Moses, Man of the Mountain (9 page)

M
oses sat there by the spring of water. He saw well-trod paths leading away in several directions. So people lived hereabouts—people with cattle. He began to wonder where he would sleep that night and how. Tomorrow he would visit the mountain. That was settled in his mind. But he was tired now and he wanted a good night’s rest. He wondered if the people who made those paths were neighborly folks or would he have to fight for his life before he found a resting place. The cool of the trees surrounding the spring was homey enough to suit him.

Here came sheep and cattle down one path driven by young voices. All of the animals crowded around the watering trough in eager thirst, stamping and looking for someone to draw the water for them. Down the path came a troop of seven girls who looked to Moses to range in years from about six to seventeen or so. They could not see him so easily from where he sat on the ground at the foot of a sycamore tree. So the girls came with their water jars and filled them first. He watched their happy ways as they spilled little splashes of water on each other in fun. One girl about twelve splashed water from a pot into the face of an older girl and turned to run away. The other one chased her and both of them came tearing towards the spot where Moses sat on the roots of the tree. They both saw
him at the same time and halted dead in their tracks with little screams of alarm. They whirled as quickly as they could and ran back to the well. He could see them telling the rest of them about finding him. They pointed the place out to the tallest of the girls. They all looked worried for a moment and seemed about to go away without watering the stock at all. At this Moses stood up and made a gesture of friendliness and sat down again. They set down their water jugs and began to draw water for the cattle and to laugh and talk again.

Then from another direction came bursting three young men who were, Moses estimated, between seventeen and twenty-one years old. They rushed down upon the little party about the well, whooping, driving off the cattle and scattering them all about. The girls ran in fright and began to hide wherever they could—all except the tallest one. She stood her ground at the well where she was pulling up a bucket of water and looked at what was going on with a great hatred in her eyes. She stood there until she saw one of the boys deliberately trip up one of her sisters as she ran from him in terror. She heard his big ugly laugh as the girl fell sprawling on her face. Then she set down the bucket and flew at him with her little fists. The other two boys were scattering stock and little girls in every direction.

Moses forgot the resolve he had made in Egypt to mind his own business and leave other folks’ affairs alone. He leaped from his place and rushed to the aid of the girl who was being shaken violently by the man whom she had tried to chastise for hurting her little sister. Moses sent in a smashing blow to the head that sent him to his knees. As he was rising, Moses slapped his face with the flat of his sword and sent him down again. This time he did not try to get up. He looked at the sword first and then Moses and saw him all over. He stayed on his knees and raised his hands for mercy. Moses’ scorn of the bully mounted at his cowardice so he snatched him to his feet and knocked him down again. Pick on little girls, would he, then just as soon as he faced a man, beg for mercy! He left
the man on the ground and went after the others and chased them completely away.

The girls crowded around him, all talking at once and acting out their gratitude. He could not understand a word they said but he read their gestures. So he helped them to round up their cattle again and to water them. Then they waved shy little goodbye gestures and followed their stock back up the way they had come.

Moses sat back down under the sycamore tree. He still didn’t know where he was going to sleep that night and the sun was setting. It went down and down and at last it hung like a big gold dishpan against the wall of God. Just then the tallest of the girls came back down the path and motioned him to follow her home. He got up and walked behind her at a respectful distance for fear that she might not feel safe with him. In less than half a mile of walking they came out in a big clearing, with a huge tent under shade trees and cattle pens and all the things that make up the household of a patriarch.

The master of the place met him at the gate and made him welcome. He was an oldish man with a gray beard. But his eyes were large and dark and they had power in them. Moses felt his personality before he spoke. To the surprise of Moses he could speak Egyptian well.

“Come right in, Moses, and make yourself at home.”

“How did you know my name was Moses?”

“I don’t know it. But that is what you were thinking when you came up.”

“That certainly is the truth. I was wondering whether to tell you my real name or not. You have the advantage of me now, because you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Jethro is the name my father named me. As chief of my clan I am chief Jethro. Otherwise, I am Ruel. Among the Kenites a priest has a ceremonial name, too. Pretty general habit all over the land of Midian. But I guess you already know that.”

“Well, I tell you, it’s like this. Over there where I come
from, news from this side of the Red Sea don’t get around very fast.”

“Let’s table that discussion and take up one more important. I certainly am mighty much obliged to you for looking out for my girls down at the well this evening—but wait, don’t say a word till I get you inside on a couch so you can slip out of those shoes and rest your feet. The womenfolks are out there around the cook pots stirring up something to eat.”

Moses sat down on a low couch and took off his shoes. A servant brought a basin of water to wash his feet. So he took off his sword and headdress and made himself comfortable.

“Now to go back to this business of my daughters at the well.”

“That was no more than decency demanded. No man would stand and let a gang of ruffians mistreat girls.”

Moses looked at Jethro and saw a man dignified and graying. He looked as if he was supposed to be listened to, but there was no insistence on his face. He looked capable of guiding people, but he didn’t look as if he were determined to do it. Wisdom and a kind of strength were gathered together in the man, but his self-confidence had not driven off simplicity. He knew little sorrow[s] and joys as well as big ones. He looked as if he could understand and talk with shepherds as well as kings. So Moses was not surprised when he spoke to hear him dropping into idiom of the simple people. It took nothing from his majestic hearing, and somehow it fitted him. Moses was constrained to meet him on his level as they talked.

“But, Moses, it didn’t just happen today. Nearly every day those same rough varmints annoy my children. Law and order is in a terrible state in Midian.”

“If what I saw today is a sample, it sure is,” Moses agreed.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. I am getting along in years, you know. Not the man I once was at all. It hurts me to see my girls shoved around every time they go to water the cows.”

“It’s none of my business, but why do you send the girls?
Why not send your sons and your menservants?” Moses asked.

“It is a shameful situation, Moses. I hate to talk about it, but my wife don’t have nothing but girls. Seven children and not a boy! Why, I can’t hold up my head around here. They say I am too weak to father boys.”

“Nothing to be ashamed about at all, Jethro. Why don’t you send your menservants to water the cows? Send somebody that can strain with those hoodlums.”

“They have run away, my menservants, all but one and he is old. Those wretches would kill him sure if he went down to the well.”

“But, Jethro, why do they run off your cattle and bother your girls?”

“Well, I tell you, Moses, my house has always been powerful. From generation to generation it was that way. Right and justice prevailed in all Midian. But for the last few years a weak King has been on the throne and the robbers and things are just about to take us. Nobody is afraid of the King so people do not respect their chiefs and the country is gone to the dogs. Nobody can have any more than he has the might to protect. It all started with the downfall of the Hyksos in Egypt many years ago. Bands of them retreating before the Egyptians’ army overran this country and got things so upset we just haven’t been able to get straight since. No real unity any more. If a chief hasn’t got an army of his own, he’s in a mighty poor fix. Our menservants ran off and joined up with gangs who live in caves and what not. They drive off cattle and raid encampments. My own herds have been raided until I am a poor man. The three men you whipped yesterday are runaway servants turned bandits. Because I am a priest they are afraid to come up here. But they hang around the well, terrify my girls and stampede the cattle. Each day or so we lose another beast which I reckon they have killed to eat.” There was a sad resignation in the voice of Jethro. “So I reckon the day will come when we won’t have any stock to water.”

“Not necessarily so. They could be stopped,” Moses said belligerently.

Jethro shook his head slowly. “No, I am afraid it’s too late. We have no man power to fight and that is what it takes.”

The tallest girl came into the tent and began to put the food before her father and Moses. She arranged lamps to the best advantage and this time Moses happened to look up and see her squarely in the face. To him her eyes looked so large and brilliant that the rest of her face was a suburb. Her whole body was extremely pleasant to look at and something about her made every cell in his body thrust out its head.

Moses turned to Jethro after the girl went out of the tent and said, “If they come around stealing cattle while I am here they better bring their good luck charm along because they are going to need it.”

“Oh, you mustn’t let my talk drag you into something that may get you hurt. By the way, that oldest girl of mine is named Zipporah. You must excuse me for running my mouth so much that I haven’t introduced you to the family.”

“That is the second time that you have read my mind, Jethro. You must teach me how to do that.”

“It is a gift and not a learning, Moses. But to get back to this cattle business, I can’t thank you enough for what you did down at the well. The girls came home and told me about the high-class Egyptian sitting by the well who fought the boys with the strength of ten men.”

“How did they know I was a high-born Egyptian? I might have been anybody at all from anywhere.”

“Moses, I never saw anybody who looked more like what he was than you do. You are the quality, and no mistake about it. I asked the girls why they had left a stranger who had protected them so unselfishly, sitting by a well. Zipporah said that in her excitement she forgot her manners. So you must excuse her, Moses. She is very young.”

“That is natural and neither of you need to apologize for your manners nor your hospitality.”

The two men ate alone with the three oldest girls serving them. There was some music and laughter after supper and Moses forgot that he ever had been tired or unhappy in his
life. He went to bed and slept soundly and was up with the sun and walking over the place. He hoped that Zipporah would be around early too. He felt strongly the need of the sight of her. There was no thought of the adventures of the open road in his head that morning.

And there was the mountain to see and to feel. No, he did not desire to go away from here. His cells had the memory of this locality. It was easy for Moses to conceive that the dust that he was made from came off of that mountain there. This was the place that had called him in his unfinished dreams since childhood. He had been here often, by some mysterious forecast of dreams. Nobody here seemed strange and everything seemed familiar. He even found it natural and easy to drop into the dialect of the people with Jethro and the others whom he met. He talked it deliberately to put everybody at their ease. It was only in moments of stress in the times that were to come that he instinctively reverted to the language of the court. But here he blended into the background. This was his resting place, his eternal niche in infinity. The mountain hovered over him and called him as a mother would. He must go up and embrace his mother. He told Jethro how he felt while Jethro showed him over the place after breakfast.

“I know it,” Jethro said, “and I beg you to stay here with me. In fact, I felt you coming somehow. I was not a bit surprised when the girls got back with the cows and told me about you. I feel a great power in you that you don’t know anything about as yet. I really hope that you will make up your mind to stay here.”

“Oh, I like it here,” said Moses.

“I’m glad to hear that, Moses. I hope you won’t find things too uncomfortable around here. Of course I’m a chief and a Prince in Midian, but I realize that’s not like being a Prince in Egypt. We don’t have any court life and no formality. A Prince in Midian can herd his own sheep if he has a mind to and nothing said about it.”

“That sounds just fine. Formality can get too burdensome.”

“Well, you see in Egypt the rulers don’t have to go near the
people, but here a chief is looked on as the sort of father of his tribe. He can go without sandals and most of us just talk the language of the people. I have traveled some and that is how I learned Egyptian, but I don’t get a chance to use it much around here.”

“I want to talk the dialect of your people. Its no use of talking unless people understand what you say.”

“That’s right, Moses. Well, we’ll get in a lot of practice on it if you stay around here. We won’t have a chance to talk our high Egyptian except when we’re off by ourselves. And then it’s always a great advantage when you’re managing people to be able to speak their kind of language. Stiff words frighten poor folks. I hope you stay here, Moses. You will make a fine friend for a man.”

“I thank you for your compliments, Jethro. When you don’t know anything about me or nothing. I ought to tell you about myself before I accept your home as my own.”

“Plenty of time for the little details of your life. I know that you are brave and honest. Everything else about a person is garnishment.”