Ahithophel was astonished. “What makes you think I am leaving?”
Reba looked at him firmly. “If our son is alive he will be in Mahanaim with the family of Saul, and we must get to him as soon as possible. Here we are helpless.”
Ahithophel considered her logic, then looked around and saw that it was indeed true; there were no young men to defend the city. But the journey to Mahanaim, located in the Gilead Mountains east of the Jordan, would also be perilous. Since the Philistines were pouring down from the north and would soon be coming along the ridge road, the people of Giloh would have to follow the wild goat trails used by the shepherds.
Ahithophel stepped back into his home for one last look around. He saw the gourds lying where Machir had left them; the cook room still gave off the faint odor of warm bread; in the corner was his old, broken yoke. He went to the steps and mounted slowly to the roof.
The loom sat silent and motionless, the half-finished piece of work still in place. He looked to the south, toward the burning city of Bethlehem, and saw that it no longer darted with flames but glowed like a hot, red coal. Reba is right, he thought, we have no choice but to leave.
He hurried back down the steps across the courtyard, pausing by the well to run his hand over the smooth, chiseled stones. They were worn smooth with age and still gave off heat from the afternoon sun. They almost seemed to have warm blood running beneath their surface. His land and his home and all of Giloh were like a woman to him: his woman. How could he just walk out and leave her to strangers?
Faint and far away he could hear the people beginning to leave from the village gate. He looked frantically around for something he could save at this final moment. “Water,” he told himself out loud. “We will need water.” He grabbed the goatskin wine pouch from the wall and was filling it from one of the clay jars when he heard running feet on the cobblestone path outside. The door of the courtyard was pushed open, and Bathsheba stood there outlined by the moonlight.
“Grandfather, we must not leave the snowy doves. They would be so frightened.” She ran to the corner where they sat perched on the old yoke and tenderly coaxed them into her arms.
The water jar slipped from Ahithophel’s grasp and fell with such force that it broke on the stones at the base of the well. He ignored it. With a strong push he plugged the opening to the wine pouch with a twisted cloth. “We must go,” he said, hurrying over to Bathsheba.
She stood holding the doves in the folds of her skirt and looked at her grandfather. “What will happen to my father if he comes and finds us gone?”
Ahithophel did not answer her. With one quick movement he flung the wine pouch over his shoulder, swept Bathsheba with the two doves into his other arm and rushed from his house.
A small group waited for them at the gate. Reba and Noha were on the gray donkey and Machir was on the dappled mule holding the reins of a donkey for his grandfather. The others from his house were riding out, leaving only a big cart filled with wheat standing under the rounded portico of the gate. Quickly he placed Bathsheba in the cart, mounted his donkey and motioned for the little group to go before him.
When they had all passed, Ahithophel drew himself up, squaring his jaw and raising his eyebrow until his face assumed a stern fierceness. He flicked the donkey’s hindquarters with his whip and rode behind them out the gate and down the road to the north without looking back.
Bathsheba sat in the cart, holding tight to the sides as it bounced and bumped along in the darkness on the narrow goat trail that wound through tall fir trees past the rounded dome of Moriah. The route to Mahanaim led close by Saul’s fortress at Gibeah, and Ahithophel twice called a halt to discuss with the other village elders whether the Philistines might already have occupied the defeated king’s stronghold. Now, however, the only sound was the thudding of the mule’s feet and the noise of the cart as it scraped through the bushes on either side.
They had traveled only a short distance when Ahithophel again signaled them to halt. “Giloh is burning,” he cried, pointing to a faint glow on the horizon behind them.
Bathsheba saw the small fingers of light in the distance and felt tears sting her eyes. She clutched the doves to her cheek and looked up at the shadowy forms of neighbors and friends crowded around the cart. Some moaned as though in physical pain. At last they started slowly on again, their eyes drawn back to the distant glow for as long as it could be seen.
As they approached the narrow path that forked just below the fortress of Gibeah, they heard sentries on the walls of Saul’s palace calling back and forth among themselves. Immediately Ahithophel guided the entire group into an acacia brake. Then he assembled a band of men to creep forward and determine if the guards were Israelites or Philistines and whether it would be safe for the refugees to pass along the rocky path below the fortress.