updating a bit early this time, as I may not be able to get in another before my move this weekend. glad everyone is enjoying the story so far...
***
It became overcast again around the afternoon of that day when they headed out, with pale grey and purple thunderclouds gathering slowly in the distance. Nathaniel didn't mind the contrast to the previous day's sun, nor did he have any particular objection to travelling in the rain if that were to occur, but he knew it would slow them down and therefore he found himself hoping that the rain, which was surely coming, would at least hold off until the arrival of evening.
Then again, perhaps rain would be desirable. It might do something to break the multi-directional tension that hung between the group as tightly as if they had been tied to each other with taut ropes. Nathaniel certainly felt it, and he didn't consider himself to be overly sensitive to the moods of others. Alice was the least affected, having apparently slept through the events of the previous night, and it did not appear as if Cora had relayed those events to her. Uncas was more thoughtful and less communicative than usual--and Uncas was never very communicative, at least not with words, but Nathaniel found himself irked nonetheless.
They were all tired.
He concentrated on the rhythm of walking. It was challenging to keep a steady pace here, as their proximity to the river had them traveling less through forest than over rock and around precipices. Just when another peak was crested and it seemed as if there might be a flat stretch of ground to cover, another dip and another upwards incline presented itself. Cora and Alice had to stop frequently to catch their breaths.
At these times, Nathaniel and Uncas also paused, as if they too needed to rest, which actually they rarely did. They were used to hours of travel at a time, often running. It was frustrating to have to move so slowly. At such a rate, it was impossible to cover more than several miles a day. If they had had a canoe, they might have reached the fort in a few days, as the Mohawk led them almost straight to Oswego.
"Rain," Uncas observed, coming up beside him.
"Yeah, I thought it might wait till night, but doesn't look like it." The air had that odd metallic tint to it that he liked.
"Think we need to stop?"
Alice drew up behind them, tossing her braid back over her shoulders and straightening, sighing with fatigue. "Are we stopping?" she echoed.
"Rain," Uncas explained, indicating the sky. Nathaniel threw his brother a sardonic look which the other young man chose to pretend he didn't notice. Uncas was not a man of many words today, evidently.
Cora trailed behind and did not come up to join them on the rock they had paused on, instead sitting down slowly on a twisted stump of a lightning-felled log.
"Come on, Cora, we should keep moving," Alice called back, somewhat uncharacteristically. She threw Nathaniel and Uncas a timid glance as if looking for their approval.
"I'll catch up." Her sister did not look over and waved a hand in a dismissive manner.
Alice looked dismayed at Nathaniel. "I don't think she's feeling well."
"She'll be fine," Nathaniel said. "Didn't get enough sleep last night." He said this in a loud tone of voice.
"That is correct, I am fine. Please keep going, I will be along in a few more moments." Cora stared at the ground in front of her feet.
"We can't go on ahead," Alice said, glancing back and forth between the two men and her sister, torn. "Maybe I could wait with her a little..."
"No. Uncas, take Alice. We'll catch up."
The young Mohegan shouldered his long rifle again and turned, guiding Alice by the elbow as he went. She let herself be steered away, though she looked uncertainly back at Nathaniel and Cora.
Nathaniel, thinking he would rather have his tongue carved out of his mouth with a wooden spoon than deal with any of these temperamental creatures known as women any longer, stared up at the sky for a few moments, hoping for inspiration. It didn't come. When he looked back down at Cora he still found himself with no desire to say anything to her.
To give her credit at the moment, she didn't look like she was feeling sorry for herself. That was something. Not enough, but something.
The wind, which was beginning to pick up, swirled her dress around her feet and sang through the leaves on the trees. Summer was coming to an end. It had been the custom of the three men, Chingachgook and his two sons, to winter in more temperate climes, though the rest of their relatives never moved their camps far from this particular location south of the Mohawk river. Once a season they usually stopped by to check up on and visit with family, but they had not yet been this summer. It was time to go again. Nathaniel wondered where this winter would see them...
The first few drops of rain began to spatter lightly from the nearby sky, landing in a rhythmic pattern on the leaves of the trees above them.
"Come on," he said. "We've got to keep going."
Cora was thumbing something back and forth in her hand and he realized it was the bit of cloth bearing the insignia of the officer she'd been engaged to. "I did not ask you to stay."
"You would have if you'd any sense. Look, I don't know why I'm still having to explain this to you, but it's not safe for you to be anywhere by yourself. You're a walking target. French, Huron, Iroquois could be anywhere. I wouldn't even trust an English soldier to get you back safely to the fort."
He did not say this deliberately intending to reference Hayward, but Cora looked up as he said it and he realized she thought he had. Her eyes were like coals in her wan face. "He died defending us."
"Yes, he did. And he would have wanted you to be sensible about your and your sister's safety. So let's move."
The rain began to fall more heavily, flattening her hair to her head, soaking her dress to a colorless gray. Cora hugged herself and stood up, but she did not look as though she intended to be tractable. "I will do as you say, Nathaniel, only because I think you are right. Duncan would have wanted me to listen to anyone who could get me safely to my father."
Nathaniel was surprised. The first flickerings of good sense finally starting to show themselves, eh? Duncan...how well had she even known him? More than likely neither of them'd had any idea of what they were getting themselves into. Kids.
"But," Cora continued, "what happened last night must not happen again."
"You don't even know what happened last night."
She colored. "What I mean is that you left without telling me where you were going or when you would be back. I was frightened. How could I know if we were safe or not?"
"Miss Munro." Nathaniel rolled his eyes at the pouring heavens. "I thought we had already settled this. I'll let you know what is important for you to know. And as for the rest, you'll just have to trust me."
A distant but clear bird call sounded--it was Uncas, wondering why they had not caught up yet--and Nathaniel responded with one of his own, and looked back at Cora.
She followed him this time without reply, in the direction that Uncas and Alice had gone.
***
There was not much about the next few days of travel that made them stand out to Alice in any way. The world around her seemed to blur into water-soaked shades of green, gray, and brown. The inclement weather continued, with the rain stopping occasionally during the afternoons but resuming during the evenings and well on into the night, with frequent morning squalls. This weather was attributed by the men to the changing of seasons--apparently it was quite common for this time of year. Alice was no stranger to rain; her native England was damp more often than not, but she usually viewed such weather from the inside of her house's strong walls and by the comfort of its warm fires taking the chill out of the air.
Here, there were no such comforts. Food was scarce, consisting of the everpresent jerky which seemed to be all Nathaniel and Uncas required for sustenance, and the occasional nuts or berries or whatever could be scrounged by the wayside as they travelled. At nights, they continued to camp out in the open, although the men still took turns standing watch--Nathaniel the first five hours of darkness, and Uncas the last five just before dawn.
Alice was perennially cold. They had not had another fire since the night spent behind the waterfall, and her dress, which was in a sad state, never seemed to get thoroughly dry between soakings of rain. The blanket was some comfort at night--they kept it protected in a semi-waterproof wrap of deerskin that Uncas had given her--but it could not do much to erase the bone-aching chill that seemed to start from her very core and go outwards to her extremities. She found herself, as they travelled, dreaming of things that she'd never given very much thought to before. A hot mug of tea to wrap her hands around. A bowl of steaming soup. Her deliciously comfortable feather bed that she had shared with Cora, piled high with quilts. Shoes of any kind other than the ones she was currently forced to endure. Buns fresh from their cook's oven...
They kept moving. Through the rain. They kept walking.
Uncas was a comfort, that was true...and perhaps, if she allowed herself to be honest, he was the only comfort. Though she had depended completely on Cora at the beginning of their arrival in the new world, Alice found Cora now to be distant. Preoccupied, perhaps, with her own concerns and discomforts. And it seemed somehow understood by all of them that just as Cora was Nathaniel's responsibility, Alice was Uncas's...and she had come to expect his good treatment of her, his help, his rare indications of approval. He was very focused on the task of getting them there, she could see that, so she counted it a little victory each time she was able to break his focus even if only for a moment and make him smile, or explain something to her, or give her some extra attention. The past few days would have been unbearable if not for those moments. If not for his patience. While the journey seemed to be everlasting, she also was not quite ready to think about how soon it would be ending.
She wanted to talk to Cora, to try to determine what it was that was preventing them from sharing their old bond of sisterhood, but there was never any opportunity. When they were on the trail it was too hard to start any kind of conversation--the physical effort required of them made that impractical, and their points of rest were the same, it was so necessary simply to catch a breath before starting out again that they could not exchange more than a few words. At night, the atmosphere wasn't conducive to talking, light-hearted or otherwise. Though Nathaniel and Uncas seemed to have indicated by their attitudes if not in words that there was no immediate threat any longer, they still had an air of watchfulness that carried them through the night and made Alice reluctant to break the silence.
So time passed, and nothing of import was said between the two sisters.
On one of the days--she didn't know which, there was no way to mark time and she couldn't remember for how long they had been journeying--they were crossing through a particularly difficult section of wilderness. The forest on either side was too thick to navigate through, and they had to come down a hill into a wooded valley, but the hill was peppered with upthrust rocks and a regular stream of muddy rainwater had cut a small chasm down its middle. They were picking their way through it now. It was drizzling.
Alice batted a strand of loose hair out of her face and peered through wet eyelashes at the ground ahead of her, trying to determine where to place her feet. Her shoe gave way on her and she slipped quite completely into the mud. The others had gotten a bit ahead of her, so no one noticed, and for a few moments she sat there, feeling mud and water soak into her filthy skirts, and wanting to scream.
"Alice?" Cora had glanced back, and Nathaniel paused and Uncas backtracked.
For a minute they all just stared at her, and she felt tears of humiliation spring to her eyes. Was nobody going to help her up? What a horrible land this was! She would never have dared to say it, though she certainly thought it. But then in that moment Uncas shared what seemed to Alice an indulgent glance with Nathaniel, and that undid her. "You were supposed to be beside me!"
He came to her then and stood over her, holding out a hand. "I'm sorry. You just look like...a flower."
"A flower?" she demanded, ignoring his hand.
"One of those white ones," he clarified, "that somebody picked and threw in the mud."
Nathaniel laughed. Even Cora smiled ruefully, no doubt seeing the comparison. Alice's dress, spread out like that, even muddied as it was, looked like a trumpet-shaped morning glory, albeit one in sad condition.
Alice grasped Uncas' arm--getting mud all over it in the process--and used it to pull herself to her feet, then let go of him and shook out her skirts furiously. "Well, this flower is not walking any more today." Her ankle ached, though she didn't think she had seriously twisted it, but if they wanted to continue, she didn't care. She was going to take the rest of the day off.
Uncas glanced at Nathaniel, and after a few shared words they appeared to come to the conclusion that they would all stop. Nathaniel said, "I'll find shelter," and disappeared.
"Lean on me, Alice," Cora said, coming to her. "Is your foot all right?"
"Yes." She was glad it was still raining, now, because they helped to conceal the angry tears. Taking Cora's arm, she tried to continue down the incline, but her ankle rebelled.
Uncas looked concerned. "Here, let me--"
"No!" Petulantly, she pushed him away. She had been happy to accept help before, but she was still angry over the look he'd given Nathaniel. If they were finding her too much trouble, that was simply too bad!
"Alice, I can't--" Cora tried to take a firmer grasp on her sister's arm, but she too was having trouble navigating the slippery slope, much less bear the younger girl's weight as she limped.
Uncas ran his hand over his face in a universal gesture of frustration, then stepped in again, gently shouldering Cora out of the way. She stepped back, resigned. The young Mohegan, ignoring Alice's yelp of protest that occurred almost at the same time as his action, scooped her up and started down the slope. Alice held her breath, half-afraid he would drop her, wondering how it was possible that anyone could be so surefooted and swift at the same time.
"It is highly improper to be carried so," she said by way of protest, in the direction of Uncas's chest. Not only was it improper but it was rather humiliating, because in order not to burden him any further than he already was, she had to cling to something as they moved, and the best place for her arms seemed to be around his neck. Bobbing, she looked beyond his shoulder at Cora, who was following them more carefully. "Cora, make him put me down."
"I can't," Cora said. "Maybe it is best just for now...for a little while."
Uncas paused for a moment at the base of the hill, where a small stream caused by the rain was cutting across their path, held Alice a little more tightly and vaulted over it. Alice screamed; as foolish as she felt afterwards, she couldn't help it.
Nathaniel re-appeared out of nowhere. "Come on, I've found a place. She okay?"
"She has turned her foot," Cora said wearily. "Your brother is assisting."
"I see that." Nathaniel jerked with his head.
Uncas carried Alice for another few hundred feet into the center of a small thicket of willow trees. Though the ground was damp everywhere, at the base of the tree the foliage overhead was leafy enough that it provided a natural roof shielding them from most of the falling rain. He set her down, and brushed muddy hands off on his leggings. "Your hands are freezing. Why didn't you say something?"
I am always cold, Alice wanted to say.
Cora came up and sank down beside Alice. Uncas surveyed their location and looked at his brother. "Build a fire?"
"Good luck," Nathaniel replied, adding, "Everything's wet as hell. Excuse my language," he added with a grin for Cora and Alice's benefit.
"She's cold."
"Hold her hands." Though he said it blandly, his older brother seemed to find this suggestion very amusing.
Cora began to unwrap the blanket, which she wore tied to her waist in a bundle. She shook it out and put it around her sister's shoulders.
Uncas crouched beside them and, without asking for permission, reached out for Alice's hands. Her instinct, still aggravated as she was from the past few minutes, and Nathaniel's amusement, was to snatch them away. But Uncas made a quiet but insistent sound in his throat and she was forced to meet his eyes. She saw nothing but calm assurance there, no mockery. And for just a moment, she forgot about the importance of propriety.
He rubbed her icy, dirty fingers in his own, equally muddy but warm ones for a few minutes, until she started to feel sensation in them again.
She noticed for the first time he had a gold bracelet that wound around his left wrist like a snake.
Nathaniel wandered off to explore. He seemed to have a neverending amount of energy, for which Alice envied him. Next to her, Cora had leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes as if to nap for a little while.
"Warming up?" Uncas inquired quietly.
"Yes, thank you." She pulled away then, embarrassed again.
The rain continued to fall, but more gently here, under the protection of the drooping willow tree. And the forest was quiet, save for the breeze that stirred the leaves, and the sound of their breathing.