People of the Flood (Ark Chronicles 2) Page 9

  Menes grinned.

  “Naked!” roared Canaan, wiping away a tear. “Grandfather Noah likes to strut about in the nude.”

  Ham laughed.

  Kush and Menes laughed.

  Canaan wiped his eyes as more whooping sounds consumed him. “Look at me!” Canaan hopped and high-kicked around the fire. He grabbed the lower edge of his tunic and lifted it to his chest, exposing himself. “Look at me! I’m Noah!”

  The laughter grew. They seemed like hyenas, shrieking madness, until they gasped, slapping one another on the shoulders. Giggles ruled thereafter. Then, a sobered Kush wiped his forehead and stared at the flames.

  “What’s wrong, brother?” Canaan asked.

  Kush glanced at them, firelight playing across his dark skin. “What happens when Noah finds out what father did?”

  “What can Noah do?” Canaan asked, grinning. “Nothing at all.”

  Kush and Ham traded looks, and the hilarity left Ham’s stomach as an uncomfortable knot took hold.

  7.

  The next day, as the sun rose, Shem trudged up the mountain alone, dewy grass wetting his sandals. Halfway up, he dusted moss off a rock and sat until he regained his wind. He didn’t want to make this trip, but he rose and continued. He passed stands of birch and, later, pines. Robins sang, and in time, he came to Noah’s tent. The wind rippled the northern-sheeted wall, while all around the sprawling tent stood sod root cellars like sunken halls for mythic dwarves. Ivy and grass grew out of the dirt walls.

  He maneuvered past them to listen at the tent flap for snoring or the sounds of a sleeping man. When he heard nothing, he called out, but there was no answer. He rapped his knuckles on the tent pole, waited, and at last poked in his head. The couch of last night was empty. The blanket Japheth and he had draped over their father lay crumbled on the floor. A sour wine odor yet clung within.

  Shem checked the low-roofed root cellars, unlatching the doors to peer into gloomy chambers. He half-expected to see all the wineskins stacked in the third cellar slashed open and the floor damp with alcoholic liquid, but the skins stood neatly stacked just like they must have been yesterday when his father had fetched one for himself. Nor did he find any sign of Noah. As he closed the last door, he snapped his fingers. Picking up his staff, he headed higher up the mountain. The sun continued to rise and shine in his eyes. He squinted, keeping his sight on the rocky trail. The grass on the mountainsides was green, and orange and yellow flowers carpeted broad sections of slope. To the west hung several dark clouds; otherwise it was a beautiful autumn morning. He took the familiar trail, the twists and turns as it switched back and forth, and in the boulder-ridden distance smoke curled skyward.

  He neared the hilltop altar: the altar made of big stones piled one on top of the other. He remembered carting rocks for his father as they built it, years ago. In front of the altar knelt Noah, a slain lamb consumed by fire, the rocks still stained shiny-red with the sacrifice’s blood. His father gazed at the sky, with his arms outstretched.

  Shem paused, licking his lips, tasting the salty sweat.

  Noah brought his arms down, bowed his head and then struggled to his feet. Picking up the gopher-wood staff, Noah turned and marched toward him. Shem dared examine his father’s eyes. They were bloodshot, and his face was flushed.

  “Father.” Shem bowed his head, unable to stare his father in the eye.

  “I have sinned.”

  Shem nodded, unable to look up.

  “As Adam in the Garden of Eden first sinned,” Noah said, “so have I grievously erred. He, like I, became the father of humanity. Adam became so at the beginning of Time, I after mankind had been destroyed by the Deluge. Each of us was given the command to fill the Earth with offspring; from both our loins would derive all mankind. Alas, both Adam and I fell to the partaking of fruit. He ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. I have wrongly partaken of the fermentation of fruit of the vine.”

  “Father,” Shem blurted, looking up. “Ham saw you last night.”

  “What? Ham?”

  “He… He saw you lying naked on your couch. Then he ran downhill to Japheth and me and told us what he had seen, gloating in it. Japheth and I hurried to your tent and walked in backwards. Without looking at your—Father, we lay the blanket on you.”

  “Ah,” Noah said gravely. “I see. Yes, that explains much.”

  Shem gulped the lump from his throat. Once more, bowed his head.

  Noah stared into the distance. “Adam’s sin showed him his nakedness. My sin uncovered me. Adam was given skins from the Lord. My sons did clothe me. Each of us was thus covered by another.”

  Shem found that he was shaking, trembling, and he didn’t know why. Noah put his hand on his shoulder.

  “As a curse was laid after Adam’s sin,” Noah said, “so will a curse be laid now. As the future was foretold then, so I today have seen the future through the Spirit of the Living Jehovah.”

  Shem groaned, falling to his knees.

  “No,” Noah said. “None kneel to me. I am but a man, a sinner who has found grace in the eyes of Jehovah. You must rise and run back to your camp and gather your brothers. Tell them to bring their wives and their sons and daughters and their grandchildren. All must hear my words. Ham most of all. The Lord bids me speak, and thus speak I shall. Run, Shem, run.”

  Shem leaped to his feet and dashed down the mountain, wiping tears from his eyes.

  8.

  Right about now, as he waited for Noah, Ham needed a root cellar-stashed wineskin. His stomach knotted. Sweat prickled. He berated himself for running downhill last night and telling Shem and Japheth. Better to have stolen a wineskin or two and dug a hole in the woods, leaving them for nips. Ham gritted his teeth in frustration. Hadn’t he learned anything in all these years? Must he always be the rash one who got an idea and acted on it on the instant? Sober thought, a carefully pondered scheme—those brought rewards.

  Everyone congregated this afternoon near Noah’s tent, over seventy families and their children. Shem avoided looking at him. Japheth whispered heatedly with Gomer and Ashkenaz. What did Noah plan to say? Surely, he would not apologize for being drunk. Ham’s father never backtracked. But surely, Noah couldn’t lecture him in front of everyone about respect for naked elders. Noah didn’t dare bring that up. So what was his father’s game?

  Ham blew out his cheeks. He hated waiting, and he was… Was he embarrassed? He didn’t want to look his father in the eye. Noah had sent word, wanting to first see him alone before this group meeting. Ham hadn’t had the guts and sent word he’d see Noah when every one else did.

  “Do you notice the others aren’t mingling with us?” whispered Canaan.

  The tent flap moved. Noah strode forth in a flowing white robe. With his long, white beard and hair and his heavy right hand grasping the gopher-wood staff, Noah seemed every inch the patriarch he’d always been. His blue eyes smoldered, and his leathery, timeworn face seemed stern and unflinching.

  Ham feared. He recognized his father’s look as the one that had driven Kedorlaomer and his sons from the old construction-yard compound and that had compelled a victorious Ymir to retreat.

  Noah stepped onto a rock that Ham hadn’t noticed until now. As he did, Noah’s features softened until sadness crept on him. Noah raised his hands.

  Ham swallowed. His stomach knotted worse than ever. As Shem and Japheth went to the heads of their respective clans, so Ham grimly waded to the forefront of his. Beside him followed Canaan. Kush hung back.

  “Don’t let him bamboozle you, Father,” Canaan whispered. “You caught grandfather in the act. Remind him of that if he tries to brazen it out.”

  Shocked, Ham glanced at his youngest son. Canaan squinted at Noah. His youngest boy seemed like a fox, sly and cunning, full of guile, a master of trickery.

  “That’s his method,” Canaan hissed, “a righteous act. Grandfather thinks he can fool us. But he’s puffed himself up for the last time. You pricked the disguise, Fa
ther. Remember that if it gets rough. If grandfather tries to browbeat you—and by the looks of it, that’s his game today—shout out: ‘Would you like a glass of wine, Father?’”

  “Shhh,” Ham said.

  “I mean it,” whispered Canaan. “Yell that, and grandfather’s act will melt like summer snow.”

  “Quiet,” Ham whispered. Couldn’t the lad feel Noah’s power? But then Canaan had never seen an angel of Jehovah standing behind Noah, giving him the power to cow Ymir. Trembling, Ham took his place by his brothers.

  Noah lifted the gopher-wood staff. The wind stirred his robe and stirred the long beard that added to his awful dignity. Ham didn’t understand. His father had been naked drunk last night.

  Noah fixed his gaze on him.

  Ham felt it like a hammer blow. Those terrible blue eyes—although sad—they roiled with authority. Ham shrank back, afraid, wishing in that instant he could keep his mouth shut.

  “Jehovah has spoken to me,” Noah said. “I have seen the future, and I have been commanded to speak. Ah, my sons…” Noah bowed his head.

  Ham’s knees threatened to give way. He wanted to throw himself onto his face and beg forgiveness. He glanced then at Japheth, at the triumphant smile. No, he couldn’t demean himself in front of his arrogant brother.

  Noah’s robes rustled.

  “Cursed be Canaan,” Noah said quietly, so Ham had to lean forward to hear. “A servant of servants he shall be to his brothers.”

  Ham didn’t understand. Why did his father curse his favorite son—or why did Jehovah compel Noah to? Noah kept speaking, his voice firming.

  “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant.”

  Ham’s sons and grandsons stirred, throwing angry looks at Shem and his sons.

  “May Jehovah enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant.”

  Angry murmuring arose from Ham’s clan. Some of them glared at Japheth’s clan.

  Noah lowered the staff and centered on Ham. “A grim truth of this world, my children, is that the sins of the father often intensify in his children and then in his grandchildren, yea, unto the third generation. I am sorry, but this foreknowledge given me by Jehovah… It cannot be revoked.”

  Noah stepped down from the rock and headed toward the hilltop altar.

  Ham lurched after him. “Father!”

  Noah halted and turned. Tears leaked from his eyes, staining his leathery cheeks.

  “Father,” Ham said, standing before Noah. “Why have you cursed me?”

  Noah put a hand on Ham’s shoulder and squeezed with hurtful strength. The white-haired patriarch tried to say more. It seemed he couldn’t. Finally, Noah turned and trudged for the trail.

  A crimson-faced Canaan slid near Ham. “What did he say, Father? Why did he curse me? You’re the one who saw him naked. Why did he take it out on me?”

  Ham stared at his son, so youthful, so handsome and so much his pride and joy. The sins of the father… he peered at Shem and Japheth. Japheth’s face shone as he spoke to Gomer. Finally, Ham looked at Noah trudging up the trail, alone, as he had often been throughout his long life.

  “Father?” Canaan said.

  “Come,” Ham said, wearily, knowing now that he had only one course available to him.

  “Where are we going?” Canaan said.

  “Away, my son. It is time to leave the mountains of Ararat.”

  The Dragon

  1.

  Ham took his family far south of Ararat, and his family grew and prospered. Yet, alone in the harsh New World, they couldn’t survive well. So every year or two, sons looking for wives and those with marriageable daughters or goods trekked back to Ararat for Fall Festival. There, the children of Noah mingled and married cousins and traded, sometimes arguing hotly. Fortunately, bloodshed was avoided, although more than once a cheering throng witnessed a wrestling match.

  In time, the clans of Shem and Japheth also moved from Ararat. But they remained nearer one another than Ham’s far-ranging family.

  Ham took his clan southeast, and a fear of floods caused them to remain in the highlands, in the mountains rather than descending into the plains or valleys. With disposable stone axes for the heavy work, they felled trees, chopped underbrush and burned off new sowing areas. There, they built a semi-permanent village and stayed a dozen years at the longest. Once the millet and barley began to fail because of overworked soil, they loaded donkeys, two-wheeled oxcarts and wagons and moved south again to repeat the slash-and burn-process.

  Several sons of Put had the wanderlust and traveled farther and wider, reporting on what they had seen. In the east, in high, rugged mountains, they found blue stones, lapis lazuli, and in certain fast-flowing streams, they spotted gold specks. In such they laid fleece, returning later to gather the gold-laden wool.

  Ham aged and grew vines and fermented wine, and he taught his clan the art of brewing barley beer. Over time, drunkenness fueled too many of his decisions. Rahab despaired, while Kush, Menes, Put and Canaan aided their father in his duties, and as clan elders, they took on greater responsibilities.

  Twenty years passed after the curse, thirty and then forty years.

  During that time, a son was born to Canaan and Miriam. His name was Beor, and he grew into a man utterly unlike his brothers and sisters. A head taller than any Hamite, with massive bones and immensely powerful muscles, Beor became the strongest man in the clan and perhaps in the world. Extraordinarily stubborn, with a black beard and thick lips, to his horror he lost his hair early, becoming the first bald man of the New World.

  He led the Scouts, shepherds by inclination. Usually the tribe wasn’t on the move. But whenever the tribe exhausted the slash-and-burn soil and debated where to move next, the Scouts searched for the new location and reported on the best options. Beor dominated the Scouts by his size, strength and stubbornness and because of what happened next.

  Beor loathed his baldness. When first his hair thinned, he railed against fate and begged his father for an antidote.

  “Gaea might have known of one,” Canaan said, “but neither I nor your mother can help you in this.”

  A month later, and in the evening, as shepherds sat around a campfire, Ham quaffed ale and questioned them on the flocks. Beor sat hunched on a log, brooding, staring at the flames.

  “Why so glum, my boy?” Ham asked. “Look at your thews, your shoulders. Oxen must envy you your strength.”

  Beor indicated his balding head.

  “Ah,” Ham said. “And you’re so young.”

  “Is there nothing I can do?” Beor asked. “Must I look like a vulture with its bald skull for the rest of my life?”

  “I heard long ago of a cure for baldness—”

  “What is it?” Beor asked, before Ham could finish.

  “It was a fable, a myth, an old wife’s concoction.”

  “Some of those tales, I’m told, have a basis in fact.”

  “Perhaps that’s so. Well…” Ham gulped ale. “The tonic was made of one part paws of a dog, one part kernels of dates and one part hoof of a donkey. Mix and cook thoroughly with oil in an earthen pot and anoint it on your head.”

  “What are dates?”

  “Fruit from a tree. I haven’t seen any in the New World, although in the Old, they grew plentifully.”

  Beor sighed.

  Ham swirled his ale-cup. “Perhaps the Slayers had the answer.”

  “Who?”

  Ham told him of Ymir’s Slayers, the mighty warriors who had worn wolf caps. “Slay a beast, a savage one preferably, and wear its head as your cap. Then no one will notice that you’re bald.”

  Beor’s dark eyes glowed at the idea.

  So, the massive son of Canaan dealt for the bravest hunting hounds, trading three of his prized rams and seven goats. Then, he went to Ham and told him his plan. In the gloom of his forge, Ham studied the serious youth. He noted the breadth of Beor’s shoulders, the lumps of muscle
rising behind the thick neck, and he pitied Beor the few wisps of hair over his nearly bald dome. From a locked chest, Ham selected precious tinstones. Soon the ring of his hammer told the tale of toughing bronze, and the grind of sandstone said that he gave it a razor-sharp edge. He fixed this to a heavy shaft and presented it to Beor three days later.

  “This is a pike, my boy, a worthy weapon for your quest.”

  Beor’s eyes glittered. “I am in your debt, and I promise I won’t forget this.”

  Beor next fashioned spears with fire-hardened tips and practiced endlessly. Soon, he bartered with Put for flint-tips, binding them to his spears. Then he left the settlement, and in his vanity, he chose a dreadful beast.

  Great sloth lived in the primeval forests, grunting as it shuffled in its odd, upright gait. A vast, bear-like creature, well over twice the height of a man, the great sloth was twenty feet long and weighed as much as eight thousand pounds. Most had shaggy, dark brown hair and skin tougher than Antediluvian chainmail. With their heavy molars, they crushed leaves and tender branches and sometimes, with claws as big as daggers, they chased wolves and leopards from their kills, scavenging off the meat. Such were the size of the claws and the way they grew from their fore and hind paws that no great sloth could walk on the flat of its feet. Rather, like an anteater, it shuffled on the sides.

  It made a peculiar sight, this giant beast that walked like a man, its bear-like head towering over many trees. Wolves slunk in fear when it bellowed. Lions avoided the monster when its piggy little eyes turned red with rage during rutting season and when it coughed in that deep, unforgettable way. Fast, great sloth wasn’t. Thus, the clan of Ham seldom worried about the beast. Yet all knew that to face the giant creature was to court death.

  Beor tracked the largest great sloth of the region, Old Slow, whose shaggy pelt shone so luxuriously that some wondered if the male dined off dragon eggs.

  A week after he had started, Beor found Old Slow as he shuffled to a valley oak tree, his favorite. Beor shivered at the monster’s size, and he wondered at the sanity of his plan. But he touched his balding head. He’d seen a beauty at last year’s Festival. She was a young woman of Japheth Clan. Beor scowled. She seemed to like pretty boys, those with cute faces and heads full of hair. Her eyes hadn’t lingered on his ruggedness.