Hernán Díaz - In the Distance

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.

After years of restless rambles followed by years in a stagnant haze, having a purpose felt like being possessed by a spirit. If in the burrow he had lived in an inescapable present, now he existed only for the future. He was at war with each instant. Each day, once finished, was one more obstacle overcome. He barely rested. He had a plan.

He intended to go back west and find James Brennan’s hidden gold. To do so, first he must locate Clangston, from where he could easily reach the mine and then Brennan’s secret hole. An eternity had gone by since the Clangston lady and her men had taken over the mine, and Håkan was hoping that by now it would be exhausted and forgotten. And even if the place were bustling with activity, his former captors would be too old or dead. Either way, Brennan’s hideout was sufficiently removed from the quarry and had probably been left untouched for all those years. With gold, he would find a way into San Francisco—his first thought was to get a covered wagon with a hired driver. He would then get on a boat, buying the captain’s silence, and sail away.

To outdistance his pursuers, he had taken all five horses. A few days after leaving the burrow, when he felt safe enough, he let four of them loose, keeping only the biggest of the draft horses. He was yellow and orange, and massive enough to belong in one of those dreams where familiar things are unsurprisingly alien. His flesh seemed to be made of some material that was beyond the distinction between living and inert. Each muscle, clearly defined under his coat as if he had been skinned, felt like a bag tightly packed with sand, barely yielding to the touch. There was a certain resignation in his demeanor and in his gait that contradicted his immense strength and size. Together, Håkan and the horse made an impressive but, in a way, reasonable figure. They canceled each other out. Mounted on him, Håkan was almost unremarkable.

Knowing that his skins and rags would draw too much attention along the way, he took most of the civilians’ clothes. Each night, he worked on a pair of trousers and a shirt, enlarging them by sewing in patches here and there. One of the wide-brimmed hats, which he also had to make bigger, eclipsed his features. The lion coat was rolled up and tied to the saddle.