Noah Read Online Free Page A

drifting across the plain, was so appetizing that it encouraged Ham to break into a run despite his tiredness. The tents, coated with dust, were the same color as the surrounding hills and would have been invisible to the naked eye if it hadn’t been for the fire. In the dusk the flame was like a beacon, announcing their presence. Despite the fact that the home camp was well sheltered, Noah felt nervous. As far as he was concerned, the encroaching civilization was getting too close for comfort.
    “Mother! Mother!”
    As Ham pounded up to the camp, the flap of the largest tent was pushed aside and a woman emerged. She was carrying a tiny infant, a newborn, in the crook of one arm. She smiled and ruffledHam’s hair as he threw his arms around her and pressed his face into her belly.
    The woman, Naameh, was around thirty years old. She was tired and thin, ground down by life, but still breathtakingly beautiful. Her pale eyes were almost catlike, her hair as black and glossy as a raven’s wing.
    Noah walked up to his wife and kissed her deeply. Then he planted a more chaste kiss on the head of his newborn son, Japheth.
    “You were so long. I was getting worried,” Naameh said.
    “We met with some unexpected difficulties,” Noah muttered.
    Ham, still clinging to his mother, looked up at her, his eyes shining. “There were men,” he said breathlessly. “They killed a hound. They were going to
eat
it!”
    “Men?” Naameh looked at Noah in consternation.
    Noah gestured toward the largest of the tents. “The boys are hungry. Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you all about it.”
    * * *
    All was quiet, and only a single candle was burning inside the tent. The boys were asleep, breathing deeply. Naameh was feeding Japheth, the baby suckling hungrily at her breast. Noah, sitting on his bedroll, watched her, grim-faced. She smiled at him, but received only a twitch of the lips in response. When Japheth was full and she had laid him in his cot, Naameh crossed to her husband and wrapped her arms around him. They both looked up as Ham murmured and twitched in his sleep, troubled by bad dreams.
    “How was he today? About the hunters, I mean?”
    Noah shrugged. “A little too interested.”
    “He had to see it sometime.”
    Noah was silent for a moment, and then he said, “I saw something else. A flower bloomed from nothing.”
    Naameh looked at him curiously, then placed a hand on the back of his head and began to stroke it gently, running her fingers through his hair.
    “Rest,” she murmured.
    Noah sighed. Looking around the tent again, his gaze roaming restlessly over his sleeping sons, he said bitterly, “They deserve better than this.”
    Naameh leaned into her husband, kissed his grizzled cheek and squeezed his rough, scarred hand.
    “You are a
good
father, Noah,” she said, so fiercely that it made him smile.
    “I try,” he agreed. “But what can I do when the world is vile?”
    She kissed him again, then took his face in her hands and turned his head so she could press her lips to his. Then she pushed him gently in the center of his chest, encouraging him to lie down.
    “You can sleep,” she said, “and face the new day with renewed hope.”
    She blew the candle out and they lay down. Naameh fell asleep quickly. But Noah remained awake for a long time, staring into the darkness.

3
THE DREAM
    N oah walked toward the injured hound. It was panting rapidly, its eyes rolling, dragging itself along by its front paws. The trail of blood it left in its wake was black. The blood pouring from the wound in its flank, where the shaft of the spear projected, also was black.
    Crouching down beside the hound Noah spoke to it softly, knowing that it was doomed. Stroking its head, determined to end its suffering, he withdrew his knife from its sheath, placed it at the base of the hound’s skull, and pushed the blade swiftly upward into its brain.
    Instantly the beast dissipated into dust. It ran through Noah’s hands like