The Journey Begun (12 page)

Ten

ou were right to refuse. No one can expect you to violate your conscience. It would be unforgivable to betray your people and your family. Think of your family.”

The silky voice wafted into the recesses of Jonah’s mind, scarcely audible through the restlessness that suspended him just beneath the surface of consciousness. His breathing went shallow and his heart strained in his tight chest. Spasms twitched his neck and slithered down his spine like serrated bolts of energy, scratching and tearing at every nerve. They snaked across his ribcage and dug their claws into his diaphragm. The voice became stronger.

“Adonai has Israel. He has no claim on Assyria. He has no interest in Assyria. Nineveh? Surely his messenger was mistaken. Could he be mistaken?”

Jonah’s eyes fluttered under their lids as darts of white light flashed through his darkened mind. He squirmed and drew his knees to his chest. One final spasm thrust him onto his stomach and pressed his cheek against the cold mud. The voice pressed its point.

“Yes, mistaken. It’s all a misunderstanding. What if you go to Nineveh against your god’s wishes? Will he not cast you, too, into Sheol with his errant angel? Yes, Sheol.”

The claws tightened and drew Jonah into a ball. Even through his stupor, he never felt so helpless or scared. His tormentor shot for the heart.

“Think of your brother. What would he say? What about Boaz?”

Jonah jerked his head and his eyes flew open, unseeing and burning from an agony not of this world. A guttural cry tore from his chest and pierced the stillness of the night. He collapsed onto his back, hacking and gasping for breath. He groped at his chest for the amulet, panicking when he could not feel it in its usual place. The memory of sewing his belongings into the belt faded in and then out again, leaving him clutching the front of his cloak. A spasm convulsed Jonah’s body, but still his mind choked through the pain.
I can’t...Eli...I just...
The panting bubbled through mud mingled with sweat and tears flowing over his lips. His gasps subsided as he slid into fitful sleep.

Lll

The sun obliterated the horizon with a vengeance, slicing through the valley and scattering the shadows in its onslaught. The morning light prodded the land, breathing promises into the dormant earth and coaxing Creation from the safety of slumber into another day of vulnerability. Rolling along the valley floor a few moments behind, the tide of warmth searched hidden places even the vanguard of light could not penetrate. She paused for a moment to consider a lone shivering human form huddled beneath the branches of a small tamarisk tree aside a rutted and rocky donkey path. The man was not alone. She moved in.

Fingers of warmth wisped around and through the folds of a rough woolen cloak, weaving
a
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thermal cocoon around the figure’s twitching chest and limbs. They tugged at the icy claws that paralyzed their victim and strove to leach out his will to live. Time slowed and watched the battle raging between the force of life and the grip of death.

“He is mine. Leave him to me.”

“You presume too much.”

“He rebels! He delivered himself to me.”

“Be gone. You have no power here.”

“He is mine. I have won him.”

“There will be a season, but it is not now.”

“He will never return. Give him to me now. Now!”

“Depart! Lest I invoke Him who—”

The claws snapped and the prone form shuddered and jerked free of its fetal cramp. Warm tendrils massaged and exhorted a moan from Jonah’s dry lips. He rolled onto his back with a raspy sigh and squinted into the deep azure of a new morning filtering through the branches above him.

Lll

“Eli?” A hand squeezed the veteran’s shoulder. He jolted, and his right hand shot out to the short sword lying at his side.

“Eli, it’s Hadassah!”

He craned his neck toward his sister’s anxious face, struggling through eyes fogged by too much of last night’s wine. Releasing his grip on the weapon, Elihu rolled onto his back and rubbed his aching forehead with the heels of his hands. He coughed through a rancid mouth. Waves of burgundy pain crashed through his head.
“Hoi
, my head...”

Hadassah stood up. She pursed her lips and frowned. “I’m surprised you didn’t drown yourself. You finished the first four cups of wine faster than I’ve ever seen anyone drink just one.”

He squinted against the insolent morning sunlight streaming cheerfully through the open door. “What’s the hour?” He struggled to sit, still holding his head.

“Late. It’s past midmorning.” She stepped over to the table and removed the cover from Eli’s breakfast, which had been waiting for him since first light. Stooping, she extended the dish of figs, goat cheese, and cold lamb.

Their pungency summoned a wave of nausea from his sour stomach.
“Hoi!
Take it away!”

Hadassah jerked the plate back and hastily returned it to the table. She replaced the cloth covering, for good measure. The worried look reclaimed her face as she settled onto a chair and faced her brother. “Eli, Benjamin has gone to look for Jonah.”

It took a moment for the memory of the previous evening to reassemble itself.
Jonah? Was he—oh, yes. Jonah.
Their altercation sprang back into focus. Elihu’s jaw tightened as he recalled Jonah’s obstinacy, his adamant refusal to listen to reason. This was beyond all sense. God offered Israel the chance to subdue her age-old enemy and the key player refused to cooperate. Unforgivable! After all their years of friendship, after risking their lives together on the road to Samaria, how could he do this? Jonah had become as stubborn as a jackass.

“You’re as stubborn as a jackass!”

Elihu jerked open his eyes and stared at his sister. Hadassah sat with her arms folded and her face hard.

“What?”

“Eli, since you confided in Benjamin and me about Jonah’s call as a prophet, we’ve kept our peace. You paced the vineyards like a caged lion until the call to arms came from Samaria. When it did come, you dropped the family business like a hot coal and raced off to your beloved army. If not for Benjamin’s father, we’d have foundered long ago. But Amaziah is old, and he may not recover from his accident this time. It’s been months and the bone is just not knitting.”

“What’s this got to do with—”

“Listen! Israel is important to you, I know that. It’s important to all of us. But there’s also your family and your friends. We, and people just like us,
are
Israel. You seem to have forgotten that.”

Elihu shook his head. “You don’t understand—”

“No,
you
don’t understand. Jonah was distraught about something last night, more so than any of us have ever seen before. He needed someone to listen, to try to understand. And all you could think of was riding on his coattails into Nineveh, sword swinging and singing the glory of Mother Israel!”

Hadassah paused. Elihu broke eye contact and rubbed the back of his head.

She leaned forward, and her voice softened. “Eli, Jonah needs our help. We chased him out of our house, and maybe our lives, without giving him his due. If Assyria is to fall,
Adonai
will see that it does—Jonah or no Jonah. You may still ride into Nineveh. But when you return, when the dust settles, where will your best friend be? Will you know? Will you even care?”

Elihu dropped his arm to his lap and let go a heavy sigh.

“I think you do care, which is why you drank yourself stupid last night.” His sister reached out and brushed stray wisps of hair from her brother’s forehead.

Before he could reply, a silhouette filled the doorway, its shadow stretching across the floor and enveloping both of them.

Hadassah swung toward the door as Benjamin stepped into the room.

“I can’t find him.”

Hadassah’s shoulders sagged and Elihu pushed to his feet. He touched his sister’s arm. “I’ll go.”

She squeezed his hand without looking up.

“I tracked him as far as the main road, but the surface was too rocky to see which way he turned. I walked awhile north, and then came back and covered the same distance south. There were footprints, I think, but I don’t know how old they are. I’m really not a tracker…” Benjamin faltered and fell silent as he looked from his
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wife’s moist eyes to Elihu’s grim expression.

“Thanks, Ben. I’ll see what I can find.” Elihu strapped on his sandals and slipped his cloak over his head. He gave his sister a reassuring nod as he picked up his sword and stepped past Benjamin toward the doorway.

Benjamin moved to Hadassah’s side and stroked her hair. She sighed and leaned her head against her husband’s chest.

Once outside, Elihu quickly mounted and turned his steed toward the main road. He reined in at the head of the path leading onto the road to the Jezreel Valley. He scanned the surface for some clue of Jonah’s passage, but Benjamin was right. It was too rocky. He shaded his eyes against the bright sky and peered southward down the road, then back toward the north.
Where else is there for him to go but home? If he’s not there, maybe his family will have some idea where he was headed.
Elihu urged his horse to a trot up the road toward Gath-hepher.

Jonah watched from the cover of the tamarisk tree thirty paces from where Elihu circled his horse. He waited until the warrior disappeared around a bend before stepping onto the road. Adjusting the treasure belt under his cloak, the delinquent prophet turned south and began his trek to anywhere but Nineveh.

Eleven

imon strolled the rocky beach that stretched up the coast from Joppa. He glanced back toward the city’s mount protruding from the coastal plain. The cityscape looked like a miniature diorama sculpted by a giant hand, where it smashed a ball of clay on the beach and sprinkled alabaster cubes across it. Simon smiled at the notion. He enjoyed Joppa as much, maybe more, than any other port, and he pondered over adopting it as his home. But Sidon still beckoned from somewhere in the recesses of his mind, in spite of his long absence. He mused what his family must be like, so many years now past since he bade them farewell. The youngest will have seen, what, fourteen summers now? He shook his head at how quickly time passed.

The sailor paused to study the
Ba’al Hayam
sitting at anchor halfway across the harbor. A crewman balancing on the mast’s crossbeam teetered against the backdrop of an engorged evening sun that had already dipped into its palette and begun to paint its departure upon the scrim of the western sky. Simon stood in awe as the great luminary splayed broad swaths of gleaming yellow graduating to golden orange. The satin backdrop framed feathery clouds that stretched to tickle the underbelly of the radiant heavens. The sun worked without haste, finessing hues into a blend of ginger tones that ripened into deep crimson and finally violet before slipping under a blanket of star-pricked cobalt encroaching from the east.

Simon dropped his gaze to the bay. The surface of the water, undisturbed by even a breath of air in the perfect calm between the day’s sea breeze and the evening’s shore breeze, reflected the glory of its canopy’s panorama. The only piece of the picture that seemed out of place was the
Ba’al.
The ship’s craggy silhouette jutted into the western sky, its slanted mast seemingly poised to pierce the canvas and spoil the visage of a pristine sunset.

Simon frowned as he surveyed the hulking ship. The
Ba’al
tipped to starboard like a drunken sailor. Divers failed to determine the cause of the list, but Simon knew the repair crew continued preparations for lading anyway. Omer would have her sail regardless of her seaworthiness. He pursed his lips.
Should I give her another chance?
He heard the next voyage was an ambitious venture to the far side of the Great Sea. She would not see home port again for another complete turn of the seasons. He wasn’t sure how they could be ready before the next favorable tide, but word had it she would sail on schedule. If Simon did sail with her, he could return with enough silver in his pocket to rest the next season. Then maybe he would pay a visit to Sidon and make good the promise of support he made to his family. Or maybe not. Who knew?

The sun, now an engorged orange ball, alit on the horizon’s razor edge. Simon stared mesmerized as he measured the orb’s visible descent into the water. The dying sun flashed a final flicker of light as it disappeared into the depths, shaking sense back into Simon’s head. He decided he’d better head back to the city before he lost the light. The beach, rocky and uneven, was not hospitable to nighttime strolls, and a translucent sliver of moon hanging overhead had already coaxed the tide over the footprints he left coming up the beach. He shifted his path inland against the curving hillside of the coastal fringe of Sharon’s Plain. Flickering torch lights sparked one by one around the city, beckoning him as he worked his way back down the beach. Skirting basalt boulders and gullies eroded into the plain’s brim, Simon squinted into the deepening dusk for solid footing. He was almost upon the two men before he heard their hushed voices.

“I’m tellin’ ya, she’s jinxed!”

Simon stopped behind a rocky outcropping, weighing the wisdom of surprising strangers on what was supposed to be a deserted beach after dark.

“Ya think?”

“She’s gotta be. She can’t stand up straight and no one can figure out why. The iron banding on her mast snapped yesterday. It shoulda been plenty strong to hold her. Cut a mate to the shoulder bone. He still might lose the arm. It’s ill tid’ns, I’m tellin’ ya.”

A sandal scuffed at pebbles underfoot.

“So, what ya gonna do? Ya gonna sign on her, or wait for the next hauler? May not be another long one this season.”

“Don’t care. Wouldn’t set foot on her. She don’t feel good, Zach, I’m tellin’ ya.”

Zach didn’t reply right away. The waves had picked up tempo with the onset of the night breeze and their washing over the rocks made hearing difficult. Simon pressed closer to the boulder separating him from the two sailors.

“Shem’s a good captain, though. Tough, but good. Think he’ll have a hard time gettin’ a crew?” One of the seamen kicked a stone onto the beach, its clatter startling Simon almost into losing his balance.

“Dunno. Just know he won’t be gettin’ me.”

The next few sentences were lost to the hiss of the surf over gravel. Then it was quiet. Simon chanced a look around the embankment and his ears met with crunching footfalls receding toward the city. He let the footsteps fade completely before venturing out from his niche.

Jinxed.
The word echoed in his ears. Simon wasn’t superstitious—at least, no more than any other sailor—but he had witnessed enough oddities during his years at sea he just couldn’t explain, which left him with a healthy respect for the supernatural. He just wasn’t sure what the supernatural was.

He looked over the dark water at the
Ba’al
, marked now only by a single torch burning amidships. The dirty yellow dot bobbed and beckoned through the darkness. Simon’s fancy read a dare, perhaps even mocking, into the undulating pattern the torchlight burned into his vision. As he turned to face it, the light disappeared, extinguished by the night watchman to signal the end of another day. He blinked and rubbed his eyes.