After his brother and Cora left, Uncas looked back at the withdrawn, grey-eyed slip of a girl he was defying his father to be with and wondered if he could start over. He sensed that words were not going to serve him in his endeavour, no matter how hard he tried to bend them to his will.

She had said she was going to stay. But he sensed that had come more out of pique than an actual realization and acceptance of what her staying there would mean.

Her way is now my way.

The thought, though it formed itself quite naturally in his head, was not one that would translate to words of any language he knew.

A tiny curl of smoke circled upwards from the ashes of the fire, making its way towards the gap of open air to escape outside.

They were both silent.

At last he stirred. "Come here."

Somewhat to his surprise, she did, moving carefully, and he realized with a pang that she must still be in pain from the previous day. Alice settled down beside him, clasping her arms close to her body, looking a little less truculent and more cautious now that they were alone. She glanced up at him, a lock of pale hair falling past her cheek.

He took her hand, unsurprised that it was icy, rubbing her fingers reflectively with his thumb. Alice suddenly blurted, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said what I did earlier, but I--"

"Ssh." Uncas shook his head. "I only need to know if you meant it. About staying."

She met his eyes, and he saw uncertainty, but trust mirrored there. She gave a tiny nod.

Her doubt was heart-wrenching, because he knew, as sure as he was of his own desire to keep her at his side, if he thought that she wanted to return with her sister to the city, he would take her. It was impossible to bind a person to one with one's own feelings alone. Day cannot dwell with night. His father's words returned, unbidden, to his mind. Perhaps he was a fool to be even considering this. Not that he doubted his own ability to look after her, or even to do all the extra work that a untaught woman would mean; but what if she changed her mind?

He suddenly wondered what a child of theirs would look like. Maybe it would have her grey eyes. His dark hair. Uncas realized that such a child would not be fully accepted either into his society or hers--as he knew Nathaniel, despite all appearances to the contrary, had never been fully accepted by some--and the thought made him feel sick.

Shifting, he pulled Alice into his arms, ignoring her squeak of surprise, which in turn surprised him; he didn't understand why her body tensed. She had slept against him before, and he'd spent most of yesterday carrying her next to him, though granted she'd been unconscious for most of that.

He ran an inquiring finger along her cheekbone. "Wiyon-ashay. What is it?"

Alice looked past him at the triangle of light spilling in through the wikwam entrance. "It is morning," she murmured, seeming embarrassed. "Anyone could come in..."

"Anyone could," he agreed. "You will have to get used to that."

"I don't want to get used to it. It is indecent."

He smiled at her stubbornness.

After a little while she ventured, "Uncas...yesterday..."

"Mmm."

"Why did you..."

The remembrance of it was not pleasant. The smell of death. The warm blood on his hands. He knew she was afraid he'd found it enjoyable, but he didn't know how to tell her he hadn't. It was not something one enjoyed. It was simply what was required of a warrior.

He knew she wouldn't understand. "Better if we don't talk about it."

Alice twisted her head back to stare up at him in frustration. "It is better that I do not understand you?"

"It is not your domain to be interested in such things."

"Such barbaric things," Alice muttered.

"The Europeans do the same, and worse. I am just glad I got there before they had a chance to show you." He tightened his hold on her. "I want to give you something."

The coiled bracelet around his wrist was fitted close to his skin, but where it ended it could be bent outward and partially unwound, so as to fit the proportions of the wearer. He took it off now and slipped it around Alice's slender wrist, using his fingers to make it comfortably tight again so it would not fall off. Alice examined her new adornment, looking reluctantly pleased. "It's warm," she said, and shyly, "Thank you."

He might have kissed her then--the way she was looking up at him, he was certain she wouldn't have protested, but the whoop outside distracted them both. She drew away from him and the moment, awkwardly, was over. They went outside to see what was going on.

Cora and Nathaniel were there, Cora's cheeks a becoming pink, and Nathaniel looking like a fox that had just discovered a nest of eggs. The sisters went to each other, and Uncas grimaced at his brother. "What's all the noise about?"

"We're going to winter in Albany, and be back up here in the spring with all their things." Nathaniel's tone could barely contain its good humor, though. "What about you? Is Alice going to stay?"

"So she says." Uncas looked at the two girls hugging and felt an unfamiliar twinge of jealousy. He was happy for his brother, but it didn't seem quite fair that Nathaniel's way should be so easily established. He summoned up self-control and put that thought behind him. "I'll still have to talk to Father about it, later."

"Hmh." Nathaniel's grunt of sympathy indicated he didn't envy him that prospect.

"Still." Uncas gave him one of his rare smiles. "Congratulations."

"Thanks." Nathaniel surveyed him for a moment and then he too turned his gaze towards the women.

They had never looked more different to Uncas's eyes. Cora was all sunset and wild beauty--he could see, no doubt, why his dark-haired, restless brother had fallen for her. When he looked at Alice he saw a different kind of loveliness. It was her fragility that was arresting. She was like a slender birch branch gently dusted with sun-goldened snow.

He hoped she was stronger than she looked, for certainly she would need to be.

***

Now that it had been established, at least to Nathaniel's satisfaction, that Uncas and Alice were not going to Albany, his plan for packing the canoe had to be altered somewhat, but the new situation didn't displease him. Not only would the canoe be much lighter, and they could take more in the way of tradable goods for the Wampanoag horses they would need to have if they were to make it to the city before the snow flew. He would have liked for his brother to come regardless--it was simply safer to have someone else watch when he couldn't--but he accepted the alteration to his plan with a philosophical good humor. It also meant, after all, that he and Cora were going to have a chance to be alone.

Nathaniel spent the afternoon preparing and packing the goods that they were going to take along, as well as readying his own personal gear. He wanted to be able to leave the following day and was determined that this should be made possible. His aunt had given him a fox-fur-trimmed cloak for Cora to wear as it turned cooler as well as some other changes of clothing for both of them, and had instructed Sanquen to pack a week's worth of dried meat and other provisions for them to last them until they reached the other Indian camp.

By the time evening came, he was satisfied that they were properly packed and prepared for the journey. He returned to Machque's wikwam to find that Tiskemanis and her older son had moved back in, along with the new arrival, a squalling mite with a head of furry black hair and a red face of pinched baby rage. Machque was apologetic but clearly he and Uncas would have to find a new place to sleep that night. There was always his aunt's wikwam, which was already occupied by the aunt, Chingachgook, and Sanquen, which didn't leave much room for the two of them.

They had dinner there anyway, a rather somber affair. Nathaniel felt pity for his brother, who clearly wanted to talk to their father about Alice but would not broach the subject until it was mentioned first by Chingachgook. Their aunt, who had been helpful in providing supplies earlier in the day, now had nothing positive to say about either of the girls, the fate of the journey, or her nephews in general. Sanquen busied herself by bringing food to everyone and casting sympathetic looks of concern upon her cousins.

"So you are leaving tomorrow," Chingachgook said to Nathaniel, interrupting one of his sister's mumbled tirades.

"Yes, Father." Nathaniel had been about to swallow the last piece of cornbread but he stayed his hand for a moment in order to be able to better reply should Chingachgook ask him something else; not only was it undignified to respond to one's elder with a mouth full of food, it was disrespectful.

But Chingachgook looked instead at his younger son. "You. What do you have to say?"

Uncas looked up in some apprehension. "I have spoken to...the girl, as you told me to do."

Chingachgook grunted.

"She is not unwilling." Uncas said this reluctantly in English.

"Not unwilling?" Chingachgook repeated, dividing up the syllables as if he didn't understand what they meant. "To be under the protection and care of a warrior such as my son? She is a fool if she is not sensible of the honor you confer upon her."

Uncas bowed his head in acknowledgement of the closest thing to praise he would receive as an adult. They were all quiet for a while, even the aunt. Nathaniel took advantage of the silence by finishing the last piece of cornbread.

Chingachgook said, at last, "I have been giving this issue some consideration. I think it will be best if I remain with the camp over the winter, and you take the girl to the cabin."

Sanquen dropped the bowls she'd been collecting. Chingachgook's sister groaned in disbelief. Uncas looked up, startled, and even Nathaniel gave his father a second glance. Among their people, for a young couple to start life on their own anywhere was unheard of; it was a universally understood and established fact that the freshly bonded pair needed not only the emotional but the physical support of their community in making a home together. Even a properly taught Delaware wife had much to learn about the making of a home and providing for her husband, and Nathaniel couldn't begin to imagine where a young unschooled English girl like Alice would even have to start.

"There is at least two winters' worth of wood there already," Chingachgook went on, ignoring the shocked silence of his relatives. "So you ought to be able to keep the cabin warm enough even for the cold blood of that white girl."

"Father--"

"Do not argue with me, Uncas. I have spoken. She will not assimilate here. It will only make her unhappy to be the talk of the camp. If she is for you, she will learn it when she is with you, and only you. By spring you will both know."

"Father, I don't--"

"Your brother knows I am right." Chingachgook looked at Nathaniel. "Do you not?"

Nathaniel knew he had to choose his response carefully. While he agreed that Alice was not likely to thrive under the constant scrutiny of the wolf camp, however well-intentioned much of it might be, he also didn't believe she had the strength of will to live the frontier life alone with his brother, away from any other kind of support or human companionship.

Reluctantly, he said, "I do think her safety is compromised in the camp, Uncas. Yesterday proved that. She is too visible out here. It will be easier to protect her up at the cabin." If there were any more French stragglers who had heard about the existence of the white women, they would reasonably assume that they had both been brought back to Albany to live, an assumption that would be easily contradicted if and when Alice was seen in and around the camp again.

With the look Uncas gave him, one might have been forgiven for thinking he had just slapped him. But it was true.

Chingachgook, who did not assume his instructions would be followed, said, "So will you do as I say and take her there?"

"Yes," Uncas said, a little flatly. "When she is recovered from the events of yesterday, I will take her back to the cabin." He rose up off his knees and backed out of the wikwam. "Excuse me, Father. Nohkumis."

Nathaniel followed him out. The evening sky, revealed, was a threatening mass of bruised purple clouds flanked by pink streaks beyond the treetops. The air, as always, was sweet and thick with the scent of drying pine.

"It won't be that bad," he said, wanting to reassure him, wanting in some way to apologize.

"It won't be that good." Uncas did not seem to want reassurance or an apology.

"Come on." Nathaniel put a hand on his shoulder, which his brother, for the first time ever, shrugged off.

They walked together, though, a little aimlessly, before finding themselves stopping at the wikwam of the girls. They had only paused outside for a moment before Cora's voice said, sounding rather weary, "Yes?"

"We need somewhere to sleep," Nathaniel answered on an impulse. "We've been displaced by an infant."

Cora murmured something that might have been, "You are infants," but there was a scuffling sound within and then she added, "Come in."

"I will sleep outside," Uncas muttered, starting to turn. Nathaniel grabbed his arm. "Don't be stupid. It's going to rain again tonight."

They entered the wikwam to see the sisters both on the left. Cora pointed to beyond the fire. "That's your side," she said, making it evident that they did not intend to share sleeping spaces with their respective men.

"Fine," Nathaniel said nonchalantly. "We just wanted a roof and a fire, that's all. Can you spare a deerskin?"

Alice, behind the blanket, giggled.

"You are such a trial," Cora said, tossing over a couple of hides, but amusement registered in her tone.

The fire crackled companionably as they settled down around it, all of them tired but none of them sleepy. There was still so much to be said between all of them, but no one wanted to be the one to say it. The knowledge that tomorrow would be the beginning of something different, that their lives were going to be inevitably altered from what they had been before, had come to each in its own way.

Nathaniel leaned on one elbow, tossing bits of bark into the fire. Though he was turned away from Uncas, he felt the unrest in the young Mohegan warrior, who was lying on his back looking up at the roof of the wikwam, his body rigid. Nathaniel knew his brother's path was not going to be easy, and he regretted he could not help to smooth it.

He looked across the fire at Cora. She was mirroring his position, lying on her side towards the fire, with an elbow propped idly under her head, her eyes smiling at him in the firelight. Alice he could see just beyond her, a slight dark shape shadowed by her sister's body. Being apart was going to be hard for them. He knew that. And he felt sorry for Alice, for whom he knew the separation was likely to be harder on.

Alice and Uncas seemed content to lie there without speaking, but Cora stirred restlessly after a while. "Nathaniel?"

"Yes, Miss Munro." He smiled through the flames at her. She smiled back.

"Would you tell us a story?"

"A story?" He was both baffled and flattered. He was not a storyteller. But maybe, out of the four of them, he was the only one with a voice tonight. "Well..."

"Please. It is our last night together."

She was right. The statement spoken aloud drew all of them closer, bound them up in a unified whole with its truth. Nathaniel could not deny it.

He considered for a moment, then began, at first a little uncertainly. "Before there were the four seasons, there were the four winds. North, South, East, and West. Each wind had its own strength, and its own weaknesses. But they fought over who would be the strongest. They fought over who would rule the year for the greatest length of time.

"Finally, East wind made a suggestion. What if each year were divided into four seasons? Three months for winter, in which the cold North wind would rule, three for spring, which the East wind would prevail over, three months for summer; the warm South wind's domain, and the final three months for fall, which would belong to the wise West wind. All the winds thought that this was a very good idea, and they agreed to keep their promise to participate in it. And most years, each of them did. But sometimes the winds still quarrel, and winter is longer than usual, or spring is shorter, and summer is hotter, but fall is cooler. This is because the winds have never learned how to disagree without getting angry."

"All right, I get it," Uncas said in Mohegan.

Nathaniel glanced back at him. "You get what?"

"I remember the last time I heard that one."

"You do?"

"Father told it to us when we were little. We'd been fighting."

"Really? I don't remember."

Uncas grunted in disbelief.

"Well anyway, it's still a good story." Nathaniel leaned over to dig an elbow into his brother's ribs, which Uncas automatically doubled up to prevent happening. They wrestled idly for a few moments, before Uncas gave his head a reluctant tousle of tacit acceptance.

"Thank you," Cora said, when they separated. "Good night, Nathaniel."

"'Night, Miss Munro. 'Night, sister."

There was a moment of startled silence from Alice's corner. Then--"Good night, Nathaniel," she echoed politely.

None of them, however, went to sleep right away.

***

Though it did rain that night, the following day was clear and with the promise of a blue sky later on in the afternoon. Alice and Cora had a leisurely breakfast together, not speaking much, aware of the need to separate before long, but neither wanting to talk about it.

Alice helped her sister pack her few things, including the fox cloak from the aunt that Nathaniel had given her yesterday, but still they did not talk. It was not until their hands touched while folding the blanket and tucking it into the basket Sanquen had provided that Alice looked up and saw tears glittering in the older woman's eyes.

"Cora," she said, dismayed. "You are not worried about me, surely?"

Cora smiled through them. "I am not worried for your safety, Alice, any longer, but--"

"Uncas will take care of me."

"I know that he will. I trust him for that. But I have doubts he can procure your happiness, and I want you to be happy, sister, as happy as I am."

Alice laughed through a sob. "You don't look happy."

"It's just because I don't want to leave you." Cora let go of the blanket and gripped her hands. "We will be back in the spring. It is only a few months. Will you really be all right?"

"Of course." Alice spoke with the certainty she knew her sister needed to hear.

"And...is it what you want? Truly?"

She avoided Cora's searching eyes then, not because her answer was in the negative, not because saying it was would be untrue, but because it was not that simple to her. What she wanted was hard enough to establish in her own mind, much less formulate into speech for someone else. So she said, with a little impatience, "Yes, yes."

"Well." Cora looked ashamed for a moment, and troubled. "Please understand, Alice, that even if you...change your mind...or decide that this is not what you want, I cannot do the same. I will be Nathaniel's wife, once we are in Albany--and we will always have that connection to Uncas, so it may be awkward, if..."

"I know. Don't worry. I am happy. I want this."

"All right." They finished folding the blanket and looked around the wikwam which, though it had been home for such a short time, it would seem strange to Alice to leave. She sensed there was much that Cora still wanted to say to her, but whatever there was to say was going to have to wait until they met again.

Together they left the camp and walked down the path to the beach. Uncas and Nachenum both passed them, silently, several times, bringing filled baskets and supplies that were to be loaded in the canoe.

Nathaniel was already at the beach. He looked up with a smile when he saw the women. "The weather's good for our first day of travel," he commented. "We should be able to get far before night."

"That's good," Cora said. She and Alice were still holding hands. They watched and waited while the men finished the rest of the packing of the craft.

The moments passed all too quickly until it was ready, and the two men paused around it, no one wanting to be the one to say that it was time. Nachenum had disappeared. Cora turned to Alice and they hugged.

"Be careful on the water," Alice said tremulously.

"We will." Her sister's voice was unsteady, her eyes fierce as she struggled to maintain control of her emotions. "And you be careful too."

As they drew apart, Uncas moved to stand protectively behind Alice, while Nathaniel came to take Cora's hand and help her into the loaded canoe, which sat steadily at the water's edge. Alice fought to take deep breaths and stared up at the sky. When will I see my sister again?

They pushed off, the canoe sliding through the water towards the center of the river. Cora was sitting on the bottom near the bow, and Nathaniel knelt in the back, guiding the canoe expertly downstream.

Uncas and Alice watched from the rocky shoreline as their figures got smaller. A wind stirred the surface of the water, puckering it, and sending the first few autumn leaves spilling from the treetops. They scattered across the ground. Nathaniel lifted a hand without turning. Alice could see Cora's dark hair tossing in the breeze until they rounded the first bend and, quite suddenly, were gone from sight.