Daughter of Deliverance (13 page)

“No, that's not so,” Oman protested. “You wouldn't let anybody kill us, would you, Othniel?”

“I certainly would not. We're friends, aren't we?”

Rahab looked up from the bread dough she was kneading and said, “Oman, I want you and Zayna to go outside.”

“Outside? What for?”

“I want you to find out what people are saying.”

“You mean about Othniel and Ardon?” Zayna asked.

“Exactly. Watch carefully, and if the soldiers start for this house, you come in quickly and tell us about it.”

“We can do that,” Zayna said. “Come on, Oman.”

As soon as the two left, Othniel said, “That's a bright boy there.”

“Yes, but he's not well. He's always been sickly.”

“Well, maybe he'll get stronger as he gets older.”

He watched her knead the bread and said, “I remember watching my mother do that.”

“What's her name?”

“Her name was Rachel.”

“That's a pretty name. Is it common among your people?”

“Fairly common. She was named after a woman who was married to one of the founders of our tribe. His name was Jacob.”

“Are there a great many of you?”

“Quite a few, I suppose.”

“How do you ever manage to feed so many? You must grow crops.”

“We move around so much we don't have time to plant any crops. But we raise animals—sheep and goats and cows. So we have plenty of meat and milk. And we have manna.”

“Manna?” Rahab lifted her eyebrows. “What is manna?”

“It's bread that falls from heaven.”

Rahab stared at him. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“I guess I've gotten used to the miracle,” Othniel said with a shrug. “When our God delivered us out of slavery, we were out in the desert with nothing to eat. We would have starved. But our leader Moses prayed and God sent bread from heaven. Every morning when we come out, it's on the ground.”

“You just pick up bread from the ground?”

“It's very tiny and it spoils quickly. You have to gather it every morning. I've been doing it all my life.”

Rahab was smitten with astonishment. “A god that feeds his people by raining bread from heaven.”

“Oh, that's only one of the miracles that God has given to us.” Othniel went on to tell about how water flowed from a solid rock in the desert when the people were thirsty and there was no water. He told about how God had miraculously cared for Israel during its long wanderings. “It's been forty years now, and God's taken care of us.”

“Tell me about yourself,” Rahab said.

“About me? Well, there's nothing much to tell. My parents are dead. Ardon up there on the roof, he's my cousin.” He laughed shortly and said, “He's the good one. I'm the bad one.”

“Why would you say that?”

“It's true enough. His father's name is Caleb. He's my uncle. He's one of the leaders of our people. He's from a very fine family, but I'm not.”

“I don't believe that.”

“If you ever visit our camp, just ask about me.” He smiled at her.

He was a good-looking fellow, she noted, with an easy manner about him, quite unlike his cousin. “They wouldn't send a man who wasn't reliable on a mission like this,” she said.

“You know I haven't figured that out yet. It was a strange choice.”

Rahab was quiet for a time, and he studied her. She was one of the most attractive women he had ever seen, much fairer than the women of his people. He noticed her eyes especially were beautiful, well-shaped and of an odd color. “I've never seen anybody with eyes the color of yours,” he said.

“They are from my mother, I guess. Almost everyone in Jericho has dark eyes, but my mother was a slave. She used to tell me about her home where she was born. There was ice and snow there. Very cold. Her hair was light and her eyes were blue. She died some time ago.”

Othniel could not help but admire the woman's appearance. The lamp was burning, and the yellow light was kind to her, showing the full, soft lines of her body. He noticed also that her face was very expressive. Her feelings showed immediately on her face. She did not smile much, but when she did her whole expression lit up. He wanted to ask her about herself, but it was a delicate situation. Finally he said, “Your father's never home. Does he work?”

“No, he stays drunk most of the time.”

“Sorry to hear that. And your brother-in-law, he's crippled. He can't work either.”

“Very little.”

“Then how do you live?”

Rahab hesitated. She had formed the dough into a solid lump and stood there for a moment. “I have to support them, and I've told you what I am.”

The words caught Othniel in a strange way. He had known harlots before, but all of them he had known were hard-eyed, greedy women. Any one of the harlots he knew would have turned him and Ardon in for the reward the king was offering for their capture—a reward that was getting larger every day.

“I'm a harlot,” she said, making no excuse for it. “That's why your friend Ardon doesn't like me.”

“Well …” Desperately Othniel tried to think of some way to tell the woman about what Ardon was like. Finally he shrugged and said, “He's very religious. That's why he's so stiff. Even if you saved our lives.”

“I'm glad you're here, Othniel. I know that Ardon would never ask for mercy from your leaders for a harlot or her family, but I think you would.”

“That's right, I will. My uncle Caleb is a hard man but a fair one, and Joshua, our chief, is a wonderful man. When we get back, I'll tell them all that you've done for Ardon and me. You'll be all right. I promise you.”

She turned to him and smiled shyly. He was shocked and amazed to find that there was still an innocence about her, despite her profession. He knew what her life involved, but somehow he knew that beneath all of that, down deep, Rahab was a woman of honor.

“I've got to go up on the roof. We do our baking up there.”

“I'll stay down here and keep watch.”

“Don't go outside,” she warned.

“I won't do that.”

Rahab climbed the ladder to the roof and walked over to the small stone oven that Kadir had built. She arranged twigs under it, went back down the ladder for some hot coals, and brought them up in a clay jar to start her fire. All the time she was aware that Ardon was sitting with his back to the wall that faced the street, watching her. She had spoken to him when she first came up and he had nodded, but there was no more.

She got the flames going and turned to him. “I'll have to stay here and tend the fire for a while.”

“I can do that.”

“That would be good of you.” She turned to him and studied his face. “I know you're not a man who visits harlots.”

“How could you know that?”

“There's something unclean about men who do that. It shows in their eyes.”

Ardon stared at her curiously. He was feeling much better physically. His arm was stiff but was healing quickly. He had always been quick to heal. Now he flexed it and said, “I haven't been very gracious, but I want you to know that I'm grateful to you for saving our lives.”

“And you're still wondering why I did it, aren't you?”

“It's unusual. I don't think another soul in Jericho would have lifted a finger to save Othniel and me.”

Rahab knelt down and fed more twigs into the fire. She was thinking how to answer this man. “As I told you,” she said finally, “I did it because of your god. What is his name?”

“He has many names. Jehovah is one of them.”

“Jehovah. What does that mean?”

“It's an odd sort of name. It means, more or less, ‘one who keeps covenant with His people'”

“And what is a covenant?”

“It's a promise, an agreement. Like if I promised you I would come on a certain day, say next week. That would be a covenant between us.”

“And what promises has your god made you?”

“Many,” Ardon said. He had studied long at the feet of Phinehas and other members of the priestly tribe and knew the history of his people well. His eyes grew dreamy as he began to speak of how Jehovah had appeared to Abraham. “He promised him a land flowing with milk and honey, and though he was only one man he said, ‘One day your descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky.' Abraham was the first Hebrew.”

Rahab was fascinated. This was the first time Ardon had spoken to her at any length. “Tell me more about your god.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Surely everyone wants to know about your god.”

“I don't think so. Most people want what God will do for them. They don't want God himself.”

Rahab exclaimed, “That's exactly what I said! The people in Jericho, they go to the temples to ask for things. Always asking! But I always wanted to know what the god or goddess was like.”

“Well, Jehovah is hard to understand. For one thing, nobody's ever seen Him.”

“Nobody? Not even Abraham?”

“Not even Moses, really. Moses was our leader who led us out of Egypt. You may have heard about him.”

“Yes. Everyone knows about Moses. Did you know him?”

“Yes, of course. He only died a short time ago. He was a hundred twenty years old, but he was as strong as if he were a young man.”

Rahab was quiet for a long time. The twigs crackled as they burned, and the smoke began to rise. She put her hand on the oven and found it was growing warm. “The fire will have to be kept going to bake the bread.”

“Yes, I know.” Ardon got up and came over to stand by the oven. He was hidden behind the banister from the street below, but he could clearly hear voices.

Rahab suddenly asked, “Could I ever be a part of Israel?”

Ardon turned to look at her. She looked at him silently waiting for his answer, and he was not sure what her silence meant. The question intrigued him, but he had only one answer.

“No, you could never be a part of Israel.”

“I see.” Rahab rose up and left without another word.

****

Ardon was surprised. He had expected her to argue. He sat there thinking about the strange conversation, and finally Othniel came up and sat down beside him. “The bread smells good,” he said.

“The woman just asked me something odd.”

“Her name is Rahab,” Othniel said with irritation. “You know it well enough.”

“Don't bite my head off.”

“What did she ask you?”

“She asked me if she could become a woman of Israel.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“Why, I told her no, of course.” Ardon was surprised at the question. “You know that an idolater and a stranger cannot be a part of Israel.”

“You know our history better than that. Moses was married to an Ethiopian woman. She wasn't born a Hebrew. There are others too. You remember how Moses used to say that the strangers and foreigners could join us if they wanted to worship Jehovah.”

Indeed, Ardon did know this, but he had shut it out of his mind. He never understood that and was resentful of strangers who were admitted into the fellowship of the nation of Israel. “But in any case,” he said, “she's a prostitute, so that bars her.”

“There's something strange about that. She doesn't look like any bad woman I've ever seen. She has very gentle eyes.”

“Women are deceitful. You should know that better than anybody.”

The two sat there, and Othniel studied his friend. At length he said, “We owe our lives to this woman.”

“I know that,” Ardon said quickly. “We'll make it up to them.”

“Have you told her that?”

“No.”

“You should say so.”

“All right,” Ardon agreed. “I will.”

****

The two were up on the roof dozing. They had eaten heartily of the bread and lamb Rahab had brought them. It was growing darker now, and suddenly there was a sound on the ladder. Both men stiffened, for it could be anyone.

They relaxed, however, as Rahab came up, her eyes wide with apprehension. “The soldiers are searching every house. They'll probably look on the roof too.”

“What'll we do?” Othniel asked quickly.

“There's only one place. Get over here. I'll cover you up with these sheaves.” The roof was the only place that the family had to store anything, and a great many bundles of flax were there that Kadir used to make into twine.

Ardon grasped his sword and held it, his face tense. “We'll have to fight.”

“We wouldn't have a chance,” Othniel said. “Come on. Get here in the corner.”

Rahab saw the resistance in Ardon, and she shook her head. “There are many of them. Quick, I'll hide you.”

Ardon shrugged. “All right, we'll try it,” he murmured. The two men sat down, and Rahab began to cover them with the flax.

When they were completely hidden, she said quietly, “Now they won't see you.”

“They might poke at us with a sword or a spear,” Ardon's voice emerged from the pile.

“I'll try to draw them off. Be very quiet.”

The two men huddled there silently.

“I don't think this is going to work,” Ardon said.

“Give it a chance, will you?”

They quickly shushed at the heavy clunk of footsteps coming up the ladder and then resounding on the flat roof. A rough voice said, “There's nobody up here.”

“See what's under that flax over there,” another male voice said.

Both men tensed and gripped their weapons, but then they heard Rahab's voice. “My, what fine men the king has in his army.”

There was instant laughter from the two men, and Rahab's voice sounded seductive as she continued. “Come here and give me a kiss.”

There was a silence as the two men obviously were taken with Rahab. “I'll come back to see you when I'm off duty.”