Connor: Our Burdens

He twirled his tomahawk, his wrist flicking faster than an eye could blink. The Redcoat facing him grunted, unafraid. He'd seen such bravado before – in many a brawl, in many a battle. If this young cocksure killer thought to frighten him here on the outskirts of civilization, he had another thing coming. No one killed the town's deer and got away with it.

The Redcoat levelled his musket at the stone-faced Indian gesturing for his comrades to step in. The dead deer with the stiff arrow still poking out of its side was forgotten. Sabres whistled through the air aiming for the Indian's head. Which was not there when the men's blades clashed. Irritated the two Redcoats sprung away from one another. A shot rang out amid the trees startling the nesting birds into an explosion of wings. The bullet hit no one and nothing. It simply hit a tree trunk and embedded in the thick bark. Cursing the three Redcoats spun around in a circle facing outwards, a defensive position not one of them liked.

The sneering Indian stood watching them not ten feet away between two thick trees. He did not appear nervous let alone out of breath. The three Englishmen spread in a line and began an advance, sabres at the ready. Again came that professional twirl of the tomahawk. The Indian was defying them, mocking their skill if not their manhood. It was a hard insult to swallow. Not only was he a poacher, he did not seem to even be particularly remorseful or prepared for his inevitable end.

As they closed with their lone quarry who had not sought to avoid them, could not have avoided them to begin with – he had been caught in the act as it were trying to skin the deer. The deep incision in the belly was bleeding now and spoiling the good pelt. The drying blood became the same colour as the brown soil the animal had been brought down upon. The criminal Indian had not shown much surprise either, almost as if he'd expected to get caught red handed. Ha, the irony!

Their army issue sabres flashed in the midday sun seeking the vulnerable points on the Indian's body which continued to elude them. The man was uncanny they were finally forced to admit. A savage in truth. No true Englishman would move with a serpent's grace. A real man stood his ground. Only cowards slithered.

The tomahawk = a strange looking one too, not a solid blade but shaped like a teardrop, hollow where it should have been solid – was moved with unnatural speed side to side, striking a shoulder here and almost missing a nose there. The three Redcoats stood back, glowering, suddenly not so sure that one man against three were good odds.

And still the Indian did not attack. He waited, upper part of his face hidden in a hood. Who wore hoods nowadays anyway? Witches for one. Criminals for another. Holy men who sometimes were criminals hiding under the calling of the cloth. Many of them around. Yet this one – he was no priest. He was a savage Indian, a pox ridden excuse for a human being. He should have run as did all his kind.

An arrogant idiot this one, the Redcoat commander reflected levelling his musket again while his two men tried to approach from the sides, a flanking manoeuvre designed to split the target's attention. This had gone on too long. Time to end it.

His finger slowly squeezed the trigger.

The Indian again was not there when the bullet had flown from the musket. Once more the Redcoat cursed having to reload his weapon, taken out of the picture. The other two Redcoats again tried to engage with the Indian who this time did not elude but waded in, tomahawk and knife in hand.

The musketman, his hands acting of their own accord in reloading the firearm, watched in growing horror what a tomahawk could do when wielded by an expert hand. He never forgot this lesson for the rest of his life. The weapon was a blur, leaving blood smears on the red coats of his men every time it connected or came close to their bodies. Not fatal wounds, no, only cuts meant to slow down an opponent. Somewhere along the way the Redcoats had lost momentum. The dark realization angered the Redcoat commander who finally finished his task and once more took aim.

A sickening crunch reached his ears just as he'd pulled the trigger. He saw one of his men drop to his knees, mouth open in surprise, eyes wide and dead, hands reaching out to his killer whose hand jerked the tomahawk free of the Redcoat's forehead. He had crushed in the Englishman's skull. The Redcoat commander, a veteran of many battles where men and horses had screamed in pain and death, stared. This was too close. Too personal. Out of his dead man's eyes he saw Death staring back at him.

"You," he grated between clenched teeth, dropping the musket and drawing his sword, a fine Spanish forged blade well kept. "You are a dead man, savage."

The Indian did not so much as bat an eye lash. The other remaining Redcoat kept his distance, sabre pointed at the Indian's heart. The arrogant savage slowly turned his regard on him.

"Small men," he said in perfect English. "use big words but do little."

He held his tomahawk with a relaxed hold, confident of his ability. Despite his growing dismay, the Redcoat commander had to commend the man's ability with weapons. To face Redcoats unafraid was one thing. To face them with his head held up and naught but a slim knife and a short axe in his hand… well that was another. Took guts. Took a fool too. Or a supremely trained arm.

They attacked in unison, one sabre high, the other low aimed at the knees. With unnatural speed the Indian switched hands, the tomahawk blocking the leg-bound sabre and the knife sliding along the other sabre's edge with a teeth-jarring sound of metal on metal. The momentum carried the two Redcoats past him and the Indian did not give them time to regroup. The knife sunk to the hilt in the commander's neck. The man gurgled, sword abandoned on the ground, his hands scrabbling to pull the knife out. Blood gushed from his pulsating neck – the knife had gone straight through. He toppled, a corpse by the time he hit the ground.

The lone remaining Redcoat was not a fool. He assessed his chances with two comrades dead and threw away his sabre. Holding out his hands in mute supplication he took a step back, then another while the Indian watched him coolly, again in that relaxed posture that spoke of quiet competence. Two steps became three, then four and finally his nerve broke and he ran without looking back. He did not stop until he'd reached the gates of the little town on the frontier.


Connor dropped the deer carcass to the ground with a soft plop. The expectant faces of the villagers creased into weary smiles. They would have meat this night and perhaps for another week. After that he'd have to go hunting again. They were old a lot of them. Many were young, not yet full grown. There were no men, no warriors among them. The white men and their diseases had taken many. Raids. Murder. Illness – the white men's and their own. The village tribe had been decimated.

But at least they still had hope.

His own people had not been given this chance. The memories would never leave him, nor would the images that certain words could conjure. His past had defined his present. He helped these people because he could and because they had sheltered him. They were not Mohawks but that did not matter. The white man still called them 'dirty Indians' or 'illiterate savages'. They were his people – they needed justice.

He smiled at the eager children crowding around him in the small longhouse. He had been like many of the boys around him. A little scrawny, a little hungry every day. But he had willed himself to change, to grow. These boys had little other choice. He could tell by their eyes that they were impatient to be men, to defend their tribe and home. After all what was more important?

He settled down in his own little corner of the longhouse – a measure of privacy accorded to few as families within the tribe lived several generations in one longhouse, an extended family unlike the smaller units of the white men – shaking off his hood. He reached for his tomahawk crusted with blood and other bodily parts of a less savoury nature. Sighing, Connor turned it over in his hands. A gift this tomahawk, fashioned by his mentor so that he never forgot who and what he was. An Assassin. Part of a select tribe, a group that attempted to preserve humanity's free will and deliver justice to tyrants. Aside from the hidden blade on his wrist this tomahawk was one of his prised possessions.

A cloth wetted in warm water got rid of the blood. With great care he oiled the strangely shaped axe-head, taking his time. The night would be long in celebration if the sounds of cooking and satisfaction were any indication. He could smell cooking meat. His stomach rumbled in response. He knew the pangs of hunger only too well. Saliva formed in his mouth and he swallowed it, finishing his work on the tomahawk. Next came the long knife with which he'd spilled out the Redcoat's life. It too required extensive cleaning. His bow he'd stowed away on the shelf above him. He preferred to sleep on the higher shelf that was the sleeping space in the longhouse, a remnant of his anxious childhood when wide tree branches had been his bed on hot summer nights or when the white men or other Indians raided their village.

A shadow fell across his lap. Quickly he looked up to see a shyly smiling girl holding out a steaming hunk of meat dripping fat onto the earthen floor. Her hands were stained with the fat as was her face. She had eaten well and would remember this night for some time. Gratefully he took the proffered meat, glancing down the longhouse to where many of the others were watching him in turn. He was used to being stared at – by white men with suspicion and mistrust but not really by the Indians. After all he was one of them, brought up a Mohawk albeit his father had been a white man, a man of the British Empire that claimed to rule these lands. A foreign king, an emperor, who did not even know of this girl's existence or that of her people, who was not cognisant of what happened in his name. The rumour in the towns and cities was that the king was insane, mad, a familial curse carried in his blood for generations. A madman for a ruler. Great spirits, what a mess!

He ate, ripping the meat with his teeth and wiping his mouth with his hand. The days were warm. The nights were full of forest noises. A fire burned on the hearth and his stomach was full. Days like these were worth fighting for – and dying for if necessary. He held no illusions about his eventual fate. He was a killer, a predator. Some day he too would become prey – perhaps he already was.

He leaned back against the longhouse wall, relaxing, emptying his mind of every concern. Live in the moment, that is how a child would go through their day. The girl who'd brought him his supper probably did not yet work. Too few summers to know what hard life was. That childhood is what he fought for, Connor reflected staring at the wall opposite him where shadows danced a gleeful step of life. Children like these should not have to know hardship, not until later when their relatives could be there to guide them. His mother had been there for him – until that night.

Air hissed between his compressed lips. Those memories again. He still had nightmares of that day and night of horror. Probably always would. Sometimes he avoided sleep just to get away from the fiery cloying smell of blood and smoke that had etched themselves on his mind's eye. At times he could taste the blood of his villagers on his tongue. Those dark nights were the times he roamed the woods and hunted, just to drive his demons away. He ran with the wolves and the elk. He flew with the owls and skulked with the mice. More animal than man he became then. Feral. Wild. Dangerous. Any enemy that crossed his path during these hunts was one enemy less he had to face during the day. He liked the solitary life. He did not talk about his life, and had few friends to talk it over with. His mother was dead. His friends were dead. Only his quest remained. For freedom. For justice. For peace.

He was Connor Kenway. His spirit lived.

And so would he – by the Creed.