Noah (2 page)

Or did it?

Even an airborne predator would have had to swoop close to spot the suggestion of movement among the jagged, black rocks of the deepest of the canyons. A man and two boys, who patiently scraped lichen and herbs from the rocks with stubby blades and collected them in satchels resting on their hips, wore clothes so colorless and so caked with
dust that they might have been rocks themselves. Their skin, too, was ingrained with dust, though the father’s was of a deeper hue, darkened to a leathery toughness from years of exposure to the sometimes-merciless sun. The man and the two boys worked quietly and tirelessly, although when a single drop of rain landed on the ground next to the man, causing him to pause and look up, the strain was all too evident on his face.

In a little over a quarter of a century the gangly, wide-eyed boy that Noah had once been had become a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He frowned up at the sky, which, although gray and dull, contained not a single cloud. Puzzled he looked at the spot where the rain had fallen, no more than a hand’s span from his foot, but already the dry earth had sucked up the moisture, leaving nothing but a tiny crater behind.

Noah turned to the closest and oldest of the boys, whose hair was dark, almost black, like his mother’s.

“Shem?” he called.

The boy looked up. “Yes, Father?”

“Do you feel rain?”

Shem glanced at the sky as Noah had done, then shook his head.

“No, Father.”

Noah frowned. Shem, a lithe nine-year-old, tall for his age, returned to his work. Noah turned to ask his younger son, six-year-old Ham, the same question—and was just in time to see Ham about to drop a small white flower into his satchel.

“Ham!” Noah said, perhaps a little too sternly.

The boy froze. Unlike his brother, he was small for his age, his cheeks sunken from lack of
nourishment. He looked up at his father, a mischievous expression on his face.

“What are you doing?” Noah asked.

Ham opened his hand, revealing the small white flower. “It’s pretty.”

Noah sighed and took the flower from Ham’s palm. It was plain and rather bedraggled, but compared to the weeds and the dust and the black rocks it was a thing of beauty. Looking across to where Ham had been working, he saw several clumps of the white flowers clinging precariously to fissures in the rock.

“See those other flowers?” he said. “How they’re attached to the rock? That’s where they should be. They have a purpose, you see. They sprout and they bloom, the wind takes the seeds and more flowers grow. We only collect what we can use—and nothing more. You understand?”

Ham nodded. “Yes, Father.”

“Good boy.” Noah smiled and ruffled his hair.

Ham scampered happily off. Noah watched him go, the smile stretched across his dry lips fading all too quickly. He looked up at the cloudless sky again, then sighed deeply and turned back to his work. But just at that moment another raindrop, seemingly out of nowhere, hit the ground at his feet.

This time, however, the drop wasn’t immediately absorbed into the dry ground. Instead, a small white flower, identical to the one that Ham had picked, sprang from the earth. Noah gaped at it, then looked at his sons. They had seen nothing. He opened his mouth to speak, when, with a scrabbling of claws, an animal suddenly careened around the corner of the outcropping of rock thirty steps to Noah’s left.

Fearing for the safety of his sons, Noah leaped forward to confront the creature, knife upraised. It was a scrawny, long-nosed hound, its flesh plated in thick scaly ridges. Its eyes were wild and foam dripped from its panting jaws as it ran. Despite its fearsome appearance, it scrambled to a panicked halt as soon as it saw Noah, dust puffing up around it.

Although he was gripping his knife in one hand, Noah raised his other to calm the beast. He knew these hounds. They were wild but generally timid creatures, which would only attack if driven half-crazed with hunger. If tamed they made good pets. They were loyal, and intelligent, too. They were generally pack animals, but this one seemed to be alone.

Noah had a way with animals. They responded to him. On this occasion, however, the creature was clearly too skittish, too frightened, to be soothed by his soft words. He had barely begun to speak when it turned tail and fled, disappearing into a narrow crevice between two rocks. Only as it did so did Noah see the reason for its panic. The hound had a broken spear shaft sticking out of a wound in its shoulder, which was pouring with blood.

At once Noah turned to his boys.

“Shem!” he barked. “Men!”

Shem understood and obeyed his father instantly. Grabbing his frightened brother, he ducked into a shallow aperture in the canyon wall and pulled his gray cloak over both their heads. Completely covered by the cloak, which was exactly the same color as the landscape around it, the boys froze. Noah allowed himself a grim smile of satisfaction. He had trained his sons well. Now they were perfectly camouflaged, nothing more than another outcropping of rock.

Casting a quick glance at the opening in the rock from which the hound had emerged, Noah set off in pursuit of the injured animal. A seasoned tracker, perfectly at home in his environment, he followed its trail easily, moving so quickly and sure-footedly that he was almost a blur, his dark cloak flying behind him. He leaped over ravines, skipped around rocks, and slid through natural tunnels as though he was made of wind.

After a while he began to hear the animal up ahead, its breathing labored, its speed hampered by its injury.

Finally he entered a canyon that he knew from experience became increasingly narrower until it culminated in a cul-de-sac. The rock face beyond was jagged enough for an animal—or indeed a fit man—to climb, but Noah knew from the sounds of distress that the hound was making, and from the amount of blood it had shed on the dusty ground, that it would be incapable of such a feat. He slowed to a walk, moving silently now on the pads of his feet. The hound was trapped and desperate and in pain, all of which could make it dangerous.

Sidling around the last corner, crouching low to make himself less of a target, he peered into the shadowy canyon.

And there was the hound, exhausted, limping, whining in dismay as it ranged back and forth along the length of the canyon wall, searching vainly for an opening, a means of escape. Noah grimaced in pity as he saw the hound gather its failing strength and leap at the rock face in an attempt to scramble up and over it, only to fall back with an agonized yelp.

Noah hurried forward, his knife tucked back in
his belt, still moving swiftly and soundlessly over the dusty ground. At the last moment, when he was no more than five steps from the creature, the hound sensed or smelled him and whipped around, its jowls curling back in a snarl, the thick, overlapping scales that covered it scraping and clacking together.

Noah stretched out his arms, palms uppermost, to show the creature that he carried no weapons and meant it no harm. He had no intention of frightening the already terrified beast still further.

Drawing on the last of its dwindling strength, the hound lunged and snapped at Noah. He danced nimbly out of reach as its jaws clacked together on empty air. Leaping to his left he darted forward again, sliding under another attempted bite. Now he was alongside the creature, close enough to it to wrap his arms around it. Which is precisely what he did, one arm curling up and over the dog’s snout, his hand gently but firmly clamping its jaws shut, and the other snaking around its body as he pulled the hound into the protective warmth of his embrace.

Panicked, the hound bucked and jerked, but Noah held it tight. He could smell the animal’s blood and the rank sweat of its fear, could feel the blazing heat of its shuddering body. He made deep, soothing, cooing noises at the back of his throat.

“Easy, easy,” he whispered, kneeling. Gradually the hound became calmer, more relaxed. Its panting lessened. Little by little Noah slackened his grip on its body. He unclamped its jaws, and feebly the animal licked his hand.

“That’s it,” he said. “Good boy. Now let’s have a look at that wound.”

“That kill is ours!” The voice, harsh and heavily
accented, came from behind him. Setting the hound’s head gently on the ground, Noah stood and turned, keeping his body relaxed.

The man standing between the narrowing walls of the canyon was a desert poacher, a desperate scavenger. He was filthy and savage-looking, his black eyes blazing from a skull-like face, his filthy, matted clothes little more than a collection of animal skins that had been stitched together. His lips curled back from teeth that had been filed into points. In one hand he was holding a curved, hand-made blade, tarnished with blood, and in the other a large, sharp-edged stone.

A trickle of dust above him made Noah look up. Two more poachers, equally savage-looking, stood one on either side of him, perched on the rocks above, silhouetted against the dust-gray sky. The poacher to the left was holding a long spear, while the other was brandishing a roughly hewn but lethal-looking sword and grinning maniacally through a thick black beard caked with filth. Moving slowly and cautiously, Noah released the hound and positioned his body protectively in front of it.

The three poachers began to close in, the leader walking slowly toward Noah, his comrades moving down from the canyon walls in a pincer movement.

Noah eyed them cautiously, weighing the situation. Behind him the hound whimpered in fear, bracing its paws against the ground as though preparing to rise and flee. Noah quieted it with a word and a hand gesture.

“Walk away and maybe you live… or maybe not,” the leader of the poachers said. The man carrying the spear cackled. Noah rose to his full height and turned
to stare at him. There was something about the stillness and intensity of his expression and posture that arrested the laugh in the man’s throat.

The poacher leader spoke again. His voice was rough, guttural, his words spoken with an accent.

“You know how long since we ate? Since we even seen an animal?” He grinned, showing his pointed teeth and his eyes glittered. “Maybe we eat you, too.”

The spear-carrying poacher cackled again, a real hoot this time, as if his leader’s remark was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

Noah simply stood there, unmoving and unruffled. Behind him the hound panted with exhaustion. The silence stretched out. Noah looked evenly at the poacher leader. Finally the man jerked his head.

“So?”

Noah continued to stare at him, and then without speaking he gave a tiny shake of the head.

The poacher leader scowled, squaring his shoulders. Raising his knife a fraction higher, he took a swaggering step closer.

“No?” he barked. “Not going to walk away? You want us to kill you?”

Still Noah said nothing. His steely reserve was clearly beginning to both agitate and unnerve the poachers now. Despite the weapons they carried and the fact that they were flanking their prey on three sides, nervous glances darted back and forth between them, as if they were uncertain what to do.

Perhaps fearful of losing face, of having his authority undermined, the poacher leader took another step forward.

“Why don’t you say something?” Spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted. “Don’t you talk?”

Again Noah gave the tiniest shake of his head. It was the most economical of movements in his otherwise still form, and it gave the impression that he was conserving his energy, readying himself.

The poacher leader licked his lips. His knife arm sagged a little. Noah tensed. Was this a ruse? Or was the man genuinely beginning to lose his taste for the fight?

The poachers were clearly hungry and the pickings were so meager that Noah couldn’t believe they would simply give up on the chance of a meal. Then again, perhaps they were weak from the lack of food, and therefore lacking conviction. Perhaps if he simply stood his ground for several moments longer, they would—

But then everything changed.

Maybe sensing that the threat from the hunters was ebbing, or simply galvanized by a few precious moments of rest, the wounded hound suddenly leaped to its feet, dodged around Noah’s legs, and took off. It ran straight at the lead poacher, who looked astonished, even alarmed for a moment. And then, just when it seemed the creature might leap and attack him, it changed direction, veering around the man and racing toward the opening in the rocks where the canyon curved around a corner.

Reacting instinctively, the poacher leader turned and hurled his stone at the departing animal. Noah heard the hound howl in pain, but he didn’t see where the missile had struck it.

The two poachers flanking him took advantage of his momentary distraction with the animal’s fate, and attacked.

Releasing bloodcurdling cries, the men leaped
toward Noah, weapons raised. Noah’s reaction, however, was shockingly fast.

Exploding into action, he whipped his knife from his belt, ducked under the clumsy thrust of the spear from the poacher who had laughed at him earlier, and sprang forward, slashing the man’s throat. As the man fell, blood spraying in an arc from his neck, Noah pivoted and grabbed his spear before it could slip from his fingers.

Spinning around, he was confronted by the poacher leader, who was bearing down on him, pointed teeth bared and his curved blade raised above his head. Before he could bring the blade down in a killing blow, however, Noah spun again, pistoned his leg out behind him and kicked the onrushing man square in the knee, shattering his leg. The poacher screamed and fell heavily to the ground, the blade spinning out of his hand.

That left only the bearded poacher to contend with. From the corner of his eye, Noah saw the man’s sword already arcing in a downward sweep toward his head. He flung himself backward and the blade of the sword sliced through the air no more than a hand’s span in front of his face. As the unconnected blow made the bearded poacher stumble forward, Noah sidestepped so that he was standing directly in front of the man, and raised the spear.

The poacher’s eyes widened, but he was unable to stop his forward momentum. He staggered straight on to the point of the spear, which passed through his animal-skin clothing and into his belly.