A/N
I often listened to the same songs over and over as I wrote this story in 2020, so to stop any repetitive choices, I'll often give songs I listened to while editing that I felt enhanced the mood.
This time the song is Truce (Acoustic) by Celine Cairo.
Enjoy.
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Nathaniel had no time to fully rest before he took up the mantle of his brother's bearer. Uncas' body was tied in place with an improvised net of ropes and a blanket used as a makeshift sling. Erin didn't let her mind dwell too long on the fact that Uncas looked like a floppy rag doll as he was shoved and bundled into position, the medicine seemingly keeping him in a semi-state of sleep; or at least, Erin hoped it was the medicine and not his body gradually shutting down.
Once they had been walking for a good amount of time, Chingachgook offered to carry Uncas. But Nathaniel refused, insisting on the bulk of the work, that he was younger and stronger, a fact that Chingachgook refused to question more, lest time be wasted.
Nathaniel looked hollow-eyed and drained from the sheer exhaustion the heavy labour caused him, but his sweaty ruddy pallor was in stark comparison to his brother's own waxen grey tinged skin.
No more words were exchanged as they trudged onwards, a destination they could all taste, bitter and sweet in the air, a parting of one way or another.
Finally the rush of the falls reached their hearing before they could see it and a collective sigh of sorrowful relief rippled through them all.
Steadily more of the landscape revealed itself and Erin trotted forward, leading them towards where she knew they needed to go. She felt a strange mixture of calm and dread palpitating within her chest, and also an uncanny faraway excitement. Soon she would see Ada, her parents, she would be back home, and it sparked a poignant joy within her heart despite the situation. In that moment it felt like so much of her own happiness cost others dearly.
Erin paused at the stream's edge and bent to one knee, her eyes searching, until she found what she sought. The clear shallow pool rippled with the movement of the rushing water as if it was greeting her. In the depths she could see a glint of metal. She curled her hand to her breast, hesitating, and looked back over her shoulder for reassurance. The two men had lowered Uncas to the ground and now stood a few feet away, awaiting her next move.
"It's here..." She wanted to say more but felt like a coward, so closed her eyes and let the words ring in her mind instead.
'I'm afraid.'
Erin was afraid, scared of that thing lurking in the water, scared of the pain as it nestled violently into her flesh. She brushed her thumb absently against the jagged fresh pink scar on her palm. She turned back to the pool and took a deep breath through her nose, gathering her bravery, before plunging her hand into the cold water, fingers closing about the even cooler feeling amulet, and brought it back into the daylight.
It glinted in her palm, just an object, and her heart lifted for a split second before it dropped into a gnaw of disquiet at what this could mean. Maybe she really couldn't go back? Maybe she couldn't save him at all?! She closed her eyes, trying to calm her panic and remember all of what had happened when she had come to this time, this place, retracing her steps, trying not to miss any tiny detail.
'The waterfall!'
Her eyes opened with the sudden realisation and she rose, her gaze going to the biggest of the rushing waterways.
"It's up there," she pointed, the amulet still clutched harmlessly in her grasp. "We need to go up there." Her eyes slipped reluctantly from the water, the way home, to the two men who stood nearby. "I will need your help to get him up there, into the small cave, then we both need to go through the water, while holding this." She allowed the chain to fall, revealing the glittering metal to the sunlight. She heard Chingachgook take a sharp intake of air and her eyes snapped to him, anxiously curious to his reaction. "Do you know what this is?" Erin held her breath a moment.
The elder shook his head, eyes never leaving the swinging item as it glinted and sparked in the light. "No, but I hear it." He glanced at Nathaniel and spoke in their own tongue. "It sings."
"I hear nothing," Nathaniel said, cocking his head to the side.
Chingachgook lifted his shoulders, stating this fact was not important. "We will not all fit onto that ledge my son, you must carry your brother on this last journey."
"Last?" Nathaniel scowled.
Chingachgook didn't reply but went to Uncas. He whispered many words into his youngest son's ear, cradled his head, spending tender moments with him as if this was the last time they would see each other. Nathaniel's look darkened and his gaze went to Erin, the frown intensifying.
"Now, it is time," Chingachgook said, his voice wavering with only distress and no conviction. "My son, you must go," he said, placing a hand upon Uncas' clammy brow. Uncas shook his head slowly as if he could not stand the connection.
"Father!" Uncas' voice did not sound like him at all, it was strained and high, like a child lost in the dark woods. "Don't leave me!" He grasped with frantic fingers and Chingachgook took his son's hand, clutching to it with a sorrowful resolve.
"It is time, my son. You must go," Chingachgook repeated, distraught but seemingly unmoved, yet he did not release his son's hand.
Uncas tossed his head like he was experiencing a nightmare, his eyes rolling in their sockets. The fever had near consumed him and Erin knew those long shadowed tendrils had inched ever closer to their deadly destination.
But, no one moved, as if stuck frozen in time, for they all knew the next action would set a course into motion that could not be undone.
Erin slowly realized she had to do something. Time was slipping by, and they had so little of it left. She had to act.
"Your father is right," Erin said, walking towards Nathaniel with renewed purpose, "if we don't go now, I don't think he'll make it past sunset." It was a truth Erin wasn't certain of, but something in the air, the sourness of illness and unpleasant tang of poisoned blood told her she was right.
They all knew, the time had come, it couldn't be delayed any longer, this was the end of their journey.
Chingachgook nodded and got to his feet and gestured for Nathaniel to take up his responsibility.
Nathaniel's frown finally fell away and he looked back at Uncas, grief so clear in his expression, before it smoothed to a determined hardness. "Come brother." Nathaniel was at Uncas' side, hauling him up onto his shoulder, and with Chingachgook's help they moved forwards.
"No, no, no, no." Uncas' breathless pants were distressing to all those that heard them, he was swallowed in the fever, unable to know what was happening or where he even was anymore.
Chingachgook grasped doggedly onto Uncas' hand as Nathaniel reached the wall leading behind the falls. "Good journey, my son." He pressed the back of Uncas' hand against his brow, eyes closed, and then he stepped back, allowing his son's grip to fall away from him.
With great effort and a lot of team work, Erin and Nathaniel forced Uncas onto his own two feet, as his teeth chattered and he weakly fought against what was happening to him. They managed to get him past the wall and onto the ledge and, with some difficulty and much gentle patient coaxing, they then helped him walk across until all three were enclosed within the falls' narrow embrace and the form of Chingachgook was lost from sight.
"Now what?" Nathaniel asked, surly and annoyed, with Erin herself or the whole situation, she couldn't tell, but she could see the anger in every tense muscle as Uncas rested heavily against his shoulder.
"I guess we both have to hold this," she gestured to the amulet, "then we go through the water. It's how I came here."
He nodded and Erin began to reach out for Uncas' hand, but Nathaniel abruptly caught her wrist in a tight grip, pinching her skin.
"I'm going to ask a promise of you, Miss Cooper," his voice was a distant rumble of thunder.
"What kind of promise?" Erin's defences suddenly rose, knowing he was on the attack. "I already said I'd do everything I could!" she snapped.
"Not enough!" Nathaniel stated bluntly.
"What is enough?!"
"I told you before, I'm a selfish man, and now you have to make me a promise, that you won't keep my brother."
"Keep him?" Erin flustered and tried to pull herself away but he held fast.
"I want you to promise me now, you won't ask him to stay with you. No matter what happens. If you decide to love him or not. If you tell him, if you ask him to stay, he won't come back to us. For the sake of you!" He gave her wrist a violent shake. "Do you understand me? Uncas is a man that will do all, give up all, for those he cares about, those he feels tied to through loyalty. It is the way our father bound him, I will not have him bound again!"
"Yes!" Erin hissed, hating him and understanding why he had to demand this. Not only was this a selfish request from a man that didn't want to lose his brother, it was a request on behalf of Uncas and his right to autonomy. "I will never ask him to stay... I'll make sure he comes home."
"You have to promise me! He belongs here, with us. It has to be his choice alone. Without burden, without expectation, without you adding weight to scales you have no part in! Understand?" The resound of thunder was stronger now, more threatening.
In many ways Erin did understand, Uncas had lived these last few weeks, perhaps even his whole life being beholden to a destiny he didn't feel he could change. Whether that be his father's, his story with Alice, or now this, being forced to go to her time for survival. None of it was his true choice. He had been told what to do, to feel, to be...
She nodded certainly and raised her voice far over the rushing water in a confident declaration. "You have my promise!"
"You must tell him you have made it, when he has his senses back enough to hear, tell him you swore to it!"
"I will!" Erin couldn't help sounding angry because she knew with that one promise, she was letting go of Uncas.
"One year from now, on the day we found you at the Cameron's, I will return to these falls. We call them 'The Three Sisters'." He said the name in Mohican.
"That's what people call them in my time, a kind of nickname, but in English," Erin interrupted in a whisper.
"Somethings don't change much then." He nodded with impatience. "One year from now, I will return and I will wait for one week." He jostled her arm again as if demanding all her attention. "Do you understand? One week!" he repeated in a growl, teeth bared.
"I will tell Uncas that you will be waiting for him," Erin said with a small sniff of defeat.
"If he doesn't return I will know he either didn't make it, or you have broken your promise!" He gritted his teeth again before continuing. "I will thank you for trying for one outcome, and curse you for the other!"
Erin's eyes widened. She suddenly felt that this man really could chase her through time and hex her if he wished in this moment. "That's a bit harsh-"
"I will curse you the rest of my life if you keep him for yourself after this promise!" He shook her wrist again and Erin relented that this was indeed, a fair bargain.
"I've given you my promise, I won't break it. If Uncas... doesn't come back it will be because... I couldn't..." She swallowed back renewed tears that wanted to rush forth at the mere mention of her quest failing. "Because I couldn't save him."
Nathaniel nodded that this was exactly what he wanted to hear and let go of her wrist, turning his attention back to his brother who was slumped over on Nathaniel's shoulder, barely upon his own feet. "Uncas," he murmured, "come back to us, brother, survive and live. Come back to us!" He turned his gaze to Erin, his face softening a little as his eyes met her shaken ashen expression. "I am not trying to be rough with you Miss Cooper, only honest." His voice was calmer, reassuring her that he was done being angry. "My brother, he has to have the chance to make his own choices, in his own time, in his own way. I will fight for that. He has a chance to truly live for himself. Now he has been given another chance, I won't have it squandered. Choosing his own path is all I have ever wanted for him."
Erin nodded and swallowed before pushing out her next words. "I know. I would be fighting just as hard for someone I loved to be in control of their own destiny. I freely give my promise that if he... makes it, Uncas will return."
Nathaniel's expression sagged as if fighting back his own wave of emotions and tears. "Then you have my deep gratitude," his hand reached for her shoulder and gave it an encouraging squeeze, "for understanding we cannot be parted this way, with no true choices. Thank you."
Again Erin nodded and took a breath. "Here," she reached out, the metal thing in her palm glinting in the water dappled sunlight, "give me his hand."
Nathaniel gently took Uncas' hand and began to move it towards the amulet, Erin could hear it beginning to hum, and by the look upon Nathaniel's face he could now perceive it too.
Uncas suddenly jerked back, nearly off-balancing Nathaniel, but he managed to catch his brother easily around the middle and still his feeble frustrations. Uncas was so weak that any resistance was short lived.
"No, brother, no," Uncas whispered, his brow now dripping with sweat, his eyes unseeing and full of terror, "do not. It is screaming!"
Nathaniel looked as if the words would sway him, he patted his brother tenderly and his eyes went to Erin, holding her gaze for a short moment, and she truly thought that he had changed his mind, that he would clutch his younger brother to him and tell her to go on alone, denying the only way of saving him.
Without warning he lurched forward, connecting Uncas and Erin's palms before Uncas could try and fight again. It felt like a clap of thunderous bass resounding from within both their bodies and all around them, the sound booming within Erin's ears and vibrating through every single inch of her, jolting her teeth and rattling her ribcage. She watched as Nathaniel tried to cling on, to stay with them, but his form was visibly repelled by some unseen force. It knocked him harshly back into the rock wall, where he slid down into a sitting position, shaking his head to gain back his wits.
Erin wanted to pull away, to break the connection as she felt the thing piercing her skin in a sharp sensation of pain, but she resisted as Uncas let out a wail of pain too, suffering the same abuse against his own skin. His fear forced her to be brave. Erin gritted her teeth and set her jaw. She gave a last firm nod to Nathaniel, who now looked only like a blurred outline to her vision, and then she moved with all the strength she had, her free arm wrapping around Uncas' waist, and she heaved, sending their bodies sailing through the water.
/
A/N
The End.
I'm joking :))))
We have quite a way to go before we get to the end of this story. It is a LONG one, the longest fiction I have ever written. Are you ready to continue the journey?
Friday is here again and a warm hello to all those reading.
So, finally we have reached an end to one story and a new beginning to another... maybe... let's see.
So Nathaniel didn't mince his words with exactly what he wanted from Erin, and she's agreed but will she keep that promise do you think? Could you? Is Nathaniel also putting too much weight behind what he thinks his brother wants? It's put Erin in a very unenviable position. Lots of thoughts and nuance that may or may not have answers in the future, if Uncas makes it through those falls... It's not looking great, is it? But well, let's see next time.
To anyone stopping by and letting me know you are enjoying this, my deepest thanks. Special hearts to MohawkWoman and Flowangelic who both still keeping me slogging on to the finish-line with their kind presence and words. Thank you.