Strangers in the Land (The Zombie Bible) (15 page)

Quietly Zadok dismounted and helped Devora bind Mishpat to her saddle.

After a long, searching stare at Zadok, Lappidoth gave his wife a brisk nod. Seeing this, Devora’s heart went warm with gratitude—for a husband who could remain behind without it breaking his pride and his strength, and who could watch a younger man guard his wife without jealousy, and who could trust her when she said she would be all right.

“I know Zadok will keep you safe,” Lappidoth said gruffly. “He is an able man.”

“And you are a good man, my husband,” she whispered. “You have my heart.”

“Just bring Shomar back.” He forced a smile. “I traded ten head of my cattle for him. I have never seen a finer horse.”

He stepped back, and Devora tried to think of some further word of farewell, but words failed her. She just held his gaze, her eyes full of her heart. Zadok bent and lifted the Canaanite from the ground, careful not to touch her bare flesh, his face grim at the small cry of pain she made. He settled her into the saddle before Devora, then gave Shomar a pat on the gelding’s rump and muttered, “Keep these women safe, horse.”

Devora put her arm about the Canaanite’s waist and held her tight, fearful the girl would panic and spook the horse. Hurriya’s eyes were wide. “Shomar is my husband’s,” Devora whispered near her ear. “He will not let you fall.”

The Canaanite gave a terse nod. “Don’t leave me alone with him,” she whispered.

“What? The horse?”

“That man.” The girl was gazing at Zadok, wide-eyed.

“Peace, girl. Zadok won’t harm you.”

Though affronted for Zadok’s sake, Devora was grateful to see the girl’s fear. Fear was better than numbness, better than despair. It meant her heart was still beating, her blood still loud in her ears. That was perhaps the best Devora could hope for; she didn’t want the girl to die on her along the way. And making sure she didn’t would give the
navi
something to distract her from the vast lake of grief that lay dark beneath her feet, ready to swallow her.

“
Navi
,” Zadok murmured. “Hannah sends a message.”

She glanced down at his hard face. She was certain she could guess what the wife of Eleazar had in her heart.

“She says,
I call for judgment on Barak ben Abinoam, who killed my husband and the high priest of Israel
. She asks you to do this for her in memory of the day in the reeds. She says you have always protected her and those bound to her.”

“That is true.” She gazed to the north, thought of the shambling dead, and wondered if God had already prepared a bitter judgment over the men of the north, Barak and others. “Barak will atone for what his men have done,” she said.

As Zadok remounted his own steed, Devora glanced back at Lappidoth, and the man looked wearier than she had ever seen him. “God be with you, Devora,” he called to her.

“And with you, Lappidoth,” she said.

She dug in her heels. “
Hai!
”

Shomar carried her over the uneven ground at something near a gallop, and the tents sprang away behind; then they were in the heather, Devora and her horse, riding around the edge of the camp. She glanced back once, her hair streaming across her face in the wind. Saw Lappidoth still standing by Hurriya’s discarded bedding, one hand lifted. Gazing after her.

D
EVORA, THE
navi
and judge of Israel, rode from Shiloh with Hurriya before her and Zadok beside her. They rode as though their horses had caught the scent of God and were rushing to find him. Yet God was behind them, not before, and the blasphemy of that torn veil had perhaps ensured that God would not follow them into the north. Devora spurred Shomar on, almost cruelly, her insides so hot with rage that she saw nothing to the left or to the right. She rode blind. Her only thought was to find Barak ben Abinoam and demand of him a dire atonement for the evil of this day. That he could have treated their God—
el kadosh
, the weighty, the mighty, who could rise over the land in fire and storm and scorch it to a desert that would not bear seed for a thousand years, or who could fall gentle as rain and urge wheat from the soil that would grow at his touch taller than the height of a man—that Barak could have approached this God,
this
God, and treated him
as a mere object to be acquired and moved about. Did he think he was dealing with one of the wooden not-gods of the Canaanites, a mute thing that you might carry in the palm of your hand? She hissed Barak’s name as she rode, and the midmorning sun lifting over the land found her horse streaking through the fields, and Zadok on his own steed a spear’s cast behind her, laboring to catch up.

Yet she could not keep that pace; it left Hurriya shaking and faint. Devora didn’t know how much of that was her anguish and how much of it fear of being on horseback, but the sight of her pain cooled the
navi
’s fury, and she slowed, consoling herself with the thought that Barak and his men were on foot.

So they trotted their horses northward through fields white for harvest. From time to time, Devora leaned to the side and let her fingers trail through the high wheat or plucked up some to chew as they went. This was the
land
, beloved of their mothers and fathers, and its beauty pulled at Devora’s heart and abated her anger, almost brought her tears. The day was long and her wrath burned out, though no doubt it would flicker into fresh fire when she caught up with Barak at last. With the land of promise rich and fruitful about her, a kind of quiet awe settled over her. Each field and each hill about her was shaped delicately by the hands of God, each one with a name and a story. Here, the dead seemed only a tale told to frighten. An impossibility. Yet there in the north, where the hills were taller—they were there, somewhere. Hurriya’s pale face was testimony to it.

Riding with Hurriya before her in the saddle and her arm about the girl’s waist was a strange experience. With the exception of Lappidoth, Devora had never spent so many hours so near another person. This Canaanite girl in her arms neither
spoke nor cried as Shomar carried them through the wheat; she simply rested limp against Devora’s shoulder, taking shallow breaths. Sometimes she slept. Devora began to feel a strange protectiveness, riding with her like this. She could feel the warmth of Hurriya’s body through her salmah.

They passed Cleft Hill on their left in the early afternoon and saw the tiny wooden houses of Rise Early clustered beneath the slope, with olive presses just outside the town and barley fields behind it. That had once been a walled town, one of the strongest of the Canaanite towns, but it had never really been rebuilt after the Hebrews had taken violent possession of it. Devora spared the cookfires one uneasy glance as they passed. Strangers in their land, so many in their land.

An hour or two later, Devora lifted her hand for a halt and brought Shomar to a stop by a wide pond north of Rise Early and let him drink. Zadok lifted the Canaanite from Shomar’s back and laid her gently by the edge of the water beneath one of the leafy terebinth trees growing there. In their branches cicadas sang loud as thunder, recalling moments from Devora’s girlhood in Shiloh, where a hundred such insects had roared in a line of terebinths outside the girls’ tent.

Zadok walked a little way from where Hurriya rested. Then stopped and gazed, brooding, at the pool. Devora tended to her horse, patting down his flanks with her own shawl. Then she stroked Shomar’s neck for a few moments and whispered soft words.

Devora glanced at Hurriya, who had her eyes closed. The
navi
smiled slightly, still warm from holding her. She supposed the girl was asleep. After a moment, Devora joined Zadok at the water’s edge, and they walked along the bank for a while in
silence. A kingfisher darted in and out of the water. She glanced to the north. From here the land rose steadily, climbing toward the Galilee and toward the snow-capped mountains of White Cedars in the north beyond. In the near distance, Devora could see the Hills of Teaching and of Cleansing towering over the land. There was smoke rising from the slope of Cleansing, but not enough for it to be a camp of armed men. Probably herdsmen. If they were nearer, they’d probably hear the bleating of goats.

The earth at the bank was soft here, nearly mud. “But no hoofprints,” the
navi
murmured. “Nor feet. Barak and his men didn’t stop here.”

“I will finish looking,” Zadok said quietly. “Go back and rest,
navi
.”

She glanced at him—his face was tight with grief.

“You fought well,” Devora said softly. “It is not your fault the high priest is dead.”

Pain flashed across his eyes.

“My father died that night,” he said.

Devora had no need to ask what
that night
meant. For her too it would always be
that night
.

“He died defending the Ark, and the levites, and the
navi
. I was seven. He threw me within his tent, commanded my mother to hold me there. I have never forgotten his face. I will not give to the fulfilling of my covenant less than my father gave to it.”

Another silence. She did not break it; she knew the importance of silence when the heart is sore.

“I fought well,” he said at last. “But the high priest is still dead.”

He just looked out over the water. Devora felt stiff, as though she’d slept badly. She could not yet cry for Eleazar or the other dead in Shiloh.

She thought of pressing him, but it would do little good until he was ready to speak. After a moment she left him standing there in the reeds.

Returning to where the Canaanite lay in the damp grass beside the water, Devora saw with a sinking of her heart that Hurriya was weeping. The young woman was gazing up at the branches above her, her tears leaving pale streaks through the dirt and sweat on her face. Devora approached and knelt by her, very near but not touching, folding her hands in her lap. The girl looked only half-alive, lying there pale in her anguish amid the lush vegetation.

“Do you have any kin in the Galilee?” the
navi
asked softly.

“Leave me alone,” Hurriya whispered. She was looking at the pond. “I want to die here. Here, where it is so beautiful. Where there’s water. Please just leave me here.”

The vulnerability in her voice tugged at Devora, and angered her. “I lost all my kin, girl,” she said sharply. “Everyone I knew of as my tribe. All of them. Mother, father, the elders, the other children I’d known. In a single night, they were gone. You can’t let yourself speak of dying. There are always other people who need you. Right now I do; you’re my guide. There must be others in the north, kin who need you. Someone we can take you to.”

Hurriya shook her head. Then whispered something Devora couldn’t hear. The
navi
leaned closer, and Hurriya repeated: “Sister.”

“A sister, yes. At Judges’ Well?” Devora asked.

Hurriya was silent for a few heartbeats. “There was this olive tree,” she said, her voice hoarse. She sounded not as though she were speaking to Devora but as though she were speaking to herself, aloud, because she needed to. “The tallest one. Anath would climb to the very top. I’d call up to her. Could never get her to come down. She said up there she could see the whole sky and the goddess’s face.” Hurriya stared at the water. “I want to tell her—I saw the whole sky too, and the goddess’s face. In my little—” Her voice broke. “For only a few days. A few days.” She sobbed.

Devora felt a flicker of unease at the mention of a deity not her own, a deity she couldn’t trust, but the girl’s sobs quashed her unease and took her whole attention, for though nearly silent, Hurriya’s sobs seemed to shake her whole body and risk breaking her. It was clear the girl would never make it into the north like this, and Devora
did
have an obligation to her. The girl had come to her, and she was suffering.

With a sigh Devora took the Canaanite into her arms, wrapping the salmah tighter about her and then holding her. Hurriya was shaking; Devora held her pressed close with one arm, and with her other she tore off a bit of her dress and dipped the linen in the water beside them. The water was very cool.