Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“The desert.”

“Where do you go?”

“That field near the white oaks. To pitch my tents.”

Urbaal became the canny farmer, and although he sensed that with murder he had forfeited his ownership of land, he behaved as he would have done under normal circumstances. “That field belongs to me.” He was about to drive the stranger away when he remembered the pre-cariousness of his condition and the fact that he needed a place to hide. “You may stay near the oak trees,” he said.

When the tents were pitched, there came a moment of uncertainty when the Habiru realized that Urbaal did not intend leaving their camp. Joktan dispatched his sons to care for the donkeys and waited. Finally Urbaal came to him hesitantly to say, “I have no home.”

“But if this is your field …”

“And this is my town.” Urbaal led Joktan to the edge of the field and there the Habiru first saw the walls of Makor rising from the mound and protected by hills on the north, its white roofs glistening with promise. The town was so compelling after the empty spaces of the desert that Joktan could say nothing. He summoned his children and they stood with him, staring at their new land, and the shadow of Makor seemed to reach far across the fields and fall upon them. But Joktan was a clever man and he asked, “If that fine place is your town but is no longer your home, and if you were running down the road alone … Have you killed a man?”

“Yes.”

Joktan said nothing. He stood in the sunlight and took counsel with himself, a man consciously trying to decide what course to follow. Still holding his silence he left his sons and walked to an area beneath a large oak tree where his men had already erected a simple altar consisting of stones gathered from the field, and before this altar he stood alone, praying. The words he used Urbaal could not hear, but when the prayer was finished Joktan returned and said, “You cannot stay with us, but I shall give you a donkey so that you can escape eastward.”

Urbaal rejected the offer. “This is my land and I have decided not to run away.”

This Joktan understood, and the two men discussed the matter for some time, at the end of which the Habiru told the murderer that he could have sanctuary at the altar. Joktan then assembled his wives and his sons and the husbands of his daughters and warned them that soon an army would march out from Makor seeking this murderer, and the first crisis in their new land would be reached. The men took counsel together but did not divulge their decision to Urbaal, who moved to the altar under the oak tree trying to understand the tragedy that had overtaken him.

That day no army marched out of Makor, but a woman did, hurrying among the olive trees, looking here and there for her husband. When she did not find him she walked along the caravan way leading to Damascus and in time reached a spot from which she could see the unfamiliar tents pitched in her husband’s field, and she ran across the wheat stubble, crying, “Urbaal! Urbaal!” When she found him crouched by the altar she ran up to him and fell upon the ground, kissing his feet. She explained that the priests would not send the army after him till morning, trusting that he would be far to the east where his crime need not be known. She wanted to start immediately—a pregnant woman with one pair of sandals—but he said stubbornly, “This is my field,” and neither she nor Joktan could make him leave.

The sun went down and a strange night followed. Urbaal, suddenly an old, bewildered man, huddled by the sanctuary while Timna spoke with the strangers, telling them that her husband was an honest farmer and explaining the inconsequential steps whereby he had destroyed himself. “You take much of the blame on yourself,” Joktan said.

“We are all to blame,” she replied.

“But surely the fault was finally his,” Joktan reasoned.

“He was bewitched,” she said, and in the light of the campfire she looked toward her husband with great pity and said, “In another town, at another time, he would have died a happy man.” And she wept for the inconsiderate fate that had overtaken him.

At dawn Joktan went to the altar to pray alone, and when he returned Timna asked, “To what gods do you pray?” and he replied, “To the one god,” and she looked at him.

When the sun was up the army of Makor, eighteen men and a captain, marched out, hoping that the insane farmer had made his escape and that they could avoid further action, but when they saw the tents of the strangers they had to investigate, and under the oak tree they found Urbaal cowering beside the altar. “We have come for the murderer,” the captain announced.

Joktan stepped forward, and without raising his voice, replied, “He has taken sanctuary at my altar.”

“He is not inside a temple,” the captain declared, “and he must come with us.” But Joktan stood firm and his sons gathered about him. The captain withdrew to consult with his men, and they saw that whereas they could surely overwhelm the strangers, many lives would be lost in doing so, and they fell back.

They sent for their priests, and when these came in regalia the captain explained, “Urbaal is here, but this stranger refuses to deliver him.”

“He has taken refuge at my altar,” the Habiru said. The priests were inclined to order the troops to drag the murderer away, but the apparent willingness of the strangers to fight deterred them.

Finally the priests said, “We shall respect the sanctuary.”

The high priest then went to Urbaal and told him, “Amalek is dead, and your life has come to an end. You must walk with us as forfeit.”

The addled farmer did not fully comprehend what they were demanding, but at last he understood that it was Amalek, who had been his friend in this and many fields, whom he had killed, and he began to weep. The priests went to Timna and said, “Go and fetch him from the altar, for we must take him with us,” but Joktan insisted, “If he is determined to stay by the altar he shall stay here,” and the priests respected this honorable decision and stood apart.

It was Timna who made the decision. Going to the oak tree she knelt beside her husband and said quietly, “The end of days has come, Urbaal. We have done all the wrong things and I shall die with you.” He looked at her helplessly, then placed his hands in hers, a gentle, tender man who had loved his fields and the sound of bees humming in the flowers. She pulled him to his feet and led him to the priests, who directed the soldiers to place a halter about his neck.

“I shall die with him,” Timna said, “for the fault was mine.”

“You shall wander along the roads,” the priests replied, but as far as the gates of the city she clung to Urbaal till she was pushed away, falling into the dust. She looked up to see her uncomprehending husband, the little king of the olive grove, walk for the last time up the ramp and through the zigzag gate.

“No, no,” she wept as he disappeared. “The terrible thing I did to him.” The god of death he had been able to withstand, but the goddess of life had destroyed him. It was not mean-spirited Matred, who had never loved him, who had betrayed him, but Timna, who had tried to be a dutiful wife. Now she heard a rumble of drums, then silence.

She had lain in the dust for some time when Joktan said to his sons, “Go fetch the woman, for she was a loyal wife.” And in this manner the widow Timna became part of the Habiru encampment.

In the days that followed there took place those interchanges of curiosity which marked the arrival of any new family in the fields outside a walled town. The Habiru women walked sedately to the well, using a path that did not intrude upon the town. On their heads they bore large jugs to be filled with the good water, and the women of Makor studied them in silence. Priests left the town to inspect the nomad tents, where they discovered that all the newcomers were members of one extensive family—the people of Joktan, who had been willing to die rather than betray the sanctuary of his gods. The exact nature of his deities he seemed unwilling or unable to communicate, but the priests explained that if he intended sharing water from the well at Makor he must acknowledge the god El, the major baals, plus Melak and Astarte; and although Timna tried to dissuade him from making such a promise, he said that he did not object but made it clear that he would at the same time maintain his own altar under the oak tree, and to this the priests consented.