Chapter 8
The Desert Thief ~ continued from Chapter 8 | They Have Taken David
Yazan dragged an old rug underneath the wagon and placed it as a barrier against the sandstorm.
“But now we wait.”
Shimea the farmer had already planted the seeds of his brother’s rescue. In his mind he prepared the sharp tools he would use to dispatch the men like so much chaff on the threshing floor.
“But one must live and talk,” he told himself.
Shimea knew that David was different and that their mother was protective of him for a reason. The mother and son bond was a much more complicated and twisted one with David.
He would turn the soil around him bright red. He touched the ax from the supply wagon and adjusted the long knife that he kept under his robes. The farmer also knew that this was not a battle fought over a small, stony pasture but rather down large tracts of land between great powers with sharp weapons that dug deep into the soil.
The day after the storm Yazan said, “We go to the wadi at Hadramaut,” and he took his stick and tapped Baby so she would kneel.
Baby shook her head at Yazan and pawed at the sand. She spat and kneeled to allow the two to climb onto the leather saddle.
The caravan camp was in chaos and nobody would miss the two boys; men and women had to reload cargo and find their belongings after the great storm had broken the camp’s routine.
“We are two days away,” said Yazan as he grabbed Shimea’s arm and placed him in the back of the dusty and rugged saddle.
Yazan hit Baby’s rump and with a high-pitched squeal of joy he left the caravan for the deep sands that led to Hadramaut.
“Yelllllllllaaaa yelllllaaaa,” could be heard far off in the distance and echoed back from a high plains dune. “Yellllllaaaa yell la aaa.”
The two boys disappeared into the desert, their water bags and pouches flying side to side as Baby raced along the great sands.
“This is where they will be,” Yazan turned back to Shimea.
“I will kill them,” Shimea yelled into the wind.
“We make a plan. Yes,” Yazan said.
“We come upon them at night in their tents and slice their throats,” Shimea said.
“Very good plan,” Yazan smiled.
The wadi at Hadramaut was distinctive and large with many other branch wadis along its route: Dar, Amad and Bin Ali. It flowed parallel to the Arabian Peninsula about 200 miles from the coast.
“There are many places to hide, many wadis.” Yazan pointed to his tightly wrapped head. “But I know where these pigs will be. I know.”
“Yazan,” Shimea asked. “What’s a wadi?”
Silence filled the desert as Yazan thought how to answer him.
The sand like the sea washed all around David.
The two ragged kidnappers walked on foot as they held the reins of the camels and behind them was David.
“Wait.” The thin man stopped and put his finger in the air, divining the way forward. “We have the boy?”
“Yes,” replied the dirty, fat thief. A large, leather belt hung loosely around his girth.
“We have the money?”
The rotund man quickly went for his belt beneath his dress.
“Yes,” he chuckled to himself. “Yes.”
He put his finger to his lips, “But I fear not for long.”
“What do you mean?”
The camels stopped and spat before bowing their giant heads to chew the sparse vegetation. David flopped down in the sand.
“Once you have a plan.”
“What’s wrong with my plans you nasty, fat, little camel herder?” He glared at his long-time friend. “May the hooves of your camels be your bedfellows,” he said.
The fat man looked at his friend.
“Well, Father was a one-armed beggar and Mother was something of a whore,” the thief began. “No, I don’t think there was a camel herder in the family.”
“Oh, you fool,” said the thin man before he stormed off.
“Camel herding?”
“Fool, all I am saying is that we can double our money.”
David stood and looked up into the sun and sand.
“Can we hurry things along?”
“Hurry things along?” The fat man turned back. “Excuse me but we are busy.”
“Listen.” The other thief grabbed his friend by his robe. “We’ll sell the little urchin.”
“Wonderful, how much do good urchins go for these days?” He looked off into the desert. “And what is an urchin?”
He laughed and giggled, rolling the word urchin around his mouth, “Urchinnnnn.”
The fat man did a little dance among the sand dunes. He stuck his toe in the sand and moved his belly in a crude fashion toward David. His eyes grew like saucers as he continued to move back and forth and swung his fat hips erotically. He put his fingers to his face and pouted.
“Little boy,” he called to David.
“May your tent be full of camel dung!”
The thin thief smacked the other thief around his head and pushed him around the sand dunes. “What’s wrong with you? Did your camel kick you in the head?”
He grabbed his fat friend and turned him toward David.
“Him, the boy, sell him to a slave trader.”
“But the Moab priest?” The fat man was confused. “What do we tell him?”
“Yes, you’re right.” The other man walked off, his hands up in the air. “The reports we will write, our meeting each and every afternoon for tea in the garden.”
He turned back to his friend. “You perhaps will write the reports of our thievery and deception.”
“Not me, my friend.”
“And have you ever seen me write on parchment, anything at all?” he said while he drank from his water bag.
“In the streets of Damascus while thieving and stealing,” the fat thief said. “No.”
“Do you think there will be any reports or files, any meetings, any afternoon teas with the Moab priest, my stupid, fat friend?”
“Do we need any help and directions as to where we are going,” David yelled.
Both men turned toward David.
“Quiet. Nothing from you, boy,” the thief yelled.
The plump man shook his head and raised his hands and with one finger made a circular motion with his head and then pointed to his confidant. He then shrugged his shoulders in apology toward David.
“So, my fine camel-breath friend,” the leader continued. “Any letters or meetings or perhaps shoulder rubbing at the local smoking club planned with our dour, fanatical Moab priest any time soon?”
The fat thief looked down at the sand and kicked it away with his broken sandal.
“Well, perhaps not, maybe,” he looked up sheepishly.
“Good. So he is sold to the next slave trader.”
The leader looked off into the desert.
“And I know the perfect place, the dark place, the dark copper mines at Timna.”
He looked back at the sun-drenched boy bound by rags and already beaten by time.
“He will die there.”
Continue reading… Chapter 9 | I Dig Up Buried Souls
[…] Chapter 9 The Copper Mines ~ continued from Chapter 8 | The Fat Thief […]