Eden Page 2

  He padded quietly down the slope, leaving the sheep sleeping in their fields.

  Oddly there was no dog in the caravan, but Noah still followed at a polite distance.

  After a few paces he trotted to the front.

  “What is your name?” Noah asked the lead camel. “Where do you come from?” And for a moment the lead camel, like camels everywhere, merely looked down his long nose. “My name is Sharif. I am the Lead Camel. And why should we tell you?”

  The dog didn’t know what to say. Noah padded on in silence until the camel, perhaps taking pity on the poor dog’s ignorance, deigned to answer:

  “I come from Babylon. A great city to the East.”

  “Where else have you been?” Noah asked. This camel’s hooves must have walked a mighty distance. What had he seen? Where had he been?

  “Everywhere,” the camel said. “And now we’re here in this godforsaken back alley of the Levant.” They had reached the little town. Sharif sniffed as he looked down the dusty street. Other caravans had already arrived, and camels stood or crouched uncomfortably everywhere. Merchants laid their bundles against any free wall, while other men sprawled about the paving stones, sleeping upon their goods so that none could steal them. Was there nowhere else to go?

  Street after street, conditions were no better. The caravan stopped at the door of a stable. The three camels sighed with relief as their riders dismounted, and Noah shuffled out of the way. But there was no more room inside than outside. This was not a very large stable either, four stalls in all, but every stall filled. A large black donkey in one corner looked sympathetically at the newcomers.

  “Oh you poor dears. My name is Mabel, but I do not think we can fit you in my stall.”

  No, there was barely room for the camels’ noses poking in the stable door.

  A cow and her calf shared another stall, wedged in tight; Mama Cow shook her head, “And don’t come begging here either.”

  Lady Duck and her quacklings fluttered their wings in a pile of straw—while Lord Duck sat uncomfortably on a beam extremely annoyed, a scowl on his beak:

  “No room!” called out Lord Duck. “No room!”

  Sharif, the Lead Camel snorted. As though anyone would want to stay in their stuffy barn. “Do not fear, oh Quack, we shall not climb onto that beam with you.”

  But Noah couldn’t care less about snooty camels or silly quackers. The star hanging in the sky stared in the stable’s narrow window. Its light fell on another animal, a She-Dog lying in a corner of the stall, nursing three suckling pups. Before Noah set a single paw inside the stall the She-Dog raised a lip to him, “No closer, Nosey. Stay where you are.”

  “I will, I promise,” Noah told her. He snuffed the straw-strewn floor for any scent of a mate. No, nothing. No rival here. She-Dog left off nuzzling her little ones and looked heavily into the darkest corner. Moments passed as the star’s light crawled across the barn floor. Still others had sought shelter in the stable. Noah breathed their scents: human woman, human pup. A woman and child huddled in a mound of straw. The star in the window touched the woman’s face. Like She-Dog, the woman suckled her baby.

  The three caravan travelers bowed their heads and entered. Noah noticed the camel riders were old men, clad in worn and dusty robes as if they had ridden far just like Sharif had said. The three elders crept further into the stable and knelt. Yet another man came in from the shadow, lit a lantern and hung it on a beam.

  The lantern cast a pale light over the wooden stalls and the cow raised her head. “Is it time to milk?” the cow asked mildly confused. Her calf looked up in silent alarm, but when no one came with a milking stool she laid her head down and snuggled back into the thick straw. “There, there now,” the cow murmured to her calf as she fell back to sleep. “Nothing to worry about …”

  The man with the lantern stared at the newcomers.

  “These old men mean no harm,” the woman told her husband. “If only we had something to offer them after their long ride.”

  “We left Babylon with gold and incense and myrrh,” the eldest of the elders said. “But all these we lost on the road.”

  He held out his hand, “This only remains.” In his palm sat a wafer-thin coin. It might have been shiny once upon a time, but years of passing from hand to hand had rubbed it smooth and dark, the features of the face on the coin worn away by a thousand thumbs. For a second the coin caught the lantern’s light and it glittered. Gold.

  The next elder offered a scrap of cloth; carefully he unfolded the threadbare rag, showing only some meager crumbs. A few morsels of incense, no more than a few moments’ worth of smoke, but its scent filled the stalls with wholesomeness and peace.

  The last elder took from around his neck a string to which was tied a tiny glass vial no larger than his pinky and stoppered with a tiny plug of cork. The vial looked almost empty, but at the bottom were a few drops of oil, the dregs of myrrh, barely enough medicine to heal a bee sting.

  Noah knew the look and scent of all these things. The shepherds used myrrh on their cuts and scrapes. When sheep were shorn and the fleece sold, they burned incense in their huts. And every animal knew men used coins to trade for food, to buy other animals and other men.

  “Now we have nothing but what we wear,” the eldest of the elders said. “Still, it is for us to offer, not you to give. And all we offer is our company. We need no lantern to show us what we seek.”

  “Then sit and rest the night with us,” the man said. “All are welcome here.”

  Lord Duck ruffled his wings on the beam. “Will you put out that light! Can’t you see some of us are trying to sleep?” Gently, the man put his lips to the lantern door and blew the flame away. From the open window the starlight returned, leaving the woman’s face and child at her breast glowing faintly.

  Outside the sound of coarse laughter came from a nearby crowded inn. Revelers too full of wine stumbled down the street singing a muddled song, then turned down an alley and the rough voices faded. But the dog caught the scent of food on the men, and Noah knew what to do. Around the side of the inn by the fire tables, the cook was throwing out yesterday’s bread and soft melons and bits of gristle. Food for rats. Noah knew it was now or never. In a very few moments squealers would descend from every corner to fight over every scrap.

  The bits of meat were good, the bits of bread too. Noah cautiously brought a heel of bread to She-Dog, and paused. Her eyes glinted with hunger. He carefully laid the bread by her paws, but out of snapping distance. She snuffed at it, then in a flash leaned forward and snatched the bread in her teeth. She swallowed and licked her lips. Her eyes had changed; now gleaming as if to say, All right, you can stay in the corner under the Duck. Just don’t come near the pups.

  What do I call her? Noah wondered. And She-Dog seemed to read his mind.

  “Call me … Sheba.”

  Noah made five trips, five trips for the gristle and stale crusts. Five times she looked at him with the same hard eyes, but by and by Sheba’s gaze softened. Her whelps slept. Then she too laid down her head.

  Above the town the lonely strain of a ram’s horn rose into the hills.

  First one horn called out and then another rang in answer—the call of heralds telling of the star, telling of the stable, and blessing all who sheltered there. For word had passed in the night, a whisper of hope in the midst of the darkness. Horns of praise and awe, for word had come even to the shepherds of the hills as they crouched among their flocks. Words drifting upon the night wind and silken sky—that as of now, this moment, today and forever—all would be forgiven, all would be redeemed.

  Flight into Egypt

  Night passed slowly. Noah watched the star set and a sliver of moon take its place, shedding a colder light. The elders slept fitfully in the straw, close enough to Lady Duck and her quacklings for Lord Duck to complain, “Stop snoring.” But soon he ruffled his feathers, gave up for the night and tucked his beak under a wing.

  Noah could not sleep. A
fter all, he mostly kept watch at night on the hilly pasture and slept during the day when the shepherds were awake. But something else troubled him; the light from the moon cast a dark shadow in his mind. Quietly, so as not to disturb Sheba, her pups, the sleeping family or even the snoring old men … he padded to the barn door and went outside. The camels drowsed heavily on their bony knees, nodding their heads, not bothering to look up at his passing. All around him the sounds of the town were muted in the dead of night. Even the cats and the rats seemed to be hiding in silence. A quiet voice called Noah’s eyes to the horizon, the faintest whisper to his ears—and there up on the stony ridge the dog saw the horsemen.

  Noah smelled the scent of leather and sweat, and then heard the faint rattle of armor, spear and sword, the clinks of saddle and harness. Horsemen like those his great-grandsire, Old Gray, had marched alongside into the stone city …

  And in a flash Noah knew the horsemen had come to kill. You could always tell—the horses gave off the lather of fear. Did the horses themselves even know what was to come with blinders on? Noah knew like a picture in his mind: the charge of hooves, the singing of spears and great lamentation, women begging for mercy and the moans of despair fleeing down every alley in the little town.

  Now the dog’s only thought was to get the barn awake. But even as he snuffed at one sleeper and another, they grumbled at him. Noah nudged the elders, nudged and prodded. But instead of rising, the eldest of the elders mumbled an oath and pushed him away and rolled over. He snuffled Yosef, the husband. The man mumbled as if in a dream, but didn’t wake. And he tried Maryam, the mother, but she too slept deeply with the child in her arms.

  Sheba looked at him with skeptical eyes. “What is it now?”

  “Horses and men! Horsemen on the ridge!” he growled at her. “We have to leave, we have to get away. Get away now.”

  Lord Duck scolded Noah from his perch on the beam, “Didn’t I tell you there’s no room up here! Go back to sleep!”

  Scared and frustrated Noah rushed outside once more, almost frantic. The horsemen hadn’t moved from the ridge, but he knew, he knew they’d move soon. Then in a flash—the camels! The camels might help him, if they weren’t too superior to understand. Noah snapped and yapped, first at their knees and then at their rumps, “Wake up!”

  Sharif the Lead Camel snorted, “Stop woofing, will you? There’s nothing to see, nothing to do!”

  “Get up!” Noah barked, “Get up or I’ll bite your tail!”

  Slowly the camels unfolded themselves, groaning with displeasure at this annoying dog.

  “Have you no manners? I hope my rider beats you,” one Camel groaned.

  “You have no authority here!” the second Camel wheezed. “Who made you master?”

  While Sharif the Lead Camel grunted, “I spit at you. Ptui! Go away!”

  But by this time Sheba had risen from her pups and joined him. One look at the ridge, and she understood.

  “You are right, we must go. But what shall I do with my pups? There are too many to carry!”

  “We shall carry them no matter what,” Noah told her. “None shall be left behind.”

  Even now Yosef the husband came to the barn door, while the elders stumbled close behind. They stared upon the stony ridge under the cold light of the moon. “Just like in my dream,” the husband murmured in fear.

  “Herod!”

  And suddenly in the gasp of that one name they understood.

  “We have no time to lose,” Yosef said to Maryam. In three shakes of a lamb’s tail the donkey was bridled, the camels saddled and the child gathered to his mother’s breast to ride. Yosef hoisted their goods onto his shoulders: his tools, their bedrolls, the cooking gear, but there was too much for a man to carry so he slung the extra across Mabel, their beast of burden.

  Mabel the donkey shook her head at Mama Cow in dismay. “Mama Cow, I am so tired. You are so lucky to stay here and never carry a load.”

  But Mama Cow was no luckier than the rest. The cow and the calf were rounded up with everyone else—everyone but Sheba’s pups. The She-Dog looked at her poor whelps mewling on the straw. No provision had been made for them, and Sheba circled the three pups frantically, round and round: which one to take first, which one to leave?

  Lord Duck, Lady Duck and their quacklings tut-tutted from their wicker basket hanging on the side of the donkey. “No room!”

  Noah tugged the sleeve of Yosef’s robe.

  He didn’t understand. “What now?”

  “Do something! Do something!” Sheba cried.

  No, this would not do. Noah barred the door, planted his feet and bared his teeth, if the pups didn’t leave, nobody left—Now do you understand?

  The husband picked up a stick, but his gentle wife stayed his hand. “Bring the pups,” Maryam told him. “Bring the pups and they’ll follow. Bring the pups and no harm will come to us. We’ll feed her and she’ll feed them. And we’ll need a bold dog too.”

  And finally Yosef understood his wife. The woman was right.

  So they brought everyone and everything, first loading the old men on their camels, clapping wicker covers over the silly ducks in baskets to keep them in line, then prodding Mabel the donkey to get her going. They tied Sheba’s three pups in a shawl on Maryam’s back, and tugged the balky cow and her calf by a rope, now more confused than ever.

  “Are we going somewhere?” Mama Cow asked. “A better place to milk?”

  But no one replied; too hurried to answer.

  They left by the low road, avoiding the ridge, and vanished into the desert on a whisper of wind.

  Dawn found them miles from the little town, and even as the sun climbed into the sky they heard the echo of a cry behind them. Not just children’s cries, but crying young ones of every kind—moppets and pups, kittens and little angels, even ducklings and chicks, all fell under the hooves of the horsemen and their spears. The cries rose behind them like a cloud. Indeed, a cloud of red dust rose from the little town, a spreading stain, befouling the sky for all to see.

  “Don’t look,” Sharif the Lead Camel said. Then the cow to her calf, “Keep up now.” And Mabel the donkey, “These burdens do not feel so heavy after all.” And finally Lord Duck with a peaked wan look on his bill, “Plenty of room now. But let’s not go back.”

  Noah and Sheba picked up the pace, even as the sands of the wilderness passed under their paws.

  After many leagues the wayfarers camped by the long river amongst the nameless huts of reeds, where the river people caught fish in nets and hunted the bank for waterfowl and their eggs. For some weeks the elders too, rested in the bosom of their new family. Yosef set about to make a low table. He then unloaded his tools upon it and offered to work on the caravans as they halted by the ferryman. For many wagons and bands of travelers came out of the wilderness, hurrying from troubles behind and hoping for the best.

  Sheba lay fat and happy by the water’s edge. She nursed her pups, occasionally snapping at flies but eating her fill every day of fish and the rabbits Noah caught in the sandy dunes beside the waters.

  In time the three camels and their elders departed, not content to stay by the bulrushes that grew on the great river’s bank. They went to seek what lay beneath the star as it moved across the heavens, whether its light shone into the hearts of men in distant lands … or left no mark. Each of the wise men carried one of Sheba’s pups with them for remembrance and love, promising wherever they wandered, whatever path they took, no harm would come to Sheba’s offspring. And each wise man vowed to return in the fullness of time, but none was ever seen again in the land of the great king’s horsemen.

  Noah and Sheba stayed by the river and guarded the family. Over time She-Dog bore Noah more pups and they too kept watch. At last rumors came to the riverbank that in the stone city the King of the Horsemen was no more.

  A wandering shepherd sold Yosef two ewes and a lamb. He also bore news of great events. At last more than rumors came to the riverbank. The sh
epherd told them the people of the countryside no longer feared soldiers at their doors and now it would be safe to return. The great King of the Horsemen was truly dead.

  Mabel the donkey complained as always, the ducks made fools of themselves in their baskets and the little herd of two ewes and a lamb followed obediently behind, however many miles they traveled. Alas, the road back was no longer empty as during their flight. Countless crosses studded the roadside bearing the hanging remains of those who had displeased the late great king.

  Noah and Sheba often paused under the shadows of the timber to smell what had happened there—but the knowledge always came to the same cruel end. A man had died and given the flies a home.

  “There is nothing for us here,” Noah told Sheba. And the two dogs could not bear to see their famished brethren feasting on the dead. They hurried on, afraid to tarry.

  Before long the travelers passed the town of the stable with the stalls. There was plenty of room now in the barn, but they pushed on. The town of the star had forgotten them.

  Indeed all the world had forgotten them, and at last they returned to their own village in the north and found an abandoned dwelling where a carpenter could measure, saw and hammer—and where a wife could raise her child by the village well.

  Sheba gave Noah more pups.

  And for a time the family dwelled in that house of peace …

  DURING

  Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

  Job 12:7–10

  Nazareth

  Some years and many lambs later, Noah and Sheba, the dogs of the stable and of the riverbank, were long in heaven. But their offspring survived to run the streets and houses of the carpenter’s village, letting no one pass unknown. The village dogs all came out to greet passing strangers, especially the Roman cavalry, barking at the horses’ hooves and the marching cohorts who filled the air with clouds of dust.