A Man Called Moses part 5 (the conclusion)

Armed guards, uncertain if they should arrest me or await orders, surrounded me as I entered Ramses’s audience chamber.

Ramses sat upon his throne at the end of the long hall ahead of me. His dark eyes glared.

His queen, Nefertari, sat beside him. She watched me with an expression equal parts hatred and grief.

“Have you returned to murder more of my sons?” Ramses asked me.

I halted as close to the two thrones as a dared. “I never killed the first one.”

Ramses cast a dismissive, exhausted wave. “Your god murdered him. What difference do the details make?”

I swallowed . . . and I crossed the point of no return. “God didn’t murder your son, either. A trio of bounty hunters called the Calves killed Spot. And I’m not your brother, Moses. He died days ago of exposure.”

If I hadn’t already commanded the attention of everyone in the audience chamber, I had now.

I explained the situation to the captivated pharaoh and queen.

Ramses licked his lips. “You’ve lied to me since day one. You impersonated a prince of Egypt. You tricked me into releasing the kingdom’s entire labor force from bondage, guaranteeing that my people will not survive the year.”

He looked rather displeased. I would have to employee unheard-of levels of diplomacy to win Ramses to my side.

“Um,” I said.

Ramses rose from his throne. “Give me one reason not to have my guards drag you outside and crucify you.”

I fumbled with my snake, Stiffy, who still mimicked a staff. “I’ll give you two.” I counted them on my fingers. “First, unless we rescue the Hebrews from the Calves, your kingdom’s screwed. You need their labor. Second, the Calves killed your son. I figured you might, you know, like to rip out their eyeballs.”

Ramses marched towards me. “You freed the Jews only to return them to bondage?”

“No. I’ll free the Jews from the Calves. You may, after that, offer them work for fair play plus citizenship.”

Ramses scoffed. “The Hebrews would never willingly work for me.”

“They’ll balk,” I said, “but they have nowhere else to go. If you’re fair, you might hammer out a deal with them.”

Ramses studied me. He turned his attention towards Nefertari. “What say you?”

She glared down at me. “We can’t trust this imposter. Deceit’s his specialty.”

“Agreed.” Ramses returned his attention towards me. “I won’t commit a single soldier to your cause.”

“I didn’t ask for soldiers,” I said. “The Calves control thousands of hostages. I can’t approach them with an army.”

“Then what do you want from me?” Ramses asked.

“Just a chariot so I can catch up with them.”

Ramses paced around me. “You expect to defeat, on your own, the three most dangerous bounty hunters in the desert? How?”

“As your wife pointed out,” I said, “I’m a liar. I’ll trick them.”

. . . Ramses gave me the chariot, at least. An old, splintery thing with a bad axle, a sickly horse, and a radio that only received the worst AM stations.

I had hoped to arrive in front of the Calves while the chariot’s bass blasted something action-y. I had to settle for a crackly version of Dancing Queen.

I drove alongside the river of confused faces that made up the recently “freed” Hebrews. The Calves had already decided to wrap the Jew’s wrists with chains.

The slaves, once they rebooted from their shock, called me a series of unpleasant names. I had, after all, abandoned them so that the Calves could sell them back into slavery.

I spotted the three bounty hunters at the front of the convoy. Two of them laughed when they saw me. The third (now atop a horse) watched me with his panther-like eyes.

I parked my chariot in front of the wide, wooden bridge that overlooked the Red Sea. I stepped out and, snake-staff in hand, marched out to meet the bounty hunters.

“Look!” one of the hunters said. “The ‘prophet’ returns.” He performed those annoying air-quotes.

“I spoke with Ramses,” I yelled, loud enough to ensure that the Hebrews heard me. “He has agreed to send his entire army to free the Jews from your bondage.”

The first hunter snorted. “Ramses would never agree to that.”

Ramses hadn’t, in fact.

“He has,” I insisted. “His soldiers shall slaughter you, should they discover you here. Unchain the Jews, flee, and the three of you shall live.”

Silence settled over the desert. Only the Red Sea’s roar produced any sound.

“That a fact?” asked the second hunter. “Funny. I don’t hear an army’s approach.”

I straightened. “Once you can hear Ramses’s army, they have already drawn too close for you to escape them.”

The first hunter shook his head. “Do you ever stop playing games, conman?”

I tried to conceal the defeat I felt. These hunters didn’t believe a word I said.

The second hunter drew his curved sword. “You know what, conman? I think we will take that head of yours and enjoy the purse it’ll produce.” He approached me.

The ground rumbled. A war cry exploded. Thousands of Ramses’s soldiers, each atop a horse, rushed around a mountain before they flooded towards us.

Had Ramses decided to trust me? No. Nefertari led the assault. She raised her spear high over her head and screamed Spot’s name.

A dark expression passed over the third hunter’s otherwise calm face. He addressed his first comrade. “Shoot an arrow through the queen’s chest. Once she falls, the Egyptian soldiers shall flee.”

The first hunter nodded, fit an arrow into his bow, and stepped around the sea of slaves for a better shot.

The third hunter addressed the second. “Let’s not give the Jews cause to celebrate. We want them to fear rescue. Kill several of them so that they serve as examples.”

The third hunter’s attention snapped towards me. “I’ll cut the conman’s throat.”

Well. My plan worked swimmingly.

I, with a panicked scream, climbed back into my crummy chariot and motivated my sick horse to limp as fast as it could across the Red Sea’s bridge.

The third hunter chased me. His horse’s hooves produced machine gun reports across the bridge. His hand reached for the back of my neck. The distance between us melted.

I did the last thing my attacker expected. I leapt onto his horse with him. The horse overturned. We crashed and rolled. My legs and hips swerved over the bridge’s side. My chest glided across wood. My left hand seized the edge. I dangled, my “staff” in my other hand.

The third hunter rolled. His horse rolled. Its mammoth weight tore through the bridge. The animal slid off the edge and slammed into the sea, where it exploded for some reason.

I, too weak to do more, hung from the bridge. The third hunter’s shadow poured over me. He stomped upon my hand. I desperately swung my staff at him. He caught my weapon in a tight fist.

“Stiffy,” I yelled. “Help.”

My “staff” uncoiled into a snake, sank its fangs into my attacker’s forearm. He danced drunkenly, eyes wild, while he struggled to rip away the reptile. He tripped over his feet and plunged into the Sea far, far below me.

“That’s for Spot,” I muttered.

I would morn my lost pet later—assuming “later” happened. My grip continued to weaken. I would soon plunge to my death unless something miraculous happened.

Something miraculous happened.

Several pairs of hands swooped down to pull me atop the bridge. Chains jingled from those hands. The Jews had come to my rescue.

I knelt and labored to reclaim my breath. “What . . . what about the second hunter?”

The former slave closest to me shrugged. “We outnumbered him thousands to one.”

“True,” I said, “but you never before used that advantage.”

The Jews offered me a sad smile. “Until today, we expected God to rescue us. Once we understood that God wouldn’t fix our situation for us, we knew we had to fight for ourselves.”

That seemed a lot to digest, and I hadn’t time to digest it. The bridge beneath us moaned. It wooden boards cracked.

The Jews and I exchanged terrified expressions before we ran for our lives across the bridge—which crumbled behind us, dropped and splashed into the sea.

We reach the other side. My foot left the final board a split second before it fell into the foamy water.

My attention darted towards Nefertari’s army, which still stampeded towards us. I noticed the final hunter, arrow locked into his bow. He aimed at the queen.

I pointed. “We have to save Nefertari.”

The Jews snorted collectively. “Why? She kept us in bondage. Let God have her.”

My fists curled. “If God wants her, He’ll come and claim her. We have, until that time, a responsibility to help her.”

I raced after the last hunter, who released his arrow.

I’m too late, I thought.

The arrow soared at the queen—whose shield knocked aside the projectile in the nick of time.

I slammed into and bounced off the hunter before I crashed backwards, the wing knocked from my lungs. He stared down at me with open shock.

He reached for his knife—just as one of the Egyptian’s arrows blasted through his face. Blood cascaded in a pink cloud. He went cross-eyed and collapsed.

. . . It took three weeks for the Jews and Ramses to finalize their contract.

The Jews asked me to serve as the head of their new labor union. I accepted.

I did not accept when they asked me to serve as their spiritual advisor.

“We need commandments,” the Jews told me. “Directives by which to live. You’ve spoken with God. What would He want from us?”

I took a deep breath and addressed the thousands of frantic faces that surrounded me inside Ramses’s dining hall.

“The only commandment you need, is this,” I said. “Don’t be dicks. Treat each other with respect. Make the world a better place for the generation that comes behind you. You don’t need guidance more specific than that.”

. . . The Jews built their new condos by the river (which had recently reverted from blood to water). They afterwards built, at my request, a monument to Spot.

They wanted to build one for me, too, but I still didn’t know which name they ought to carve upon it.

. . . I took a walk one night, and I came across a bush that hosted flames.

I knelt beside it. “How are you and Moses doing?”

The bush offered an annoyed flicker. “My name’s Jayden. I think you confused me with someone else.”

I blinked. “I thought you were God.”

“I’m over here,” said another burning bush fifty feet away.

“Oh,” I said.

“No. It’s fine,” said the first bush. “I get it. All us burning bushes look alike.” He mumbled something under his breath. It sounded negative.

I knelt beside the second bush. “Hello, God.”

“Hello, Moses.”

“I’m not the real Moses. Remember?”

“Then who are you?”

I shrugged. “I still haven’t picked a name for myself.”

“Would you cuddle with a lion, had I named it ‘Kitty’?”

I shook my head. “Calling it ‘Kitty’ does make it less of a lion.”

The bush chuckled. “Then why so worried about your name? You stand a collection of your actions and decisions, regardless of what anyone calls you.”

A regretful sigh shuddered through me. “Some of those decisions have proven pretty bad.”

“Stand, then,” said the bush. “Make better ones.”

This five-part miniseries, a first for this blog, proved a crazy to complete. I hope that you've enjoyed it. I worked on it while I labored with a lot of last-minute changes (do other sorts exist?) in plans for my move to Colorado from Seattle.

I invite you all to enjoy my previously published, short stories on this blog, as well as both my movie reviews (moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com) and my novels, such as "Daughters of Darkwana" available on Kindle and any device with a Kindle app.

Thanks for reading! Catch you next time.