Free Noah by Mark Morris Page A

quickly around the tent. Naameh was sleeping peacefully beside him, and the children, too, seemed undisturbed. Shem and Ila held hands as they slept, as though Shem wished to protect the girl even in her dreams.
    All was silent—and yet Noah felt certain he had heard something. A sound that had disturbed his subconscious, that had raised an alarm in his mind. He was on edge. He sensed danger.
    But from where?
    He rose slowly from his bedroll so as not to wake his sleeping wife. He would take a walk around the camp to settle his nerves, perhaps seek out Og and speak to him. Did the Watcher sleep? Or did he remain forever vigilant, as his name seemed to suggest?
    Though no candle burned in the tent, there was enough light by which to see. As he moved toward theentrance, Noah judged it to be early dawn. Outside it would be cold, the sky streaked with purple and pink and red as the sun rose in the east. He was only a few steps from the entrance flap when he again heard the sound that he was sure had woken him—a dull scraping, as of stone on stone, followed by a scuffle of movement, which made him think of an animal desperate to free itself from a trap.
    Quickly he untied the tent flap and ducked outside. In the early dawn light he saw, in the middle distance, Og being dragged away by a group of Watchers.
    So the Watchers
had
caught up with them. But Noah did not have time to be alarmed. He began to run toward the group, waving his arms.
    “Stop!” he yelled.
    The group came to a halt, their heads creaking around to regard the running man. One of them was Samyaza, the leader. He swung around and stomped toward Noah like a crude but gargantuan statue given life, his thundering footsteps sending a tremor through the earth.
    “Og is not your concern!” he roared, his voice echoing back from the black mountain.
    Noah stopped and spread his hands in appeal.
    “There is much work to be done. The Creator’s work. Help us.”
    Samyaza’s face crunched into an expression of fury. He marched across to Noah in two great, thundering strides.
    “Help you?” he bellowed. “We tried to help your kind once. We lost
everything
because of you!”
    He raised a massive arm to pulverize Noah where he stood. Noah did not try to resist or run away.He simply waited, looking up into Samyaza’s face, bracing himself for the killing blow.
    Which did not come.
    Samyaza froze, his great arm hanging in mid-air, his attention suddenly focused elsewhere. He had heard a sound—a sound that Noah also heard. The reason it had had such an effect on the Watcher was because it was a sound that had not been heard on this black and barren plain for a long time. It was an impossible sound. A sound of hope and celebration.
    It was the bubbling of water.
    Samyaza’s great stone jaw dropped open. He turned to see water bubbling up from the spot where Noah had planted Methuselah’s seed the night before. As if it had been waiting for their attention, the water suddenly erupted upward, bursting exuberantly from the dry earth, a geyser that caused the Watchers to cry out in surprise like gleeful children. As if content with the impact it had made, the geyser settled down to become a gently gurgling fountain.
    While the earth around the fountain cracked apart, and the water rushed into the cracks to form rivulets, which began to expand outward in all directions, Noah saw Naameh, Ila, and the boys emerge slowly from the tent. They looked first in terror at the Watchers, and then in wonder at the fountain.
    The Watchers, who had now released Og, stepped backward, out of the way of the ever-expanding rivulets which first crept toward them, and then streamed past them, as though on a mission to revive and replenish the entire desert. Noah glanced up at Samyaza, who was still standing beside him. The Watcher’s arm had fallen back to his side, his murderous intentions forgotten.
    Unhurriedly Noah walked toward the fountain, taking care not to obstruct the flow. Once