Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [0]
BONES
ELISHA’S
BONES
DON HOESEL
Elisha’s Bones
Copyright © 2009
Don Hoesel
Cover design by John Hamilton Design
Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of
Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hoesel, Don.
Elisha’s bones / Don Hoesel.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0560-6 (pbk.)
1. Archaeology teachers—Fiction. 2. Elisha (Biblical prophet)—Relics—
Fiction. 3. Christian antiquities—Fiction. 4. Secret societies—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3608.04765E65 2009
813'.6—dc22
2008051034
For Dawn
Thank you for the last seventeen years.
This book wouldn’t have happened without you.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Acknowledgments
About the Author
ELISHA’S
BONES
CHAPTER 1
KV65, THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS, EGYPT, 2003
It’s an indescribable sound when a piece of ancient stone finally gives. There’s a subtle pop, like the top of an aspirin bottle coming off to reveal that annoying wad of cotton stuffed into the plastic innards. Except that, in this case, the sound is amplified by whatever magnitude is required to testify to two tons of rock wrenching away from symbiotic stone. I think what I hear is the instant equalization of air pressure—a force that can either ease or enhance whatever stresses time has built into the coupling. It’s the moment when the whole event can result in either expectant silence, or in a violent redistribution of forces. And it all has to be in my imagination, because it’s only a romantic notion to think that the mind could process the event in real time.
Several field technicians are trying to peer into the sarcophagus through the three-inch gap made available courtesy of the removal of the two-ton slab of red granite that hangs suspended on a precarious-looking pulley mechanism. I know the machine is rated for far greater than the stone’s weight, but even that bit of professional knowledge doesn’t alleviate the fear I would have about slipping my fingers into the crack. I place my hand against the stone and press against it to stop its lazy swing. At almost four thousand pounds, even an arc of a few millimeters would put a severe dent into someone’s skull, and having worked with these young men and women for almost a month, I’m not certain that all of them are observant enough to stay out of striking distance.
It’s stifling in here; lines of sweat run down my face and soak my collar. The burial chamber is less than six and a half meters long, and there are a dozen people in it and more machinery than should be allowed at a dig, purely on principle—not to mention the five bright fluorescent lights that make casting a shadow an impossibility. I know one of the supposed benefits of these lights is that they don’t give off heat, but I’m not buying it, no matter what the brochure says.
I lean in, the stone stilled beneath my fingers, and I think that I can almost smell the cumin, thyme, and cinnamon that went into the preparation of the mummy, even through the probable two additional coffins encasing the reposing ancient. I glance around at the assembled junior