Wives of the Flood

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Father—”

  “Go away!”

  “Don’t get angry. I’m going. But please hurry. People are getting anxious.”

  Ham tiptoed to the tent flap, listening. Surely, Kush would post watchmen. So… he nodded after several moments’ thought. He scraped all the bitumen out of its barrel and mixed it with the pitch. Then he put a brimstone ball on top of that barrel. Done, he stacked all the other balls to one side. Next, he wrestled the barrel to the back of the tent, rested until he regained his wind and hopefully let most of the fumes settle.

  He took off his leather apron, folded it and hid it under the remaining leathers. Then he wiped his hands, washing them in a water-basin, even going so far as to scrape any bitumen or pitch from under his fingernails. He examined his clothes, picking off bits of brimstone. Fumes still hung in the tent, no doubt. He couldn’t help that. He made a face as he firmed his resolve and took out his tinder. That hadn’t been an idle threat. He dared now to strike flint against steel until he fired a slow wick. Sweat oozed. This was dangerous work, and he didn’t want to burn to death. But he wasn’t going to make it easy on his boys. He drew a dagger, listened carefully, and then slit an opening in the rear of the tent. He drew it back like a curtain and peered at the woods outside and at the nearby slope. It seemed clear. So he wrestled the barrel outside. No one yelled. No one saw him as he faced the woods. He wrestled and half rolled the barrel further and further away.

  He heard a shout. He turned immediately and retreated to the tent.

  Others took up the shout as he stepped back outside, the slow wick in his hands. Several of his sons ran towards him. After several strides, he touched the glowing wick to the brimstone’s wick, the one soaked with bitumen and pitch. It caught fire, sizzling, hissing, the glow speeding toward the leather-held brimstone. He hurried to the tent, lying down and holding the dagger-made flap shut.

  The explosion surprised him. It was loud like a thunderclap, louder than the dragon’s roar, and it made him jerk in terror. Hot pieces of barrel-wood punched through the tent wall. He stared in dread as a fiery piece landed on a brimstone ball. With a shout, he dove and snatched the glowing wood-chip. He hurled it away, burning the tips of his fingers.

  Maybe thirty seconds later Kush, Canaan and Seba, Kush’s oldest son, rushed through the flap. Pale-faced shock and staring eyes marred their features. Kush roared at the sight of fiery chips of wood sprinkled liberally about the floor. He, Canaan and, seconds later, Seba stamped the wood chips out. In their frenzy, they repeatedly bumped against each other.

  Finally, Kush turned on Ham, who wearily sat on the tent’s only stool. “Are you daft? What do you think you’re doing?”

  “He’s hiding the exact mixture from us,” Canaan said.

  “Just like you said he would,” said Seba.

  “Shut up,” Kush snarled.

  Seba bristled, a man built along his father’s lines, but with duller eyes and a thicker neck. He shut up just the same.

  Canaan poked his head out the tent. “It’s burning nicely, fiercely even.” He drew back and regarded his brother. “At least we know they work.”

  Kush made a rude noise.

  Canaan grinned at Ham, sitting on the stool and sucking his burnt fingers. “Well done, Father. Thank you.”

  Ham nodded, vowing to himself that none of the brimstone balls would survive the dragon.

  19.

  Some one shook him awake.

  “What?” Ham asked, sitting up, blinking sleep out of his eyes. He napped on a wooden couch in his house.

  “It doesn’t work,” Zidon said.

  “What doesn’t work?” Ham asked.

  “Your onager.”

  “Did you do everything like I told you?”

  “Come and take a look.”

  Ham followed Zidon to the middle of the settlement. There stood a crudely built, heavy stock onager. It made Ham shiver. This was a tool of war, used in the Old World to smash walls and pitch brimstone onto ramparts and into massed formations.

  The beams had been hurriedly chopped out of logs, the axe-strokes still visible on the wood since no one had sanded off the marks. Still, like a solid log cabin, the ends of the rectangular base frame lying on the ground had been fitted together. On either side sprouted heavy, upright braces, with ninety degree angled struts supporting them. A crossbeam had been hammered onto the uprights, the center of which had been padded with a leather cushion stuffed with wool. Like a giant spear held vertically, a throwing arm pole presently rested against the crossbeam. On the top end of the pole was a sling as he’d suggested. The bottom of the throwing arm had been carefully inserted into a bundle of skeins or tightly wound ropes. These ropes or skeins had been hammered onto the beams and lay horizontal on the bottom frame, stretched between the two sides and a little behind the uprights.

  As Ham had explained earlier, the skeins were the heart of the machine.

  “What’s the trouble?” Ham asked, “other than the lack of gears.”

  “It’s the skeins,” Zidon said. “Show him.”

  Several of Zidon’s brothers grabbed a rope. Attached near the top of the throwing arm was a pulley with a rope running through it. Later, the ends of the rope that the brothers held would be attached to a roll bar at the far end of the frame. The gears would go onto the ends of the roll bar, allowing a man with a windlass to draw down the pulley ropes and lower the throwing arm. The skeins gave the machine power. As the throwing arm lowered, the skeins were tightened. The torsion, or twist, of the skeins supplied the power when a latch released the pulley rope. With great force, the throwing arm should shoot upright, hitting the crossbeam and stopping suddenly. Much of that energy then went into the missile in the throwing arm’s sling. The rest of the energy caused the end of the catapult frame to lift or “buck.” Thus the name onager or wild ass.

  The two brothers drew the throwing arm down. It went easily, much too easily.

  Ham blinked, watching the skeins. They tightened, a bit. He knelt, studying them. “You have to stretch them tighter.”

  “It’s as tight as I can get it,” Zidon said behind him.

  At that instant, the brothers let go of the rope. The throwing arm rose, but not violently, with force, but weakly, slowly. The pole didn’t thud against the crossbeam, just stopped upon touching it.

  “What kind of skeins did we need again?” Zidon asked.

  Ham straightened, dusting his knees. He glanced at Zidon and at Zidon’s two brothers. “There is a substance that will work.”

  “We don’t have horsehair, remember?”

  “That isn’t what makes the best catapult skeins,” Ham said.

  “Ah,” Zidon said. “Perhaps you’d enlighten us, for as you can see, our flax ropes are useless.”

  “Hair.”

  “What kind of hair, Grandfather? Goat hair, dog hair, what?”

  “Human.”

  It was Zidon’s turn to blink. With his fingers, he fluffed his thick hair. “I’d cut mine, but I think it’s too short to twist into strands.”

  “And I’d cut mine,” Ham said, “but I have a similar shortfall.”

  Zidon nodded as he rubbed his chin. “It appears we have a dilemma.”

  “Agreed.”

  Both men knew that long hair was considered one of a woman’s chief graces. The legends said that in the Old World, the bene elohim had descended from heaven to earth because the women were so beautiful that lust for them had sprung in the fallen angels. Women’s long flowing tresses, it was said, had been instrumental in first stirring that angelic lust.

  “We don’t need much hair,” Zidon said.

  Ham grimaced. That, in the end, might be the chief problem. “Let me see what I can do.”

  20.

  Ham went home and debated how to broach the subject, deciding finally on brutal honesty. So, in the kitchen, he sat Rahab down, held her hands and looked deeply into her eyes as he explained the situation.

  She though
t about it, and asked, “What about your beards?”

  He let go of her hands and sat back, wondering if he had heard correctly.

  “Take a razor and shave off your beard. Then explain what you just did to me and certainly Kush, Menes, Put and Canaan will follow your example.”

  “My beard?” Ham ran his fingers through it. “I’d look like a woman without it.”

  “While any woman shearing her hair would look like a man.”

  “It doesn’t have to be all their hair,” Ham said.

  “Nor all of your beard.”

  “Are you serious?” he said a moment later.

  Rahab pursed her lips. She had long hair tied in a net. She unlaced the netting and swept her gray hair onto her breasts. “It’s foolish to think that any man will shave his beard for the good of the clan. Perhaps he’ll give his life. But then he’s a hero, quite acceptable to his vanity.”

  Ham opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it with a snap as he noticed the glitter in her eyes. He drummed his fingers on the table, considering the idea of shaving his beard. He took a deep breath, when Rahab laid a warm hand on his wrist.

  “Let me ask you this, husband. Are you certain human hair will work?”

  He pulled his eyebrows together. He’d seen a few catapults before and knew the theory of them. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t work,” he said.

  “I see.” Rahab rose and laced the netting around her hair. “Let me speak with the others.”

  Two hours later, Rahab returned with a turban wound around her head.

  Ham sat up on his bench in the workroom. Deborah, Miriam and others, all wearing turbans, lugged several baskets and set them near the table.

  “Will this be enough?” Rahab asked.

  He stared at their turbans and then hastily looked away. He yearned to inspect the baskets. “Ah… They’ll have to be braided before we can use them.”

  “They’re braided,” Rahab said.

  He swallowed, and a touch of shame bit him, as well as awe. He stood and bowed at the waist to each of them. “You are heroines. To say more would only sully your sacrifice.”

  “To the contrary,” Deborah said, with her hand in front of her mouth. “This is part of our price.”

  “Eh?” Ham asked.

  “We wish to be feted and patronized,” Deborah said.

  “And our feet washed daily,” added Miriam.

  “Don’t forget lunch in bed,” Rahab said.

  “Quite right,” Deborah said, “lunch in bed and exactly at noon.”

  Ham’s jaw dropped, and the women burst out laughing until he turned red.

  “Just make sure this onager works,” Deborah said. “That’s all we ask.”

  Ham hurried to Zidon and they returned, carting the baskets to the onager. There, they handled the new skeins with care, fastening them to the machine. The trial took place with Zidon’s brothers pulling the rope, as before—the gears hadn’t yet been cast. This time, however, a throng of women watched. Many of them glanced sidelong at those wearing turbans.

  The brothers let go. The throwing arm bounced up faster than before, but not nearly hard enough.

  As one, the women wearing turbans turned on their heels and marched away. Those with hair, most of them wisely under shawl and kerchief, hissed at Ham and Zidon, before also departing.

  “What now?” Zidon asked. He had turned pale and dispirited.

  Ham wanted a drink. “It should have worked.”

  “Don’t tell me that,” Zidon said. “Did you hear them? They hissed at us. That isn’t good.”

  “Yes, yes, I know.”

  “And their looks, their glares.” Zidon shivered.

  “I agree it’s troubling.”

  “It’s more than that, Grandfather. It’s a disaster.”

  “Come with me,” Ham said. “I have an idea.”

  They went to Kush’s smithy to see about the gears. Along the way, Ham explained that they needed another set of gears. These would be set with the skeins, to rotate and tighten them beyond their present torsion. “And we’ll soak them in olive oil.”

  “For what reason?” Zidon asked.

  “If nothing else, to give the illusion that we know what we’re doing.”

  Zidon looked askance at his grandfather.

  “But secondly,” Ham said, “to give the skeins greater elasticity. Greater snap.”

  They found Kush and explained their idea. He went to work at once. That night, Ham stayed in the smithy, deciding he couldn’t bear any complaints or, even worse, silence from Rahab and the women. Zidon stayed with him.

  Early the next morning, they attached the gears and the olive oil-soaked skeins. The latch was added and the onager finished.

  “Will it work?” Zidon asked.

  For an answer, Ham put the pry bar into the skein windlass and cranked them until both he and Zidon couldn’t winch any tighter.

  “Lock it,” Ham said.

  Zidon kicked the lock into place, freezing the skein gears.

  Taking out the pry bar, Ham now winced down the throwing arm.

  “The skeins creak,” Zidon said. “I can hear them.”

  “An excellent sign,” Ham said. “Notice, too, the tension to the rope.”

  He meant the one drawing the throwing arm down. That rope hummed tighter than the tautest bowstring.

  When the throwing arm touched the bottom dowel, Ham took out the pry bar. “Are you ready?”

  “Should we put something into the sling?”

  Ham picked up a rock and set it in the sling. Then he stepped back, looked once at Zidon and pulled the release mechanism.

  The arm whipped up and cracked against the crossbeam. The end of the onager bucked and the stone sailed high over the wall and away into the distance.

  “It works!” shouted Zidon. “It works!”

  Ham tapped him on the shoulder.

  Teary-eyed, turbaned woman were behind them, hugging one another.

  “Jehovah be praised,” Zidon whispered.

  Ham nodded.

  21.

  That afternoon as he lay on the couch trying to catch up on his sleep, Ham heard footsteps. He removed his arm to a vision of loveliness: Semiramis with all her beautiful hair.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Not offering you my tresses, I assure you. So you can quit eyeing them so hungrily.”

  It would be a shame shearing such locks, he agreed, albeit silently.

  “Canaan sent me to fetch you,” she said. “It’s Beor.”

  Ham hurried to Canaan’s spacious house, trooping up the stairs with Semiramis to the second story. Animal head trophies of wolves, leopards and elk lined the walls, along with spears, shields and crossed stone axes. Hilda, Beor’s daughter from his first wife, turned as Semiramis and he rounded the corner.

  Hilda stood outside the bedroom, clutching a small wooden Ark that Beor had made for her when she was five.

  Ham hugged her. She was a thin, serious girl with straight blonde hair as her mother’s had been.

  “You won’t let him die, will you, Great Grandpa?”

  “Your great-grandfather isn’t Jehovah,” Semiramis said.

  “Yes, I know, Stepmother,” Hilda said, curtsying.

  “Of course your great-grandfather will do what he can,” Semiramis added. “But we mustn’t put undo strain on him to do the impossible.”

  “Yes, Stepmother,” Hilda said. “I shan’t strain him. I promise.”

  “Why are you standing out here?” Ham asked.

  “Waiting for you,” Hilda said. “I hope that was all right.”

  “Of course it’s all right,” Ham said. “But why not keep your father company?”

  “Oh no,” Hilda said, shaking her head. “That might upset him.”

  “Upset him how?”

  “Beor needs his rest,” Semiramis said.

  “Yes,” Hilda said. “Stepmother says I can’t bother daddy or he might sicken and d
ie.”

  “Not can’t, Hilda,” Semiramis said. “It simply isn’t wise to bother him.”

  “Oh,” Hilda said. “Yes, I forgot. I could, but it isn’t wise.”

  Ham took Hilda’s small hand as he opened the door. The smell hit him right away. Like rotten meat, as if vapors of it floated lifeless in the close air. The big man was shivering pale and sweaty, much worse than he had been in the chariot. A blanket was pulled up to his black-bearded chin. With the shutters closed, gloom reigned within.

  “Is he going to die?” Hilda whispered.

  The question startled Ham. He let go of Hilda and in two strides pulled back a greasy eyelid. Glassy, the pupil dilated to almost nothing. “Has anyone been watching him?”

  “Stepmother has hardly left his side,” Hilda said. “She feeds him by spoon.”

  On Beor’s throat, Ham felt for the pulse. As he did, he noticed Semiramis frown at Hilda.

  “I thought you weren’t allowed in the room,” Ham said.

  “I’m not,” Hilda said.

  “Then how do you know how Semiramis feeds your father?” Ham asked.

  Hilda gave her stepmother a frightened glance. “I-I don’t know.”

  Semiramis shook her head. “Is that important, Grandfather? Beor is why you came.”

  Ham tapped the big man’s cheek. “Beor. Beor, can you hear me?”

  The big man moaned as sweat oozed from him.

  “Have you spoon-fed him?” Ham asked.

  “I suppose,” Semiramis said.

  “Then—”

  “I spied through the keyhole,” Hilda said, hanging her head. “I’m so sorry, Stepmother. I hope you’re not angry with me.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Hilda.”

  “No?” Hilda looked up wide-eyed. “You aren’t going to spank me?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Semiramis said.

  “Oh, thank you, Stepmother. Thank you so very much. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  “Hush, child,” Semiramis said.

  Ham pulled off the covers and winced at the intensification of the rotting-meat stench. The purple ankle was three times its normal size, while the leg splints strained like boards on a ship about to burst.