The Settlers (37 page)

Where they lay outstretched on their sandy bed the stars were lit high above them. In the night’s darkness the emptiness of the plain disappeared. Round and about them in the dark were rocks and hills with humps and dips on their backs, like giant caravan camels resting after a day’s march. As a guardian wall around the plain the distant ridges rose like monstrous dromedaries against the heavens.

They slept but woke with limbs stiff and aching from the night cold. They opened their eyes toward the heavens. Above them the stars glittered with a cold, bluish light, like icicles under eaves. They crept closer, seeking the warmth from each others bodies.

They slept and awoke several times during the night, and as soon as the first light of morning broke over the plain they arose and resumed their wandering. Hour after hour, they continued through this region of emptiness and thirst. The coolness of the distant hills seemed closer: they exerted their last strength, dragging their feet slowly. But the wind stayed with them, dug itself into their bodies, whirled dust into nose and eyes, into mouth and ears, accumulated it in their hair; the dust worked into their armpits, between their legs, into their groins. The dust-sand clawed and chafed, pierced and hurt; they smelled it, chewed it, tramped in it, wallowed in dust—the dusty plain had moved inside them, into their intestines, it spread before them and penetrated them, dry and consuming.

The skin on their bodies and limbs felt dried out and shrunken, it cracked and ached. The dusty wind had dried out their mouths, spread to their throats, it was about to choke them: the thirst.

There could be only one relief from this torture—one word of five letters—which they were now seeking. A few times they thought they had found it. The ground under their feet sloped, and they looked into a hole. But it was too late: it
had been
a water hole. Now it was only a hole without water; the bottom lay empty, displaying only the hardened ridges from animals’ hooves. The water had dried out, the bottom mud lay dry and light gray, like ashes on the hearth.

And after these disappointments the thirst gripped their throats harder.

In the middle of the day, when the sun was at its height, the air over the plain was like burning embers in their lungs. They crept down into the shade behind a low hill, panting and giddy.

Their bodily juices were exhausted; their lips cracked and their skin peeled off in large flakes. Their feet ached and were terribly sore; they pulled off their boots: their feet were raw both above and beneath, exposing red, hot flesh, the seat of the pain which burned with its fire-flame.

Low, thorny bushes grew over the ground around the hill. Everything growing in this region was thorny, prickly, and odorless. In other places grass would grow—cool, friendly, soft. Here it was hard and sharp and piercing. The very leaves of the flowering bushes were sharp and hostile. Everything that grew here plagued them, scratched and pierced and stung them.

What kind of evil country was this they had gotten into? wondered Arvid. Here even grass and flowers tried to harm their hands.

He pulled out his leather pouch in which he kept his watch key; he opened the watchcase to wind his watch—it must not be allowed to stop. He always wanted to know what time it was. Even though he no longer knew where he was, at least he wanted to know what time it was. He might be lost in the world, but not in time.

Arvid was afraid dust would blow into the case and stop the watch: “A helluva lot of dust! This must be hell’s dust bowl! I’m dying of thirst . . .”

Robert said he had been looking for buffalo tracks. If they could find any they would follow them to a water hole.

Arvid swallowed, and Robert swallowed, both of them kept swallowing all the time, without anything in their mouths to swallow. But all the time their thoughts were filled with the things they would have liked to drink.

Robert stretched out his ash-dry, swollen tongue and moved it across his lips, pretending to moisten them: if they only could find a buffalo cow; then he would milk her. Buffalo milk might not taste as fresh as water, but would surely slake the thirst. And buffalo milk was said to be fat and nourishing. It would give them strength to continue. If they now had luck enough to run across a cow that had lately calved . . .

“Buffalo are wild beasts!” said Arvid. “You couldn’t milk them!”

Robert stretched out full length against the hillside and immediately went to sleep. Then water came to him: in clear streams it flowed toward his face and he opened his mouth and drank. Spring-cool, refreshing water poured into his mouth, trickled down his throat. He opened his mouth wider to let in more of this comforting splendor that washed toward him. He could not open his mouth wide enough to this clear, refreshing stream.

His mouth purled like a brook. And now he recognized the stream: he was lying on his stomach near the mill brook at home, drinking its water. Into that brook he had once thrown his jacket, trying to pretend that he had drowned, for he wanted to be free of all masters and follow the running stream to the sea, to the New World.

But the mill brook water had no taste. He drank and swallowed and swallowed and drank but his thirst remained. The water pleased his eyes but did not satisfy his taste. He saw it but could not taste it. It was a peculiar stream, this one. The water ran into him—he opened his mouth wide—it poured into his throat, down into his stomach, but he could not feel a single drop within his body: the water from the mill brook did not quench his thirst however much he drank. He swallowed whole barrelfuls but it helped his thirst not a bit. At last the water felt hard as stone—scratching, tearing, piercing, burning his tongue . . .

Robert woke up: he lay with his face against a hard boulder and his tongue dangled from his mouth, licking the dry stone as a cow licks a lump of salt.

He had drunk without anything to drink.

Arvid had pushed both his hands under a thorny bush and was filling them with sand which he threw into the air. He was digging a hole in the ground, poking, scratching. What was he digging for? Why couldn’t he find it right here? A spring might exist anywhere, one never knew. If one only dug sufficiently deep. But it wasn’t easy with one’s hands only . . .

Robert sniffed the wind:

“It stinks of cadaver somewhere . . .”

“Yes, I smell it too.”

“I wonder where . . .”

They arose and set out in the direction whence the wind brought them the nauseating odor. Almost immediately they found its origin: within a stone’s throw lay the half-rotted carcass of a horse. They stopped a few paces from it and held their noses. Pieces of hide indicated the horse had been dark brown; the flesh was partly eaten away, the ribs were scraped clean, white, bent, like the peeled willow rushes of a wicker basket. The head had two deep black holes: the eyes had been picked out by carrion birds. The long teeth were exposed in a wide, eternal grin.

One hind leg had been torn apart, skinned, and lay some distance from the carcass. It was raised up, in a last, stiffened kick against the sky. The steel horseshoe glittered like silver in the sun. They noticed that the rotting horse had been newly shod.

Only a few yards from the carcass lay the broken steering shaft of a Conestoga wagon, half buried in sand. One large wheel with several inches of broad rim was buried in dust to the hub, as if suddenly having been brought to a halt as it rolled.

Sick from the stinking cadaver, Robert and Arvid were ready to turn away when Arvid exclaimed:

“Look! O Jesus my Lord!”

He shied back and pointed. Something was sticking up in the sand just in front of his feet. Something white, only an inch or two long, spindly, like a skinned birch twig—and on its end was a human fingernail. It was a finger bone poking up from the ground in front of them. Arvid had almost stepped on it.

They ran away from the place, the smell of rotten flesh pursuing them.

The boys hurried on in silence, the dust whirling round their feet. They did not walk in any definite direction, only where it was easiest for their feet. They wanted to get away from the place—away . . .

As they wandered across the plain, they felt their strength wane and they stumbled. But they must keep moving forward. They must not come to a stop. If they came to a stop they were sure they could never move on again. And one who was unable to move forward on the California Trail was also unable to move back.

Once Arvid stopped and mumbled hoarsely:

“I almost stepped on . . .” He moved his hand to his cracked lips. “Robert! It was a forefinger . . . !”

He was sure. And the finger in the sand had pointed right at them.

—5—

The sun was getting low, losing its power. It grew cooler; the shadows near hills and boulders lengthened toward evening. They staggered along drunkenly, a vise of dryness arid thirst squeezing their bodies. Their guts shrank into a knot. Their legs flagged and bent under the increasing weight of their bodies.

Arvid stumbled into a hole; he made no effort to get up. He fell headfirst and lay still:

“Without anything to drink I’m unable to go on . . .”

Robert sat down beside his comrade, taking him by the shoulder, but felt dizziness come over him; the ground around him was wavering; he must sit there until it stopped.

Arvid rose to his knees and began to dig in the sand with his hands. He made a scoop of his fingers and dug holes a foot or more in depth. Below the surface the ground was darker and felt cooler. If he should find water here—then he could throw himself on his stomach and . . .

Robert followed the motions with his eyes, unable to understand. What was Arvid doing? What was he digging for? The holes he dug were immediately filled up and obliterated. With his scoop he caught nothing but dust, and it poured back between his fingers and became part of the ground again. Yet Arvid continued without stopping, digging in hell’s dust bowl.

“It’s all my fault . . . The mules ran away because my knots were too loose . . .”

Dizziness had for a moment so overtaken Robert that he did not know what Arvid was talking about. Mules that had run away—loose knots in a halter—how did that concern him? Only one thing concerned him now.

He understood their predicament but couldn’t understand how they had got into it. They were in a dust bowl; they were wandering about alone in a desolate region where the ground, the hills, the boulders were nothing but dust, small whirling hard grains. Were they in a desert where everything had been burnt by the fire of the sun? What were they doing here? What were they looking for in this wide, empty space? Why had they come here? What were they looking for in a region that had nothing to offer? They had reached a land of nothingness, and it now closed in about them, terrifyingly. It had caught them in its ravenous jaws. There they sat, like prisoners in a trap.

Arvid went on scooping and scratching with his hands in the sand, like a dog covering its dung with earth.

It wasn’t gold he was digging for now.

XVIII

THE MISSING GOLD SEEKER

—1—

Wednesday morning Karl Oskar left at the usual hour for work on the church building. A few days earlier Kristina had taken down her loom and now was busy cutting cloth for garments. As soon as Karl Oskar left, she spread the linen over the table in the big room and began to measure, mark, and baste. Seven in the family needed new clothes; no longer was she able to patch upon the patches of the old. She had been sitting at the loom during the winter, now she was sitting at the sewing during the summer. She was not an expert seamstress but the garments must do however they turned out. The children were growing fast so she measured generously in order that they wouldn’t outgrow their clothes too soon. For the boys’ clothing she allowed three extra inches for sleeves and pants.

When Robert had dressed and eaten his breakfast, he sat down near Kristina and watched her cutting and basting. It seemed he was willing enough to talk to her when they were alone; he was more reticent with Karl Oskar.

He said that from now on she would not need to sew and struggle; since she now had money she could buy dresses for herself of the finest cloth she could find in the stores. She laughed in reply. The first things she intended to buy with her money were not silk and velvet to deck herself in; there were a thousand things she needed much more.

Her one great concern during these days had almost been forgotten at Robert’s unexpected return. For a few weeks she had known she was again pregnant. With this certainty she had also discovered that suckling did not prevent pregnancy; she was still giving the breast to Ulrika, and yet, meanwhile, Karl Oskar had got her with child. And the birth would take place in the winter, the most inconvenient time of the year.

But after what had happened Monday night she had almost forgotten her new discomfort.

She threw a glance at the Swedish chest as if wishing to assure herself that it still stood in its place. She said that first of all they must get that great sum of money to a safe place. They couldn’t have it lying here in the house. Any day now Karl Oskar would have to go to Stillwater and put the money in the bank.

Riches had come to their house, but for her nothing had changed from one day to the next. She still had her chores, which she couldn’t suddenly run away from. But when she had had time to gather her thoughts about the immense bundles of large bills, she had begun to figure how best to use them. Dizzying visions about what they now could afford paraded through Kristina’s mind. Above everything else she wanted help with her work, hired help to relieve her. The money would be a hedge against the fatigue which at times almost crushed her, particularly at the beginning of a new pregnancy; then she had to sit down and rest in the midst of a chore because everything turned black before her eyes.

She wished indeed to thank her returned brother-in-law for every blessed moment of rest his gift might bring her.

“You are a generous and good man, Robert.”