I do not own The Last of the Mohicans.
But I will go hide in a cave with them at this point.
Into The Wild
What Was
Uncas-
-she turns away.
And goes to him.
Straight down. Without a sound.
Without hesitation.
Without-
-I am coming.
-a heart to live any-
"-"
Her breath is a choking gasp in a constricted throat as she lurches up out of the nightmare.
Heart pounding so hard it makes her entire chest ache with contracting, sucking pain.
Pain, so much pain.
Gasping lungs and shredding heart.
Upright, she is upright, body hunched, curled over on itself as she struggles for sanity.
Flames of the campfire flickering before her dazzled eyes.
The fire is there, light there is, and yet she is blinded, she cannot see, nothing but the fire and the darkness.
She is alone and he is dead and she is meant to be as well now that he is gone from her, dead and she is alone-
Strong hands grasp her rigid shoulders, turn her.
"Alice."
It is him, it is Uncas, he is not dead, he is not dying, he is not even injured.
"Oh-"
And she throws herself at him, scrabbling at his arm, the ruined right arm.
That is whole and functional and unmarked.
Next his shirt, she is clawing at it with rough, unsteady motions.
She must see, she must see-
Pulling it up, pressing at the skin underneath with scrabbling, desperate fingers.
The slice across the sterum, the horizontal cut.
Much more shallow than the dream, hardly more than a thin, faded line after months of healing.
She runs her fingers along it, pressing and pushing.
Tortured breath tearing in and out of her throat.
And the one her terror is assaulting grasps her trembling hands, grips them, wraps them up in his own steady ones.
Squeezing tight, holding them to his warm chest.
Stilling her wild, unhinged movements.
She looks up into his face. Sees the deepset eyes, the furrowed brow, the alarmed frown of his deep worry.
"Alice. Alice."
The comforting murmur of her Mohican.
He could not speak so, that deep rumble that resonates so well to the vibration of her soul.
He could not speak it if he were dead, slashed clean through, that smooth throat.
And Uncas is shifting now, clasping both her more hands now in his left.
Bringing the right up to cup her face, thumb lightly grazing the damp forehead of her terror.
"Alice. It is alright. It is alright."
This surresh, this rumble of him undoes, unravels the very last thread.
And the tears finally burst forth.
Silent tears, shuddering breath.
She pulls her hands out of his grasp, flings herself forward.
Wraps her arms around his neck, squeezing that living, breathing human being who is not lying dead and lifeless at the bottom of a cliff because of her.
Weeping, sobbing, shaking, and shivering.
Grief of his death, his life stolen, cut from him, before his rightful time.
False as it is and yet she grieves.
Without reason, without logic.
She knows it is not true, his death upon the top of the world.
She can feel his arms about her, see his fine form were she to pull back.
She has heard his deep rumble speak her name, can smell him now as she presses her body to his.
His death is but fearful fabrication.
And yet she mourns it, huge swelling blackness and fear rising up out of her in a dark, consuming wave.
She mourns.
Spilling everything forward, the loss, the grief, the muted terror.
And feels the huge, swelling blackness being pushed out, emptied out of herself.
Filling her up, breaking her apart with the intensity of it.
Relief now mixing in, the oil and water of her soul.
Rising to the top.
For his death is not so.
He did not break upon the rock.
Did not fall from the cliff.
Did not have a knife slashed across his throat, not driven deep into his guts.
Did not heave himself up from the cliff's edge, artery in his arm sliced clean through.
Was not thrown down upon that same rock.
No.
For when Uncas the Mohican had leapt up upon the ledge that day, pushed back against the Huron leader Magwa, they had grappled, yes.
Straining and groaning.
But it was Uncas who had pushed the Huron down.
Sliced with his knife.
Cut the artery, taking the strength and usefulness of the arm.
The enemy struggling to rise to his feet.
Only to have the Mohican stop the swing of the tomahawk.
Drive the knife into his gut.
And push him from the cliff.
No fanfare, no slicing around the body, no hold for domination.
He had cut, he had deflected the remaining hand and the weapon therein.
Whilst delivering the fatal blow.
And flung him down upon the mountainside.
The group of twenty or so warriors, minus the ones Uncas had already dispatched, had tensed, drawing weapons in protest.
Uncas focusing in on the nearest one.
Knife at the ready, tomahawk.
Face set in carved determination.
Ready to finish it, dispatch them all.
And the rout had begun.
A blur of motion, deafening blasts of gunfire.
Shouting.
"Uncas!"
Screams.
"Alice!"
Chaos and slaughter.
And she had stumbled back, not forward.
Pressing herself against the rock face, crouched down, fearful hands digging into beraggled head.
Breath too gone to scream.
Terrified of death and brutality now that there was a chance at life.
And when it was over and the last of the enemy dead or fled, she had found herself in . . .
"Alice? Alice, are you injured?"
. . . her sister's arms.
"Alice?"
As Nathaniel and his father had tended to . . .
". . . run so fast or with so much fortitude on the hunt, brother . . ."
. . . the man whom she later learned had run up the side of an entire mountain just to save her.
And she had been able to do nothing, so overwhelmed and in shock was she . . .
"Alice? Are you alright?"
. . . that all she had been able to do . . .
"Yes . . . yes . . . yes, I am alright."
. . . was stare.
And now she is here.
Tucked away safe and sound in a cave deep in the side of a mountain.
Warm and protected and comforted in the embrace of the Mohican man who had saved her that day.
And it is alright.
And it is not.
All of that then and everything since and the woman and the babe and the warrior murdered by Alice's own finger on the trigger.
And the dream and the man who holds her now, his father in attendance as well, the men who care for her.
Duncan.
And her own dead father.
All of the viciousness and cruelty and death she has witnessed.
And it all collapses, crashes, drops down upon her.
As heavy and crushing as the mountain itself.
How fragile life is, how it is gone within a second.
Over a cliff. At the hand of a knife or a tomahawk or a musket.
And she cries, weeps copious tears down the shirt of the man who loves her so.
Bitter taste fouling her mouth.
Adrenaline it is, exiting her system, though she does not know it.
He holds her.
And Alice Munroe weeps.
She will eventually tell them of the dream.
In the open air.
In the sunlight and breeze.
In the warmth and eternity of living, breathing day.
Early and strong, long before the shadows draw near and day dies in quiet glorious brilliance of color.
She will tell the story in the fortitude of the day when many thoughts may also wander through their waking hours.
Of what might have been, what could have been.
And they will listen with disquiet and dread, fearful hearts and minds.
Alice will not know then that the Mohican people, as with many people of ancient heritage, believe dreams portents of the future.
That dark and deadly musings such as these are taken as a sign of impending doom.
That the discomfited and uneasy men with whom she walks will have need then to pause and give silent thanks to the unseen spirits that surround them . . .
"That is quite a story, Wënichana."
"Yes."
"Let us go then. We will walk until these things are away from us."
. . . for all of their lives.
And on that day, they will walk far, the three of them.
Uncas, the warrior who lived.
Alice, the woman who did not fall.
And Chingachgook, the man who must not go onward alone.
As the last of the Mohicans.
My eldest son used to have godawful night terrors, I won't even tell you. But it was bad.
Anyway, I hope my 'fixing' of Uncas' death wasn't too much of a cheap shot. I really couldn't think of anything stupendously different except for the fact that THEY DIDN'T DIE but that was really all I wanted so . . . *shrugs*
Thanks to BryannaRaven, DinahRay, BlueSaffire, Almost Too Painful Guest (sorry, but thanks for the compliment!), and Proud Daughter Guest (I'd be proud too) for reviewing that chapter which fed into this chapter and hopefully helped everyone feel better. :)
So we haven't left the cave yet. There's still a few more chapters to go, if that's alright.
See you again soon!