25. Why would I not be thrilled?

It rained as Naboth’s family left the vineyard. How fitting. Amid a thousand tears and urgent hugs, Yashar hardly noticed the downpour. Sara hugged and kissed each grandchild before the family began away in six directions. Yashar stood back though they included him in every gesture and offered a hundred invitations. Sara was the last to say goodbye. “Take good care of our Juttah, my darling,” she said sweetly, “and join us at Shunem when you are able.”

Yashar’s eyes shut of their own power. He could not answer.

“And be sure to walk through my cottage,” Sara added, “and look about with care,” hurrying away before Yashar could ask her, why?

Later that day, while Yashar walked alone in the vineyard wondering why he had stayed, men from the Jezreel garrison gathered at the fence up top on the plaza and began to barricade the vineyard gate. When Yashar went up, he learned that they also had orders to build a small tower there, beside the entry. Days later, when they had completed its construction, they posted a watchman upon it after fixing a sign to its struts…

Property of the king

Not that their efforts mattered. There were a thousand easy paths onto Naboth’s land. Yashar came and left as he pleased, working by day, sleeping at night near Sara’s empty cottage though never finding the courage to enter it.

The days passed quickly. No one bothered Yashar until late one evening when Juttah shattered the stillness by exploding up the path, bounding like a wolf and baying like a hound. Halfway up stood the captain, Bidkar, backed against a tree.

“Have you come to attempt the murder of another innocent man, Captain?” Yashar asked.

“While carrying a torch?” the soldier asked. “Why judge me so unfairly, boy? I have had mighty justification and several opportunities to injure you, yet I never have.”

That was true. “Come down the hill, then, sir,” Yashar said. “I’ll throw wood on the fire and hear what you have to say.”

*

Yashar revived the fire. Juttah lay at Yashar’s feet. Bidkar sat opposite them, squinting into the shadows quite a while before speaking. “A running stream,” he said sighed. “Natural terraces. Even by moonlight, it is clear that this is an amazing parcel.”

“According to that same moon it is well past midnight,” Yashar said. “Please say what have you come to say. I have work to do in the morning.”

The captain nodded approval of Yashar’s directness. “I shall,” he said, “but first a matter concerning the king. Even as he does penance in Jezreel, Ahab knows that you have remained on his land.”

“Immorally gained,” Yashar said.

“Morality bears lightly, if at all, on kings,” Bidkar said. “You have not supposed that you can continue to live here?”

“I have not thought about it,” Yashar said. “If Ahab wishes to send me away, so be it, but remember, while he hesitates to turn from his remorse to raising carrots, this land will succumb to weeds, erosion and rot while lying unworked. While I live here, it will remain a vineyard. Why not mention this to your king before you expel me?”

“I have never once attempted to advise a king,” the captain said, “and doubt I ever will, but Ahab has discussed this plot with me. Though he is curious about what you may hope to gain by staying here, he put forth your exact argument this morning. Under the conditions we just discussed, which grant you nothing, you may stay.”

“You have come in the dark of night to tell me that nothing has changed?”

“Be patient,” the captain said. “I did not come to discuss this land. Not long ago, with these two eyes I saw the greatest man in Israel hug you like a son. Before that, I stood a helpless witness as you, a fragile woman and this fin-backed beast bested an angry mob and a company of my men.” He shrugged, a little in awe. “You three walked away with scrapes and bruises and left your assailants staggering. Do you follow me?”

“I do not,” Yashar said.

“Miracles!” the captain said. “Everybody on this mound we call Jezreel and many down in the valley now know your name, even toward Samaria and Judah.”

“They would not know me on sight,” Yashar said.

“I suppose not, without this shade who guards you,” Bidkar said, nodding at Juttah. “He may be more well-known than you. Israeli’s have forever been fascinated by animals.”

Yashar laughed but the captain cautioned him. “Listen, Ahab himself is a little in awe of your connection to Elijah. Who are you? he wonders, as do I. Some say you are a prophet.”

“I am not anointed,” Yashar said. “There is but one Elijah and I will surely not succeed him. God has blessed me only to be his servant and his friend.”

“I should say it’s plain enough that you are blessed,” the captain said. “Though the king of Israel rarely thinks clearly, he rightly wants no part in offending you. I neither, after what I witnessed before the gates.” He waved his hands. “I stray from my point.”

“Miracles,” Yashar said.

“Years ago I stood on Jezreel’s ramparts while a cloudburst blew in from Carmel breaking a years-long drought.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I saw Ahab racing toward the city behind his favorite team. But your Elijah ran ahead of him! You tell me now, how does an old man wearing sandals…” He began to tremble. “How does that man best a team of champions in a sixteen-mile race?”

“If not for the assistance of God?”

“Yes, your god.”

“The one god,” Yashar said.

“But few in Israel follow him,” Bidkar said, “at least not without a complement of idols and leeway in the spring. But I am not, like our king, inclined to deny my eyes. What was Elijah’s magnificent sprint if not a miracle? And tell me, how did your prophet learn of the king’s theft of this property if he had not witnessed it with God’s own eye? So I’m stuck in a difficult spot, you see. A soldier is nothing if not loyal, yet the truth remains the truth. I wish to know more from your lips. How did Elijah humble Jezebel’s hundreds of priests—who were not without substantial power owing to their odd disciplines and ancient spells—on Carmel that day?”

“At this hour, you’ve come to hear a story?”

“Stop breaking clever with me, son,” the captain snapped. “I’ve humbled myself tonight. You demand you are not anointed. Why so sure? As a captain, I send men here and there, always for a reason. How much greater then is your god’s purpose when he provides his own man to protect and mentor you and be your friend? Did your god not do all that for you?”

Yashar swallowed hard. He had not considered it.

“I seek the truth,” the captain said. “Speak it plainly to me now or send me away. Naboth was an innocent man but I refuse to apologize for his death. It was not my doing. I will play no further games.”

Yashar apologized. It was not easy to be cordial to a servant of the king. After a moment of quiet recollection, he described to the captain all the events he had seen on Carmel on the day Elijah bested Jezebel’s priests, finishing by delivering the prophet to Jezreel’s gates in a driving rain.

“Which I witnessed myself,” the captain said, “but how, again, were you able…?”

“To see for miles?” Yashar asked. “Clearly, time and distance are nothing to the Lord.”

The captain stood to leave, lost in thought, then suddenly seemed to lose his strength. He sat again and, for a long time, examined Yashar’s eyes. “My youngest,” he said in little more than a whisper, “was about your age, a bit older, a soldier like me, as was his brother until he died during Ahab’s first campaign against Ben-hadad. Many died on both sides. Like a fool, Ahab allowed Ben-hadad to live, following the battle, a costly mistake for Israel.”

“And your other son?”

“He survived the first war but died in the next at Aphek, after which our foolish king again let Ben-hadad live. Another victory for Ahab, another loss for me. So, yes, Yashar, both my sons are dead.”

“You are bitter,” Yashar said.

“How so?” the captain asked. “The king thanked me personally for their murders and their deaths have earned for me a bright medallion forged by Ahab’s favorite smith. You see, I have our king to thank, along with his sorceress, Jezebel, for turning Israel thoroughly pagan and bringing the drought that took the lives of both my daughter and my wife.”

“So, now, like me, you are alone.”

“Again, how so?” the captain said. “I command hundreds of boys eager to die or be disfigured in the next war—and there will always be another war. Before I came to live in the garrison here, I owned a big house full of incense pots and idols to which I could murmur as much as I liked. Now, every spring, if I choose, I can drink until I stagger and dance naked in the hills. Why would I not be thrilled with my life?”

Juttah rose and stretched, a luxuriant process that caught both men’s attention, then padded around the fire to lay at the captain’s feet.

“What’s this?” the captain asked, grinning a little.

“He’s our brother, Captain,” Yashar said, “life has mistreated him too.”

“My name is Bidkar,” the captain said.

“O, I well remember your name, sir,” Yashar said. “It is not a common one, though. Your people must have come from the west.”

“They did not,” the captain said. “It embarrasses me to admit that I am a son of Jacob. Like so many others here in Israel, my parents were charmed by the sound of a foreign name. My brothers sport pagan names too, as did my wife, my daughter and my sons.”

Yashar told Bidkar how Elijah had renamed him.

“So,” the captain said. “Knowing that the world is not as I once saw it, I am burdened to become a different man. Would you lead me in a prayer to your god?”

Yashar smiled surprised, then agreed. They prayed together then Bidkar left. Yashar supposed God had sent the captain to become his friend, even though the man had recently threatened to kill him.

*

Yashar had learned much from Naboth but not nearly enough. In his solitude, he took time to reexamine everything in the vineyard as if new; the vines for their shape, color, and fragrance, their competition for light, how they took their character from the soil even as it varied subtly in smell, moisture and composition from row to row. He watched rainfall pick paths down the terraces. He marked the sun’s course across the sky by tracing the paths of shadows, experimented with pruning and grafting and even tested his own ideas, most often failing but sometimes briefly pleased.

Every small discovery led to bigger questions.

If only Naboth had lived.