Deborah Calling
Page 23
She turned to Antippet. “You will take the rest of the men, collect the bodies, put them together in a ditch, and pile rocks over them. Otherwise, they’ll attract wild animals from the desert tonight.”
The men obeyed her.
Deborah crossed the stream back toward the open area. Above, scavenger birds began circling. She was shocked by how quickly they knew to come here, but there was a measure of justice in their arrival. Seesya had ordered Tamar’s body to be strung up on the Weeping Tree, where the birds had picked at her until only bones remained. Now the birds had come to feed on his body. Gazing up at them, Deborah felt neither glee nor satisfaction. It was true that she had pleaded with Yahweh for Seesya’s demise, but she’d never expected God to cause her to commit the sin of killing him.
The Edomite men dragged the soldiers’ corpses across the open area. Soosie lay in the middle, at the spot where he had fallen. He seemed larger in death than in life. She knew that others might not believe it, but in her heart there was no doubt that her old horse had intentionally sacrificed himself to save her—not once but twice! Deborah felt tears well up. It seemed that everyone she loved had to die, and Seesya’s hand was in every one of those deaths. Well, no more! The evil son of Zifron got his due punishment, and she hoped Yahweh would make him suffer in the afterlife!
Expecting to see Seesya’s body a short distance beyond Soosie’s corpse, Deborah was startled to find the spot vacant. Seesya’s bloody sword remained on the ground where he’d dropped it, but his body was gone. Had the Edomite men dragged his body away already? She noticed dark stains of blood in the light-brown dirt and followed the trail of blood all the way to the white-encrusted shore.
The surface of the Sea of Salt had been completely flat before, but now it was lapping lazily, disturbed from its normal placidity. About two hundred steps away, Seesya lounged in the water on his back, rowing with his hands. His white feet showed above the water, and between them, his face was looking back at her.
He paused for a moment, placed a hand under his bloody jaw and pantomimed cutting his throat.
Already shocked that he was alive, Deborah was stunned by his audacity in making a promise to kill her. Had he not done enough evil today, killing Miriam and Soosie?
Seesya repeated the gesture, slicing sideways with his hand across his throat.
Overcome with explosive rage, Deborah shouted, “You won’t kill anymore! Never!”
Pulling her sling from her belt, she found a stone, and fitted it into the pouch. She focused her gaze on Seesya’s bobbing head, rotated the sling twice for high speed, and let the stone fly.
It hit the water about three-quarters of the way to him.
Seesya kept rowing with his hands, gaining distance.
Deborah realized he was well beyond the reach of her sling. Drawing her sword, she rushed into the water.
At first, the sea was shallow. It was also hot and thick, like soup. The dense water made her legs sluggish, and when it reached above her hips, the unexpected buoyancy caught her. She tried to keep her feet on the bottom, but it was too late. The water lifted her, and she rolled over sideways.
The cut on her arm and the wounds on her back burned as if touched by fire. She let go of her sword and splashed with her hands, trying to stand straight again. The salty water got in her eyes, which flared up with terrible burning. She beat the water with her arms, trying to get back to shore, and the splashing threw more water at her face. She swallowed some, her throat constricted, and she convulsed with coughing.
Through her agony came the realization that this might be the end, all because Seesya had managed to trick her into the Sea of Salt and would now have the satisfaction of watching her drown in waist-high water. Determined not to give him this pleasure, Deborah forced herself to stop moving and pressed her hands to her burning eyes. With agonizing slowness, her body floated to the surface. She lounged on her back the way she had seen Seesya do and opened her eyes slightly to see where the shore was. Crying in pain, she paddled slowly with her hands until she felt the ground against the small of her back. Closing her eyes again, she groped for balance, rising to her feet.
The sound of Seesya’s laughter traveled over the water.
“Here, I’ll help you.” It was Antippet’s voice. He supported her onto the shore. “Wait here one moment,” he said.
He came back and poured fresh water over her head. Deborah lifted her face toward the sky and let the water run over her eyes, clearing the salt. Her still eyes hurt badly, but Antippet was ready with another waterskin, pouring it gently onto each eye.
Laughter came from the water, where Seesya was watching from a safe distance.
Deborah stood at the edge of the Sea of Salt and shouted, “I hate you!”
He laughed.
“I hate you for killing my parents! And my sister!”
He laughed louder.
She wept, her parched throat burning. “I hate you for killing Miriam!”
He hooted, raising both arms in victory.
She stepped into the water, driven by desperate rage. “And Barac!”
Antippet held her back.
“I hate you . . . for killing . . . everyone I loved.”
She ran out of air, her voice barely audible.
“I hate you . . . for making me kill.”
Chapter 26
Seesya became a dark stain in the middle of the Sea of Salt. Deborah emptied the water from her boots and put them back on. When she looked up again, he had faded away.
Her body ached as she walked slowly to the spot where Seesya had been hit by the stone from her sling. His sword lay on the ground. It was almost double the length of her sword, which would forever remain submerged in the Sea of Salt, a silent witness to her momentary surrender to absolute, mind-numbing hate.
Seesya’s sword was stained with Miriam’s dry blood. Deborah shuddered, averting her eyes, but her gaze was drawn back to this unusual blade. It was exceptionally smooth, with both edges sharpened flawlessly, and ended in a perfect point that would easily penetrate leather armor. The whole hilt, comprising the crossguard, the grip, and the round pommel at the back end, was silver-plated. The crossguard, which separated the blade from the grip, was decorated with tiny blood-red gemstones. The grip was cast with little bumps to improve one’s grasp. The pommel—a disc attached at the end of the grip to prevent the sword from slipping out of one’s hand—was decorated with a black stone about the size of a man’s eye. It made sense to Deborah that the butt of Seesya’s sword would be adorned with a stone as black as the evil spirit that drove him to violence and murder.
The silver hilt gleamed, and she reached down to hold it, but paused. Yahweh had commanded, “Do not steal!” On the other hand, Seesya had probably taken it from one of his victims, killing the unlucky owner with his own sword.
Using both hands, Deborah gripped Seesya’s sword by the silver hilt and picked it up. It was much heavier than her lost sword. She swung it left and right, which almost caused her to fall over, and realized she would have to grow stronger and practice her swordsmanship a great deal more before this magnificent sword would be truly hers.
At the foot of the cliffs, under the cave, she found the group of lepers standing around Miriam’s body. They looked at the sword she was carrying and shifted nervously. Their faces were veiled, except for one.
Deborah stared at the small and wiry young man, who could not possibly be standing here in Ein Gedi. “Ramrod?”
“Shalom, Deborah.” His thin face broke out in a smile. “I knew you’d beat him. I knew it!”
“How can you be here?” Deborah’s voice sounded odd to her, raspy and distant. “We saw you on the road to Emanuel only three days ago.”
“Seesya forced me to come with him.”
The comprehension hit her hard. “That’s how he knew to come here—you told him!”
Ramrod’s face wore the expression of a frightened child. “He was going to hurt me badly.”
“I tried to remain silent,” Ramrod said, “I really did. I wouldn’t answer his question. I refused. He laughed at me and took out knives and said he’d cut my fingers one by one and go on to my toes and my ears and keep cutting until I spoke. I had no choice. Who could keep quiet when such a horrible man, the son of a powerful judge, who can do anything he wants—”
Deborah hushed him with a raised hand. “Why did he question you, of all people? How did he know that you had information about us?”
“After you left me on the road, my donkey wouldn’t move, and Orran’s soldiers showed up. I ran into the hills, but they chased me, because their leader recognized me from the night before in Bethel, where I’d asked them questions about the escaped slaves they were chasing.”
She saw the guilt on his face and knew he was telling the truth. Orran’s soldiers must have seen the same guilty expression and known that he harbored useful information. “They took you to Emanuel?”
“Yes, and then Seesya interrogated me. What could I do?”
“You could have kept your mouth shut.”
Ramrod stepped closer to her, his hands pressed together, pleading. “Forgive me, Deborah. I tried to delay, give you time to get here before us, but Seesya was like a madman, terrifying! He showed me ears he’d cut off some boy the day before. Do you know what he said to me?” Ramrod was on the verge of crying. “I’m starting a collection!”
“Of ears?”
“Of body parts!”
“He’s more evil than I imagined,” Deborah said. “But I’m wondering—why did he come with only six soldiers?”
“His father forbade him to go at all.”
“Judge Zifron told him not to follow us?”
“I heard it myself,” Ramrod said.
“And Seesya went anyway?”
“He went completely mad when he heard that the prince was a fake. Also, the pain from the flogging was so bad, he couldn’t even put on a shirt, or fall asleep. He knew that Orran’s soldiers were going to leave the next morning, but he didn’t wait for them. In the middle of the night, he took a few soldiers and snuck away. We rode south to Bethel and Jerusalem, down the hills to the Jordan Valley near Jericho, and then here, to Ein Gedi. The whole way, my hands were tied.” Ramrod held his wrists together to demonstrate. “We rode nonstop, because he wanted to get here before you did.”
“To set an ambush.” She chuckled sadly. “I had the same plan, though I didn’t intend to kill anyone, only chase away a few of Orran’s soldiers so that we could continue on our way to Edom safely.”
Ramrod glanced up at the cliff. “He made us sit in the back of the cave, except for Miriam. She was supposed to draw you and the others close to the cave, and then Seesya and his soldiers were going to throw their spears and kill you and the Edomite slaves. He wanted to catch the two old men alive. Apparently, Orran of Manasseh is willing to pay for the return of his old slave, and as for the other one—the slave who used to manage Judge Zifron’s basket factory—Seesya wanted to take him back to Emanuel in order to win his father’s forgiveness. But then you approached the cave by yourself and—”
“I know what happened then.” Deborah looked at Miriam’s body and sighed. “She warned me, even though she knew he would kill her.”
“My aunt was a brave woman.” Ramrod knelt by the body, his voice breaking. “She took care of me since I was a baby, and I ended up causing her death.”
“It was my fault,” Deborah said. “I sent her here based on a dream, caused her unnecessary suffering, and by coming here to correct my error, I brought about her death.”
Ramrod and the lepers watched Deborah in silence while she struggled not to cry.
“May Yahweh forgive me,” she finally said. “It’s too late for Miriam, but the rest of you can go back. In the morning, Ramrod will prepare for the journey and lead you back to your cave in the Samariah Hills.”
The lepers put their heads together and spoke quietly to each other.
“They want to stay,” Ramrod said.
Deborah thought she hadn’t heard him right. “What?”
“Since they arrived and began following your prescription of garlic, olive oil, and washing in the water of the Sea of Salt, the curse has stopped. It’s not progressing any more, and some of them have started to feel pain where before they felt nothing.”
The lepers nodded.
Deborah looked at them, wishing she could see their faces. “Are you sure?”
“It’s true,” a man said in a croaky voice from behind his sheer veil. “Your dream was true.”
They bowed to her, murmuring thanks.
“Don’t bow to me,” Deborah said, stunned by the news. “Give thanks to Yahweh, the one true God. He alone is helping you.”
Examining his hand, Ramrod said, “The few weeks I spent here before I left, complaining about the heat, garlic paste, and olive oil, actually helped my finger to heal.”
“That’s good,” she said. “They need you to stay here and take care of them, as Miriam had done until she died.”
Ramrod seemed ready to protest, but Deborah gave him a stern glance, and he said nothing.
A meek whine came from above. Everyone looked up at the mouth of the cave. The sound repeated, and the lepers turned to Ramrod. He climbed up to the cave, disappeared inside, and reappeared with a cloth sack. Back on the ground, he untied the string bound the sack, and Miriam’s black-and-white cat came out. It went to Deborah and rubbed against her leg. She picked up the cat, held it to her chest, and scratched its head, which was divided down the middle between white and black. She remembered seeing this cat for the first time back in Shiloh and thinking that its colors were like the good and evil spirits, always competing to dominate men’s hearts.
The lepers buried Miriam under the plum tree. The inhabitants of Ein Gedi, about thirty men, women, and children, came out of their shacks, where they had stayed out of sight under Seesya’s orders, and stood at a distance, watching the burial. In this harsh place on the shores of a lifeless sea, the two groups had managed to live peacefully side-by-side and share what little food could be grown.
After the burial, a few of the local men chased away the scavenger birds from Soosie’s corpse and dragged it toward their shacks at the mouth of the canyon. Deborah ran over and blocked their way.
“This is my horse,” she said.
None of them responded.
“He saved my life.”
Still, they said nothing. Their eyes were drawn to Seesya’s sword in her hand. They were scrawny and carried no weapons. She heard noises behind her and turned to see the women and children standing near the shacks, watching the standoff with large, sad eyes.
Deborah moved aside. “After you take the meat,” she said, “bury what’s left.”
She watched them drag the dead horse the rest of the way to their shacks. Her grief was lessened by the thought that, with this rare gift of meat, their children would have a better chance to survive. It was an honorable way for her good horse to end his existence.
Ramrod was waiting for her at the entry to the canyon. “You need a new horse,” he said. “Come with me.”
Seesya’s soldiers had tied their horses to a tree a few hundred steps up the canyon. Deborah approached Seesya’s white stallion. It was fitted with a leather saddle, a good waterskin, and a bridle with ornate silver fasteners. Seesya’s belt, with the attached leather scabbard for the sword, rested on a rock near the horse. Deborah strapped on the belt, adjusting it for her narrow waist, and sheathed the sword in the scabbard. It hung against her hip, the point reaching down to her shin, but when she pushed the hilt forward, the sword hung in an angle and didn’t interfere with her walking.
A short pole was attached to the saddle, topped with the golden effigy of Ra, the Canaanite sun god, whose man’s body and ha
wk’s head was topped with a solar disk and a coiled serpent. Seesya must have had several of these effigies made for him. Deborah removed the pole from the saddle, threw it on the ground, and stomped on Ra the way Obadiah of Ephraim had done back in Emanuel. The stallion neighed and pawed the ground.
Ramrod handed her a plum, and she held it out until Seesya’s horse calmed down and ate it from her hand. She rubbed the stallion’s neck for a few minutes, untied its reins, and walked it down the canyon.
When Antippet saw Deborah with Seesya’s great white stallion, he clapped. Deborah, however, felt no joy. Knowing Seesya’s vigor, physical strength, and unreserved viciousness, she had no doubt that he would survive. The Sea of Salt sustained no snakes or crocodiles, and its buoyancy prevented drowning. The only deadly force was the sun, but by tomorrow morning Seesya would reach the opposite shore and find shelter. She had no doubt that he would survive. He was evil, and evil men didn’t die as easily as good men did.
In the coming days though, he would have to walk in the harsh desert alone and half-naked, his back lacerated and his jaw broken, while she would ride his stallion to Edom, his bejeweled silver sword strapped to her hip. There was sweet revenge in all of this, Deborah thought, and gave the horse another plum, winning a grateful snort.
The Edomite men made camp near the stream and cooked a pot of soup with barley and vegetables. Deborah set up a watch rotation and instructed the men to patrol the shore with a torch in case Seesya came back.
After the meal, she stood for a while on the shore, looking out at the Sea of Salt, which was dark and flat. Across the sea, the last rays of the sun touched the peaks of the Moab Mountains. She thought of Zariz with his deadly bow and arrows, roaming the trade routes with his father. In a few months, they would return home to Dibon, the largest city in Moab, for the winter. Zariz would be older then, his juvenile hint of a beard fuller, his stature taller and more muscular. When would he be ready for a wife to accompany him on the road, visiting different tribes and kingdoms, seeing strange places, meeting fascinating people? She would be a lucky girl, Zariz’s wife, not only for the life of adventurous travels that awaited her, but also because Zariz’s heart was both kind and brave, a combination Deborah had yet to see in any other man—except, perhaps, Barac, son of Abinoam.