Disclaimer: The character of Jack Winthrop belongs to Michael Mann, borrowed from the 1992 movie "The Last of the Mohicans". Just an interlude to permeate my writer's block.
Winds Of Change
A One Shot
The balmy evening air was welcoming to him.
He ran.
Captain Jack Winthrop sucked in a lungful of the cloying summer breeze as he ran, free as a soaring falcon. The east wind brought tides of gunpowder and war. The winds of some kind of transformation in his life.
He had lived among people from every walks of life for the entirety of his own existence. A subject of the English King, but first and foremost a son of the frontier. As such he had dwelled amidst trappers and traders, slaves and freemen, indentured servants and the likes. Also Indians.
The Indians had been the first, many years ago, to teach him to read the signs in nature. It was because of this that he did not halt his run, but more importantly he knew the signs well. A monumental change was drifting into his life like an eclipse to the sun.
He hated the thought that he was shirking from his duty, running from service to his own. But was he really? As he dodged musket volley and the whistle of French bayonets that came a hairsbreadths too close to him, he could only seek comfort in the pressing knowledge that it was the correct thing to do. Leaving Ft. William Henry behind, gone from the presence of tyrannical royal bondage and an unjust Colonel who was too duty-bound and blinded by thoughts of glory to acknowledge the will of the people of this land who held an obligation to their kin.
Captain Jack risked a glance haphazardly behind him as saw the rest of his friends… fellow deserters, really…. had all split up by then. Good. Luck was typically in numbers, but not when they were fleeing both the French and the English.
Some time later, he came to rest at a creek, spent and out of breath. He knew this land like the back of his own hand and he knew he was sufficiently away from the fighting forces of the great armies of Europe. It was only now, drenched in grime and sweat, that he could pause for a few moments of respite and to indulge in two fundamental reactions. Firstly, wallow in self-pity for a minute. He had committed treason in leaving the fort and the damn red coats would most likely now put a bounty on his head. After all, he was suppose to be a captain of the colonial militia. There were also the damn Frogs to steer clear from. At the same time, as he bent down to drink heartily of the running stream, he had to smirk grimly at the surprising turn his life had taken.
Against his judgment, he rested his protesting, burning limbs down for a spell and kept his rifle at hand.
Life was chancy at best, especially in these lands. He had been born and raised in New York colony but like most everyone else, he had always considered himself a British subject and had taken pride in being in service to the King. Or so he thought. The Winthrop family had landed in these shores over a hundred years before, back when these parts were still under Dutch rule.
Those times had been different, Jack reflected, strangely nostalgic over a period that had come and gone long before his arrival. He could not imagine being more bound to the monarchy than he already was, but apparently the royal choke-hold had a far tighter grip back then. His grandfather, Samuel Winthrop, had told him when he had been a mere child about how his own authoritarian grandfather had resented the Dutch statutes and decrees and constantly spoke against it. His own allegiance had been to his English King across the vast ocean.
Jack, my lad, he would make us, all of us, kneel before a portrait we had of the Stuart king Charles I every night. 'Kneel before your Lord and master', he would command. His will was ours. My mother, my sisters, even the serving girl who was Dutch. We kneeled and did not rise until our knees were red and sore. He had been damn lucky that he had not been sent to Holland to answer for his rebelliousness.
Change had come, of course. The rule of the Netherlands had fallen into the victorious hand of the British. How his great-grandfather must have rejoiced; assuming the ornery old man was still kicking about when the spectacular event had taken place.
Samuel Winthrop had (perhaps unknowingly) imparted a valuable lesson unto his impressionable progeny, a spark that lain dormant for most of his life, but that had recently erupted into a brilliant flame-
That no man could have dominion over another.
Over the years, he had resigned himself to many things. He had loved only once, married his childhood sweetheart, his dark haired wife who, ironically enough, had been descended from the very people his ancestors had so despised. Kate, whose lineage could be traced to Flanders. She always insisted he call her Kate, or at best Katherine.
Katarina…. He resisted the urge to say the name aloud into the darkness. Jack smiled to himself and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. No, Katarina was no more, she was long dead, having left him to eat his heart in anguish and with only a son who was now ten. One son to her memory. A dark haired, defiant boy with perpetually melancholy eyes, despite his father's love and attention. A son he had named Samuel.
Jack's weary body tensed as he thought he heard a noise. Shaking his head, he stood hastily with his rifle and resumed his dash into the woods, away as possible from this godforsaken land.
He wanted only to reach his child and find him safe. Then he would figure out what the best course of action would be. He could only hope Nathaniel and his friends would have the sense to keep themselves free from harm until a time they could be reunited.
Watched LOTM recently and I thought that Mr. Jack Winthrop was cute… in a rustic, colonial way. For some reason I have thought of this insubordinate character quite a bit, and have seriously considered writing a full-length story around him, stemming from this one-shot. I just sat down tonight and wrote this quickly. He's quite intriguing.