The Journey Begun (10 page)

Replacing the blade in its sheath, he dropped it onto the mat. He slipped his hands into the folds of a light travel cloak and draped it across his lap. It was not too worse for wear, other than being damp from the recent storm. The hemlines were frayed, but not tattered. Jonah laid the cloak over a stool to dry.

He returned his attention to the mat and spotted a bulging leather pouch. He jostled it and heard the dull clatter of silver pieces crowding each other. The weight of the silver cache surprised him. This was his share of the proceeds from the family business he’d saved throughout the years, hoping to assure a comfortable life when he turned the enterprise over to Ehud. Jonah’s brow burnt with the thought of how ungraceful that transfer turned out to be. He tossed the hefty pouch onto the mat beside the knife and sorted through the remaining articles.

There was a spare pair of leather sandals he often took on long trips. Beside them was a finger ring Boaz fashioned for him from a wide splinter of bronze he’d found on some forgotten battlefield. He set the ring aside, and picked up a small wooden donkey he’d carved when he was thirteen from the wood of an olive tree uprooted in a storm. The juvenile craft summoned a half-smile, but the ache plaguing his head quickly subdued it. Next to the donkey was a flower-shaped ornament he’d fashioned for Jezzie’s halter ten years earlier on a trip to Jezreel. Misshapen and water-stained, the decoration had not fared well in the previous night’s ordeal. A packet with three bone needles of various sizes and a coil of light mending twine rounded out his belongings. He perked up as the mending tools gave him an idea.

As he swept together the pieces of his heritage, his wrist brushed a hard object lying in the folds of the mat. His eyes misted as he drew a painted ebony hair comb from the coarse cloth. Originally having four tines, it now showed only three, an outside tooth having broken off. His father purchased the comb for his mother during the family Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem the year before he died. It could be seen in Deborah’s hair regularly until Jonah and Ehud knocked it off her dressing shelf and rolled over it when they were roughhousing one evening. He remembered gawking at one of the few tears of sorrow he ever saw in Deborah’s eye as she retrieved the pieces. He promised her he’d repair the damage and he put the comb with his belongings for safekeeping until he could cure some terebinth gum for glue. That was—how many years ago? He couldn’t even remember. She never mentioned it, trusting him to follow through on his word.

Trusting me to follow through on my word...

Jonah smoothed the surface of the mat in search of the lost tine, but it was not there. He grabbed the rucksack and groped inside, his fingertips scratching the corners for the fragment. It was gone. He drooped his shoulders and leaned back against the wall, tears brimming from clenched eyelids. Spasms of guilt shook him as the image of his infirm mother rose in his mind.

“Get out!”
they had shouted
. “You don’t belong here anymore!”
He choked on the knowledge that they were right.

Several moments passed, and, when the shaking subsided into an occasional twitch, Jonah rubbed his eyes clear. He lifted the rucksack to assess whether it was salvageable, but decided it was beyond hope. A rucksack over the shoulder was neither the most comfortable, nor the most secure way to transport one’s belongings on a foot journey, but he’d need something. His mind returned to the mending implements.

Jonah picked up his old knife. He removed it from the sheath and inserted it into the rucksack. Thrusting the blade through the bottom corner, he drew it along the long stitched seam, half cutting, half breaking the threads. Laying the cloth flat on the floor, he folded it into a long strip.

Jonah arranged the wood figure, the metal finger ring, and Jezzie’s halter ornament in the middle of the strip. Next went the broken hair comb. A fluttering of wings out in the yard froze him. He cocked his head toward the door, listening for voices or footsteps. He heard nothing. Satisfied no one was there, he reached for the leather thong around his neck and slipped the gold medallion over his head. Jonah placed the disc beside the flower ornament. Finally, he lifted the pouch of silver and loosened the thong tie, allowing the silver pieces to pour onto the mat. He didn’t pause to assess it, but he knew the sum was considerable, given the prosperity of the family business and the number of years he’d been saving. Dividing the discs into two equal piles, he lined them evenly along both sides of the cloth strip.

Jonah folded the edge of the cloth over his treasures. Selecting a bone needle from the packet, he basted seams between the silver caches and the remainder of his belongings. He cable-stitched the makeshift treasure belt closed and tied off the ends with a short length of mending twine. Sitting back to assess his work, he nodded his satisfaction. The two outside pockets of silver would be accessible when needed, and his heirlooms were secured between them.

Jonah hefted the belt and juggled it in his hands to test the balance and weight. He wrapped the belt around his waist and secured it with the remaining twine. As he struggled to his feet, the belt slipped over his narrow hips and dropped into a jumbled pile at his feet. Sighing, he picked it up and slipped one arm and his head through the belt, laying it across his chest like a sash. That was better. It would ride well under his cloak and also spread the weight over more of his body, an important consideration given the amount of walking he had ahead of him.

Jonah removed the belt and laid it beside the mat. He reopened the end and stowed the needle packet, remaining twine, and his knife. There. Done.

Satisfied, but exhausted, Jonah peered out the window. The overcast was gone and a hazy blue sky stretched down the Jezreel Valley beyond Mt. Gilboa. There was no one in sight, so he returned to the sleep mat and stretched out. The burst of creativity had done much to alleviate the headache, or at least divert his attention from it.

Mercifully, sleep was not long in coming.

Lll

Early evening shadows invaded the far corners of the Ben Barak vineyards as the Jezreel Valley quieted for the night. The cool front that pushed so much rain before it the night before now pulled the haze from the sky behind it and crystalline chips of stars emerged, a few at a time, through the light-blue canopy. The spring air nipped Benjamin’s fingers as he stowed his pruning fork, a heavy oaken mallet with a bundle of spikes and tether lines, and an earth augur in the shelter adjoining the house. Blowing warm breath onto his hands, he shivered as he shouldered the front door open and stepped into the glow of Hadassah’s cook fire.

She labored over an earthenware pot, stirring a lentil and lamb stew, and turning flat bread cakes on a rock nestled against the hot coals. He inhaled deeply. The aroma—oh, that woman could cook! Benjamin tiptoed over and slipped his arms around her waist from behind, squeezing her and nuzzling his face into her neck.

“Ben! Your nose is
freezing!”
She squeezed her head against her shoulder and shrank away, but to no avail.

“I know. I’m trying to warm it up.” He grinned, pushing his face deeper.

Hadassah giggled and squirmed in his grasp, but not too forcefully. “Stop it! We’re not alone,” she whispered and jerked her head toward the other side of the room, stifling a shiver racing up her spine.

He looked over his shoulder.

Elihu and Jonah sat facing each other a short distance apart. The atmosphere was tense.

“So, what’s this all about?” Elihu lounged in a chair, his legs extended and his hands folded across his midriff. He regarded Jonah with a steady gaze, clearly not liking what he saw.

The dour prophet sat cross-legged against the wall, fidgeting with a remnant of twine in his lap, his newly fashioned treasure belt coiled on the floor beside him. His face was expressionless as he held the floor with his eyes. The wayward prophet had yet to make eye contact with his old comrade.

He had acknowledged the old soldier’s presence with only a word or two since the family returned from tending the vines.

Elihu frowned. No, Jonah didn’t look good. Not at all.

“The last time I saw you this preoccupied was, oh, about six years ago. Remember?” Elihu raised his eyebrows.

Jonah’s eye flickered up at his host for a moment and then dropped back to the floor. He rolled the bit of twine into a ball between his fingers and flicked it onto the straw mat.

Elihu’s patience was waning. “So, are you just going to sit here forever? There must be a reason you came to the vineyard. And on foot. What’s the story?”

“I’ll be leaving soon.” Jonah’s voice was low.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

Jonah’s head jerked up and glared. “What?”

“You heard me.” Elihu was not kidding.

Their eyes locked in an uneven match of wills—the senior commander of Israel’s re-emergent military power against a broken prophet running away from his God.

Jonah faltered first, his eyes dropping to Elihu’s chest and his shoulders to a sag. He took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

“Try me.” Elihu’s tone didn’t waver.

Jonah furrowed his brow. “Okay. Here you go. Yes, it’s the voice again. I’ve been given another message. You want to hear it?”

Elihu listened.

The prophet narrowed his eyes. “I have another message for the king—only this one isn’t for the king of Israel.” He paused for effect. “It’s for the king of Assyria! I’m to go to Nineveh and preach.
Nineveh! Assyria!
What do you make of
that?”

The warrior’s eyes flicked, but he said nothing.

“Well?”

“What are you supposed to preach?”

“For the city to repent, or else face complete destruction at the hand of
Adonai.”
Jonah smirked and folded his arms across his chest.
Well, you wanted to know.

Elihu pondered Jonah’s words for a moment. “So?”

Jonah’s jaw dropped. “‘So?’ That’s it? Just ‘so?’ Did you hear what I said? I’m to prophesy in Assyria, of all places!
Assyria, Eli!”

The soldier raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, shrugging. “So, what’s the problem?”

“I can’t believe you’d ask me that! What do you mean, ‘What’s the problem?’”

“Well, they’re no threat to Israel anymore. I don’t see—
hoi
, wait a minute.” Elihu creased his brow and stroked his clipped beard as Jonah’s words echoed in his mind. “You say Assyria is to be destroyed if they don’t repent?”

“I said Nineveh will be. I don’t know about all of Assyria. Why?”

“Don’t you see? Of course the Ninevites won’t repent. Not for an Israelite god. That’s the last thing they’d do.” Elihu sat forward, his mind racing.

“I still don’t get your point.” Jonah creased his brow at the excitement in his friend’s voice.

Elihu pounded the table with his fist. “That’s it! You’re the messenger of Assyria’s doom. And maybe Israel is to be the instrument of their destruction. Do you see it now? You go to Nineveh to preach your message, and when they refuse, we—the army of Israel,
Adonai’s
chosen people—march in and destroy the city. And that will only be the beginning! From there we take Assur, Babylon, Nimrud, and on until the entire land has been conquered.” The excited warrior sat forward and slapped his leg.