Chapter 5
The next morning all the inhabitants of the fort marched out. Cora and I were sharing a horse near the front of the crowd. Our father was nearby though he could not spare any attention for us. It was a solemn, strange event. We, the English, had given up this fort to the French. We had lost it. How humiliating for father, I thought, and I pitied him greatly. Constantly Cora and I turned our heads, scanning the crowd for certain familiar faces, though the line of people was endless and the men we were looking for were nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly I knew something was wrong. So wrong that it would change my life forever. We were moving through a clearing and the woods around us had grown eerily quiet. A terror of previously unknown proportions gripped my guts and made me tighten my arms around my sister. Her stiffened back told me she felt it too. Our worst fears were confirmed when a single Indian war cry was heard a short distance behind us, and a shot rang out.
Panic arose in the crowd for our army had given up their weapons as part of the agreement of surrender. A few moments later a dreadful deafening roar of war cries emerged all around us as grotesquely painted Indians emerged from the woods that surrounded us. They stormed upon us mercilessly. Cora and I were thrown from our horse and started running, though where to we did not know for there was nowhere to go. Everywhere around us a slaughtering had erupted. Unarmed men, old people, women and children were shot and struck down with muskets, spears and tomahawks.
I stopped running and became as if paralyzed, for I saw something else too. I saw my father. I saw him lying beside his horse, which had been shot down. It was him, there was no mistake. A most gruesome looking Indian crouched above him and pulled something out of him. Something read and pulsating. It dripped blood down his arm as he raised it high above him like a trophy and led out a blood chilling war cry. I would not, could not will myself to believe what I had just witnessed, what this thing was that the monster held in his hand.
The world around me blurred and muted. I retreated into a place in myself that I had not up until this point known existed. I barely noticed a warrior storming towards us, his tomahawk raised, or that Cora pulled a gun from her skirts and shot him dead. I stood limply as another grabbed me from behind, ready to slice my throat. I simply did not care anymore; it was the only way I could cope. I faintly was aware that Cora lunged at him, and that he then turned on her instead. I did see Nathaniel running through the bloody, chaotic field. And Chingachkook. And Uncas. They struck down enemies as their made their way towards us, and just barely managed to save my sister's life. I saw this, but I could not react. Uncas ran ahead to the lake that lay beyond. Cora and Nathaniel ran together, and Chingachkook had to grab my arm to make me move, or else I would have been incapable of doing so.
We made it into a canoe and the men paddled for our lives since we were being pursued. Of all the things I should notice at his time, it was my hair that I became aware of, and that it had come completely loose and hung around my face. I grabbed some of it and focused on it, rubbing it between my fingers. It helped me remain in my special world where none of this was real. I might as well be sitting in a carriage in the English countryside, off to visit our summer cottage without a care in the world…
I was only slightly jostled out of this fantasy when the canoe when down a small waterfall, though it stayed upright. We were now on a river and drifted close to a much bigger, roaring waterfall. Just before going over the edge the men managed to veer the canoe off to the side and helped us onto a steep shore. The empty canoe drifted back and went over the falls. We made our way into an almost hidden indentation under the waterfall, a cave of sorts. On the one side was slick rock, on the other a roaring, powerful curtain of water that shielded us from view. There was a mostly narrow path we followed, until we saw a dead end. "This is as far as we go" said Nathaniel. "If we're lucky, they'll think we went over the falls."
By this time we were all completely soaked. I sat down on the ground and shivered. Uncas and Chingachkook took up positions at different ends of the cave, while Nathaniel stayed with us. Cora pulled him a few meters away from me. She tried to speak to him quietly but the noise of the water made this impossible. So it was that I managed to hear what she started to talk to him about. "My father, have you seen my father?" She had to yell for him to hear her. "From a distance" he answered.
I stood up and hurried past them, desperate not to hear him relaying what he had seen, what I had seen. If I heard somebody else say it, it would make it real. I made my way closer to the entrance of the cave so I would be sure not to be within ear shot. There I stared glassy eyed into the curtain of water and retreated back into my alternate reality. The falls glistened so beautifully in the half light that I moved closer to them, mesmerized. I stretched out my hand to touch them, stepped nearer and nearer…
A hand suddenly grabbed mine and pulled me back to safety. Strong arms encircled me and drew me to the ground. Fingers brushed through my hair. Warm lips touched my forehead. A sweetly familiar scent filled my nostrils and my very being. He was here. He was holding me, stroking my hair, kissing my face. Could this be real? I felt myself emerge from this hiding place inside myself; I did not need it anymore. He was pulling me back to life itself. I clung to him as the tears finally came, shaking my body and soul. He stretched out on the ground and hugged me to him, his hands reaching around me so tenderly. He never said a word but he didn't need to. My childhood drifted away from me in that half-cave, in the safety of Uncas' arms. I was forced to grow up in one day, but nestled in his cocoon it was bearable.
Time eluded me. I did not know how long we lay there, but suddenly Uncas' countenance became alert. He whispered to me to go back to the others. He followed shortly and hurriedly conversed with the other men in a foreign language. Then Nathaniel turned to us. "They have found us. We are trapped. Our only option is to jump down the falls." I read Cora's thoughts. Jump down the falls? It was a great height! Wouldn't it mean certain death? "We have done it before; the river is deep beneath the waterfall. Just hold my hand Cora!" They found a fissure in the water curtain. Chingachkook jumped first without hesitation. Then Nathaniel and Cora readied themselves. He firmly held on to her hand, counted to three, and they disappeared from view.
Uncas held out his hand but I backed away. "I can't do this. I can't swim. I'm afraid! I can't do this!" "Yes Alice you can. Hold on to me. I won't let you go." I shook my head violently. "Alice, there is no choice! They will find us and kill us. They are already here." He was right; I could see the reflection of torches in the far end of the cave. "Then jump and save yourself" I whispered loudly. At this his arms encircled me with an iron grip. He lifted me from where I stood and flung us both off the edge.
My stomach seemed to jump into my throat. The fall appeared endless. When we entered the gurgling river and went under we hit something hard but Uncas' body absorbed the shock of the impact. He never let go of me. We went up and I gasped for air, but only managed to swallow more water. Down we went again. Every time we came up in the rapids was never enough to gather enough air into my lungs. I don't know how we finally made it to the river bank alive, where Uncas pulled my coughing, gasping body onto dry land.
He himself was worse off than I because his nose was streaming blood and he had suffered a gash to the back of his head, where his hair was getting bloodier by the second. We only had a minute to recover before we started hearing loud voices in the woods behind us, and Uncas calmly said, "Now we run." And run we did, me in my dripping skirts that clung to my legs, him losing more blood by the minute. We ran for what seemed like hours. Uncas held my hand and urged me along. I tried my best not to slow him down but it was futile in my wet dress. At some point he said "I think we lost them but let's run further just in case". So we did, until he finally decided we had come far enough.