Day of War

by Cliff Graham

  And what the man said about David’s raids was true. All the women and children had been put to the sword in those villages. Their intention had been to leave no one alive to tell the truth — that it was David and his soldiers wiping them out, and not the Sea People, as they called the Philistines.

  But this man referred to the Lion of Judah, Benaiah thought. They have finally figured out it was us.

  “Get me help … you promised me,” the man rasped.

  Benaiah looked back down at him. He positioned the tip of the spear on the edge of his eye socket.

  “Don’t! I will be your slave!”

  Benaiah rammed the spear through the man’s skull. The Amalekite convulsed violently.

  Benaiah turned and walked toward the forest, ignoring the people gathering behind him, calling out. He picked his way back into the trees. When he reached the dead boy, he wrapped him tightly in the burial cloth and hoisted him over his shoulder.

  Weariness overtook him. The battle rage that had kept him going all day was dissipating. Emerging from the woods. he made eye contact with Jairas, standing in the gathering. “I need water,” Benaiah said.

  Jairas nodded at one of the men, who broke into a run toward the well at the edge of town, where more people gathered, awestruck.

  Women began to chant songs of praise for him who had killed lions and destroyed Amalekites. As more of them arrived they sang louder, their voices piercing the cold night air and encouraging the others to join in.

  Benaiah saw who he was looking for in the crowd. He carried the bundle to the father and mother. When they realized what he was carrying, the woman shrieked and the father wept openly, hugging the boy between himself and Benaiah.

  Benaiah released the boy to the father, who shouted praises of gratitude to Yahweh that he had his son back. He carried him into the crowd, his wife next to him, both of them clutching the body of their son and weeping.

  The man sent to fetch water arrived and handed over the pouch. Benaiah poured the water into his mouth so quickly that most of it ended up on his soiled tunic. His hands, shaking harshly, were weakening, and he missed his mouth with the last of the water. He felt light-headed and knelt down on the soil, his ears ringing so much that he had to cover them with his hands.

  Soon the entire village and all of those who had come for the shearing season, over a hundred people, had joined in the chanting, clicking their tongues and throwing dust into the air. The watch fires had been stoked, and the flames leaped high and bright.

  In that light, images came to Benaiah: the amber eyes of the lion, a child’s foot, the blood on his doorstep, the rage he poured out on his enemies.

  With a final gasp, he disappeared into darkness.

  FIVE

  Benaiah found himself walking through sunlit corridors splashed with brilliant, colorful artwork, enjoying the scent of the Nile delta flush with spring flooding. His feet were clean. They were always clean. There was always a basin nearby to wash them in or a brush to dust them with. The Egyptians were cleaner than his people, always bathing and rubbing on perfumes at the end of every day. The great river ambled in front of every home and provided water to all who longed for it in abundance.

  He entered the pool at the base of the alabaster steps. Goldfish touched the surface of the water around his feet. He watched them swirl around lazily before letting the linen garment fall from his waist. He stretched his tired muscles, first in his legs and then in his arms, taking a moment to admire how taut they had become from the desert fighting.

  He was making a great deal of money in these lands. More than enough to gather holdings in the prime country near the coast. Perhaps he would become a merchant one day. But there would be no sons to pass the business along to, not unless Sherizah provided them. Two daughters, that was all.

  He lowered himself into the water … and then he was in the desert at the edge of the sea, the high peaks of savage lands standing like imposing sentinels along the shore. Not a blade of grass or growth of any kind, only the scorpions and the vipers. What did they eat? Where was life?

  Before him stood a crowd that had come to watch. And they had brought their champion, a great giant, his eyes darker than night, his gaze indifferent, as though Benaiah was only another fly to swat. The daughter of Pharaoh was there, seated on a golden throne carried by Nubian slaves, and they were all watching him, this barbarian Hebrew from the north who was to battle their champion in the sand at the edge of the emerald water.

  Benaiah shifted his weight, and the champion attacked suddenly, so enormous, as immense as the giants in Gath, his spear like an oak tree. They fought across the sand, into the ocean, the salt spray burning his lips and eyes, terrible harsh sunlight on every rock face. The giant was overwhelming him, and Benaiah sensed a great void behind, drawing him in, pulling him into darkness …

  There was a dim glow through his eyelids. Pain hit him suddenly, causing him to cough and clench his eyes in startled awareness. He blinked them open and waited for the light to adjust in his sight.

  He was in a small room with a rough-hewn table in one corner. He was lying on some sort of mat on the floor. He was not in Egypt. He was in a small village high in the mountains, and he had been nearly killed by a lion.

  Groggy and feeling like he had drunk too much wine, he tried to gather his wits by surveying the room. He guessed this to be the main room of the house, eleven or twelve cubits wide, with thick walls of stone and rubble cemented with mud. Robes and belts hung from hooks protruding from the walls, and there was a single window high on one of them with reed lattice covering it.

  The light streaming against Benaiah’s face was coming from the window, but the smell of food, which he was immediately intrigued by, was coming from the entrance, a large wooden door with a bolt. The door was slightly ajar, allowing the breeze to swirl across the first level of the home, covered in dust and pebbles tracked in by sandals. Benaiah was lying on the second level, two steps above the entrance.

  The roof was carefully constructed of sycamore beams covered with brushwood bound together with mud. It was slightly green — moss from the continuous drip of spring rains. Seed sprouts from the mud were also blooming, contributing to the look of a forest floor above him.

  Benaiah’s thoughts wandered to his father’s home in Kabzeel when he was a boy, fighting with his brothers about who could stay inside and scrub the ceiling and who had to work the plow. Their father wanted them to do more than sit and read, so he made sure that Benaiah and his brothers grew to manhood with calloused hands.

  Benaiah felt close to his father, a man who seemed to have no vices and loved his family dearly. It was a legacy and a name to carry with honor. Benaiah simply did not want to become a priest himself. But at home, they’d studied the Law, spoken of politics, and worked their lands. He’d learned of the guilt offering assam and the sin offering hattah, made when a person upset Yahweh or deeply offended someone else. His father had taught him how someone could become ceremonially defiled and unclean, and how to be cleansed of such guilt.

  So I am without excuse, he thought as he studied the ceiling.

  A woman walked in carrying a ceramic pot. Seeing Benaiah awake, she startled, almost dropping it. She bowed her head curtly and continued to the rug spread out on the floor near him. Putting the pot down, she averted her eyes and hurried out the door. Wisps of steam rose from the pot.

  The smell of the meat made his belly ache for food. There was a dull throb on his head and arm, but when he sat up too quickly, it flared up and he felt like he had thrown himself into the cooking fire.

  “Careful, my friend, you aren’t well yet.”

  Benaiah turned to see who was speaking. Jairas stooped over him, a smile showing through his thick black beard. A gray robe and girdle hung loosely from him, and a square of thin wool was wrapped around his head with several cords. He wiped his brow with a wet rag.

  “You have been asleep for two days. Disease nearly killed you.”
r />   Benaiah thought about this a moment, then became frustrated that his mind seemed to be working slow. Everything was a haze — his thoughts, his memories, the sights in the dwelling around him.

  “Two days?”

  “Yes, two days. My wife and I have been up with you. So have our children.”

  Benaiah rubbed his slashed arm.

  “You did not have to …”

  Jairas made a dismissive gesture and dipped the rag in water.

  “After what you did? We should be giving you the whole village and all of our daughters as a war prize.”

  Benaiah looked at the other people who were suddenly in the room sitting on the floor next to him. Two girls and a boy, along with a woman he assumed was their mother, the one who had brought in the pot of food.

  “You have a knack for living, my friend. First we lost you to the lion in the pit, then I thought the infection would take you. Yet here you are.” He touched a sensitive part of the scalp wound and Benaiah winced.

  “I confess I believed the lion had you. But our physician is quite skilled. Irritating man, though, always whining. You must tell us about the lion when you can, or my son will drive you to the point of madness with his questions.”

  Benaiah glanced at the boy sitting next to the bed, staring wide-eyed at him.

  “The entire town knows about your fight with the Amalekites. They wish to show you their gratitude,” Jairas continued.

  “What about the boy? Does he live?”

  “Haratha lives. The physician, as I said, is very skilled.”

  Then Benaiah remembered all of it. The storm, the lion, the warriors in the forest with blazing weapons … the man who had escaped, and the prisoner who had told him about the raiding party.

  He grabbed hold of Jairas’s wrist. “I need to leave. I need to warn my men.”

  Jairas looked puzzled. “Warn them of what? All but one of the Amalekites was killed.”

  “Not them, the larger raiding force in the lowlands. The wounded man told me.”

  “You would trust the word of an Amalekite?”

  “Amalekites live in small settlements scattered across the desert. They seldom join together, and they certainly wouldn’t send one group of ten men alone into our territory. They must have been part of a larger force moving into Philistia.”

  “But you only just awoke! Those wounds are far from healed. Too much movement and they’ll reopen. You’ll bleed out on the trail.”

  “They will hold long enough for me to get back to my men.” Benaiah pushed himself upright, ignoring the burning on his head and shoulder. The wounds were painful but not threatening. He should be able to function now.

  “At least stay for the afternoon meal.”

  Benaiah looked at the eager faces of Jairas’s children and nodded. He rocked himself forward and slowly stood. The creaking in his stiff joints led him to stretch his arms over his head and move his fingers. He had on a fresh tunic, apparently donated by Jairas. In one corner of the room, his spear, his sword, and his tunic were hanging from wall pegs. His dagger was propped against his shield near a doorway that probably led to a bedroom. The blades were clean and gleaming. The men must have rubbed them with olive oil and wiped them with coarse wool for him.

  Benaiah thanked Jairas once more, who waved it off and maintained that there was more he wished he could do. Benaiah had heard nothing from Jairas’s wife, busy preparing the meal. That did not surprise him. Women spoke only when they were directly addressed. But he was grateful for her care.

  The three children stared openly at him, and he winked. The two girls giggled and the boy tried to suppress a smile. Their dark eyes were friendly and innocent. He glanced away. When they all finally gathered at the ceramic food pot in the middle of the dinner rug, Jairas spoke a blessing over the food and the man who had come to them. The meal, lentils and roasted goat, was a rare feast. Steaming loaves of bread were torn apart and used for dipping oil and scooping up the mix.

  There was cinnamon-spiced water, cakes of fig and raisin, and most surprising of all, a small vat of honey to dip them in. He knew a simple family would never have been able to afford such a meal, so it must have been donated by the village at the request of the elders, as hospitality required.

  Still, Benaiah could not help feeling guilty a much-needed goat had been slaughtered on his account. That did not stop him from ravenously eating his first true meal in days.

  Throughout the meal, the children chattered excitedly back and forth about the killing of the lion, and Benaiah was forced to clarify. No, there had not been forty lions. No, the Amalekites had not had an army of witches he’d been forced to fight off.

  When his belly was full, Benaiah gathered his equipment regretfully. Jairas’s wife was given permission to speak and gave him her own thanks, again avoiding his eyes as much as possible. He tousled the head of the boy, asked permission to kiss the girls on the head, then walked into the late afternoon sun with Jairas behind him.

  A crowd had been standing near the entrance of the house throughout the meal. Now they shouted to the others on the street. Leather tanners and potters left their shops, carpenters put down their bow drills and mallets. Metalworkers told their apprentices that they could run outside, briefly, to see the great hero off. He nodded to the people and forced a smile.

  The elders spoke a blessing over him. When it was finished, the crowd began to trudge back to their work, resigned to the start of another day.

  “Are you sure you cannot wait?” Jairas said as he and Benaiah were left alone again. “Sabbath begins this evening. It will take several days to reach your friends anyway.”

  Benaiah finished tying his shield to his back and adjusted the pouch full of cakes and nuts that had been given him for the journey.

  “I’ve lost enough time.” And the Sabbath does not matter to me anymore, he thought.

  The livestock in the residential stables were lowing, protesting the fact that their owners had forgotten to feed them in order to be around the fighter.

  Jairas cleared his throat. “What is he like? Your leader. The Lion, as the children call him.”

  Benaiah paused. “He sings a lot. He is also the most terrifying man on a battlefield I have ever seen.”

  “What about his politics? I heard he was chosen to become king one day, that he was raising an army in the desert to overthrow Saul. We know he is a man of Judah, which is good, but we hear that he employs foreigners and even Philistines. That he actually serves the Philistine kings! He also puts heavy levies on the people who work his lands in the south.”

  “That last is true. But he divides up the bounty from them and sends it to the tribes.”

  Jairas raised an eyebrow. “We have never seen any of his help here.”

  “I assume that nice new olive press was paid for by a donation, correct?”

  Jairas nodded.

  “And if I remember correctly, your lions are dead now,” Benaiah said. He exhaled heavily. With his wounds he was having a hard time leaning over to tie his sandal straps. “He knows the people are wary of him. That is why he sends us out to help them.”

  Benaiah could sense the older man gazing at him as he worked. The outlaws were already legendary, as was their leader. David was famous everywhere men gathered because of his exploits in the king’s army.

  After a while, Jairas sighed and sat down next to him. He rubbed his forehead, every bit the tired, aging man he looked. “I was still in Saul’s forces when he killed the champion of Gath called Goliath,” he said. “I was summoned with all of the other men to the Elah Valley. I will never forget what I saw that day. Only Yahweh gives men such ability. I want to know if he is still the same man. If he is, then we are with him. You can tell him that.”

  Benaiah nodded. “He is that man.”

  That this village supported David was good news. Benaiah and the rest of David’s forces had been spending a great deal of time trying to quietly convince the people that, despite how thing
s looked, David was not a traitor serving the Philistines, that everything he was doing was for their ultimate good. “He sent me to help you because he loves his people,” Benaiah said. “All of the tribes. We are not traitors, but people will believe what they believe.”

  “But it appears as though he is the vassal of Philistia. They are our blood enemy and the enemy of Yahweh. The tribes in the north will have a hard enough time accepting a man from Judah. Marching with Philistines does not help his case. What does he intend to do?”

  Benaiah was in a hurry to leave but made sure to watch his tone in the presence of an elder. “He doesn’t reveal all of his plans to us. But on my father’s honor, and the honor of Israel, he is the best man and mightiest warrior I have seen. When we march with the Philistines, it is they who need to be careful.”

  Benaiah thanked Jairas once more, then turned and began to walk down the road out of town. “Tell Haratha I hope he finds a woman,” he said over his shoulder.

  The people called shouts of encouragement after him as he left, and he nodded to each in turn. From the edge of the forest, he waved a final time, then slipped into the trees.

  The snow on the mountains above him was gone now, exposing the grass struggling to emerge with spring. The rolling terrain of the Judean high country all looked the same and made it difficult to navigate. He followed a path that was occasionally lost when the grass gave way to pebbles and dirt. Benaiah had to make careful note of the creek bed. Following the stream’s route to the Great Sea would eventually bring him out of the hills and into the area around Ziklag, his current home.

  She would be there now, rising with the sun and meeting with the other women at the community well. They would carry on and chat, the other women unaware of what she carried in her heart. No one knew but the two of them; there were wounds better left buried.