Covenant of War by Cliff Graham

Author:Cliff Graham [Graham, Cliff]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: War, Thriller, History
ISBN: 9780310331872
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2012-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

Eleazar crept into the dark room where his children were sleeping. He made his way to the girls first. The two oldest were nestled together under the same blanket as they always were, having stayed up far too late talking and then falling asleep face-to-face.

He reached out his hand to touch their faces, then caught himself. He held his hand steady, feeling their breath on his skin. They would marry not many years from now. He wondered if he would be there to see it.

He made his way slowly to the other side of the room, where the two younger girls had also fallen asleep side by side. He slowly pulled the blanket at their feet over their waists. They stirred but did not wake. He looked at their faces, their necks, the way their hair was tangled.

The memories he had of all of their births were fading. He could only recall a few details, like how the midwives had made the announcement, or what joke Josheb had said when he heard it was another girl. Yahweh, forgive me for not being a better father, and for every time I pushed them aside.

Then he found his son where he always somehow was in the middle of the night, curled up under the bench in the corner. No matter where Eleazar or Rizpah would lay their son down, he would always wake up the next morning under the bench. For a while it had been out in the alley. “My brothers were that way too,” Rizpah had said once. “Maybe boys are born restless.”

Eleazar rested his hand on the boy’s ankle. As he sat still in the darkness, listening to all of them breathe, he saw his father walking toward him across a field. He had weapons in his hands, and his face was proud. Eleazar saw his own son practicing with the bow, and chasing his sisters with the spear.

And then he imagined that he was sitting in a still forest, listening for Yahweh’s voice in the trees as the wind passed, whispering. The days of his life were growing short and cold. He knew it in his soul.

Eleazar sat a while longer, wondering what it would be like to live in peace, only fighting off scorpions in the common room and marauding crows from his crops. Then he stood and crept back out, his heart aching with love and grief.

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