The next morning Deker and Elezar, along with the Judah Division officers Salmon and Achan, left the camp at Shittim and headed toward Adam. The small town was a good seventeen kilometers upstream from Shittim and a full day's march. So they rode on camels instead of horses to cut the number of times they had to stop for water.
The entire area was controlled by the Israelite tribe of Gad, which was going to commit its troops to the crossing into Canaan but keep the land east of the Jordan. Deker thought the choice ill-advised, as the Gadites would forever expose themselves to attack on three sides, whereas the tribes that crossed the Jordan and settled in Canaan would have the river to their east and mountains all around as natural barriers.
But it wasn't worth the fight to second-guess a Gadite. That much Deker could tell halfway along the march when they watered their camels at a small town in the low plains called Beth-Nimrah. More than two hundred armed Gadites were waiting to escort them the rest of the way to Adam. Big, burly warriors with rough beards and sheepskin caps, the Gadites clearly helped Bin-Nun's army flex its muscle wherever it went. Their torn tunics looked like rags on their swarthy physiques, which revealed a definite penchant for body piercings but, oddly, no tattoos.
Deker had tried to explain to Bin-Nun back at Shittim that this was going to be a small operation. But Bin-Nun would have none of it, insisting on a full contingent of Gadites to assist Deker in damming the Jordan at Adam. Furthermore, Bin-Nun had also insisted on not allowing Deker to carry his C-4 but instead entrusting the bricks to Achan and the detonators to Salmon.
Only if they succeeded with the dam would Bin-Nun reconsider sending Deker on to Jericho with the rest of the C-4 that Kane the Kenite was holding on to. Such was the trust Deker had inspired with the general after his successful spy mission in Jericho.
Some things never changed.
"So I hear you got some milk and honey in the Promised Land," Achan said, riding up on his camel beside him after they left the town. "And I hear she's got money too."
The young Judean was starting to amuse Deker as a comic foil to his big and sober friend Salmon, who was leading the line at the front with Elezar and one of the Gadites.
Deker dodged the question with a wink and asked, "Salmon still have a bug up his ass because he wasn't the first to cross the Jordan?"
"He thinks that General Bin-Nun has shown no faith in Yahweh by following your plan."
"So we should wait for the waters to dam themselves at Adam?"
"If Bin-Nun wants the people to see that Yahweh's favor rests on him as with Moses, yes," Achan said. "Salmon believes you are stealing Yahweh's thunder with your magic mud bricks."
"Is that all?" Deker asked.
"He also says that the blazing star you wear proves we're doomed. That we may well conquer the Promised Land, only to fall into the same evil as those whom Yahweh has brought judgment upon. Salmon's feelings run deep like the Jordan."
For a moment Deker was tempted to give Achan some consolation to share with his good friend Salmon. But whatever else he was, he was no liar.
"You got that right," Deker said, and watched Achan's face fall. "Tell Salmon I've seen the future of Israel, and this blazing star is it. Unless he prefers no future at all."
Achan's shoulders slumped and they rode on in gloomy silence.
Deker knew he could have spun a tale of a victorious future for Israel. But as he gazed at the yawning, rocky desert all around, he knew Israel's future promised even more desolate wandering and backsliding than the past forty years in the Sinai Desert.
The same arid emptiness had swallowed his own soul long ago, Deker realized. His own pilgrimage to adulthood and later through several twenty-first-century wars had been marked by the same physical and spiritual wanderings as these Hebrews. He, too, had been prone to pursue anything but the faith of his fathers, intent instead to carve his own way through the world, consequences be damned.
Now he wondered if his own future was as bleak as Israel's, even if he ultimately did succeed in saving Rahab and razing the walls of Jericho. For the first time, he could appreciate Salmon's angst. To win a war and lose your soul was no victory at all. Only his thoughts of Rachel's and Rahab's common faith in Yahweh gave him a sliver of encouragement. They saw hope for a world he had long thought hopeless, even if their hope wasn't in humanity itself but in the mercy of the Creator who made them. Too bad the Creator had also apparently left them all to kill one another and make a hell on earth.
Deker began to blink in the harsh glare of the sun as dust caked his face and sweat stung his burning eyes. They stopped briefly to water the camels and snack on wild figs. But there was little small talk, even among the Gadites. Every man seemed content to stay silent in his own thoughts, and Deker was no exception.
The hours wore on and the sun dropped low until at last they came to Adam. The settlement wasn't much to look at-a dozen widely dispersed huts with fire pits and pens for animals-and if Deker had blinked he would have missed it. Then they passed over a ridge between two hills at dusk to behold a massive field of dolmen monuments next to a narrow bend in the Jordan River. In the center was a small cluster of tents around a fire, where forty or so Gadites had pitched camp for them.
Deker stared at the acres of dolmens all around. It was as if he were in the middle of Arlington National Cemetery, surrounded by thousands of tombstones. Suddenly Deker understood. The Gadites weren't there to help him blow the riverbanks with his explosives. They were there in case he failed. They'd simply dam the waters with the dolmens.
Salmon saw it too, and brought his camel around to Deker, scowling all the way over.
"Behold the great faith of General Joshua bin-Nun," Salmon said. "He trusts in Yahweh, yet leaves nothing to chance."