Sinners and the Sea by Rebecca Kanner Page B

but not his dagger.
    Ham also had a dagger, and Japheth a sword that prevented him from squatting with the rest of us when we gathered around the cookfire for lentils and goat meat. Shem could not choose between several weapons, so he had three. My boys were never without their weapons.
    As much as I feared that someone would pull off my scarf and call me a demon woman, having children sometimes left me no choice but to go into town. I pulled my tunic over my sleeping garment, secured my head scarf, and picked up Shem’s club.
    I noticed the vultures circling overhead as I followed the footprints from Shem’s sandals. Once I got to the flesh tents, the footprints disappeared. There were too many tracks to separate them. Raucous laughter and yelling made it hard for me to hear my own thoughts.
    “We have been waiting for you,” a voice called out from one of the tents. I turned to stare into the kohl-ringed eyes of a woman who once was a beautiful girl. The patch of hair had long since grown back, but she was not half so beautiful as she had been when it was missing. Javan kept the difficult women and girls drunk, and there was a mean set to this one’s mouth that she could not hide with a playful voice. I did not know if she recognized me or if she said the same thing to everyone who passed.
    I quickened my pace, angry at Shem for leading me into the sinners. There was nothing but flesh tents and drunks stumbling in and out of them.
    And then I saw him. “Shem!” I called. He was coming toward me down the road but had not seen me because he was staring at one of the tents. “ Shem! ”
    He looked horrified to see me. “Mother!” He glanced nervously at my head scarf. “What are you doing?”
    “What does it appear I am doing?”
    “You did not need to come looking for me. I could not sleep, so I took a walk.”
    “Why did you walk in this direction instead of the opposite one?”
    “I did not want to come upon any wild animals west of Father’s tent.”I let the silence work on him a few breaths. “Mother, do not worry.”
    That seemed to be all I would get out of him. I turned toward home. He looked back over his shoulder when he thought I could not see him. But I could, out of the corner of my eye. What was he gazing at? There was nothing for many cubits in all directions that he should have an interest in.
    “Hurry. We must be home before your father wakes.”
    He smoothed his hair with one hand. Was it disheveled from tossing and turning upon his own sleeping blanket, or someone else’s?
    “Yes, Mother.”
    It was not only for fear of someone seeing my mark that I wanted to hasten our steps. I could not help hearing the voices that called from the tents as we walked away. Coy, beckoning voices. Calling my son’s name.

CHAPTER 17
    JAVAN’S PROPOSAL
    J avan sometimes stopped by with wine and lewd remarks. “You grow more handsome each day,” she told Shem. “Soon you will not be able to walk down the road without girls throwing themselves upon their backs in front of you.”
    Shem looked at the ground as though he had dropped something precious there. He was not modest, so it did not seem a good sign that Javan’s remarks humbled him.
    “Best to marry him off before he gets into trouble,” she said to me.
    It would have pleased me greatly for Herai to marry one of my sons. I cherished her company, and I wanted to make sure she would be safe even if something happened to Javan. But Noah would not allow it—not only because Herai was slow but because he had decided that Javan was a demon. “What mere woman could kill so many people, including men who are stronger than she?” he asked.
    “What man can live for over five hundred years?”
    Fearing the back of his hand, I stepped away from him. But though his lips trembled with rage, he did not strike me. In fact, he had never struck me. He said only, “The God of Adam has given me each of those years.”
    Perhaps He has given Javan her strength