The last phosphorescence on the horizon was dying away as he woke up. There was a fire going, and Asa slept next to it. A pot simmered at the edge of the embers. Having eaten those morsels after his long fast had revived Håkan’s appetite. He coughed and thought his chest would split open. Asa woke up.
“You look better. Hungry?”
“Yes.”
Asa propped him up against a saddle on the ground and gave him a cupful of stew. They ate in silence. Håkan had only a blurred recollection of what had happened after being stitched up in the prison cell, but he did remember that he was being taken to Illinois so that the brethren could hang him. Where was the sheriff? Had he dreamed up that squeaky head pelted with smallpox? Why were his hands no longer tied? Would he dare to ask?
“Where are we?” he finally asked. It sounded like an apology.
“Back in the territory.”
Håkan was confused.
“West. We’ve left the States,” Asa explained.
“Illinois?”
“Not Illinois.”
“The sheriff?”
“No sheriff.”
Asa told him what had happened.
“I believe you,” he concluded, filling Håkan’s cup. “Many of us guessed what had happened to those emigrants on the trail. The Wrathful Angels. They’ve been roaming the country for years, at war with all gentiles. The brethren’s militia. By now, they’re just a band of outlaws. Some of the elders support them, but most want nothing to do with them. My uncle is an elder. He wants nothing to do with the Soldiers of Jehu. There were all these stories about you and what you’d done. But then I met you and saw it just couldn’t be true. They’ll still want you for the dead brethren, though. But they’ll never find us.”
There was a confusion of anguish and relief in Håkan’s throat. He could barely breathe. Redemption was impossible, but at least someone knew he had not killed Helen and all those innocent people. His eyes blurred, and he tried to swallow to let air in.
“I was quitting west anyhow,” Asa said after a pause.
Evening had deepened into night, and Asa’s face was barely visible in the glow of the sinking embers. He stirred the fire, sending blue flames leaping into the sky in the midst of an effervescence of sparks.
“Will you tell me your story?” Asa asked shyly, as if the answer to this question would reveal something about himself rather than Håkan.
Håkan finally managed to swallow and wiped his eyes.
“I come from Sweden. I lost my brother. I’m going to New York to find him. The people on the trail. I met them. They. After.”
The lump in his throat thickened. He coughed and felt that his lungs would burst out through his wound. The pain released the tears.
“Let me get you up here,” Asa said, putting his arm around Håkan’s back and folding a blanket behind him.
“I’m tired,” Håkan said in a soft moan, his face disfigured behind the tears.
Asa held him tighter.
“I’m tired.”
Håkan rested his head on Asa’s shoulder, sobbing.
“So tired.”
Asa wrapped his other arm over Håkan’s chest.
“So tired.”
It was Håkan’s first embrace.
They traveled on westward, mostly in silence. Now and then, however, they would look at each other from their horses and smile fleetingly. No one had ever smiled at Håkan like that, for no reason. It felt good. After a while, he learned to smile back. Every evening, when they bivouacked, as they built a fire and made dinner, he found it almost miraculous to be seen by someone, to be in someone’s brain, to reside in someone’s consciousness. And Asa’s presence also affected the plains, which no longer were the oppressive immensity whose existence, for such a long time, had somehow been entrusted to Håkan’s lonely gaze.
Even though Håkan was still rather weak, he insisted on removing the stitches from his chest as soon as possible—the recollection of Pingo’s maggot-infested sutures haunted him. Asa offered to do it, but Håkan wanted to perform the procedure himself, even if this meant he would not be able to take the tincture. As Håkan plucked one stitch after the other with a pair of tweezers and cut the sutures with a scalpel, Asa stared on, uttering disjointed words of encouragement, which only made Håkan tense. But once he was done and the pain had receded, he realized how much Asa’s presence had helped him.
Asa loved food. Håkan found this pleasure utterly baffling. Of course, he preferred some foods to others (strawberries with milk to charred prairie dog) and ate with delight whenever a meal to his liking came his way. But he had never pursued this enjoyment or even felt particular cravings. Eating was something one had to do to stay alive. So he was surprised by the care with which Asa prepared every one of his meals. He selected the ingredients throughout the day, constantly stopping to pick up herbs, flowers, mushrooms, and eggs. Only the finest of Håkan’s game ever made it to the pot, and Asa was always experimenting with different cooking methods—roasting, smoking, burying, curing. Asa made him look at food in a way similar to that in which Lorimer had made him see bodies—revealing depth and meaning where there had been none (even though when it came to food, Håkan knew that he lacked the inclination and the aptitude he showed for anatomy). And as with Lorimer, Asa’s passion made Håkan discover wonders in what had hitherto been a monotonous wasteland. In this apparent emptiness, Asa managed to obtain a wide variety of ingredients. Given the shortage of herbs and condiments, he had learned to season his food with flowers. Not only could he distinguish every nuance between species and families, but he also knew exactly how to use each part of each flower—he seldom put the entire blossom into a dish, preferring to use the petals from this flower and the stamens of that, while sprinkling only the pollen from another. If spices were scarce, sweets were almost impossible to find once they had left the last bees behind. Throughout their entire journey, Asa was on the lookout for a dwarf tree of sorts, which he tapped by screwing a gimlet into the knotty limbs. It was hard to conceive that such a rugged, thick-branched bush could yield such sweet sap. Asa used it in cakes and confections and boiled the rest down to sugar. There was something extraordinary about eating candy in the plains—something that, for a moment, annulled their immensity. But the ingredient for which Asa, who otherwise was a very disciplined traveler, would go far out of his way was a certain quail-like bird. Unlike most of the other fowl, these birds were almost impossible to catch. They even made a habit of taunting their pursuers, waiting until the very last instant to take off in a strangely vertical flight, as if someone had pulled them up with a string. Whenever he spotted one of these birds, Asa would dismount and run around like a madman, trying to throw a blanket over it, and cursing under his breath each time it got away. Consistent with its mocking nature, the quail would fly away and land just close enough to keep Asa’s hopes up. But it was well worth the humiliation. Those tender birds tasted like chestnuts, whipped cream, and, Asa would say, the very skies that surrounded them. Asa’s favorite recipe was a quail and mushroom stew. Håkan admired his precision as a cook and, above all, the confidence with which he used the ingredients that had cost him so much time and effort to obtain.
When he cooked, Asa was too absorbed in his work to talk, but during the meal they had brief conversations, usually about their itinerary and immediate plans. After cleaning up, they fell back into their friendly silence. One night, long after the fire had gone out, Asa came over to Håkan and lay next to him. At first, the proximity of Asa’s body frightened him. Not daring to move, he looked up at the stars, wondering if Asa, who held him from behind, perfectly still, was also awake. Not knowing why, Håkan matched his breathing with Asa’s. They breathed together. Slowly, he fell asleep, safe, warm, and happy. From that night on, always around the darkest hour and after the embers had paled under the ashes, Asa would come over to Håkan and lie by his side.