Chapter 6: Sheep

When Zeforah and her sisters were younger, it used to take three of them at least to move the stone cap off the well. Now any but Keturah could do it alone, if they had to, and if sheer stubbornness could move rock, Keturah could probably open the well without using her hands.

Still, though she was fully grown now, Zeforah didn’t enjoy moving the capstone. Despite the calluses on her hands, it was rough work, and she often scraped herself till her fingers bled. But that was why she insisted on moving the stone herself, and without help. No reason for the others to get scraped up before they had to. Soon enough Father would bow to the inevitable and find some miserable specimen of masculinity for her to marry. A few sheep for a dowry. Standards were low in this clan of the Midianites. There were so few women that Zeforah could almost pass for a beauty. But no matter how few men there were, not a one of them could pass for a wit.

And when Zeforah said things like this, Father always said, “Well, who’s telling you to get married? It’ll cost me a ram and several ewes, and after the wedding I’ll have one less daughter to help me.”

“One less mouth to feed,” someone else would say—usually Sarah. And Keturah would leap to Zeforah’s defense until there was a pile of sisters on the rugs fighting with each other like swarming bees. In vain did Zeforah explain to Keturah that those smart remarks of Sarah’s meant nothing. “Why get upset when it doesn’t bother me?” To which Keturah would reply, “That’s why.” Neither of them seemed able to get the other to comprehend what she was talking about.

It was an odd combination—Zeforah, the eldest, and, as her constant companion, Keturah, the youngest, a sweet ten-year-old who had a mouth that could provoke an angel to rage, Zeforah was sure of it. Hadn’t she spent Keturah’s entire life getting her out of trouble with the other girls? And yet it wasn’t because Keturah meant to be provocative. She just had a way of saying exactly the thing that would get a rise out of Hamar or Sarah, and then Zeforah would have to intervene. “Try to curb your tongue around the prickly ones,” Zeforah insisted, “so they won’t kill you. It would confuse Father terribly, old as he is, if he had to learn to count to some number other than seven.”

“Then does that mean you’ll never marry?” asked Keturah.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then Father will have to learn to count to six, after your husband takes you away.”

“My plan is to take my husband away from wherever he was and get him started working with me as a shepherd.”

“It won’t be the same,” said Keturah.

To which Zeforah had no reassuring answer. When she married, there would be a separate household, and Keturah wouldn’t find Zeforah so ready to talk to her. Especially if she were to be married to someone from another clan, which Father kept threatening to do whenever Zeforah argued with him.

Marriage. Zeforah refused to think any more about it today. Instead she put her energy into moving the capstone off the well and drawing up water for the sheep. The other girls were keeping the flock nearby, not that it took much effort. Even sheep were clever enough to know when they were thirsty and to realize that only water would satisfy them.

But not clever enough to line up nicely and take turns. It could be quite a job making sure each animal got plenty to drink. As Zeforah and her sisters threaded their way among the jostling sheep, Keturah began to chatter. “Sheep are stupid!”

“It took you this long to realize it?” said Sarah. Of course it was Sarah.

“Well, if sheep are stupid then lambs must be stupider because they have to grow up to be sheep, right?” said Keturah, oblivious to Sarah’s snideness.

Hamar started talking in baby talk to a lamb which was not really a baby anymore. “Does this poor little lambkin need to cry now? Did mean old Keturah hurt his little feelings?”

“Am I the only one who’s insulted by this?” said Keturah, addressing the others as if she were trying to make a point at a village council.

“Hamar’s just making a joke,” said Zeforah.

“Not Hamar, who listens to her?” said Keturah. “I mean Father.”

The others were baffled now. “When did Father insult anybody?” Zeforah asked.

“Today, when we left! Every day! Every morning, every night! He calls us his little lambs.”

The others burst out laughing. “He’s always done that,” said Hamar.

“But why?” said Keturah. “Sheep are stupid, smelly, filthy, clumsy—”

“Oh,” said Sarah, “that part only started after you were born.”

“What does Father mean?” Keturah insisted.

Zeforah didn’t answer, though she had had precisely this conversation with Father many years ago and knew what his response would be. She wanted to hear what the others would come up with.

“Look at Zeforah being wise,” said Sarah. “She thinks she knows the right answer and wants us to make fools of ourselves before she makes a speech out of it.”

As always, Sarah found exactly the thing to say that would leave Zeforah completely flummoxed.

“Well, am I right or what?” said Sarah.

“I really do want to know what you think,” said Zeforah.

“Come on,” said Sarah. “Here, I’ll help you start: ‘Father says. . . . ’ Now you go on from there.”

Keturah, who had endured Sarah’s sneers as if she didn’t hear them, now sprang hotly to Zeforah’s defense. “If Zeforah tells us what Father says it’s because she sees us forgetting the rules. And because she’s too modest to speak as if the ideas came from her.”

“Someone has a little disciple,” said Hamar.

“Water the sheep,” said Zeforah. “I didn’t ask the questions and I didn’t offer any answers, so I don’t know why we’re arguing about the way I boss you all around since I hadn’t even gotten started.”

“All I want,” said Keturah, “is to know why Father calls us sheep!”

“Because Father likes sheep!” Hamar said. “And Father likes them because he doesn’t come out here and watch them every day, he sits home in the shade copying those scrolls, over and over again. So for him sheep are just something he shears and occasionally butchers or sells. The stink of them isn’t in his nose all the time.”

Zeforah, already stung, kept her silence despite how angry she was at Hamar’s diatribe. Besides, Hamar was looking at her, waiting for a retort, which made it almost fun to smile benignly and say nothing.

“He doesn’t shear us,” said Keturah. “He doesn’t butcher us either.”

“But he’d sell us off one by one, if he could only find a taker for Zeforah,” said Sarah sweetly.

“A blind man whose first three wives are all old,” suggested Asa. “Because Zeforah is so handy with the chores.”

“Another bird chirps,” said Hamar.

“Don’t tell me you’re criticizing Asa because she doesn’t talk as much as you, Hamar,” said Zeforah.

“Nobody talks as much as Hamar,” said Sarah.

“Except you,” said Asa.

“All right, who taught the younger ones to talk!” said Sarah. “Why can’t they all be more like—sheep!”

“I didn’t say a thing,” said Dinah.

“You never do,” said Hamar. “You don’t think of anything to say until you’re falling asleep at night. I hear you murmuring all the clever things you didn’t think of during the day.”

“Enough,” said Zeforah.

“Watch out, everybody!” cried Sarah. “Here it comes! ‘Father says. . . . ’”

Zeforah had to bite her lip to keep from saying what she had been about to say. For it did, indeed, begin with “Father says.”

“I wish I were as smart as Zeforah,” said Hamar, her voice drippingly sweet. “She always knows just how much is enough.”

And then, as always, when Zeforah was just on the verge of losing her temper, she felt something give way inside her and the anger just flowed away. She looked at her sisters, saw that Hamar was cross and Sarah never really felt in good health, so that every day was hard for her, and the younger girls were trying to decide whether being grown up meant acting like Hamar or acting like Zeforah and—and Zeforah loved them anyway. It was better sometimes to be alone than to be with them, true enough, but with a job like this, watering the sheep, it took all their hands, and if being snippy was how they entertained themselves, Zeforah could endure it.

“Oh, look. Now Zeforah is going to be sweet,” said Hamar nastily.

Zeforah only smiled and looked away. Looked, in fact, for Keturah, who was angrily—but silently—untangling a bramble bush from a lamb’s wool. “You see how the sheep follow each other along a path,” said Zeforah.

“I think a lesson is coming!” cried Sarah.

Keturah was listening, though.

“Father wants us to follow him that way. He steps here, so . . .”

“So I step there,” said Keturah.

And at the sound of Keturah’s voice, the others fell silent, for they did, in fact, love their baby sister and didn’t want to make her feel bad. Zeforah sometimes envied Keturah the comfort of being youngest. Everyone had held her as a baby and loved her; nobody had ever felt that way toward Zeforah, except Mother, and she was gone.

“How can I follow Father on the path of life?” said Keturah earnestly. “He’s a man, a reader of books, a leader, a ruler, a judge, and I’m only a girl and the best I can ever be is—”

“Is a daughter of God,” said Zeforah. “Father can teach you, but he can’t save you if you don’t keep the commandments yourself. It’s between you and God. Between me and God.”

Keturah smiled and turned away.

“Was that wrong?” asked Zeforah.

“It just—all the commandments have to do with how we treat other people.”

“Not all of them,” said Zeforah.

“But the hard ones,” said Keturah. “It’s between me and God, but what God wants me to do is not pitch a stone at some village boy when he makes a crude remark. So at that moment, it’s between me and that boy.”

“What does she think she is, a prophet?” asked Sarah. But her mockery was affectionate, and Keturah laughed.

“Oh, was I being deep?” asked Keturah.

“You sounded like Father, that’s all,” said Asa. “Always thinking about things the next layer deeper. You should have been a boy, except that would have ruined everything.”

They all looked at her in surprise. “Having a brother would ruin everything?” said Keturah.

“He’d be the boss of everything, then, even if he was the youngest, wouldn’t he? Because someday he’d be the owner of Father’s flocks, and we wouldn’t. So it wouldn’t be just the sisters.”

“Maybe that would be better,” grumbled Hamar. But nobody agreed, not even her. And the thought of how a brother would have changed things—happiness for Mother and Father, but a loss for the sisters—made them solemn and, for a while at least, less grumpy with each other.

The sun beat down, and the sheep drank as the sisters took turns drawing from the well.

And then, as the routine was at its most peaceful, a man leapt from behind an outcropping of rock and ran at the sheep, screaming, flailing about with a stick, scattering the animals and shocking the girls into screaming.

He wasn’t alone, either. There were four of them, not villagers, but rough men living wild who had probably heard that in Midian there was a flock tended only by women. Zeforah took up her cudgel and she saw that the other older girls had kept theirs close at hand as well, but what could they do? The men weren’t after them, they were after a couple of lambs they could run off with and butcher and live for a few weeks.

Hamar was thinking the same way. “Zeforah, don’t hit them, if we leave them alone they’ll take a sheep and—”

“And be back again and again,” said Zeforah grimly. “I’ll break their heads in!”

“They’ll kill you!” screamed Keturah.

But Zeforah was not going to let that tall one get away with a yearling like that, or any sheep at all. “Put it down!” she screamed as she ran at him. He paid no attention to her until she landed a blow with her her cudgel in the small of his back.

He bellowed, dropped the lamb, and fell to the ground. “She broke my back!” he cried.

The others stopped their pursuit of various lambs and gathered around their fallen comrade, helping him to his feet. He was still in pain, but she hadn’t broken anything, much as she might have wished to. They looked at her with cold anger and now she was really afraid.

“All we come for is meat,” said the oldest of them. “But if we have to teach a lesson, we can do that too.”

And now Zeforah realized what she had done, exposing not just herself but all her sisters to immediate vengeance. Only Hamar and Sarah were big enough to make any kind of stand, and already they were standing beside her, Hamar giving orders to the younger girls to run back home to tell Father what was happening. But Dinah and Asa were too frightened to do anything but cower.

At once one of the men ran to block their path down the valley. “No need to worry your papa,” said the leader. “Half a dozen daughters? I bet he’d be glad if we took four of you to marry with. Take a couple of sheep each as a dowry and bring you on home to do for us.” He smiled. “Without those big old sticks though. Why don’t you just put them down before you get your arms broken?”

Zeforah was about to answer—bravely, but in a conciliatory tone, if she could figure out how to do all that while her voice trembled and her knees shook—when there came another voice from behind her. A man’s voice, and with a strange accent and a very formal, educated tone.

“You’ve had your . . . fun for the . . . day,” said the man. “Now put down the . . . sheep and . . . leave.”

“We aren’t . . . here for . . . fun,” said the leader, mocking the way the stranger hesitated as he spoke. “And we aren’t af-f-f-fraid of you, either.”

Zeforah didn’t take her eyes off the enemy, even as the stranger gently threaded his way between them to take his place at the forefront. He wore a sword at his waist. A beautiful, polished sword. Because he was so finely armed, it took a moment for Zeforah to realize what he wanted as he reached one hand behind him and waggled his fingers, clearly asking them to give him—what?

It was Hamar who understood, and put her cudgel into his hand.

“You picked the wrong people to rescue,” said the leader. “We got to eat and there was no call for her to go breaking a man’s back with that stick, was there?” His tone was mild, but Zeforah could see how he crouched, ready to spring; how the men spread out, inviting the stranger to come closer and be surrounded. She wanted to tell the man to watch out, to be careful. Only he didn’t walk into the middle. Instead he sidled around by the rock, so they were only on one side of him. And they responded by trying to maneuver around him.

In the process, the ruffians began to get rather close to the girls, and Zeforah, seeing the danger, herded them back out of the way, keeping her own cudgel ready in case they tried to attack their weaker opponents.

Suddenly the stranger darted forward—it seemed to be a single leaping step, like a cat pouncing—and struck the leader a sharp, hard blow just below his right shoulder. The man howled and dropped his stick. “It’s broken!” he cried. And it was true. The arm hung useless, and Zeforah could see from the rubbery way it dangled that there was a new, painful joint between shoulder and elbow. One blow, and his arm was broken? What kind of man was this!

“If I have to . . . hurt you all, you’ll . . . starve,” said the stranger.

“Kill him!” cried the leader, even as tears of pain ran down his cheeks.

The others moved forward, but with far more caution than before. They seemed about to give each other a signal to rush the stranger when he leapt again, not in the direction he was looking, and swept the legs right out from under the youngest and smallest of them, who was no bigger than Zeforah herself. The boy rolled on the ground, howling and grabbing at his ankle.

“Half done,” said the stranger. “Just the right number of healthy . . . men to help the . . . broken ones . . . get away from here.”

They did the arithmetic in their heads and, after a while, mathematics prevailed. The two unbroken ones helped the others limp and stagger off into the rocks.

Now, the fight over, the younger girls began to whimper or wail. Hamar and Sarah comforted them but the stranger paid no attention to them. At first he seemed to be following the men, but there was no fight left in them, and so the stranger turned at once to gathering the scattered sheep. He wasn’t terribly good at it, and the sheep could tell that he was inexperienced and took merciless advantage of him, so it took him twice as long to round up the few sheep he was able to bring in. Zeforah set the girls to gathering the rest; work calmed them more than words of comfort ever could.

Zeforah was astonished when even now, having just been saved by what could only be divine intervention, Hamar found something to grumble about. “Father says we’re supposed to solve our differences by talking.”

Before Zeforah could answer her, the stranger himself spoke up. “That’s what I did,” he said. “But I had to . . . try several . . . languages before they understood.”

Sarah giggled, and Hamar smiled in spite of her surly mood. Still, Zeforah could not leave this man with the impression that they were ungrateful. “Sir,” she said, “decency says we may not speak to you, for you are not known to our father. But gratitude has the better claim on all of us, and we thank you.”

Emboldened by the fact that Zeforah had spoken, Keturah bounded right up to the man. “You speak very high Hebrew,” she said. “Like Father, not like the villagers. But why do you keep . . . pausing . . . like . . . that?” Her own pauses were a perfect mockery of the stranger’s speech, and the younger girls laughed; this time, though, Hamar and Sarah seemed to recognize that this might be taken as a grave insult.

“Hebrew is not my . . . native tongue,” said the man. “I . . . search for words.”

But Zeforah knew enough to guess that this was, at best, only partly true. This man’s speech was blocked by something other than foreignness. Yet she did not begrudge him the untruth, if such it was, for might a man not have a small story to save his pride from the shame of halting speech, or any other such lameness?

The sheep were gathered now, and had their fill of water. “Sir,” said Zeforah. “Let us cover the well, and then come with us to our father’s house, where he will know how to thank you most graciously.”

“What I did was not for the sake of thanks,” said the man.

“You’re a traveler in need of a roof and a meal, from the look of you,” said Zeforah. “Why not accept them from those who are most eager to give them to you?”

He smiled. His dust-caked face seemed to crack at the unaccustomed expression. “I’ll accept your . . . kind offer. Let me make another. I’ll move the . . . stone over the well for you, if you’ll . . . let me have a . . . drink first.”

“A drink!” cried Zeforah. “Of course you’re thirsty!”

Immediately she lowered the waterbag into the well, then drew it up and dipped her own cup into it to serve him. He drank carefully, spilling nothing, and without slurping. But he also did it boldly, not turning away, so he clearly thought of himself as her equal. Or her better.

“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, returning the cup, “any debt you owed me is . . . satisfied.”

“By a cup of water?” she laughed. “Water has great value, but life still means more.”

“But for me, water is . . . life.”

Keturah piped up. “Father could make a whole sermon out of that.”

“Then your . . . father must be a wise man.”

“He’s a priest of the most high God,” said Zeforah. “He serves the Midianites in the valley.”

“The most high . . . God has . . . blessed him . . . with six beautiful daughters.”

Hamar hooted. “I wonder which one is the ugly one!”

“There are seven of us,” said Zeforah. “But Rachel is at home, preparing supper.”

“She’s the prettiest,” said Keturah. “All the men in the village think so.”

“And that’s enough now,” said Zeforah. “Let’s cover the well and take this stranger home to meet Father.”

“No, that’s for me to do,” he insisted, but now his weariness seemed too much for him, for the lid of the well didn’t yield to his will the way the ruffians had. Zeforah wordlessly joined in beside him, and then Keturah and Asa, before the stone budged.

“I’m weak,” said the man when the stone was in place.

“Only weary,” said Zeforah. “Please, follow me.” She set out on the path down the canyon. He put one foot before the other so ploddingly that she wanted to offer to let him lean on her. But she knew that his pride had already been injured by his inability to cover the well by himself. So she would let him do his own walking, and only lead the way.

* * * 

Jethro heard them calling, the younger girls, and felt relief and annoyance, both. Annoyance, because he had done so little today, despite all his hours of work on copying the book of Abraham. Relief, because his eyes were bleary and his back ached. He was getting old, no doubt of it, and that was not a happy thought. What if he died before he had made a complete copy of all the holy books he had? Some were getting old indeed. Worse yet, what if he died before one of his daughters married and had a son to whom he could give the scriptures? A son whom he could ordain a priest? Sometimes he despaired of that desire, for unless God wrought a miracle, his daughters would end up marrying one of the ignorant clods from the village, or, worse yet, from one of the other villages that didn’t even bother to bring their sacrifices to a priest, they had fallen so far from Father Abraham’s religion. Uncircumcised, unlettered—even if one of his daughters, in desperation no doubt, took such a one as husband, their sons would be hard-pressed to grow up to be anything other than oafs.

No, no, no. Everyone is teachable. Or if they’re not, then God in his wisdom wishes for all my life’s labor to be for nought.

“Father!” It was Keturah who burst into his tent, and right on through the veil into the inner room.

“Keturah!” he said sternly.

“Oh! I forgot!” She scooted back out into the outer room. “Father, forgive me, did I get dust into the room?”

“No, no.” He laid his pen aside, and, leaving the precious papyrus scroll open for the ink to dry, he emerged from the inner room. “What brings you scampering home like a rabbit? Are boys with stones chasing you?”

“You should have seen what was chasing us! Four big men, trying to steal the sheep! Trying to run them off, and they threatened to do terrible things, but the stranger broke them into pieces like crackers and he’s so thirsty and Zeforah spoke to him and offered him hospitality here but she told me not to tell you that because she wasn’t supposed to speak to him so now she’ll be mad at me.”

Keturah looked so dismayed that Jethro had to laugh. “Keturah, of course I won’t be angry with Zeforah, and she won’t be angry with you. If a stranger saved my daughters and my sheep, do you think I’d deny him the hospitality of my home, or be offended because my daughter spoke to him? If I know Zeforah, she spoke to him only to thank him.”

“That’s right!” said Keturah.

“Then she did well. Let’s go meet this stranger.”

Keturah ran out of the tent, then ran back to clutch at his robe, at his hand. “Come on, he’s so tired he’s almost falling down.”

“Did he have a long journey, then? Or was he injured in the confrontation with those four big men?”

“They didn’t lay a hand on him,” said Keturah. “He must be a soldier. Or a hero!”

“Heros are all myths,” said Jethro. “There are only men, and God, and men of God.”

“Then he’s a man of God!”

Keturah was jumping around him. “Am I a sacred calf, and you a pagan to dance around me?” asked Jethro.

At once she calmed down. “I’m no pagan, Papa,” she said. “I’m just . . . exuberant.”

“I should never have taught Zeforah to read, if she’s going to teach you words that the village boys don’t understand.”

“The stranger talks funny,” said Keturah. “Bookish. But he . . . pauses . . . all . . . the . . . time.”

“Interesting,” said Jethro. Clearly this stranger was the most interesting thing that had happened to Keturah in her entire life.

Keturah went on, telling about the stranger over and over again, until at last the running commentary could end for there he was in the flesh. He did look weary. And the other girls seemed almost as insane with curiosity about him as Keturah. They could hardly walk without stumbling, their eyes were so focused on his every movement. And yet none of them was speaking to him; Jethro was pleased that their training in modesty had managed to hold even in the face of such temptation. Their mother would be proud.

“Sir!” cried Jethro. “My name is Jethro! Welcome to my tent! This is your home!”

The stranger looked at him blankly. “Sir, I owe it to you to . . . give you my . . . name in return. But if I say that . . . name, I bring . . . danger to you and your house.”

“You can trust the discretion of my daughters,” said Jethro. “Think of how much they clearly want to ask, and haven’t.”

The stranger looked away, embarrassed, because he still did not intend to comply, but was also reluctant to make up a name.

“I’ll spare you the effort of lying. Your name is Moses, you are no longer Hatshepsut’s heir, and you fear that the mighty arm of Egypt will seek you out in these miserable Midianite villages here in the Sinai.”

The stranger—Moses—looked stricken. “How could word of this arrive . . . before me?”

Jethro laughed. “No word has reached me. I looked at your clothing. Egyptian. Very high-born Egyptian. And yet you speak Hebrew fluently, with the accents of an educated man. Keturah told me you defeated four men easily, breaking bones. Yet you didn’t have the strength to move the capstone over the well, so you were trained as a soldier but aren’t used to manual labor. There’s only one Israelite in Egypt who could fit that description. Yet here you are, alone, filthy from crossing the desert on foot, without supplies, and hiding your name. So clearly you’ve fallen from power and fear retribution from Egypt. All this is obvious. Is there something I’ve missed?”

Still not looking at him, Moses replied, “I . . . killed a man.”

“You’re a soldier. You’ve killed many men, or had them killed.”

“I . . . killed an Egyptian innkeeper who was . . . beating an Israelite servant.”

Jethro laughed. “And this is what you tell me when you want me to take you into my tent?”

“I . . . might as well. If I . . . didn’t, you’d . . . guess it anyway.”

“Rachel has kept things baking and boiling all day. As long as you don’t have a habit of killing cooks, you’re welcome to dine with us.”

“I started smelling the food halfway down the . . . canyon.”

“And you kept coming! This is a compliment that I’m sure my little Rachel will cherish.”

It took a moment, but the stranger finally understood the layers of irony and affection in Jethro’s remark, and smiled. Indulgently, perhaps, but Jethro was willing to be indulged. From all reports, this Moses was a great man, a commander whose men generally lived through his campaigns, a governor whose people rejoiced in their government. But then, this might be merely the legend that would accrete to any prominent son of Abraham, risen to such a lofty place. Even Midianites, who were only sons of Abraham by adoption—more like great-nephews of Abraham, if one wished to be precise—took pride in the stories of Moses, so it was unlikely that if he were an arrogant oaf the word of it would have reached the nether regions of Sinai.

The girls outdid themselves at dinner, falling all over each other in their eagerness to serve the stranger. It seemed that every dish required at least two girls to bring it in, and two more to carry it away, while others hovered nearby with towels and finger bowls, wine flagons and fresh cups. Every dish they owned had surely been used and scrubbed twice before the meal was half done. And it seemed to Jethro that twice the normal amount of seasoning had been dumped into every food at the last moment, so that everything was spicy. More than once his eyes widened at the first taste of a dish . . . but his guest seemed not to notice, and ate with perfect manners and self-restraint, despite the fact that he must be famished.

The only daughter who seemed not to come in at all during the meal was Zeforah. Of course, the perverse child. Here was the most marriageable Hebrew in the known world, and Zeforah insisted on hanging back. Well, her modesty was commendable. It would recommend her to this man of manners and subtlety. Because this Moses was not leaving here without a daughter of Jethro as his wife. One of his girls, at least, had to be married to something other than a village clown, and there was no other conceivable reason that God would have led such a man to Jethro’s home. No, God had led him direct to Jethro’s daughters! The Lord’s intentions could not be clearer, and who was Jethro to attempt to thwart the will of the Lord?

Jethro beckoned to Sarah, who at once rushed over with the wine flagon. He whispered to her, “From now on I expect this level of service when I dine alone.”

She gave him a thin little smile, which brightened to a toothy grin as soon as she remembered that Moses might be watching. Her teeth were fine and white, her best asset.

“Tell Zeforah that I want her to bring in the fig cakes herself,” he whispered.

“She won’t,” said Sarah softly. “We’ve tried.”

“Tell her if she doesn’t, I’ll send him outside to fetch the cakes himself.”

Sarah’s expression at first was doubtful—would Father do such a horrible thing? Such a breach of all decorum? And then she realized that, yes, he would. She rushed outside to the kitchen.

A few moments later, Zeforah came in with a tray of cakes. She shot an evil glance at her father, which he answered with a smile. Then she knelt before Moses and presented the cakes.

Jethro saw, with satisfaction, that it took a moment for Moses to notice the cakes at all, because he was busy greeting Zeforah with a grin.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” said Jethro.

A blush leapt to Zeforah’s face. Modestly she looked down at the cakes.

“Trouble is, she thinks she should have been my eldest son. God gave me gems, and she thinks I want a stone.”

“I’ve wished for soldiers with her . . . courage,” said Moses. “She struck one and nearly . . . broke his back.”

“Zeforah struck the first blow? Why am I not surprised?”

“I suspect they would have won the battle without my help,” said Moses, “but I hope I spared them a bruise or two.”

“It’s hard to imagine what’s happening in the modern world, when a man’s flocks aren’t safe from mountain bandits.” Jethro sighed, long and mournfully.

Zeforah made a move as if to set down the tray of cakes.

“You haven’t tasted the fig cakes yet,” said Jethro.

Moses reached down to take the smallest one.

“Not that one! Not that measly rat-sized bite! Not that deformed half-cousin of a fig cake! You are my guest, and you must take the best my humble household has to offer.”

Laughing, Moses took the biggest of the cakes. Zeforah at once came to offer the tray to her father.

“I suppose that now I’ll have to go myself to tend the flocks, which will put an end to my real labor. Oh, if only I had a man in my household, who could be guardian of my herds and protector of my daughters!” Jethro sighed again.

Zeforah glared again at her father. Apparently she thought his hint was too broad.

It hardly mattered. Moses seemed oblivious. “What’s your real work, then? If not shepherding?”

“My real work is to serve God.”

“Oh, yes, your daughters mentioned that you served the villages here as a priest of . . . God.”

“Of the only true and living God,” said Jethro. “But these bumpkins can’t tell a real God from the carven pretenders. They pray to an idol for the sun to shine, and then it shines, and they think it proves something—they live in a dry land, what should the sun do if not to shine? And then they come to me to offer sacrifice to the true God when their child has fallen down the well and drowned, and they think it proves I’m a bad priest that their baby doesn’t get raised from the dead! A perverse and ignorant people who try the patience of God.”

“Did they really think a god could raise the dead?”

“Because I teach them that God will resurrect the dead, when the last trumpet sounds over the Earth, they think it means that God will also do it now, at their convenience. In vain do I try to explain that God means this life to be a trial, of our faithfulness, our obedience, and so things must happen which are hard to bear.”

“Theological subtleties are always wasted on the ignorant.”

“Now that, my friend, is a foolish thing to say,” said Jethro.

Moses raised his eyebrows. Apparently no one had called a statement of his foolish for a long time.

“The ignorant,” explained Jethro, “are the only people who can be taught. You, for instance, fancy yourself an educated man. That means that you would never dream of learning anything from a desert herdsman who calls himself a priest. You’ll eat my food, you’ll sleep in my tent, you’ll contemplate my daughters, but as for actually learning anything from me, the thought would not cross your mind.”

It amused Jethro to see the horror in Zeforah’s eyes. She could pretend that she didn’t want him to tout her charms to this man, but when she thought he was insulting Moses, that he might be driving the man away, she was just as annoyed as any of the other girls would be.

“You’re mistaken, sir,” said Moses. “I saw your household as an island of . . . peace, and I wanted very much to learn how you . . . created such a place.”

“An island of peace! What, did my girls actually refrain from quarreling among themselves while you were with them? Then you are indeed a miracle worker.”

“I had all the education that Egypt has to offer. I learned of war from the warriors, of . . . gods from the priests, and of . . . government from my mother. I learned of the Israelite God from my Israelite . . . mother, and on my own I learned all I could about . . . farming, architecture, astronomy. . . . But in the end, what was any of it worth? I let my . . . temper throw me from the . . . pinnacle of power.”

“This man you killed, was he defenseless?”

“No. If he hadn’t fought me, I wouldn’t have . . . killed him.”

“So you didn’t mean to kill him.”

“No, of course not. But that doesn’t . . . change the fact that if I had . . . kept my temper, that man would be alive, and I would still . . . be the son of Pharaoh.”

“Would you? Would he? Are you a prophet, then?”

“I don’t understand your . . . question.”

“How can you know what would have happened? All we ever know is what did happen. Even then, we scarcely know why. What plan is God working out in the world? Tell me the truth, Moses. Did you really think that you would ever inherit the double crown of Egypt?”

“It would have been hard.”

“It would have meant civil war. It would have meant the rampant slaughter of the Israelite people if you had even tried.”

Moses’ eyes flashed. “You seem oddly expert on the affairs of Egypt, especially for a man who says that one can’t know what would have happened.” Jethro noticed, too, that when he was angry, Moses didn’t stammer.

“You see?” said Jethro. “You won’t let me get away with pretending to such knowledge, but you are willing to consume yourself with guilt about things you understand even less. How did you know that God didn’t arrange all of this in answer to my prayers that he bring a suitable husband for my brilliant eldest daughter?”

Zeforah gasped and dropped the tray of cakes.

“My brilliant, beautiful, clumsy eldest daughter,” Jethro corrected himself. “Fortunately, fig cakes taste even better with a bit of carpet fiber in them.”

“Sir, you are . . . generous indeed,” said Moses. “But I’m not a . . . fit man to be any woman’s husband. If I’m . . . found, I will be . . . killed.”

“You’ll be found when God wants you found, and you’ll die when God wants you dead. Not before, not after.”

“Why do you even think that a . . . god would notice me?”

“Not a god. God. The Lord. The one whose name we do not speak. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

“In Egypt, we know who the one . . . god is, the first god, . . . Ptah, the maker of heaven and earth, the . . . creator of all the gods. Is this the one you will not . . . name?”

“What the Egyptians know of God is the rumor of a memory of a legend of a dream.” Jethro grinned his best grin. “I have the words of Abraham himself. Of Enoch. Of Adam, when he first prayed to the Lord God at the altar he built in the dreary world, after he was cast out of the garden.”

Moses cocked his head. “You have such things memorized?”

“Written down. Did you think that only Egyptians knew how to write? That only papyrus could hold words? Abraham had writing, too. On the parched skin of lambs we write, and copy it again, generation after generation. And not in the inconvenient elaborate temple writing of the Egyptians that takes forever to copy out. But . . . what do you care? You’re an educated man. What could you learn from a priest in the desert?”

Moses grimaced. “How did I . . . give you offense? I hope I haven’t been . . . proud in such a . . . generous house.”

“You’ve been the soul of modesty,” said Jethro. “I’m the rude one.”

Zeforah’s quick, nasty smile showed that she agreed.

“Have another fig cake now that my beautiful eldest daughter has gathered them up like rose petals from the carpet.”

She rolled her eyes and carried the tray back to Moses. This time he didn’t hesitate to take the best of them, and Jethro saw with pleasure that he gave Zeforah a little smile, as if to say, I’m sorry your father is being so embarrassingly open about his ambition for you, but I like you anyway. Or was he reading too much into his glance? Give him time, the boy would come around.

“Would you imagine learning a whole new way of writing?” said Jethro. “So that you could read the very words that Abraham wrote?”

“If you . . . kept me here, I’d have to labor to earn my . . . keep,” said Moses. “What I was . . . doesn’t matter. What I am now is a man of no . . . property and no . . . prospects. And no experience or useful skill. All I’m . . . good for is . . . plain labor. The lowest servant in your house.”

“That’s what we’ll call you,” said Jethro. “So people don’t start guessing who you really are. A desert wanderer that I took in because God told me to.”

“Did he?” asked Moses.

“He didn’t have to send an angel, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Jethro. “The fact that you’re here at all made the message clear enough.”

“What message?”

“Think, man! What is your name, if not the Egyptian word for ‘son.’”

Moses blushed. “Do I get . . . claimed again?”

“No, no, I’m not saying son-in-law—that’s for you and my daughter to work out—whichever daughter you fancy, if any at all, but you’d be a fool to look at any of them as long as Zeforah’s available, the rest are either children or shameless scolds, God bless their hearts—I’m saying you are named son, which is the name of the anointed one.”

“Who is that?” Moses looked sick. “I know of a . . . son who was anointed—he . . . conspired with his mother to . . . kill his own father and take his place.”

“Then he’s no son at all, is he?” said Jethro. “The true Son is the one anointed by God. He will come to deliver Israel from bondage.”

“If you think that . . . just because Hatshepsut named me . . .”

“Not you! Not the bondage of mere slavery. A man can be a slave and still serve God. It’s the bondage of sin I’m talking about, and you’re already too impure to be that Son. Oh, to have a year in which to relieve your ignorance. Better yet, five years!”

“If you can . . . teach me what . . . God is doing to me, if you can make me understand why I was raised up only to be thrown down . . .”

“Oh, that’s the most important thing you can learn? The meaning of your own life? When I can unfold the universe of God’s creations to you, all you wonder about is why you aren’t still wearing fine linens in a stone house in Egypt?”

Moses looked stricken. “I must have offended you, sir, but I don’t know how. I beg your forgiveness, and I’ll be on my way.”

“What! You think I’m angry? This isn’t angry! This is excited! I have someone who knows all that the wisest nation in the world can teach, and now you’re here and ready to learn something true for a change. Leave here? I’d like to see you try! And go where? God gave you the name Moses because that’s what you are supposed to be. Not a king, but a child of God, always following him your whole life. Only when you are a true son to God will you be fit to lead, and then it will not be you that people follow, it will be God.”

“Are you that kind of son of God?”

“As best I can. Which is why I’m not afraid to speak bold truth to you. Because a true heart does not run from the truth, or fear it, or become angry.”

“But I am angry. And a- . . . a- . . . fraid.”

“But you’re not going to run, are you?”

“I’ve already made my run. Across the desert. To this . . . place.”

“Stay with me, Moses. Let me make a true son of you. Learn my learning. Labor at my labors.”

“I know . . . nothing about being a . . . shepherd.”

“What’s to know? You sit and watch the sheep! Moses, be a brother to my daughters.”

“All this you offer me,” said Moses, “and the . . . sun has not yet risen on me in your house?”

“I already know who you are,” said Jethro. “Not your legend—what is that worth? I know your heart.”

“I don’t, and you do?”

“Of course,” said Jethro. “I’m an old man. I’ve seen everything. It’s all familiar to me now.” Jethro rose up from his seat. “Stand up and let’s make this place over into a bedroom. Half the pillows are yours.”

“If I’m to be a . . . servant in your house,” said Moses, “it’s not right for me to share your . . . bed.”

“I told you,” said Jethro. “You’re to sleep where my son would sleep—at my side.”

“You do me . . . too much honor.”

“It is God who honors me,” said Jethro. “By entrusting you to my care.” Impulsively he strode to Moses and embraced him. “Sleep and be at peace, Moses. You may not know it yet, but God has rescued you from Egypt, and you come to this place like a shipwrecked sailor cast upon a friendly shore.”

“I do know that much, sir,” said Moses. “And if it’s . . . God who made you such a . . . kind man, then I thank God for you.”

“There. That was almost a prayer. You’re already waking up.” And with that, Jethro began tossing pillows around. The girls scurried out of the tent, off to find their own beds in the other tent.

But Moses simply stood there, looking embarrassed.

“What is it?” asked Jethro.

“I’m filthy from traveling, sir,” said Moses. “Before I sleep on your pillows, shouldn’t I bathe?”

Jethro laughed. “This isn’t Egypt,” he said. “We don’t have a huge river of water flowing past our houses. Fresh water is for drinking. As for bathing, well, it’s a long hike down to the sea, and you’re only filthy and sweaty again by the time you get home. We’re not offended by dirt and a little bit of stink here.”

“But I offend myself,” said Moses.

“Live with it,” said Jethro. “Until the sheep object, we haven’t water enough to waste it on baths.” He stretched himself out on half the accustomed number of pillows. “I’m an old man. I probably snore hideously, so you’d better get to sleep fast before I start in and keep you awake all night.”

Moses lay down on his own pillows, but in a few moments tossed them aside and lay directly on the carpet. “I’m not used to soft sleeping,” he said.

“I am,” said Jethro, gathering the discarded pillows and making up his bed the way he usually did. “When you get old, you’ll see.”

Moses was asleep before Jethro could lie down again. He blew out the lamps and in the darkness listened to the man’s breathing. “O God, blessed be thy name,” Jethro murmured. “O God, thou hast given me a son.”