33

Hoglah scrubbed an arm across her forehead. “I am ready for a meal.”

Mahlah was too, but Joshua led the tribes east, not far from Jericho, but far enough for her to crave a rest.

“At least we are not carrying the large stones from the river.”

The sun overhead heated Mahlah’s hair like a fiery flame. A grove of oak trees grew as if to touch the shortest ray of light.

“God is showing us another display of His majesty. Look at those grand oaks. I have never seen such stature.”

“You are almost as tall as those trees.” Milcah laughed from her new perch atop the camel.

Mahlah had taken charge of the beast when it decided Milcah’s hair and head covering were best chewed and eaten for food.

Nemuel stalked her direction, hands waving.

“We are camping at Gilgal.” He pointed in a southward direction. “We will stake our tents as before between the Benjamites and Ephraimites.”

Praise be. She did not know how much farther she could walk without draining their waterskins.

Yawning, Tirzah leaned back on their donkey. “I thought we were going to live in houses made with stone.”

Jonah nuzzled into Tirzah’s chest.

“We will have our own dwelling and land soon enough,” Mahlah said. “And then I will hear how you are bored and want to travel to search out different stones.”

“Not for a long while.” Tirzah rested her cheek on Jonah’s windswept curls.

Mahlah set their tent not far from Nemuel’s, and with the sun drooping almost as fast as her sisters, she left Hoglah to cook the quail that had wandered into camp. Even in Gilgal, God sent provisions for His people. Tirzah and Milcah sat around the fire pit poking at the kindling with sticks. Susanna had claimed her slumbering grandson. Jonah traipsed wearily after his grandmother, still clutching his carved staff.

Mahlah grabbed a water jar.

“I will check on Noah and bring us water from the nearest well.”

“Is there one nearby?” Hoglah rotated the spit.

Mahlah opened her arms. “Look around you. This place sprouts grass and blooms like none other I have seen. I trust the farmers that have fled to Jericho will have left their wells uncovered.”

“Don’t fall in.” Hoglah smirked.

“I see your mind is not tired.” Mahlah laughed. “I will be back before the meat is charred.”

The scent of wet fur rose from the fields on the edge of camp. Herds and flocks trampled land wetter than the desert surrounding Shittim. The air smelled like her tent after a pounding rain.

She spotted Jeremiah stationed by a fir tree. Alabaster-colored cloth slung from a sturdy lower branch. Noah’s newest lamb tried to trot on its legs. The ewe rested not two feet from her babe.

Mahlah shrugged and then swept her hand in an arc. She zigzagged the curves of a woman’s body.

“Where is Noah?”

Jeremiah pointed to her water jar and then toward the outskirts of camp.

She guessed her sister had gone to the well.

“You let her go alone?” Plenty of her tribesmen staked tents close by, but this was still foreign land. For the moment.

Jeremiah scowled.

Holding a hand over his eyes, Jeremiah rotated his body as if he was searching for someone.

“No Canaanites are around. They’re all afraid?”

He nodded.

“I’d lock myself in that fortress, too. Only our God can control the waters.” She trudged in the direction Jeremiah had indicated. “We will need our rest to battle against Jericho.”

Why did she even bother to comment? To Jeremiah, she was only moving her lips.

Mahlah quickened her pace as the sky darkened. She stomped past a few cattle and a throng of noisy goats.

“Is the well near,” she called to a shepherd boy.

“By the tree.” He indicated another oak.

She bobbed her head.

Good. Not far.

As she neared the fawn-brown trunk of the oak, a few ravens shot into the shadowed heavens. A few hovered, flapping their wings and cawing like disgruntled men yelling out questions in the assembly.

Had she disturbed the birds? Had Noah?

The circular stone well stood in the middle of a small clearing. A bucket perched on its ledge while a jar nestled next to its base.

Where was Noah?

Bushes rustled on the far side of the well. Saplings swayed. Twigs snapped.

Had Noah spotted something in the brush?

She squinted into a graying haze.

Noah thrashed at leafy bushes. Was she caught in a vine? Had one of her sheep wandered off? Or was a predator on the prowl?

Mahlah gripped her jar and charged forward with a battering ram made of pottery.

As she grew closer, mudded faces turned her direction. Linen-colored eyes and alabaster teeth glowed amongst the brown, green, and gray shadows.

Tremors wracked her body. These weren’t small trees. These were men. Men covered with branches and leaves. Men intent on not being seen. Canaanite men.

Spies.

A deep guttural cry roared from her throat, burning her windpipe.

With her arms tensed, she thrust her jar into the nearest face. Hardened clay struck skull. The vessel’s base broke apart. Blood splattered her fragile weapon. One spy crumpled to the grass.

Noah flailed her arm.

Another spy broke from his assault of her sister. His hand lowered and ripped something free from his waist.

She knew that motion. The unsheathing of a blade. She had a knife, too, used it often, but never to slice the flesh of a man. Not even a heathen one.

He was close. Too close. He meant to kill, and she was the closest enemy to slay.

She clutched the shattered jar in front of her chest.

“Oh, God of Jacob, be my shield.”