Free The Tenth Saint by D. J. Niko Page A

the cup. He winced at the aftertaste.
    Two of the young men pulled Gabriel to his feet and dragged him, in spite of his protests, toward the center of the circle. To the happy beat of a bucolic flute song, the men stomped and rocked and waved their arms skyward, chanting an unintelligible cadence. They prodded him to move as hysterical laughter and good-natured hollers from the crowd ensued. He had no choice but to have fun and let himself be made fun of. He did his best to imitate the other men’s movements, but he lacked the grace to improvise a dance to an unfamiliar tune. It was of little consequence to him or to anyone else, for that matter. The idea was to delight in the moment. Eventually, he released his inhibitions and let the music take his feet as he gazed dreamily at the strange and beautiful scene around him.
    The children were asleep by the fire. The stars— so many stars—quivered like acrobats balancing on a tightrope above a black abyss. Gabriel danced until the smoke from the waning fire stung his eyes, his cue to call it a night.

    By the time Gabriel awoke the following day, the desert felt like a sauna. The dry heat, mixed with smoke from the cooking fire, rudely invaded his air passages. He parted the flap of his tent and realized he had slept later than he’d intended. The men were gone and the women were at work, the younger ones cooking and the older, feebler ones launching into their weaving and embroidery projects.
    The weaving looked to Gabriel like complicated business, and he marveled at the dexterity of the women as they brushed the raw wool on carders made from palm leaves and spun it with hypnotic rhythm. They separated the threads from the tufts of wool entirely by hand, their fingers moving as quickly and fastidiously as if they were making music on a complicated instrument. The bundles of yarn were dyed in pots bubbling with concoctions of saturated earth colors—indigo from the shells of sea snails, brown from canyon clay, yellow from saffron, red from the crimson mountain worm or animal blood—and then set to dry on grids made of intersecting tree branches. The weavers slipped into primitive backstrap looms fashioned of sticks and rope and sang as they worked, simple tunes about the stars, the plenitude of the oasis, the stubbornness of the animals, the loneliness of the desert. It was a ritual born of necessity, for the women made these textiles for function and warmth, but there was immense beauty in it.
    Weaving was an outlet for expressing emotion, and it was evident in the finished piece. If a woman had just taken a husband and was in good spirits, her cloth depicted abstract figures reaching to the sky. Trees laden with fruit symbolized fertility and life. If a woman had recently suffered the loss of a child, her textile somberly depicted stars and scrolls representative of the spirit-sky. Gabriel looked down at his own blanket, examining the characters for the first time. It was an elaborate pattern of scrolls and peaks arranged in concentric circles, which he interpreted as the changing seasons in the desert.
    Behind him, a voice spoke. Gabriel turned to see a boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen. He was diminutive in stature, no taller than five feet, his hands and feet as small as a young child’s, but didn’t seem to be intimidated that Gabriel towered over him. Back straight and chest out, he asserted his presence. He pursed his fleshy lips as if he was considering the odd man before him.
    “I don’t understand, my friend,” Gabriel replied.
    The impish boy spoke and placed his hand on his chest. He repeated slowly: “Daaa’ud.”
    “Da’ud. Pleasure to meet you.”
    The boy pointed to Gabriel. “Abyan.” He said something more and started to walk away but turned back and signaled him to follow.
    The sand felt like dried breadcrumbs to Gabriel’s naked feet. It was unusually coarse in this part of the desert, where basalt outcroppings protruded from