Hebron

Content warning: A death, some blood

Cicadas droned and flies buzzed in the stillness and heat. Caleb stared at the young man lying facedown on the ground. The sun gleamed on the terrible bloody dent in Shobab’s head, and on the dark metal of the ax head lying loose on the ground. The wooden handle it belonged to felt light and empty in his hands, like his own head. 

“Run, Caleb!” 

The voices of the other young men broke into the profound silence of his mind. 

“Run, now!” 

Someone shoved him from behind, and Caleb stumbled forward, nearly falling. 

Hands clutched his shoulders, and a face was thrust close to his. It was his cousin. “Caleb, go while you can! Now!” His cousin released him and pointed. “Go to Hebron!”

Caleb threw down the empty ax handle and ran. 

The road was dusty and hot, and the other travelers were obstacles in his path, and he was thirsty but had left his waterskin piled with the others. 

Caleb kept thinking he heard running footsteps behind him, and he would look over his shoulder and see no one running after him and no one familiar.

Phineas would certainly come after him. He had always been fiercely protective of his little brother and had always been short tempered. He had come to blows before with those who had troubled Shobab. It was not hard to imagine how hot his rage would be over the death of his katana ah, his little brother. 

Caleb had been chopping wood, and was bringing the ax down when the head flew from the handle and struck Shobab. It was only an accident, but Phineas would not care. Caleb wondered how long he had. Had Phineas found out yet? Would he find a weapon before pursuing? There was no knowing. 

The walls of Hebron appeared before him in the heat shimmer, and relief coursed through Caleb. He pounded between the open gates and dropped to his knees behind the cover of the wall, panting. 

Phineas could not reach him here, in a city of refuge. He would be protected. 

Of course, Phineas did come, full of anger, to the gate. He screamed that Caleb was a murderer, and demanded the customary trial before the men of their own city. Caleb’s cousin and the other young men who had been present testified that the death was an accident, and the elders ruled it so, and he was escorted back to the refuge of Hebron. 

It was strange, to suddenly need to carve out a life for himself in a new city. He would be trapped in Hebron until the high priest died. It was not a pleasant idea: Waiting for a man to die, perhaps wanting him to, so he could go back to his own city. Until that death, if he left the boundaries of Hebron and Phineas found him, the law would not penalize Phineas if he killed Caleb. 

A place to live. Work to do. A life. All within the walls of Hebron. He wondered if he would find a wife here. 

Caleb’s family members would visit him when they could. He always asked whether they had seen Phineas, or a friend of his, or a servant of his family lurking outside the city, and Caleb’s family always denied it. But sometimes he thought he saw them, so Caleb never even left the gates. 

Of course, word from outside reached into the city, and he heard of the death of King David’s first son Amnon at the hand of his third son Absalom, and Absalom’s subsequent banishment. He concluded the prince must have killed his brother to get closer to the throne. There were only two men in Absalom’s way now: his father and the second son. 

Three years passed before Caleb heard that Prince Absalom had been called home again, and after two more he began to hear of how wonderful Absalom was. He was the people’s prince, according to all. He was handsome, and rode in a grand chariot with a fine retinue, and let his hair grow as long as it would each year before cutting it. He stood at the gates and listened to the grievances of all who came with them, and would not allow any man to simply salute him, but would give of kiss of respect and friendship to any man who approached him. 

Then Absalom came to Hebron. 

The prince went through the streets with great pomp. Over two hundred men followed him. The word was that the prince had come to offer sacrifices to the Lord God in thanksgiving that he had finally been allowed to return home. 

But then another message began to circulate. 

“When you hear the sound of the trumpet, say, Absalom reigns in Hebron.”

Absalom reigns. Absalom king. Absalom king in Hebron. The idea swirled in circles in Caleb’s mind and would not be quiet.  

More and more men began to flood the city. They spoke of joining Absalom’s army, and that was truly what it was becoming. Some men began to proclaim Absalom’s greatness, and how he would make a better king than his father, who was already over sixty years of age. 

Caleb wandered about in the confusion roiling inside Hebron, and found himself standing at the gates of the city, looking out through them at the rest of the world that he had not set foot in for years. 

If Absalom took this army to Jerusalem, and his father did not know of his coming, they would catch the king and kill him. He could not escape this multitude. 

Someone had to warn the king. He could not ask another man, for fear anyone might be of the rebellion, and perhaps would report him the rest, and Caleb himself might be locked up to keep him from sending anyone else. 

He was the only one he could trust to take the news to King David. 

Caleb looked out again, searching for any sign of someone lying in wait for him. There were travelers on the road, and people of the city going about what business they had outside the walls. 

He stepped out, through the gates, and kept walking. There were seventeen miles between him and the king.

The road was hot and dusty. Caleb could not run, no matter how badly he wanted to, for he would tire himself and then he could spend too much time in resting and he might be too late. Who knew when the trumpets would blow? The rebellion of Absalom could be set in motion at any moment. 

Always he looked about himself, and scanned the road for a stone or a stick large enough to be a weapon, but found none. Phineas might happen upon him, and then he might be killed. That must not happen. Not for his own sake, but for the king and all his household in Jerusalem. 

The walls of the royal city loomed above Caleb, and he marched through the gates, and to the palace, and begged to speak to the king. Granted an audience to divulge his urgent information, his message was simple. 

“All Israel with their whole heart follows Absalom.”

The king and his household immediately began hasty preparations for a journey. 

A man had died because of Caleb. Another man would not.