Moses, Man of the Mountain

by Zora Neale Hurston

  He didn’t wait. He rushed over and seized her girdle and snatched her towards him. And now that he had his hands on her, all the words that he had been preparing to say to her vanished from his tongue. He crushed her body against his and kissed her with as much energy as he needed for a cavalry charge. These were his words for her. When he finally let her go she ran into the big tent a few steps ahead of him and sat down by her mother.

  Moses followed her more slowly and went to where Jethro was lying on a couch.

  “Have a good time, Moses?” Jethro asked with his eyes closed. Moses was frightened inside but he answered calmly. “Oh, yes, it was a rather nice party.”

  “I thought you might like it, though it was not one of the really big local affairs. But when you and Zipporah get married you are going to see a real celebration.”

  Moses was dumbfounded. “Then I can really have her, sir?” he stammered like a schoolboy.

  “I took you for my son, didn’t I? And now if my daughter wants to take you for a husband, why should I object?”

  “She told you that, Jethro? She said she wanted me?”

  “She didn’t need to tell me. She has been thinking it for weeks and somehow other people’s thoughts are like glass to me, especially those who are close to me. When she came in the door just now she was determined to have you for a husband before another week was over. You are of the same mind and I know it, so there is no need of beating around the bush. I was never more pleased about anything in my life. Now I know you will stay here with me.”

  Zipporah was clinging to her mother and weeping the tears all girls weep when they have captured the man of their choice. Jethro’s wife was hugging her daughter and weeping in sympathy with her. She too had recollections of a night and an hour. She too had won the one man in all the world for her. She had had her ecstasy. So she rocked herself back and forth and cried tears.

  Moses crossed and knelt before Jethro who placed his hand on Moses’ head.

  “My son, I hope.”

  “I will never fail her, father. I will hunt up new roads to heaven for her to go by. I mean to share every pleasure. And then again I will stand by her to the seventh sorrow. I love her.”

  He rose and went out of the tent door without speaking another word. And Zipporah rose from beside her mother and followed him to his sleeping tent.

  CHAPTER 14

  Zipporah of the tawny skin. Zipporah of the flowing body. Zipporah of the night-black eyes. Zipporah of the luxuriant, crinkly hair that covered her shoulders like a great ruff of feathers. Zipporah of the full, dark red lips. Zipporah of the warm, brown arms. These were the pictures that went with Moses all day long as he herded Jethro’s sheep. Night and the time to go home was always too long coming. He loved her little songs, her childish delight in the Egyptian ornaments he had given her and others he bought for her from traders. She was beautiful when she was weaving. She was irresistible when she danced and played. She was always doing something that kept him enthralled. He spent no more evenings in the big tent with Jethro any more.

  One morning Jethro was standing at the gate of the corral when Moses came there to let out the sheep.

  “Just thought I’d go along with you today, Moses.”

  “That’s fine. In fact, it’s a high honor.”

  “No, just a lonely old man wanting a chance to talk, I reckon. I don’t see very much of you these days, you know.”

  Moses blushed from the guilty feeling inside that he had been neglecting his friend of late. He herded the sheep before them for a long time before they found a good grassy spot. Then they sat down on the slope side by side.

  “Moses,” Jethro began a little sadly, “when you came here you were a man with a mission. I felt it in you strong.”

  “Did you? I sort of had the feeling that I had given up all missions. The life of a missionary seemed hard.”

  “Oh, you were out of dreams for the moment, but the great dreamer, the great leader was there. You have a great soul and something down in Egypt had waked it up. And you can’t wake up thoughts in men and put them back to sleep again.”

  “I have a wife now and I have you and the mountain for a friend and that seems to be all that I need.”

  “Moses, what about the book in the box in the river at Koptos?”

  “That is only a myth, perhaps.”

  “I notice you say perhaps, Moses. Look in front of you, son. That is a sacred mountain before you, Moses, and once you felt it, but no more. Once we had long talks in the evening that I meant should lead to something important later on, but you don’t inquire of me any more.”

  “Jethro, you are still my best friend. But I have a woman now.”

  “Have you never had a woman before?”

  “No. Not like this one. I have been as most soldiers among women, but not one was ever able to make me lose an hour from a campaign. But with Zipporah it seems that a whole lifetime would be too short to search out all her wonders. Why, her feet and supple toes are worth hours of watching. I have a consuming greed to absorb her inside of me so that I can possess her completely, but she seems to escape away from me all the time. Maybe my whole life will be necessary for the pursuit.”

  Jethro gave a grunt and fell back on his homely philosophy.

  “You have more greatness about you than any man I ever heard of, Moses. Don’t over-pull your belly on this love business and destroy it. Love some and think some.”

  Moses thought to himself, “If he only knew what a mess I have made of my life so far, he wouldn’t think I am so great.” Out loud he said, “Jethro, you see all that in me because you love me. I’m nothing but a happy man having the wisest man and the finest man on earth for my friend, and having my home with my wife. You probably look down on that as nothing but desire.”

  “No, I don’t, Moses. I don’t fault you for that. Everybody has to be young a while before they get old. It’s too bad, but it’s so. What you’re feeling now has got its place in life. Desire is the germ of the mind. There is no creation without it. Desire is a woman who is little understood and much slandered when her back is turned. She is a woman with a beautiful face and an ugly back. She drives a strong-legged crowd before her, gilded with the light from her face, and pushing the world before it. Behind her is a limping horde with the cawing black bird of age sitting on its shoulders, screaming imprecations at her back. They are renegades who do not deserve their past. Those who say desire is ugly have poor memories.”

  “Then you approve of my love?”

  “Yes, I do, Moses, and then again I don’t.”

  “Why?”

  “You are an over-average man, Moses, and I hate to see you wasted on a woman. What goes for the everyday men does not apply to you. You have something that spoke to me from a distance. It can’t die and it can’t be hidden. You can’t run away from it and you can’t do away with it. It is a glory and a tragedy. You are sentenced by fate to lead.”

  “Lead who and what?”

  “Men. In some way or another, whatever men you are thrown in with, you will lead. I am sorry for you, but that is true.”

  “There is no comfort in that. All I ever want to do is to herd your sheep, talk with you and take comfort in the arms of my wife, and bring up the sons, which I hope for in abundance, to be good and gentle. I want to sit on the side of Mount Horeb and ask Nature some questions.”

  “No use talking to you right away, I see. But you have a great call and some day you will have to answer. You can wring and twist all you want to, but when the hour comes you will have no choice but to go.”

  A long, thoughtful silence fell between them. After a while Jethro said, “I had thought to take you to the mountain soon, but—”

  “That is where I want to go. Why do you forbid me to go?”

  “Because you are not ready to go, Moses. That mountain is holy ground. Our people have worshipped on that mountain for many generations. So many that I don’t know my own self. But God and the mountain ca
n wait. You are still a young man.”

  “Why do you say that mountain is holy, Jethro? Why did the Kenites start to worshipping there in the beginning?”

  “Why did you feel something about it, Moses? Perhaps they felt just as you did.”

  “Yes, Jethro, I have a feeling, but perhaps it’s only a feeling because the mountain has the size and shape of majesty. That might be all. I don’t know.”

  “No, there is a god up there, Moses. I have heard voices.”

  “Voices, Jethro?”

  “Yes, Moses. But I am not so sure I make out exactly what they say. Perhaps it calls for more power than I have to really understand. But I feel the command to bring other people besides the Kenites to know this god and worship him. Besides, I am too old for missionary work now. But over and above all that, I feel that the call was never meant for me. I know now that the God of the mountain has been waiting for you.”

  “For me? Why, Jethro, I am nothing but your sheepherder who has the honor to be married to your daughter. If this god found you not strong enough with all your great knowledge and power, then I—why, you are the greatest man who ever lived.”

  “No, Moses. You are a hundred times my superior. The great I AM took the soul of the world and wrapped some flesh around it and that made you. You are the one being waited for on this mountain. You have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. You are the son of the mountain. The mountain has waited for the man.”

  Moses frowned a little and sat quiet for a long while. Jethro studied his face and said nothing more while he watched the movements of the flocks. Finally Jethro said, “There are lots of plants and things that you ought to study so you can know their habits.”

  Jethro picked up his staff and walked off a short distance and came back to where Moses sat with a plant and began to teach him its properties. Moses was so interested that they spent the rest of the day that way. The older man went home feeling close to his pupil again and warm inside.

  Mrs. Jethro had supper ready. She never asked Jethro where he had been after long absences. She was used to it and besides she knew she would get no answer. But Zipporah questioned Moses, and Jethro answered for him by telling her to work harder on the weaving of the new tent of camel’s hair and not to be so talkative. She pouted at this and said, “I just wanted to tell you a message came for you today. We are going to have company tomorrow.”

  “Who is it that’s coming?”

  “Oh, that rascal from the other side of the mountain that comes over here with his gang every time they run out of rations and eat us out of house and home,” Mrs. Jethro broke in with resentment. “But you just will feed him every time.”

  “Oh, you mean Chief Zeppo,” Jethro said, laughing.

  “I don’t mean nobody else,” Mrs. Jethro went on. “Some day he is going to over-pull that belly of his and die with the colic and I sure won’t care. Killing up our beef and mutton to fill that desert that he calls a stomach!”

  “Well,” Jethro temporized, “we have to be neighborly. And then again I am a chief and we just have to set a table accordingly.”

  “And, Moses, dear,” Zipporah said, “you must let the servants look after the sheep tomorrow. You must stay home and put on your fine Egyptian linen and ornaments.”

  “But I gave you all that jewelry except my belt and sword, dear. You put it on. I like to see you all dressed up.”

  “No, you put it on, darling. I want them all to see you in it, all looking like a King or something like that.”

  “Why, darling? I’m just your father’s herdsman.”

  “Because she wants all the rest of the women to envy her, that’s why,” her father snapped.

  “Now, papa.”

  “Pay her no mind, Moses,” Jethro said, dropping into the vernacular. “She is just like all the rest of the women. She wants to make out to the rest that you were some big high muck-de-muck back there in Egypt so she can put on side as Mrs. Muck-de-Muck, and earn some envy out of the rest of the women around here. She wants to make a Prince out of you so all the other women can suffer envy of the Princess Zipporah. Don’t blame her for it. She’s a woman, isn’t she?”

  Moses thought that Jethro had come close to doing what he had avoided doing before, that is, asking him who he really was. And now Moses felt that he must tell him everything. So he set the very next night for his time. He needed the day to bring himself to open the door that he had closed on his feelings. Since he had been with Jethro he had achieved a certain calm by forcing an internal silence on his soul. Suddenly it came to him that his new happiness had washed him out. He no longer cared. Tonight was as good as any other time. So he sat down and told his family everything that mattered.

  “You are not to be blamed for anything, Moses. Your youth couldn’t tell you that you couldn’t make big men out of bigots. Urging compassion on your grandfather was useless because he did not have any place inside of him to put it. In my experience I have found out it is no more use to give advice to an old man than to give a tonic to a corpse.”

  “But his own grandfather ought to have had more feeling for him,” Jethro’s wife objected. “Don’t those people in Egypt have no heart at all?”

  “Oh, yes, there are plenty of fine, generous people in Egypt,” Moses told her. “But Pharaoh is a man of great ambition. He does not have sons and grandsons in his heart. He has only connections who win honors and wars in his name.”

  “He is not by himself in that, I am sorry to say,” Jethro said. “His feeling is very common on thrones.”

  “Well, all that is behind me and I have found a real father and a real home at last. I don’t say anything about my beautiful wife. But if you all would rather not have me here after what I told you—”

  “Don’t even say what you started to say,” Jethro said earnestly. “We all love you, each one of us in the way that is right and proper. And look what you have done for us. You came and found us in a pretty low state. Me a chief that had next to no power and now you have built me up around here. You found our cattle gone and got us more than we had. Why, we are eating high on the hog now, and all because you are here with us. No, Moses, you are never to consider leaving us. The bonds you have here are never to be broken as long as any of us are alive. Tomorrow we take the blood oath together and then I am going to open things to you that I have kept closed up to now.”

  “Thank you, Jethro. You are truly a generous man and I love you like my own self.”

  “More than me?” Zipporah pouted.

  “No, silly. You are myself and the best-loved part of me, too.”

  “How can I believe that, Moses, when here you are a Prince and never told me a word about it.”

  “How did I know that a wonderful girl like you would stoop to marry a mere Prince? Especially a Prince without power and wealth. A miserable exile.”

  Zipporah was very pleased at this but she pretended to pout. “Don’t try to flatter me, Moses. Here I am married to a Prince of the blood royal and the neighbors don’t know a thing about it. Is that nice?”

  “Very nice, being married to you.”

  “Moses, you must take me to Egypt.”

  “Why, dear?”

  “Don’t you want to show me our palace and all those places and people that you told us about?”

  “Yes, I do, but I wouldn’t want you to feel as I felt in those palaces and places. It might not be so wonderful as you think.”

  “Oh, I think you are mean! I don’t believe you want that—that Ethiopian, that other Princess to know about me.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. I never even kissed her, really. That wasn’t love, that was a treaty we were carrying out. I think she liked being a part of the court more than she did your husband. Several times I had the feeling that she was disappointed because she was not married to my Uncle Ta-Phar instead of me. She would have been a step nearer the throne as his wife. But he was already married at the time.”

  “I want to go and lay my eyes on that
female,” Zipporah said from the fountain of assurance of being desired, “and let her see me.”

  “But it would be worth my life to be caught in Egypt,” Moses said. “As long as my grandfather lives it would be certain death. He believes that I am trying to undo his conquest and so he hates me. Ta-Phar took care of that. He figures Pharaoh is about to die and he is afraid the army might substitute me for him on the throne.”

  “You ought to let them do it, too,” Zipporah said with shining eyes. “You were born to be a King, like papa says. I’ll be very happy when we can go home.”

  “This is my home now, darling. Positively. I am through with palaces and Kings and wars of Kings. Such things don’t seem to be worth all they cost. Give me the black tent of Jethro with his wisdom and faith and the sheltering mountain and you and I can’t imagine anything more worth having. They can have the palaces.”

  “Moses, darling, you can’t talk like that. You have a wife to look after now. If you don’t want such things for yourself, you ought to claim them for—for others.”

  “Oh, leave the man alone!” Jethro snapped. “You are just like all the rest of the women—ready to upset the whole world to make an opportunity to dress yourself up in ornaments. That is all women around Kings are good for. Put on more ornaments than anybody else and make more chances to wear ’em. Fix it so you won’t have no competition, then parade your swag in front of the others and let ’em look on and envy you. You make property-grabbers out of otherwise good men. Leave Moses alone. There is something bigger in store for him than being a mere king.”

  Then Moses asked a bold question.

  “One thing, Jethro, I ask you as my father and my friend. Will you go down into Egypt for me and renew the offerings at the tomb of my mother and my friend, Mentu? I will give you all directions.”

  “I will go,” Jethro said simply.

  “She might not be my actual mother as they say. She might have adopted me from Assyria, or found me on the Nile or borne me. It doesn’t matter to me for she was a real mother, loving and kind. I prefer to think that she bore me, and I do not want her tomb neglected. Mentu was a servant who became a friend. Renew the offerings at his tomb.”