Chapter 10
Yazan ~ continued from Chapter 10 | I Am An Outcast
The men’s horses, fine and powerful Arabian mounts, were eating while two small camels tied to a tree were grazing on wild plants. Saddlebags, water bags and rough blankets were spread out over the hard plain like something from a lost adventure.
The camels brayed and spat.
“They can’t ride far,” Yazan whispered to Shimea. “They don’t have enough camels.”
Baby finally roused herself from a deep sleep and stood up, towering over the horses and two smaller camels. She tossed her head and snorted loudly at the small company.
“Where do you come from?” Shimea said.
The men busied themselves with breakfast and paid no attention to the questions. Laughter erupted over a small joke and one man spat his tea into the fire.
“He rode all the way back.”
He laughed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He coughed a little and tears came to his eyes as he swallowed the wrong way. The others looked over, stood back and laughed at the large man.
He wore a black keffiyeh and flowing black robes. He was the tallest and although they laughed the men stood by in respect.
“You dogs,” he laughed at himself. “I’ll cut you and feed you to the vultures.”
He wiped away his tears and quickly mounted his white Arabian stallion.
“We ride.” He looked over the two boys. “Ta’ala.”
One of the other men grabbed Shimea and lifted him up behind him onto his saddle.
The leader motioned to Baby who was still eating plants and brambles.
“Take the beast.”
Without argument Yazan moved to put Baby down on her knees and jumped into the saddle.
The horses flew past high plains, down narrow ribbon trails, then back along hairpin turns that with dust blowing up made it impossible to see. They rode mile after mile like this until they came to a gully that vultures circled. Some birds circled while others sat atop a carcass, large and clothed in the rough and dirty robes of camel pullers.
“He breathes no more,” said the leader as he stopped and pointed to the body.
Shimea understood finally.
“They killed David’s captors,” he thought to himself.
“You are Sheba’s men?” Shimea asked.
The only answer was resounding hooves that echoed off the rocky plains and fell again and again on the horse trails that spread for miles down from the mountains through the high country and down to the desert floor.
“What about David?” he thought. “Do they have my brother?”
His mind raced as he held tightly to the rider’s waist.
Yazan struggled to keep up but then realized that the horses would stop at the next wadi for water and so he did not hurry. He felt happy for once and knew that his friend David was safe.
His life had been hard as a street orphan in Damascus. Both his parents had died, his mother Abal in childbirth, and his father Aban as a horse thief. But he was quick and survived in the streets when many did not. He knew knowledge was the key and so he outsmarted the local officials, ran faster than the old men he stole from and played innocent with the women who took pity on him and gave him food.
When an old camel trader whom he had stolen from caught him by his tunic, he could not slip out of the weathered man’s grasp. This great, sun-drenched man with a large, white beard did not strike him but rather granted him a small amount of silver.
“I will give you some each day,” the man bellowed as he held the dirty and ragged boy, “or teach you about my trade.”
“Both,” Yazan had shouted while still in the iron grasp of the camel trader.
The large man laughed and let go of the waif.
“Both,” he laughed. He stared down at the lost boy, a skeleton in rags, and agreed.
He stretched out his huge, rough hands. “Both.”
The little bag of bones stood back and looked up at the talking mountain, at his girth and yet the gentleness that shone in his bright, blue eyes.
Yazan felt calm that day as if he knew he were on a path that would save him from the life he was living. He understood he could not survive long without a helping hand. His body was hungry and sometimes he felt sick of all the stealing, lying and running he did each day.
Yazan thought back to Kalil the camel trader and the first story the old man told him while sitting in the open café drinking mint tea:
“Rajw al-hihuud min al-bil,” Kalil began.
He told Yazan that the Jews were the first to have camels. They lived far up in the mountains and kept the best camels hidden from the Bedouin.
“Then on a raid in the mountains we found the Jews in their tents on the high plains. We slaughtered them and took the camels while other camels ran down the mountains. Then the Jews put out a jug of water hoping the camels might some day return.”
“The Jews hope for camels,” Yazan whispered to himself.
Yazan saw the larger-than-life Kalil bending over the small table in the market square.
He sniffed the desert air and could smell the tobacco from Kalil’s hookah pipe, and he saw the trail of smoke as the great man stabbed his finger in the air.
“Abraham brought camels out of Egypt,” he would say between puffs on the hookah.
Continue reading… Chapter 10 | A Wild Breed
[…] Chapter 10 Yazan ~ continued from Chapter 10 | Jews Hope for Camels […]