by Summer Lee
No matter how Sam tried to make light of the situation, she would stand no more for the animal’s torture. “I am leaving, Sam. Do you wish to come with me, or will you stay and watch that poor creature suffer more?”
She had heard from different sources about women manipulating men through ultimatums. She didn’t care for, nor would she resort to using such tactics, against Sam. She liked him. It was more than just like, but she had a hard time expressing that emotion.
Sam stood up. “You know I’m not going to put you into any situation where you feel uncomfortable,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“You keep apologizing, even after I told you it wasn’t necessary,” she replied. “An apology is more potent through actions.”
Achava walked ahead of Sam while going back to his car. When she reached the vehicle, she looked up at the sign. Jackson and Hampton 3-Ring Spectacular. It was a circus alright, just not the one advertised.
***
Achava looked out the passenger’s side window as Sam drove them to their next destination. “Sam,” she said, “have you given the Fleece of Gideon any more thought?”
“I’ve given it quite a bit of thought,” said Sam. “I just don’t see how a sheep skin can be preserved for four thousand years.”
“I’m with you on that one.” She turned and looked at him. “Although I heard something about Gideon that intrigues me.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said. “Right now we are on a date, and I want to enjoy it.”
She felt uncomfortable with the entire concept of dating. When Sam asked her if she would like to go out to dinner with him, she had no idea what to expect. “Are you asking me out on a date?” she had asked.
He blushed when he had said, “Yes.”
Being intimate and gentle had become foreign to her as she got older. When she wasn’t in danger, she usually spent her time in meditation or prayer, feeding her inner soul. She would also use some of that time to do strength training. However, Sam’s lack of interest in those things frustrated her. This was going to be a different kind of experience. She would try to enjoy herself for Sam’s sake, even though she felt they got to know each other sufficiently when they were in a conflict. She did like the fact that Sam liked the way she dressed. He was okay with the fact that she did not dress up for the date. Out of respect for what Sam was trying to do, she did wear her most expensive denim jeans and a light blue silk top, which brought out her ebony hair and sparkling, chocolate-colored eyes. She topped it off by wearing her prayer sandals.
Sam on the other hand, dressed in a suit and tie; polished black dress shoes with socks to match. She admitted to herself that he was quite stunning—most handsome.
She chose to treat the night out with Sam like each and every mission she had ever been on with him. Achava would see the date through to the end. Even if it made her uncomfortable.
She watched Sam pull the car into a place called The Soup Plaza. She watched him questioningly as he turned the key off, climbed out of the vehicle and ran around the car to her door and opened it. She stepped out and looked at the entrance to the restaurant. She could not help but smile as Sam escorted her inside. She sniffed the air. The smell of soup filled the atmosphere. “Ah. The aroma is luscious.”
They were seated immediately, and the waitress took their drink order.
Achava ordered just water, while Sam requested a diet cola with little ice.
“This is nice. Don’t you think?” Sam asked nervously.
“Very nice.” She knew that he hadn’t had a lot of experience dating throughout the years. The fact that men were goggling over Achava made the situation tense. The reality that she was considered incredibly beautiful, didn’t make things easier.
“I’m flattered to be with you.”
“We are friends, Sam,” she said, trying to make him feel comfortable. “Maybe even more than friends. I care for you and you care for me. We have now been through two major adventures together. Why do you act as though I terrify you?”
“It’s not you so much,” he said, while starting to sweat. “It’s the whole idea of dating.”
She looked confused. “It was your idea.”
“I know.” He laughed nervously. “Huh?”
She stood up and leaned over the table. Her eyes locked onto his. She saw that he was entranced with her looks. She could see it by the expression on his face. “Just treat me the same way that you do when we are on a mission. You have no trouble talking to me then.” She sat back down as their water and cola arrived.
“You’re absolutely right, Achava!” He inhaled and spoke rapidly. “We’re just two friends having a great dinner. From here on, I’m going to stop sweating and enjoy the rest of the evening.”
Shaking her head, she giggled as she reviewed the menu. “I have to say that since English is my second language, it was hard to learn. Sometimes I have to listen carefully if someone speaks fast. I have to try hard to keep up.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” His eyes widened. “I know that when I get nervous, I ramble like some idiot.”
“You do seem to be nervous,” she replied without looking up from the menu. “You are far from being an idiot though. I respect your intelligence almost as much as I did Professor Salinger.”
“Really?” he said. “I appreciate that.”
She read from the menu. “Caesar salad with no dressing and a bowl of the Shakshouka looks good. I think I’ll have that.”
She was impressed with the fact that he took her to a restaurant where they served some of her favorite Israeli and Turkish dishes.
When the waitress came back, she watched Sam order for her as well as himself. He ordered them both the same.
“I heard that the Shak... shouka, is similar to Huevos Rancheros, but of course... different.” He stumbled over the pronunciation of the name of the soup, but she liked his perseverance.
***
She was thankful that dinner went better than she expected. She smiled, thinking of how wonderful it was to go out and not be searching for something dangerous or getting into life and death situations. She was even starting to get used to Dallas, Texas.
Sam drove home to his house. He helped her out of the car and clasped her hand. As she exited the vehicle, she allowed Sam to lead her to the front door of his house. He assumed she was staying, considering her home was halfway around the world. “Would you like to come in?” Sam asked, quietly.
“I had a good evening, Sam,” she replied. “But I do feel a need to be alone in a quiet place for the rest of the night. I think that I am overdue for my meditations, so I should be going. Thank you for everything.”
“Wait!” he practically screamed, and then quickly lowered his voice. “I mean, I have a question for you.”
Achava flinched at his excitement. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she asked, “What would you like to ask me?”
Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. She noticed that he started to sweat again. So did she. It was seriously not what she was expecting, but she let him finish.
She watched as he dropped to one knee. “I know I have to do this quickly, or it won’t happen at all. Will you marry me?”
Achava picked him up off of his knee, without any expression toward his question. “Sam. First of all, you are better than to get on one knee for anyone. I consider us equals and I will not allow you to act as if you are inferior.”
Sam was shocked. “What... about my question?”
“That is not the page I am on in life. Of course I care for you,” she said, nonchalantly. “Marriage is a union made before the eyes of the Lord of deep commitment. I’m not ready for that. My job in Israel is far from over. I thought you understood.”
He tightened his lips. “Not really.”
Patting his cheek, she said, “Thank you for a wonderful evening.”
“What is next?”
“You’ll watch me go.”
She Soul Merg
ed away from him, leaving a startled and heartbroken Sam to figure out what had just happened.
Re-appearing in the Garden of Gethsemane, she looked around. When she saw that no one else was present, she collapsed to her knees and cried. She sobbed uncontrollably. Why do some things in life have to be so difficult?
There was a thousand year blessing on her family because of the faith of her ancestor, Caleb. It was essential that she fulfill her calling before passing the blessing on.
Chapter the Second
SAM TRIED TO REMEMBER a time in his life when he felt more embarrassed. He was sure that this was the worst ever.
He knew that Achava had told him several times before about how she felt concerning relationships. She was the protector of Israel first and foremost!
He wished he could take back the proposal. He knew he would be taking back the engagement ring to the jewelry store. What an amazing emotional feeling he had when he purchased the ring. He just guessed at Achava’s size, but he knew that they could get it sized if it was too big, or exchanged if it was too small.
The whole picture of being engaged seemed to fit together so well in his mind. That is, until she rejected him. She rejected him so quickly; too quickly. Her words kept playing back in his mind. Now he had questions for himself. What did he hope to accomplish? One thing was certain. Things would be awkward between Achava and him for a while.
If any missions came up, they probably wouldn’t even be able to look at each other, let alone speak to each other. He promised himself that he would never bring up the topic of marriage to her again. Unless he saw a sign that she wanted him to bring it up.
He knew they would talk again, because they were a team. Not the kind of team he wanted them to be, but a team nonetheless.
Sam decided to keep his thoughts on more important things than self-deprecation, so he opened his desk drawer and took out the sketch of the underground area he had drawn earlier. He flattened it and studied it.
It was a map he created when he was in Itai Malka’s bizarre underground museum. Sam focused on the displays of the items that had yet to be acquired. There was only one of the items that Sam never heard of before. “The Fleece of Gideon.”
He was intrigued. He tore it in pieces, so that no one could put it back together except himself. He would now arrange it to be like a jigsaw puzzle on the top of his desk, so he alone could study it.
Wanting exact information, Sam went into his personal library of many books.
He searched in all of his books regarding Biblical artifacts and found nothing about the fleece. He then searched the Internet and found only information regarding Gideon and chapters in the Bible where he was mentioned. It was in the Book of Judges, chapters 6 through 8. He was also listed in chapter 11 of the Epistle to the Hebrews as a man of faith.
Sam needed to read more of the story in the Bible. He was sure there was one in his mother’s old trunk in the attic. Using a ladder, he climbed into the attic again. Dusting off the old trunk with a nearby rag, he opened the lid to look for the Bible. Sure enough, there lay his mother’s old beat up Bible. Opening it, he started to read.
King James was hard to understand. So he read slowly through the story to get the gist of it. He then wrote it down.
“Gideon was trying to hide wheat when an angel approached him and told him to get an army together and defend the land. He sent out the word and twenty thousand men showed up.
“The Lord told Gideon that twenty thousand men was too many. They would boast that they saved themselves by their own strength. God said that any men who were timid and frightened were to go home. So they did. Only ten thousand remained to fight. The Lord told Gideon that there were still too many. He took them to the spring to select which ones would go and which ones would stay.
“God said, ‘Divide them into two groups decided by the way they drink. Group one will be all the men who cup the water in their hands and lap it. Group two will be those who kneel, with their mouths in the stream.’ Only three hundred of the men drank from their hands; all the others drank with their mouths to the stream.
“God conquered the Midianites with the three hundred men who stayed alert. The others went home. First, Gideon collected clay jars and trumpets to prepare for the war.
“During the night, with the Midianites camped in the valley below, the Lord told Gideon to get up and attack the Midianites. It looks like that scared him to death. So the Lord told him that if he wanted to, he could take a servant and go down into the camp. So he took Purah and the two crept down to the enemy camp. Vast armies of nations of the Mideast were crowded together across the valley like locusts, like the sand upon the seashore, and there were too many camels to count! Gideon crept up to one of the tents just as a man inside had wakened from a nightmare and was telling his tent-mate about it.
“‘I had this strange dream,’ he was saying, ‘and there was this huge loaf of barley bread that came tumbling down into our camp. It hit our tent and knocked it flat!’
“The other soldier replied, ‘Your dream can mean only one thing! Gideon, the Israeli, is going to come and massacre all the allied forces of Midian!’
“When Gideon heard the dream and the interpretation, all he could do was just stand there worshiping God! Then he returned to his men and shouted, ‘Get up soldiers! For the Lord is going to use you to conquer all the vast armies of Midian!’
“They believed him.
“He divided the three hundred men into three groups and gave each man a trumpet and a clay jar with a torch in it. Then he said, ‘When we arrive at the outer guard posts of the camp, do just as I do. As soon as I and the men in my group blow our trumpets, you blow yours on all sides of the camp and shout, “We fight for God and for Gideon!”’
“It was like a triangle. So, to the enemy, it looked like they were surrounded. It was just after midnight and the changing of guards when Gideon and the hundred men with him crept to the outer edge of the camp of Midian.
“Suddenly, Gideon’s men blew their trumpets and broke their clay jars, so that their torches blazed into the night. Then the other two hundred of his men did the same, blowing the trumpets in their right hands, and holding the flaming torches in their left hands, all shouting, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’
“They just watched as the whole vast enemy army rushed around in a panic, shouting and running. The Lord caused the enemy troops to kill each other from one end of the camp to the other, and the ones still alive fled into the night to places far away.
“Then Gideon sent for the neighboring tribes to gather troops to chase and destroy the fleeing army of Midian. Gideon also sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim summoning troops. They seized the fords of the Jordan River, preventing the Midianites from escaping across the river. During the operation, the two generals of Midian were captured and killed.”
Sam scratched his head. Gideon’s faith for battle started when he trusted God with the fleece. The fleece was not mentioned when the story of the battle was told. Someone did not think it to be important.
Of all the artifacts that were in Itai’s cavern, the Fleece of Gideon was the only one that Sam could not figure out. He knew that it had no record of ever being found after being mentioned in the Bible. He could not ask Itai how he knew about the fleece, because he was dead. Itai was a member of the Antiquarians, though, and the cult members might have known more on the subject than they were willing to tell.
The only person that Sam knew who could get in touch with the Antiquarians was Achava. Even though he was happy about the fact that she could Soul Merge to him whenever she wanted, he still had no way of contacting her. He was fascinated by her ability to Soul Merge from one country to another. He knew of no one else that could do that, except for her mother, Aviela. The two women had amazing spiritual powers preserved in their DNA.
Sam wondered what to do next.
Maybe Achava had been in touch with her Bedouin friend. Perhaps the artifacts t
hat they had collected included the fleece. Would they know the value of their collected treasures? Sam realized that Achava was right. All Bedouins were not poor and uneducated. A noble tribe traced their ancestry back to Qaysi in northern Arabia. Maybe Sam would need to go to Arabia to look for them. On the other hand, the Yamani had their origin in Southern Arabia. Then there were the traditional Bedouin who scattered ancestor-less in splinter groups who took shelter under the protection of the large noble tribes and made a living by serving them as blacksmiths, tinkers, artisans and entertainers. Perhaps it was one of them that found Gideon’s golden breast shield. There was no way he could look for it alone.
Sam thought hard about ways to get in touch with Achava that did not include a fairly expensive plane ticket to Israel. He also remembered that the Sentinels of the Lord said that they would protect Achava and him, but only in times of dire peril.
It looked like Arabia was out, and probably the Sentinels as well.
He had no other recourse, but to continue to try to find more information about the fleece of Gideon in books written by Biblical scholars. Suddenly, he thought about the computer. Possibly he could contact the Sentinels and Antiquarians on the Internet. That was a great idea and all he had at the moment. He started with the map he drew in Malka’s museum. He pushed it round and round, trying to see if there was a hidden meaning. If so, he needed to find it.
Finding the golden vest was becoming more interesting to Sam than an old sheepskin. The hard part was finding the right Bedouin camp, since they utilized so much territory. Achava may not find the lady again. Maybe no one would be able to find the right camp, since so there were so many Bedouin who didn’t work, and others that would become sedentary in old age.
