Part I

THE DECEIT

The gentle August evening breeze wafted the scent of the forest flowers through the crumbling cabin. It was dark. Pitch dark it seemed. But as Cora waited, still, silent, stiff, she heard what she thought was the whispered Delaware dialect that the old trapper and his Indian nephew sometimes used to communicate. She relaxed. Looking over her shoulder she saw her sister's shadowy form lying a little ways off. Her eyes adjusted so that when she looked she could see what she thought was Duncan's foot over the threshold of what passed for a door to the cabin.

A shadow the shape of a man stepped into view and Cora rose on her elbows. Suddenly she was very much awake. Her fingers inched towards her false-pocket and the pistol.

"Who comes?" she heard Duncan demand, sleep hanging heavily from his voice. At this noise Alice startled awake. "Speak: Friend or enemy?" Duncan added.

"Friend," replied the familiar dry voice of Nathaniel. Cora relaxed once more. "The moon is coming," he continued, "and the lake is still many miles off; we must be off. I hope to God the woods are empty at this hour."

"Oh," Duncan said, he sounded rather confused and off put, as though he had been expecting a different answer; "then bridle the horses and wake your friend. I shall wake the ladies."

"We are awake," Alice called as she rubbed her eyes, "and soon will be ready to travel. Give us a few minutes and we will be out."

In the darkness the two sisters smiled. They had only just gathered outside the cabin with the horses bridled, and Alice's saddled, when Uncas appeared. He had been in the woods on some business but he returned like a man gifted with the speed of lightning. He bent by Nathaniel and whispered something in his ear. Then he slipped away again.

"What did he say?" Duncan whispered. "Where has he gone?"

One of the horses nickered.

"He has seen an enemy," explained Nathaniel, softly. He lifted his rifle sling off his shoulder and cradled the weapon in his hands as he spoke.

"God forbid," Duncan murmured, interrupting him. He pushed Alice gently towards the cabin entrance and away from the horses. "Surely we have had enough of bloodshed. Could it not be some creature of the forest prowling around us in quest of food?"

His remark was met with silence as each of his hearers remembered the day.

It was Mr. Gamut, surprisingly, who objected. "I sometimes wandered at night, in wonder of God's creation in Jersey. In preparation for those walks, for it would not do to be foolish in the woods, I learned from certain well-known trappers that animals rarely make a sound when they hunt."

Nathaniel huffed. "The man is not wrong, though he would do better for better company." With this statement seconded thus, Duncan was finally convinced that they were once more in danger of attack.

It was then that Uncas returned, and again spoke quietly to Nathaniel. There was a short bustle of movement. The men quickly led the horses into the small crumbling cabin and tied them up. Cora followed and took her place by her sister beside the east wall near its southern end.

There was utter silence in the earthy, flower scented room. The stirring of the air slowly spread the smell of horse and unwashed man. But it was a familiar scent. It stirred memories in Cora of Ireland and even Fort William-Henry. She closed her eyes to better picture the airy stable in Ireland that had smelled like this of a summer's day, but the first memory that came to mind was from the night before when she had put her head down to sleep on her borrowed bed.

She opened her eyes, discomforted.

"Hist, 'tis man," Nathaniel said in the darkness, his voice breaking the thick silence. "Even I can now tell his tread, poor as my senses are when compared to an Indian's. That Huron has fallen in with one of Montcalm's outlying parties, and they have struck upon our trail. I shouldn't like to spill more human blood in this spot, but what must be, must!"

"How many is their number?" Cora inquired in a loud whisper, "I am armed, though I have little powder, and I am as good a shot as any man in my father's regiment."

Both Uncas and Nathaniel responded at the same time.

"At least nine," was Uncas' quiet answer. He didn't question her statement.

"Here, take another horn, miss;" Nathaniel said, and he handed her a heavy powder horn capped with tin which he had taken from the dead Hurons that afternoon, "if ye can shoot as well as ye say, then I dare we shall have use of ye. I didn't care much to be carrying about so much powder myself."

Nathaniel had taken it upon himself to carry both his own musket, which he called 'Killdeer,' and two other captured muskets, as well as five powder horns of various stages of fullness and as many pouches of lead all the way from the hilltop where they had fought with the Indian band. The guns were on the ground now but he still wore the powder horns across his shoulders.

"Better. She shoots much better than she said," Alice stated suddenly, and then did not speak again.

"Take the south wall, Cora," Duncan ordered, too tired to argue against her offer.

Her stiff skirts rustled loudly as she took her place and found a hole through which to shoot. Cora could see past the greenery outside to the dark woods past the spring. The trees cast dark shadows in the already deep night. The only place she could see clearly was a patch where the stream ran unhindered by the asters and ferns. The starlight glinted off it.

There was silence once more and then an owl hooted. Then there was a shuffle as Mr. Gamut rearranged himself. He had been instructed in the use of the musket he now held by Nathaniel earlier in the day. The knock to his head had not impaired him much but the hot sun had. He was exhausted and feverish.

Cora's nursing senses would have preferred him to be asleep in bed, not awake at this ungodly hour of the night, but she knew that she would not sway anyone if she were to suggest it. It would have been pointless anyway, the noise of gunfire would have kept him from resting and the suggestion would have insulted his manhood.

Out of the multitude of night noises she finally picked out the sounds of the approaching footsteps. They were only a rustle, as of bare legs and leather brushing past brush and plants, and a steady patter that Cora was almost sure she had imagined. The breathing of the six of them seemed to her very loud in comparison. She wondered if those approaching could hear them.

"The knaves know our weakness," Nathaniel breathed to the group in the cabin, "or they wouldn't indulge their idleness in such a squaw's march. Listen to them—Each man among them seems to have two tongues, and but a single leg."

And it was true. She could hear their voices, soft but overlapping.

Five minutes passed.

The owl hooted again.

Behind her the horses swished their tails and were still again, somehow understanding the urgent need for utmost silence. Soon the enemy were so close that Cora could hear the individual footfalls of the advancing group as well as their voices. At Cora's side, Uncas softly rammed his rod down the barrel of his gun. She followed his example by cocking her pistol. It clicked loudly in the close room.

"They are coming," Duncan muttered into the stillness from the west wall. "Let us fire on their approach." Even as the words dropped from his mouth he fired his musket.

The loud explosion in the small room caused them all to flinch.

From the north wall Nathaniel cursed loudly and fired his own piece. A man's scream jarred the night. The horses shifted uneasily. There was silence. It rang in her ears. It dragged on and on and on. Her heart pounded erratically.

When will they come?

Suddenly there was a multitude of yells. Horrid, whooping, battle cries they were. The day before, Cora had heard their like, in the early hours of the morning and in the afternoon. The shouts made her heart seem to leap in her throat.

There were two more rifle cracks. Another scream.

Silence outside, still ringing louder and louder and louder.

Behind her she heard the sounds of the men reloading. Then there was a thunder of muskets as the enemy returned fire upon the small, unsuited fort.

Volley after volley was hurled at the cabin. Sometimes Cora thought that the fire was returned, but she couldn't be sure. Her ears were numb to sound. They rang. There was no silence anymore. She did not think she could hear the difference between the shots from their poor fort and those outside until Uncas fired off his first shot. It startled her and she jumped.

When she steadied herself and she could once more see out her makeshift window she saw two men: one was dead, killed by Uncas, the other was leaning over him checking for life. He looked up and raised his musket at the south wall. She stood there, her mouth half open, tongue dry and sour from the acrid smoke, and a strange calm came over her, the same blanket of detachment that she had felt in the morning previous.

Cora squeezed the trigger of her pistol. The man dropped dead.

"Good shot," Uncas shouted over the ringing in her ears. She glanced at him and saw that he was closer than she had thought. He stared out his window intently, his musket once again primed and ready. She didn't reply.

They continued in that way for a long time. Shoulder to shoulder or each in opposite corners. Sometimes he would speak, sometimes she would. Most of the time neither did.

What went on behind her was of little consequence to Cora; she let the other men do as they must as best they could. Alice kept quiet. It seemed impossible, in the moments of rest, that there was another world beyond the four irregular walls of the cabin.

The moon began its path across the starry heavens. Soon it shed its light down within the walls of the old, battered cabin. The horses were restless, neighing and jerking at their ties, circling, knocking into each other. Everyone kept out of their way, at times pressing tightly to the walls as the big animals passed.

At times the exchange of lead was rapid, unrelenting; the charge swift and guarded so that the enemy came within yards of the fortress; at others, Cora leaned against the wall and tried to remember the scent of the flowers that she could feel on the wall. She could only taste the heavy smoke.

Cora's wrists were sore, the gun in her hands was heavy and awkward, her eyes burned and tears gathered in her eyes. Her ears still rang; to hear her own voice when she spoke required her to shout so her throat burned from more than the smoke. She felt heavy just from inhaling the smoke.

With the haze that had been created outside, clear and visible targets were nonexistent even with the pale rays of the moon. During the short rests, she relaxed her hands and let them lie on the wall. She leaned her head forward and closed her eyes. Once she drank a mouthful of water that Duncan passed her, then she passed it clumsily to Uncas.