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By Root 1264 0

to Harry and Tom Hutter in light of their efforts to scalp Indian women and children. Nevertheless, the Indians listen to Hetty politely enough and make no effort to interfere with her comings and goings. This is a sign of the Indians’ respect for the mentally retarded. Deerslayer is furloughed after his capture on his promise to return at noon the following day. He paddles out to the castle for a farewell visit with his friends. Judith, by now in love with Deerslayer, suggests that they attempt a getaway. Natty, of course, cannot do such a thing—it being both dishonorable and impractical. He returns as promised, and is duly tortured, until, mirabile dictu, the British army arrives to rescue him and to slaughter the Indian women and children in the process.

Several episodes in this chain of events are worthy of attention for the light they shed on Deerslayer’s character and on Cooper’s artistic intentions. While in the castle during his furlough, Judith gives Deerslayer her father’s expensive and finely crafted rifle, the Killdeer of future Leatherstocking fame. To try out the weapon, Natty gives a demonstration of his sharpshooting skills by downing a high-flying eagle. When the luckless bird nose-dives onto the platform at their feet, shot through the breast, Deerslayer immediately is overcome with shame and mortification. His vanity has cost the life of an innocent creature. Judith notices his sense of shame and loves him the more for it; she had harbored some doubts about the macho act in the first place. Hetty openly, but mildly, reproaches Deerslayer for the whole un-Christian business. Deerslayer, later in the evening, feeling sure he will die the next day, makes an informal will and leaves the rifle to Hist. Why Hist? Does he wish to show his support for the Delawares with whom he has grown up? He assumes that if Chingachgook survives, he will get the rifle anyway.12 Natty certainly does not want to leave Harry anything.

Deerslayer returns to the Iroquois at noon the following day, the appointed hour, just as the sun breaks through the haze. Impressed by his punctuality and his general manliness, Chief Rivenoak offers Deerslayer a deal that he believes any right-thinking man should jump at. Deerslayer, with his knowledge of the Indian dialects, is fully aware of what the chief is trying to do: offer him a deal that is good for the Iroquois and good for Natty, a nicely calibrated diplomatic move that saves face all around. The chief almost winks at Deerslayer as he lays out the plan for his braves (the Indian women are not in the decision-making loop but can cheer or jeer from the sidelines). The deal is this: Natty will join the tepee of the Sumach, the widow of the warrior that Deerslayer has slain in chapter VII, thus caring for her and her children, in return for having his life spared. The chief is aware that Deerslayer might escape at some later date, but the deal will solve the chief’s immediate problem of asserting his own leadership against the hotheads who want Deerslayer tortured right then and there. It will also provide for the widow and equip the tribe with a skilled shooter and scout for the arduous trek back home to Canada through enemy territory. Rivenoak also seems to have a humanitarian streak in that he wishes to avoid any unnecessary shedding of blood.

Deerslayer turns him down flat, and none too diplomatically at that. Critics and reviewers have been puzzled by what Natty (and Cooper) were up to here. Is Deerslayer against miscegenation, a racist at heart, notwithstanding all his talk of white gifts and Indian gifts and of the ostensible importance he attaches to living together and respecting each other? Or is it a case of sexual infantilism and a deep-seated fear of women, resulting from Deerslayer having lived too long in the woods? Does the man prefer death to life? Surely any sane man would take the deal and feel pretty darn lucky. But Deerslayer is a purist at heart. He does not believe in an instrumental morality: Good is good; no compromise, no slippery slope for him. The widow is