...

There's a love that is fiercer

Than the love between friends,

More gentle than a mother's

When her baby's at her side;

And there's a loyalty that's deeper

Than mere sentiments

...

—If I Stand by Rich Mullens

This chapter is a bit unlike Uncas... I... well this is what I came up with when I came across a blank space in Cooper's story. The flashback's dialogue is almost taken exactly from the beginning of the book. I only changed Hawkeye's name to Uncas and changed a few words to differentiate between how Chingachgook would speak to his son and how he would speak to his friend, I also cut Hawkeye's answers.

Bold is English, regular is Delaware, italics are flashbacks.

As we topped a small rise, I saw, in the pale moonlight, the slumbering village of the Tortoise. Many lodges were scattered throughout the large clearing; from several small wisps of smoke curled, but no light shone through the chinkless walls. Only one fire was lit in the center of the ring of buildings, and around it several chiefs lounged in conversation. Without disguising our progress, Hawkeye and I entered the village. When we had come within the light of the fire I called out to them, "Will my brothers spare us a place at their fire?"

Heads turned slowly and eyes studied our faces—my paint and Hawkeye's clean countenance. Then one answered, "Who asks to share the hospitality of the Delawares?"

"Hawkeye, and his brother, have come for the hospitality of the Tortoise. We seek our friends, the white man and a woman with hair like the sun." Hawkeye replied in the tongue of the Delaware.

Surprise flashed across their faces, but they quickly hid the emotion and the spokesman of the group answered, "My brothers are welcome." And he gestured us to sit as he removed his tomahawk and pressed weed into the bowl on its head. I followed his example and we smoked in comfortable silence, until, removing the stem from his lips, he declared, "My brothers are weary, they seek their rest. Come," and rising to he feet he beckoned us after him.

We followed, and he led us to a nearby lodge within which burned a low fire. As my eyes adjusted from the brightness of the blazing flames to the dim flickering here, I noticed that we were not the only occupants of the place. The sleepers lay, one beside the coals—a white man with blondish hair, stretched out while he snored contentedly— and the other in a further corner—a woman with hair like gold, wrapped warmly in beaver pelts.

"The Major and the Light-hair!"

"Aye, boy," Hawkeye mumbled as he lay himself out on the firm floor, "so it is. Tomorrow we will have time enough to compare our tales. Sleep now, God knows we will have need of it."

Following his example, to the relief of my heavy eyelids, I threw my self down and slept. Tomorrow, I swore, I would find the Dark-hair.

I awoke to faint sounds, low humming, the swish of a doeskin skirt, the crackle of the fire. Opening my eyes slowly, I turned my head and studied the squaw who knelt at the fire as she prepared our breakfast; she was elderly and gray tinted in her long braids. I sat up noiselessly and glanced quickly around, Hawkeye still slumbered, his arm tucked under his graying head; the Open Hand and Light-hair were oblivious to the rising sun.

"Eat, my son must nourish himself."

I turned and saw the speaker, the old woman, holding out a bowl of succotash to me with a motherly smile. I took it with a gratitude born of hunger; I had not eaten in over a week. I bowed my head before I began, and murmured, "Thank you, mother."

At my words her face lit up and, realizing that the greatest compliment I could give her would be to wolf down the food, I did so. She laughed, "You remind me of my son Lucky-shot. He loved to eat. I called him 'Empty-stomach' for no matter the time of day or night he could eat an entire goose."

I allowed myself to smile, to pretend that she was my mother. I offered her my empty bowl and she eagerly refilled it.

Across from me Hawkeye stirred, stretched and sat upright. The old woman offered him a bowl of the same stuff, and after thanking her heartily he began to eat through slowly his way through three servings. Dancing-feet, for that was her name, appreciated his appetite, almost, I thought, as he did her cooking. Too soon though the Major and his charge awoke and at once Dancing-feet was torn between chattering away to the Light-hair, 'Alice' the Major called her, and sealing her lips in the presence of the English major. Her predicament was soon solved when two women entered leading Cora by the hand. Dancing-feet joined the small party, leaving the Major to fend his breakfast for himself.

At first none but myself noticed the Dark-hair's presence, and as she did not notice us, I was allowed a few moments to watch her speak and signal with her hands animatedly. The young women with her spoke slowly and she answered and broken Delaware interspersed with hand-signs. The conversation itself was bland—they were discussing the correct way to cook maize—but my native language on her lips, no matter how indistinct, was sweeter to me than the water of the salt spring. All too soon she detected my gaze and she turned, gasped, her eyes darting from my person to that of her sister, and as she ran she exclaimed,"Alice, my sister! God is good to me; he has returned you to me once more!"

Then she crushed Alice to her bosom and wept. I looked on as I had on the hill after the skirmish—protectively, joyfully, sorrowfully, and proudly; a myriad of conflicting emotions that combined to put in the beginning of tears in my eyes while pride curved my lips in a smile and my heart sank with the knowledge that she could never be mine.

When several minutes had passed and women of the Tortoise had left discreetly, the Dark-hair controlled herself and disengaged her arms from about her sister and greeted first the Open Hand, Hawkeye, and then finally, myself.

To each of the others she had expressed her great gratitude, but to me she asked, "I do not see your father, do not tell me he has died!"

Her earnest expression betrayed her very real fear for Chingachgook's safety, so I shook my head. "He has hidden himself in the woods with Monro."

Her eyes widened and she whispered, "My father? He is here, it cannot be."

"He is," I assured her and reaching my right hand up to my neck, I gently unclasped the delicate chain that hung there. Drawing it from my tunic, I pressed into her hand, allowing myself to linger in the act. When she drew back she stared at the stone in astonishment before turning an accusing glare on me.

"I... I never expected to see this again. I did not know it had been found." But as she spoke her expression softened and she hung her mother's pale stone about her neck. "Is he well? Why is he come so far, he should not have."

Before I could compose my reply, the Major answered, "Colonel Monro is as well as a father can be, considering the trials his heart has endured without knowledge of your whereabouts—" and he obviously would have continued if the Light-hair and not at that moment exclaimed, "We are then to be reunited with him and are to soon return to England! Oh how he must have suffered!"

Conscious of a joy that I could not fully feel myself, I withdrew to sit beside Hawkeye. Blocking out all noise, I visualized my father's face as it had been five summers past.

I sit lazily on the banks of the Hudson beside a dying fire, watching the bright stars in the deep blue heavens. Hawkeye is asleep behind me, his head resting on his new gun. 'Killdeer' he calls it. His old rifle he gave to me, and it lies within my reach, glinting in the faintly flickering light. The crackle of the fire mixed with the humming of a multitude of crickets mesmerizes me, and the color tinted stars seem to draw me up beside them as they sing the glory of the Manitou. My eyelids grow heavy and the drupe.

"Listen, my son, and your ear shall drink no lie," I snap my eyes open, turn my face to his and listen eagerly. "'Tis what my fathers have said, and what the Mohicans have done." He pauses and turns his bright eyes on my upturned face. With a small, gentle smile he continues: "Does not this stream at our feet run towards the summer, until its waters grow salt and the current flows upward?"

"It is as you say." I answer softly so as to not wake Hawkeye.

With a satisfied nod Chingachgook continues his narrative in the voice he once reserved for my mother—but sorrow tinges the deep tones now, "We came from the place where the sun hides at night, over great plains were the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we fought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the banks of the big river to the shores of the Salt Lake, there was none to meet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We said the country should be ours from the place where the water runs up the longer on this stream, to a river twenty suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had taken like warriors, we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with the bears. They only tasted salt at the lakes; they drew no fish from the great lake we threw them in the bones." He sighs and is silent for a while, reliving, no doubt, the time with his own father, Unamis, related to him the long history of our people.

When he spoke again it was as though from a time long past, "A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands," he gestured to the tree, "the first pale-faces who came among us spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when my fathers had buried the tomahawk with the redmen around them. Then, Uncas, then, we were one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the woods its deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we worshiped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of our songs of triumph!

"Our tribe is the grandfather of nations, and I am an unmixed man. The blood of chiefs is in my veins, as it is in yours." He turned his face from the moon's rising to mine. "The Dutch landed, and gave our people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have never visited the graves of my fathers!" He scowled savagely, but then collected himself with a sigh.

"Where are the blossoms of the summer?" He asks the sturdy chestnut, but it speaks not. The seconds pass in silence, then he sighs again and answers his own question. "Fallen, one by one: so all our family has departed, each in his turn, to the land of the spirits. I am on the hilltop, and must go down into the valley and when you follow in my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the sagamores."

I was roused from my musings suddenly by a woman's scream. I leapt my feet at the sound, fearing the worst, though, till now the Delawares has been hospitable. As I started, I saw 'Alice' staring in abject horror at the entrance of the lodge. Four young men filed through the door. Cold, hostile expressions adorned their faces and their hands rested on their tomahawks.

At my side Hawkeye rose slowly; but I barely registered the movement for my attention was focused on the leader of the group, an ugly, burly warrior whose belt was adorned be several pale scalps. He met my cold gaze with a look of contempt and the four came on.

I saw his eyes flick to Cora and I read their dastardly intent. Anger and rage coursed through my veins like melted lead; but I restrained myself. My fingers ached to close around the hilt of my long knife, to rip open his throat; but I restrained myself. A dull roar, like that of Glenn's, filled my ears, around me I heard conversation as though from a great distance. I saw the leader's mouth open and close as he spoke. I saw the Major plead with him. I saw his expressionless face. I saw Hawkeye try to reason with him. I heard bits and snatches of words, "Please."

"Peaceful."

"Captives...meeting."

Then the warrior grasped the Dark-hair's wrist. She pulled back with fear written across her face.

I pounced.

The Delaware fell.

All around me there were screams and shouts, but to me the neck between my strong fingers was all that mattered. I slowly but surely choked the life from him. Then there were men atop me, and hands physically forced me away from my enemy, throwing me to the ground. I stood and fought off the first who came at me, then it was over. They had pinned me to the hard packed dirt. I strained against their combined weight, but I could only raise myself a few inches. A knee was pushed painfully between my shoulder-blades and a knife hovered at my throat. Once more I tried to buck off my captors.

Then my name broke through my blood-haze, "Uncas. Uncas!"

I raised my head from the dust, she was standing there, her arms about her sister, anger had replaced her fear. "Peace," she admonished in Delaware though to whom she spoke was not clear. I deflated, falling heavily to the ground once more and the men atop me froze in confusion.

"We will go with you. Now," she stated, "come." And gesturing briskly, she assisted the Light-hair from the lodge. The Major hustled after her and Hawkeye reluctantly followed.

I watched them go cheerlessly; somehow I knew that no good would come of whatever meeting they were 'attending'. My captors followed after them speedily, carrying their unconscious companion with them—after first binding my hands and feet.