It's a waterskin.
It's been handed down the line of people as they travel up the stone cliff, it first landed on Cora's lips, then Nathanael's, Duncan's…and right before it was passed to her, Uncas, the younger Indian, had taken a long swallow from it.
It was strange, Alice realized in a flash, that this was the thing that made me stop. Out of the countless horrors she had seen this day, the fact that Uncas the Indian had taken a swallow of water before her was the thing that gave her pause.
She blushed deeply when he tossed a glance behind his shoulder at her.
She yanked off the cork and pressed the rim to her lips, it was in that second, a mere flash of a moment, when she realized she wasn't caused pause by Uncas drinking the water…it was that his lips had touched the rim-right where her's now lay.
It was strange, she thought, feeling the cool water slide down her throat. He was….he was nothing like Duncan, he was nothing like a gentleman back home, he was nothing like the men father would want her to be with…
But her lips and her heart both savored the taste of smoke, man and passion, and in that flash of a second, Alice realized he was everything she'd always wanted.