Again I lay down, waiting for the heat of day to dissipate before I continued my journey. I knew that to walk in the heat of the day would be impossible, but I also feared traveling when there was enough light for fellow travelers to see my face. My male-garbed physique might fool one from a distance, but I feared my facial features, even without the enhancement of makeup, might hint of my secret. As I lay, my mind continually replayed the conversation of Manoah and his nephews. When I sought to replace them with plans for Salome, I was unsuccessful. I could not escape their verbiage, so I chose to focus on the words of the young man, Sallu. Samson had told the lad he loved me and would die trying to win that love. Samson had proven that love by telling me his secret and putting his fate in my hands. Even after I betrayed him, Samson forgave me. He told me of the love of his god. Now I was headed to the place designated by that god as a city of refuge. I was curious as to whether this strange god would allow me peace in his city. Would he truly become my protector, as Samson seemed to think? I doubted that he would. It simply did not make sense that he would allow Samson to die and then protect his betrayer. As the stars came out, I looked upward and said to this god of creation, "I do not know you or your ways, Yahweh, but in the name of Samson your servant, I petition you for protection. He told me to go to Hebron and learn of you. Protect me long enough to give me that chance."

Rising from my resting place, I prepared to continue my journey eastward. Although night had fallen, it still seemed unbearably hot. Yet, I knew that I could not wait any longer. As I set out, I found walking more difficult than the night before. My leg muscles were sore from yesterday's unaccustomed use. But the biggest problem was my left heel. It was so tender now that I could put little weight on it and had to lean on the walking stick. When I examined the foot by the moonlight, I saw that it was swollen to almost twice its normal size. While concerned, there was nothing I could do. In the dark I could not even tell the cause of the swelling. I would have to walk on it and hope using it would not make it worse.

And so, I slowly made my way through the night. My throbbing heel and sore muscles distracted my mind so that I was temporarily free of the torturous thoughts that had haunted my afternoon. My focus was on the effort it took to put one foot in front of the other. As I followed the stars eastward, I expected the heat to lessen. But even when a breeze arose, it seemed only to stir hot air. It made me so thirsty, I drank often, causing the water in my wineskin to disappear at an alarming rate. I feared I would not have enough water to last me until I reached the abundant springs rumored to surround Hebron, but my body craved water.

After walking for what seemed an eternity in the oppressive heat, I saw what looked like an oasis in the distance. I tried to speed up my pace in anticipation of being able to refill my skins and perhaps even wade into a cool pool. In my haste, I put all of my weight on my left foot. A sharp pain shot up my leg, causing me to cry out and sink to my knees. Unable to struggle back to my feet, I began to crawl toward the trees. As I crawled, the trees seemed to fade into the dark and disappear. Realizing I must be experiencing a hallucination, I rolled onto my back in the sand. For the first time, it dawned on me that while I still felt hot, the sand beneath my hands felt cool. As I lay and stared at the stars and sifted the cool sand between my fingers, I realized that I was gripped by a fever. I wondered whether I had picked up a strange sickness during one of my stops or if the pain in my heel were somehow responsible for the fever.

Then a chill gripped me as I thought of another possibility. Perhaps Samson's god had chosen to afflict me for betraying his servant. A god powerful enough to help Samson destroy so many Philistines could surely take care of a vengeful woman. For a moment I lay in complete despair, certain that my death was imminent. I stared at the stars twinkling in the dark. Then overcome by anger, I shook my fist at the heavens.

"I am not a weak, cowardly woman," I shouted into the night. "I withstood the abuses of a drunken father and lived through orgies. No god helped me through those things. I made it through by my own strength. I will not lie here and die to appease any god, not even the god of Samson. Do you hear me, Yahweh? I withdraw my petition for your protection. I do not need you. I have my own strong will and that is enough."

With that defiant speech I sat up. Gritting my teeth, I struggled to my feet. Leaning on my walking stick, I stumbled into the night. Once again setting my face to the east, resolutely placing one foot before the other, I made my way toward Hebron.

As waves of pain washed over my body and the heat that engulfed me grew, I returned in my mind to the time when I celebrated the 15th anniversary of my birth. Now as I made my way through the desert night, feverish and delirious, I shed the tears the young Delilah had locked inside. Crying as I walked, I moaned in agony, saying over and over, "What have I done? What have I done?"  

I do not know how long I walked or whether I continued my easterly course. When I tried to focus on the stars, the light blurred and the heavens shifted causing me to become dizzy. Determined not to give up, I continued to place one foot in front of the other until eventually I came to a spring. Laying my walking stick and provisions on the ground, I knelt and scooped water, drinking from my cupped hands and then splashing the cool liquid on my hot face.

While I was thus engaged, two men approached unnoticed. One hit me over the head with a hard object. As I sank to the ground, I heard a disgusted voice that seemed to come through a tunnel, "There is nothing in this bag but a bit of dried food."

The one who had hit me, bent over me, slapped my face and when I opened my eyes said, "Give us your wealth or we will beat you."

When I stammered out in a slurred voice, "I have nothing," he leaned down and said with a wicked gleam in his eye, "This may be our lucky day. I do believe this thirsty traveler is a woman dressed as a man. If she has no wealth, she has other things we can take," he finished with an evil laugh.

His friend dropped my pack and joined the man near my limp body. Peering down at me, he squinted in the slight light of early dawn. "Perhaps she will look more inviting without those clothes in the way," he said, reaching down a hand and jerking off my turban. As my braids fell from the top of my head, he loosened them and started to run his fingers through the hair while he leaned close, his foul breath hot against my face. When his lips touched mine, he suddenly jerked back, exclaiming, "By the gods, she is as hot as Hades. She has probably been banished from society for carrying a plague. She is unclean. I will not take my pleasure with her." Spitting in my direction, he finished, "Leave her here to die. We will have to look for some other traveler to rob."

As the two men hurried away, I tried to sit up but my head throbbed and the clearing seemed to wobble and fade around the edges. I fell back onto the sand and closed my eyes, meaning to rest for a minute and regain my strength.

Harsh voices jarred my head, causing me to squeeze my eyes tightly shut and cover my ears, but the voices went on swirling in my mind in an endless litany.

"You should not make her work so hard, she is but a child."

"Shut up, woman, or I will shut you up."

"Fetch me some water, girl."

"This won't hurt as much the next time."

"Don't cry out. It will only make your mother's suffering worse to know you must do all of her womanly duties for her."

"Paint yourself, there will be company tonight."

"Don't look at me like that, girl. You are nothing but a worthless whore."

"My daughter produces a male child that has to be destroyed."

"What your father has done is really a blessing."

"Samson should have killed Delilah along with the rest of the Philistines."

"You do not have the power to cause me to indulge my own lust."

"That is blood money and to me that makes her a murderer!"

"What have I done? What have I done?"

Thrashing and moaning I cried out against the voices, begging them to stop. I shook my fist and cursed every god whose name I could remember. When the voices strengthened, I tried bargaining. I promised to give a portion of my wealth to the temple. I pledged to share the food from my table with the poor. Finally I cried out, "What do you want from me? I am what my father made me. Why do you torture me with my past? Free me from this evil and let me go forward into a better tomorrow," I sobbed.

As I lay spent, drenched in sweat, the discordant voices that dominated my mind were pushed back by a haunting melody. The music seemed to weave its way around the offending words and choke them out until my mind was free of their bitter presence. In the now quiet pool of my mind, the words of the song dropped like a stone in a puddle, sending comforting ripples into the tortured depths.

"He found her in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled her. He instructed her. He kept her as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, so the Lord alone led her."

I floated in the tranquility fabricated by the song, wanting nothing more than to bask in its message of love and caring. But even as I settled into the serenity of its cocoon, I was pulled upward by a gentle voice saying, "Wake up, now. You have slept long enough. It is time to return to the land of the living."

Like a swimmer rising through the water towards the diffused light of the sun, my mind swam toward the pleasant sound. While part of my mind urged me to stay in the peaceful place created by the melody, another part struggled toward consciousness. I was like the drowning person who wanted to give up and let the water claim him even while his body flails toward the surface and the reviving breath of air. 

As a damp cloth wiped my forehead and the quiet voice urged me awake, I stirred and sighed and then opened my eyes. I found myself looking into a pair of dark eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of the ages. The arresting eyes were set in deep sockets surrounded by heavily wrinkled skin. Pure white hair was braided and encircled the woman's head like a crown. Her straight nose led to a set of surprisingly full lips in such a wizened and wrinkled countenance. Her slight body was stooped with age and the skin hung loosely on the arms that ended in care worn hands.

Smiling, she said, "So you have decided to abandon your quest to find your deceased ancestors before your time. I am glad. You are too young to die. Yahweh did not rescue you from the desert only to have you expire."

At her words I closed my eyes and flinched as a chill shot through my chest. Reopening them I replied, "Your Yahweh should have left me to the buzzards. I fear he brought me back only to torture me."

"Ah, child," the old one replied. "It is not Yahweh who tortures. You torment yourself with your memories, your self-chastisement, and your lack of self-forgiveness. But that is something to be explored at a later time. Now you need nourishment. Lay here and let the cool breeze soothe you while I go below and bring back some broth and milk."

As the old one went below, I looked around. I was lying on a pallet under a canopy that stretched the width the roof and covered about a third of its length. A folded blanket was draped over the low wall near me, evidently providing a place for the old one to recline while tending to me. A bowl containing a little water was between my pallet and the woman's resting-place. A damp cloth was draped over the side of the bowl. Beside it was a short stool on which a small, clay, oil lamp sat. In the corner was a water jar with a gourd dipper hanging from it.

The remainder of the roof was uncovered and open to the elements. The center was well worn, but scraggly weeds grew out of the crevasses where the low wall connected to the roof. The old woman had disappeared through a gap at the corner of the wall that apparently opened to a flight of stairs. I assumed the stairs ended in a walled courtyard that normally was behind these one- room dwellings.

The house must have faced west because the sky beyond the stairs was ablaze with the pinks and oranges of the setting sun. The branches of a large tree shaded the roof beside my pallet. I assumed this would be the north and that the tree would provide protection from winter winds. I did not recognize the bright yellow flowers that adorned its thorny branches. The thorns looked wicked, but they made me smile. If Yahweh had seen to my rescue and brought me here, then this Yahweh evidently had a sense of humor because he brought me out of the desert and deposited me on the roof of a house guarded by thorn trees. I evidently could not escape the analogy that I guarded my heart with thorns.

My thoughts were interrupted by the return of the old woman carrying a bowl of broth and a pitcher of milk. A basket of pita bread hung from her arm. As she sat everything down, I struggled to try and sit up. When I moved, her head jerked up and her eyes virtually commanded me to be still. Yet when she spoke, her voice was gentle.

"I imagine you are still too weak to sit," she said. "You have lain abed with the fever for days. All I have managed to get down you is water." As she wadded a blanket, she continued, "Let me put this behind your head. This time I will feed you, but you will soon gain strength and be able to fend for yourself."

Raising her eyes to the heavens, she said a simple blessing and then began to feed me. After only a few mouths full of broth, I shook my head and refused more. "I am afraid that is all I can eat," I said apologetically.

"A little is better than nothing," she replied philosophically. "Now try to drink a bit of milk."

After a few swallows of milk, I once again shook my head. The woman smiled and said, "We will try again later."

She then leaned against the wall and proceeded to eat her bread and drink some milk. She finished as the light disappeared from the evening sky. Folding her hands in her lap, she said, "My name is Naomi. What shall I call you?"

"Salome," I replied.

"May the peace of the name inhabit your soul," she responded.

My mind said a silent "amen" to her comment, but I said nothing aloud. A companionable silence reigned for some moments before I asked, "Did you sing to me when I was feverish?"

"Yes. I tried singing the lullabies that soothe cantankerous babies but they only seemed to agitate you. Only one song seemed to calm your spirit, a song sung by our leader Moses when my people were nearing this land. In the song he sang of Yahweh guiding his people through the desert. Although the song uses the word he to refer to Abraham and the other fathers of our people, I substituted the word she because you too were found in the desert. When I would sing the song, you would cease tossing and crying out in your delirium and rest for a while. When you rested I would pray and beseech Yahweh for healing. Then when you would become restless, I would sing again."

"Why?" I asked, perplexed. "Why did you take me in, sing to me, and pray for me?"

"Hospitality to strangers is an integral part of obedience to God. Why, our Father Abraham entertained angels without even knowing it. I would shudder to think that I might turn away an angel by failing to provide hospitality. Besides, Yahweh has given me the gifts of healing and patience. Should I not share His blessings with others?"

"But what you have done goes beyond hospitality," I insisted.

"Perhaps to someone who is a follower of a less loving deity," Naomi countered. "I perceive from your speech that your heritage is not Israelite. Are you perhaps from the lineage of one of our neighbors?"

"And if I am, does that relieve you of your duty to be hospitable?"

"Not at all. One of the commandments Moses spoke from God told us not to mistreat strangers who chose to dwell in our land. In fact, he went on to say, 'the stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.'"

"And what if I am from a people that you consider an enemy?"

"If you have chosen to dwell with us and harbor enmity for us in your heart, Yahweh will see your heart and exact retribution on you. If you are from a people who bear us enmity but you yourself hold no grudge against us, God will not condemn you for an attitude held by your relations. God judges you according to your own actions. Each person is accountable before Yahweh for his own transgressions. I, for one, cannot presume to judge the secrets of another's heart. I simply minister to those Yahweh sends my way. I leave the rest to Him."

When I stifled a yawn, Naomi concluded, "But I tire you. Such weighty theological matters can wait for another time. Let me feed you a little more and then we will rest."

She immediately arose, lit the small lamp and brought food to my pallet. After eating a little more broth and drinking some milk, I relaxed and drifted into a deep sleep. This time no voices disturbed my slumber. The feverish delirium was over.