In the Distance

21.

Those flailing arms sticking out of the upright trunk. Those legs, like ridiculous scissors. Those forward-facing eyes on that flat face with that beakless, snoutless hole for a mouth. And the gestures. Hands, brow, nose, lips. So many gestures. Those misshapen and misplaced features and their wasteful, obscene movements. He thought nothing could be more grotesque than those forms. His next thought was that he looked just like them. Then, he ran for his gun.

Because he had lost the ability to think about the future, he had stopped considering what to do if someone ever came to the burrow. And now that five men were approaching, it seemed the most obvious thing in the world. Of course someone would come at some point. With the oncoming men, a forgotten dimension of reality suddenly reappeared, defying his senses. The world was new, complex, and frightening. His hands shook as he readied the gun.

He reached toward the ceiling, slid a leather panel to the side, and peered out. The men rode about leisurely, inspecting the burrow and pointing out this and that detail. They were alert and, at the same time, relaxed, as if they knew that he lived there, but also that he was outnumbered. Had they been spying on him? Where from? How could he have failed to notice? Everything in their approach—their loud voices, their occasional laughs, their slow pace and the sagging reins, the casual way in which they held their rifles—indicated that they were certain he was alone. They had the arrogance of the conqueror who knows that merely showing up will be enough.

Three of them were soldiers, but they seemed to belong to two different armies. Two were in loose-fitting gray uniforms and matching forage caps, while the other soldier wore blue and a slouch hat with some sort of adornment pinning the brim up. His left sleeve was empty, folded up, and attached to the elbow. On his right arm were three yellow stripes. Regardless of color and rank, the uniforms were torn and tattered. The remaining two men looked like so many others Håkan had seen on his journeys—deerskin leggings, flannel shirts, wide-brimmed hats. The civilians were on regular bays, but the soldiers rode thick, tall draft horses—stout, muscular, almost neckless, their fetlocks and hooves covered by thick tufts of hair full of burrs and thistles. Håkan knew nothing about breeds, but it was clear that those beasts were meant for the harness and not the saddle.

“Friend!” the blue soldier cried. “Hey, friend! We’re friends!”

Håkan realized that he was panting. Out of nowhere, a colony of little incandescent dots started bubbling, popping, vanishing, and reemerging before his eyes. His body felt less dense. Even if he had wanted to respond, his tongue, glued to his palate, was too dry and heavy to allow him to speak a single word.

One of the soldiers in gray muttered something, and the others laughed. They rode by some meat that was being jerked on frames. The other gray soldier took a piece, tasted it, and spat it out. He rubbed his tongue with his sleeve while cursing and making grotesque noises. More chuckles.

Håkan thought that he could smell them. Human stench. To what savagery would he be subjected? Because these were wild and unkind men. He could tell from their scars, their snickers, and, above all, their calmness—the calmness of people who know they can always rely on absolute violence. He looked at the gun in his hand as if someone had planted it there while he was distracted. Taking another life.

They stopped about fifteen paces away from him. Had he been seen? After conferring—in signs more than in words—one of the civilians put his rifle into his saddle holster, dismounted, and took a few steps toward Håkan.

“We mean no harm, mister. No harm at all. Just a few words.”

Showing himself unarmed was the only option. Perhaps his size would intimidate them. Perhaps his size would make them want to shoot him on the spot. He was reconciled with the idea of dying, but he did not want to share that singular, final experience with these brutes. Before putting the pistol down and proceeding to one of the exits, he realized, fleetingly, that it was the first time in his life that he was scared of men younger than himself.

The lion coat hung on one of the posts at the foot of the bed. It was not cold, but he put it on. After removing a section of the roof, he stepped on a table and climbed out.

Because he was crouching when he emerged from the trench, his height was not revealed at once, but as he uncoiled and came to an upright position, he looked ahead and saw amazement gradually overtaking everyone’s expression. Håkan himself was surprised. It had been years since he last stood next to another person or something of a more or less constant size—something that was not in nature or that he had not made with his hands. The men were like children. The horses looked wrong. Håkan and the men stared at each other; he, remembering what a man was; they, discovering what a man could be.

One of the civilians cocked his gun. The soldier in blue raised his single hand without looking away from Håkan.

“It’s you,” he said.

Håkan stared at his own bare feet. After so many years looking down at them, they had become objects removed from his own self. Even more, callous and insensible to touch, they had ceased to mediate between the world and his consciousness. They were one more everyday article.

“It is you,” the one-armed man in blue repeated. “See?” he cried, turning around to his comrades. “It’s him!” And then, facing Håkan once again, “The Hawk.”

The disgrace, the guilt, the fear came rushing back, wiping out all the years spent in solitude. He was back where he had left off.

Perhaps as a reaction to his shame, for a moment he forgot how recognizable he was and thought that if the blue soldier knew who he was, they must have met at some point. In the fraction of an instant, all the faces he could remember flashed through his mind. None of them matched the blue soldier. Perhaps the soldier had been one of the children on the emigrant trail. Maybe he had been one of the boys who had flung rotten vegetables at him when the sheriff had him on display. But there was an expression on the soldier’s face that Håkan knew well. It was the stare of people who had heard about him but never actually seen him. Briefly, he wondered if those uniforms meant that the newcomers were lawmen.

“The brethren killer, lion skin and all.”

The blue soldier’s explanation was unnecessary. The awestruck, frozen expression of the four remaining men showed that they had realized on their own who Håkan was.

“He’s alive?” asked one of the civilians to no one in particular.

“Abundantly,” said the blue soldier, gesturing to Håkan from head to toe.

Håkan looked around, pausing on the different sections of the burrow. Knowing that he would soon leave it forever, he understood its magnitude for the first time.

The blue soldier had rejoined the others, and they were having a muted discussion. Every now and again, they turned around and, still mesmerized, stared at Håkan.

“Do you have a gun?” someone asked.

“Inside.”

“Quite a place you got here,” a gray soldier said. “Quite a place.”

“How did you do it?” the blue soldier asked, ignoring his friend’s remark.

“I dig,” Håkan responded.

“No, no. How did you do it? All those things. You know, the brethren, escape from the law. Stay away for so long.”

“I walked,” he said, addressing only the last part of the question.

The men laughed.

“He walked,” someone said and giggled like an idiot.

“How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a legend, you know.”

Again, his feet.

One of the civilians took a swig from a flask and offered it to Håkan, who shook his head.

“Quite a place,” the gray soldier said again.

They dismounted, escorted Håkan to his cell, and, after taking the guns they found there, walked around, inspecting the burrow and claiming different sections for themselves.

Night came. After the men had had a long conversation by a fire removed from Håkan’s quarters, they asked him to join them. The one-handed soldier in blue spoke for all of them.

“We have some business to discuss with you. An offer.” He paused, peering into Håkan’s eyes. “We all admire what you’ve done. Like I said, you’re a legend. Getting those settlers. And then those heathens—those brethren. And then.” He laughed in advance. “And then getting away on the sheriff’s horse! I mean. Hell!”

Talk. This was what Håkan had been running away from. That he was being complimented did not make it better. He wanted no more talk.

“We have our own stories to tell, all of us, from the war. But nothing like you. Anyhow. Ever since peace reigns again,” he said, looking at the gray soldiers with a smirk, “we’ve been riding about, trying to survive. You know. Plenty of opportunities out there.”

Someone kept spitting into the fire. The embers hissed each time.

“So we were thinking. Thought we could use you. You wouldn’t have to do anything. Unless you wanted to, of course. All you do is show up. You just show up in your big lion skin. We walk into the place. Store, tavern, bank, whatever. Then you walk into the place. People see you. They freeze. We take it from there. It would even be your gang. The Hawk Gang or The Hawks or something. Take all the credit. But with your name, reputation, and. And. Well.” Failing to find the right word, he just pointed at Håkan. “With you. With you, no one would stop us.”

Håkan looked straight into his eyes.

“No.”

During the silence that followed his response, Håkan could feel some inner mechanism cock in the men—they did not load their guns, but themselves.

“Right, sure,” the blue soldier said without losing his composure. “I’m not done. Like I said, you could come with us as our. What’s the word here? Leader. You could come with us as our leader, or we could take you back. There’s still a price on your head, you know. A power of money. Not as much as we would make if you came with us but still a handsome amount. Like I said, you’re a legend.”

Although he kept staring into the fire, Håkan knew that the men were ready to spring and strike at the shortest notice.

“Now look here,” the blue soldier said at last. “We like your place. We’re tired. We’ll stay for a few days. You let us know in what direction we all set off when we leave.”

The following day, the men rested, watered their horses, and drank spirits, but always had someone watching Håkan. He walked about the surrounding fields and woods, making sure his guards could see him at all times to dissipate any suspicion. First, he gathered mushrooms, nuts, a few herbs, and some flowers. Then, he started chasing the quail around, hunched over with a blanket. The birds always took off at the last second, only to land a few steps away and stare at him with their heads insolently tilted. The men looked on and laughed, slapping their thighs and holding their bellies. They pretended to sympathize, offering long cries each time he missed and then made fun of him with condescending words of encouragement, most of which referred to the disparity in size between hunter and prey.

The sun was setting when he had finished gathering all the ingredients. He built a fire over the ashes from the night before. While he plucked the quail, he went through the order in which things had to be prepared and cooked. With a stew, order is everything, Asa used to say. It surprised Håkan how well he remembered each detail and how vivid Asa’s image was, guiding him through every step. Once the birds were cleaned, the flowers sorted, the nuts peeled, the lard in place, and the mushrooms chopped, he headed back to his cell, always making sure he was seen. He even caught the eye of one of the civilians and pointed down to the trench to let him know what his intention was. The man, busy with his flask, ignored him.

Once in the square chamber, he took the tin box out of a hole concealed under a pile of firewood. Next to it lay Asa’s spoon. Håkan paused. Then, he opened the box. There, among his medical instruments, was the little bottle with the tincture. After so many years, whatever was left of it had evaporated. All that remained was a caramel cloud darkening the inner walls of the bottle and some crystallized dregs stuck to the bottom. He took Asa’s spoon and hid the bottle in his sleeve. With a loud grunt, to make sure someone would turn toward him, he climbed out of the trench, waved at the guard with the spoon, put the pot on the fire, and started to cook.

It was the first proper meal he had made since Asa’s death. Mushrooms cooking in lard. The scent of herbs and blossoms. The browning quail. Some of the men approached the pot and stuck their noses in it. The civilians were already drunk. Finally, he added some water. All surrounding heads turned to the fragrant steam. As the liquid boiled down and became more viscous, Håkan got the little bottle out of his sleeve and put it into the pot, making sure it sank to the bottom.

The civilians walked over with their tinware. Håkan served them. They sat down by the fire, heavy and stupid with drink. Their initial merriment had turned into a focused form of confusion—knit brows, determined eyes, carefully calculated yet extremely ineffectual movements. They ate with relish and kept drinking between bites.

“Dudley! Fellows! The giant can cook!”

Håkan forever remembered that name, although he never learned whose it was.

“Ah. This feels real good,” the man said and lost consciousness, followed shortly after by the other civilian, who quietly closed his eyes.

The three soldiers approached the fire and laughed at the civilians. The man in blue made the sign of the cross over them.

“In the hope of a glorious resurrection,” he said with mocking solemnity.

“In two days, maybe,” added one of the gray soldiers.

More laughs.

“That does smell good. Let’s have some,” the blue soldier ordered Håkan.

“Not for me,” said the other gray soldier. “I had his dried beef. And that was enough.”

Chuckles.

“But this is good stuff, this is. Like home or something,” his gray companion said.

Håkan proffered a spoonful.

“Didn’t you hear? None of that for me.”

“Well,” the blue soldier muttered between bites, “more for us.”

The man who refused to eat spat over his shoulder. The other two kept devouring the quail.

“Let’s get some of that,” the blue soldier said and got up to fetch the flask by the civilians.

He stumbled, and his single hand was not enough to catch his fall. The gray soldier sitting next to him tried to get up but failed. All at once, the remaining man understood everything and reached for his gun. Before he could draw, Håkan hit him in the head with the pot. He never checked whether he was unconscious or dead, preferring to live with the uncertainty rather than with the knowledge of having killed another man.