Building Benjamin

by Barbara M. Britton

  “No wives for Benjamites.” Her chest ached when she tallied another woman that Eliab had lost in the conflict. She dabbed at some dried blood on his leg. Her hand was too unsteady to bathe the rest of his face.

  “So you see, I never had a wife. I never rode with her or lay beside her. I’ve never had a marriage union.” His brown eyes begged for understanding.

  What did he want her to say? That she was wrong to be upset? Did he want an apology? Did he want her to admit she was jealous? Was she?

  “Thank you for your honesty.” Her words came out weak and breathy and not with the bold sincerity she would have liked. “I do not know about your past, and I cannot learn if there are secrets kept from me. We have an agreement, so I should know things about you as an intended.”

  “We do have an agreement, and I will honor it.” He grimaced as he repositioned his body. “I was an angry man when I hid in the grove. God had seen fit to punish my people, take my family, and my betrothed. I did not want to grab a stranger from a feast. But then you came to me. Right into my arms.” He smiled at the remembrance and leaned closer, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I want you to want to stay in East Gibeah. Together, we can ease our grief.”

  A bead of sweat trickled from her temple to her throat. Try as she might to rinse her washcloth, she fumbled the rag, splashing the floor.

  Eliab picked up the cloth and held it. “Gera accuses me of having two wives, but I have never known a woman. I cannot say the same for him.” He cleared his throat and glanced across the room. “That blasphemer partook in several orgies to please the idols. I preferred to follow God’s ways. I still do.” He reached out and handed her the rag. “That is my truth.”

  The intensity of his expression said he wanted to be her husband. Her cheeks burned hot with understanding while her heart drummed a rhythm in her ribs, in her belly, and inches below. These feelings were not supposed to happen so soon. Months, even years, passed from the time of the annual festival to a betrothal period to a marriage bed. Not days.

  “I need to get fresh water.” And some air. And a clear head.

  She dashed outside and almost ran into Isa. Gasping, she covered her mouth and gaped at him cradling a large wooly bundle. He held her injured ewe.

  Flinging the water into the dirt, she dropped the basin and brushed the mother’s coat with her fingertips.

  “You brought her. Oh, Isa. You rescued my gift.” Tears welled in her eyes. “How can I ever repay this debt?”

  “Debt?” Isa’s eyes widened. He swayed as if in shock. “You stayed behind to comfort Jael. If you had not detained Eliab, I would be dead, and I cannot think upon what those pagans would have done to my girl.” Isa shook his head and shuddered.

  Jael? Naomi had forgotten about her young friend. She was not in the courtyard with Cuzbi.

  “Where is Jael?” She kept her voice low so as not to frighten the ewe.

  Isa grinned. “If I know her, she is asleep in the sheep’s pen with a big stick nearby. We will tend to this one while you tend to Eliab.”

  “Toda raba.” The words harbored in her throat. “You have made my heart sing.” She kissed the sheep’s head.

  Isa started to leave. He stopped a few steps away.

  “I hope you stay in East Gibeah, even if Ephraim should come.”

  His words squeezed her soul. “Why do you say this?” Was there a conspiracy this night to convince her to remain in Benjamin?

  Isa readjusted his hold on her ewe. “Today I glimpsed the Eliab I knew in the fields. The only thing that has changed since the war is that you are here. I can never repay Eliab for burying my family.” Isa raised up her gift. “This is a start. Shalom.” With a nod, he turned and traipsed into the darkening landscape.

  Naomi listened to Isa’s footfalls fade away. Perhaps God wanted her to stay in East Gibeah after all. This morning, she would have run into her father’s arms and left Benjamin behind, but now a small part of her wished to stay. Was it solely sympathy keeping her with this struggling tribe? Sympathy for Cuzbi, Jael, and Isa? Or was a fondness for the brave and wounded Eliab taking root in her heart?

  Turning, she found Eliab standing in the doorway.

  “Your gift has returned.”

  A tear trickled down her cheek. She swiped it away. “You need to go lie down. I am not finished with you yet.”

  “Those are the best words I’ve heard all day, for you are my gift.”

  Her countenance caved like a stone tumbling from its tower. Oh, Eliab. Did he know what he was asking of her?

  15

  Naomi rested against the smooth-stone doorway to Eliab’s room. One leg dangled over the ledge of the upper room, swinging and slicing the warm night air. The ladder sat sideways near where Eliab slept. She spied no rows of vines in the distance, no clusters of olive trees, only barren rock and spoiled ground. Where were her father, her brother, her tribe? Nothing moved in the dark. Had she been transported to a new city her family did not know of? Was this God’s answer to her prayer? That she should stay?

  A shuffling sound caught her attention. Eliab struggled to rise from his bed. With his injuries, he had not positioned a hand upon her hip to wake him if she moved.

  “It is too far to jump.” He grunted as he limped closer.

  “After your fall, I would surely use the ladder.”

  He did not sit on the opposite side of the threshold. Instead, he settled behind her with the wall as his backrest and his legs stretched in front. The rush of his breath sounded like a storm wind. If she fell back, she would lie in his lap with nowhere to look but his rugged face.

  “You should rest,” she said. Oh, why did she care?

  “Whether I sleep or stand, my bones cry out. Perhaps they woke you?” A bit of humor echoed in his voice.

  Even in the dark, she could feel his gaze upon the side of her face. He liked to be close. Too close. But she needed distance from him, from Gibeah, from the stirrings he created deep inside of her.

  “I am accustomed to the groans of pain.” She did not like how harsh her words made her seem.

  “As we all are.” He peeked from the doorway, his cheek brushing hers. “My father has placed scouts in the hills. They will warn us if the men of Ephraim come.”

  “If? My family will come. My father will fight to restore his honor and to seek restitution for the payment he has lost.” She faced him, knowing his eyes and lips would be temptingly close. “You had sisters. You spoke enough that I know you would pursue their captors.”

  “I would have.” He choked on his reply as if speaking of his sisters caused him more pain than his injuries.

  She dropped her gaze into her lap. Regret weighed upon her conscience, for she was not the only one who suffered loss. “Forgive me. I should not have brought them up.”

  He reached out and stroked her hair, but her curls would not stay tucked behind her ear. Her mother had tried over and over to brush her ringlets into submission. She would not reveal how the tug on her scalp, the tenderness of his caress, took her to another place—a safe and happier place.

  “It does not bother me.” His fingers brushed strands from her cheekbone and she withheld a shudder. “When you speak of them, it does not feel as though they are really gone. And you are right—I would have pursued their captors to the depths of the sea. But we did not lie in wait in Shiloh for revenge or as part of a wicked scheme.”

  “You stole our daughters.” She untangled his hand from her hair and resettled it on his leg.

  “Only at the urging of some elders.”

  “Whose elders?” Her heart pounded as if she had run to the well and back.

  “Some elders of Judah. One had married a woman from Shiloh. He knew of the harvest festival and suggested we take wives in the night to uphold the oath.”

  She tucked her legs beneath her, ready to hear more of this news. “You speak as if Ephraim should turn a blind eye to this plan. I doubt in my heart if the elders of Ephraim would have
allowed this plot.”

  “Yet they have not come to Gibeah.”

  His explanation hummed in her ears. Was her decision already made for her? Was Ephraim not coming to her rescue? Had the council leaders found a way around the oath? Her pulse pounded the questions through her brain.

  As if sensing her confusion, Eliab held her face gently. His face was the only form she could make out in the shadows.

  “I care for you, Naomi. Our betrothal is not like others, but I want to be your husband. Can you learn to make this your home?”

  Taking his hands, she wrapped them in hers and held them to her rib cage. She cast a glance out into the darkness. What if her brother Nadab waited there? If he came forward now, would she leave with him? The scent of hyssop filled the threshold. Had she not saved Eliab and bathed his wounds like a wife? Eliab wanted an answer. An answer she could not give without betraying her family and her tribe. He caressed her hand, his finger tracing a path around her palm. Each small circle frayed her composure.

  “I am tired.” Her raspy tone told the truth. “Is it not enough for you that I am here now? We are betrothed until the Sabbath. I made a vow before God which I cannot break.”

  Eliab struggled to rise. “Come to bed with me. We both need rest and—”

  “And?” She licked her lips and remained perched in the doorway.

  “Comfort.” He stepped toward the mat. “I made the vow before God too. I will honor our covenant.” The hurt that rumbled in his words did not seem to come from his gashes.

  Following in his wake, she lay beside him, careful not to bump his wounds. He positioned himself on his side like he did the first night. She brought a clean sheet up over their bodies.

  “Eliab,” she whispered. “Why did you agree to wait?”

  Silence.

  Was he already asleep?

  “You were scared,” he said in a wisp of a voice. “And I was angry.”

  “Are you still?” She swallowed hard. “Angry, I mean. Or confused?”

  “Not anymore.” His hand rested on her hip, the familiar weight bearing down on her bone. “Are you still afraid of me?”

  “Not now.” Her reply slipped out easily, as if she’d refused wine with dinner.

  “Then sleep.”

  She tried to rest but stared wide-eyed into the dark. Her conversation with Eliab raced through her mind. She cared for him. Fighting it was useless. But then maybe she would feel differently in the light of day with people around and work to finish. They were too close in his bedroom, too intimate in their talk. Closing her eyes, she thought of nothing, concentrating on the shadows and shapes behind her eyelids.

  When sunlight brightened the upper room, she woke alone and hurried to find Eliab. He was outside, and he boasted that her gift had lambed during the night.

  “Did you not think to come and get me when Isa brought news of the birth?” She hoped her ewe fared well after such a long journey the previous day. Finally, some joy had come to her in this odd land.

  “You had fallen asleep. Besides, you did not need to wash my wounds in the early hours of the morning.”

  Of course she needed to. She was his betrothed, and he had cried out in his slumber, but she did not want to argue. Her skin pimpled at the thought of holding her newborn lamb. If her ewe ailed, she would stay at Isa’s and see to her comfort.

  Naomi tugged Eliab toward Isa’s thatched-roof house. She slowed her pace when Eliab fell behind, hurrying him along with a wave of her hand.

  “You are certain the mother fared well?” she asked.

  Eliab clapped a hand upon her shoulder. “Isa and I have birthed livestock for years in Gibeah.”

  “But never mine.” She bit her lip as they neared Isa’s modest home.

  Isa waved to them from a fenced area.

  Eliab limped a little faster.

  Naomi rushed to peek into the sheep’s pen. She had chided Eliab to let her keep the mother as a gift, something of her own in this foreign place, but now she had a gift to give him—the start to a herd. She rubbed a hand over the worn wood and wondered if she would be here to see a full herd.

  She peeked over the fencing. “He’s black?” The shock in her voice brought the lamb teetering her direction. The mother bleated from her straw bed, chastising her offspring. “There was no dark ram in the ravine.”

  Isa crossed the pen with Jael on his heels. “Not that we saw. And on him I can find no blemish.”

  “He’s perfect,” Jael said. “And I helped bring him forth.”

  Isa stood in front of the gate, but he did not open it.

  “She has smaller hands.” The boy beamed as he praised Jael’s feat.

  Jael cuddled the lamb in her arms.

  Eliab struggled to bend and inspect the newborn. He glanced toward Isa, who shooed off a wayward yearling. Balancing his weight on the edge of the fence, Eliab patted the young sheep.

  Naomi reached in to touch her lamb. Her fingers tangled with Eliab’s as the lamb wiggled in Jael’s arms. She did not pull away. Perhaps she should have in public, but touching Eliab had become familiar, and if she were to admit it, she had grown accustomed to his caress.

  The newborn licked Eliab’s face with fervor. Even though his skin was the color of a plum, he allowed the lamb to show its affection, lick after lick. Eliab covered the lamb’s mouth with his hand, but the young one’s tongue still threaded between his fingers. “Two gifts in one.”

  “Yes. A gift for both of us.” For her shepherd. She placed a hand to her mouth, thankful she had not spoken aloud. Her elation at the lamb’s birth seemed to have carried over into her thoughts.

  “Yom, stop that.” Jael pulled the lamb away from Eliab. “He is full of spirit.”

  “You named him?” Her heart stuttered. Shouldn’t Jael have consulted her before naming the lamb? If only Eliab had awakened her sooner.

  Isa swung his arm toward a few yearlings wandering near the fence. “He is the color of night, but we call him Day, for today is a new beginning for our herdsmen. Perhaps it is a new day for all of us. We will have flocks in Benjamin, but ours will be like no other.”

  Jael laughed as Yom nibbled her collar. “And I will help birth them all.”

  Naomi’s cheeks warmed. She bit her lip while Jael took the lamb over to her gift to suckle. Couldn’t she be the one to see to the ewe’s needs? Isa guarded the gate as if she was his enemy and he was the only shepherd in East Gibeah.

  Naomi placed a hand on the gate. “We shall watch over the herd and give you rest.”

  Isa shrugged. “There is no need. We are taking turns.” Isa shifted closer to Eliab. “Jael is content when she assists me, especially with the lamb.” He gave Eliab a nudge.

  “We will return when I am stronger,” Eliab said.

  Isa stifled a yawn. “And then we will go in search of more blessings.”

  Eliab clapped Isa on the back and winced at the pain of raising his arm. “Toda raba.” He rested a more delicate hand on her. “Let us go.”

  She shook her head. A stinging pressure built behind her eyes. “I didn’t get to hold the newborn.” Her whispered words caught in her windpipe.

  Eliab’s head blocked her view of the pen. “They are working well together. We do not want to intrude.”

  Look around you, Naomi. Hadn’t Cuzbi warned her to fit in here? Become a Benjamite? Jael was all giggles and laughter with Isa and his sheep. God, I feel so alone. Her face burned, but not from the sun. Was she ready to tell Eliab she saw a hint of a future, here, with him? Her breaths came too fast. She had to get away from the pen. Crying would draw attention to her distress and she did not want Jael to be upset.

  She hurried down the path.

  Eliab followed. He did not call her name until they were a good distance from Isa’s house.

  She ignored his summons. She didn’t want to explain her feelings. She was acting foolish and she knew it, but didn’t she have a right to be hurt?

  Gasps of pain accompanied Eliab
’s plea to wait.

  If his wounds opened, infection could set in. She stopped and paced back and forth. She swore a spinning wheel whirled in her chest.

  With a hand to her waist, Eliab stilled her movements.

  “There is a cave nearby. We held sheep in it when we needed cover from the sun or a rest.” He dipped his head, but she did not meet his gaze. He would want to talk. He would want an answer for her behavior.

  How could she tell him of her sins? I am selfish with my lamb. Jealous of Jael. Filled with guilt about my family. Was Cuzbi correct? Should she have buried herself beneath Eliab’s blanket that first night? Forgotten she was the daughter of Heriah? How could she spend the night next to him and admit to feelings of lust?

  “If you lead the way, I will follow.” Her tone was as flat as the field they stood in.

  Eliab huffed as he descended two steps into the sunken cavern. A few boulders lodged outside a cave. Naomi looked up several feet to the ground on which they had walked just a few moments before. She sat on a rounded rock and Eliab nestled next to her. His fingers caressed the back of her hand. He said nothing. He asked nothing. He just was.

  His patience loosened a confession from her lips.

  “I should have been the one to name the lamb. The ewe is my gift. A gift from my betrothed.”

  She waited for a response. None came.

  Taking a deep breath, she continued, “I do not have anything in East Gibeah. No family. Few friends. No friends without husbands,” she added quickly. “No loom. I don’t even have my indigo sash.” She willed herself not to cry. She spoke the truth. Her truth. “Everything has changed too fast.”

  Eliab’s hand stilled. He lifted her chin until she could not help but look into his eyes, her reflection filling the brown-and-amber rings. “You have me.” His fingers stroked her face and felt as soft as silk. She shivered at his caress. “If you want me?”