I do not own The Last of the Mohicans.
It is a gift for us all. :)
The Dragonfly Woman and The Turtleman
That Cold Wind
The day is dreary and a damp, a chilling wind rattles through the autumn leaves.
Rain, for which the earth so poorly wants, drizzles, chilling them to the bone.
They are confined to the cabin, Alice and her sister and their children.
The air is thick and dark and close within.
Small and dark and smoky and ill-smelling, as the human condition will be from time to time.
Her sister coughs in the gloom, holds her child-swollen belly in discomfort, occasionally snaps at the child already without.
Cranes her sore neck, works the muscles futilely with a dirty hand.
And Alice Munroe's previously light mood, which has held for a span of days . . .
Yes, dear daughter, yes, but must you nurse so hard . . .
. . . sours in the darkened day.
The men stay without, save for meals, the rough log abode far too small for all gathered.
They cut a tree, build themselves a temporary structure in which to remain dry and as warm as they may.
And Cora, fearing the damp air, keeps her child within and insists . . .
Do you think the damp does not seep between the cracks of your walls here, dear sister?
. . . Alice do the same.
Nature is uncaring as to the plight of man (or woman or child) and the rain seems to go on.
Unendingly.
Her sister is her sister, lovely and dignified as always.
Dark hair upswept into a bun at her crown.
Wisps, tendrils, a fly as she works.
A smudge of dirt upon her pale, oval face.
Hands rough, nails broken, with continued work of homestead life.
This is all so very commonplace, Alice carries similar telltale signs of life here in the wilderness.
Evenso she is Cora, always Cora, to her very core she shall always be.
And yet, as Alice looks upon her, there is a weariness in her that she has not seen sister is tired. Her sister is worn.
Not dangerously so, not alarmingly.
She will continue on and for some time now with strength and determination.
But her toils have taken from her, robbed her of more than just a year.
This life, these hardships.
She is alone in this wilderness.
Her and the man she followed.
They have neighbors, yes, over the ridge and a morning's purposeful walk.
Less with Nathaniel's sure-footed run.
They will come upon request, upon call if need be.
But she is alone.
As Nathaniel plows the fields, takes up his gun and goes off, hunting for meat.
Leaving his wife alone
Alone and with a child.
And another on the way.
She, Alice, may be alone if she so wishes, there in the village she has left behind.
But she may also walk paces, find Honored Mothers, Wise Fathers.
Others of her age.
Those with children and those in between.
There is community, there is togetherness.
There is help.
But for her, Cora, older and stronger and supposedly wiser, there is only isolation.
The battle, the war they fled between the English and French rages on, far to the east and the north of their tiny little homestead.
But nearer, much nearer, rumors they have heard, Indian raids executed, bitter with resentment and long-seated anger toward the white man who spreads out and takes and takes and takes.
And though Nathaniel is well known throughout the frontier as Long Rife, hunter, traveler, trader.
A man of both the Mohicans and White Man as well, he is also become what they hate.
A farmer, a settler.
A colonizer.
And surely not all within the vast wilderness are friendly of that.
And Alice suddenly becomes aware of a low simmering displeasure of the man her half-sister has bound herself to.
This life will swallow her sister up, she thinks dully to herself as she watches her serve stew to her husband, smiling demurely as she does so.
It will swallow her up and suck the marrow from her bones until she is all gone and nothing is left.
And Alice finds her appetite . . .
"Alice?"
"No, thank you. I am satisfied."
. . . gone from her.
The one she loves, her own wild man of the woods, has come to her.
"Hallo, Nëwitaemàk."
"Hallo, Nëwicheyok."
It feels good to speak to him again in his own language.
To mix it with hers.
The two of them, combined to fullness of her spirit.
Privately and just the two of them as she sits alone, suckling their child in the chill air out of the stifling cabin.
"Your spirit is discontent. You are not happy to be with your sister?"
She searches for words that will not displease him.
The man her sister is bound to is his adopted brother.
She would not speak ill of him if she may avoid it.
And they have walked so many leagues to reach them, upon her request.
It would seem an insult to disregard that effort with complaining.
But Uncas, he who loves her, will not have it, her self-isolation.
"Nëwicheyok. I am here. We are of one spirit."
He is telling her he will not be angry with her honesty, whatever that may be.
He is telling her that feelings change, that it is the nature for things not to be as one may expect them and that alright as well.
She feels he is telling her these things and it opens her heart.
"My sister . . . is not who she was."
Though she still finds herself going slowly with it.
"I see it."
The one she loves does not speak just yet.
"I hear it."
As if encouraging her to continue to do so.
"I feel it."
And so . . .
"She is being drained here, the work, the harshness."
. . . she does.
"I fear for her. I fear she will not last in such a cruel world."
The one she loves strokes her hair, her back.
"The village, the community providing together as one."
The soft face of their tiny child.
"Why would she live so dangerously here and without so much help?"
Until her words cease.
"She speaks the same of you, Alice."
And after a time of consideration and careful choosing, he replies.
"She cares. And worries."
Rumble low and gentle.
"She chooses her life. As do you."
Speaking truth to her spirit.
"And she will not be moved. No more than you."
That she cannot deny.
Her spirit is more peaceful the following morning.
"Good morning, dear sister."
"Good morning."
As she returns to the cabin.
"Are you well?"
"I am . . . I am better."
And smiles . . .
"I am glad."
. . . for her sister.
Not every day is sunshine and unicorn butts.
Not even in Mohicanland, amiright? ;)
Thanks to chiarab87, blanparbe, lovely guest I do believe was DinahRay, and bcawriter01 for the gracious reviews of the previous chapter. I really appreciate it. :)