Revenge
Asita'teget is not a common word. It comes from my tribal language in North America and means 'revenge' or retribution.The translation is not perfect as it rarely is between languages, but it is a word I have learned to hate more than life itself.
Perhaps your religion has no room for spirits or gods who give you tasks to complete. I often wish mine were one of the gentle religions where everyone gets along and there is no violence or hatred. Where the rules are treated as suggestions and even the preachers sin as much as the congregation.
Sadly, mine is a religion of reality. Mine is a religion of honor and retribution, or in my adopted language, pay back's a bitch.
There are many who deserve the full wrath of the spirits and it has been my sad duty to send them on their way. I would be a liar to say I enjoy my work but I would also be a liar to say it is not satisfying.
Thankfully, this will soon end and I will be allowed to face my own punishment for my crime.
It started in a small town outside of Manchester, England nearly four hundred years ago. I had been taken there from the New World as part of some show. The locals had never seen an American Indian before and I was merely led on stage with a collar and chain as though I were some wild animal. Perhaps I am. People would shrink into their seats and gasp if I approached the end of the stage. The faces of the men showed their fear of the unknown. I appeared a savage beast willing to do whatever I must to survive any battle. They were correct.
But the faces of the women were varied. Some seemed concerned for their hair or body as though I would willingly injure or harm them for no other purpose than enjoyment. But some had the look of lust. They wondered silently if I was large or small; whether my practices in private were more advanced than the effeminate and powdered male seated next to them. To give onself to another means there are no rules of etiquette or decency, just the desire to be one with another in the most animal and physical way possible was no doubt their unspoken desire. They were also correct.
Then one night, I was brought to a home and instructed to do whatever was asked by the lady of the house. Her requests were very graphic and even I was embarrassed that a woman would speak such words or draw such pictures. Perhaps our views were different but this seemed preferable to sleeping in the same area as the horses and chained to some post.
When she started removing her many garments, I was astounded at how many there were. Of course I had no idea at the time what each was called but over the next few centuries became good at understanding English. There were skirts and petticoats and bodices and bras. But I suppose they were useful or necessary in that place at that time.
She continually talked slowly and loudly as though this made her language any easier to understand. It did not so I stood watching and wondering how she would look compared to my own wife. I doubt she would have interested me at all but her husband or some other male entered the room and started shouting loudly. She gathered her clothes but before she could retreat he started beating her. These were not gentle slaps one might give a naughty child but what one might seen in a bar fight.
My spirits do not allow this type of behaviour so I stepped up behind him and snapped his neck as easily as a dried chicken bone. That was when the woman decided to scream. I knew that my savage reputation would mean a very short trial and a shorter time in jail before I was burned or drowned or whatever they did. It was a small leap to the tree outside the window and just a few swings to the ground. By the time lights started going on in other rooms and houses, I had fled into a field.
That night, when I asked the spirits for forgiveness, I was astounded that they answered. I was not to be punished for this crime but an earlier one. The killing of the man who enjoyed beating women was some small step in paying for my own sin.
It seemed I had proven some skill in bringing others to their respective gods for their outrages. For a time I slept by day and traveled by night; along the way, I shaved and changed into the local clothing; or some of it, and eventually found my way to Portland on the south coast. Perhaps it was my mind going mad or truly the spirits but I learned enough of the language from my dreams to convince a captain to take me along on a voyage to the New World as an interpreter and guide.
After four months of rations and numerous deaths, we landed in what was called New Scotland by the English and Nova Scotia by the French. After unloading, we were given pay and most of the men went looking for the companionship that only women could provide. I left town and wondered if I could still find my way home.
At the point where the sea and mighty river meet, I bought a horse and some knives and headed toward Katahdin. I tried to avoid the main road and kept to the woods. It was early fall so most of the bears were looking for a place to spend the winter and the moose just considered me another curious passer by.
On the fifth day, I heard some noises and discovered two men riding along a similar route. Each had a rifle and sidearm so I followed quietly behind hoping to discover their destination and purpose. That night, I crept close to their camp and listened as they talked abour which villages to raid and which women to take for sale to bars along the coast. They seemed unworried about any men they might encounter and I did not need the spirits to tell me that these two must die.
They drank for some time and after a minor argument over how many women they could rape before selling them, they fell asleep near the fire. It was a simple task to slit their throats and watch as the life drained back to the Mother Earth, where it belonged.
I never found my own village. I prayed that those who had escaped had moved further north where the icy winds and snow would discourage anyone following. I continued to drift further west and eventually, south.
Days turned into weeks and years. I did not seem to age or tire. Many nights a spirit would appear and tell me which direction to follow or what type of person I sought. They were always easy to find, women haters always are.
I wish I had been able to enjoy the changes that took place over those many years. First, the railroads came along with a new type of slave; the Chinese. As people migrated to the south, the blacks were taken from the tribal lands to be servants and mistresses.
Gas and electricity blend in my mind and I no longer remember which came first. Cars replaced horses and wagons and cities grew too large for the land.
But tonight will be my last time. I have been told that I will join gesaluet, my eternal partner who was taken nearly four centuries ago. One short trip to Kanagawa prefecture in Japan and a few hours waiting for the right moment for a finger to the throat or my mercifully painless neck snap and I will gladly leave this world.
Four millenium seem such a short time compared to an eternity of bliss. I do not wish to lie so I will say that the numbers I have killed are in the thousands. Perhaps ten thousand or more. And with each one I am reminded of why I do this. My crime.
On the day when my village was invaded, I was hunting moose and heard the unfamiliar sounds of guns and screams. When I got close enough to see, the sight was horrific. Friends and relatives were dead or dying and homes burned. Horses were tied together and anything of value loaded onto wagons. And then my eyes saw something even worse. The women were being loaded into cages except for one or two. They were being raped and beaten by men. One was my love, my heart, my wife. She did not scream or beg but fought valiantly and that is when one of them crushed her head with a large stone.
I should have charged them with my axe or killed them with arrows but instead, I acted like a small dog who barks as though fierce and is suddenly face to face with a Black Bear. I put my tail between my legs and ran. I was a coward; a shameful failure who hoped to die from the elements or become food for some animal. But that was not to be my fate.
Thankfully, I will soon leave this sad existence for Wasoq, the spirit world. I have few regrets for those I have sent before me. It seems the spirits have forgiven me for my behaviour and accepted my numerous murders as payment for my cowardice. I only pray that after four centuries, my wife has also forgiven me.