In the Distance

17.

Blue and cold were one. Håkan felt the crisp blue sky on his skin and eyes. And with this consonance of sight and touch, he realized that his consciousness had returned. His cramped limbs were an indication that he had been gone for a good while. He tested his other senses (the swish and swoosh of grass, the smell of old coals and manure, the sourness of sleep in his mouth); he confirmed the hardness of the soil under him (so unlike the viscous pit down which he had been slowly sliding for days); he conjured up a few memories (friendly pictures he could summon and dismiss at will, not like the ghosts that haunted him in his dreams); he tried language in his head (jag är här därför att jag kan tänka att jag är här). Dots of bright but undefined colors popped in and out of the sky as he tried to look deeper into it. He was still in the plains.

“Are you in pain?”

Asa came over from behind him and sat by his side. Håkan had not been in pain until asked. Now, the fire in his chest started burning, and the cut in his forearm throbbed with a life of its own.

“Yes.”

“If you can bear it, we should stop those drops. I thought I was losing you.”

“Yes.”

“Let me know.”

“Yes.”

Håkan looked at his forearm, not knowing how he had hurt himself but noticing that the wound had been rudimentarily, yet efficiently, cleaned and bandaged. Asa put a soaked cracker to his lips. Håkan ate it with relish. He was spoon-fed some stew. Someone had made it for him, he thought before nodding off.

The last phosphorescence on the horizon was dying away as he woke up. There was a fire going, and Asa slept next to it. A pot simmered at the edge of the embers. Having eaten those morsels after his long fast had revived Håkan’s appetite. He coughed and thought his chest would split open. Asa woke up.

“You look better. Hungry?”

“Yes.”

Asa propped him up against a saddle on the ground and gave him a cupful of stew. They ate in silence. Håkan had only a blurred recollection of what had happened after being stitched up in the prison cell, but he did remember that he was being taken to Illinois so that the brethren could hang him. Where was the sheriff? Had he dreamed up that squeaky head pelted with smallpox? Why were his hands no longer tied? Would he dare to ask?

“Where are we?” he finally asked. It sounded like an apology.

“Back in the territory.”

Håkan was confused.

“West. We’ve left the States,” Asa explained.

“Illinois?”

“Not Illinois.”

“The sheriff?”

“No sheriff.”

Asa told him what had happened.

“I believe you,” he concluded, filling Håkan’s cup. “Many of us guessed what had happened to those emigrants on the trail. The Wrathful Angels. They’ve been roaming the country for years, at war with all gentiles. The brethren’s militia. By now, they’re just a band of outlaws. Some of the elders support them, but most want nothing to do with them. My uncle is an elder. He wants nothing to do with the Soldiers of Jehu. There were all these stories about you and what you’d done. But then I met you and saw it just couldn’t be true. They’ll still want you for the dead brethren, though. But they’ll never find us.”

There was a confusion of anguish and relief in Håkan’s throat. He could barely breathe. Redemption was impossible, but at least someone knew he had not killed Helen and all those innocent people. His eyes blurred, and he tried to swallow to let air in.

“I was quitting west anyhow,” Asa said after a pause.

Evening had deepened into night, and Asa’s face was barely visible in the glow of the sinking embers. He stirred the fire, sending blue flames leaping into the sky in the midst of an effervescence of sparks.

“Will you tell me your story?” Asa asked shyly, as if the answer to this question would reveal something about himself rather than Håkan.

Håkan finally managed to swallow and wiped his eyes.

“I come from Sweden. I lost my brother. I’m going to New York to find him. The people on the trail. I met them. They. After.”

The lump in his throat thickened. He coughed and felt that his lungs would burst out through his wound. The pain released the tears.

“Let me get you up here,” Asa said, putting his arm around Håkan’s back and folding a blanket behind him.

“I’m tired,” Håkan said in a soft moan, his face disfigured behind the tears.

Asa held him tighter.

“I’m tired.”

Håkan rested his head on Asa’s shoulder, sobbing.

“So tired.”

Asa wrapped his other arm over Håkan’s chest.

“So tired.”

It was Håkan’s first embrace.

They traveled on westward, mostly in silence. Now and then, however, they would look at each other from their horses and smile fleetingly. No one had ever smiled at Håkan like that, for no reason. It felt good. After a while, he learned to smile back. Every evening, when they bivouacked, as they built a fire and made dinner, he found it almost miraculous to be seen by someone, to be in someone’s brain, to reside in someone’s consciousness. And Asa’s presence also affected the plains, which no longer were the oppressive immensity whose existence, for such a long time, had somehow been entrusted to Håkan’s lonely gaze.

Even though Håkan was still rather weak, he insisted on removing the stitches from his chest as soon as possible—the recollection of Pingo’s maggot-infested sutures haunted him. Asa offered to do it, but Håkan wanted to perform the procedure himself, even if this meant he would not be able to take the tincture. As Håkan plucked one stitch after the other with a pair of tweezers and cut the sutures with a scalpel, Asa stared on, uttering disjointed words of encouragement, which only made Håkan tense. But once he was done and the pain had receded, he realized how much Asa’s presence had helped him.

Asa loved food. Håkan found this pleasure utterly baffling. Of course, he preferred some foods to others (strawberries with milk to charred prairie dog) and ate with delight whenever a meal to his liking came his way. But he had never pursued this enjoyment or even felt particular cravings. Eating was something one had to do to stay alive. So he was surprised by the care with which Asa prepared every one of his meals. He selected the ingredients throughout the day, constantly stopping to pick up herbs, flowers, mushrooms, and eggs. Only the finest of Håkan’s game ever made it to the pot, and Asa was always experimenting with different cooking methods—roasting, smoking, burying, curing. Asa made him look at food in a way similar to that in which Lorimer had made him see bodies—revealing depth and meaning where there had been none (even though when it came to food, Håkan knew that he lacked the inclination and the aptitude he showed for anatomy). And as with Lorimer, Asa’s passion made Håkan discover wonders in what had hitherto been a monotonous wasteland. In this apparent emptiness, Asa managed to obtain a wide variety of ingredients. Given the shortage of herbs and condiments, he had learned to season his food with flowers. Not only could he distinguish every nuance between species and families, but he also knew exactly how to use each part of each flower—he seldom put the entire blossom into a dish, preferring to use the petals from this flower and the stamens of that, while sprinkling only the pollen from another. If spices were scarce, sweets were almost impossible to find once they had left the last bees behind. Throughout their entire journey, Asa was on the lookout for a dwarf tree of sorts, which he tapped by screwing a gimlet into the knotty limbs. It was hard to conceive that such a rugged, thick-branched bush could yield such sweet sap. Asa used it in cakes and confections and boiled the rest down to sugar. There was something extraordinary about eating candy in the plains—something that, for a moment, annulled their immensity. But the ingredient for which Asa, who otherwise was a very disciplined traveler, would go far out of his way was a certain quail-like bird. Unlike most of the other fowl, these birds were almost impossible to catch. They even made a habit of taunting their pursuers, waiting until the very last instant to take off in a strangely vertical flight, as if someone had pulled them up with a string. Whenever he spotted one of these birds, Asa would dismount and run around like a madman, trying to throw a blanket over it, and cursing under his breath each time it got away. Consistent with its mocking nature, the quail would fly away and land just close enough to keep Asa’s hopes up. But it was well worth the humiliation. Those tender birds tasted like chestnuts, whipped cream, and, Asa would say, the very skies that surrounded them. Asa’s favorite recipe was a quail and mushroom stew. Håkan admired his precision as a cook and, above all, the confidence with which he used the ingredients that had cost him so much time and effort to obtain.

When he cooked, Asa was too absorbed in his work to talk, but during the meal they had brief conversations, usually about their itinerary and immediate plans. After cleaning up, they fell back into their friendly silence. One night, long after the fire had gone out, Asa came over to Håkan and lay next to him. At first, the proximity of Asa’s body frightened him. Not daring to move, he looked up at the stars, wondering if Asa, who held him from behind, perfectly still, was also awake. Not knowing why, Håkan matched his breathing with Asa’s. They breathed together. Slowly, he fell asleep, safe, warm, and happy. From that night on, always around the darkest hour and after the embers had paled under the ashes, Asa would come over to Håkan and lie by his side.

They always got up before sunrise, erased every trace of their camp, and set out at a brisk pace. By that time, the brethren surely would have heard the rumors and pieced together the story of the Hawk’s capture, the sheriff’s fraudulent scheme, and Asa and Håkan’s escape. They were probably looking for them already. Asa’s plan was to head out far west and hide for a while. Then, after a year or two, they could travel on and try their luck in California. He knew people there who could help them start up—get a job, save up, and then go and make their fortune. How he would get Håkan there unnoticed, Asa did not know. But he did know that, somehow, they would get there together.

Traveling with someone who knew the land and had the eye of a tracker transformed Håkan’s perception of the plains. Where Håkan had once spotted threats and proliferating signs of foes, Asa saw nothing—except, perhaps, some sort of aromatic wood ideal for smoking meat, a prized root vegetable, or one of the soapstone-like rocks he was always picking up for his makeshift pit ovens. Conversely, Håkan would often be surprised when Asa stopped in the middle of what seemed a void—identical, in its nothingness, to every patch of land in any direction—dismounted, looked around, pointed in a new direction, and had them trot away from a faint but, to him, eloquent sign of riders. Even if these sudden stops and turns forced them into intricate snaking patterns, Asa, who did not own a compass, unfailingly kept piloting them west. But more impressive than his ability to decipher the plains and his perfect sense of direction was the fact that Asa’s knowledge of the terrain, acquired through numerous trips, allowed him to anticipate every stage of their journey. Hitherto, Håkan had been traveling away from the past but not into the future. He had remained in a constant present, leaving landscapes and people behind but never heading toward a more or less certain destination that he could foresee. New York, his only true goal, was as abstract and fantastic as a city on some distant moon, never a clear destination in his mind’s eye that he could look forward to. So far, he had journeyed only from one now to another. James Brennan had roved about the country following whatever traces of gold he found in the dirt; John Lorimer had been as new to those tracts as Håkan was; and Jarvis Pickett’s directions had not proven trustworthy. It was only Asa who, over and over again, had been able to predict the world to come. Tomorrow, we’ll get to a river. In about three days, we’ll find good firewood. Should we ride that way, we’d hit a town before sundown. When Håkan learned that the earth was round like a ball, his idea of the world and how to move around it had changed in ways he never imagined possible—in fact, each time he considered this, he felt his mind curving to somehow accommodate this new idea. Asa’s ability to predict the future had a similar effect. Reality no longer ended at the horizon.

Before being captured by the sheriff, Håkan had feared that he might have circled the globe, missing New York, and remained eternally trapped between the plains and the desert. Since he had followed his compass, the other possibility he had considered was that he was going insane. It took him several days to form the question in his head and muster the courage to ask it.

“The world is round,” he said. Unsure about Asa’s reaction, Håkan’s tone was both that of a statement and a question.

Asa looked down. He had either nodded or was waiting for Håkan to continue.

“After the ship, we walked. Then I was in the desert. For a long time. First it was red. Then it was white. Then it was red again. For a long time I was in the desert. Alone. Then I was in the plains, also for a very long time. Then I saw the desert again.” He felt he should explain himself. “Before the sheriff and you, I saw the desert again but turned around.”

He thought that what he had said made little sense and wished he had never started. A long silence.

“Did I go around the world?”

Asa looked up as if someone had pulled his head back by the hair and stared at Håkan for a moment. Håkan flushed, overwhelmed by embarrassment. He was not crazy; he was just a fool. Asa smiled.

“No. You did not go around the world. It’s just a big country.”

The shadows of winter were gathering, and soon they would be immersed in one long, cutting night. Because the sheriff had paraded him in it, Håkan still had his coat, but Asa, who initially had set out on a brief trip, shivered under a couple of threadbare blankets that kept sliding off his shoulders. Håkan convinced him that trapping was their priority—he had started a coat for Asa, but being constantly on the move had made work difficult. They made a sharp turn south, toward warmer lands where game would be more abundant. The detour would set them back, but it would also baffle their pursuers.

Once they reached a brown, hard forest, they camped and trapped for a week or so. Asa was an excellent hunter, and they made good progress, which Håkan was almost sorry about—he was happy to rest and feel, in a manner, at home. During those days, Håkan derived great joy from seeing how impressed Asa was with his skills—skinning, dissecting, tanning, threading, sewing. Not since Linus had Håkan cared about dazzling anyone in this way. Not even Helen. Now, to his amazement, he realized that he wanted to impress Asa. And he did. Most times, he would pretend not to know that he was being watched while making his delicate incisions and pulling the skin with such ease that the dead animal seemed to be grateful to have been rid of the fur, but now and again, after indulging in some flourish with the scalpel, he could not help looking up to confirm that his movements had been followed with awe, and then, after meeting Asa’s wide eyes, he would smile, blush, and look back down. Whenever he was able to overcome his shyness, Håkan pointed out the different organs and their anatomical functions. He knew that something had affected Asa deeply whenever he stepped back and shook his head in disbelief. There was no greater validation for Håkan than that head shaking no.

One night, encouraged by the respect Asa showed for his knowledge, Håkan decided to share Lorimer’s ideas with him. He had been rehearsing his speech in his head for days. The best occasion would be toward the end of dinner, when Asa was no longer fully engaged with cooking or tasting, but merely enjoying the last bites, which always put him in a particularly placid mood. With the help of bones and organs he had saved for this purpose, Håkan outlined the main aspects of the naturalist’s theory. Asa listened carefully, but it was unclear whether he was focused on the words or on the food. It was not easy to explain the nature of that vesicle of sentient substance and how it evolved and created a protective crust and then a body and limbs around itself to further its own life. Håkan arrived at the hardest part of his exposition—the one that required doubting that god had created man. He paused. They could hear the resin hissing as the cinders fell between the logs. Håkan resumed his account. He stuttered and faltered at times but was quite sure that he had been clear and faithful to Lorimer’s system. When it was apparent that he had concluded, Asa put down his plate, cleaned his teeth with his tongue, and, slowly, started to laugh. There was no malice in his chuckles, no mockery, no disdain. He simply laughed, innocently and wholeheartedly, in good faith, as if Håkan had shared a joke with him. Håkan’s tongue dried up and his hands tingled. A new feeling—sharp quills coming out of his pores—traversed his body. He had never been indignant before. Staring into the coals, he was shocked at how far Asa suddenly felt from him. Håkan was also disappointed in himself for having been unable to convey the importance of Lorimer’s discovery. An open confrontation or even derision would have been better than Asa’s frank laughter. The one thing that made him happy was that not even Asa’s laughter could shake his belief in Lorimer’s truth.

They had all the pelts they needed. Some would have to dry out for a few more days, which meant that Håkan would finish the coat along the way. In preparation for the winter gales, he also brought additional furs and flexible branches to make another portable shelter, big enough for two. Throughout their stay, Asa had smoked many of the skinned animals and made abundant charqui. He also had gathered and dried mushrooms, along with a large sack of bitter, oily nuts he had found in the forest.

The grass got drier and sharper as they moved west. They changed horses more often and had to make frequent detours to water and feed them. Asa was now wearing a fur vest. Håkan was working on the sleeves and on their tent, which was finished only a few days before the first blizzard. They spent their first night in the storm-pelted shelter huddling together for warmth. The wind screamed and shook the leather frame. Håkan thought that it was the first time sleeping together under the same roof. He knew that Asa, behind him, awake, calm, was thinking something similar.

“Why did you do this?” Håkan asked.

“What?”

He felt Asa’s soft breath, first on his neck and then in his nose. It smelled like warm, wet soil.

“This.”

“What?” Asa laughed under his breath.

“This. Help me. From the sheriff. And then run with me. Leave everything. And now you’re here. Why?”

“Because of you.”

“But why?”

“Because I saw you and I knew.”