In the Field of Grace (23 page)

She missed the sound at first, too deep in thought to be mindful of the noises around her. It wasn’t until the second time the knock came that she lifted her head and found Boaz standing at their door.

She stood, clutching the stylus, disbelief etched on her face. “My lord?”

“Shalom, Ruth.” He hesitated, appearing confused. “Naomi sent for me.”

“Naomi?”

“She sent word that I was to pick up a jar of pickles she had set aside for me. She knows I have a weakness for them. The last time I tasted them was over ten years hence, before she and Elimelech left for your country.”

“Please come in, my lord.” Ruth could not understand why Naomi would invite Boaz and leave without telling her about it. Nor could she even comprehend the reason behind the invitation. Good manners dictated that Naomi take the pickles to Boaz’s house and leave them with a servant. It certainly made no sense to invite a man of Boaz’s standing to their home to pick up a jar of pickles. What was Naomi thinking?

“Please forgive me, my lord. Naomi is away from home at present. She took some of the capers you mentioned for Miriam. I am sure she will be back momentarily.”

“I hope she didn’t take
my
jar,” he said with a smile as he came in. “My mouth has been watering since Mahalath told me about them this afternoon.”

“She probably saved a bigger container for you.”

Boaz lowered his eyebrows. “Is that a stylus in your hand?”

Ruth stared at her fingers as if she had never seen them before. “Yes.”

“You can read and write?”

“I can, my lord. Mahlon taught me.”

Boaz took a few steps toward her until they stood very close. “You have ink on your cheek. Just there.” He pointed his index finger and when she missed the spot, he reached out and touched her softly. “Here.”

She felt something like a blaze of fire stain her skin. It wasn’t embarrassment or timidity. It was something she had never felt with Mahlon. Boaz removed his finger and stepped back. His gaze fell on the parchment and he bent to it.

“Your work?”

The fire turned into ice in her blood as she remembered the last words she had written. Dry-mouthed, she nodded.

“May I?” Before she had a chance to speak, he unrolled the parchment. It fell on the beginning of her account, and missed by a few fingers, that embarrassing reference to the man himself. If he unrolled half a revolution, his eyes would fall on his own name. Ruth felt like a paralytic, unable to move a limb.

Y
ou have neat handwriting,” he said, and she realized that he had not read her words but given them a cursory glance that protected her privacy. He let the parchment close. She took a deep breath, dizzy with relief.

“I had not expected you to know how to read. You have many startling talents.”

Ruth pulled a trembling hand through the dangling end of her sash. “But I can’t make Naomi’s pickled capers.”

Boaz laughed. “I am deeply disappointed.”

Ruth swallowed through a dry mouth. The idea of being alone with Boaz was both agonizing and delightful. She fidgeted with her linen sash, unable to think of anything to say.

His laughter dried up, forgotten as a serious note crept into his voice. “You have one quality that makes up for your lack of skill with capers.”

“What quality?”

“You love the Lord. Moses taught us that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength. You love God like that. It’s rare in our day, when everyone does what is right in his own eyes, and many pay little heed to the commands of God. You are from Moab, and yet you follow the Living God with all your heart. What made you turn to Him?”

His question knocked her sideways. She had not expected him to see her in such a light. He waited expectantly, not put off by her silence.

“I lost almost everything,” she said when she could form sensible words. “My husband, my dreams, my family, my future. Shattered in the course of a week. At my extremity, I became forcibly aware that I could not depend on my own strength or wisdom. But there was One on whom I could rely. If I seem faithful to you, it’s because I have no choice. I need the sheer goodness and power of the Lord to make it through every hour.”

“That’s a good reason.” Warm approval colored Boaz’s voice. He had a way of giving simple statements a kind of gravity that made them more meaningful.

Flustered, Ruth glanced toward the door. “I can’t imagine what is keeping Naomi.”

He crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall. “I refuse to leave until I have my pickles.”

The sound of steps made Ruth jump.

“I do beg your pardon, my lord,” Naomi cried from the door. “It took me longer than I expected to walk from Miriam’s house. These old legs of mine don’t move as fast as they used to.”

Boaz straightened. “I thought you forgot about me.”

Naomi went into the back of the chamber near the fire pit, where she did most of her indoor cooking, her feet moving with rapid agility, which belied her earlier assertion that age had slowed her down. She grabbed a stocky clay vessel and lifted it up for Boaz to see.

“I would never forget about you, my lord.”

“You are very kind, Naomi. You know my weakness for these.”

“You haven’t tasted my honey cakes.”

Boaz groaned. “Remind me to send you honey. Bushels of it.”

Naomi laughed and accompanied him outside, waiting for him to mount his horse.

“Why did you not warn me of his coming?” Ruth asked when she returned.

“Didn’t I? How forgetful of me.”

“I almost swallowed my tongue when lord Boaz arrived. How odd that you should have invited him to fetch his own jar of pickles. I could have taken it to Mahalath while you went to visit Miriam.”

Naomi waved in the air, a vague expression on her face. “It’s good for him to see how ordinary people live. Tell me, what did you speak about?”

“Your capers, mostly.”

“Oh.” Naomi sounded disappointed. “That’s all?”

Ruth set her jaw. “What did you want us to talk about, Mother?”

“Me? What have I to do with it? You can talk about anything you please. Or you can act as mute as one of his sheep. Why would I be bothered by such a thing?”

The next morning, Ruth and Dinah drifted to an abandoned corner of the field after Dinah noticed that the women gatherers had overlooked the sheaves of wheat that lay there, uncollected.

“I thought Adin would fall on his head when you behaved with such dignity and ignored his jibe last week.” Ruth stopped to retie her veil more securely around her head.

Dinah stooped, concentrating on her task. “Adin falling on his head might be an improvement.”

With deft movements, Ruth gathered the abandoned wheat stalks that Dinah left behind. “The less attention you pay him, the more he seems to notice you.”

“I’ve decided that I’m not going to torment myself with thoughts of Adin anymore. If he wants me for a wife, he knows where I live. In the meantime, I am going to do what lord Boaz suggested. I am going to enjoy a lot of pomegranates and spit out the seeds. And if Adin is one of them, so be it.”

“That seems a wise …” Ruth stopped, forgetting what she meant to say. An acrid, unfamiliar stench made her straighten up with slow movements. “Do you smell that?”

Dinah looked up, distracted. She sniffed the air and dropped the bundle she had been wrapping. “Smells like smoke.”

Ruth narrowed her eyes against the sun and turned in a circle. Sweat broke out on her brow when she saw a column of smoke not far from them, rising out of a section of land where the wheat had yet to be harvested. She pointed her arm. “Over there. Fire!”

Dinah sprang to her feet. “Lord, give us aid,” she said under her breath. “This could spread in the blink of an eye and destroy the crop.”

Ruth ran toward the fire, screaming as loud as her lungs allowed, “Fire! Help! Fire!” No one turned to pay them heed. “It’s no good. They can’t hear us from here.” She ran faster.

“What are you doing?” Dinah grabbed a handful of Ruth’s tunic and pulled her back. “Get away! You want to get killed? We’ll fetch help.”

“There is no time,” Ruth called over her shoulder and pulled free from Dinah’s restraining hold to sprint toward the rising smoke again. “By the time we fetch the others, it might spread too far.”

Dinah pursued her. Within moments she overtook Ruth, running like a gazelle. Before they could see the flame, their eyes began to water from the pungent smoke. It wrapped its way down their throats and irritated every patch of flesh it touched. Ruth bent over, coughing so hard, she had to fight not to wretch, then pushed on, one unsteady step after another. She came to a sudden stop at the sight of flames leaping up from the ground, reaching up as high as her hip. To her relief, she realized that the fire was not as large as they had feared in spite of the billows of smoke it produced.

“We have no water!” Ruth said, and coughed again.

Dinah pulled off her veil and began to beat at the flames. Ruth followed next to her, beating until with a sudden flare, her veil caught and she had to abandon it, releasing it with a gasp. Dinah’s veil suffered the same fate.

“It’s too strong. We can’t beat it,” Dinah said, her face streaming with tears from the smoke.

Ruth pointed behind her. “See that?” There was a wide swathe where the laborers had cut the wheat almost to the ground. “Nothing to burn there. It will slow down the fire. If we contain it on this side, we can keep it from spreading.”

She unwound the spare veil she wore at her waist, emptying the precious wheat she had gleaned during the morning hours. Untying her sash, she said, “Quick, give me yours. Then go and fetch the men. I’ll try to slow it down until they come.”

“No, Ruth. It’s too dangerous.”

“Run! You are much faster than I.” Ruth began to beat at the fire again, her eyes burning with soot, her lashes sticking together.

Dinah did not move.

“Go!” Ruth shouted. Throwing her sash and extra veil at Ruth’s feet, the girl began to run.

Time stretched endlessly for Ruth. The fire hissed and crackled in front of her, and she beat and beat and beat at the flames until her arms ached, and still she went on beating. Sparks landed on her tunic. She extinguished them with hurried strokes of trembling fingers. Once, she missed a spark that had landed on the fabric resting against her thigh, and it caught, growing to the size of a scorpion before she became aware of it. She scrubbed at it with urgent horror and relief flooded through her as it died, leaving a round hole and a red blotch on her exposed skin. For a small wound, it hurt with a viciousness that made her head swim. She ignored the pain and sent up a prayer of thanks, of desperation, of need, all wrapped in one.

Her second veil was reduced to cinders. She picked up Dinah’s spare one. Deep, agonizing coughs throbbed through her body, and at one point she bent over and vomited, unable to control the need. She didn’t even take the time to wipe her mouth before she went back to the fire. She forced herself to keep going, gasping for air with every move. Light-headed and weak, she stumbled and almost pitched forward into the fire, barely regaining her balance in time. Without warning, Dinah’s spare veil went up in flames and now there were only two sashes left, and still the men did not come.

Ruth could smell the singeing of something other than fabric and plant, and realized it was wisps of her own hair, loosened from their braid, melting in the heat of the blaze. She herself would surely begin to melt soon.

A powerful impulse to run assailed her. To turn back. Give up. Fly away as fast as her wobbly limbs allowed from this destructive wall that was eating everything in its path. Surely the fire had won. People would find a way to make up for the shortfall of grain this winter. She couldn’t keep going. Her hands began to droop. She thought of Boaz and his disappointment. His anguish at not being able to provide for his workers and their families the way he hoped. Gulping a quick prayer, she forced the fear down. Swallowed it and picked her hands up again and compelled her body to move. Just one more moment, she thought. One more push.