Moses, Man of the Mountain

by Zora Neale Hurston

  “I will do all of that.”

  “Some day, you shall go with me to Koptos. Further than that I am not concerned with Egypt. Your house is mine. Your gods are my gods and your ways are mine. My life, so far as it is any use to you, is yours.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The years went by with a loping gait and left tracks all over the place. A profound calm took up in the face of Moses. It grew rugged like the mountain but held its power inside. He loved his wife and their two sons, but there was no more ecstasy. He spent his days with Jethro’s flocks and Nature. He learned the secrets of plants and animals, and the living and the giving earth. Long years had passed since he embraced the religion of Jethro. He had learned to build the altars of uncut stone or earth and make the offerings, and the tribesmen had come to accept him, both as a chief second only to Jethro and as a priest. He practically lived on the mountain, in the desert, beside streams, feeding his mind on Nature. Sometimes he would be absent for days and sometimes weeks in seeking answers to questions that Nature put to him. Jethro now sat at his feet in all things except one. Jethro was still his master in magic but Moses steadily closed the gap between them and that delighted old Jethro more than his grandsons.

  Time put tracks on Zipporah. She came to know that she still had a certain power over Moses, but that she could not follow him past the door of the tent. He loved her and the children and was gentle with them, but Jethro was his company. Her flowing body had taken to bulging here and there so she quit putting accent on her body and took pride in her two growing sons. Now and then she recalled her dreams of the palaces of Egypt and was a little petulant with Moses. But he had made her feel that tears and pleas were no good. She had gone down into Egypt with her father each year when he went to renew the offerings of light and incense and each time she had had a fit of despondency on her return. The glory of her husband’s feats of arms were not forgotten in Egypt and she would hear of it while she was there, and it made her regret what might have been. If Moses only had the proper ambition, she might be mistress of the palace someone had pointed out to her. And her sons might be Princes near the throne.

  Time left its footprints all over Jethro, too. He had shrunk up in his skin considerably, so that it no longer fitted his frame. But a hopeful light had come in his eyes. He was making of Moses what he himself had wanted to be—a great priest. Moses had the genius for leadership which he lacked. Moses had comparative youth and he had fire. Moses had education and breeding and Moses had soul in soul. All he needed to do was to point the direction and Moses passed him in accomplishment with a leap. Here was the man of science such as the world had never seen. But his beloved son-in-law had a serious failing. He had no mission in life except to study. Jethro with the help of Moses had become the wealthiest man in Midian. With his wealth and backing and Moses’ own popularity, Moses could become King over all the local chiefs, but he made no move in that direction even when he was urged. He just had no wish to govern his fellow men.

  The quick grasp of things that Moses had and his talent for developing what he found always amazed Jethro as well as delighted him. He had shown Moses how to effect a sending of flies upon an enemy and the next month Moses had produced such a swarm that the whole household had to work furiously for days to get rid of them. But he had not stopped at that. Moses went out into the wilderness alone and stayed for weeks without letting him know what he was about. When he returned he produced swarms of every insect and reptile at will. He drove off a wandering band of vagrants with a plague of snakes. Once when Zeppo sent word that he would accept Jethro’s invitation to come over and eat meat with him for a few days, Moses laughed. Zeppo came with his huge family and lit down off his donkey and made straight for the cook tent to get “a little something to give him an appetite.” Moses stood and watched him until he flopped down on a seat by the cook tent door. Then Moses lifted his right hand and extended it before him and frogs literally rained about Zeppo. His mouth was crawling with them and they were everywhere. Frogs swarmed over the family and they swarmed over beasts. Zeppo and his family screamed and fled in every direction till they were safely off the place. His womenfolks kept up with him as best they could. He did not desert his youngest granddaughter because she could keep up with him. Next day he sent back for his donkeys. He also sent back a note which obviously had taxed Zeppo’s small education a lot to write. It read like this:

  “DEAR COUSIN JETHRO:

  I take my seat and take my pen in hand to write you a letter. I want to know where is your raising that you ain’t got no more manners than to let frogs be hopping all over people when they come to visit you? I have been a good and faithful cousin to you. I have always been kind enough to drop whatever I was doing and accept your invitation to bring my family and pass a few days with you and eat meat. But I know when I been insulted and I’ll never accept another invitation to pass a week with you, not even if you ask me. But if you insist I will not refuse the meat you offer me. You can send it by my messenger when he comes.

  Your loving cousin,

  ZEPPO.

  P.S. I’ll bound you all them frogs was the work of that son-in-law of yours, Moses. Nobody else could have done it.”

  So Jethro wrote back a letter like this:

  “DEAR COUSIN ZEPPO:

  All the manners I ever had you done et it up long ago. So I reckon there just ain’t no more. You will have to refuse my offer of beef because I am not slaughtering today. All my cows have a bone in their legs. All of my beds are full of folks so you can’t snore in my ears no more.

  Your loving cousin,

  JETHRO.

  P.S. Yes, my son Moses is the finest hoodoo man in the world and my wife says that stopping you from eating somebody else’s groceries is his greatest piece of work. But she may be wrong.

  Have you ever seen his sendings of snakes and lice?”

  Time left his signs in Egypt, too. Death came and startled old Pharaoh. So Moses heard about it in Midian and came to Jethro one day ready to travel. He and Jethro dropped into the dialect of the people as they often did at times.

  “My grandfather is dead and I am going down into Egypt.”

  “You going to the funeral?”

  “No. I am going to Koptos at last.”

  “So you didn’t forget, did you?”

  “No.”

  Jethro thought a while then he said, “It’s funny how long wishes will last, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is. Come to think of it, I’ve been with you twenty years.”

  “Did it seem very long to you, Moses?”

  “No, Jethro, that is, in general it didn’t. I have been happy about everything. And I have tried to deserve my memories. It was just my wish that worried me. Sometimes it looked like time was going to mock it to death. Twenty years is a long time to wait.”

  “Yes, I know by myself, Moses. I got a wish that’s forty years old. Ever notice how long wishes can last?”

  “It all depends on what sort of stuff they are made out of. You know about me, but I didn’t know you had one living with you, too. What is it?”

  “Oh, I’ve always meant to tell you about it first and last. Fact of the matter is I tried to tell you once or twice. But I figured you wasn’t ready for it yet, because I could see you straining against understanding. Maybe I’ll broach it when you get back from Koptos. By the way, while you are down in Egypt, why don’t you look in on them Hebrews and see how they are making out? Things might be different with them now that they got a new King.”

  “All right, I will, though I have no way of helping them at all, now. I don’t know as I rightly understand them and I feel sure they don’t understand me. I’m sure they didn’t twenty years ago. It wouldn’t be a bit of use for me to go among them, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, now. Do you reckon your uncle, the new Pharaoh, will try to put you under arrest?”

  “I am not going near the palace. Anyway, few people would know me, now. I am going straight
to Koptos and when I return I will come with a forked stick in my hand and a fire pan on my head.”

  “The symbols of the hundred-bolt lightning and the sun, eh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let me go with you, Moses. Maybe I ain’t too old for the journey.”

  “It will be a hard journey. Maybe Mentu’s story is only a myth. Even if it is true, we might lose our lives in the attempt.”

  “I guess you’re right, Moses. You go down and come back with the power, if it is to be had. It might come in handy some time. I used to teach you but now you can tell me and then again you show me about the God of our mountain. Your brain leaps past my stumbling mind to the inside meaning of things. But I don’t lose a thing by it. Through you, I just got better eyes and ears and legs than I used to have. And that right hand of yours!”

  So Moses went on down into Egypt and left Jethro sitting on the side of the mountain, back-thinking on his twenty years with Moses. And the more he thought the bigger Moses got in his sight.

  Moses had lifted his right hand in Midian and the people feared it. The first few times that he made the gesture before a miracle nobody noticed it particularly. But when it kept on happening, that right hand became a symbol of terror and wonders. Then it quit being a sign of power to the people; it became to them power in itself. He lifted it and they experienced the miracle of water turned to blood. It had been done in a small way by the Cushite priests for a long time. But Moses lifted his hand and extended it imperiously and the rivulets and springs and wells and streams ran blood all that day. Moses lifted his hand and a malicious gossip was struck with leprosy. It was Moses who learned the secret power to command the power of flame. It was Moses who could bring on or drive off the cattle disease.

  It was Moses, too, who saw in the little puff of white smoke that rose from the incense on the altar the symbol of the Presence behind the clouds on the crest of the holy mountain and he developed the smoke into a thick white mass that hung stationary and huge above the altar for as long as the ceremony lasted. It rested there in volume and mystery like the Presence it symbolized. It made the voice of the unseen Moses speaking behind the altar seem like the voice of God. It seemed to the people that Moses but lifted his right hand and the cloud from Mount Horeb appeared upon the altar. From so many signs and wonders that they had witnessed when Moses extended that right hand before him, they came to believe that the hand of Moses held all of the powers of the supernatural in its grasp. It had a separate existence from the rest of his body. So when Moses lifted his hand the smoke of the incense ceased to be smoke. It became the Presence. If it was not the actual Presence, then it enclosed and clothed the Presence. Finally the smoke itself was deified. It was not understood so it became divine.

  Now Moses found out how to make the excrescence that he called Manna appear on a certain plant. So Jethro himself began to be in awe of him. “No use talking,” Jethro said to his wife. “Moses done found out something we others don’t know about. Looks like he done found them secret words that’s the keys to God that we all been looking for. I figure he’s about ready to go to work.”

  CHAPTER 16

  One day Moses came walking up and looking tired and lean for his height.

  “Well, I see you got back,” Jethro said off-hand.

  “Yes, back after a whole long year,” Moses said, dropping his walking stick and taking off his shoes.

  “It seemed like it too, Moses. You was mighty missed around here.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I missed being here with all of you too.”

  “Once in a while I would get to fretting about you. I didn’t know whether you would make it back or not.”

  “I wondered the same thing my own self a heap of times.”

  “Well, if I ain’t too previous, Moses, did you get your wish?”

  “I sure did. That’s why I’m so wore out like I am.”

  “Do you care if I ask you how it was?”

  “No, I don’t. In fact, I don’t intend to eat nor sleep until I tell you. I have been needing your ear and your advice for so long.”

  So Moses stretched himself upon the couch and told Jethro how he had passed through lower Egypt like a shadow of a cloud and hurried on to the Thebiad, where Koptos is.

  He had gone into the temple of Isis at Koptos and brought an ox and a goose and some wine and made a burnt offering and a drink offering before Isis of Koptos. He spent four days with the priests of the temple.

  On the morning of the fifth day he had called a priest to him and with his powers had commanded the priest to make a magic cabin that was full of men and diving tackle. Moses himself put the spell on it and put life in it and gave the men breath and said to them, “Workmen, go to the place in the river where the book is, and work for me.” Then he had sunk the cabin in the water. In three days they had come to the place in the river where the box was and made a shoal out of sand to make the water shallow. They worked night and day.

  Then he found the box all wrapped around with scorpions and snakes and different other kinds of reptiles. But he knew what to do for them so that they all laid sleeping as if they were dead. Then he met the deathless snake. So the snake got ready for a hard fight and Moses fought him all the next day. Moses did not win over the deathless snake but then the snake did not beat him, so they met and fought again the next day. At sundown Moses felt that he had the advantage of the snake to a certain degree, so he called up all of his power of mind as well as his body, for if he won he would have more power than any man on earth and also the deathless snake would come under his command. And he wanted the obedience of the snake. So late in the third day, he beat the snake and commanded the snake to meet him anywhere in the world that he might call. So the snake did not appear to resist him any more.

  Then Moses took the book out of the golden box that was closed in all the other boxes. And when he went with the book Light went before him and Darkness after. He knew the ways and the meaning of Light and he heard the voice of Darkness and knew its thoughts.

  So Moses read the book and then he was able to command the heavens and the earth, the abyss and the mountain, and the sea. He knew the language of the birds of the air, the creatures that people the deep and what the beasts of the wilds all said. He saw the sun and the moon and the stars of the sky as no man had ever seen them before, for a divine power was with him.

  When he had read the book, he took a new piece of papyrus and copied the words of the book on it. Then he washed off the writing with beer and drank the beer for then he knew he would never forget what he had read. So he put the book back in the golden box and put the golden box back inside the other boxes at the bottom of the river and commanded the snake to guard it until he should come again. And if he never returned, no man was ever to see the book until the end of Time. And the deathless snake took up his watch beside the box.

  So then Moses broke a seal and read a spell over the workmen that he had made and told them, “Work for me back to the place from which you brought me.” They toiled night and day and that is how Moses came back to the harbor in Koptos. From one thing and another he found out that he had been nearly a year about the business of the book. The priests of Ra, suspecting his success, tried to stop him, but he proved himself top-superior to all that they did, and came out of Egypt with a high hand. So then there was nothing for him to do but to come on home and be with his folks.

  “Then you are ready for the big job,” Jethro said with an inside force that just barely grazed his face.

  “What big job are you talking about, Jethro?”

  “That big job I been saving up to get done for over forty years. I knowed all along I couldn’t do it myself.”

  “What kind of a job is it, Jethro? Maybe I can do it if it ain’t too big for me.”

  “There ain’t no jobs too big for you, now, Moses. Not with the help you got.”

  “Tell me then, Jethro, so I can know what it is.”

  “It’s my wis
h, Moses. You got yours now and you know how a wish is with you. It will keep on plaguing you till you get it. Ain’t that right?”

  “It sure is.”

  Jethro fumbled with his clothes a minute or so. Then he asked, “Oh, er—Moses, did you ask about them Hebrews while you was knocking around in Egypt?”

  “Sure did, Jethro. I thought they was in a bad fix when I used to live down there. But they are in a sure enough bad fix now. Ta-Phar is bearing down on them in a big way.”

  “You don’t tell me!”

  “That’s right. He claims they didn’t do no work under his father. They were just fooling around with tools. So the first thing he did was to put them on double shift, working night and day. Why, he’s got more government projects going on than you can shake a stick at. Those poor devils are building a brand-new Egypt under the lash.”

  Jethro smoothed his beard down for a while and thought.

  “You know, Moses, I been thinking we’re kind of selfish. Here we done found out about the one true God. The others been grabbing hold of little parts of Him and calling all of them parts a god by itself. It’s like calling each limb of a person a man. I been sort of thinking we ought to let more people know about what we done found.”

  “They all know by now, don’t they? That is, everybody round here already knows about Jehovah, don’t they?”

  “That’s just the point I’m coming out on. Not enough folks know about him. We ought to spread it around. And that’s the wish I been nursing for forty-odd years.”

  “But, Jethro, everywhere you go, the people got gods already. They won’t hear about no more. In my travels I been way past the Jordan into the land of the Amorites, and the Canaanites and the Philistines and they all got gods that suit them. Who would listen to us? Where would you get the people to make converts out of?”