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 gone, 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.
But I’ve said nothing to Karl Oskar and Kristina. No one but you can hear what I say; you can trust me. I never betray you. Karl Oskar and Kristina can guess nothing; they believe you have returned from California, and you’ll hurt them least by letting them keep that belief. You could say to your brother: Gold is nothing! Nothing but deceit! But he would only wonder, and doubt you still more. He is already worrying — you can see it in his eyes when he doesn’t think you are looking. He is suspicious of the great bundles of money you gave away. He’s afraid they’re useless. He can’t get over his suspicion that you’re fooling him. But Kristina believes you, you can see that.
You noticed she had found the watch under the pillow and taken it away. They want of course to know what happened to Arvid. But you have no reason to tell them, unless you want to. . Best this remain between Arvid and you forever: no third person would understand. And never a sound from me; all you hear, when I buzz you all night long, are your own sounds.
You don’t think you can sleep in peace tonight? Listen now, how I buzz and whiz, like the howling wind that lured two muleteers to a dust bowl and thirst — that treacherous wind on the plains that covered their tracks and prevented them from finding their way back. Tonight you’re tired — and the more tired you are, the stronger my buzzing, the better you hear me:
Listen, gold seeker!
Why are you wandering about, out there on the plain? What are you looking for?
— 1—
The sun’s fire had burned down toward evening. The ashes of coolness spread across the plains. The dusty ground, burning in daytime, cooled during the night. The oppressive dust-laden air gave way, and less effort was required to move.
Robert and Arvid continued to wander. They must not stay in one place, must move on, forward. They managed to keep their feet moving even though every step hurt. They stumbled across the plain, they held onto each others arms for support, to keep upright. Two twisting bodies straggling along, held together in a firm grip; two bodies walking steadier than one. Two boys walking arm in arm, like a couple in love, like a boy and a girl walking across the grass of a blooming meadow on a cool June evening.
For they were inseparable and would never part.
A few times they saw creatures moving over the plain, red-furred, sharp-nosed animals sweeping by in small packs. They were the size of small dogs and moved as quickly and softly over the ground as the very wind. They must have been carrion beasts, feeding on the dead horse.
Dusk was falling; no longer could they see holes and crevices where they stepped. Arvid fell down. Robert grabbed him under the shoulders and helped him to his feet again, even though he would have preferred to stretch out and lie on the ground. He brushed the dirt from his comrades neck, but he could not get rid of the grains of sand that chafed under his eyelids.