In the Distance Read online

  Tethered to posts along the street, a few emaciated horses twitched under swarms of flies. Meanwhile, the men leaning against walls and door-sills seemed immune to the insects, which were probably repelled by the strong tobacco all of them were smoking. Like James and Håkan, the bystanders were also in rags, and under the wide-brimmed hats, their weather-beaten faces were bark and leather abstractions. Still, the onlookers retained faint traces of civilization that life in the wilderness had completely erased from the newcomers’ countenance.

  James and Håkan walked under the silent scrutiny of the smokers, and that same silence followed them into the general store. The shopkeeper interrupted his conversation with an old man in a faded dragoon uniform. James nodded at them. They nodded back. He walked around picking up kerosene lamps, tools, sacks of flour and sugar, blankets, charqui, powder, and other supplies he requested from behind the counter with laconic grunts. When James was done, the shopkeeper went through the items, pointing at each one softly with his index and middle fingers, as if blessing them, and then presented his customer with a bill jotted down in lead. James barely looked at it. He walked to the back of the store, hid poorly behind some casks, turned his back to everyone, hunched over as if doing something obscene, looked behind his shoulder a couple of times, and then returned to the counter, on which he put down a few gold nuggets.

  The shopkeeper must have had a well-trained eye, because he neither haggled nor examined the gold but swiftly put it away, thanking his customer. A boy around Håkan’s age but half his size started dragging their things outside. The dragoon slipped out without saying good-bye.

  While the burro was being loaded, James and Håkan went to the inn. Heads turned, several pairs of eyes looked up from froth-crowned mugs of ale, a dealing hand froze in midair, a light lingered too long in front of a cigar. The Irishman and the Swede also paused. Everyone stared at them. With their first step toward the counter, the patrons came back to life.

  The bartender nodded as they approached, and by the time they had reached the bar, two ales and a plate of dried meat were waiting for them. Håkan had never had liquor before and found the warm, bitter brew repulsive. He was too shy to ask for water and made the mistake of eating some of the charqui. James took a pull at his ale. Nobody looked at them, yet they were unmistakably the center of everyone’s attention. James patted his chest, trying to conceal the pouch that kept showing through the tears in his tattered shirt. The bartender kept his mug full.

  A door opened on the second floor, across the room from the counter. Only James’s and Håkan’s heads turned around and up. Fleetingly, Håkan saw a tall woman in a purple dress with silver scales. Above the corset, her bosom also sparkled with glitter. Her hair poured in waves of thick amber over her shoulders, and her lips were a red that was almost black. She tilted her head, looked at Håkan with an intensity that somehow came from her lips rather than her eyes, and vanished behind the doorjamb. As soon as she was gone, the shabby dragoon came out of the room, followed by a tidy fat man. The rotund fop hobbled down the staircase, following the dragoon, and headed straight for the two strangers. Despite being soaked in sweat, he was the only clean man in the place, the only one who was not caked with grime. An orange-blossom aura surrounded him. He wiped his brow with an immaculate handkerchief and folded it fastidiously before returning it to his chest pocket, after which he flattened his hair to one side with his hands and cleared his throat. All this was done with the utmost gravity. Then, as if a spring activating a hidden mechanism had been set off, he smiled, took a small bow, and, quite loudly, addressed the strangers. It seemed to be a formal speech. While talking, the fat man described an arc with his upturned hand, encompassing the whole bar or maybe even the entire desert beyond it, and then stretched out his other arm, as if accepting or offering an enormous gift, shut his eyes beatifically, and said, in conclusion, after a solemn pause, “Welcome to Clangston.”

  James nodded without ever looking up.

  With the loud and affected friendliness that Håkan would later find in preachers and peddlers, the perfumed man asked a very long question and then widened his frame by fitting his thumbs into his waistcoat’s armholes.

  James grunted a brief response with a dryness that was either defiant or fearful.

  The fat man behind the imperturbable smile nodded compassionately, as if dealing with a sick infant or a harmless idiot.

  The dragoon, who had slithered to the darkest corner of the room, pressed down on one of his nostrils and cleanly shot out a plug of snot from the other. The fat man sighed, signaled in his direction with a soft hand, and apologized in a tired, somewhat maternal tone. Then he turned back to James and asked him another question, always smiling, always polite. James stared into his mug of ale. The fat man repeated the question. Only a few of the gamblers and drinkers could keep pretending to go on with their conversations. James swept the filthy counter with the edge of his hand a few times. With affected patience, the man pointed at the general store where they had bought their supplies and explained something in a condescending tone. Once done, he shrugged and looked at James, who, after a long pause, said, “No.” The fat man shrugged again, folding his lower lip over the upper one, and then clapped his hands against each of his thighs, emitting a potent surge of orange blossom, and shook his head, as if resigned to accept some outlandish fancy as an irrefutable truth. He stood in silence for a while, assuming a contemplative air, and then arched his eyebrows and nodded, pretending that James’s answer had finally sunk in and that he was genuinely at peace with it. The dragoon blew the other side of his nose. Nothing came out.

  The bartender was about to top James off once more when the boy from the store peered into the bar and announced that the burro was ready. James produced a few coins from his trouser pocket, but the fat man, feigning grave offense, cried, “No, no, no, no, no, no,” and interposed his starched sleeve between James and the bartender. He made a brief ceremonial statement, took a deep breath, and finally repeated, as his fingers crawled between the buttons of his waistcoat, “Welcome to Clangston.”

  Håkan and James went outside and inspected the ropes and straps fastening their goods to the burro. James started out slowly, without turning back, but Håkan lingered by the tethering posts. He looked around to make sure nobody was watching and then drank avidly from the trough by the fly-ridden horses, cupping the brown water in his hands. The men inside the bar laughed. Håkan turned around, startled and ashamed, but the door was just a black hole in the sunstruck façade. Then he remembered the woman and looked up. The window glistened impenetrably. He caught up with James, and together they made their way down the single street of Clangston.

  They traveled back as fast as they could, stopping after dark and leaving again before daybreak. For long stretches, James had Håkan follow him backwards, sweeping the ground with a stick to dim and confuse their tracks. From time to time, James would suddenly stop and stare into the void, his index finger crossed over his lips and his hollowed hand to his ear, listening for pursuers. They ate charqui and biscuits (both of which James had to soak in water), and they never built a fire.

  Although they had spent only a brief time in Clangston—and even if its short, shabby street could hardly be called a town, and its few filthy inhabitants had almost been eroded by the elements—Håkan was still astounded by the sight of James’s rustic mine by the stream. The camp was just a heap of branches, some planks salvaged from the wrecked wheelbarrow, and garbage that could only have any value in that extreme isolation—all scattered around an ash pit. Eileen and the children, jumping for joy at their arrival, were shredded, swollen, pustulated creatures. Not just their clothes, but their very skin was ragged, and it hung off their flesh like worn gauze. They were gaunt yet bloated by the sun, and their small gray-blue eyes set in this contradictory frame shone with a feverish spark, all of which made their delight a frightening thing to witness. Håkan thought of the condemned forest creatures in his brother’s tale
s.

  Rather than improving their situation, the new supplies only deepened the void that separated the Brennans from the world. After setting up his new lamps, James was able to work around the clock. He became a demented skeleton, hammering away day and night, pausing only to sneak into the dark to hide his daily findings. Eileen and the children remained as lively as ever, but they were careful to stay clear of James, whose mistrustful fits of anger were becoming impossible to contain. When he was not digging the canal or lugging boulders, Håkan spent his time with the children, who also taught him some English—although the words he learned did not go far beyond their immediate environment and the modest demands of their games.

  A few days passed. How many, Håkan could not tell—he was not even sure how long it had been since he had landed in San Francisco. In Sweden, back at the farm, they had neither calendars nor clocks, but work had both divided the days into regular segments and grouped them into constant cycles. At the mine, however, time seemed either to be frozen or to slip away—it was hard to tell which. James worked ceaselessly. Eileen invented chores for herself. The children roamed around. Each day resembled the last, and their lives remained unchanged until a speck of dust appeared on the horizon.

  By the time Eileen alerted James, the speck had grown into an ochre smudge hovering on the skyline, and while James fetched his musket, it became a cloud shrouding six riders and a carriage. James looked at the approaching convoy while loading shot into the muzzle and fumbling with his powder flask. His wife asked him nervous questions. He ignored her and readied the flintlock. The children stood by their father, gaping at the horizon. Always staring ahead, James pushed them away from him. The horses approached at a slow walk. Gradually, the crunch of pebbles being ground under the steel tires, the chirp of springs and poorly oiled axles, and a jingle of bits, buckles, and spurs became audible. All eyes were on the carriage. It was a purple coach covered with shiny spots that reflected the midday sun. The four plumed horses driving it seemed to feel insulted by the heat. Nervous tassels dangled from the sides of the roof. As the carriage got closer, the shiny spots revealed themselves to be gilded volutes, flowers, laces, and wreaths that framed vividly painted scenes of men suffering the cruelest torments and of women forced in unspeakable ways, of villages in flames and heaps of rotting animals, of whippings and impalements, of beheadings and burning stakes, of pillories and gibbets, of agonizing faces and spilling entrails. At the front of the contingent, Håkan saw the tidy fat man and the dragoon.

  They stopped at a prudent distance but close enough to address James without screaming. Nobody dismounted. They all had guns at their belts, and one of them brought two burros in tow. James stood still. The children hugged Eileen’s waist. The door and windows of the carriage remained shut. The heavy black velvet curtains swelled and collapsed, slowly, regularly, as if the coach were breathing.

  The fat man patted his shiny gray lovingly and leaned over her neck, whispering something to her. He cleared his throat; the hidden spring activated his mechanical smile; and—after raising his hat to Eileen, who shyly curtsied back—he started delivering one of his long, smug speeches. He addressed Eileen for the most part, but he also had sanctimonious smiles and admonitory finger-wags for the children. Suddenly, he pretended to have discovered the mine and the canal and to be deeply impressed by them. A spirited oration ensued. Once done with his condescending panegyric, he feigned having a hard time extinguishing his enthusiasm, but when he had finally composed himself, he arranged his paper cuffs, rubbed his hands, and moved on to serious business. After a lengthy preamble, he laboriously detached his pommel bag and held it wide open. It was brimful with paper money. He made a dramatic pause, stressed by an emphatic adjustment of his waistcoat. James kept his eyes on him. The fat man wiped his brow with his handkerchief and uttered a few words with sacerdotal pomp. Then he motioned to the mine once again. This time, he seemed to refer to it with some disdain, and to conclude, he pointed again to the money with great satisfaction.

  “No,” said James with determination.

  The fat man sighed stoically, like a doctor dealing with a superstitious patient who refuses to accept what is best for him, then turned to Eileen and, resuming his patronizing tone, in a singsong manner, said something about the children.

  James, trembling with fury, started screaming. He ordered his family to step back, and yelled at the convoy, brandishing his old musket. The fat man pretended to be scandalized by this outburst. James turned his wrath to the carriage. Håkan did not understand the words, but it was clear enough that James was asking who was in there and demanding he come out. Eventually, he gestured too vehemently toward the coach, which prompted the men to draw their guns. James paled. The dragoon rode in a slow curve, putting Eileen and the children directly in his line of fire. The fat man intervened with conciliatory phlegm, as if he were the only adult present. Again, he spoke with resignation about James’s children. This time, he was brief. A moment of silence ensued, after which the fat man snapped his fingers, and the burros were led to James’s side. The fat man tossed James the bag of money and explained that the burros were for Eileen and the children.

  “Go,” he concluded with surprising curtness. “Now.”

  James attempted a response.

  “Now,” he repeated.

  James looked at the mine with quivering lips. He had the expression of an obsequious dog ordered to follow a command it did not understand. He glanced toward the secret hole where he hid his gold. Eileen put the children on one of the burros and went to get her stunned husband. Håkan started to pack whatever supplies were at hand.

  “No. Not you,” said the dragoon, nodding in Håkan’s direction. His voice was surprisingly pleasant, “What’s your name?”

  “Håkan.”

  “What?”

  “Håkan.”

  “Hawk?”

  “Håkan.”

  “Hawk can what?”

  “Håkan.”

  “Can what?”

  Håkan remained silent.

  “Get in the coach, Hawk.”

  Håkan looked around, confused. The Brennans were too busy and dumbstruck to mind him. He walked hesitantly to the coach and opened the door. Blinded by the midday sun, the interior seemed to him as vast as the night sky. It smelled of incense and burned sugar. He sat awkwardly on a mangy velvet seat, and, as shadows became visible in the dark, across from him, gradually, the tenuous yet gleaming outline of the woman with thick lips and amber hair took shape.

  “You don’t speak English. You don’t understand. That’s fine.” The words spilled out of her full lips. That was all the woman said during their four-day journey to Clangston.

  Håkan ate and slept with the men but rode with the woman in her dark, suffocating carriage. Toward the middle of the trip, she requested, both through gestures and by firmly guiding his body, that he recline his head on her lap. She caressed his hair and stroked the back of his neck for the next two days.

  3.

  Two men escorted Håkan through the empty barroom and led him upstairs to a room adjacent to the woman’s. A bed, a barred window, a bucket of pine-smelling water. He was ordered to strip and wash. When his efforts were deemed too timid, one of the men grabbed a brush and scrubbed him down vigorously. The other man left the room, returned with two bundles, and threw a new suit of clothes on the bed and some rags to wipe up the soapy water on the floor. Then they both left, bolting the door behind them.

  Håkan got into bed, his skin burning from the cold, the bristles, and the pine oil. Underneath the pain, he sensed the vastness of the plains weighing on his heart. But further down, in a part of himself new to him, he was, to his surprise, content and at peace. It felt good to be in bed, hurting, alone. And it felt good to slide into the deepest sadness he had experienced since losing Linus. His grief was indistinguishable from his ease—both had the same texture and temperature. Comfort and gloom, he realized, came from the combination of cold water and th
e scent of pine resin. He had not felt that tingling since his ice baths in the lake back in Sweden. And that smell. Håkan and Linus, following their father’s lead, would crack a hole open on a safe spot (the ice had to be thin enough for the ax but thick enough to bear them), plunge into the lead-colored water, stay afloat with calm semicircular kicks, holding their breath for as long as possible to keep buoyant, and then climb out of the hole, imitating their father’s relaxed indifference to the cold and suppressing their impulse to run to the shore, whose knuckle-shaped pebbles forced them to proceed swinging their arms like wire walkers, until they reached the pine tree under which they found their clothes safe from the snow that was netted in the intricate, angular weave of perennial needles.

  The coarse sheets rubbed pleasantly against his skin. He wondered whether his brother had also spent months without sleeping in a bed. He tried to conceive the distance separating him from New York, where he knew Linus was waiting for him, but could think only of that infinite extension in terms of time—the countless days, the many seasons it would take him to cross the continent. For the first time, Håkan was almost glad to have been forced to go on this journey: after his long trip and all the unimaginable adventures that lay ahead, he would arrive a grown man, and, for once, surprise his brother with tales of his own.

  A clinking of glasses and cutlery came from below, together with the voices of three or four men talking calmly. Håkan got up and inspected his new clothes. Because he had worn mended hand-me-downs all his life (clothes received from Linus, who had inherited them from their father, who, in turn, had got them from some unknown source), he unfolded the crisp trousers and shirt with reverence. Despite its stiffness, the fabric was soft and downy. He put the collarless shirt to his nose. It had a scent he had never smelled before, a scent he could describe only as new. He got dressed. The navy trousers did not quite reach his ankles, and the white sleeves ended about two inches before his wrists, but otherwise the clothes fit him perfectly. In his new outfit, he felt, with an intensity that not even the perpetual plains had yet managed to convey, that he was in America.