His men waited under the sun for a good while.
Finally, he emerged from the shop wearing a smug smile and a gold watch chain that dangled from one of the buttonholes in his waistcoat before diving into the fob pocket.
Back out in the plains, the sheriff took some of the money from a pouch hidden deep under his clothes and called his men.
“Here, boys. A little taste before the reward.”
Josiah took the money with meek greediness, giving profuse thanks. Asa rejected it with a polite but almost invisible gesture and turned around before the sheriff had time to release the wrath gathering in his face. After this incident, Asa and the sheriff barely exchanged a word for days. Meanwhile, Josiah and his boss grew closer, the former showing the most abject and sycophantic submission to the latter.
They continued their journey over the plains. Håkan still refused to eat and, despite Asa’s gentle entreaties, consented only to having some water. After a few days, they arrived at another town, where the sheriff, once again, put Håkan on display next to the placard and gave a detailed account of the capture. This time, the sheriff, through his tremendous heroism, had managed to defeat not only the Behemoth but also several laws of nature in the process. People gave generously.
Håkan, now too weak to stay in his saddle, had to be tied to the horse. He would not take any food. They had even given up teasing him with the scraps and the garbage. Had the sheriff not made those detours to stop at the last two towns, they would already have reached the brethren in Illinois. When the sheriff announced that they were headed for a city that took them in the opposite direction, Asa finally spoke up.
“It would be a sin to have this thing executed without making an example out of it,” the sheriff explained. “Before we take him in, I intend to edify everyone in every town between us and the brethren.”
“And make good coin while at it.”
“Watch that tongue of yours, you rascal.”
“He’ll die.”
“Of course.”
“Before we get there.”
“I’ll guard him.”
“No. Of hunger.”
“Bah!”
“He’ll never make it. Look at him.”
The sheriff was not a man to take orders from anyone, so it was despite himself that he turned to the heap collapsed on the ground. And it was also probably against his will that Asa’s words sank in. He grabbed Håkan, propped him up, and then shoved a spoonful of leftover grits into his face.
“Get up, you stinking sack of sins! Eat!” he squealed, prying Håkan’s mouth open and stuffing in the food, which just lay there, unswallowed. “Eat, you reeky, hell-hated reprobate!”
Håkan, covered in food, did not seem to feel the hand that slapped him back and forth across the face.
“Stop,” Asa commanded.
The sheriff did not deign to respond. Instead, he pointed at Asa’s chest with a firm finger and glared at him sternly. Josiah, dumbfounded, took a few steps back and looked on. Muttering to himself, the sheriff walked over to his horse, rummaged through one of his saddlebags, and returned with Håkan’s tin box, from which he produced a scalpel. He leaned over Håkan with the spoon in one hand and the scalpel in the other.
“A notch in your flesh for each uneaten spoonful.”
Again they tried to feed him; again the food dribbled down his chin and onto his chest. The sheriff pushed up Håkan’s sleeve and carved a deep line into his forearm.
“One.”
The pale white of fat and bone was visible for a moment, but soon the gash filled and overflowed with blood.
“Here comes two,” the sheriff squeaked, sticking the spoon into Håkan’s mouth.
“Sheriff!” Josiah cried.
The sheriff turned around to find Asa pointing a gun to his head, which, twisted back, looked more than ever like a shapeless ball on a trunk. They stared at each other in silence.
“Asa, Asa, you’ll hang.”
“Stand back, Sheriff.”
“Oh, Asa, Asa,” he said with ostentatious calm, but his wrath was as solid as a body.
“I’m taking him away.”
“Oh, Asa. When the brethren hear about this.”
“Yes, when the brethren hear about this. And they’ll hear it from me. I’ll take this man to them directly and tell them how you’ve profited in their name. I’ll tell my uncle. The elders will listen to me.”
“Here’s my money. All of it. Please take it,” Josiah said. Stunned with fear, he threw the money on the ground, as if it had suddenly turned into a snake or a spider.
“You must be moon-hit,” the sheriff hissed, eyeing Asa narrowly.
“Lord knows plenty of people saw you take that money,” Asa continued, ignoring the sheriff’s interruption. “They gave it to you in the first place. You will claim you took it in good faith, on behalf of the elders. I will send them to that watchmaker of yours.”
“You mean to keep the whole reward to yourself, don’t you? You covetous misbegotten hound.”
“Plattsville’s the closest town. Five days on foot? By the time you get there, I’ll have told the elders everything.”
“I will dismember you, feed your limbs to the pigs, and piss on their excrement.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll run. They’ll come after you. You’ll hide.”
For a moment, the sheriff’s features, contracted and twisted by anger, revealed that he knew Asa was right.
Asa covered the sheriff’s and the assistant’s heads with sacks and then helped Håkan mount. Dulled by the burlap, Josiah’s incoherent implorations were a soft, wet mumble. The sheriff, his sharp voice cutting through the sack, told him to shut his mouth. Once ready, Asa rode off with Håkan by his side and the two other horses in tow. The sheriff took his hood off and hurled insults at the riders, but they were already so far away that his shrill imprecations seemed to be addressed only to the plains. Josiah still had the sack on his head when they vanished from sight.
17.
Blue and cold were one. Håkan felt the crisp blue sky on his skin and eyes. And with this consonance of sight and touch, he realized that his consciousness had returned. His cramped limbs were an indication that he had been gone for a good while. He tested his other senses (the swish and swoosh of grass, the smell of old coals and manure, the sourness of sleep in his mouth); he confirmed the hardness of the soil under him (so unlike the viscous pit down which he had been slowly sliding for days); he conjured up a few memories (friendly pictures he could summon and dismiss at will, not like the ghosts that haunted him in his dreams); he tried language in his head (jag är här därför att jag kan tänka att jag är här). Dots of bright but undefined colors popped in and out of the sky as he tried to look deeper into it. He was still in the plains.
“Are you in pain?”
Asa came over from behind him and sat by his side. Håkan had not been in pain until asked. Now, the fire in his chest started burning, and the cut in his forearm throbbed with a life of its own.
“Yes.”
“If you can bear it, we should stop those drops. I thought I was losing you.”
“Yes.”
“Let me know.”
“Yes.”
Håkan looked at his forearm, not knowing how he had hurt himself but noticing that the wound had been rudimentarily, yet efficiently, cleaned and bandaged. Asa put a soaked cracker to his lips. Håkan ate it with relish. He was spoon-fed some stew. Someone had made it for him, he thought before nodding off.