Chariots to jordan, p.16
Chariots to Jordan, page 16
* * *
Naaman stepped down from his chariot and walked toward a group of a dozen men sitting in the dirt in front of the smith’s shop. They sat with their hands on top of their heads and their legs crossed in front of them. Six soldiers encircled them with bows drawn, and two more stood outside the circle with swords unsheathed.
“What are those caves up there?” Naaman said as he strode forward, pointing to the small openings in the black cliffs in the distance.
The men sitting in the dirt looked at Naaman and then at each other, but no one said a word.
“It really makes no difference whether you tell us or not; we’re going to investigate them anyway,” Naaman said matter-of-factly. “I simply want to know their purpose.”
Except for blinking eyes and shallow breathing, the men sat as still as stone statues. Beneath the calm exterior, each man’s heart raced wildly, and they seethed with a combination of fear and anger. The same thought raced through each man’s mind, and each of them hoped against all hope that their wife and children had somehow managed to find their way to the safety of the caves.
Naaman turned from the men as the sound of pounding horse hooves reached his ears. Adad rode up again and jumped from the saddle as the horse skidded to a stop only inches from where Naaman stood.
“Commander,” Adad said in a voice hoarse from constant yelling, “we’ve captured most of the people on the far side of the town and have started burning the houses. In another hour, we’ll have worked our way through most of the village.”
“Excellent, Adad,” Naaman said. “See those caves in the cliffs beyond the village? What did our scouts tell you of them?”
Adad looked to where Naaman was pointing. “Our scouts reported nothing of them to me.”
Naaman shook his head. “I think it’s unlikely anyone made it up into them, but take a contingent of men and begin searching them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Uzzi ran down the slope as fast as his muscular legs could propel him and dropped, unseen, behind the protective cover of the first boulder he came to. There were too many trees and rocks to see either his father or the soldiers, so he cautiously began working his way to where he could get a clear shot at the soldiers. If he could kill at least one, that would even the odds.
He had run, crept, and crawled what he thought was half the distance to where he’d last seen the soldiers when he suddenly froze in his tracks. No more than fifty feet ahead of him stood a soldier with his back to Uzzi. The soldier was motioning frantically to someone Uzzi couldn’t see. He wasn’t motioning for the unseen man to come to where he was, but for the other man to take a different course.
Crouching behind a large rock, Uzzi silently pulled an arrow from his quiver and notched it in his bow. Standing up to his full height, he whistled softly. As the soldier spun around to face the noise, he instinctively raised his own bow and let fly a poorly aimed arrow. But Uzzi’s arrow had begun its deadly flight long before the soldier’s arrow had even left its bowstring. Countless hours shooting at darting rabbits and spiders walking up tree trunks assured the arrow would find its target, but before the arrow had even lodged in the man’s chest, Uzzi pulled a second from his quiver and took aim. It was an unnecessary action, for the man was dead before his knees buckled.
The thought that he had just ended another man’s life briefly entered Uzzi’s mind, spun around for a split second, and was immediately cast out. “No one hurts my family,” Uzzi breathed out as he stepped silently closer to where he thought his father would be.
* * *
Gideon squatted down as low as he could and listened as the arrows zinged past his head. He was trapped. The two soldiers were doing exactly what he would have done, and they were doing it well. One would shoot while the other advanced, and their rhythm was such that Gideon couldn’t even raise his head let alone take aim and fire a return arrow. Judging from the shrill whine the arrows made as they passed, he knew they must be closing the distance and were probably less than thirty feet away. He had only two options. He could stay where he was, jump to his feet, take quick aim, and hope to hit one of the soldiers, or he could run for the better protection of the larger shed behind him. Either way, he was likely to get hit with one, possibly two arrows.
He churned both options over in his mind. Whatever he was going to do, he must do it quickly or he would surely die. He had barely positioned his legs under him when he heard, “Father,” yelled from the rocks far to his left.
Keeping his head low, Gideon shifted around to see Uzzi looking at him from behind a boulder the size of a house. Gideon flashed a huge grin; the odds had now changed. As if on cue, Gideon rose to his feet at the same instant Uzzi rolled out from behind the rock. Each took aim at the totally unprotected soldiers standing thirty feet away and released their arrows.
Gideon’s was the first to find its target. It entered the soldier’s chest just below the sternum and passed through his body, lodging in the man’s backbone. Uzzi’s arrow sliced into the same man’s chest, an inch below Gideon’s, and passed through his heart.
Gideon and Uzzi looked at each other in stunned disbelief. Neither of them had thought for a second that they might both choose the same target. The remaining soldier was the quickest of the three to process the situation, and he held a slight advantage—he already had an arrow in his bow. In a split second, he chose his target, aimed, and released.
It was as if time suddenly slowed to a crawl. The perfectly smooth wooden shaft with its two red feathers and one white feather slowly rotated as it left the bowstring on its violent mission. The razor-sharp steel tip sliced silently through the air until it pierced a woolen tunic, then flesh, and imbedded itself in heart tissue.
The soldier had no time to revel in his well-placed shot, for his arrow had no sooner found its target than another arrow passed through his throat, severing windpipe and artery as it went. “No one hurts my family,” Uzzi hissed as he lowered his bow and ran to his father’s side.
* * *
Looking down from the cave’s entrance, Miriam gasped in horror and screamed as she watched her husband slump to the ground, the arrow protruding from his chest like a pin from a cushion. Frantic with fear and panic, she clawed her way from her stomach to her feet to run to Gideon. She had only taken half a step before two hands quickly reached out and gripped her ankles, tripping her flatly to the ground.
“You can’t go down there, Mother,” Caleb said as he scooted forward and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
“Let me go!” Miriam screamed as she struggled and twisted to free herself from his ironclad hold.
“No! You can’t go!” he said fiercely as the two of them thrashed in the dirt.
Miriam struggled for only a moment before her body relaxed, and she began sobbing uncontrollably. Only then did Caleb release his viselike hold on her. Turning to Hanan, he said, “You must take Mother back inside the cave.”
Hanan didn’t move. He was on his hands and knees, his mouth gaping open and his eyes firmly fixed on the unmoving body of his father lying in the dirt below.
“Hanan!” Caleb shouted. “Take Mother inside the cave.”
“Is he dead?” Hanan mumbled, still not moving.
Gili and Samara moved at almost the same instant. In an effort to remain unseen, they crawled forward and ushered a sobbing Miriam back to the obscurity of the cave.
“Get down,” Caleb hissed to Hanan who was still on his hands and knees. Pointing in the distance, he said, “Soldiers are coming up toward the caves.”
And indeed they were. Dozens of soldiers streamed from the village streets with swords and spears. They trudged up the hillside toward the black cliffs riddled with caves, but they were concentrated far from where Caleb and Hanan were watching Uzzi.
Uzzi knelt down and gently cradled his father’s head in his arms as tears dripped from his eyes onto the dead man’s face. After a moment, Uzzi wiped his eyes and looked up the hill to where Hanan and Caleb peered down at him. He could see Caleb motion with his arm, and he instantly knew that soldiers were combing the caves.
Laying Gideon’s head gently on the ground, Uzzi pushed strands of hair from his father’s face. “I love you, Father,” he said as he tenderly patted Gideon’s cheek.
Rising to his feet, Uzzi wiped his eyes on the shoulders of his tunic. Picking up his bow, he began stealthily dodging from rock to rock and tree to tree as he made his way up the hillside. Before he moved from one hiding place to the next, he carefully scanned ahead and to both sides, searching for any movement or glint of metal that might warn him of a soldier. It had taken much longer than normal, and now the only thing that stood between him and the security of the cave was three hundred feet of open terrain.
An hour earlier he had considered this open patch of ground to be a blessing. It was impossible for anyone to approach the entrance to their cave without crossing this stretch of ground. With its few blades of dried grass and rocks no larger than oranges, the area offered no cover behind which advancing forces could hide. Any fanatic foolish enough to rush the cave would easily be riddled with arrows. But now the blessing had turned to a curse. As fast as Uzzi might run, he would be exposed to the eyes of any soldier giving even half a glance in this direction.
Uzzi considered his options, but the decision was already made for him. Caleb was watching Uzzi when Hanan tapped him on the arm and pointed, “Look, down by Father!” he exclaimed.
Caleb watched as a large black horse worked its way between houses. Its rider guided it cautiously to the shed where Gideon lay in the dirt. “Where did they come from?” Caleb said mostly to himself. Behind the man walked six soldiers, two with bows and three with swords and spears. Although he could hear nothing, Caleb knew the horseman had issued an order because the three bowmen immediately drew arrows from their almost-empty quivers and notched them on their bowstrings. The rider raised his sword and gave a quick motion; the spearmen fanned out as if searching for someone. The rider turned his horse slightly, and Caleb and Hanan watched as he began methodically scanning the hillside.
“We must warn Uzzi,” Hanan said as he rose from his stomach to his knees and frantically began waving his arms to draw Uzzi’s attention. Uzzi immediately saw Hanan waving, but so did the rider on the black horse.
“Get down!” Caleb shouted.
Hanan dropped to his belly and said, “I hope Uzzi saw me!”
Caleb didn’t hear the remark; he was staring not at Uzzi but at the horseman. The next actions would tell it all. Caleb’s heart sank when the rider stood up in his stirrups and pointed the tip of his sword directly at where Hanan and Caleb were hiding. A fraction of a second later, the rider and all six men began cautiously ascending the hillside.
From his precarious position, Uzzi watched the approaching men and considered the only two options he could think of: running across the barren ground to the cave or fighting them from where he stood. If he stayed, he could almost certainly kill some of the soldiers, but it would only be a matter of time before they managed to get reinforcements and overpower him. And that’s when a third alternative hit him.
Uzzi cautiously lowered himself and began half crawling and half running to a small gully less than twenty feet away. It was a tangled mass of dead cedar trees, rocks, sand, and prickly weeds. Oblivious to the pain from the sharp needle-like spines, he began pulling and stomping on the weeds until he created an opening large enough for him to hide in. Tossing his bow in the makeshift burrow, he eased himself in and pulled a layer of weeds over the hole. It was far from perfect, but he hoped the men would be so focused on the cave that they wouldn’t see him.
Hanan and Caleb watched Uzzi’s odd preparation in wonderment. “What’s he doing?” Hanan asked in anxious confusion.
Caleb’s mind whirled, and then he stammered, “I think . . . I think he’s going to hide until they pass.”
“What, and then run away? What about us? Is he going to leave us?”
“That’s something you might do but not Uzzi,” Caleb fired back angrily. And then he immediately said, “I’m sorry, Hanan. I didn’t mean that.”
Hanan’s soft brown eyes registered the rebuke. “I know,” he replied softly and gave a weak smile.
Caleb looked back down at Uzzi’s strange hiding spot and shook his head in bewilderment, but then he suddenly understood. “He’s going to ambush them from behind! And we need to attack from the front!” Easing himself away from the opening, he said, “Stay here, and keep careful watch. I’m going into the cave to warn Mother and get the other bow and my sling.”
Caleb scrabbled down the sloping tunnel, stumbling in the darkness until he saw the glow from the fire in the main cavern. “Mother, the soldiers are coming, and we must be prepared,” he said loudly, well before he could even see in the dim light.
Miriam, Samara, and Gili were huddled together on the far side of the cavern, barely within the fire’s circle of light. Miriam and Samara sat on small sacks of wheat, and Samara had her arm around Miriam’s shoulder. Miriam sat with her hands in her lap, twisting a small, white linen cloth in ever-tightening knots. Gili stood at Miriam’s side and tenderly patted the bereaved woman on the hands. It was an odd sight: the young comforting the old.
Walking rapidly over to them, he reached down and touched his mother’s hands. “Mother, you must leave this cave.”
Miriam looked up through tear-drenched eyes but said nothing.
“She’s in shock,” Samara said softly.
Caleb looked lovingly at his mother and suddenly felt very alone. Letting out a deep sigh, he looked alternately at Samara and Gili. “A small group of soldiers is coming up the hill to the cave. We’re going to try overpowering them, but we can’t risk having you trapped in here.” Turning to Gili he said, “Do you remember how to get out of this cave?”
“Yes, we walk out the front.”
“No, no, I mean the other ways out of the cave. Do you remember the other way out that we told you about?”
“I think . . . maybe,” she said uncertainly.
She said it so tentatively Caleb shook his head and looked at Samara. “I don’t have much time, so you must listen carefully.” Pointing into the blackness behind them, he said, “The back wall of the cave is mostly a jumbled mass of rocks and boulders. Walk to where the side wall and the back wall meet—it’s near where the stream seeps into the cave. Climb up the pile of rocks, staying close to the wall. When you reach the top of the pile, look carefully with the lamp, and you’ll find steps that have been cut into the wall. You must climb up the steps; they lead to a narrow ledge near the roof of the cave. As you crawl along the ledge, you’ll begin to feel a rush of air. Follow that air until you come to a narrow passage. It’s really nothing more than a split in the rock. It’ll be a tight fit, but stand as straight as you can and inch yourself sideways into that split.”
“How will we carry a lamp?” Samara asked. “We won’t be able to see.”
Caleb looked at Samara with slight irritation. He was in a hurry, and her questions were delaying him. “You can’t carry a lamp; leave it on the ledge. You’ll be in total darkness from the moment you enter the split,” he said with more agitation than he intended. “Now listen, carefully. You must inch sideways for thirty or forty feet until you can go no farther. Look up and slightly to your right, and you’ll see a small sliver of sunlight above your head. That’s a smooth shaft that will lead you to the outside. You’ll think it is a great distance, but that’s just because the shaft is so narrow. It’s only a few feet above your head.”
“But how will we get out?” Samara asked with some concern.
“Use the rope!” Caleb responded as if she should know what he was talking about.
“What rope?”
Caleb let out another sigh. “There’s a rope dangling down the shaft—you’ll be able to see it in the light. By pulling with your arms and pushing with your toes, you can wiggle your way up the shaft. Do you understand?”
Samara nodded but said nothing.
“Once you’re out of the shaft, you’ll be in the bottom of a narrow ravine. Work your way up the ravine, and you’ll come out on top of a large, flat plain that overlooks Edrei. It’s only a few miles from there to our house.” Looking at Samara and then Miriam, who was now far more alert, he continued, “It’s important that Gili goes last. She’s not tall enough to reach the rope, and it will take both of you to lift her out. One of you must reach down into the opening headfirst while the other holds onto her legs. That’s the only way you’ll be able to get Gili out.”
Miriam’s eyes widened in alarm. “I won’t allow Gili to go last. What if something happens to her?”
“Mother, please,” Caleb pleaded. “It will be difficult enough for you and Samara to get her out with both of you helping. It is impossible for her to get out by herself; the rope simply isn’t long enough for her to reach it. You must help her from the topside.”
“And what about you, Hanan, and Uzzi?” Miriam asked. “How will you escape?”
Caleb smiled smugly at his mother. “Don’t worry about us, Mother. We’ll fight long enough for you to escape, then we’ll follow you. Uzzi, Hanan, and I know these caves very well. The Syrians will never find us.” He said all this with complete confidence, never doubting their ability. “Don’t go directly back to the house,” he warned. “Stay in the ravine for at least two days to be sure the soldiers are gone.” Hurrying over to a bag, he withdrew two loaves of unleavened bread and some goat cheese. “Stuff this in your robes. There’s a small trickle of water in the ravine but no food. We’ll meet you at the house in two days.”
Leaning over he gave his mother a kiss on the cheek and hugged Gili. “Now go, quickly,” he said. He ran over and picked up the bow, quiver, sling, and pouches of rocks and then headed for the cave’s entrance.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The two archers passed so close to Uzzi’s makeshift burrow that he could see their sandals sink in the loose sand as the men struggled up the hillside. Uzzi offered a silent prayer of thanks to Jehovah that they were concentrating so intently on what was ahead of them that they didn’t see what lay at their feet. After a long minute of trying to keep his racing heart in control, he cautiously pushed aside some of the thorny brush and eased his head out of his makeshift burrow in time to see the soldiers split up. One raced up the hillside and disappeared into a congested mass of boulders and trees. The second had stopped fifty yards ahead of Uzzi and was leaning against a tree, rubbing the muscles in his leg. Taking his bow in hand, Uzzi eased from under the debris, notched an arrow, and began creeping forward.
