41. A knack that accrues to lonely men

Juttah died after four years running free in the hills. Nurit’s boys found him one afternoon lying peacefully in the shade of the trees his family had planted along the ridgeline. Yashar buried him at that same spot—with a view of the Western Sea—how many years after Yashar and the then crippled puppy had first met in a shadowed wood below Jerusalem?

Juttah had saved his and Sara’s lives.

Before his passing, Juttah and his perky friend from the harbor had birthed two pups, a powerful gray like his father and a dock-tailed female, white as snow and frisky like her mom.

The gray became Little Juttah, unavoidably, and he ran in carefree circles as his father had, the same as his dad in every mien and manner except for his brighter coat, milder disposition and the absence of his sire’s long, ugly scar.

Not long after Little Juttah was born his mother and sister ran away. The family agreed that they would not return. “Even Israel’s animals mirror her people,” Sara sighed one evening. “Juttah embraced a sensuous pagan. This is the result.”

Yashar laughed, though a little sadly.

“Think,” Sara said, not willing to let it lie, “in all our time in Jezreel did sweet Juttah ever stray?” She answered her own question when Yashar remained mum. “No,” she said, “Badood is of the north, most likely an orphan, now a willful widow traipsing about where she shouldn’t be with her unfortunate pup. Juttah should have never taken up with her.”

Yashar laughed again, this time with more energy, but Nurit shook a finger in his face. “Do not make light of it, husband,” she said. “I pray every evening, because I love you so, that the God of Israel will bless our union despite your foreign blood.”

“How did this arise?” Yashar asked. “Were we not discussing dogs?”

“You think our poor Sara only refused to marry the captain out of fear?” Nurit asked.

“Yes,” Yashar said, tiring of the topic.

“No,” Nurit said. “Bidkar, though of the same blood, is not like us. That is why.”

“But somehow I, of different blood, am the same as you?”

Nurit’s boys fidgeted, made uncomfortable by their mother’s frown and the silence that followed.

“Every outcome is part of a mystery,” Sara sighed. “The grand mystery! Look at us, each a victim of something or someone yet blessed with heavenly mercy. Many whom we left behind will not be nearly so fortunate.”

Yashar nodded, unwilling to discuss it more, his thoughts having turned to Bidkar. He was sure that Sara still loved him. Why else, with his every mention, did she grow so ornery and upset?

*

Yashar rode to the garrison at Akko whenever he could, hoping each time to find a dispatch that proved that Bidkar lived. Each time his hopes proved true. Letters from the captain arrived regularly. It was through one of them that Yashar learned of his mentor, Elijah’s, having been taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.

How fitting.

Though Yashar’s written responses were even less detailed than the captain’s, their correspondence became more precious with each passing season. After five years had passed at Zarephath, Yashar’s vineyard began to bear grapes plentiful, sweet and subtle enough to sell at market. Yashar cried like a child after the first bountiful pressing.

After two more years, Yashar’s vineyard supplied buyers with olives, grapes and wine north to Sidon and south to Aczib. With the proceeds, Yashar was able to grade a second terrace on their land for planting. Nurit’s boys worked beside him every day except for the Sabbath, learning the craft. With further profits, Yashar bought another wagon and two more oxen. He added two big rooms to their first little building and built a separate cottage for Sara near the well. To please Nurit, he graded a long angling drive up from the coast road below, fashioning it into a broad level circular drive atop the summit. Nurit and her boys lined the upper lane with flowers.

In the summer of the seventh year, Batnoam died, Adella sold her property in the city and moved to the hills to share Sara’s cottage.

That fall, Nurit gave birth to Yashar’s second son whom they named Yitzchak, after Zach.

*

With Nurit’s continued mentoring, Yashar became a passingly good reader and able to write a decent note. Over the years, each letter he had retrieved from the captain told a different tale. Some spoke of the new prophet, Elisha, and his miracles but all came in the context of war, sieges, famine, drought…

But do not worry, the captain’s last note said, I remain as fit and fine as ever.

Though not one to collect things, something had moved Yashar to keep Bidkar’s letters in a lidded box. Sometimes, at home when the weather was bad, he would take one out to read again. He missed the captain; reviewing his short notes made him seem closer. One evening, Sara picked one up from beside Yashar as if her hand had been led to it, held it to the light then read aloud, “I miss Sara terribly. I curse the pride that made me quit her, the saddest mistake of my mistake-filled life.”

Hearing it, Adella, seemed confused.

“The man who wrote that,” Yashar explained to his mother, “was a fine friend, a captain of the garrison at Jezreel. He loved Sara and proposed to her but she refused him and sent him off to war.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Nurit scolded as Sara ran from the room.

What had he done?

A chorus of sobbing followed in the kitchen. Yashar took the boys outside. They stood together under the cedars at the ridgeline. (The trees, by then, had grown above their heads.) Due west of where they stood a rosy band of light lay gently over Zarephath. The slate gray sea rose to meet the horizon beyond.

“Why,” Nurit’s oldest child asked, “is Grandma Sara always sad?”

“Because only sadness gives her comfort,” Yashar said.

Of course the boys failed to understand. So too, failed Yashar.

*

Early the next day, thoroughly worn out by the women and with no higher purpose than to get away, Yashar put his four sons into the wagon and left the ladies, the help and the vineyard behind. Little Juttah followed, circling as they made their way just as his father had done. By then every soldier on the day watch at Akko knew Yashar’s name. One greeted him like a friend and retrieved a dispatch from Bidkar.

“Another fellow named Ahaziah has become a king…” Bidkar’s note began.

…this one, the son of Athaliah, Ahab and Jezebel’s daughter, is now the king of Judah. It shall not go well for him or his uncle, Jehoram, in Israel. Both, you see, are of the house of Omri and so, according to the prophets, fated to suffer for both Omri and Ahab’s sins.

The letter went on to predict another war with Aram over the land at Ramoth-gilead. Yashar prayed silently for the captain and then, on impulse, wrote an odd answer…

It has been twelve years since we’ve seen you, sir. Have you not done penance enough? Taken risks enough? Grown sick of war? Do you remember our old plan? Sara lives and is well. Like you, she regrets her part in the events that set you two apart…

Yashar finished his rare, longish note by including news of his thriving vineyard and stories about his sons. He included a detailed sketch showing how to find his home in the hills. The effort yielded unexpected results. Three days after Yashar’s trip to Akko, a horseman rode up leading another mount. The rider handed Yashar a dispatch and the reins to the second animal.

“I’m ordered to await your response,” he said.

Yashar read the message…

Come to Ramoth-gilead by way of Akko, Rimmon and Golan; about 140 miles and tricky terrain; if you will agree to do this, start now. Carry the key I gave you long ago with this same note, bearing my mark. The horse is for you.

“Your answer?” the courier asked.

Nurit and Sara had spotted the rider as he approached and had joined the men on the road. “I’ve been summoned by the captain to Ramoth-gilead,” Yashar told them.

“We knew it in our spirits,” Sara said. “Go quickly, with God, and be well.”

Yashar blinked at them dully, having expected objections. If he lived a thousand years he would never fathom how women organized their thoughts. Instead of mounting the horse, Yashar tied the animal’s reins to a wagon. “When I am finished, I do not intend to walk home,” he said, “and I do not intend to keep this animal.”

The courier shrugged. It was of no interest to him.

Yashar left the vineyard before the women could change their minds. Little Juttah caught up with him halfway down the hill. The courier rode alongside the wagon. After watching the dog sprint around them for several miles, never tiring, he marveled aloud at his stamina. “Your creature seems eager to return to the land,” he said.

Yashar agreed that it seemed so, but Little Juttah had never been to Israel.

*

Yashar left the wagon and team in the care of the garrison at Akko. From there. On horseback, he and Juttah—he had begun to call the big puppy, Juttah—began across the flats toward the Jordan Valley. His mount was twitchy and fast, not at all like sturdy Alon of days gone by upon whom he had learned to ride.

Juttah kept up with them easily.

They found the western Jezreel Valley as barren as on the day when Yashar had first climbed Carmel with Elijah. Though Yashar had been tempted to return to the mountaintop to offer a prayer of thanks, he kept eastward at a solid pace. The captain had been specific. There was no time to lose.

*

At General Jehu’s encampment in a woods near Ramoth-gilead, Bidkar saw Yashar for the first time in a dozen years. His heart leapt for joy at first then throbbed with pain. Why had he not followed the lad to Zarephath? They hugged and slapped backs until Bidkar saw the dog.

“What’s wrong?” Yashar asked.

“You tell me, son,” Bidkar said, kneeling to examine Little Juttah. “You’ve aged well but your wolf has grown young again! He is bigger, looks more powerful than I remembered and his ugly wound is gone.”

“Would the creature you remember, Captain,” Yashar asked, “have allowed you to rub his neck while he licked your hand?”

“This is Juttah’s pup? I swear he is the same animal.”

“Little Juttah, we called him at first,” Yashar said, “but now, mostly, Juttah.”

An awkward silence followed. Yashar knew the captain’s mind. “She is well, Captain,” he said, “and even more beautiful than when you last saw her.”

“Sara,” Bidkar sighed, “that boney little beauty. Truly, son, if you had told me she had lost her teeth and gone bald I would love that woman no less. I fell for her heart, son, not her features. It thrills me to learn that it still beats.”

“You’ve become a poet,” Yashar sighed.

“A knack,” Bidkar answered, “that accrues to lonely men.”