Part I

THE DECEIT

The sky had crept from blackness speckled with bright stars to a deep, dark, dim blue. The sun would not rise for another hour and a half but the strip of sky along the river was tinged a lighter colour. It made no difference to the shadows in the cave, but the watching guard noted the change and woke the men in the outer room of the cave. It was cooler now. The air in the cave was no longer as stuffy either.

Uncas took the canoe and visited the horses while Hawkeye and Chingachgook prepared breakfast. Captain Heyward cleaned his pistols. It was a peaceful morning. Even the fall seemed quieter than the night before.

In the inner room Cora stirred, then jolted up as her internal timepiece altered her to the early hour. She steeled herself to greet the morning, praying earnestly for an uneventful day. She dressed, put up her hair, and woke her brother.

Will woke groggily, unhappy to be up so early for the fourth morning in a row. She handed him his clothes and combed out his hair with her fingers.

When he was dressed she took him by the shoulders, "Out you go now, don't be under foot." He obeyed.

Cora crawled over to the last cot and shook Alice awake.

"Must we be up?" Alice complained, but she rose and began to dress.

This office done, Cora followed her brother.

She found the outer cave, much as it has been described above. There was not much more light illuminating the place than there had been in the inner cave. Captain Hayward sat in one corner with his guns and an oily rag. Chingachgook squatted before the fire circle coaxing a fire from the coals. Mr. Bumpo was rummaging in a barrel.

Immediately she set about helping her hosts with breakfast and asked after Mr. Gamut and Uncas. Chingachgook jerked one elbow toward a lump in one corner of the room. Peering at it over her shoulder, Cora was able to discern that it was the singing master, still fast asleep. She shook her head amused.

"And Uncas?" she repeated.

"He's looking to the horses and his snares," the old man replied with a touch of a smile.

She returned it warmly.

"Mister Bumppo," Alice asked, joining them at the fire circle just as the man inquisition retreated from the corner with a pot and several measures of cornmeal, "how ought I to tell Will to wash his face and hands? He is in dreadful need of a wash."

The old trapper handed her the pot and said,"Take him down to where we landed last night and have him wash. Fill this pot."—he tapped halfway up the side. "It's safe enough. Don't lose your balance."

"Thank you."

Cora stood with her sister, "I think I will go with you; fresh air will do me well."

Chingachgok looked up worriedly, "Take that pistol with you, 'tis better safe than sorry."

Bumppo frowned but shrugged. "Do as he says, he has good sense for these things."

She nodded, frowning too.

"Had we best go?" Alice whispered.

Cor shook her head. "They are only cautious, it is perfectly safe. Will needs a wash badly."

So Alice called Will and they left the cave. Once on the narrow path Cora paused.

"Come on," Alice coaxed. Taking her hand she led Cora down to the edge of the water. The stars were no longer visible and the twilight was not so deep that it made finding their footing difficult, though that did not make Cora any less worried that any misstep would send her plummeting into the waters below. A light fog hovered over the surface of the river completing the picture. Will was sleepy but cheerful. Rest had done wonders to his grief. He crouched and splashed the water with his hands while whistling a tune. The sisters washed their faces and necks gingerly, and filled the pot as directed.

They were just starting up the rocks again when Will called out.

"Look!" he said, pointing into the gloom.

A canoe had appeared, gliding over the water silently. A single figure sat in the stern. Alice covered her mouth, standing frozen in fear. Cora reached slowly for her pistol, but suddenly she laughed.

"'Tis only Uncas," she exclaimed.

With laughs of relief they turned back to watch him as he drove the canoe up onto the slab.

"Was Mary Ann well?" Will asked, darting over to him and catching hold of his wrist.

Uncas glanced at him. "The grey?" he asked.

Will nodded.

"Then, yes. She is very… temperamental, I think the word is. But come, it is not good to linger. Have you eaten?" They shook their heads and he shooed them into the cave. He took Cora's arm without any hesitation and helped her up the rocks before taking down the blanket covering the entrance.

Captain Heyward greeted them with a nod. Cora paused for a moment to thank Uncas and then she hung the pot over the fire, which was burning merrily. Uncas though did not even look at the fire, but instead had gone to stand by his father and the hunter and was conversing with them in his own language. To Cora's ear he sounded agitated, but she could not see his facial expression to be certain.

Gamut was not yet awake.

Cora turned to watch the water come to a boil and saw Bumppo stir in the cornmeal handful by handful. He hummed as he dished it into the three pewter cups.

"Eat up," he said with a smile as he handed the cups to Alice.

She smiled shyly in return and sat Will down beside her to eat. Bumppo spooned some of the steaming porridge directly from the pot into his mouth, drawing a giggle from Will. It was a peaceful morning. Cora was looking forward to reaching the fort that night and seeing her father for the first time in several months. As she was in the midst of these pleasant thoughts, from outside there came a tumult of yells. Alice screamed, dropping her half full bowl of porridge onto her knee. Will shrieked as some of the hot porridge leaked onto his leg.

With a word that sounded like a curse, Uncas snatched up a musket that had hitherto been leaning in an out of the way corner and dashed out of the cave. Bumppo followed on his heels with Chingachgook, and Heyward scrambled close behind. At once there was a rattle of musket fire that rose even above the sound of the falls.

All this time Cora had been frozen as images of officers she had known flashed in her mind's eye. Stories she had heard told, scenes she had witnessed in the Province, images her imagination had conjured up while she had read the letters her George had once penned to her. Death, blood, pain. Lead flying through the sky and screams hanging in the air. As Will clung to her neck she came to herself and pulled her courage together. She patted her brother's back.

"Hush, darling," she said, shaking off the hot porridge from his knee. "Pray to the Lord that our protectors will be victorious and that our enemies will turn back." She pried his hands off and held them in her lap. "Look at me,"—she found his eyes. "Can you be brave for me?" He nodded his pale little face. She reached to the side and picked up one of the water skins that had been left there and poured a little of it over his knee. "Better now?" she asked as she plugged the neck back up and set it aside. He nodded again. "Good."

Alice had recovered as well and in a trembling voice said, "Cora, help me. I am not strong like you." Then in an even softer tone she added in French, so that Will would not understand, "I am afraid, both for myself and you, but also for Duncan. You heard him last night."

"Oh Elise," Cora returned in English, reaching for her hand, "my dear, dear sister. It is hard, is it not, aimer un soldat. Now you are in my shoes. Work helps to keep the mind from worry."

"Then I shall work," Alice said. She rose and began to clean the cooking utensils.

Cora sent Will into the second chamber to make his bed and retrieve her hat and gloves. He had only just slipped around the crack when there was a lull in the musket exchange and the yells of the French Indians rose up louder than before. Mr. Gamut awoke with a jerk and he scrambled up, hit his head on the ceiling and dashed out of the cave crying, "Whence comes this discord? Has hell broke loose, that man should utter sounds like these?"

Cora shouted after him and followed at his heels so that she saw him step out into the predawn greyness and look wildly around and then fall prone as their enemies discharged their weapons in his direction.

She stood there, her mouth open but silent, and a strange calm came over her. She saw the man lying at a strange angle among the rocks upon his face but she was not immobilised with shock, nor did she feel any great horror or pity, nor did she have any urge to run to him and drag him back to safety. If she stepped out onto the rock she would be shot down no differently than he had been. If he was dead then to lie there would not hurt him and it would be of no use to drag him back; if Mr. Gamut was merely unconscious, then to lie there would bring him to no further harm and the rocks would protect him. Cora returned to Alice.

Alice had paused her tidying to watch her sister, but when Cora returned safely she resumed her work. "Is he alright?" she asked while she scrapped the last of the food into the emptied pewter cups.

"I do not know," she responded while she arranged the cups by the fire in a straight row. "At the very least he has hit his head upon the rocks and knocked himself senseless."

Will returned with the hat and gloves just then so Cora dropped the topic of Mr. Gamut. Will soon proved restless and unwilling to go back to sleep despite the early hour. He wanted to do something. He had explored the cave from end to end, straightened the blankets on the bed to perfection, and arranged the other leafy boughs into three different small shelters. He had imitated a soldier in a bush with a stout stick as a musket and he was restless. Finally, Alice had him recite his history lessons from the week before to keep his mind off the battle.

It was to a recital of the battles of Jacobite Rebellion that Bumppo and Captain Heyward entered the cave with Gamut between them. They laid him down where he had spent the night.

"Is he not dead?" Cora asked, spying the stain of blood on the bald man's head.

"No, no," Bumppo assured her, patting Mr. Gamut's shoulder. "The life is in his heart yet. The poor fellow has saved his scalp, but he's living proof that a man may be born with too long a tongue! 'Twas downright madness to show upwards of six feet of flesh and blood, on a naked rock, to the raging savages. After he has slept a while he'll come to himself, and be a wiser man for it."

Satisfied with his answer and the knowledge that no lives had yet been lost, Cora opened her mouth to ask a question that had been burning her tongue for the past half hour, but Captain Hayward beat her to it.

"You led us here because you said that the French Indians would not think to look for us here," he accused, glowering at Bumppo. "Look, they have found us, what do you have to say?"

The hunter scowled, but did not lose his temper. "I and my companions aided ye, brought ye here, because 'twas the Christian thing to do and because Uncas insisted upon it. That we have been found is regrettable but not the end. The island and cave are easily defensible if we have powder and shot, which we do.

"When they come again, we will meet them and perhaps thin their numbers. And in each wave after that we shall do the same until either we or they are dead or we run out of ammunition."

"The attack will be renewed?" Captain Hayward roared, rearing back, but the trapper was unmoved in expression or stance. He stared at the Captain.

Uncas, who had just entered, laughed harshly and leaned his musket against the wall. "I do not recognise you, Captain Heyward, and I know all the officers at Edward. You are then either new to the lake-country or the war or to both, and are unfamiliar with the art of the French and of their allies. They are brutal and rarely show mercy. They will not cease until they are thoroughly beaten or have won." This said, he stalked over to the corner with the barrels. He pried it open and dug into one with his powder horn. Captain Hayward stood silently, accepting the rebuke, looking much deflated.

Nodding, Bumppo added, "They have lost a man—"

"Three," Uncas tossed over his shoulder.

"They have lost three men," Bumppo agreed, "and they seek revenge now. They will return within the hour."

Cora had listened to their talk with growing apprehension and she now approached Uncas with a cup of the food that had been left to keep warm by the fire. "Here, you have not yet eaten today."

His head snapped up and his eyes had the look of a startled animal. He looked away and took the food. Then balancing on his heels, he scooped it into his mouth, barely stopping for breath until he was finished. Cora watched nonplussed, wondering at his manner. He handed the cup back to her when he was done and thanked her gruffly. Then he ducked around her and out of the cave.

She shook her head and hummed a little to herself.