary stipend that allowed young John to consider matrimony with a demure maiden long known to the family Caraway.
A small apartment was secured within an old city wall with a handsome window overlooking ancient defensive works. The pair of rooms was furnished and prepared pending marriage, scheduled within a fortnight.
En route from a tutoring, Caraway's eye was naturally drawn to the window of his soon to be marriage chamber. Did a fat lamp tip reflection through the marvelous window? Who invaded their sanctuary? Caraway went to see.
To enter was easy. When the lock proved to be plugged by an inside key, the young man's shoulder smashed flat the thinly planked doors.
Behold, the demure damsel, bride-to-be, naked as a jay struggled from the marriage bed. An older man, equally unclothed, stretched awkwardly for any convenient garment.
The crash of the collapsing door attracted all within hearing. Moments later a naked form was violently ejected via the apartment window. It fell a considerable distance before settling heavily into an ancient thorn thicket planted to repel barbarians. Female shrieks of pain and terror immediately rose from that spot.
Sounds of struggle ensued within the rooms, but died an instant before a second naked form arced a trajectory similar to the female's, burying itself amid the thorns.
Within a long hour, rescue of the two was accomplished. Both were pin-cushioned by a thousand thorns, but the woman would live—if forever dimpled by her violent thorning.
The man, who proved to be a husband known for his roving eye (and hands, etc.) was not as fortunate. A long knife embedded to the hilt just below his breastbone had shortened any suffering the thorns might have inflicted. Embarrassment assaulted three families, and the almost bride's mother retired with her forever-pocked wayward charge to the North Country.
The Caraways were quick to point out that the knife was the dead man's own, proven by a scabbard sewn into his boot. John Caraway said only that the individual had attacked him—and lost.
The widow of the deceased caused the most difficulty. Her barristers were insistent on payment for wrongful death and brought charges against the youngest Caraway.
Where to this time? The American colonies seemed a likely solution. The family had relatives near Boston in the Bay Colony. John would go there. His stipend would of course continue. In a few years the hue and cry would die, and he might return. Caraway once more took ship.
Again the young man settled into ordered and respectable employment, and the omens appeared good. Letters to the family were reports of accomplishment, students responding, and prospects brightening.
In the spring of the second year, death devils again reached for John Caraway. A child midshipman, cajoling a trio of drunken sailors back to their ship, allowed the seamen to harass and abuse a slender, studious appearing landsman. The citizen resisted and slapped a leering face while painfully kneeing a second shover. The third sailor drew a knife. Shouting for order, the midshipman snatched free his own short sword.
One thoroughly slashed sailor died, a second suffered a sword thrust, and the third was forever crippled by a severed Achilles tendon. The midshipman, who was flattened early by a head blow, could offer little clarification. The unharmed civilian, a John Caraway, stated little more than that, attacked by force, he had defended himself.
The Royal Navy was shocked, embarrassed by undeniable defeat, and appalled that they had lost three difficult to replace seamen—plus injury to a midshipman of almost noble lineage whose face remained peculiarly misshapen.
The navy demanded compensation. All powerful, the fleet was listened to. A warrant was issued for John Caraway, and an arrest party marched to his quarters.
Caraway was already away. No longer an inexperienced youth, Caraway doubted the wisdom of facing a naval tribunal. The frontier beckoned, so he went there.
Officially, both the homeland and the Royal Navy still sought John Caraway, but as long as he remained absent, no parties would seek him.
That had all been long ago. Since that time Caraway had fought through the French and Indian war. He was trusted but remained reserved. None became close to John Caraway. Few wished to. There was something askew within the long hunter and some believed, as the Governor's aide had stated, "Caraway enjoyed killing."
"Mister Caraway." The Governor always addressed the long hunter as mister. He often wondered why. A whiff of danger, a hint of social standing, or simply an odd habit casually acquired, Johnson never decided.
He continued, "We have a duty, a mission if you will, special to your experience, one that should capture your interest as it has this office's."
"Yes, Sir William?" Caraway's expression of courteous listening did not alter.
"There is a boy, a young white boy raised Huron. He appears to be ten or eleven years old. We wish him to master English, to become again a white youth." Johnson's voice turned fervent.
"We have failed many times in similar efforts. A few, such as my brother-in-law Joseph Brant manage, but even he still practices Mohawk ways when possible.
"The Huron have been vassals of the French for a hundred years. Now, they are English responsibility, and somehow we must teach them our language and our ways."
Caraway spoke directly—Johnson recalled that he always did. "You attempt to make wolves become dogs. It will not work." Johnson appeared uncertain of the hunter's meaning.
"Wolves, Sir William, should not be trained to guard sheep. When you force Indians to the plow, that is what you attempt."
"Then it is hopeless? Some do succeed, Mister Caraway."
"Few, as you have stated, Governor. Wolves should be allowed to hunt. Their training should be to answer your call--to deliver the game, if you will."
"Ah hah, that is good, Mister Caraway. My thought in other words."
"Really, Sir William?"
"Really." Johnson chose to stride as he spoke. "Charlie Pierre, Tear's Huron father, raised the same point. He suggests that his son learn English while performing useful skills because 'women's work' is not useful to a male Indian.
"So it comes to your task for us. We would like you to take the boy in hand. Bring him fully under your wing. Have him sit as an equal—as you would my son or your own. Keep him at your side. Teach him to. . .? Well, to use a fork, to button a coat, to shoot your rifle, and most important to speak the better English that you yourself use, Mister Caraway."
It was a lengthy few sentences filled with peculiar evasions as well as proposal. Sir William's legal and beloved wife was a full-blooded Mohawk. His sons, who sat as equals, were half-breeds, unacceptable in some social forums. Caraway, as far as anyone knew, practiced a stony aestheticism and had neither women nor progeny.
When William Johnson used the plural "we," he included more than his own personal and official capacities. In the northern colonies, two families controlled most reins of power. They were the Johnsons and the prolific Butlers. The relationships were close and continued into the informal ranks of the militia. Both families married into the Iroquois Confederacy, binding the tribes to England—the home country where the family names and fortunes continued in prominence.
John Caraway knew all of this. It was Johnson sufferance that had kept him free of the law's talons. Even now, so many years after his charges, a word from Sir William could clamp him in chains and transp
ortation via oxcart and ship’s steerage back to England.
When William Johnson spoke, John Caraway listened. True, he could again flee west, or possibly far south, but what would be different for him there? The woods, the game and the Indians' constant milling helped still the beast that sometimes rose in his mind, turning his memory again to the rush of all inclusive pleasure that took him when he killed a human.
If Sir William desired him to raise a boy, why not? Once he had been skilled at instilling knowledge in the young.
In truth, Caraway experienced a twitch of interest in the idea. It would be a task of years, but perhaps through the boy he could safely open his soul just a trifle—something he had been unable to accomplish since in the red rage of betrayal he had hurled the unfaithful woman and her lover through the battlement window. His intent then had been to kill. Caraway still marveled that the female had lived. He had not been aware of the resilience of the thorn thicket.
Now, in his fortieth year, Caraway still wished the thorns had not saved her, for he believed his soon-to-have-been marriage and happy circumstances had held at bay the mad furies that could sweep him.
Caraway drew his mind to the Governor's proposal. "How does the boy see it, Sir William?"
Johnson frowned, "I detected little response. I still find the wilder ones difficult to read."
"If he is unwilling, I would prefer another task."
"I agree, Mister Caraway. Will you look into it?"
"Of course, Governor." Caraway shifted a little. "I find myself taken with the idea. In these first thoughts my plan would be to draw the boy from his Indian family and immerse him in English talk. We would go together on a long trek—perhaps to the Ohio—and stay until we could speak together in English. Then we would know each other, and I should be able to better judge our chances."
"How long would you plan to be gone, Mister Caraway?"
"It is now spring. Perhaps we would return with the winter, Sir William."
Astonishing, the Governor recognized. Caraway and the boy would take blankets and a bit of food. They would carry salt, tobacco, gunpowder, flints, and iron arrowheads for trading. Mostly they would live off the land. Speaking only English, the man and boy would live as one. Matching Caraway stride for stride, listening to his thoughts and his tales, the boy Tear would absorb a tremendous dosage of English culture—all in an environment as familiar as his mother's lodge.
Then what? Caraway should know the next step, but William Johnson himself had things to add. Caraway's payment, for instance. Suffering perpetual money shortage, the colony would have to squeeze for it. The boy's parents too would receive rewards, but those could be more traditional gifts in iron or cloth. The boy? His reward would be education.
There was one other point that William Johnson knew to be important.
"The boy, Tear, will need a name, Mister Caraway. I studied him as he sat by his adoptive father. Hair like coal, a body that will be blocky and strong. He's as Irish as a clover.
"So, I have chosen a name for him. Tim it will be, Mister Caraway. A sound not too far from Tear, after all.
"Timothy Murphy will be his name."
The Governor became intense. "Make him Tim Murphy, Mister Caraway, prove it can be done. Return this boy to our white world.
"Then, if it succeeds, we will know how to truly have a foot in each camp, and we will be able to draw together Indians and whites in a new way. Do you see it, Mister Caraway? Do you sense the opportunity?"
Caraway did, but as always he betrayed little. "I understand, Sir William." He rose from the chair he had been given, moving his ever-present rifle from knees to upright.
"I will locate Charlie Pierre and make arrangements. By this time tomorrow, Tim Murphy and I will be moving west. The longer we are gone, the better you will know our chances to be."
Caraway departed, silent on both carpet and flooring. Sir William smiled a bit in satisfaction.
Caraway's return could be a fall highlight to anticipate. What a fortunate selection the boy's new name had been. Tear did sound like Tim, especially as the Hurons attempted it. Johnson knew he should not criticize. Even long married to a Mohawk, his use of that tongue occasionally brought chuckles or groans.
Timothy Murphy, the name had a ring to it.
Chapter 3
Into the Woods
Sir William Johnson did not see Caraway's departure, but others did, and their descriptions pleased the Governor.
A citizen said, "One of them Huron hunters and his boy came pounding on John Caraway's door about dawn. Woke us all up."
The man found an aside, "It's a wonder Caraway didn't come out cutting or shooting. That's his reputation." He wondered further, "Why do Indians pound doors like that? They either wait outside without ever announcing they're there, or they about beat the door down.
"Anyhow, Caraway opened, and they went in. The big Huron left shortly, but he was alone. An hour or so later out comes Caraway wearing his hunting pack, clearly setting out for distant parts. Then . . ." The teller paused for effect. "Then out steps a white boy, loaded about like Caraway.
"Whew, took a minute for us to figure out. Seems Caraway sheared that Huron boy's hair into a proper English cut and fitted him out in white men's clothes. Boy tried to fall in column behind, but Caraway waved him up alongside, like whites walk when they can. Except for the boy pacing in that sort of crouching Indian way, they looked father and son."
As little went unremarked, the Caraway departure received its share of gossipy speculation. William Johnson had the facts explained to settle the wonderment.
One man chuckled and only half joking said, "That boy had better toe the line or Caraway will scalp him."
Another snickered, "Caraway's the one who'd better sleep light. That boy's still an Injun, and he won't take pleasure in wearing clothes and having a strange language beat into him. I'm betting on the white Huron."
— — —
Their route was westerly. Caraway did not plan it tighter. During their first hours, still within the influence of Fort Johnson, the long hunter explained to Tear what he intended. His Huron was adequate, and the boy had a few English words. They both spoke some Seneca. Caraway's fluent Mohawk was not understood.
"The white father wished that Tear learn the words of his white side. Tear's father has agreed. Tear has said that he will try.
"To begin, Tear must have a white name. Tear is now Timothy Murphy. Try the name on your tongue."
The boy's effort sounded little like the name, but Caraway approved. "Good, we will speak it many times until Timothy Murphy flows as water. For now, Tear will become Tim. It is the way of all people to shorten the names of those they know well. I am Caraway, you will be Tim.
"You now wear the clothing of a young white. It will feel strange. You will not like it. Wear the clothing without complaint. Before the geese again fly south you will no longer notice.
"We will march short days and camp alone. We have no destinations. We seek no special villages. We may visit lodges, or we may pass them.
"Along our way I will point and name a thing. You will notice and say the word. We will do this many times. When you can say the name before I speak we will know that Tim Murphy has learned."
It was a simple business. Caraway pointed to the most obvious, perhaps a tree. He said "hemlock tree," and Tim repeated. The boy had the hemlock and some others memorized the first day.
And Caraway talked. Unless necessary he allowed no Indian language. Tim Murphy required weaning from those familiar rhythms.
When he could, the teacher adapted hand signs to his English, but only sparingly because the boy would read the signs in Huron not English.
Before understanding could be built a vocabulary must exist. Yet to name objects was only a beginning of a language. Caraway added short sentences. "This is a fire," Tim repeated. "This is a big fire." The hand sign could help and "big" was added to the boy's collection.
To view the task as a who
le would have been discouraging. Caraway sought small victories. When Tim asked for the flint to light their fire the teacher knew satisfaction. It was true, children could learn with remarkable speed. Immersed in only English, and only the patterns and accents of one speaker, Tim Murphy began sounding like John Caraway himself might have at ten years or so.
They wandered, meeting travelers, mostly Indian. They shared fires with only a few. At an early camp, Tim Murphy saw some of the Caraway fearlessness Charlie Pierre and others spoke about.
A Huron family camped at a joining of forest trails. They were numerous and had young men among them. With safety in numbers the Huron were neighborly, and their fire lit the crossings, inviting travelers to pause.
To Tim's surprise, Caraway hesitated a long moment as if considering then led directly into the fire light, carefully crackling a few sticks in the process.
When they were seen, Caraway held up a palm in the peace sign, received an answer, and spoke as he moved forward.
"The hunter Caraway greets the lodge of Dressed Elk and Short Wolf."
So, Tim thought, Caraway recognized them. Then he became aware of visible tensions, stiffened figures, glittered eyes, and gritted teeth. The boy's neck hairs rose. Clearly these Huron also knew Caraway.
Outwardly blind to the taut-jawed tension, Caraway strode close to the fire and again greeted an older man who, Tim assumed, must be Short Wolf. The family senior was short in stature and enjoyed the comfort of a wolf skin cape. Tim stayed close to Caraway, but his heart pounded, and his palms were wet. There was terrible hatred here, and it focused directly on Caraway.
To reach Short Wolf, Caraway had to nearly brush a young brave atremble with poorly concealed wrath. Caraway seemed not to notice and left the trembler at his back as he slid into cross-legged sitting.
Short Wolf appeared bemused by Caraway's appearance, or perhaps by the white hunter's unconcern. The Wolf nodded, as non-committal as a stone, and all waited.
Tim Murphy, Rifleman Page 4