Mark Buchanan
Mar 12, 20205 min
He stands naked before the wind. It pummels him with
fists of gusting. It pulls his hair sharply back, tugs hard his flesh. It
scours all that is loose in him. He opens his mouth to swallow it. It empties
him and fills him. He anchors down his heels against the massive weight of the
wind’s wild blowing, and pushes himself into it to stay upright.
The sensation is of
flying.
Many things come hard
for him – speaking with his father, dealing with his brothers, watching his
mother’s mute anguish – but this comes easy: opening himself wide to the wind,
the breath, the ruach. Bending
himself whole to it. Letting nothing – no cloak, no shield, no armor, not even
his tunic – come between him and whatever the ruach does in him, however the ruach
does it.
Here he is in his
element. Here all things are clear. Here all things are possible. He is truly
fully undividedly himself.
He is David.
***
This is the best part of the day. The sun is down, but
night still waits to spread its cloak. Darkness is only a rumor at the edge of
earth. Colors drench the sky. Wind sweeps fields and drives out wilting heat.
The white stones that knuckle the hillsides glow. Jasmine releases its perfume.
Olive leaves, like handheld mirrors sending cryptic signals, flash silver.
And everything wakes.
Birds burst with one last fanfare of song, one last flourish of flight. Insects
in grass and sky whirr, and click, and thrum. Animals scuttle, groundlings
slither.
The sheep rouse with
fresh hunger.
And he rouses, too. The
langor of mid-day falls off him in a rush. He is quick and light, keenly
watchful.
Which
is good. Which is needed. Because the lion rouses, too.
He
loves this. This alertness in himself. His own sheer aliveness. The deep
calling to deep within him, like the roar of a waterfall. The air shimmers
bright, as if angels are about to sing. He steadies him, readies himself for
come what may.
He
rubs the pocket of his slingshot warm and soft, and then cradles in it one of
the stones he’d plucked from the stream this morning. It’s round and smooth and
green. It will be a shame to lose it. But an instinct, sharp and urgent as a
thorn, tells him he’ll need it, and soon.
He’s
asked his father Jesse three times for a proper weapon. A sword or a javelin.
He knows his father keeps a smithy hidden in the hills above their farm. The
Philistines have banned all smithies, to keep Israel from arming herself.
Farmers who need a hoe or rake or adze made or repaired must travel to Gath or
Ashkelon and hire a Philistine blacksmith, who charges double, sometimes triple
the price. Then the farmer is checked as he leaves Philistia, to make sure he
has paid no bribe to acquire a small sword or dagger. It is one of many reasons
the people hate the Philistines. And it is one of many reasons they are starting
to resent their own king, Saul: his weakness has reduced them to this thrall,
this humiliation, this smallness. In taverns and fields, men whisper to one
another a question that has dogged the king his entire reign: “Can Saul save
us?”
Jesse has taken matters
into his own hands. Every week or so, he goes out at nightfall to his smithy
hidden in the hills and works until daybreak. The cover of night hides the
smoke trail from his furnace that vents through a crevice of rock. He blocks
the cave entrance with thick bramble and foliage to deaden the ring of his
hammering on the forge. He comes down in early morning with a bundle on his
back wrapped in thick cloth. When he unfolds the cloth, sword blades, spear
heads, spikes clank out. He’s given weapons to his three oldest sons, and
trained their hands for war. Now he sells weapons to other farmers.
He’s never given one to
David.
“You are a shepherd boy.
You have a slingshot. You have a knife. What more do you need?”
***
The sun-starched land turns blue with shadow. David
rises to gather his sheep. As he steps down from his perch, he sees a deeper
shadow move swift and furtive between rocks. A lone sheep is just beyond the
fastness of those rocks. The sheep’s neck is bent to a lush tussock of grass.
It is oblivious to danger. David runs down the steep incline, zigzagging, and
when he reaches the valley floor he sprints straight.
The sheep is still
grazing. The lion, he guesses, is still crouching behind the rock.
Then the lion, quick as
thought, bursts its cover. David is still a hundred paces away. He cannot catch
it. His sling hangs ready in his left hand. He begins the rapid switching
motion in his wrist that makes the sling’s long tethers loop faster and faster.
It becomes a transparent whorl of air, a thin sharp whistle of sound. He moves
the twirling sling above his head, and then slightly behind it. The lion is so
locked in its bloodlust it doesn’t hear him coming. The sheep raises its head,
suddenly aware of death thundering down. It freezes.
David
can see the lion slowing, coiling on its haunches, preparing to lunge. He picks
a spot where he reckons it will be in the next few seconds, stretches his right
hand to steady his aim, and looses the stone.
The lion crouches full
on its hind quarters, and takes air.
He watches the stone
pierce the dying light. It hastens like a messenger with news of war. It finds
its mark, the back of the lion’s skull. The beast lands hard and staggers
sideways with the blow. The sheep, snapped from its stupor of terror, bolts.
The lion shakes its
head, slow and heavy. It gains its footing, and turns toward David. He still
runs toward it. The lion stands wavering, confused. It takes a few massive
leaps toward the sheep’s retreat, then wheels and comes straight at David.
He
tucks his sling into his pouch and, still running, unsheathes his knife. The
lion regains its strength. It runs at him full-tilt then shifts into a
rearing-up motion, ready to sail at him. David has been counting on this, the
animal’s precision of reflexes. He runs harder. When he and the lion are almost
on each other, the lion leaps. David dives under it, spins on his back. The
animal’s huge body eclipses the sun. Its shadow swallows him whole. As it flies
over him, its taut underbelly almost grazing him, he plunges his knife in its
stomach to the hilt. He holds on with both hands. He feels the massive body
shudder through his blade. The lion’s belly opens like tent flaps. The insides
rush out hot. David rolls away just before it spills out on him.
The
lion hits the ground on its shoulders, and tumbles, and sprawls. It tries to
get up, but can’t. David walks up to it, laid out in its own lake of blood. The
lion turns its head and bares its teeth. No sound comes out. Its yellow eyes
grow dim. It flops its great head to earth, panting. David places his hand flat
on the warm flank of its heaving chest. He holds his hand there, feels the
heart of the animal slow, slow, slow. The lion closes its eyes and stops
breathing.
He
walks over to where he first hit it. On the ground, his green stone looks up at
him like an eye. He picks it up, rolls it in blood-warm hands, and then washes
both in the stream.
He
gathers his sheep and heads home.
Happy to have his sheep
safe. Happy to have his stone back.
(David: Rise Book One releases late March 2020. Watch for early release details and specials.)