A Short History Of The Sons Of Liberty
Tomahawk's Rangers
Though the group known as The Sons Of Liberty would not be officially formed until 1941, the seeds for its eventual emergence were sown long before.
From the very beginning of the country, The Founding Fathers knew that if the colonies were to win their independence, there would be some missions that couldn't be accomplished using usual tactics. They would need a small but talented group of soldiers to send on dangerous tasks that would confound conventional military forces. It was an idea that future governments would return to time and again, and the first of these special teams would be the celebrated "Tomahawk's Rangers". Gathered from all across the thirteen Colonies, they were an elite corp of militiamen, trappers, and patriots, ready to lay down their lives for their soon-to-be country.
The squad would be lead by the legendary frontiersman Thomas "Tomahawk" Haukins. Nicknamed for his incredible proficiency with the Indian weapon, Tomahawk had already made a name for himself as a trapper and explorer, blazing the Wilderness Road and founding the town of Haukins, Kentucky. He was eagle eyed, strong as an ox, agile as a mountain lion, and was an incredibly skilled hunter, with a deep knowledge of the land, able to live out in the wilderness for months at a time. He had also served in Pennsylvania and New York under (then Lieutenant) George Washington during the French and Indian Wars. As soon as the Revolutionary War broke out, he leapt at the chance to help his old friend, now Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Tomahawk's training for the Rangers was brutal, yet effective. He was determined that all of his Rangers would be just as skilled as he was. Every ranger was expected to be able to flawlessly camouflage themselves and crawl through the mud for miles at a time, swim upstream against the most fearsome river rapids, pin an insect to a tree trunk with a throwing knife at 35 paces, and learn the language of Indians and smoke signals.
His second in command was another veteran of the French and Indian Wars named Benjamin Martin. After the conflict, and the tragic death of his wife, Martin had retired to a farm to raise his seven children by himself. Though originally against the war, after two of his sons were killed by the sadistic Colonel William Tavington, Martin took up his arms again and created a militia, vowing to get revenge on the heinous "Butcher Tavington". Despite years of inactivity, Martin's talent at dealing death remained as lethal as ever, and his near supernatural skill at guerrilla warfare terrorized the British forces so much they dubbed him "The Ghost".
The rest of the Rangers were an eclectic mix of brawlers, sharpshooters, a former slave, and even a woman. Bess Lynn, a war nurse, donned a mask, wig, and colorful costume patterned off the American flag, dubbing herself Miss Liberty. Incidentally, she was also the earliest known example of a costumed "Superhero" recorded on American soil. The scandal Tomahawk felt at potentially having a woman serve in combat subsided when he observed her in action. She was able to fight and shoot as well as any member of the Rangers, and was especially talented with a whip.
George "Big Anvil" Calhoun was a blacksmith from Maine who's brother had been executed when he refused to forge weapons for the British. He was the group's powerhouse, possessing near Herculean strength. Capable of smashing through brick walls, tossing cannonballs with lethal force, and tearing down iron gates with his bare hands, there were few problems he encountered that he couldn't muscle his way out of.
"Healer" Randolph was a black slave who had saved his master from death by snakebite. Filled with gratitude, his master not only gave Healer his freedom, but taught him everything he knew about medicine and gave the former slave his last name. Though a non-combatant, his vast knowledge of medicine, combined with his knowledge of healing herbs gained from the tribal shamans in his native Africa, made him invaluable as the team's medic.
Henri "Frenchie" Duval was a former sailor in the French navy who came to America on the orders of French Admiral Latouche Treville to help train the militia. While his snobbish arrogance could occasionally get on his teammate's nerves, his mastery of fencing and astounding agility, allowing him to scale a fort's walls in seconds, more than made up for the flaws in his personality.
Ever since he was young, Leroy Johnson had always wanted to become a soldier. Unfortunately, his short stature led to him being turned down by a recruiter for the Regulars. Discouraged, but not defeated, he joined up with a militia and eventually came to the attention of Tomahawk himself, who became fast friends with the young man. He gained the nickname "Stovepipe" thanks to his habit of wearing a large stovepipe hat to help him look taller. Admittedly, he was not a particularly capable hand to hand combatant, but his small size and formidable speed made him a very effective scout. He would also often hide tools and small weapons inside his hat, ranging from hand mirrors, to climbing rope, to razor sharp knives, pistols, and even grenades.
The final member of the team was Bradley Morgan, a sharpshooter from the Pennsylvania Regulars. He had earned the nickname "Long Rifle", thanks to his uncanny accuracy with his rifled musket. He was said to be the best shot in the army, and Tomahawk could certainly see why. Not only was he able to reload and fire two to three times a minute, Long Rifle was able to consistently hit shots with pinpoint accuracy against targets 400 yards out, all while under heavy fire.
Tomahawk's Rangers proved to be an invaluable unit, fighting Redcoats across the theater of war. They faced off against Hessians like Van Grote, a brutal officer who rounded up colonists sympathetic to the rebel cause and imprisoned them in camps surrounded by a crude form of barbed wire, the exits guarded by special troops wearing the good luck symbol of the Navajo on their armbands. The Rangers were feared and despised in equal measure by the British forces, and their work in aiding the Culper Ring earned them the undying enmity of British spymaster Lord Gerald Shilling in particular. He detested them so much in fact, that he assembled his own unit to stop them.
The Ranger Killers; a team of heartless murderers taken from the highest security prisons across the British Empire and given pardons in exchange for hunting the Rangers. They consisted of the former circus strongman The Bull, peerless thief the Fly, an Iroquois hunter known only as The Indian, cruel pirate captain Arthur Salt, and the crack shot gunman known as the Highwayman. This fearsome group of killers was led by none other than Lord Schilling's sister, Lady Schilling. Every bit the master spy as her brother, her bewitching beauty was only equaled by her utter wickedness.
They and William Tavington proved to be the most implacable foes of the Rangers, but they were far from the only ones. In addition to aiding the Continental Army against British Redcoats and their Native American allies, the Rangers fought much stranger threats. Gigantic reptiles that had been trapped underground for hundreds of years, wicked cults from the Massachusetts township of Kingsport that worshiped aquatic monstrosities called Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, a 35 ft tall gorilla that Tomahawk named King Colosso, and Chief Cobweb, a shaman of the spider goddess Atlach-Nacha with the ability to command insects, including horrifyingly large arachnids, were only some of the unusual foes faced by the Rangers.
Against such incredible threats, Tomahawk and his Rangers heroically fought on, protecting the colonists and foiling the British offensive at every turn.
The historic Battle Of Cowpens was a turning point in both the Revolutionary War and the history of Tomahawk's Rangers. Not only were the Rangers present to support the Continental Army, but Tavington, Lady Schilling, and The Ranger Killers were also there to back up the British. The battle was long and gruesome, but it ended in victory for the Continental Army, with Lady Schilling and most of The Ranger Killers captured, and Martin finally succeeding in killing Tavington. Unfortunately, the Rangers didn't escape the fighting unscathed. Big Anvil lost an arm and tore up most of his back protecting Miss Liberty from a grapeshot blast. Keeping him alive tested Healer's abilities to the absolute limit, but he managed to save the blacksmith's life. Unfortunately, Stovepipe was not so lucky. The member of the Ranger Killers called the Highwayman managed to get the drop on him and shoot him twice, straight through the heart. Long Rifle blew The Highwayman's brains out, but it was too late. Stovepipe was dead before he hit the ground. Tomahawk had been very good friends with Stovepipe, and his death greatly affected him. Though he would serve with the remaining Rangers for the rest of the war, he was never the same.
After the war, the Rangers went their separate ways. Benjamin Martin retired to his homestead with his five children, and became a successful farmer, hiring on former members of his militia as help.
Miss Liberty hung up her black wig and star-spangled outfit, and moved to Maine alongside Big Anvil. The two were eventually married, and opened up their own blacksmiths. Calhoun joked that he could use an extra hand around the forge.
Henri Duval would return to France, and advocate for the same freedoms he fought and bled for in the colonies. Unfortunately, he would have the worst postscript of all the Rangers. He was eventually swept up in the fervor of the French Revolution, and became a fanatical enforcer for The Committee of Public Safety. A true believer in the righteousness of the Reign of Terror, he was said to have executed over 300 prisoners without trial. Frenchie would meet his end at the blade of The Scarlet Pimpernel, killed in a duel before he could murder an aristocrat's child in front of her.
Healer Randolph would open up his own clinic in Connecticut, and become an abolitionist, advocating to ensure that all people, black and white, could enjoy his new country's freedoms equally.
Thomas Haukins, the leader of the Rangers, would unfortunately spend many years after the war in a drunken haze. He had never forgiven himself for failing to prevent the death of his friend Stovepipe, and turned to the bottle for relief. Thankfully, he would be found by his old friend Long Rifle, who would help his former Captain sober up just in time for the greatest undertaking of their lives.
In 1804, on the orders of President Thomas Jefferson, Tomahawk and Long Rifle would lead an expedition of fifty people that would go down in history as The Haukins & Morgan Expedition. The main purpose of the undertaking was to map the territory that had just been acquired through the Louisiana Purchase, find a practical route across the Western half of the continent, and establish an American presence before the British or other European powers attempted to claim it. Secondary goals were to catalog the Flora and Fauna of the region, as well as establish trade with any newly discovered Indian tribes. The arduous trek would take two and a half years, and was fraught with peril. In addition to expected wildlife such as elk, deer, bison, and beavers, the expedition would discover stranger, and far more dangerous creatures.
Most of them were new species of feline that Tomahawk decided to collectively call the Wampus Cats. There was the Santer, a big cat with a long body covered with red fur, long legs, and a tail with eight hard knots that it could swing hard enough to knock a grown man out with one slap. The Celofay, a blue furred cougar that could throw its voice to confuse its prey. The deadliest of the Wampus Cats were most likely the Silver Cats, 300 lb felines with tasseled ears and blood red eyes with horizontal slits, like that of a goat. Their most distinguishing feature were undoubtedly their tails, eleven ft long prehensile appendages that ended in a bony club-like growth that was spiked on one side, yet smooth and hard on the other. As an ambush predator, it was the creature's favorite weapon, typically using it to strangle prey like a boa constrictor, or clubbing it to death with its growth. Strangely for such large cats, they made their lairs in the boughs of the tallest trees, and the expedition learned to always have a least one member keeping their eyes to the sky as they trekked through the dense forests.
Other deadly creatures included the Gallinippers, hawk sized mosquitoes capable of draining a man dry in one gulp. Ozark Howlers, bear sized shaggy black dogs with glowing red eyes and satanic looking horns. Its name came from its terrifying howl which sounded like a warped combination of a wolf's howl, an elk's bugle, and the insane laugh of a hyena. Argopelters, apes with slender wiry bodies, and arms like muscular whiplashes. They inhabited hollow coniferous trees, and slung branches with pistol like accuracy at any who intruded on their territory. The largest creature Tomahawk and his group encountered were undoubtedly the Slide-Rock Bolters. A sort of land based whale, the Slide-Rock Bolter only lived on mountains where the slope was at more than a 45-degree angle. They were 120 ft long, with a truly colossal mouth filled with stony teeth, and their tails ended in a fluke like a dolphin's, with gigantic grab-hooks. Much like the Silver Cats, they were ambush predators, waiting patiently for prey to wander beneath them, and then lifting its tail and sliding rapidly down the slope. Their wide open mouth could easily devour entire herds of deer.
The most bizarre animal Tomahawk encountered was the surreal, demonic Luferlang. The creature's body was in the general shape of a horse, but had a number of differences that made one think that God had been out of his mind on fire water when he created it. It had a blue stripe going all the way down its spine to the tip of its bushy tail, which was located in the center of its back, four tiny cat-like whiskers, a short bushy beard, long curly eyelashes, and most noticeably, a mouth absolutely packed with razor sharp needle-like teeth. It was a disturbingly aggressive creature, with triple jointed legs that it used to chase down anything it laid eyes on and viciously tear it to pieces. Even after the prey was dead, the Luferlang would often desecrate its corpse. The first time the group encountered one, it managed to brutally maul five members of the expedition before Tomahawk was able to take it town.
Luckily, not EVERY animal the expedition encountered were slavering beasts, hungry for the flesh of man. Fur-Bearing Trout, Squasholigers, a peculiar type of living squash that behaved like a hog, and the Guyascutus, creatures that looked a bit like a deer with rabbit ears and fangs, and one set of legs shorter than the other to easily scale the hilly, rocky terrain, were strange little critters, but ultimately harmless. The most populous of these new animals was the Jackalope, a species of horned jackrabbit with pheasant tails. They were also damn good eating, and their great numbers saved the expedition from starvation more than once.
When they first tried to establish friendly relations with the various tribes of Native Americans they came across, the expedition's success was something of a mixed bag. Some tribes, such as the Shoshone, Mandan, and Yunwi-Tsunsdi, a tribe of wide eyed albino Indians around six inches in height, reacted well to the travelers and welcomed new opportunities for trade. Others, such as the Sioux and the Si-Te-Cah, a tribe of cannibalistic red-haired giants over 15ft tall, responded to the Expedition's friendly greetings with bows and arrows.
Luckily, there was one tribe that would be particularly friendly to the group.
And from whom Tomahawk would gain a bride.
One day, early in the morning, Tomahawk heard the screams of a woman in peril. Following the noise, Tomahawk saw a beautiful Native woman being attacked by a huge hairy, ape-like creature. Without thinking twice, Tomahawk and the travelers leapt to her defense. The monster was unlike any opponent Haukins and the group had faced before. It seemed to have human-like intelligence, strength greatly surpassing a grizzly bear, and appeared to possess mystical powers. The fight was long and grueling, costing the lives of 10 members of the expedition, but Tomahawk managed to emerge victorious, chopping through the monsters tree trunk thick neck, and severing its head.
After things had calmed down, and the remaining members had buried the dead, the woman introduced herself as Moon Fawn, princess of the Akomish, and offered to lead them to her village to meet her father. When they arrived, and Moon Fawn explained the situation to him, the chief of the Akomish, Grey Elk, gave them a hero's welcome. Grey Elk explained that they had managed to kill the Genoskwa, a berserk member of what the tribe called The Forest People, but would come to be better known as Sasquatches. Most of the Forest People were peaceful, but this murderous fiend had been slaughtering members of the tribe for many moons, leaving only bits of their entrails behind. In gratitude for ridding the tribe of this great threat and protecting his daughter, Grey Elk gave Tomahawk his daughter's hand in marriage.
The two were wed in the Akomish tradition, and Moon Fawn joined the expedition. She would prove to be a great help, and knew more about the Native's ways than even Tomahawk. With Moon Fawn acting as an intermediary, the expedition's interactions with the various tribes became much more positive. The fact that she possessed a piece of amber that contained an earth elemental also came in handy when they encountered monsters straight from the Native legends, such as the witches Spearfinger and Raven Mocker.
The expedition would first sight the Pacific on November 7 1805. Unfortunately, they had been beaten to their prize. Unknown to the Expedition, the British had called upon Gerald Schilling to fortify the area in preparation for an invasion, and eventual reconquest, of the Thirteen Colonies. Hoping to restore his honor, the disgraced former spymaster constructed Fort Clatsop on the south side of the Columbia River, and staffed it with a company of 350 infantry. Outnumbered ten to one, most of the Expedition members wanted to turn back and warn Washington. Tomahawk, however, refused. It would take them at least a year to get back, and who knew how much further the British would encroach in that time. They would have to take care of this problem themselves.
Lucky for them, Schilling had unknowingly built his fort close to a nest of Columbia River Sand Squinks.
A cross between a coyote and bobcat with ears like a jackrabbit and a long, bushy tail, its most distinctive feature were the three tiny, marble-sized metal balls that connected to tiny cylindrical stalks, two on the tips of the ears and the other on the end of its tail. While the Squink was omnivorous, its favorite prey was electric eels, and when it was full, it could discharge a substantial amount of electricity. With the help of Moon Fawn, the expedition members gathered a herd of fattened Squinks and drove them towards the fort. Moon Fawn then used her Elemental's power to collapse a wall of the fort, letting in the horde of rampaging Squinks. The sounds of the British soldiers screaming were almost drowned out by the thunderous cracks of the lightning bolts the Squinks fired. Not only that, but the electricity had caused multiple fires to break out around the fort. The attack did its job in thinning the British's numbers considerably, and after the last Squink had been killed there were only 100 or so left. That's when the Expedition members charged out of the brush and into the fray like men possessed. The ensuing melee was a bloody affair, but the Expedition members fought like hell, and the soldiers were still reeling from the one two punch of the Squinks and raging fires.
Unfortunately, before the fight was over, Tomahawk would lose another friend.
As Lord Schilling could see the tide turn against his forces, he made ready his escape. Before he left, he took deadly aim at Moon Fawn. Though she was distracted by the chaos around her, Long Rifle was not. Just before Schilling pulled the trigger, he leapt in front of her, taking the bullet directly in his brain. Tomahawk heard the shot, but by the time he made his way through the chaos it was too late. Long Rifle was long gone. As he saw Schilling smirk and ride away, Tomahawk was filled with a boundless rage. Channeling all of his righteous anger, Haukins flung his Tomahawk an astonishing 140 ft, burying it into Schilling's skull hard enough to cleave it in twain.
After the battle, Tomahawk rebuilt the fort with the help of the other members of the group and the Akomish tribe, flying the American flag over it and christening it Fort Morgan after his fallen friend. The Expedition proceeded to make its way back to civilization, reaching St. Louis on September 27, 1806. Of the 50 people who had volunteered for the trip only 22 would make it back. Tomahawk would grieve for his fallen friends, but thankfully would not take to the bottle. Moon Fawn's tender love helped to heal his troubled soul. The two would settle down in Echo Valley, and eventually have a son, Hawk, who would become almost as famous in the Wild West, as his father was on the frontier.
And so, Tomahawk's Rangers passed into history. The team would not only be remembered as trailblazing pioneers and heroes of the American Revolution, but would serve as inspiration for future squads of astonishing individuals in service to their country.
Next Chapter: The Original Secret Service
