Robert drank and hung the scoop on its nail above the bucket. Then he came back into the room where Kristina sat with her sewing, and watched her as she forced the shears through the cloth, following the white chalk marks she had made.
He said, “You know, I don’t hear well with one of my ears, Kristina. I didn’t hear what you just said—what was it?”
She repeated what she had said about the clear water from their spring.
After that he sat silent for a long while.
—2—
The intense heat of summer had started in earnest that week. In Minnesota’s oppressive air the chores were performed languidly; physical motion was an effort. Kristina was using her shears and her needle—the lightest tools a person could use—but she often dried her perspiring forehead with the corner of her apron. Yet it was cellar-cool here inside compared to the sweltering heat out in the sun.
The lake water was already tepid, and Johan, Marta, and Harald—the three children she called “big”—had, after persistent begging, obtained their mother’s permission to go bathing in the shallow inlet near their field. Kristina would have liked to cool her own body in this heat but she felt it could be dangerous for her to bathe in the lake while she was pregnant. She asked Robert to go with the children and see that they didn’t go too far out.
After the noon meal Robert said that he would like to go out and wander about in the forest; he wanted to go and see the Indian cliff where he had gone hunting when he was home.
Kristina remembered to warn him that a fatal accident had taken place last spring below the Indian. An American settler from Hay Lake had been found dead under a boulder which had fallen on him. The cliff was cracking and new blocks were falling in big piles all the time. It took only a small stone to kill a person, if it happened to hit the head; he must be careful and not go too near the Indian.
Robert smiled, exposing his gaping gums. He was not a settler; he had not stolen any land from the brown people; he didn’t believe the Indian would fling any stones on an innocent person.
Kristina looked after him as he disappeared in the forest. He had said that he had enough, that he had freed himself of masters and need never move a hand any more. For the rest of his life he wouldn’t have to do anything except enjoy his riches. He could use his time as he wanted and wander about all day long. But Robert was not calling on their new neighbors, the white settlers who had recently moved in, he was calling on the Indian, the brown cliff, where such a strange adventure once had befallen him.
Kristina went into his room to make his bed while he was out. As she turned the pillow she made a discovery: under it lay a watch, with a broad yellow brass chain coiled around it.
She stared in disbelief. Cautiously she picked up her find. Robert had not displayed a watch since his return. As far as she knew he had never owned a watch. And if he did own one, why didn’t he wear it? Why did he keep it hidden under the pillow of his bed? If he had bought a watch now that he could well afford it, why didn’t he dare show it?
It couldn’t be a stolen watch, she felt sure. But why had he hidden it under his pillow?
She noticed it was a long-used watch; it was nickel-plated, scratched, and badly worn. She put it to her ear: it had stopped. It had stopped at fifteen minutes after twelve, whether at noon or in the night. The key to wind it was fastened to the chain. Perhaps the watch had stopped because it had not been wound, or perhaps the works were broken.
Kristina replaced her find under the pillow after she had made the bed, but her thoughts were occupied with it as she returned to her sewing.
She began basting a coat for Karl Oskar but had barely taken twenty stitches when she saw, through the window, an Indian approaching the house. At first a sense of fear hit her—just now when no menfolk were at home. . . . The Indian went to the back of the house and came into the kitchen, and then she recognized him; otherwise these brown people were so confusingly alike that she couldn’t tell one from another. This one was a very old Indian with thin, stringy hair, sunken cheeks, and wrinkled skin that reminded her of cracks in dried clay. Last winter during the intense cold he had come several times; she had boiled milk and given it to him. Each time he had sat long by the warmth of the fire. He spoke some kind of English and Karl Oskar had understood that he had been converted to Christianity by some missionaries who preached among the Indians. He insisted he was a hundred and fifty years old but Karl Oskar must have misunderstood him.
As soon as Kristina recognized the caller her fear vanished; this old Indian was not dangerous. He carried something which he handed her with a few grunts. It was a piece of meat, a large shoulder of venison.
The Indian had brought her a gift, and surprised and pleased she thanked him in Swedish: she had just been wondering what to have for supper—what a fine roast this would make!
The old man had carried the piece without any protection and she soon discovered dark spots on the red meat: flies. That looked suspicious in this heat. She smelled: the odor of the meat was also suspicious.
Kristina knew at once that this venison had turned bad; then she also discovered white spots: maggots. But she did not show any sign of this, she dared do nothing but accept the gift. She neither wanted to nor dared hurt the feelings of the Indian. His people did not discriminate between fresh and spoiled food; to an Indian stomach the meat was of course acceptable; the giver would undoubtedly have eaten it willingly. The brown men could stand any kind of food. In that way they were almost like their hogs, who even could eat and digest rattlers.
She smiled at the old Indian and thanked him many times, putting away the venison as if it had been a great and valuable gift. In return she gave him a fresh loaf of their new wheat bread, and he smiled back at her with his broad wrinkled mouth and uttered many grunts that sounded friendly and grateful. They must have been words of thanks in his language.
After he had left and was out of Kristina’s sight, she picked up the evil-smelling venison and carried it to the dunghill behind the stable, where she threw it as far as she could. What would the giver have said had he seen this? Probably he had carried his heavy burden a long way today.
Even though the gift consisted of unusable food it had strengthened Kristina in her belief that the brown people were not evil and heartless. She had experienced it before: if one showed them kindness, they would do the same in return. They could be as grateful as white Christian people. Perhaps there was not too great a difference in the souls of whites and Indians. If the Indians were left in peace, they would leave the settlers in peace. But when they were taken advantage of they became violent and as ferocious as wild beasts. Now these hunters were beginning to suffer from starvation because their game was disappearing, for the white people had hunted and killed almost all the game in the forest. She had heard people say that the Indians would never of their own will give up their hunting grounds, since they could not live without them; in the end they would rise in a great war against the settlers.
As the afternoon wore on Kristina waited for Robert to return from his walk in the forest. Karl Oskar came home from the church building at his usual hour and then she remembered her discovery in Robert’s bed and asked him to come with her into the gable room. She lifted the pillow. The moment Karl Oskar saw the watch he exclaimed:
“It’s Arvid’s!”
“Arvid’s . . . ?”
“I recognized it at once!”
He picked up the watch and looked closer at it. “I’m quite sure. It’s the nickel watch Arvid got from his father when he left Sweden. He showed it to me many times, he always bragged about the cylinder works.”
Kristina had grabbed hold of her husband’s arm.
“Arvid’s watch! Oh dear Lord—what does it mean?”
Karl Oskar was weighing the watch in the palm of his hand. “It can only mean that Arvid is dead.”
A man used his watch as long as he lived. It measured his allotted time. No one gave up his watch before his death.<
br />
“I thought so . . .”
This watch had cost ten riksdaler, twelve with the chain, Arvid had said that day when they all met and started out on their American journey. It was the sum of money his father, Petter of Kråkesjö, had been able to save during his forty years as cotter under the manse. It was Arvid’s paternal inheritance Karl Oskar now held in his palm.
But where was Arvid himself? Two gold seekers had set out on the California journey. Two days ago one had returned. The other was still missing. And concerning the missing one Robert had given only the vaguest information.
Karl Oskar said that while working at the church building today he had told the other men that his brother had unexpectedly returned from California. Danjel Andreasson had immediately asked about his former hired hand and had been greatly surprised when he learned Arvid had not returned. Robert and Arvid had served as farm hands together in Sweden, and here in America too they had kept together as the closest of friends—how had it come about that they had separated? And Danjel had simply echoed Karl Oskar’s earlier thought when he said that with Robert returning alone one could only assume that Arvid no longer was alive.
And under Robert’s pillow Kristina had found the confirmation.
She now looked at the watch with different eyes. It was connected with a human being she had known and never would see again, because he no longer existed.
“Poor Arvid! I wonder how he came to his end?”
“I’m afraid we’ll never know—at least not from Robert.”
“Why does he hide it?”
“Why does he hide everything from us? As yet he has barely said a word about himself. And no one knows when he lies or tells the truth.”
Robert told stories about happenings he had been in on, said Kristina, but she had never noticed that he invented them with evil intentions, in order to hurt someone or gain something for himself. He had never hurt anyone with his lies except himself.
“This is something he doesn’t want to be known,” said Karl Oskar. “But I’ll show him the watch. He must tell us about Arvid!”
“But if you won’t believe what he says . . .”
“He has lied too much to me! And now I begin to wonder again: how about those . . . ?”
He cut the sentence off as if he had bitten his tongue. But Kristina understood: those bundles of money!
Yes, he continued, what was the story about Robert’s money, those big bills he had pulled from his black satchel? And the question came back again: was the money real? And he remembered something he had noticed; two letters sewn on the satchel. First he had thought one of the letters was an N, and this would have suited if Robert also had sewn on the initial for his first name. But now as he examined it closer he thought it looked rather like an M—and that he couldn’t understand since it fitted none of Robert’s names. The pouch must have belonged to someone else. Who had been the owner? And what kind of money did it contain?
And now had come the discovery of Arvid’s watch.
“No!” exclaimed Karl Oskar. “I can’t wait till Saturday! I must know about those bills as soon as possible. Tomorrow is Thursday—I’ll speak to Algot at the building—we’ll drive to Stillwater on Friday.”
“I don’t believe Robert would deceive us with the money he has given us,” said Kristina firmly. “You mustn’t suspect your brother of such an evil thing!”
“What can one believe after this? What can I think?”
Karl Oskar put the nickel watch into his pants pocket.
Kristina was beginning to worry about Robert, who had wandered off into the forest right after the noon meal and hadn’t returned by supper. But it was like him to wander off like that, explained the older brother. He had acted that way ever since he was a baby. Father Nils and Mother Marta used to hang a cowbell on the boy so they could find him out in the wastelands.
Karl Oskar was hungry and tired after the day’s heavy timber work and sat down to eat. There had been only four men working today; this way the building took time. A church forty-eight feet long, thirty-six feet wide, and eighteen feet high could not be finished this year. But they must try to get the roof on before winter set in. Some of the men were sluggish about showing up. Like Anders Månsson—he had put in only three days so far. He probably lay drunk in his bed most of the time; rumor had it he was getting quite bad. But Petrus Olausson, who was the inspector for the work, kept after the men and saw to it that everyone did his share; he was particular and honest in that way. And he wasn’t difficult to get along with, as long as religion and godly things didn’t come up. In such matters he was as stubborn and pigheaded as an old horned billy goat. However, since he no longer tried to enforce his will in their house, Karl Oskar had no trouble getting along with him.
Today during lunch hour Petrus had got into a disagreement with Jonas Petter, who had started to tell one of his bed play stories. It was about a rich farmer back in Ljuder who hired the village soldier to provide him with an heir. Jonas Petter had started telling the story at Ulrika’s party, last Christmas, and he wanted to finish it this time. But he had barely begun when Petrus grew fiery red in his face and forbade him to tell lewd and obscene stories while they timbered up the Lord’s house. Jonas Petter got annoyed and said Olausson wasn’t his guardian even though he was in charge of the building, and the two men had exchanged some rather unpleasant words.
But Jonas Petter had stopped his story about the farmer and the village soldier, so now it might be a couple of years before he found an opportunity to finish it, laughed Karl Oskar.
It was dark, but Robert had not yet come back. Kristina felt something might have happened to him: he had wanted to go to the Indian cliff and she had warned him about falling boulders. And he wasn’t well; he ought not to take off so far into the wilderness.
But Karl Oskar felt his brother could take care of himself; he knew all the paths hereabouts, and he had just returned from a much longer and much more dangerous journey.
At bedtime Robert still hadn’t shown up. Kristina pleaded with her husband.
“Please go out and look for him!”
By now Karl Oskar too was a little worried. He pulled on his boots—yes, he would go out and look. But it would be difficult to search for Robert in the dark. No one knew in which direction he might have gone.
Just then heavy shuffling was heard and Robert stepped into the kitchen, where he sank down on the nearest chair. His boots were muddy and he dropped his hat on the floor; he was completely worn out and panted heavily.
“You’re late!” said Kristina. “Supper is cold.”
But Robert shook his head; he didn’t want any food. A mug of milk would be all he wanted tonight. His stomach was upset—he had vomited a couple of times out in the forest. It might be the heat, he was better now and would go to bed at once.
He was seized with a fit of coughing; when it let up he began to drink the milk, in small swallows, while he talked.
He had been sitting, just resting, below the Indian head—he hadn’t been able to tear himself away from the place. The cliff had changed since he saw it four years ago. Now the Indian had deep wrinkles in his forehead, his eye sockets had grown deeper and blacker, and all his teeth had fallen out and lay as heaps of stones below him. Yes, like Robert himself, the Indian had lost his teeth. And now he sat there, back on his rock, and looked out over all the new houses around the lake, and he seemed profoundly sad. The Indian was mourning, not a single person, but thousands of people—his people, all those driven away by the white settlers. The Indian’s face was draped in sorrow, a thousand times enlarged; when one’s forehead cracked to pieces, and one’s eyes fell out, and the teeth dropped from one’s jaws—and all this in only four years—surely, such a person had gone through deep sorrow.
They listened in confusion to this speech about the sand cliff. It sounded almost as if Robert were talking about himself. He had deep furrows in his forehead, young as he was, his eyes were popping out, their gleam g
one, and he had lost his teeth.
“Great big pieces have tumbled down!”
They ought to go there and then they would see that he told the truth. Big chunks from the very eyes of the Indian had fallen down. Had ever a human being in all the world wept such tears? Tears of stone, enduring tears that would remain as long as the earth stood. Those were the tears wept only during the great weeping for a whole race that was being destroyed. A thousand years from now people would still come and look at those enduring tears below the cliff of Ki-Chi-Saga’s shore. The piles of stones would remain there and tell of all those who had suffered disintegration in this country—the destruction of thousands of people.
The Indian’s eyes were so cracked he could hardly have any vision left. Probably he had already mourned himself blind.
Robert only wanted to tell what he had seen in the Indian’s face today; it was because of this face that he was late; why he had been unable to tear himself from the place. He only wanted to explain why he had stayed out so long.
When this was done he said goodnight to his brother and sister-in-law and went to his bed in the gable room.
Kristina said, “What happened to Robert while he was away? This morning too he used riddle-words I couldn’t solve.”
And Karl Oskar felt for Arvid’s watch in his pocket; he had meant to pull it out this evening, but had entirely forgotten about it while his brother talked of the Indian who had cried out his stone eyes. It sounded like the fairy tales he used to hear in his childhood—and all this his brother had managed to make up during the short time it took him to sit down on a chair and drink a mug of milk! That was how easily he could make up stories!
Now Karl Oskar would wait until morning to demand information about the watch’s owner: the missing gold seeker.
XIX
THE THIRD NIGHT—ROBERT’S EAR SPEAKS
It takes no longer to die than it takes to lift the hand and point a finger. I have tried to buzz that fact into you many times. You won’t believe how suddenly death can sweep a man off his feet and into his grave on the California Trail. I have impressed it upon you, and now you have seen it yourself: at sunrise healthy and red-cheeked, at sunset dead and buried. It is Man’s lot, it is yours.
The Settlers Page 30