The Settlers (47 page)

But the way he was born prevented him; he couldn’t stay in Sweden, he couldn’t stay with his brother in America, he couldn’t stay in service. He himself drove peace and tranquillity from his mind, although without wishing to do so, since deep in his heart he wanted to live a peaceful life. But he couldn’t take a claim and be a settler; he might as well try to reach the moon, or walk across the water out there on the lake. He had been given those ideas about gold and riches and freedom, and he was forced to get out and pursue what was in his mind. This brought him into one bad situation after another. His misfortunes and sufferings were his own doing, as he himself had once caused the box on his ear. He was often accused of lying, but he never knew when he did lie, and if he did lie it was because he was forced to. All his hardships in life he himself had caused. Like yesterday—when he got into a fight with his brother—he alone had caused it. Everything that happened to him was because of the way he was born.

To him, as to everyone, a certain fate had been given, which he couldn’t escape however much he tried. At his creation it had taken charge of his body and soul. He had carried it through his whole life, in his head, in his mind, in his heart. He couldn’t escape it as long as life remained in his body—no more than a person could tear out his heart and remain alive.

It didn’t help to pray to God that he would re-create him and make another person of him. No living being was twice born into this world. He would remain, unchangeably, Axel Robert Nilsson with a sick, buzzing ear which spoke loudly to him in the silence of the nights.

Such was his fate. And there remained nothing for him to do except adjust himself to it. The most difficult and most bitter thing he had experienced was adjustment—adjustment to himself, adjustment to the person he was, from whom he could never escape, who forever remained unchangeable, who was the same until the end of life, who eternally was
he.
He had suffered for many years—intensely, patiently—but he had come through at last. He no longer fought his fate, he no longer was bitter about it. He had accepted his impotence. He had adjusted himself to this: that nothing could be done, and so found harmony with his lot in life. And after that—what more could happen to him? Because to his fate belonged also the end, death.

Robert knew he was someone very little who had thought himself to be someone very big. For a long time he had demanded the measureless, but at last had been forced to be satisfied with this person he had been created and accept the fate chosen for him. It had cost him a great deal—oh, what hadn’t it cost him to submit to the Lord of Life and Death! But there was no other comfort for him, or anyone for that matter, except this, to say to the one who reigns over creation: I cannot fight you! I might as well try to lift the earth on my shoulders and tear down the heavens above me! Why should I fight you, when I know in advance who will win? Do with me what you want! It suits me! Then I will have peace and be unget-at-able by death. By accepting it it no longer concerns me!

“Do you understand me, Kristina?” he ended. “I’m not being conceited. I’m not boasting. I’m full of humility instead. I am reconciled.”

He had spoken slowly and calmly, as if fearing to say too much or use the wrong word; as if, in this way he could tell her everything clearly and honestly.

Kristina had listened in silence, and when he finished she remained silent. It was Robert’s voice she had heard, but the words were the experience she herself had lived through and felt; they had sprung from her own heart, as it were. How many times hadn’t she asked herself: Is everything that has happened to me decided by God from the beginning? Did the creator decide on the emigrant’s lot for me? As Robert talked about himself, he was explaining her own eternal questioning and pondering and wondering. Now for the first time she knew something about him—now, when she recognized herself in him. One couldn’t know a person before one discovered him in oneself—and oneself in him.

“Robert . . .” she stammered faintly. “Now I understand.”

It was during this talk, that she truly began to know him. And that conversation would remain with Kristina forever afterward.

XXIII

THE FIFTH NIGHT—ROBERT’S EAR SPEAKS

You had intended to sit up and wait for Karl Oskar this evening, he is returning from Stillwater. But he is delayed, you’re tired and it’s getting late. Well done of you to listen to Kristina and go to bed! You’ll see him in the morning.

I understand—you would have liked to speak out with your brother already tonight. It would have been right—after what happened yesterday morning.

Karl Oskar has looked so crushed ever since you opened your black pouch Monday night. Then, for once, he had nothing to say. Never before have you seen him so embarrassed. But he has always been suspicious of you and he doesn’t trust your gift. He’s afraid you’re fooling him with false useless money.

But today he’ll learn he hasn’t been cheated. And tomorrow he’ll shake your hand and say, Forgive me, Robert! Forgive my mistrust! From now on I’ll always trust you! We must be as good and intimate brothers should be!

When you and Karl Oskar have talked together these last days it has been one continuous cat-around-the-hot-milk business. From now on that will be over. All will be different between you as soon as he learns that you haven’t lied to him.

You had wanted Karl Oskar to offer you his hand this evening. But you must wait till tomorrow. And now you want to sleep. I know; you’ve only one wish left—to sleep. And this you do wish like hell. And your intense weariness closes your eyelids but you don’t go to sleep. You lie awake and wish and pray. You call on sleep, the only good thing you’ve left in life: come, come to me! But it doesn’t come. For with night and silence I come instead.

Perhaps you should sing an evening psalm, calling on Sleep; a waking person’s praise of Sleep. You, the dearest One I know! Sleep, you lovely Comforter! Where are you? Come, come and take me with you! To that place where no suffering is! Come and save me from my sleeplessness! Carry me off! You know the place where it is good to be! I have been there and I want to go again and stay there! Blessed Sleep! Take me in your arms! Hold me to your soft bosom! Where there is no more suffering!

But you know your prayer is in vain: I’ll keep sleep from your eyes a long time tonight also. Night and its silence—that’s when I reign! I yet have much to tell you, and you must stay awake and listen. I’ll tell you about the ghost town on the sandy plain where you stayed so long. How long was it . . . ?

It began with a voice you thought you recognized . . .

—1—

It happened in Spring Creek one day in September.

Robert was walking past the trading post where ox teams were resting and people always congregated. Several trains had just arrived from the prairie. He walked among the vehicles as an idle bystander when he heard a voice he thought he recognized. The speaker was just jumping off a big double-team wagon which was piled high with buffalo hides. A cloud of flies swarmed over the load. The hides stank like entrails at slaughter. Robert looked closer at the red-faced man jumping off. He knew in advance that this man had the gold-seeker’s face, like all men passing through Spring Creek. There was something in this face, something he recognized: puffed-up, rosy-red cheeks, flat nose, blood-streaked eyes under heavy, swollen lids. It was a gold-seeker’s face all right, but so ugly it was easily recognizable. And it was well-known to him—it belonged to a countryman.

The man with the load of hides wore a flaming red shirt and light yellow deerskin breeches with black fringes along the sides. But as Robert recognized his face he also remembered him in different dress: a light brown large-checkered coat with pants of the same big-patterned cloth, fitting tightly around his legs, a voluminous handkerchief dangling from his hip pocket, black patent leather shoes; he remembered the man standing on the deck of a sailing ship, leaning on the rail and spitting into the ocean while entertaining the other passengers with his stories. And one of the crowd around him was Robert.

The “American”! The American on the
Charlotta!

Robert had recognized the voice he had heard tell so many stories about the New World during their crossing to America. And the face—he had seen thousands of strangers but this face was not like any other, this one he recognized.

He walked closer and asked in Swedish, “Aren’t you Fredrik Mattsson?”

The man in the red woolen shirt turned, and opened his mouth as if ready to swallow some of the fat blowflies that buzzed over his load of buffalo hides.

“God damn! A Swedish fellow!”

“You are Mattsson who crossed on the
Charlotta,
aren’t you?”

“That’s right! And I believe I met you before, boy?”

“On the ship . . .”

“Oh yes, we traveled on the same ship. I remember you now. Well, well—what was your name . . . ?”

Robert told him, and Fredrik Mattsson shook his hand so hard that the finger joints snapped.

“Very glad to meet you again, Robert Nilsson. It’s not every day you meet a countryman in this territory!”

Fredrik Mattsson was from Asarum parish, in the province of Blekinge, Sweden, and he had been nicknamed the “American” on the
Charlotta.
At their landing in New York he had disappeared. None of the other passengers knew where he had gone. Robert had eagerly listened to his stories and often wondered what had become of him. Now they had unexpectedly met again, deep in America, all the way out in Nebraska Territory.

Mattsson said that since landing in America he had never run across any of his many companions on the ship. And he was glad at last to have found a young friend from those days at sea.

“That old tub
Charlotta!
She must have sunk by this time!”

“After the landing, where did you go, Mr. Mattsson?”

Robert felt he must call his older countryman mister.

“Where did I go? I’ll tell you, boy! But call me Fred. All my friends in America do. And I’ll call you Bob. Now we can talk Swedish together!”

And Fredrik Mattsson from Asarum leaned against the tall wheel of the ox wagon and continued in the language he called his mother tongue, although Robert noticed that a great number of the words he used were English, or a mixture of English and Swedish, so common among his countrymen in America.

“I took a ship in New York, a clipper ship to California. She was a beautiful ship, loaded with gold seekers . . .”

“The
Angelica?”
said Robert.

“Oh, you noticed her too, boy!”

And Robert did indeed remember the sleek, copper-plated
Angelica
with her pennant fluttering in the wind:
Ho! Ho! Ho! For California!
Hadn’t he wished he could have boarded that ship where the men danced and sang and had a good time! They were on their way to dig gold and become free.

“I took the
Angelica
to Frisco,” explained Mattsson. “I stayed a year in the goldfields, but no luck for me. The best days in California are over. It’s hell to live out there. No sir! No diggin’s for me! I’ve left gold behind forever! Last year I was traveling about and happened to come here to Nebraska. Now I live in Grand City. I have a bar, and a hotel—Grand Hotel in Grand City. Now you know, Bob. And call me Fred!”

“I will, Fred!”

The hotel owner from Grand City had been out on a business trip and was now on his way home with a load of buffalo hides. He was in big business.

“What do you do around here, boy?”

Now it was Robert’s turn to explain. He and a friend from the
Charlotta
had also started out to dig gold in California. They had taken a job with a Mexican to look after his mules. But his friend had remained on the plains and the Mexican had died of yellow fever. Last spring Robert had lost both his friend and his boss. He had been left behind in Spring Creek, where he had stayed alone through the summer. His employer had left him what he owned; Robert had enough to live on.

“You are lucky! Did you make any money?”

“I have enough.”

“Good! Then you can live as a free gentleman in America!”

Fredrik Mattsson thought for a few moments. When he continued, his voice was even friendlier than before. He put his hand on Robert’s shoulder.

“I know what, my Swedish friend! You come with me to Grand City! You stay as my guest at the Grand Hotel!”

“Where is Grand City?”

“Fifty miles from here. Toward the east. You come with me! We Swedes should stick together! We’ll have a good time together!”

Robert could live wherever he wanted. He didn’t care where he went.

A few hours later the load of hides started out from Spring Creek with a new passenger. Robert was traveling back across the Nebraska plains. He had given up going west, he was now traveling east.

He had turned his back on the land of gold.

—2—

They drove for two days across the prairie. On the afternoon of the third day they came to a deep valley whose bottom they followed, and at dusk they had arrived at Grand City.

The town had been founded a few years earlier by a group of Mormons. The Mormons had been chased out of Missouri, said Fred, and sought freedom in Nebraska. Grand City had flourished, but soon troubles had arisen between the Mormons and new settlers of other sects who had moved in. When the inhabitants began to shoot each other, the town had stopped growing. Last summer the Mormons had been chased out of Grand City too, and since then life had been calmer. Last winter a tornado had moved most of the houses far out on the prairie. Since then business hadn’t been very good in Grand City.

As they came closer Robert saw that the town had been built in a gravel pit; the walls of the pit surrounded Grand City on all sides. It was a place fortified by nature. The houses, all along one street, were of varying shapes and construction: some of stone, some shed-like, some covered with tent roofs, even shanties of branches and twigs, roofed with leaves and turf. And the street at the bottom of the pit had caved in in many places; in one such hole lay a pile of boards that once must have been a house.