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The men of Bet Company are poised on the precipice of battle, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at them. They come from the fields and crops of the Jezereel valley, sons of Zebulon and Naphthali, whose labor-rough hands exchanged plowshares for spears when the summons came two moons ago: Barak, Son of Abinoam, was calling in the name of the Lord.
For weeks now they have been training under the strong arm and stern gaze of Lt. Nathanel of Fick, whose platoon I have been assigned to chronicle. From observing their drills and war games, I know that they are ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. No man is ever more than a cubit’s length away from his choice of arms, and their shoes stay laced, even in sleep.
But it is Shabbat, and a blanket of tranquility falls on the camp. Some men congregate for shacharit; some gather just to shoot the shit. Most find themselves at some point wandering out to the gates of camp, hoping for a glimpse of some familiar faces from home, and more than that, for the familiar tastes – of dates, of cakes, of home-cooked anything.
On a grassy hill facing east, Sergeant Brad Kol Bar lies back, eyes closed and hands folded behind his head. With his long figure, biceps you could crack nuts with, a gold dusting of hair, and powerful muscles under tanned skin, when he stretches his limbs he looks like a great mountain tiger basking in the sun.
Moments later, settling back into his little nest of winter wildflowers, the resemblance shifts closer to a kitten. He reaches out with one arm and picks a yellow flower from the underbrush by his hair, sticking the stem in his mouth. To his right rests an entire pile of discarded stems, the tragic fate of any yellow flower misfortunate enough to have been spotted by the Sergeant, only to be chewed up and spit back out.
The silence is broken, as it inevitably almost always is, not by the trumpets of war, but by Corporal Ray’s panic-laced voice. “Did you hear the news?”
He appears from the south, carrying a clothed bundle – sweets to share – hair messy, eyes wide. “My sister just told me, man. They’re saying – I can’t even say it aloud, it can’t be true,” he says, distraught.
Corporal Joshua Ray, Son of Agas, is the Sergeant’s right-hand man. He’s a bright-eyed, black-haired footsoldier who talks a mile a minute and would give his life for the Sergeant but never say so aloud. They grew up on neighboring plots and developed the sort of mild-meld that keeps them five steps ahead of anyone else in a conversation.
“Ray,” the Sergeant says, not opening his eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about.”
Okay, not always.
Ray sinks down to the ground. I can barely hear the response he mumbles into his hands, but it sounds like, They’re saying Jalo’s dead.
“They’re saying what?” the Sergeant asks.
“They said Jael’s dead, Brad!” Ray says, flinging his arms wide. At this, the Sergeant finally appears to be affected.
He rises to lean on his elbows, and gives it a moment of thought. “Bullshit,” he finally decides.
“What, you’re telepathic now? You can’t know it’s not true,” Ray says.
“J can take care of herself,” the Sergeant says.
“I’m less than assured by your completely arbitrary speculation that she’s okay. God, Brad.” His voice breaks. “If she’s dead, where are we going to get our dairy?”
Jael the Kenite is somewhat of a fixture in the valley. Twenty years ago, she and her husband pitched a tent by the northern marshes, and Jael’s combination of selective hospitality, quality livestock, a secret cheese and sourdough recipe, and a sharp mind, soared her business into widespread success on both sides of the undefined border. The food she served was legendary; the conversation, if she deigned you worthy enough to partake in, unforgettable. It was no secret that Corporal Ray harbored what might generously be called a crush on the woman, though officially, he’d only ever harbored a crush on her cheese.
I can’t tell if the Sergeant’s dismissal of Ray’s concerns is genuine, or just a front put on to comfort his friend. The way the men speak of Brad Kol Bar, you’d think the blood in his veins was icier than a Jordan river tributary.
He taps Ray on the shoulder. “Let it go. You’ll see her on the other side of the war.”
The art of letting things go is a talent that Ray Son of Agas does not easily possess. It applies to the small things – “I can’t believe you can eat that shit,” a pointed glance at the Sergeant’s discarded pile of sour yellow stems, followed by an adamant: “I am not sharing a tent with you tonight if you pay me”; and also to the bigger ones: for the rest of the day, he will continue to extol the virtues of Jael and spread the rumor of her demise to anyone who will listen.
Some men grow worried. Others speculative. Others still are not interested in her fate – the wife of Heber, friend to Hatzor. One of the platoon commanders – a man less-than-fondly nicknamed Captain Nafthali – spits on the ground when he hears the unconfirmed rumors. “She was never one of the tribe,” he confides in me. “The men were too close to her.”
And you? I ask him.
“I don’t care about that kind of stuff.”
What does Captain Nafthali care about?
“Just one thing,” he’ll say to anybody who will listen. “Killing that motherfucker Sisera.”
Nafthali has a plan. It seems to be composed of three steps: lead his platoon at the forefront of the attack, hunt down the head of the enemy forces Sisera and cut him down brutally, and receive glory for generations to come. He plans to have no men, and certainly no women, standing in his way.
He will discover what happens when man plans.