Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

The deed was done, and she wanted to run, to fall on her knees before the mountain and cry out for repentance. Then the people started singing and dancing, kissing each other… and more. Someone grabbed one of her hands and someone else the other, and they danced, skipping in great spiraling circles around the golden god. A group of musicians picked up their instruments and played loud and fast, pounding drums, blowing horns.

People broke away to touch their fingers to the blood, then to their lips, and finally to the hooves of the calf. Arella found herself in front of the slaughter. A man beside her tasted the blood, touched the calf. A woman on the other side did the same, then a child

… everyone. The throng shoved her and she fell, her palm landing in gore. Then she touched her bloody hand to her lips and reached high to caress the hoof.

God help me, she thought. Gods help me-what am I doing?

She saw Gehazi leaning against the altar. He smiled at her and nodded his approval. She spun off, thinking only of honoring her god, this god before her, who had brought joy back into the camp. She sang and danced and saw what the others were doing, the men and women. She found a man and joined them.

The clouds above swirled darkly, filling the valley with shadows. A voice rumbled like thunder over the masses of people playing and dancing. Silence came over them, a sudden calm that after so much merriment was as disturbing as the chaos. Heads turned toward the mountain, and there in the foothills on an outcropping was Moses. His beard and garments fluttered in a breeze, and his face was as dark as the storm clouds overhead. He raised two stone tablets, big slabs that appeared too heavy for the old man-any man-to lift. From them glowed a radiance that grew so bright it blotted out the hands holding them.. the arms… the man himself. It was as though the sun had come down to expose what they had done. Arella shielded her eyes, but the light shone right through them, piercing her head.

The sun hung there on the mountain, then it flew toward them, brighter, hotter…

She woke up sprawled over the legs of a child. A woman in turn was draped over Arella’s hips. This woman woke as well, then the boy. All of them waking at once, groaning, cupping their heads. Everything was blurry, but Arella could make out the people around her, stirring, rising. Some rubbed their eyes, and she realized they too were not seeing clearly. But other than their waking moans, no one spoke. They were ashamed, and whatever happened to them next, they would take their punishment in silence. Arella realized the calf and altar were gone.

She rolled off the boy and stood. Her clothes were ripped and half gone. She was filthy from hair to heels, mud and sweat and blood covering her. Her body reflected her soul, and she sensed that neither would ever be clean again. The boy, as dirty as she, flashed scared eyes all around, and then they settled on her. He started to cry, a quiet sobbing too mournful for a child so young. She helped him to his feet, and he clung to her. There were other children-all ages, in fact: boys and girls, women and men, dark-skinned and light, as though chosen as representatives of the whole encampment, the twelve tribes.

Taking the boy with her, Arella stumbled away, joining others who were trying to put distance between themselves and the site of their horrific deeds. The boy looked, but could not find his father.

A commotion drew their attention. A man was screaming, the worst obscenities, threats against everyone. Arella realized it was Gehazi, his handsome features twisted by hate. Soldiers held his arms and legs as he thrashed and shook his head back and forth. He paused a mere heartbeat of stillness, and he was gazing at her, the briefest smile bending his lips. His head snapped away, and his limbs tugged violently against his human restraints. He flailed and bucked as the men carried him into a crowd that closed after them, leaving only his screams as evidence of his insanity.

Arella and the boy continued until they came to a tight, undulating mass of people. They were being blocked from leaving the area. Whispers reached her: while they’d slept, Moses had called for repentance. Those who failed to bow had been put to death, 3000 of them. The people parted, and she saw it: bodies piled high, more being dragged toward the mound from all directions.

She took the boy away from the sight, from the nauseating stench of the blood, and they huddled beside a boulder. Before long, Moses came and walked among them. Levite priests accompanied him, whispering and wailing prayers, their arms raised and their faces turned toward the sky. Moses passed around a chalice, which he continually dipped into a vat carried behind him. She and the boy drank, too shamed to protest, too glad to be alive. Flecks of gold swirled in the water, pieces of the ground-up calf. The jewelry they had worn outside their bodies was now in them, the cow they had worshipped consumed.

The boy tugged on Arella’s arm and whispered, “Are we to die too?” And she wondered if the drink was a prelude to death. She didn’t care; it was what she deserved, what they all deserved.

After they all drank, the wall of guards dissolved, and they were free to return to their tribes. No one spoke of the calf or their transgressions, though Moses said that they would never see the Promised Land. God had instructed him to make them wander in the desert for forty years, until most of those who had been led out of Pharaoh’s rule had died. Only their children would receive God’s blessing of a land they could call home.

In her dream Nevaeh wept, and could not stop weeping.

She woke with a start and stared down the long, dark corridor in front of her, its far end completely lost in the shadows. She wiped a tear off her cheek and thought about how the tunnel resembled her life: seemingly endless, only a few bright spots to mark the times she’d found something close to contentment, filled with the bones and ghosts of people who had, for a brief time, shared it with her and then died.

So much darkness.

It stood in utter contrast to the last time she’d seen God, that sun-bright radiance flying at her from the tablets. It had knocked her out and changed her-changed all of them, those who would eventually become the Tribe. They had stopped aging, stopped dying… destined to forever walk the earth without ever being with him in heaven.

Jagger had watched Addison hike to the upper hole and descend into it. He thought of the Greek myths in which a hero traveled into Hades to rescue a maiden or recover a stolen treasure. That was Ollie and Addison: descending into a pit, hoping to return with an armful of loot, maybe even a maiden, or at least the bones of one.

He stood outside the tent for a while, taking in the workers, scanning the ragged outcroppings on the mountain rising beyond the dig. Gradually his heartbeat slowed to normal, and he frowned at the thought that such a minor altercation had got him so worked up. If he stayed at the monastery for much longer he’d have to find a hobby that fed his need for adventure. Rock climbing, maybe. Or camel racing. The world here turned a little too slowly for his taste.

He looked down at the contraption that had taken the place of his left hand. He thought of it as RoboHand, but his son, Tyler, had described it perfectly: “Terminator G.I. Joe hand.” Two metal hooks-one acting as fingers, the other a thumb-formed a circle similar to the action figure’s hands, preshaped to hold weapons. The tips flared into a T, providing more gripping surface. Jagger flexed his arm, forcing the hooks apart, then relaxed, closing them again. He was getting adept at manipulating the device-called a prehensor — but mishaps still happened more often than he liked: clamping a plastic bottle tight enough to make the soda geyser out, bruising Tyler’s head going for a clumsy embrace. Not that long ago he’d brushed away a fly and given himself a bloody nose. Twenty-nine years of flesh, one year of metal: it was a wonder he hadn’t put an eye out.