Tim Murphy, Rifleman

by Roy F. Chandler

  Many attempted escape, and before Tim Murphy came downriver, New York authorities had moved their returned captive operation to a small island, far enough offshore to make escape impractical. With others, Tim waited final disposition, but the mills of government ground slowly.

  All attended school, and Tim's excellent English stood him well. On occasion he was called upon to interpret Huron, but not often. Boston handled most of that tribe's interchange. New York was visited by tribal dignitaries however, and Tim Murphy often sat at the rear of assemblages in case he was needed. Otherwise, the boy waited. The months became more than two years; of course he plotted escapes, but what good would it do to reach his people only to be again returned? Eventually, Tim Murphy and three others were shipped to Philadelphia.

  For New York Colony it was a hands washing. It seemed most likely the four children had been taken by Iroquois, or at least from that country. Philadelphia dealt more with the Six Nations of the Confederacy, so the problem children were gladly passed along.

  Pennsylvania authorities were not pleased, but they did their best. Records were searched, but records were sparse. Experts were called, but all that had been known had already been written down.

  Each step was necessary before final decisions could be made. Tim Murphy, once held by the Huron, then imprisoned for nearly three years by Crown authority (for his own good of course) was simply released. Murphy was old enough—probably fifteen or sixteen—he spoke English, and he could read, write and cipher better than most he would encounter.

  One of the experts sent among the orphans was vastly different from the others. A small man, clearly part Indian himself, James Cummens spoke Huron poorly, but his hand language was remarkable and his English impeccable. James Cummens wore blue moccasins.

  Unlike the other lip pullers and ponderers, Cummens got to the point. He said in English, "I am Blue Moccasin, message carrier of the Delaware. What is your name?"

  "I am Murphy."

  Cummen's hands spoke. "I know that story. What is your Huron name?" The hands displayed irritation.

  "I am Tear, son of Charlie Pierre."

  "Does your Huron father live?"

  Tim shrugged. "I have not heard."

  "Does he know where or when you were taken?"

  "No, we spoke of it many times, and Governor William Johnson could not find an answer."

  Cummens asked, "Did your father make guesses?"

  "The warrior who brought me was of the Seneca, but Charlie Pierre believed he lied about his village. A good musket and pouch came with me, also iron knives."

  "Hmmmm," Cummens felt that information important. "The Iroquois have been at peace with England since the French War; where would a Seneca find a white child?" He sat silently considering.

  Cummens speculated, "The Seneca guard the Southern door of the Iroquois nations. It would seem reasonable that you came from their lands." He raised an admonishing finger, "Not certain because you might have been traded to the Seneca.

  "But," in some excitement Cummens added hand talk to his English, "the Seneca were not trading, they sought to dispose of you. They paid Charlie Pierre a valuable musket to take you. Which could mean that the Seneca did not wish even the musket to be found among them. Which might also indicate that the Seneca had broken their peace and sought to hide it." Again there was silence between them. Tim Murphy used the time to study James Cummens.

  Blue Moccasin? Had he heard the name before? It sounded vaguely familiar, and message carriers did travel far. To the Huron? It could have been.

  Cummens' jet-black hair was ordered in twin braids that hung to his chest. He appeared to be in his thirties, but the age of small men could be deceptive. Blue eyes matched the painted moccasins and contrasted with the bronze of Indian skin.

  The clothing was of finest weave and cut. Clearly, Cummens was a person of substance in his white world. Nor did Murphy doubt his abilities as a carrier of messages. The hands were eloquent, the voice rich with feeling. Already Blue Moccasin had presented probabilities never before raised.

  Cummens continued, "It is obvious how you gained your name. The tear beneath your eye would have been just as clear when you were a babe, but none recall such a child. That allows only two possibilities."

  "The first is that all who saw you are dead. That is, of course, likely. All could have been killed when you were taken."

  "It is just as possible that you were stolen and none died."

  "Which raises the only other possibility. Those who could recognize your mark do not live near and have not been asked.

  "So, if the first is true, and no one remembering Tear lives, the search ends here."

  "But, if some are still out there, they can be found."

  Tim felt his heart pound, but Cummens did not continue. He leaned back in his chair and gazed, perhaps unseeing across the small meeting room.

  Finally he spoke. "The next question to ask is pointed like an arrow to the heart of Tear of the Huron and Tim Murphy, who is English."

  "We must ask, 'Does Tear wish to find those who once knew him?' Then we must ask the same of Tim Murphy. We must think of the third name, the one given at birth, and we must wonder if meeting those who knew the babe will wish to know the man."

  "Those are not small questions, Tear, and you must answer them before we look further."

  The thoughts were not new to Tim Murphy, and his answer was ready.

  "It would please Tear of the Huron to know from where he came. Tim Murphy too would like to know, but neither wishes a search to delay his return to the lands of the Huron and Fort William Johnson."

  Cummens nodded understanding. "You know that Sir William Johnson is dead?"

  Tim had heard. He had written letters to Caraway, but none had been answered. The few visiting Huron dignitaries claimed ignorance of the long hunter's whereabouts. A Mohawk told that with Sir William's death Caraway's protection from Royal Navy justice had dissolved and the hunter had fled into the forest. Of the lodge of Charlie Pierre, none had heard.

  Cummens had more to say. "The way to the Huron is long. A good route is up the Susquehanna, then up the Seneca Lake. Two hands of days north live the Huron. Or the Mohawk River can be followed to . . . but Tear can seek those routes later.

  "I will recommend that Tim Murphy be released, to seek his own way and to make his own livelihood." Relief surged through Tim's soul. Finally, finally.

  "But, there must be one condition." Murphy felt his exultation sag.

  Cummens went on, "North on the Susquehanna the Juniata River joins. To the west in the valley between the mountains lives a friend who knows many things about those lands. Before Tear returns to the Huron he must visit the lodge of Rob Shatto and ask what he might know of a babe with a tear beneath an eye."

  "Quehana?" The name came almost explosively from Tim Murphy's lips. Quehana, the young frontiersman John Caraway wished to meet in combat.

  Cummens' eyes widened in surprise. "You know of Quehana?"

  "His name is known among Huron, and my friend Caraway wished to fight him."

  Blue Moccasin was again surprised. "You know Caraway? The scalper and burner from two wars?"

  Tim Murphy was proud. "Caraway taught me English, and we traveled to the Lakota country together."

  Cummens whistled softly, "You have a strange friend, Tim Murphy. Caraway kills too easily for most stomachs. I have never met John Caraway, but his name is known, and few would care to meet him."

  "Caraway is my friend."

  Blue smiled grimly, "Even the wildest have friends. But, all that aside. If I am able to have you released will you go to the Little Buffalo and see Rob Shatto? I will give you a letter to him explaining your call.

  "Such a visit can do no harm, Tim. The Little Buffalo is on your route north." Cummens smiled openly. "And wouldn't you like to meet Quehana, so named by The Warrior himself?

  "When you see John Caraway again you can advise him not to seek out Rob Shatto, or he will have t
aken his last scalp and burned his last body."

  — — —

  Tim Murphy again had a gun, not much of a weapon, but with it he could take game. A sawed off French military musket, Tim's gun had cost less than three of his few dollars. The musket consumed a scoop of powder and a terrific weight of lead. There were, however, a few things that made Tim's gun practical. Like Charlie Pierre, Tim Murphy hunted close, so he seldom missed. Coarse musket powder cost half of what fine rifle powder would demand, and to obtain fine-grained powder for his flintlock pan, Tim sifted his coarse stuff and kept the screenings separate. He recovered most bullets from his game. They could be melted and reformed. Shot was costly, but whatever stayed in a bird or rabbit could also be reused or melted into a bullet. Tim had no practical way of forming birdshot. That had to be made by dropping molten lead from a tall tower into water. En route the lead droplets rounded and cooled enough to hold shape when they struck the water. There was a shot tower in the Bay Colony. Caraway had spoken of it, but most small shot was imported. Tim could not afford much of it.

  As a ward of the Crown, Tim had no expenses. He ate what was offered and wore what was given. A little money came his way. He tried to spend nothing because the dream of a rifle like Caraway's hung on. With such a tool everything was possible. He could hunt for the wealthy as both Pierre and Caraway had done. He could shoot in competition as Caraway had at Fort Pitt. Tim knew his abilities were unusual, and as they had shot together he had seen that, at least on running game, he was Caraway's equal. Now he was nearly grown and much stronger. With the right gun . . . Tim’s imaginings ran on.

  Free of Philadelphia, Tim moved rapidly. He slept in the woods and ate what he took. He followed the pike to the Susquehanna then turned north to Harris's Ferry. Old skills returned, Sparks from his musket's flint started his fire. He encountered an Indian lodge and traded for pemmican. He offered a deer haunch at a white cabin in return for bread and bacon. He had his Crown blanket, and his coins were safely rolled at his waist. Tim expected he could march to the Shining Mountains if he chose.

  He could if he had decent footwear. The heavy shoes he had been issued fit either foot. Shapeless and poorly made, they would not last long. Perhaps he could trade for proper moccasins. If not, he would make his own. If he had to, he could tan the leather, but that took time in one place. Wood ashes had to be leached to make lye. The hide needed to be soaked in lye solution then scraped and rinsed. Working the leather until it was pliable was the worst, and Tim suspected his sewing with thinly cut thong would not be the best. He judged his shoes would get him to the Little Buffalo. Then he would decide what to do.

  Tim had doubts about the Rob Shatto part. Quehana had been a name only occasionally heard, but once Hurons had traveled far south through the dangerous lands of the Iroquois to trade for Quehana's magical iron arrow points. Tim had seen one or two. Those possessing such points swore they killed at greater distances and more surely than other iron points.

  Caraway had snorted disbelief. "Foolishness, Tim. One iron point is much like another. Somehow this Quehana built a reputation, and men see what they wish to see. If a Quehana pointed arrow misses it is due to something else. If it kills it is because of the magical point. Pay no attention."

  Tim guessed he would just come in quiet and see how the land lay. He would scout out Rob Shatto and decide whether or not to speak. He had promised James Cummens that he would seek out Quehana, but he would look first. The man was said to be a deadly shot and relentless on the warpath. Tim remembered Caraway's madness in battle and his terrible scream in victory. If Rob Shatto was like John Caraway . . . well, he guessed he would find out before he came to the lodge door.

  Tim crossed free on John Harris's ferry. The outfit was crossing anyway, and Harris's ferryman waved him aboard. It was a good omen, and Tim headed west along the Carlisle Pike with good spirits.

  He crossed Kittatinny Mountain at Croghan's Gap and took up with a pack train heading for the village of Landisburg. The packer had a black slave who brought up the rear, keeping the burdened horses closed up, doing most of the work, Tim observed.

  A voluble man, the packer expounded on any subject. He ranted about ruinous Crown taxes and the expense of keeping troops under arms when there was no enemy. He suggested sending fevered people among the Iroquois so the susceptible tribesmen would sicken and die. There was valuable land within the Iroquois Confederacy, the packer explained, and the Iroquois were a continuing menace anyway.

  Rob Shatto? The packer knew of him. "Big, they say. Haven't encountered him my own self. Part Injun, I hear. Stays peaceful as long as he's not crossed, but makes a bad enemy. Shatto's got a big house somewhere up in here and makes a lot of whiskey. Richer than sin, I gather. Just a young man, thirty or so I heard. Guess he was in here a'fore it was lawful. Got himself the best land a'course, and don't let people crowd in on him. Don't give me no trade, so I ain't looked him up."

  Quehana was only thirty? Tim had imagined him as old as Caraway. How could he have become known so young? Caraway had wished to fight him five years before. Probably Quehana was older than thought, but Rob Shatto must have something magical about him, Tim suspected.

  Following Cummens' directions Tim took the valley road west. When Mahanoy Ridge lay to his left, he chose a gap in the north ridge and slipped through it. That should have been Limestone Ridge. If he again turned east, he should strike the Little Buffalo, and along that small stream stood Shatto's house.

  This was a wild and disordered land. Larger ridges ran parallel more or less east and west, but between, a thousand hills and knobs created snug valleys and hollows replete with more springs than Tim had ever seen. Nut trees were everywhere. Chestnuts, walnuts, and butternuts nourished countless squirrels. A man could live on the squirrels alone, Tim expected.

  Beaver appeared to be pretty well trapped out, their lodges and dams in disrepair, but muskrat were many and the streams ran clear with fat trout lazing in quicker runs. Tim saw deer. This was truly a rich land because deer were quickly thinned where hunters had guns. Yet, here in the land between Kittatinny and Tuscarora Mountains bear still clawed trees, and turkey gobbled with their scratchings everywhere.

  Tim was taken with the place. With a warmer climate and seemingly innumerable game animals, Sherman's Valley was more attractive than any of the Huron hunting grounds.

  He circled a mean cabin adjoining stump-dotted plantings. Children hooted and dashed about. If this home place was typical, Tim doubted Rob Shatto's great house would be all that startling. Tim had counseled in William Johnson's brick mansion, and anything would pale before that wilderness marvel.

  The trick would be to just ease on down and locate a good viewing place. He would look over Shatto's operation and make sure it appeared friendly. Then maybe he would go in, or maybe he wouldn't.

  Chapter 7

  The Little Buffalo

  Since Pontiac's war Rob Shatto had scouted his valley. Rare was the day he failed to loop around the ridges noting marks of passage, listening for strangeness in the forest, and sniffing breezes for suspicious scents. During that last war the Shawnee Two Nose had attacked Rob's people and a friend had died. So had Two Nose and most of his band, but Rob Shatto did not intend it to happen again.

  Others laughed, the war was over, and hostiles had been driven beyond the Ohio. They could not come again. Perhaps, but unlike his neighbors, Shatto had grown up in a Delaware lodge. He knew the astonishing distances a war party could trot in a single light. The tribes remembered the old trails, just as they recalled wounds and insults, victories and defeats. Two Nose had been an outlaw among his own people, a cast out, but he had come. There could be another.

  Rob saw the prints of clumsy boots along the north ridge. He found where the wearer had knelt to peer ahead. The imprint of a gun butt was clear. Broad and flat, the mark indicated either a fowling piece—unlikely—or a military musket. Rob took up the trail.

  The route was predictable. The best p
osition from which to watch the house was a laurel clump on a slight bulge of land only a decent rifle shot out. Rob always checked the spot early in his scout. Once he had found a Shawnee boy hiding there. The child had come alone from beyond the mountains to see Quehana the arrowmaker. Rob had given the boy presents and a new name, Wild Goose, because he traveled far. Earlier in the morning the laurel had been undisturbed . . . now? Rob checked his pan powder and the tightness of the flint in the longrifle's hammer.

  Tim Murphy was astonished. Where he had expected a cabin, a large stone and wood home rose like a fortress, and wonder of wonders, the house had a tiled roof. He saw an older man and a pair of women, one a squaw, the other white.

  Chicken coops, a stable, a hog pen and some sheds were further downstream. A larger building housed machinery. That, Tim assumed, would be Shatto's whiskey still. But, where was Rob Shatto?

  The answer was stunning. An ungentle rifle butt planted between his shoulders pinned Tim solidly to the ground. A voice only partly amused said, "Friendly folk come to the door. Enemies skulk around and usually have their hair lifted for it."

  Tim made his answer quick. "I am not an enemy. I just wished to see before I went in." He pushed his musket away to show peaceful intent.

  The pressure left his back. "Roll over so I can get a look at you."

  Rob Shatto saw a youth, worn from travel, but sharp of eye. His hair hung unkempt, and the first traces of a mustache showed on his upper lip. A tear shaped birthmark was prominent beneath his shooting eye. The sawed off musket deserved only a look, but it was clean and cared for.

  Tim Murphy studied his captor at least as closely. Lord, the man was a giant, surely six feet four or five inches tall. He was built like an iron splitting wedge, broad shouldered and lean-waisted. Rounded muscle swelled shoulders and arms giving an impression of tremendous physical power. Slender hips and muscularly lean legs warned of a runner's endurance and perhaps unexpected quickness. The figure wore moccasins, leggings, a clout, and a soft hunting shirt decorated in an Indian manner. The long Pennsylvania rifle that had pinned him was gripped by a hand the size of a deer haunch. Tim Murphy was mightily impressed. He had no doubt that he faced the legendary Quehana.