Elijah (13 page)

He paused, then turned to the tall, wiry leader. “Your name?”

“Macaiah.”

“You will be my contact man, Macaiah, chief of prophets. You will notify me in some way when you have located satisfactory hiding places.”

Obadiah turned to go.

“Obadiah,” Macaiah called. “A moment more.”

The governor paused.

“What is to be the fate of the coenobias at Jericho, Bethel, and Gilgal? Are they being warned?”

“If they are to be warned, you must see to it.” Obadiah bowed slightly and made his way up the stone steps to the street.

Macaiah turned to face the guild of prophets. “Someone must go to warn our brothers. Six of you, strong of limb, must go by twos to the other three coenobias. Who will go?”

A flood of hands, amid clamoring, rose to indicate volunteers. Macaiah scanned the group and made assignments quickly, aware of the personalities who could work together best. Those who were chosen gathered around their leader for last minute consultation.

The heavy sword, held double-handed by a broadchested soldier, came crashing down to cut through hair, flesh, sinew, and bone, and stopped with a thud, embedded in the thick tabletop. Ahijah’s head rolled slightly beside the swordblade and stopped, open-mouthed and staring. Two soldiers released their holds and the body slumped to the floor. The two captives gasped slightly at the moment of the old prophet’s death; then they remained mute. Circles of bloods on the table and floor widened in the silence.

“A pity,” the captain of the guard mocked after a moment, “that you did not arrive in time for the questioning. You would have enjoyed it.” He moved over to the two prophets. Slowly, he wrapped a leather strap around his hand, smiling broadly. “At least, your arrival here at Bethel warns me that my work will be harder at Gilgal and Jericho.” His eyes narrowed and the tightness of his mouth erased the smile from his face. “Will you spare yourselves by telling me where the prophets may hide? And will you pay allegiance to Baal?”

The two men simply stared into the captain’s eyes.

Grimacing, the captain threw his weight into the blow. The leather-wrapped fist smashed into the first prophet’s face. He crumpled to the floor, his jaw broken. The next blow cut the second prophet’s lips against his teeth. Blood streamed from his mouth and nose, but he remained on his feet.

“These fanatics won’t talk, and we have no time to waste on them,” the captain shouted to his men. “Kill them.”

The captain stalked outside, barking orders to his soldiers to mount and take positions. In a moment the five who had remained in Ahijah’s house to carry out their last order emerged. Two of them were returning bronze swords to their sheaths. They quickly mounted their waiting horses.

The detachment moved east toward Jericho and Gilgal.

Chapter Seven

Light crept slowly into the mouth of the cave. By mid-morning its heat stirred Elijah. Half awake, he felt the grumblings of hunger in his stomach. He rose slowly to his knees, sat back, and rubbed the traces of sleep from his eyes. Then he made his way to the pool. The cool water stirred his senses and heightened his hunger.

Standing by the pool, he turned carefully and slowly to scrutinize his new surroundings. Oleanders stood as tall sentinels along both banks of the wadi. Up the wadi to the east the cane was broken and twisted from the torrents that had turned the dry wadi into a furious, narrow river during the winter rains. Thornbushes grew in patches of earth for several yards up the steep sides of the wadi. Except for the pond, which had its source from inside the porous limestone mountains, the older growth of the wadi was caked dull gray with mud. Above the ugly line marked by the stream at its height, spaced among the thornbushes, grew clusters of retem bushes, several long green slender twigs rising from a common base. Occasionally Elijah caught the fragrance of the small, pink blossoms that still covered each twig. From high in the rock walls came the frequent, low coo of rock pigeons.

The cave itself was shallow. The prophet could see the full depth of it from where he stood, more of a cleft than a cave. Its floor was covered with the same dried mud that dominated the wadi bed. He scanned the small area for berry bushes. There were none.

Elijah bent to the pool and drank its water from his cupped hands. He felt the coolness travel down his throat and into his stomach. Just as the hunger pangs started again, accentuated by the drink, he heard the thrashing of wings and looked up to see a large raven tear a pigeon from its nest. In a moment, frightened pigeons deserted their perches, and the loud caw of the raven mixed with the desperate sounds of the captured prey.

But the raven, trying to tear at the pigeon while in flight, loosed its hold on its bounty. It fell into Elijah’s lair. He darted for the bird and retrieved it before the raven could recapture his prize. The pigeon was dead, its eyes pierced by the raven’s beak.
The ravens were to feed me
, Elijah thought,
so I shall eat God’s food
.

As the raven perched nearby in an oleander and cawed his raucous protest, Elijah plucked the bird. He had no fire, so he was obliged to eat the flesh raw. Smoke would reveal his hiding place, anyway. “Thanks,” he said aloud to the raven. “God didn’t promise me a banquet, but I’ll enjoy what he gave me.” He laughed and pointed an arm toward the raven. “Through you,” he added.

He pulled the insides from the pigeon and tossed the refuse some distance from him and in full view of the raven. “But you shall not go hungry, my benefactor,” he said.

The large bird cautiously left his perch and flew to a rock near the promising meal. Still cawing loudly, he watched Elijah carefully, his coal black feathers glistening almost purple in the sun. Gaining courage, he moved to the ground and, ever slowly, walked toward the food. Elijah spoke softly, “Come now, my new friend. I saved you the trouble of preparing your meal. Eat well.” Finally the raven tore into the food, keeping a wary eye all the while on the prophet. As he held the mass with his feet, he pulled bits loose with his beak. With each mouthful, he tilted his head back to swallow the morsel.

Elijah had seen a raven feeding many times before. The sight always fascinated him. This king of birds surely was one of God’s most intelligent creatures.

The raven finished his meal before Elijah. He flew to a high branch, cawed loudly, then flew to a hole in the steep wall not far above Elijah’s cleft. He flipped himself nervously to face one direction, then the other, but did not turn toward the hole. He cawed again, then flew away.

Elijah watched the black wings lift the raven quickly up the valley toward the plateau high above and disappear over the rim. He looked toward the hole the raven had called to his attention. Had the bird wanted him to know about something? Or had he become aware again of a man’s presence and decided at the last moment not to reveal a treasure?

Ravens cache food away in case of famine, Elijah recalled. Perhaps the hole was this raven’s storehouse. Clutching bushes and small outcroppings, the prophet worked himself up to the hole and looked inside. Something was there. He reached in and pulled out a handful of the raven’s cache. “The little thief!” Elijah laughed. He looked at the round breadcakes he had known in his boyhood. They were flat cakes of bread made by tent people as they followed their flocks during warm weather. The raven, whose diet knows few restrictions, evidently found a way to snatch one occasionally from the Bedouins, or discovered discards after a tribe broke camp. Elijah picked out the two freshest cakes and ate them on the spot.

Filled, he drank again from the pool, then sat beside it and put his feet into the cool water. After a while Elijah broke a limb from an oleander and used the leafy branch to sweep the dried mud from the cave floor. He spent the afternoon cleaning debris and weeds from a small area between the cave and the pool.

As the shadows closed in on the canyon, the raven returned. He gripped a breadcake in his beak, which he efficiently deposited in his cache. Then he attacked another rock pigeon to repeat the performance of the morning.

The next day, two ravens appeared, and as one rainless day passed into another, other ravens joined the pair until several of them kept Elijah busier than he wanted to be. But he prepared their food, thankful that his own needs were met. Occasionally the ravens brought pieces of meat from the carcass of a kill too large to be carried. Elijah looked the meat over carefully each time to be sure it was fresh—sometimes it was not—for ravens would not turn down a meal of carrion.

He was bored much of the time until he settled down into a routine, but he was determined to remain in his hiding place until he felt God’s urge to leave. Ahab’s search surely continued even though the king would not become critically concerned until the end of the normal dry season.

Soon the days settled into a pattern. Elijah rose to eat with the ravens, who continued most days to stock their cache with breadcakes. The birds were large, some two feet from tip of beak to tail, and their antics in flight sent chills of admiration down Elijah’s spine. Gradually they became his friends. He talked with them gently and named each one. The leader, the first one to appear, was
El’echol
, “food from God.”

After the ravens left he sat by the pool and prayed to Yahweh. He prayed for faith. He softly sang the songs he had learned as a boy on the high plains of Gilead, holy songs, many of them written by David, Israel’s greatest king. He recalled the laws of God and recited from memory all he could remember of the sacred words.

His boyhood years and his youth had been happy, and he mused on them often during his wait. His parents were semi-nomadic. They lived the Bedouin life during the warm season and settled down during the winters in the little village of Tishbe. He smiled as he recalled Jonadab, his dearest friend, whom he first met at a wateringplace. As they met on other occasions, his friend had convinced him to join the new movement, the Rechabites, named after Jonadab’s father, Rechab. Rechab taught that Yahweh’s laws could be obeyed only in the nomadic life. City walls brought temptations and tied down the spirit of a man. He would not even allow wine, not because it was intoxicating but for fear that his people would learn to like it so well they would plant vineyards, the first step toward a walled town.

After three years with the Rechabites Elijah had decided that they were wrong. His own parents were no less faithful to Yahweh during the winter months than during the summer, and Rejab, among others, was faithful even in Bethshean, hardly a loyal Yahwist city.

The night of parting with Jonadab had been painful. They sat around a campfire, Jonadab driving home the arguments that once had convinced Elijah to join the group.

“There is danger in leaving the life of a nomad, Elijah,” Jonadab had argued. “Here you are free.”

The young Elijah picked up a clod and silently rolled it in his hand. Jonadab’s voice droned on. “Walls build a prison around the spirit.” Jonadab gestured expansively. “Here you can think as you want and talk with Yahweh beneath the stars and the sun.”

Elijah sighed wearily. “Jonadab, you repeat words you have heard from others.”

“That does not make them less wise.” Jonadab’s bony chin jutted out to emphasize his conviction. “My father told me of the intoxication of the city. Like sweet wine, your mind becomes inflamed and you think of reasons for doing what you know is wrong.”

“Rechab was a fine man,” Elijah retorted. He said no more.