The Bronze Bow (17 page)

"You will come back?" Could she sense the demons that were driving him?

"Of course I'll come back. Bar the door when I have gone."

He took the road toward the hills. With every step the tiredness went out of him. As he began the long climb he could feel the air growing cooler. A light breeze moved the tops of the cypress trees. With every breath he drew in freedom.

How many nights, lying on Simon's rooftop, had he imagined the moment when he would walk again into camp? For a few moments it was just as he had pictured it—the shouts, the surprise, the good feeling that he had come home. But the brief excitement soon died down. Rosh, after a sharp demand for news, went back to an oath-studded argument with two of the men. No one else had much to say to him. Daniel wandered about the camp, noticing a few new faces, trying hard to experience the elation he had expected to feel. Then he knew what was missing. He had been watching, all the way up the trail, for a motion on the hillside above, for a familiar welcoming figure to come bounding down to meet him. Ridiculous. The black man had something better to do than to sit watching for him after all these weeks. But why wasn't Samson somewhere about? The forge had been heated. He could feel the warmth of the stone when he laid his hand against it.

"How's the village?" asked Joktan, coming in with a load of thorns which he flung down near the fire. There was a hint of hostility—or was it envy—in his voice. "Did you b-bring anything to eat?"

Daniel looked surprised. He had come away empty-handed without a thought.

"We've had trouble getting meat lately," Joktan explained. "S-some of the shepherds made an ambush. You'd think they'd taken lessons from us. Two of our men got beaten—bad. The shepherds are in a mean humor, and Rosh ordered us to lay low for a while."

Daniel was suddenly uncomfortable. Up here on the mountain he had taken for granted that the flocks that grazed on the slopes were free for the taking. Now he knew by name the men who owned those flocks. They were not wealthy men.

"Oh well," Joktan said. "Rosh won't be patient long."

Daniel laughed, pushing away his uneasiness. "Where's Samson?" he inquired.

Joktan shrugged. "That's anybody's guess. Samson has his own rules."

"Rosh lets him?"

"Rosh l-leaves well enough alone. If you ask me, he's sorry he ever got the brute. But Samson earns his keep. Look! There he is now. G-goodness, look what he's brought!"

The giant stood at the head of the path. Over his shoulder, as easily as a rabbit, was slung the carcass of a sheep that must have weighed more than a man. Swinging it from his shoulders, dropping it to the earth, he stood grinning, looking from man to man, waiting for their praise. With a shout Daniel sprang forward. At the vast white-toothed smile that split the black face, his own spirits gave an answering leap. For a moment the two stared at one another. Then Samson stepped over the carcass of the sheep. When he would have gone down on his knees, Daniel reached out both hands and grasped the powerful arms and held on hard. They stood grinning at each other wordlessly.

Two men had pounced on the carcass and were worrying off the skin with the ferocity of jackals. Others heaped thorn branches on the fire and made ready the spit. Men poured from the cave into the clearing as word of a feast spread. Rosh, glowering from the door of the cave, shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

While the meat was cooking Daniel debated with himself. Was this the time to tell Rosh about his band? But he did not want to spoil the moment when he could confront Rosh with a real army. Besides, he had chosen a poor day to come back. Rosh was obviously out of sorts.

"Your friend Joel," Rosh inquired once. "Ever see him again?"

"Yes," said Daniel. "Quite often."

"Keep an eye on him," Rosh growled. "I'm going to need him soon." He said no more, and only half listened as Daniel tried to tell him about the move to Simon's shop.

Later in the night Daniel sat watching the thorn fire leaping and crackling. He felt satisfied, full of roasted mutton. He leaned back against the rock, feeling with his shoulder blades for the remembered niches. "It's good to be back," he said.

"G-good to be full," Joktan commented, wiping a hand across his grease-smeared chin. "We've got you to thank fork."

"You mean you've got Samson to thank."

"Samson only did it for you. He knew you were coming all right. He j-just knows things. He's deaf, maybe, but he hears things that aren't there. Look at him sitting there s-staring at you. You'd think you were one of his gods. You think it's an accident we've had the only good meal in a week?"

Someone else, too, knew that the meal had been no accident. Glancing at Rosh, Daniel saw the small eyes, above the unkempt tangles of black beard, glittering at Samson. The dislike in them startled him. Rosh had gorged himself on the forbidden mutton, but he hadn't forgiven the one man in the camp who had dared to flout his orders.

Later still Daniel lay awake. Overhead the stars were big and close. The cool air was clean, free of the mists and taint of the town. He lay filled with meat and wine, his old comrades stretched out beside him. It was all just as he had imagined it on those endless steaming nights in the town. Yet sleep did not come. He turned over, twisting his shoulders to fit a hump in the rocky ground. In these few weeks his body had forgotten the feel of pebbles. In the same way, his mind shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a resting place.

Pictures began to form in his memory. Leah alone behind a bolted door. Joel reading aloud from the scroll. Thacia standing in the doorway of the smithy in her striped headdress. Simon looking away down the road, waiting for Daniel to accept the offer of all he owned.

Simon had chosen a different leader. Daniel thought now of the one meal he had shared with Simon's comrades. He remembered the silence as Jesus had stood to bless the meager feast, and how each one had taken less than he needed so that those outside could be fed. A closeness had seemed to draw them all together. Tonight, who but Samson had cared that he had come back?

All at once he thought of Leah's little black goat. Would some child in the village be hungry because of tonight's feast?

At the first gray glimmer he got up. Instantly Samson was awake. Daniel put a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he stood, shaken by the question that stared from the dark eyes. Then he shook his head and made his way among the sleeping figures to the top of the trail. Samson did not try to follow him.

He wished he could take the black man with him. But how could that huge figure fit into the narrow cage of his life at the smithy? Samson would alarm the villagers and terrify Leah into a corner forever. No, Samson belonged to the free life on the mountain.

Where did he himself belong?

The fire in Simon's forge had almost gone out. He raked back the ashes, blew on the coals and coaxed it back to life. Then he opened the inner door to the house. Leah looked up at him, her blue eyes as lifeless as the fire. She had not combed her hair or bothered to get herself breakfast. With irritation he saw that the water jar was empty and that he would have to stand in line at the well with the snickering women. He bent and picked up the jar, and the bars of his cage slid into place around him.

F
ROM THE MORNING
when Daniel went back to hear Jesus on the shore of Capernaum, life in the village began to seem less burdensome. Though he would have been surprised if he had stopped to realize it, the long hot days of the month of Ab came to be the happiest he had ever known.

He went first because Joel had asked him to, and because he was still curious to find what it was about the preacher that had drawn first Simon and then Joel. Two days later he went back again, because he could not get the words of the carpenter out of his head. After that, nearly every morning in the week he rose before dawn and walked three miles to the city to join the little crowd that always waited at the shore. Though it meant that his shop would be late in opening, Simon encouraged his coming, and seemed glad to see him. Daniel could meet Joel and talk with him freely, and often he had the added reward of Thacia's flashing smile. Even the fishermen came to greet him by name.

It was harder to explain to himself why he sometimes was drawn to Bethsaida at night, when he could not expect to meet Joel, and when he could only sit in the little garden of Simon's house and listen to the words of Jesus. He did not always understand the words, and often he walked home puzzled and impatient, but a few nights later, almost against his will, he would go again. He was still not sure what Jesus intended to do, but day after day the hope and promise in Jesus' words drew him back.

At mealtimes he told Leah the stories he had heard. Sometimes he thought that if the long walks to Capernaum and the hours away from his work had accomplished nothing else, they had at least given him something to talk to Leah about.

"Was Andrew there?" she would ask. "Did he have a lot of fish in his net? Did the rich women come and bring food for the poor people?"

She would sit with her own food untouched, wanting only to listen. Often when he returned late at night she would bounce up on her mat, her eyes shining with wakefulness, and hug her knees with her arms. Even when he was too tired to think he would manage some bit of news before he climbed to his bed on the rooftop, or the disappointment in her face would nag at him.

It puzzled him that this timid creature who had never dared to venture beyond their tiny garden patch should now be so curious about the busy life of the city. How could he possibly make her see it, when she had never even glimpsed the little crossroads and the well and the small flat synagogue that made up the center of their own village?

"I like to go in the morning best," he told her. "When the fishermen are just coming in with their night's catch. Some of the families have been bringing their boats in at the same spot for years, so that everyone takes it for granted that certain places belong to certain men. That's why no one really dares to interfere when Jesus sits and talks, because everyone knows that that spot belongs by right to Simon and Andrew.

"Why should they want to interfere?"

"The overseers think he keeps the men from starting their work. Not the fishermen. They have been out all night and their work is done. It's the men loading the trading boats who stop and listen when they should be working. And people like me with work waiting to be done at home."

There was so much he could never find words to make her see. The lake, gray and still at sunrise, the hills beyond like huddled sheep, the first lines of camels and donkeys coming sleepily to the water's edge. The crowing of a cock somewhere in the town, and the first busy chirping of sparrows, and, abruptly, the swifts, coming from nowhere, filling the air, darting over the water. And then suddenly the sun, leaping over the hills, warm and yellow, so that the mists melted and the lake shone blue and sparkling. The boats coming in, dragging the nets with their heaving burdens of fish. The smoke of little fires quickly lighted and the fragrance of roasting fish Worth getting up in the dark, even when his tired muscles pleaded for a little more rest; worth the long walk to the city and the waiting. But how could he put it into words?

And how could he tell of the people? The women who came down to help their men spread the wet nets on the shore. The almost-naked men, their shoulders glistening, dragging the heavy baskets up from the boats, spreading the fish on flat stones to be salted and dried. The never-ending lines of men with sacks of grain and baskets of fruits and vegetables.

"Jesus stands on the shore and talks to them all," he told Leah. "His friends to start with, and people like me. And then there are the beggars and cripples. Heaven knows where they sleep, but every morning they drag themselves down to the shore, partly to hear Jesus and partly because Simon and Andrew and the women always give them some fish. Then there are curious people who come because they see a crowd. It drives the overseers crazy when their men stop to listen. Sooner or later they break in and drive the men away. Sometimes Jesus gets into one of Simon's boats and goes out from shore a little. That way they can't order him away, but the crowds on the shore can still hear him."

"What did he say to them today?" she would ask. And Daniel would do his best to remember. He would try to call back the lakeside and hear the lap of the water and the shouts of the workmen and even the breathing of the men and women packed close around him. He could hear their stillness, and that deep, steady voice. Sometimes he could remember almost word for word, because Jesus had left an unforgettable picture in his mind.

"He told us a story about a traveler who fell among thieves who beat him and left him half dead beside the road. And a priest and a Levite came by and saw him and passed by on the other side, but a cursed Samaritan stopped and bound up his wounds and took care of him. I wish the story had been about a Jew instead. If Jesus means that Jews and Samaritans should treat each other like neighbors, that is foolish. It could never happen."

Often the words themselves eluded him, and only the memory of the voice struck troubled echoes deep within him. It was true, he did like best to go in the morning, not only because he loved the lake at dawn and the bustle of work beginning, and the walk back through the fields fresh-washed from the night dew, but also because then, in the clear bright sunlight, nothing seemed impossible. He could truly believe that the kingdom of God was coming nearer, and he could almost hear the sound of trumpets in the distant hills.

When he went to the city in the evening, everything seemed different, and he was not so sure. A sadness seemed to hang over the world. At night people came flocking to the home of Simon the fisherman, where Jesus lived in a booth on the rooftop. There the workers would gather, weary from a day of hard labor at the forge or the wharves or the vineyards. They would crowd into the small room, spilling out and filling the narrow yard, sprawling on the trampled earth, so close-packed that one could scarcely find a way between the bodies. It was at night that the hungry, who had not eaten all day, came to be fed, and the down-and-out and worthless. It was at night that they brought their kinfolk on litters. The air was thick with the day's heat and the stench of bodies and the smell of fever. The eyes of the ill and lame, which looked up with hope in the new morning, were glazed at night with a long day's suffering Daniel was disgusted at the way they jostled each other and tore at the food and snatched bread from the helpless, and at the way no one bothered when some Door creature who could only crawl on hands and knees was passed over or even trodden on.