The Bronze Bow (10 page)

Jealousy beat suddenly up in Daniel. "No!" he exploded. "This is a man's vow! It's not for a pretty child!"

Her face went white. At the hurt in it Daniel cursed himself. What had made him say a thing like that to her?

But this time Joel came instantly to his sister's support. "Then we will make a new vow," he said. "The three of us together. We'll swear to fight for Israel—for—for—" He hesitated.

"For God's Victory," said Thacia swiftly. "Remember the watchword of the Maccabees?"

"Yes! That's it! Come swear it together. Now—on the Book of Enoch here. What could be better? Put your hands on mine, both of you. Swear to stand together. The three of us. For God's Victory."

Thacia laid her hand firmly over her brother's. "For God's Victory," she repeated. They looked at Daniel, waiting. The three of us, Joel had said, taking him, who had always stood outside, into the close circle of their lives. With an effort he leaned over and laid his hand over the girl's. He felt the small fine bones under his palm.

"For God's Victory!" he choked. He drew back quickly into the shadow, afraid for them to see his face. But they were far too lost in their own excitement to notice his.

"Now we must plan what to do," said Joel solemnly. "Tomorow night I'll bring—"

"Oh—" Thacia remembered. "Tomorrow night will be the Sabbath."

Joel considered. "We can come anyway," he decided. "The Law doesn't forbid visiting the sick."

"We can't unbind the wound or put on a fresh dressing."

"No matter," put in Daniel. "The wound is almost healed."

"I'll bring the food before sunset," Thacia promised. "Enough to last through the Sabbath."

"We must plan," Joel went on, still lost in the wonder of his new resolve. "When you go back to the mountain I'm going with you."

"No," objected Daniel. "That's not what Rosh wants of you. He wants a man here in Capernaum. Right now it's better for you to stay in school."

He could see that in spite of his vow Joel was relieved. "I'm willing to give up school," Joel insisted. "I mean it. I'll do anything."

"Stay in school, then. We're not ready to fight vet. We've got to wait and work for it'. Rosh has something in mind for you. I don't know what it is, but he'll send you word."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. You can count on it."

"I've been thinking of a plan," Joel said. "If you should bring a message from Rosh, or if you should ever need to get away from the Romans again, there's an opening in the outside wall, at the angle where this passage joins the storage room. It's used to bring the sacks of grain in from the street, and it's just big enough for a man to crawl through—I tried it. I'll make sure it's kept unlatched, and you can push it open. That way no one will ever suspect you're here."

"How will you know it?" Daniel asked.

"I thought of that. If you could mark some sign on the wall—"

"A bow!" Thacia exclaimed. "You know—from the Song of David you read last night!"

"The bronze bow," Daniel exclaimed, pleased that Thacia too had remembered. "Will you read that part again, Joel?"

"I didn't bring the scroll," Joel said, "but I know it by heart." He leaned back against the wall.

"
—God is my strong refuge,
     and has made my way safe.
He made my feet like hinds' feet,
   and set me secure on the heights.
He trains my hands for war,
   so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
"

"It couldn't really be bronze," said Daniel, puzzled. "The strongest man could not bend a bow of bronze."

"Perhaps just the tips were metal," Joel suggested.

"No," Thacia spoke. "I think it was really bronze. I think David meant a bow that a man couldn't bend—that when God strengthens us we can do something that seems impossible."

"Perhaps," said Joel. "You do have an imagination, Thace!" He went on with the Song of David.

"
Thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation...
"

"Oh dear," Thacia broke in, dismayed. "I just remembered. Father asked me to play for his guests tonight."

"Then we must go," said Joel quickly, gathering up the scroll of Enoch. "Father likes to have Thace play the harp for him," he explained, seeing Daniel's bewilderment.

Daniel looked at Thacia. "I have never heard a harp," he said.

"Then I'll bring it and play for you tomorrow," she promised. "No—not on the Sabbath. But I won't forget."

"Do you want us to leave the light, Daniel?"

"No," said Daniel. "I'm used to the dark."

They crept along the passage, the light flickering and vanishing altogether. Then, very faintly, came the whispered words, "Goodnight, Daniel." This time he was certain he had heard them.

He lay in the darkness, and it seemed that a warmth and light still glowed all around him. Together, Joel had said. Three of us together. And Thacia was not against him.

He trains my hands for war,
   so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze...

He could see the shining bow, the bow that no man could bend with his own strength alone.

Suddenly he sat up. It came to him that Joel had given him the answer to his most urgent question. It was time for him to leave this place. For two days, without their knowing, he had tested his strength, pacing back and forth in the narrow passage. Joel would try to keep him. Better simply to go. They would be horrified that he had chosen the Sabbath, when a man could walk no more than two thousand cubits from his home. But the Law was for the wealthy, for the scholars, not for the poor. By now he had broken so many points of the Law that he was beyond all redemption. What matter if he broke one more?

Toward morning, when he was sure that all the household would be asleep, he crawled along the passage. His fingers discovered a latch, and the little service door swung inward. He eased himself through the narrow slot, into the street, pulled himself to his feet, and made his way through the city toward the mountain.

I would like to have heard that harp, he thought once. But he put that behind him. Instead he repeated the Song of David.

He has made my feet like hinds' feet
And set me secure on the heights.

All the same, he would like to know how a harp sounded.

D
ANIEL HAD OVERESTIMATED
his strength. Long before he reached the mountain he knew that he had left the shelter of Joel's passageway too soon. Toiling up hill under a merciless sun, he had to stop so often that it was late afternoon before he came to the steep zigzag rise up the cliff. He was not sure he could make it.

Suddenly it seemed to his wavering sight that one of the dark boulders high on the cliff detached itself from the rest and rolled toward him. Samson came leaping down the trail to kneel at his feet. Then, when Daniel tried to speak and no sound would come, the big man rose swiftly, lifted the boy in his great arms, and carried him gently up the trail to the cave.

Samson did not allow Daniel to get on his feet again for three days. Like a vast shadow he sheltered him. He brought water mixed with wine in which he steeped roots of the mountain lilies. He snatched the choicest bits of roasting game from beneath the very nose of Rosh to feed his patient.

Daniel noticed that the men were getting accustomed to Samson and treated him with better humor, though none of them ever disputed him. As for himself, Daniel had acquired new status. By the unfailing grapevine, word of his exploit in the town had reached the cave days before. They had all given him up, believing him dead or captured. Some of the men admired his nerve; others were relieved to have him in charge of Samson again. For a day or so they made a hero of him, and then they forgot the matter and ignored him, and life in the cave went on exactly as before.

For Daniel nothing could ever be the same. He had never admitted to himself that he was lonely here on the mountain. He had worshiped and feared Rosh. He had fought and eaten and slept side by side with the hard-eyed men who made up Rosh's band. But the few days in Joel's passageway had shown him a new world. He had found someone to talk to, someone who had shared his own thoughts, and who had instantly taken Daniel's burden his own. The memory of the pact they had made glowed like a warm coal in the heart of the forge.

Lying in the sunlight, his back against the baked gray rock, Daniel repeated to himself the chronicles that Joel had read aloud, the glorious deeds of Joshua, of Phinehas, Saul, and David. Most of all he thought of Judas Maccabeus, who had given them a watchword. The other mighty ones had lived and fought in distant ages. But Judas had lived in a time like his own, not two hundred years ago, when Israel was helpless, as it was now, under the foot of the heathen. Judas, with his heroic father and brothers, had dared to rise up and defy the oppressor, and for a time Israel had breathed the free air again. Here in these very mountains Judas, young and daring and cunning as a panther, had hidden from his enemies and taken them by surprise. Many brave men had joyfully laid down their lives for Judas. But never enough—never quite enough. This time—! There were young men everywhere who longed for such a chance again. Together, he and Joel would find them.

The third member of the pact? He was not sure about Thacia. In all his life he had known only two girls, and he did not understand them. Compared to his own sister, Thacia was like a brilliant scarlet lily, glowing and proud. He could count on her loyalty to Joel; in all else she was unpredictable. The very 'thought of her was disturbing. He tried to shut her out of his mind, as he tried to shut out the thought of Leah. Both girls, so utterly unlike, seemed in some way to threaten his plans.

The prospect of seeing Joel again occupied all his thoughts, and the opportunity came unexpectedly soon. A week after he was back at the forge, doing the light work that Samson allowed him, Rosh brought him a dagger to mend. It was a special dagger that Rosh had carried for years as a talisman, and some mischance had sent it hurtling down a chasm. Five men had been sent to retrieve it. Four had come back empty-handed, but hours later the fifth, exhausted and bleeding, had brought the thing back. Rosh received it with scant gratitude. It was bent askew, twisted out of the shaft, and useless.

"Fix it," he demanded of Daniel.

Daniel took the blade in his hand. He thought that it might be mended, but he knew that he could not do the job.

"I don't have the right tools," he explained. "It needs a new collar and rivet. My forge doesn't give heat enough."

"Then get a rivet."

Daniel looked back at the man. He would think a new dagger would be easier to come by, but he knew that Rosh had attached some sort of luck to this particular blade. "In the city?" he asked.

"Wherever you can find them. This friend of yours—Simon. He said he was an ironsmith. Get them from him."

Daniel remembered that Simon and Rosh did not see eye to eye. "You mean I should buy them from Simon?"

"Buy? He is a Zealot. He can give a scrap of metal for the cause."

Daniel woke next morning hoping that Rosh had forgotten, but he saw at once that the leader was more determined than ever. He gave Daniel no money. All the way to the village Daniel tried to think of an argument that would convince Simon. The metal parts that he needed were costly. Rosh seemed to think he could snatch them as he might a squash from a village garden. It occurred to him that perhaps, unknown to Rosh, he could offer to do a day's work in Simon's shop.

The smithy was closed, a bar and padlock across the door. Strange, for if Simon had gone off about the village to fit a lock or repair a plow, he would have left the shop open to customers. Daniel sat down on the stone doorstep to wait. After a time he felt uneasy. The unoccupied feel of the place grew on him, and he was not surprised when a passing villager called out to him.

"If you're waiting for the smith you'll have a long wait. Shop hasn't been open for a month."

"Where is Simon?" Daniel called back.

"Left town. Heard he went after a preacher, one who came through here awhile back. There's a new smith in Chorazin, if you want some work done."

Gone after a preacher! All at once Daniel remembered the Sabbath morning and the strange look in Simon's eyes. "I don't know what he means," Simon had said, "but I intend to find out."

What could Simon have found that would keep him for a month?

Daniel had not lived with Rosh for five years without learning that there was no use going back without the rivet. He knew well enough, too, what Rosh would expect. But Simon had been good to him. He refused to break into Simon's shop and help himself. There was nothing to do but find Simon, and with the thought he knew a deep satisfaction. He knew that all along he had hoped for an excuse to go to Capernaum.

Would he be recognized in the city? Daniel thought not. He had a hunch about Romans. To him every stupid Roman face looked alike. He had an idea that to the Romans every Jew would look alike too. He was sure they seldom bent their stiff necks to take a good look at one. There was little likelihood that the soldier on horseback would remember the boy at the well. At any rate, it was worth the chance. He got to his feet and set out for Capernaum.

He reached the city in the early afternoon and made his way straight to the harbor. If anyone knew where the preacher could be found, it would be those fishermen and their wives. They had taken the carpenter's coming for granted. Surely they must know where he spent the rest of his day.

There was no bustle at this hour. The Jews jested that no one worked in the heat of the day but dogs and soldiers. The heavy barges bumped each other lazily, waiting for the next day's cargo. But farther along the shore he saw a few slow-moving figures, men lazily preparing their fishing boats for the night's work.

Daniel approached a fisherman who was folding in a long net. "I am looking for a preacher," he said. "I heard him talk here one morning."