Echoes From the Dead

Öland, September 1972

“Treasure? I haven’t taken any fucking treasure,” says the man whose name is Martin.

“You hid the metal box,” says Nils, taking a step forward. “When I turned my back on you.”

“What box?” says Martin, taking his cigarette packet out again.

“Let’s just all calm down,” says Gunnar behind him. “We’re all on the same side.”

He’s standing too close, right behind Nils’s back.

Nils doesn’t want him there. He glances quickly behind him, then looks at Martin again.

“You’re lying,” he says, taking another step forward.

“Me? I was the one that got you home!” snarls Martin angrily. “Gunnar and I organized everything. We brought you home, on my ship. As far as I’m concerned, you could have stayed where you were.”

“I still don’t know you,” says Nils, thinking: My treasure. My Stenvik.

“Really?” Martin lights a cigarette. “I couldn’t give a fuck whether you know me or not.”

“Put the shovel down, Nils,” says Gunnar.

He’s still behind Nils, and way too close.

Martin is too close too. Suddenly he raises the shovel.

Nils senses that Martin is planning to strike him with the shaft, but it’s too late. Nils has a shovel too, and he’s already lifted it.

He’s holding the shaft with both hands, and he swings it just as hard as he swung the oar at Lass-Jan thirty years ago. The old rage wells up; all patience is swept away. He has waited and waited.

“It’s mine!” he screams, and the man in front of him suddenly blurs.

Martin moves, but he doesn’t have time to duck. The shovel strikes Martin on the left shoulder, keeps moving and slices into the skin beneath his ear.

Martin staggers, howling, and Nils strikes again, this time at Martin’s forehead.

“No!”

Martin roars, spins around, and falls, right onto the cairn.

Nils lifts the shovel again, and this time he is aiming for Martin’s unprotected face.

“Stop it!” roars Gunnar.

At Nils’s feet, Martin raises his arms. Blood is pouring down his face; he is waiting for the killing blow.

But Nils can’t strike him.

“Stop, Nils!”

A hand has gripped the shovel’s shaft. Gunnar is holding the spade, and he pulls it so hard that Nils lets go.

“That’s enough!” Gunnar says loudly. “There was absolutely no need for this at all! What happened, Martin?”

“Fucking... hell,” whispers Martin, his voice thick and his arms still raised protectively above his head. “Do it, Gunnar! Don’t wait until... Just do it! ”

“It’s too soon,” says Gunnar.

“I’m going now,” says Nils. He takes a step backward.

“Fuck the plan... We need to do it,” says Martin. “He’s fucking crazy, that one...”

He tries to get up, but the blood is pouring from his nose and from the gash in his forehead.

“Someone has taken the treasure... you or someone else,” says Nils, staring unblinkingly at Gunnar. “So the deal’s off.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m going home now. Home to Stenvik.”

“Okay...” Gunnar sighs wearily. “No more deals, then. We might as well finish it here.”

“I want to go,” says Nils.

“No.”

“Yes. I’m going now.”

“You’re not leaving,” says Gunnar. “It was never the plan that you should leave this place. Don’t you realize that? You’re staying here.”

“No. I’m going,” says Nils. “It doesn’t end here.”

“It does, actually... after all, you’re already dead.”

Gunnar slowly lifts the heavy pick, looking around in the fog as if he wants to make sure nobody can see what’s happening.

“You can’t go home,” he tells Nils. “You’re dead. You’re buried up in Marnäs churchyard.”