They always got up before sunrise, erased every trace of their camp, and set out at a brisk pace. By that time, the brethren surely would have heard the rumors and pieced together the story of the Hawk’s capture, the sheriff’s fraudulent scheme, and Asa and Håkan’s escape. They were probably looking for them already. Asa’s plan was to head out far west and hide for a while. Then, after a year or two, they could travel on and try their luck in California. He knew people there who could help them start up—get a job, save up, and then go and make their fortune. How he would get Håkan there unnoticed, Asa did not know. But he did know that, somehow, they would get there together.
Traveling with someone who knew the land and had the eye of a tracker transformed Håkan’s perception of the plains. Where Håkan had once spotted threats and proliferating signs of foes, Asa saw nothing—except, perhaps, some sort of aromatic wood ideal for smoking meat, a prized root vegetable, or one of the soapstone-like rocks he was always picking up for his makeshift pit ovens. Conversely, Håkan would often be surprised when Asa stopped in the middle of what seemed a void—identical, in its nothingness, to every patch of land in any direction—dismounted, looked around, pointed in a new direction, and had them trot away from a faint but, to him, eloquent sign of riders. Even if these sudden stops and turns forced them into intricate snaking patterns, Asa, who did not own a compass, unfailingly kept piloting them west. But more impressive than his ability to decipher the plains and his perfect sense of direction was the fact that Asa’s knowledge of the terrain, acquired through numerous trips, allowed him to anticipate every stage of their journey. Hitherto, Håkan had been traveling away from the past but not into the future. He had remained in a constant present, leaving landscapes and people behind but never heading toward a more or less certain destination that he could foresee. New York, his only true goal, was as abstract and fantastic as a city on some distant moon, never a clear destination in his mind’s eye that he could look forward to. So far, he had journeyed only from one now to another. James Brennan had roved about the country following whatever traces of gold he found in the dirt; John Lorimer had been as new to those tracts as Håkan was; and Jarvis Pickett’s directions had not proven trustworthy. It was only Asa who, over and over again, had been able to predict the world to come. Tomorrow, we’ll get to a river. In about three days, we’ll find good firewood. Should we ride that way, we’d hit a town before sundown. When Håkan learned that the earth was round like a ball, his idea of the world and how to move around it had changed in ways he never imagined possible—in fact, each time he considered this, he felt his mind curving to somehow accommodate this new idea. Asa’s ability to predict the future had a similar effect. Reality no longer ended at the horizon.
Before being captured by the sheriff, Håkan had feared that he might have circled the globe, missing New York, and remained eternally trapped between the plains and the desert. Since he had followed his compass, the other possibility he had considered was that he was going insane. It took him several days to form the question in his head and muster the courage to ask it.
“The world is round,” he said. Unsure about Asa’s reaction, Håkan’s tone was both that of a statement and a question.
Asa looked down. He had either nodded or was waiting for Håkan to continue.
“After the ship, we walked. Then I was in the desert. For a long time. First it was red. Then it was white. Then it was red again. For a long time I was in the desert. Alone. Then I was in the plains, also for a very long time. Then I saw the desert again.” He felt he should explain himself. “Before the sheriff and you, I saw the desert again but turned around.”
He thought that what he had said made little sense and wished he had never started. A long silence.
“Did I go around the world?”
Asa looked up as if someone had pulled his head back by the hair and stared at Håkan for a moment. Håkan flushed, overwhelmed by embarrassment. He was not crazy; he was just a fool. Asa smiled.
“No. You did not go around the world. It’s just a big country.”
The shadows of winter were gathering, and soon they would be immersed in one long, cutting night. Because the sheriff had paraded him in it, Håkan still had his coat, but Asa, who initially had set out on a brief trip, shivered under a couple of threadbare blankets that kept sliding off his shoulders. Håkan convinced him that trapping was their priority—he had started a coat for Asa, but being constantly on the move had made work difficult. They made a sharp turn south, toward warmer lands where game would be more abundant. The detour would set them back, but it would also baffle their pursuers.
Once they reached a brown, hard forest, they camped and trapped for a week or so. Asa was an excellent hunter, and they made good progress, which Håkan was almost sorry about—he was happy to rest and feel, in a manner, at home. During those days, Håkan derived great joy from seeing how impressed Asa was with his skills—skinning, dissecting, tanning, threading, sewing. Not since Linus had Håkan cared about dazzling anyone in this way. Not even Helen. Now, to his amazement, he realized that he wanted to impress Asa. And he did. Most times, he would pretend not to know that he was being watched while making his delicate incisions and pulling the skin with such ease that the dead animal seemed to be grateful to have been rid of the fur, but now and again, after indulging in some flourish with the scalpel, he could not help looking up to confirm that his movements had been followed with awe, and then, after meeting Asa’s wide eyes, he would smile, blush, and look back down. Whenever he was able to overcome his shyness, Håkan pointed out the different organs and their anatomical functions. He knew that something had affected Asa deeply whenever he stepped back and shook his head in disbelief. There was no greater validation for Håkan than that head shaking no.
One night, encouraged by the respect Asa showed for his knowledge, Håkan decided to share Lorimer’s ideas with him. He had been rehearsing his speech in his head for days. The best occasion would be toward the end of dinner, when Asa was no longer fully engaged with cooking or tasting, but merely enjoying the last bites, which always put him in a particularly placid mood. With the help of bones and organs he had saved for this purpose, Håkan outlined the main aspects of the naturalist’s theory. Asa listened carefully, but it was unclear whether he was focused on the words or on the food. It was not easy to explain the nature of that vesicle of sentient substance and how it evolved and created a protective crust and then a body and limbs around itself to further its own life. Håkan arrived at the hardest part of his exposition—the one that required doubting that god had created man. He paused. They could hear the resin hissing as the cinders fell between the logs. Håkan resumed his account. He stuttered and faltered at times but was quite sure that he had been clear and faithful to Lorimer’s system. When it was apparent that he had concluded, Asa put down his plate, cleaned his teeth with his tongue, and, slowly, started to laugh. There was no malice in his chuckles, no mockery, no disdain. He simply laughed, innocently and wholeheartedly, in good faith, as if Håkan had shared a joke with him. Håkan’s tongue dried up and his hands tingled. A new feeling—sharp quills coming out of his pores—traversed his body. He had never been indignant before. Staring into the coals, he was shocked at how far Asa suddenly felt from him. Håkan was also disappointed in himself for having been unable to convey the importance of Lorimer’s discovery. An open confrontation or even derision would have been better than Asa’s frank laughter. The one thing that made him happy was that not even Asa’s laughter could shake his belief in Lorimer’s truth.