Read Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) for Free Online Page B

men fell silent.
    She turned and saw that one of the men from the farther herd was approaching her.
    She murmured a prayer for protection.
    As if in answer, the dogs ran toward him, barking, warning him away. Loyal dogs!
    Then he bent down and spoke to them, in a voice too soft and distant for her to hear. They sniffed his hands; he stroked them, scratched them, and when he arose they were
his
dogs, scampering around him like puppies as he again walked boldly toward her. Treacherous curs!
    Then she studied the man a little, and realized that he wasn’t one of the shepherds. The bundle he carried on his back was far more than any shepherd would willingly carry, since you never knew when you’d have to lift a lamb onto your shoulders and carry it. And he wasn’t dressed right. His clothes were too fine for a shepherd—and too dusty. He hadn’t spent the morning on grassy hills, he had been walking along a dry road. A traveler.
    “Don’t be afraid, Rachel,” he said. “Be at peace. I won’t come any nearer than this.”
    “Who are you, sir? How do you know my name?”
    “When I saw you and your sheep coming down the hill, I asked the other men who you were.”
    “I don’t know those men.”
    “Neither do I,” said the stranger. “But they know
you
. They said you were Rachel, the daughter of Laban. Or rather,I asked them if they knew Laban of Haran, and they said that of course they did, he’s a great man and his camp is not five miles away, and look, there’s his daughter, Rachel, the … coming down the hill with Laban’s sheep.”
    Rachel the what? She knew very well, and she pursed her lips. Rachel the Beautiful. That’s why they knew of her. The one aspect of herself that
she
never saw was the only one that anyone else cared about, while all the things that made up who she was in her own mind, nobody knew. I am surrounded by strangers, and the more well-known I am by reputation, the more alone I am.
    “If you get off the stone,” said the traveler, “I can uncover the well.”
    “I’m not so very heavy,” said Rachel. “If you can move the stone without me, surely you’re strong enough to move it with me on top.”
    “With you and three sheep, if you can balance them all there,” said the traveler. “But I don’t believe in making foolish displays of strength. It makes other men jealous and their wives covetous, and then I have no peace.”
    Rachel refused to laugh, and she hoped he did not notice the twitch of a smile that crept to her face before she could stop it.
    She got up and lightly leapt to the ground. “I can help,” she said.
    “But what if, with my massive strength, I accidently tossed the stone onto your foot? Then you’d be Rachel the cripple, and your father would have to kill me, or at least cut off my leg.”
    “My father would never do that.”
    “Then you don’t know fathers.”
    “He’s never done anything like that before.”
    “Only because no traveler has ever cast a huge stone onto his daughter’s dainty foot.”
    Rachel looked down at her calloused, toughened feet. “I’m a shepherd, sir. My feet are not dainty.”
    “I thought it was a nicer word than ‘dingy,’” said the stranger. “And ‘dung-covered’ would have been rude.” Now he began pushing the stone in earnest, and there was no breath for speech. His word was true: he slid the stone off with no one’s help, and in one continuous movement, too, no pausing to rest.
    “That’s a useful skill to have,” said Rachel. “Most wells are covered so heavily that travelers could die of thirst trying to find a well they could open by themselves between here and Salem.”
    “Have you been to Salem?” asked the traveler.
    “No,” said Rachel. “Father only lets me tend the flocks close to home. But that’s all right. I work with the lambs and kids especially, and I know them better than any of the other herdsmen. Are you going to take the first drink or not?”
    “I opened the well for