Army of God

by Dennis Bailey

  “Not to brag. But I had two. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I don’t want to have to remind you we’re on a campaign to obtain slaves. You remember what happened before?”

  Bohar twisted his mouth. “That was ages ago.”

  “Uh huh.”

  The attention of both men was drawn to a commotion coming toward them on the main street in front of the garrison. “Look out!” a man in shepherd’s garb chasing two camels said. “Runaway camels.”

  The animals ran toward them traveling north to south, causing people to scatter from both sides of the street.

  The commander, Bohar, and another thirty soldiers moved out to the street for a better look. In the distance, the shepherd stopped in the middle of the road to lean against his staff while his two camels raced through the south gate.

  “What was that?” Bohar said.

  “I don’t know,” Shechem said. “Something must have frightened them.”

  Chapter 48

  In the 600th year of Noah . . .

  Ham’s heel struck a bucket of hot preservative while applying it to the inside of the hull on the middle deck. “Best be careful, son.” Noah moved closer to where his son was working on scaffolding erected to access the higher sections of the ark’s interior. “I doubt if the women below would appreciate a shower of pitch today.”

  Shiphrah and Ariel looked up from the deck directly beneath them. “No, we wouldn’t,” Shiphrah said.

  After almost a hundred years, they were on the last leg of the ark’s construction. But the harvesting of sap needed to cover inside and out a structure this size had proven a monumental task in itself. Thousands of trees had been required—mostly pine, birch, and spruce—from which sap was extracted and converted into the water-resistant protectant. He and his sons had hand forged out of bronze nearly a hundred utensils: ladles and buckets for collection, and pans for production and refinement.

  They could not afford to spare a drop. So before returning to work, he slid Ham’s bucket a half cubit closer to the hull. “I’m moving this away from the edge, son.”

  “All right, Father.” Only Ham never took his eyes off the place where he’d been working. Nine parts later, he stepped back again, only this time his heel struck the bucket with enough force to knock it over.

  “Ariel!” Noah yelled.

  Ariel stared directly up into the falling tar.

  Shiphrah had already launched herself through the air, striking Ariel in the torso and driving her out of the way. Pitch splashed onto Shiphrah’s left calf and she screamed.

  The two men vaulted down the scaffolding to the two women sprawled on the deck safely out of the way of the pool of resin. Noah, uncertain of an injury to Ariel, reached her first. “Are you all right?”

  Though still dazed, she managed a single nod of her head.

  He moved to Shiphrah, taking her injured leg in his hands while Ham comforted her. She winced in pain. Though the splatter was considerable, it could have been much worse. “This will be a bit uncomfortable, but we’ve got to get it off before it hardens.”

  “Go ahead.” Shiphrah sucked air through clenched teeth.

  “Hold onto her,” he said to Ham.

  Noah reached for one of several cloths they had handy for spills and tore it in half. He wrapped the one just below the burn to her calf, then wiped the dark substance onto it with the other. The skin beneath shone bright vermillion, but some of the preservative remained. “I’m sorry, but we can’t leave any of it on your leg.”

  “Just do it,” Shiphrah said and buried her head into Ham’s chest.

  He made three more passes across the burn, the last prompting her to cry out. “That’s it,” he said. “Let’s get you back to the house.”

  Ham lifted her into his arms and headed for the up ramp, while his father helped Ariel to her feet. “Why?” she yelled after them.

  Ham spun around, and Shiphrah raised her head.

  “You risked your life for me?” Ariel said.

  Shiphrah just smiled before falling back against her husband, who carried her briskly up the ramp.

  Ariel stood with her mouth agape and looked at Noah. “I don’t understand.”

  He put his arm around her and led her away. “Do you really need to? Maybe you should consider the possibility you may have misjudged her all these years.”

  For the first time in a hundred years, he saw real hope for reconciliation between his two daughters-in-law. Ariel’s attitude toward Shiphrah since her marriage to Ham, though less vocal, hadn’t changed much. From Noah’s perspective, there had remained a quiet resentment lurking beneath the surface. Could this near tragedy be the impetus to finally soften Ariel’s heart? “Praise God, let it be so,” he whispered.

  “What was that?’

  “Nothing, daughter. Just thinking out loud.”

  * * *

  “How is she?” Noah said.

  Six days after the accident, he and Miryam hovered over a bedridden Shiphrah. Despite applying a salve of oil, aloe leaves, and beeswax to the burn on her leg, it had become swollen and red. Miryam removed her hand from the girl’s forehead. “Hot. Ham and Ariel better return soon.”

  Shiphrah’s fever started two days following her injury, and she was unable to make it out of bed the next. When her temperature failed to respond to the application of cold, wet cloths to her forehead, wrists, and ankles, Miryam insisted on a physician. Ham volunteered to find one, but Ariel surprised everyone by demanding to go with him. Noah suggested they begin their search in the local village where they obtained supplies. That was three days ago, and still they hadn’t returned.

  “If they’re not back by tonight—”

  The door opened abruptly. Ham and Ariel entered the house followed by an elderly man with unkempt white hair and a scraggly beard. He wore a crimson tunic and hunched as he walked.

  “Father,” Ham said. “This is Jubal. He’s—”

  “Where’s the girl?” Jubal’s voice was raspy but strong.

  Noah and Ham followed behind Miryam, who led the man to Shiphrah’s room. Jubal stopped and pointed to Miryam. “Just you. The rest, out.”

  Two hundred seventy parts later, Miryam came out with a small leather pouch containing herbs from which she prepared a broth for Shiphrah. She rejoined the physician for another short period before the two came out together.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Ham said, his face drawn.

  “She has an infection from that burn on her leg.”

  “Will she be all right?”

  “I wish I could say. The infection is what’s causing the fever.”

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “Only what I’ve already done, which isn’t much. She’ll live now or she’ll die. It’s up to her.”

  Ham took a step back. He pushed past his family and into his and Shiphrah’s room.

  “Continue to change the dressing on her leg at least once a day,” Jubal said to Miryam. “More if there’s a discharge. Keep applying the cold water cloths. And give her the herbal brew three times daily. It will help with the fever.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Noah said. “My eldest here will escort you home.”

  “I’ve got a mule outside. I can find my way. And that ark you’ve built makes a good reference point. It’s practically due north from where I live.”

  After Jubal left, Noah entered Ham and Shiphrah’s room to find

  his son on his knees next to the bed with his forehead touching her arm. He sobbed.

  “Son.”

  “You heard what the physician said, Father? She could live or die.”

  “I heard.”

  “I can’t believe it. After what you went through to bring her back, to think I could lose her to something as simple as an infection.”

  “You’re not going to lose her. You must have faith.”

  Ham drew up a sniffle. “Faith. What’s it look like? Can you show it to me?”

  Like his broth
ers before him, age had robbed Ham of the innocence of his childhood faith. He had exchanged his wide-eyed belief in the Almighty for a pragmatic skepticism of anything he couldn’t experience with his senses. Now, when he needed a spiritual pillar to lean on, it wasn’t there. Can you show it to me? Noah knelt beside his son to pray.

  * * *

  Noah’s sleep was broken. Miryam had just returned to bed from changing Shiphrah’s wet cloths, a task she shared throughout the night with Ariel and Elisheva.

  “It will be light soon,” he said. “Any change?”

  “No. She’s still sweltering.”

  The shadow of someone entering the room startled them both, something none of his sons would ever do without asking permission. Not until the figure reached their bed did he recognize his last born. “What is it?” Noah said.

  “It’s Shiphrah. She stopped breathing.”

  Chapter 49

  Shechem watched the sunrise from the north bank of an unknown river south of Eden where he and his men had chosen to camp. Across from him, a scene played out that made him envious.

  A woman washed clothes in the river while her toddler son played in the grass a few cubits behind her. The boy seemed fascinated with the small block of wood someone had fashioned into a small boat. It reminded Shechem of a time when he was a young father and his two daughters had to depend upon him.

  He longed for those days.

  It had been four years since Lamech died, two since they’d completed replacing all of the massacred slaves. After that, two things never happened again: the elders never mentioned the slaves, and Eden’s gods were never vandalized. The second was undoubtedly a consequence of the elder’s sons being imprisoned—Malluch had correctly predicted that one. But the first, Shechem was certain, resulted from Lamech’s absence of leadership.

  Of all the elders, Lamech had been the most annoying pebble in Malluch’s sandal. He also happened to be the grandfather of the man who’d stolen his best friend’s first love. Despite these shortcomings, Shechem couldn’t bring himself to hate the man. More than once during the murders, he’d offered to help and was the only one who seemed to know they weren’t coincidental.

  Lamech had not only served as the elders’ spokesman, but was also the driving force behind the campaign to release the slaves. If Methuselah was the patriarchs’ head, Lamech had been their heart.

  Shechem’s thoughts were interrupted when Bohar and two of his closest allies approached. “What are you doing down here, Commander?” Bohar said. “Going swimming?”

  “I was enjoying a peaceful moment alone.”

  “Great. Looks like we’re just in time to ruin it for you.”

  The commander chuckled and shook his head.

  Across the river, the woman rung the water out of her clothes and placed them in a reed basket. She scanned the river again before moving up the bank, leaving her son to play in the grass. She headed for a cypress tree twenty cubits away near the crest of the bank where more clothes hung from its branches. Her steps appeared labored by the incline and the weight of the basket.

  Movement in the water diverted Shechem’s attention. A pair of eyes and a long, dark snout floated to the surface and moved with stealth toward the boy onshore. They were joined by a second pair of eyes, behind which thrashed great reptilian tails that propelled them both toward land.

  On the river bank, the child remained fixated on the toy, oblivious to the impending danger.

  “Hey, look at that,” Bohar said to his two companions. “I’ll take the one on the left. Five silver shekels he reaches the boy first.”

  “Reaches or eats?” said the first companion.

  “Let’s make it the first one to bite him, because after that they’re going to fight each other ripping him apart.”

  “It’s a bet. I’ll take the one on the right.”

  “Me too,” the second man said. “Five shekels on the one on the right.”

  Heartless. Shechem shouted at the woman, who turned in time to see the approaching predators.

  “What are you doing?” Bohar said. “You’ll spoil the wager.”

  Screaming her son’s name, she dropped the basket and ran back to the bank, arriving just when the crocodiles broke from the water onto shore. They were five cubits from her when she kneeled to gather her son in her arms. She stood to run, but froze when she saw the crocodiles. The woman closed her eyes and pulled her son tight against her bosom.

  “Same bet for the woman?” Bohar said.

  Both companions nodded.

  Shechem waded into the river, yelling at the reptiles and striking the water with his sword, but they continued toward the boy and his mother. In desperation, he threw his sword, which landed several cubits away from its intended targets.

  When the pair of crocodiles got within a cubit of the woman’s feet, they split, as if moved by an invisible divining rod. They passed on either side of her, continuing up the riverbank. The woman, still clutching the child to her chest, remained motionless so that the tail of the croc passing on her left brushed across the top of her foot and ankle.

  The crocodiles crested the incline, continuing southeast and disappearing in the tall grass.

  “Did you see that?” Bohar said.

  “Yes,” the second companion said while the first just shook his head, mouth ajar.

  “They must not have been hungry.”

  “Or they had someplace to go,” Shechem said.

  “Someplace to go? Where outside of a river would two crocs go?”

  Shechem didn’t answer, but he’d seen and heard too much over the past few years to continue to accept it for coincidence. The owls. The camels. The stories told by a dozen others concerning the strange behavior of animals moving through the region. Always in pairs, and always moving toward the south.

  Now these crocs.

  “Too bad his mother got there in time,” Bohar said. “Someplace to go or not, there’s no way those crocs would have passed on that boy had he stayed within range.”

  * * *

  Noah’s family gathered around the bed where Shiphrah lay motionless. All attempts to revive her—calling out, shaking her body, slapping her face—had proven ineffective. Noah stooped for a closer look and placed his ear against her breast. It was silent. And yet, when he touched her arm it was still quite warm.

  He gestured to Miryam. “Would you take everyone in the other room?”

  “I’m staying,” Ham said.

  “Please,” he said. “There’s nothing more you can do.”

  Japheth put his arm around his brother. “Come on, Ham.”

  When the room cleared, Noah knelt beside Shiphrah and slowly scanned the length of her body. He slammed a clenched fist on the bed next to her. “Lord.” Pushing the pronunciation through gritting teeth, he bit down on his tongue to keep from uttering his true feelings. The sorrow and confusion of the moment had been overshadowed by a much stronger emotion—anger. Anger at God. After all You’ve done to protect her, how could You take her from us now?

  He took her hand in his, but couldn’t bring himself to pray. Instead, he allowed his mind to wander, all the way back to their first meeting in Eden’s square. Here was this naïve young woman dressed to look much older than she was, holding onto the false belief she’d been brought there to find a husband. Bereft of a daughter of his own, she’d stolen his heart immediately. Then later that evening, the knock at the door that had changed all their lives.

  One by one, recollections of Shiphrah’s life among them unfolded onto his consciousness like the images in a dream, images of her beauty, kindness, and courage. As they played across his mind, he was reminded how blessed they were to have had her for the time they did. Gradually, his anger subsided, and with each successive memory subsided a little more. When the hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, he was ready to go to God.

  Near the end of his petition, he asked the Lord to forgive his anger and to grant him the wisdom to understand H
is will. His last request was for the strength to comfort his family in light of Shiphrah’s death. At that moment, a drop of moisture struck the heel of the hand holding hers. He opened his eyes to the morning’s light reflecting off the other droplets spotting her arm.

  He pushed her hair aside. Beads of sweat streamed from her forehead, down her cheeks, and onto her neck.

  Slowly, her chest rose and fell.

  “Ham,” he shouted.

  Chapter 50

  Shechem and Bohar waited for the governor in the great hall. In usual fashion, Bohar helped himself to food set out on the table for their leader.

  “Good morning, my friends,” Malluch said, entering the hall. “I trust I didn’t keep you waiting long.”

  “Interminably,” Bohar said with bread crumbs flying out of his mouth.

  Malluch laughed, but Shechem was surprised Bohar even knew the meaning of the word. “Such a sense of humor,” he said. “How was your latest campaign?”

  “Fine, except Shechem ruined my bet on the way back.”

  “And how did he do that?”

  “Ah, he shouted at some woman to come save her child just as two crocs were about to eat him.”

  “Sounds thrilling.”

  “It could have been.” Bohar scowled at Shechem.

  “Perhaps next time. But onto more pressing matters. You’re aware I just returned from Enoch last night?”

  “Of course,” Shechem said. “Were you able to win the prince over to your way of thinking?”

  “I took with us a tribute of one hundred talents of gold, three hundred talents of silver, and two hundred horses.”

  Bohar’s eyebrows raised. “That’s some tribute.”

  “Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. He turned me down.”

  Eating a pear down to the core, Bohar spit a seed that bounced across the table onto the floor. “Really? I never thought he’d run scared.”

  “What about the families of those Enochites slain?” Shechem said. “Have they given up?”

  “Not a mite’s worth,” Malluch said. “I know some who have hounded the prince every day for the past 120 years. But he won’t budge.”