The Esther Paradigm (A Contemporary Christian Romance) Page 4

  How could knowing the love of a woman, a wife, increase my love for my people as well as better equip me to lead them?

  The rumble of an engine broke into my thoughts, followed by the closing of a vehicle’s door. The Pratts must be back. They had taken the only truck the clan owned into town looking for answers about the flock. Had there been information shared by the veterinarian? Medicine?

  Commotion filled the air like the overcrowded streets on market day. Shrieks, shouts.

  My mother’s hands fell away as I turned and followed Samlil’s lanky frame over the tent’s threshold and out into the shadows cast by the slant of the late-evening’s sun.

  Bodies pressed around the rusty Toyota truck, but Ethan Pratt stood a head taller than most men. Dried blood, dark and flaky, matted his hairline at his temple and drew a line down his face like a wadi in summer. He opened the passenger door and leaned in. The layer of grime caking the windshield couldn’t hide his grimace as he scooped his wife into his arms and lifted to carry her weight. He teetered, and I thought he’d crumble in a heap, Elizabeth taking the brunt of his fall.

  I pushed through the people until I stood beside Ethan. Up close, his injuries looked even more awful. Swelling, discoloration. The way he swayed, I wasn’t sure he didn’t have a concussion.

  I slid my arms beside his under his wife. “I’ve got her.”

  He blinked at me, slow and hard, before offering a slight nod and allowing me to carry Elizabeth’s full weight. Her head rolled to my shoulder, and she moaned against tightly pressed lips.

  “What happened?” I probed Ethan’s dull, gray eyes for an answer, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze stayed on Elizabeth.

  Had it been a mugging?

  “My tent,” he croaked, and I followed his limp past several other pitched homes to his own.

  He lit a lantern, the sun ending its shift in the sky, giving way to a gibbous moon. I laid her in the corner upon a plush pallet covered by bright blankets and stepped back, giving Ethan room to kneel beside his wife. He checked her pulse at her wrist. Kissed the spot his fingers had pressed before lying her hand on the bed. With a deft touch, he ran his hands across her middle, stopping at spots to add pressure. She groaned and thrashed when he touched the ribs on her left side. Broken.

  A shadow lengthened on the floor. I turned to see my mother in the doorway, a bowl of water in her hands, bandages hanging from her arm. I took both with a thanks and a kiss to her cheek before offering them to Ethan.

  Danger lurked in the shadows. Took many forms. Why, then, this unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach? This niggle that said there was more here than a common robbery that wouldn’t even hit the gossiping tongues of the hawkers?

  For privacy, I left Ethan to tend to his wife. Ignored the need that pushed against my ribs to find Hannah and make sure she was all right. Repented against the relief that flooded me at knowing no harm had befallen her while her parents had suffered so severely.

  “Mom! Dad!” The words were shouted in English and yet so faint that I’d hardly made them out. My gaze scanned the landscape, trying to pick out Hannah’s form from among the familiar shapes of our transient town. There. Running between a cooking fire and a yapping dog, her already pale face now almost white from fright. Her blue eyes even rounder and wider in her head. She stumbled and I caught her, our hands gripping the others’ forearms.

  “Maybe you should wait a moment before going—”

  Her arms ripped from my grip, her wide eyes narrowing a fraction in accusation before she sidestepped me altogether and entered the dwelling.

  “Hannah,” I called as I stepped in after her, wanting to shield her from the sight of the blood coating her parents’ skin.

  Already she knelt beside her father, her mother’s hand wrapped in one of her own. Ethan laid a hand on Hannah’s head and kissed her temple.

  The bowl of water lay on the ground, its once clear contents now hued red. Ethan had had enough time to wash away some of the day’s evidence.

  “What happened?” Hannah turned tear-filled eyes to her father.

  I should’ve gone. Let the family have a private moment. But need staked my feet, and I leaned in to hear Ethan’s response, my breath held lest I missed any detail.

  “An ambush.” His voice cracked on the English words as if it hadn’t been dampened in far too long.

  As I unhooked the camel-hide waterskin from my belt and handed it to him, I sent up a silent thanks for the language lessons Hannah and I had taken turns teaching each other in our youth.

  The liquid swished within the canteen as Ethan tilted it to his cracked lips and drank deeply. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before handing me back the waterskin.

  “A handful of men surrounded us as we were coming from the veterinarian.”

  “Why?” Hannah asked, her voice raw.

  It was a good question. Maybe the root to a forest of questions, even. Had the men been there by chance and seen Ethan and Elizabeth as easy targets to rob? Were they familiar or strangers? The attack premeditated or spur of the moment? Ethan’s use of the word ambush unsettled me even more.

  The large American glanced my way before focusing again on his daughter. “Another warning, is all.”

  My organs turned to quicksand and swallowed my heart. How could men do things such as this to each other? This was not how Allah wanted his children to act. If the men had been extremists, I could only imagine the things they’d screamed at Ethan and Elizabeth while landing blows. Their belief that such zealous acts would remove any stain of American influence by force. This was not the lifeblood of our faith. Not the pulse of the Qur’an. Did not our very name, Islam, derive from the word meaning peace?

  “What did they say?”

  Hannah’s small voice rested in the stillness, sobriety of the atmosphere surrounding us.

  Ethan kissed her again. “It doesn’t matter.”

  In any language that translated as a father not wanting his daughter to worry. Which meant the threat had been severe indeed.

  I still had questions. Had Ethan recognized any of his attackers? I didn’t want to think any close brother or sister of mine from the clan would do something like this, but I also couldn’t afford to be naïve. The question wasn’t one I was willing to ask within Hannah’s earshot, however. Nor did I believe it one Ethan would wish to answer in her presence either.

  Ethan tucked his daughter’s head to his chest and raised his gaze to mine behind her back. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to voice the question after all. I read the suspicion in his eyes. The same that curdled in my stomach.

  How far? If things continued as they were, how far would the desperate go?

  I nodded my head at Ethan and turned to give them the privacy the family deserved. My feet moved in a familiar direction, my body heeding my subconscious need for peace and time to think. My limbs felt weighed down. By sadness. Grief. Responsibility. I shut the door on all the thoughts knocking. Waited to entertain them one by one. Hear their arguments and weigh their merits.

  The sky was blanketed in black except for a line from apex to horizon. As if a great warrior struck a lethal slash of his dagger in the cosmos’ belly, letting in a wide thread of milky light.

  The cavern’s mouth opened above me, and I climbed the rock’s face. Hauled my body up until my feet dangled over the edge. Slowly I unlocked the entrance of my mind.

  Would the Pratts heed the warnings and flee to safety?

  No. They had made my people their people. Trouble had come to us all in the past, and they had never abandoned us before.

  Would the threats against them continue?

  I knew the answer, though I didn’t want it to form on my tongue.

  Was there anything I could do about the situation? Anything I could do to protect Hannah and her parents?

  There lay the crux. I stared out into the rift of the night sky that allowed me to glimpse the galaxy, and willed an answer to wash over me. If it took
until dawn, I was determined not to leave until I knew of a way to make things right.

  Chapter 5

  Hannah

  “Are all Christian missionaries so stubborn?” Yara’s question held no accusation. Especially since a sweet laugh and a decided sparkle in her eye accompanied it.

  I grunted as I hammered in the last tent stake. My hijab looked four shades darker around the band on my forehead, having done a good job of soaking up the sweat before it ran down into my eyes.

  As of yet, I had no students enrolled in school. I swung the hammer one more time and then rose from my bent position and stepped back. The school that was now officially erected.

  Were we stubborn? As a camel—which were so much more obstinate than donkeys, in my humble opinion. Although maybe driven would be a better word? What would the early disciples have called it, as time after time they were imprisoned for their faith?

  If only my heart didn’t quake and my tongue thicken when I thought about Mom and Dad and their beating. Surely Stephen had not quivered in fear as he’d asked God to forgive those while they were stoning him. Familiar with the stories from Fox’s Book of Martyrs, that the rivers of blood that flowed from believers willing to die for their faith watered a harvest unlike any other, I wouldn’t lie and say I was ready to die. I wasn’t. I wanted to live. Get married. Have babies. Grow old.

  Your will. Not mine.

  My Bible lay open on my pallet, Matthew 16:24–25 highlighted and underlined. I’d taken to reading the passage every day to remind myself, to comfort myself, to rally myself. I closed my eyes and whispered the words from memory, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

  Maybe I was being dramatic, taking the assault on my parents further than its logical conclusion. After all, we’d lived among the Bedouins for most of my life and we’d never had real reason to fear for our safety before.

  “Hannah?” Yara laid a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped.

  “Sorry.” I forced a small smile. “Lost in thought.”

  Her head tilted in a way that said she understood. Though our feet traveled different paths, worry understood worry. Fear, fear. Determination, determination. Emotions were one thing that bound us all. No matter race, gender, religion, background, or worldview, not a single one of us could run from or turn off our feelings…whether they haunted us or welcomed us.

  “Class begins tomorrow, yes?” Her gaze flicked to the steepled structure.

  “I will be here tomorrow.” With my curriculum and lesson plans if nothing else.

  Her hand on my shoulder squeezed. “You will not be alone. Eamon has granted permission for our children to attend your school.” Her eyes sparkled again. “More than permission. He is excited about the prospect, though don’t tell him I told you that. I believe he secretly hopes all three of our little ones will grow up to be great doctors one day.”

  “Anything is possible.” Especially if I enhanced the science curriculum and integrated it into some of the other subjects, like reading, writing, and mathematics.

  The sheen in Yara’s eyes changed as tears developed. “I know.” Her voice cracked, and she covered her mouth with her palm. After a moment she spoke again. “I know. Eamon, he wishes to learn also. From your father.” Her lips curved into a beautiful smile. “He is ready to hear more about Isa.”

  A thrill ran up and down my spine as sheer joy danced in my chest. I wanted to jump and twirl and laugh, but such a display would only draw undue attention, so I settled for a wide smile. Yara and I had been praying for years for Eamon to be open to listening to the Gospel message and the truth of Jesus’s love. And now it’d happened. Prayers answered before our eyes.

  Yara cleared the emotion from her throat. “Along with our children, you will have a few more students as well. At least two other families are willing to allow their children to attend, granted you keep the boys and girls separated.”

  Having the boys sit on one side of the tent and the girls on the other had always been my plan. From there I’d assess their levels and group them accordingly. “Of course.”

  “Good.” Yara wrapped me in her bony arms. “It’s so good to have you back, ’ukht.”

  Sister. It was good to be back.

  “Hannah.”

  My name and the familiar voice had me turning, a smile on my lips for Karim. My mouth drooped, however, as I took in his stony expression. Shoulders bunched under his white thawb. The turban wrapped around his head failed to hide the pulsing of his vein at the temple. Dark crescents rimmed the bottom of his eyes. Had he slept at all last night?

  Always serious, his brooding expression shouldn’t have unnerved me. Why, then, the congealing in my stomach?

  “I need a word with you.” His gaze darted to Yara. “In private.”

  My friend tilted her head toward Karim before meeting my gaze, her eyes communicating that she’d offer up a prayer for me. Which only cinched my belly tighter. Even Yara had picked up on the tension coating the air. The tension that had wound its way through Karim’s sinewy muscles so tightly that it appeared any moment he might snap.

  I took a step toward him, wanting to ease the frown from his forehead. “What is it?”

  He shook his head. “Not here.” He turned and took two steps before looking back over his shoulder. “Follow me.”

  I took no offense at his gruff manner. Culturally, it was acceptable. As a leader, it was expected. Those reasons weren’t what made me place my sandals within the footprints he’d left in his wake. It was the guardedness of his eyes. The wariness of his tone. He wished to speak with me openly, not within hearing distance of others who might judge him for his words and actions.

  I followed him to the rock face, the cave he’d shown me when I was ten. The Bedouins are a nomadic people. Transient. Always moving. But like migrating butterflies, they returned to the same destinations. Karim had a special spot in almost every place his father had stopped the clan to pitch their makeshift town. Over the years he’d shared a few of them with me.

  I particularly remembered this one. It was after a big wedding feast. The first I’d ever attended in my new country. The ceremony had been so different from my aunt’s wedding in Iowa. She’d gotten married in a big puffy gown, lit a unity candle, and a woman had sung “The Lord’s Prayer.” Afterward, at the reception, they kissed any time someone rang a bell, and we’d all eaten poached salmon and steamed broccoli. But here? I’d been fascinated by everything. That is until I had taken my first bite of the traditional wedding feast’s main course…and then lost my contents in front of everyone. Their laughter rang in my ears as I stumbled away from the merriment.

  Karim had followed me, a smile crinkling the corners of his dark eyes, a cloth napkin in one hand and a cup of juice in the other. I’d wiped my mouth and swished that juice over my tongue until it turned warm. Then I’d swallowed, slightly less mortified now that my taste buds had something else to cling to. Wordlessly, he’d led me up here, and we’d watched the festivities like hawks in their nest.

  We sat at the mouth, our legs dangling over the edge, hands inches apart as they braced in the dirt beside our thighs. I waited. Karim would speak when he was ready.

  “The elders want me to marry.” His face pointed out toward the horizon, as if he were willing the expanse to snatch his words as soon as they left his mouth.

  Surprise stilled my finger, which had been drawing circles in the loose sand on the stone ground. Karim hadn’t married? At thirty it was past time for him to have taken a wife and have children. At least, the way things worked here anyway.

  As if reading my thoughts, he glanced at me with a smirk. “I should say, marry again.” He looked back out at the endless desert landscape. “My wife died of a terrible fever that not even your parents could save her from.”

  I studied him, looking for signs of grief for his de
ceased wife or anger at my parents for not being able to save her. His words were spoken as if he were reciting a fact from a textbook. Something that had occurred that was far removed from him. Like it hadn’t touched him personally at all. “I’m sorry.”

  “Every woman in the region has been presented to me.” He continued as if he hadn’t heard me, and I wondered if his wife’s death had affected him so little or if the opposite were true. Had he been so in love with her that it was too painful to even mention the loss?

  “There are many wonderful women who would make you a good wife.”

  The corner of his lip tilted a fraction even as his head gave an imperceptible shake. Then he turned his full gaze on me. The one that plunged deep inside my soul. “Speak to me as a friend, Hannah.”

  I swallowed against the dryness in my throat, the awareness that rippled from my center like a stone tossed in a still lake. I looked into Karim’s face, seeing so many familiar things, memories of the boy I’d grown up with, but assaulted with the awareness of everything new. Of the man he’d become.

  At this distance, every hair of his beard became defined. The lighter brown tones mixed with the darker ones that matched the slightly curly hair of his head. The scar that ran along his jaw from a hunting accident when he was sixteen. The faint lines that said he smiled too little. The deeper ones that said he frowned too often.

  His gaze washed over me, and I was on the other side of the scrutiny. What would he discover about me? Had I changed so much in six years? Or in the seventeen since we’d first became friends?

  “Why don’t you want to marry any of those women, Karim?”

  His gaze searched me, captured mine, and probed. “I don’t want to be bound in another loveless marriage.”

  My lungs constricted and held. Then he looked away, and all my breath whooshed out, leaving me a little dizzy. He hadn’t loved his first wife. My stomach tumbled in a funny way. I tried to make sense of everything. The things he was saying, the weird things I was feeling, the way he’d looked at me.