The animal’s slow plodding drew me wistfully back to our swift ride to the wedding. On horseback, the journey took less than a day, even with the lightly burdened donkeys following along behind. Now I couldn’t see how Daniel hoped to get us back to the gathering before nightfall. The donkey rocked and swayed as we ambled over the bumpy road, and before long Yonaton’s head slumped forward against my back. I fought to keep my eyes open, but sleep overtook me as well.
I awoke to a shaking, like a tremor at my back. Opening my eyes, I saw steep-sloped mountains surrounding us. Daniel trotted confidently, singing quietly to himself as our donkey followed close behind. What woke me was Yonaton weeping quietly against my back. I lifted my head, but he immediately choked off his soft cry.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Yonaton sat up and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
“You can tell me.” I twisted on the donkey’s back so I could catch Yonaton’s eyes over my shoulder. Tears—as if they’ll help anything. The Holy One knows I cried plenty when I was younger. But the tears never did me any good—I was no better off when they stopped flowing than when they started. Aunt Leah cried often, and I always found it hard to look at her when she did. Dahlia mostly stopped a few years ago at the same time I did. She learned quickly that tears were the fastest way to lose my interest.
On that first night of the gathering, Zim and Daniel both turned away at the mention of my parents’ deaths. But Yonaton hadn’t looked away; his eyes had actually teared, even though mine remained dry. I forced myself to hold Yonaton’s eyes. He hadn’t looked away then, and I would stay with him now. “What is it?”
Yonaton hesitated, but only for a moment. He’s no orphan; trust comes more easily to him. “It’s my father. I know what he’s like. He won’t gather in his grain early. He’ll say it’s betrayal to fear the Baal. What if our harvest is ruined? We don’t have enough stored to get us through winter.”
“You think Yambalya can make the rains come early?”
Yonaton gazed up at the dark patches of clouds moving across the summer sky. “What if he can?” he said softly.
I didn’t know what to say—I was a shepherd, not a farmer. I was about as far from sharing the farmers’ worries about the early rains as Yambalya; I looked forward to them. I was no more concerned about the yoreh spoiling wheat than I had been a few months earlier when the malkosh ruined so much barley. The late rains made grazing easier this summer than in summers past. The early rains would do the same: replenish grasses, keep the flock healthier, and make my life easier.
But Yonaton’s pain struck me in an unfamiliar way. A few months ago, it was the farmers who suffered when the barley spoiled. This morning, it was the farmers who would suffer if the rain soaked the wheat. It was easy to bear the pain of farmers I didn’t know—especially when they had land and I had none—but it was much harder to gaze into the teary eyes of a friend. Did his father really fear the Holy One so much that he would let his family starve? Were there many more like him in Israel? Still not finding any words, I reached back and squeezed Yonaton’s hand.
By early afternoon, the clouds burned off, leaving the sky a bright blue. The sun baked the moisture from the ground and Yonaton’s melancholy dissipated with the clouds. “You know, I think the wheat will be fine,” he said. “The prophets look out for Israel. They wouldn’t let Yambalya destroy the harvest of whoever doesn’t fear the Baal.”
Yonaton’s new attitude sounded forced to my ears, perhaps covering up for the shame of having shown his fear. Either way, I breathed more easily, relieved I no longer had to console a weepy friend.
We left the mountains south of Shomron behind and rode through the massive brown hills I knew so well. When we passed the turnoff to Levonah, I searched the road leading toward the gate, hoping to catch sight of my flock on the hills. The land was quiet and empty.
We ate the midday meal under a carob tree just past Levonah. “We’re making good time,” Daniel said. “With a little luck, we’ll arrive before dark.”
“But when I came with Master Uriel it took us two days from here,” I said. “We were walking, but we weren’t moving much slower than we are now.”
“You went through Beit El. Our path will be more direct.”
Yonaton swallowed the bread in his mouth. “Then why did Ovadia take us on the Beit El road?”
“Our way is too rough for horses. But the donkeys can make it if we lead them.”
After the meal, we continued south on the King’s Road for a short stretch, then Daniel turned the donkeys onto a narrow path that climbed up a broken hillside before the road to Shiloh. Once over the ridge-line, the path dropped into a gully, and we dismounted to lead the donkeys down the descent. We picked our way down a series of ridges and valleys, dropping ever lower, the hillsides gradually shifting to lighter shades of brown as the vegetation thinned, finally taking on the yellow tone of the hills around Emek HaAsefa. Daniel was right; this way was far shorter than the road through Beit El. I recalled how my legs ached from walking those first days with Uriel. He couldn’t have led us that way just to alert Master Yosef; a simple messenger could have done that.
When I asked Daniel, he laughed. “How many people have we passed on this path?”
“None.”
“There’s your answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think Master Uriel does when he’s not at the gathering?”
I had never given any thought to the prophet’s life before. “Return home to his family?”
Daniel shook his head. “He travels the land. People go to him for prophecy, for advice, for blessings, for judgment of their disputes. It’s not his way to seek the shortest path.”
I thought back to Zim’s comment at the wedding—if I wasn’t careful, I’d wind up holy and alone like Uriel. Did he not have a family?
The sun dipped below the hills, casting a pink and orange glow across the sky as we descended into Emek HaAsefa. As the caves high on the hillsides came into view, my eye sought out our cave, the highest of them all, with its rock ledge out front where the four of us had first played. I was surprised at a sudden blossoming of warmth in my chest—like coming home.
Daniel approached the servant with the punctured ear who was cleaning up the cooking area after the evening meal. “Is there anything left? We just returned from Shomron.”
“Yes, Master Uriel had us put aside dishes for each of you.” The servant gestured to a table with three large portions of bread and lentils. A grin curled up my cheeks as I wondered if the prophet had received a vision that Zim wouldn’t be returning with us, or if this was another instinct of his heart.
The servant approached me and spoke quietly, so that I alone could hear. “The portion on the right is for you.” This pattern of food being set aside for me had recurred at every meal since the gathering began. I always received a small portion of the most basic foods, never any meat or cheese. Why I was the only one restricted in what I could eat, I didn’t know, but each time I took my meager portion and rebelliously added anything I wanted. Now the portion set aside for me was no smaller than the other two and even had a helping of cheese. Was Uriel warming to me?
After the evening meal, we walked to our cave in the twilight. “I’ll be back later,” Yonaton said, just as I rolled out my mat. He laid his belongings beside mine. “I promised my mother I’d tell her when we got back.”
“You’re going in the dark?”
Yonaton peered out at the indigo sky. “The moon’s still up, that’ll give me enough light.”
I finished laying out my bedroll and retrieved my kinnor. “Then Daniel and I will just have to start playing without you.”
Daniel chortled. “You can play on your own.” He lay down on his sheepskin mat. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Already?” Yonaton asked.
“I need the sleep if I’m going to make it back to my farm tomorrow.”
I turned to Daniel. “You’re leaving too?”
