In the Distance

18.

It took them the entire winter to travel north along a mighty mountain range, searching for a pass, and then back south, all the way down to their initial position, but on the opposite side of the sierras. They had intended to head straight west after the crossing, but the pass was quite busy, and some people recognized Håkan. Soon trappers, prospectors, and homesteaders were abuzz with stories. The giant who had strangled seven priests. The lion killer. The monster who had slain all those defenseless women and children. There was talk of a colossal reward. Håkan and Asa left immediately and kept riding through the night, hoping that farther down south, away from trails and travelers, they would be able to resume their westward course in solitude. Despite all the bluster and the threatening looks, nobody followed them.

With the arrival of spring, Asa thought they should make their final push west and devise a plan to get Håkan safely into California. There were, however, a few obstacles. Although he trusted his own instincts, Asa did not know his way on the other side of the mountains. To make matters worse, their encounter with the travelers at the pass had shown that Håkan’s notoriety had grown into a myth. Even if he was no longer wearing his lion coat, with his prodigious size, he hardly went unnoticed. It was only a matter of time before word of their whereabouts reached the brethren—and bounty hunters serious enough to take the risk. While they were considering solutions to these problems, yet another difficulty arose.

Asa had climbed up a crag to get a better view of their surroundings and find a shortcut through the particularly rough stretch they were traversing. As he descended, he slid and rolled down the cliff. He looked like a thing as he tumbled and bounced against the rocks. Håkan saw it from afar, and as it happened, he felt the weight of reality draining out of the world. Later, he was embarrassed to recall that his first thought had been that now he would be completely alone again. The initial shock overcome, he ran to the base of the crag where Asa lay, badly bruised and bleeding but conscious. His left tibia was disfigured in a zigzagging fracture.

“I can help,” Håkan panted, holding Asa’s head in his hands.

Asa did not respond. The pain had canceled out whatever it is that makes eyes human. They moved around frantically, looking at nothing. His chest heaved. He gasped like a fish.

Håkan ripped Asa’s trousers. The bone had almost broken through the skin. He thought that he might be able to set it but was concerned about the fever and the rot that often followed wounds of this kind. Asa started shivering. His teeth chattered. The horses could not get up there. Håkan would have to move him down. Make a stretcher. But first, the bone. He needed the sedative. He held Asa’s head tightly to his chest and then, very gently, put it down. Asa’s eyes still stirred, staring beyond the sky. Håkan took a step back. He could not leave him there, alone. Not even for an instant. He wished he could ask Asa what to do.

“I will come back,” he said and, before becoming paralyzed by doubt again, turned around and dashed downhill toward their horses.

He got his tin box, blankets, and rope, and ran back.

Asa’s jaws were now clenched in a sinister smile, as if offering his teeth up for inspection to a remotely distant being. He looked lost. Asa had never looked lost before. His frame shook. Håkan managed to pour a few drops of the tincture down the corner of his mouth. The shaking subsided. Håkan touched the skin over the fracture. It was tight, like a full bladder. For the first time, he was scared of a body—of hurting it, of the power its frailty had over him. Gently, he got Asa on a blanket, dragged him over to a tree, sat him up with his back against the trunk, and, after padding his armpits and chest with another blanket, tied him to it. He studied the fracture, then looked at the mountains, then at the sky, then down. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. A hawk called; another responded. He removed his hands from his face. As if waking up, he opened his eyes and kneeled at Asa’s feet. He grabbed his ankle, delicately moved it up and down and side to side, and suddenly, with abrupt violence, pulled. The bones shifting through the flesh sounded like horses chewing corn. He kept pulling and twisting the ankle, holding his breath, blinded by his sweat. With a deep moan, he let go. The bone seemed to be in place, but blood kept pooling under the skin. He could only hope no major vessel had been torn. With some branches, blankets, and rope, he improvised a stretcher on which he pulled Asa down to their camp. The slope was littered with sharp stones. They slowly clambered their way down. The sun had long set when they got back to their horses. Håkan pitched camp.

The following morning, Asa had a fever. He raved and constantly tried to get up to repair a ladder. It was an important ladder. It had to be fixed. What would they do without the ladder? With a lancet, Håkan drained the slow blue blood from his leg, always fearing to find pus. Most of the day was spent going back and forth to a nearby creek to cool the compresses he applied to Asa’s forehead, lips, and wrists.

After coexisting for a while, the moon prevailed over the sun. Håkan built a fire but cooked no food. Asa wrestled with himself for most of the night, but when he finally calmed down and fell asleep, his face acquired a calm and stern expression, showing a serene strength that made Håkan think of a king. Up to that moment, this word, king, like so many others, had had a pictureless meaning for him—he had never seen a king, not even in a portrait; but now, as he watched Asa sleep, those sounds merged, forever, with his face. He put some salve on Asa’s rope burns and then lay next to him, resting his head on his chest. Asa’s heart beat slowly. Even unconscious, he managed to comfort Håkan. Out of the night and in between heartbeats, Linus’s face came forth in his mind. The picture of his brother, who had protected him from hunger, cold, and pain, had always come to him as the very image of safety. Until now. This time, as Linus’s features became clearer, he saw something different—a child. The Linus he had loved and lost was a child. It was true that Linus had protected and cared for him, but Håkan had never before understood how young and innocent his brother had been at the time. His stories, his bravados, his knowledge, his boundless confidence—vain constructions of a little boy. The realization made him cry. He had outgrown his older brother. Never again would he find that comfort and safety in Linus’s image. He listened to Asa’s calm heartbeat and felt its throb against his temple. Asa was not a child. Fleetingly, Håkan wondered what Linus would make of him. What would he make of them? Although he still loved his brother dearly, Håkan discovered that he did not care.

The next morning, Asa woke up hungry and without a fever. Håkan’s knees almost faltered with relief.

“You will live,” he said, turning away from Asa when he felt his eyes well up.

After breakfast, Asa asked him to get ready to leave. Håkan refused. They could not risk aggravating the wounds and having the fever return. Asa did not listen. The brethren, the Wrathful Angels, the bounty hunters, the law would all close in on them soon. Their only hope, he believed, was to get to the cañons. If they did not get lost there themselves, they would surely manage to lose their pursuers. The discussion ended when Asa tried to ride his horse. With great difficulty, Håkan managed to get him on. The pain distorted Asa’s features as he sat on the saddle, and his face turned white when his injured leg started bouncing against the moving horse. Håkan helped him dismount before he fainted. They tried different kinds of splints and straps, but once on the saddle, the pain was always too intense. Defeated, Asa picked a more secluded recess where they would settle down for a few weeks.

Time went by slowly. At first, Håkan thought that they would enjoy their rest in that benign spot—close to fresh water, surrounded by plentiful trees and bushes, in the path of easy game—but the first few days, Asa was so vexed by his condition that he barely uttered a word. Håkan went on short expeditions in search of some of the ingredients he knew that Asa liked. For the most part, they would rot by the fire pit. Gradually, Asa’s irritation turned into anxiety. He would not allow Håkan beyond a narrow area around their crag. They were coming, he said. No doubt. Someone was coming. It was a matter of time. Håkan believed him—as he always did. After all, he owed Asa not only his life but also the world, which he had lost after the killings. Still haunted by the lives he had taken, Håkan felt sullied and fallen. The shame of being, for almost everyone, a murderer, a murderer of women—Helen’s murderer—was enough to make him want to shun the society of men forever. But the world had returned. Asa had brought it back to him, brimming with meaning and purpose.

Despite his constant uneasiness and his somber mood, Asa never failed to express his admiration and gratitude for Håkan’s healing abilities. He had seen too many people perish in similar circumstances—a fall, a fracture, bleeding, gangrene, amputation, delirium, death—to take Håkan’s talents lightly. The story of how he set his leg fascinated him, and no matter how many times he heard it (“Tell me about the leg, and what you did,” he would ask Håkan over and over again, like a child), Asa always listened with gaping reverence. Each compress and salve that Håkan applied, each bleeding, each suture was received with solemn devotion.

When he was not looking for food or tending to Asa’s wounds, Håkan worked on new crutches and different kinds of splits, whittling, stitching, and patching together all sorts of materials. Eventually, Asa started cooking again. They had to stock up on cured meats and preserves for their trip to the barren cañons.

“The cañons are our only hope,” Asa repeated every evening. “Too many days lost here. We can’t outrun anybody. But maybe we can lose them.”

One night, after much hesitation, feeling foolish for having waited for so long, Håkan asked, “What is the cañon?”

“I’ve never been myself,” Asa responded. “They say it’s a land like no other. Like a bad dream. Red tunnels carved by long-gone rivers. Like old scars in the ground. Very deep. For leagues and leagues. Few go in. Fewer get out.”

Later that night, long after they had gone to bed, Håkan woke up. He could feel Asa thinking behind him—his thoughts had woken him up. He could also sense that Asa knew that he was awake.

“We can’t go to California now,” Asa said at last. Then, after a long pause, “They’ll be looking for you. You’d never make it. We’ll go to the cañons. Wait there.” He was quiet for a while, as if his silence were a small sample of that wait. “Then, to San Francisco. I don’t know how, but we’ll make it.” Another pause. “There, I’ll find my friends. They can get us on a boat.” Another silence. “We’ll sail to New York. Nobody will be looking there. You’ll be safe there. We’ll be fine.” Pause. “And we will find your brother.”

Something within Håkan melted. Only now, as it softened and evaporated, did he realize that for years he had lived with a frozen lump in his chest. Only now that he knew he would see Linus again—for there was no doubt that, with Asa’s help, he would see him again—did he feel how much pain this cold shrapnel had caused him. And he understood that up to that moment he had never had a chance of finding his brother. Getting to New York? Finding him in that endless city? How would that ever have happened? Love and longing had kept him going, but now, with Asa by his side, he saw how hopeless his search had hitherto been, and how doomed it would have been without Asa’s aid.

How could he respond to Asa’s words? Like a magic spell, they had changed reality just by being uttered.