The Scorpion’s Bite by Aileen G. Baron Read Free Book Online Page B

anywhere without raising suspicion,” Gideon finally said, but that was no answer.
    The King’s Highway led from Syria to Aqabah, from Edom to Arabia Petra, following the ridge east of the Dead Sea and the Arava along a line of freshwater springs. The Romans built Trajan’s road along this route.
    “Armies have come through here from the days of Moses,” Gideon had remarked. “As Moses said to Sihon, king of the Amorites, ‘We will go by the King’s Highway until we have passed thy border.”
    Klaus rolled his eyes again. “He didn’t simply let them pass, did he?”
    “No, they had to fight. Israel smote the Amorites with the edge of the sword, and took their cities.”
    Stopping at an abandoned caravanserai, they had walked among the tumbledown walls of rooms heavy with the odor of urine, of human and animal waste piled in the corners. They sheltered against the wind near an outside wall higher than the others, and spread out their sleeping bags.
    When they were putting up a tarp for protection from the ruthless desert sun, Gideon discovered that two of the tent pegs were missing. He found a fig tree planted at the derelict cistern, and broke off some branches.
    “Does anyone have a knife?” he asked.
    No one did. Gideon picked up a flint cobble and smashed it smartly against a boulder to get a shatter of sharp flint flakes. While Lily and Klaus watched, he used the flakes to scrape the branches smooth and whittle rough points at one end. Using another cobble, he drove the points into the ground, substituting the trimmed branches for the missing tent pegs.
    Lily thought of Jael, who drove a tent peg through the head of the cruel Sisera. But this time Gideon omitted the Biblical reference, and rocked back to admire his handiwork.
    “When I was a child,” he said, “I wanted to be an archaeologist so that if I were lost on a desert island, I would know what to do.” He tightened the rope around the peg. “And now, you see, I know what to do.”
    “This is not an island,” Klaus said. “Just a desert.”
    ***
    Gideon ran his fingers along the ashlar masonry with its polished edges and diagonally tooled bossing. “Nabatean masonry. Reused to build this caravanserai.” He turned to Klaus. “You took a picture of this?”
    “He’s seeing Nabateans again,” Klaus muttered. “If it isn’t Abraham or Moses, it’s the Nabateans.”
    Klaus pointed his camera at the block of limestone, glanced at his watch, then toward the rolling hills to the east.
    “They passed through here.” Gideon leaned his back against the wall, dreaming. “They brought frankincense and spices from Arabia to the sea or to Damascus. Early Christian pilgrims came through here and died by the side of the road. Crusaders fought here.”
    He closed his eyes, while Klaus again looked at his watch. Gideon’s voice became pensive, lost in the past. “In the old days, before the railroad, pilgrim’s caravans on their way to Mecca would travel down this route, stopping each night at a fortified caravanserai like this.
    “They would fetch a fresh supply of water from the cistern, water their animals, spend the night.” Gideon shook himself and stood up. “Just like us.”
    Klaus turned back the cuff of his shirt and glanced at his watch yet again.
    “You have a dentist appointment?” asked Lily.
    Klaus gave her a puzzled look.
    “You keep looking at your watch.”
    “It’s a Schafhausen. I bought it there, you know, in Switzerland, in Schafhausen.” He looked at the east again, across the rutted track to the flint-strewn desert. A slight breeze lifted his hair and he pushed it back. “I escaped Germany through Switzerland, got down the Rhine as far as Schafhausen. Boats unload there because of the Reinfalls. It’s the largest waterfall in Europe.” He paused again, his eyes focused on a distant vision. “The Reinfalls was astonishing. The noise of the roiling water blocked out everything. I stood on the hill of Schloss