The Settlers (53 page)

From the kitchen the children had been listening to the commotion, and the two smallest boys were crying with fright. Kristina quickly closed the door. Karl Oskar remained in his corner, staring silently at the floor. He had not answered Kristina’s rebuke. His senses had returned, he stood with his head bent.

“Attacking a brother! Acting like a lunatic!”

Kristina approached Robert.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not seriously . . . It’s nothing . . .”

His hand moved to his sore upper lip. His brother’s fist could not knock out teeth which he had lost far out West, in buffalo country.

His fingers moved slowly across his lips.

“Its nothing at all! I’m not even bleeding! The liar hasn’t even blood to give!”

“I want to talk with you calmly, Robert,” said Kristina. “Won’t you tell me the truth now . . .”

“Dear Kristina—I didn’t want to fool you, I wasn’t trying to cheat anyone . . .”

He turned to his older brother.

“I am not lying . . . I didn’t know . . . I had never tried to use the money . . . I had saved it for you and Kristina . . . I wanted to leave everything I owned to you and her . . . And I expected you to come back from Stillwater and offer me your hand . . .”

He stopped. He continued to himself: You did offer me your hand, brother. But it was a fist, hard, and struck my face. It hit instead of thanked. Such is our fate, brother. Our lot in life.

Karl Oskar had acted in a fit of anger. But now he had had time to control himself and knew that he had gone too far, that he had committed an outrage against his brother. He had given free rein to his anger, and in so doing he had also given his brother the upper hand.

“Forgive me, Robert,” he stammered.

“You had a right to hit me. It was my fault. I lived so long with that wildcat . . . I was blind to him . . .”

“I blew up,” said Karl Oskar. “Will you forgive me?” He had raised his head.

“I forgive you, of course. You’re already forgiven! You’re my only brother . . . I should have asked you to forgive me . . . But it’s too late now . . . everything is too late . . .”

Robert sounded submissive, as if he had earned the blow, as if it were a well-deserved punishment. His legs felt steadier now, and he walked slowly away toward the gable room.

Karl Oskar remained in his corner; the blow he had given his brother seemed to have dazed him instead.

Kristina was silent and reproached him no longer. When she heard him apologize to his brother she felt a strong compassion for her husband; anyone could make a mistake.

Robert had gone to his room. They stood and waited, silent, confused after the flare-up. He came out again, and now he had put on his boots, coat, and hat. He moved quickly and resolutely.

“Where are you going?” asked Kristina, surprised.

He did not reply to her—he turned to Karl Oskar.

“I’m off again. I don’t want you to feel ashamed of your brother. Goodbye! Forgive me the embarrassment I’ve caused you.”

“Take it easy, Robert! Wait a minute!” Kristina had grabbed hold of the back of his coat. “You can’t go off again! You aren’t well! You need care . . . !”

“Goodbye, Kristina. You’ve always been kind to me . . .”

He walked toward the door, passing the fireplace corner where the green-black bills lay scattered—wildcat money. As they caught his eye he stopped, as if a vision had appeared to him, revealing all, explaining all. He exclaimed, “As good as gold! No! As false as gold! Bills or gold, all money is equally false! ‘As good as gold!’ Ha, ha! As rotten, as deceitful, root of all evil! Dead weight! That’s what gold is! Now I can laugh at it all . . . Ha, ha, ha!”

And as Robert hurried out the door he began to laugh, a high, piercing laugh, echoing through the house after him.

His laughter caught his brother and sister-in-law unawares; it frightened them as much as a sudden attack on their home with shot and shell. They were completely perplexed. And they made no attempt to stop him.

They stood and looked through the window after the fugitive, who was already some distance from the house. He walked along the edge of the field, down the slope, toward the lake; he crossed the narrow creek and continued westward.

He was headed for the forest. Soon he would be swallowed up by the pines and the thickets.

“Hurry after him!” Kristina urged her husband. “Hurry as fast as you can—don’t let him get away!”

Karl Oskar replied that he knew his brother. Better to leave him alone when he took off. Robert had always run away. He had fled many times in his life, but he had always come back. He was sure to return this time too.

Robert’s tall, narrow body disappeared among the pines, whose trunks were gilded by the early morning sun. He walked with hurried steps until he vanished from their sight.

XXV

A STREAM THAT RUNS TOWARD GREATER WATERS

—1—

Robert walked without any definite course, around thickets, avoiding holes and swamps, choosing the easiest path. He detoured, walking sideways, between tree trunks, around boulders and hills, across glades and clearings. He walked without knowing where he was going, cut through the forest without a goal.

It was a sizzling hot day. The bark of the forest pines exuded a scorched odor. Tinder-dry branches cracked underfoot. No one had ever cut or removed fallen and dead trees from this wild forest: they stood where their roots held them, rotting down aboveground. Their dry boles had darkened in the bark and stood there covered with gray peelings; the dead trees appeared to be covered with dust and ashes, buried standing up after their death.

In forest openings he waded through tall, coarse grass which crackled against his knees. And wherever he walked, mosquitoes in great clouds kept him company. One thick swarm circled his head and followed him faithfully in all his turns and detours, stinging him angrily, whizzing, buzzing their eternal hum. They were like wild beasts thirsting for his blood.

When his legs grew tired, he sat down on the ground on a soft spot. But he took only short rests; soon he rose again and walked on; the pursuer inside his head forced him to keep moving on. He must stay on the move, must get away. He must keep walking for as long as he found ground under his feet.

His master kept him awake when he wanted to sleep, awakened him if he nodded, got him to his feet when he sat down to rest. His ear ached terribly. This morning again there had been a big red spot on the pillow.

He wandered about in the forest as the day passed. A dry branch knocked off his hat; he left it behind. The swarm of buzzing mosquitoes followed him on his wandering. He walked with a singing wreath of mosquitoes in his hair, he carried a crown of bloodsucking insects on his forehead. He wandered through the forest crowned like a king, crowned by a cloud of stinging, plaguing mosquitoes, and in the center of the cloud was the aching ear.

In the afternoon the skies grew overcast; with the sun hidden the air cooled off, and toward evening it began to rain. Soft drops wet his skin, they fell more heavily, and at last drove away the mosquito wreath around his head, and its monotonous song died away. It was a relief to be rid of this crown of bloodthirsty insects.

With dusk the rain increased. The drops no longer caressed his skin, they were sharp, whip-like. Wet grass and leaves soaked his skin, his pants clung to his legs, water splashed in his boots. For a while he looked for shelter. Then he crept into a thicket of mountain ash. He tore leaves from the lush foliage and spread them on the ground. He would make a bed; he covered himself with a branch and stretched out on the leaves. He lay hidden by the foliage, and the thicket was hidden by darkness.

Night fell with urgency over the forest. Here there were animals, and his good ear registered the night sounds of living creatures, sneaking, creeping, hissing, wings fluttering. A few times he heard persistent calls, perhaps Indians, perhaps birds. But his left ear heard only the usual sound, accompanied by pain.

He picked up a few wet leaves and tried to press them into his ear. They felt soft and cool, seemed to relieve the ache for a moment. He went to sleep but woke up immediately. His pursuer had awakened him. He pushed fresh leaves into his ear. Then he went to sleep again.

His night in the thicket passed in a continuous sleeping and wakening, and during both he heard his pursuer’s voice: I’m with you wherever you go! I’m inside your head and you can’t get away from me! You can run away from other masters but not from me!

At daybreak a clear summer morning dawned over the wild forest. The clouds opened their portals for heaven’s sun, which shone into even the densest thickets. He rose from his bed of leaves, a few of them revealed red spots where his head had been against them. He was struck by the old saying that leaves spotted red when a bird coughed. When he tried to move, he felt as if he had heavy weights on his limbs. He trembled and shuddered; this warm morning he felt cold inside.

He walked on, slower now, his steps unsteady, unsure. The oppressive heat returned, and the swarm of mosquitoes with it. Again he became a king with a mosquito crown; but the bloodsucking creatures ruled over him.

He felt thirsty and began to look for water. His stomach was empty but he felt no hunger.

His ear hummed and throbbed and drove him on. He must get away, he must flee to some place where he would be unreachable. Only the unreachable one could enjoy peace and rest. He did not recognize this part of the forest, did not know what time of day it was. In his pocket he carried Arvid’s watch, but it had stopped three years ago and had not been wound since.

Snails in great numbers had come out after last nights rain, enlivening the ground with their beautiful houses—blue, yellow, red, and brown—striped in all colors. But the rain had already been sucked up by the earth, the holes and creeks were empty. He must quench his thirst, he kept looking. In a clearing he found some wild strawberries and picked and ate them. They tasted to him of summer at home in Sweden, when children removed their stockings and shoes and ran barefoot, but they did not relieve his thirst.

Suddenly he realized where he was; above him rose the green brow of the Indian, the sand-cliff king, crowned with a stunted growth of greenery. The dethroned ruler of the forest looked out over his lost kingdom. His face was petrified in sorrow, his eyes so deep they appeared bottomless. But proudly the Indian turned his brown-yellow forehead to the east and called to the intruders who swarmed over the valley like bloodthirsty beasts: Fill this deep valley with gold! We do not accept your gold for the graves of our fathers!

Gold! A great mocking laughter filled his ear, it echoed through the forest, it echoed through the whole world. A farm hand had started out for California to dig gold. He peeled potatoes, dug cellar-holes, cut wood, fed mules, washed dishes. And in between he dreamed a dream that had nothing to do with the yellow gold, and that was the true dream, the dream of running water. But now he was confused by words he recollected, scenes he had witnessed, songs he had partly heard: Oh the good time has come at last—the best time in California is over—they’re digging like hell for gold—Corn and pudding and tapioca pie—Hi and ho and off we go!—and a heart torn from a carcass of ribs, and a decaying horse-leg kicking futilely against the heavens with a silvery shoe . . .

For some time he followed a winding deer path, until he came to a bog with a narrow water hole in the center. But this was stagnant water and he dared not drink it. In that hole lay fevers and ills and the poison of lurking death. One careless swallow of that water, and death would enter his body. Stagnant waters spoiled quickly and no one could trust them.

Drinking water must be running water. The dream-water must be in motion, pouring forth, purling and swirling in freedom; it must flow free as the river that ran to the sea.

We will be free, we will be free,

As the wind of the earth and the waves of the sea.

He walked around the bog without attempting to drink, his feet sinking deep in the mud. He left clear tracks behind him. Indians never left any tracks when they passed through the forest. An Indian’s foot moved lightly and quickly as a wing above the earth. Now he was back at the place where his boot tracks indicated he had been earlier.

He thought now and then that he had run away again. As soon as no one was looking he ran away to the woods and hid. This he had done ever since he was a small child. But this time no one had hung a bell around his neck. This time no one would find him. He would remain unreachable.

He saw a great body of water shining blue among the pines: he was back at Ki-Chi-Saga. Many people had lately come to this lake, cutting the trees, timbering their houses. But in this particular spot the shoreline still lay wild and untouched as far as he could see. He walked slowly along the shore, looked down into the water which clearly reflected the skies above him. He could see the reeds growing upside down, stretching their heads toward an open sky which undulated at the bottom. He could see two skies, two heavens, the one above him and the one below in the water, and between them lay the earth on which he himself wandered about, lost.

Striking fins made circling ripples among the boulders; near the shore the lake bubbled with fish. If he had a fishing pole he would immediately have a bite. And if he could make a fire and if he had a pan . . . For a moment he thought about the taste of good, fried fish; but he felt no real hunger.

On a flat stone in the sand lay a fish, washed up by the waves; it had a big head with two horns, a long narrow tail. Its whiskers told him it was a catfish. But its skin was white, perhaps it had been lying here dead, in loneliness, drying for a long time in the sun. He picked up the fish by the gills and held it to his nose; it smelled disgusting, making him want to vomit. It had already spoiled. With a jerk he threw the fish away, far out into the lake.

His feeling of hunger entirely disappeared as soon as he smelled the fish. But his burning thirst remained. His tongue felt dry and thick and squeezed. His ear throbbed and ached. He walked along under the tall pines near the shore, it was cool in their shade; under them the water lay black as tar. In several places he found fish skeletons, gnawed clean by animals; and in the sand were the round tracks of fox paws.