by Ron Marasco
“You have journeyed a long way to get here, haven’t you?”
Samid nodded yes.
“And you still have a long way to go, no?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then we’ll need to be sure that—on the way—you don’t lose what you’ve been given here today. Let me get you something to tie that sack with.”
She went behind the table for a few moments, and while Samid watched Barley chew the last of the bread, the woman came back and tied the sack—good and tight—with her strong hands.
When she was done, she looked at Samid, patted him on his arm, and said, “Safe journey.”
“Thank you for this,” Samid replied, nodding to her politely.
“It is my gift to give,” said the old woman. “Today has been a good day.”
Samid picked up the sack, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and whistled for Barley to follow him. He walked away from the kind woman and into the emptying marketplace. Samid had gotten almost all the way across the plaza before he noticed that the baker woman had tied the sack with a piece of palm.
CHAPTER 10
The fire was ablaze, bellies were full. For two days now, the camp had been filled with what could almost be called joy. The people from the camp had partaken gratefully and gleefully of the food that Samid had shared freely. As Barley lay by the glowing fire, life seemed very good.
Boaz, the old flute player, was playing some of the most beautiful music Barley had ever heard. People were dancing and singing and laughing in a way that kept Barley completely delighted. The sweet noise that came out of the pipe was wordless and birdlike and soaring, and at times it filled the air with happiness. Then at other times, when Boaz played more slowly, it made the air swirl with a beautiful sadness.
Some of the other people in the camp began to drum along with the tunes of the flute player. Not that anyone had a real drum to speak of, but they beat out rhythms with anything they could find. And all this happy and interesting noise overwhelmed Barley with a good feeling that made him wag his tail without meaning to—like his tail was trying to play music too.
Barley learned something about humans that night. When people are happy, they have their own music in them already. But when people aren’t happy, then they need to make music, and when they do, even people who are poor or angry or dirty or even crazy become light and fun and free.
So that was how it was, for a good, long, and very fun couple of days in the camp. And Barley was a very happy dog. Life was good.
Above all, Barley liked watching his master be happy. And Samid—who once even danced to the music—was happy.
For a time.
Toward the end of the second night, the food was running low, the bread becoming scarcer and the shared pieces smaller. So, since there was little of anything left to eat, instead Samid drank.
Barley noticed that the more wine his master drank, the sadder Samid seemed to become. And soon, Samid began to say one name over and over again.
“Prisca . . .”
After two full days of revels, Samid went walking all around the camp in the middle of the night. He moved in a way Barley had never seen before—wobbling and falling, then yelling bitterly when he fell, and getting back up and wobbling again. He staggered through the camp, trying to find out if anyone had seen Prisca. The more he wandered and the more he drank, the surlier and darker he became. By dawn of the next day, not only was all the food gone, but the wine too.
After a bad night of poor sleep on the rough ground, Samid awoke, stone cold, next to where the fire had blazed the night before. Barley lay near to him, still sleeping. Samid had been in too foul a mood to amble back to his tent the night before.
“Samid . . .”
The husky whisper made Barley lift his head with a start.
“Samid . . . I have to talk to you,” Hog said as he walked over toward his friend, accidentally kicking some sand onto Samid as he approached.
“Hog! You idiot!”
“Samid, I have an idea.” And he plunked himself down on the ground as Samid tried to rouse himself from the head-splitting effect of days of wine.
“I spoke with Cracked Amos. A friend of his told him about a merchant’s shortcut. Better than the Shepherd’s Crook. It’s right at the top of Old Stone Road.”
“That’s right in the city,” Samid said, and before he even realized it, he was actually listening to what Hog was saying as he spoke in an excited whisper.
“But it’s safe! That’s what I’m telling you. You’ve been here drunk for days. You don’t know what’s happening. The city is tense. That teacher from Galilee has too many followers now for Rome’s comfort.” Hog laughed ironically. “In Judea now, it’s the pious who are in danger, so they’ll leave two-bit scum like us alone. And those do-gooders will get what’s coming to them. Including your Prisca.”
The sound of her name, spoken that way by Hog, shifted everything. “Prisca?” Samid said, his body stiffening.
Barley looked up, watching his master closely.
After a pause, Hog spoke bluntly. “She’s never coming back to this camp, Samid. She’s gone to follow the Galilean.”
“She . . .” Samid couldn’t get out any words.
“Amos saw her in town yesterday,” Hog continued warily. “She bid him good-bye . . . for good.”
“That can’t be . . .” Samid stood up shakily. Barley stood at his side.
“Forget about her,” Hog said firmly. “Come with me.”
“No,” said Samid. “And don’t say another word about Prisca.”
Hog’s response was loud and firm. “Prisca has betrayed you!”
At these words, Samid stepped back on his heels in a way Barley had never seen before—a weak movement that made Barley feel a rush of panic.
“Prisca has faith in me,” Samid said softly.
“Faith!” Hog howled. “You’re smarter than that, Samid.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you’re shrewd enough to know that even as you shared your food with that miser Boaz, he’d have stabbed you in the eye with his flute if you reached for a crumb of the bread you’d just given him.”
“Shut up!”
“You just did all that to show Prisca!”
Samid’s face flushed red, and his eyes lowered to the ground. Barley could feel his master’s pain. He could almost see it throbbing in the air around his master’s face.
“Come with me to the city!” Hog leered into Samid’s face. “By nightfall we’ll have coins and food.”
“No,” Samid said. Then his voice suddenly splintered with emotion. “I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore!”
“Oh, you’re pathetic,” Hog sneered. “All this piousness for love of a starry-eyed tramp . . .”
Samid roused so quickly at the sound of Hog’s insult that before Hog or Barley knew what was happening, Samid had shoved Hog off his feet, pounding him down onto the charred rocks and black embers of the long-dead fire, sending up a wide puff of gray soot. Barley began to bark furiously as Hog lay there absorbing the hard fall.
“Well . . . so much for not hurting anyone.”
Then Hog stood up, brushed himself off, and without looking at Samid again turned away and said loudly into the dawning morning, “I was your friend.”
Samid stood clutching his head as he stared after Hog’s retreating figure. After a few moments, he wobbled to his feet. Overwhelmed by the pain of his wine-soaked mind, he now focused his anger on the only thing nearby to be blamed.
“Stop barking!”
It was the way Samid screamed these two words that shocked Barley into silence—the hatred in his master’s eyes, the rage in his voice, the disdain that twisted his face.
Barley looked up at his master—not wagging, just blinking.
“You stay!” Samid yelled over his shoulder as he stormed off toward his tent and disappeared into it.
Barley didn’t know if he should follow his master.
He always had.
Barley trotted up to the tent. He peered in. Samid was now lying facedown on his pillow. Barley walked into the tent timidly and quietly assumed his usual position on the pile of dirty clothing that was his little bed. Once Barley lay down, he let out an involuntary sigh that whistled softly through the nostrils of his tiny black nose.
And Samid heard it.
Wildly, Samid pushed himself up off his pillow, wheeled around, and, seeing Barley comfortably atop his clothes, flew toward him in anger.
“I had told you to stay! Get out!”
Barley stood up, his legs ambling slowly, his head dropping deep down into his shoulders. With his belly an inch from the ground, Barley crawled slowly out of the tent.
He looked back over his shoulder once before he lay down just outside of his master’s tent, his stomach pressed against the hard desert dirt.
Samid awoke gradually, emerging from the depths of a fitful sleep, to the high-pitched cries of his dog.
“Boy . . . !”
Samid leapt up from his pillow and flew out of the tent, hurling his body in the direction of Barley’s howls.
And so it was in this state that he was greeted by the sight of Barley giving a heartfelt greeting to Prisca.
Samid paused, catching his breath, and after a few moments, he smiled.
So did Prisca.
“Sleeping outside on such a cold night?” she said, looking at Barley. But clearly her words were meant for Samid.
Soon the three of them were sitting huddled together in Samid’s tent. Prisca had brought them a gift—a small piece of bread the size of a child’s fist. She and Samid and Barley split it three ways. Samid, in his contrition, gave Barley a human-size share. And Samid had a small gift of his own to add to the evening. From under a small pile of grubby trinkets in the corner of his tent, he produced the stub of a candle he had once retrieved from a garbage pile. The lowly candle stub was enough to light up the tent with a comforting glow.
Samid and Prisca talked and talked as Barley situated himself comfortably between them. Barley began to doze peacefully while Prisca looked down at him and petted him.
“He looks like a little lamb.”
The soft, comforting sound of Prisca’s and Samid’s murmuring voices gave Barley a feeling of home.
“I was never going to come back here—ever again,” Prisca said as Samid listened intently. “I have only heard the Teacher speak a few times. But after seeing him on Sunday and looking into his eyes as I laid a palm in his path, I made up my mind to follow him. And to never come back to this place again.”
Samid’s eyes fell away from Prisca’s face.
“But then . . . it was uncanny . . . Two days ago, while watching with many of the Teacher’s followers, I saw something . . . with my own eyes.”
“What did you see, Prisca?”
“That merchant from the other day, the one who hit you—you remember him.”
“Remember him?” Samid huffed. “I still have the welt from his whip on my hand.”
“Samid, with my own eyes, I saw the Teacher walk into the temple, pick up another merchant’s whip, and lash it across a tableful of coins, sending them clanging and echoing across the temple floor.”
“This Teacher did that in the temple?” Samid said, amazed. “Then he must be a madman.”
“What’s more, I saw him walk up to the very merchant who had hit you. The man was sitting puffed up and perched on a cushioned chair—like a king—selling his captive birds, right in the temple. The Teacher went over to that very man, pulled the chair out from under him, and swung it at the door to the cage, freeing those doves to soar through the temple and out of the door to daylight!”
There was silence, then Samid said, “This Teacher of yours did that, Prisca? To that man?”
“He did.” Prisca nodded soberly. “To the very man who hurt you!”
Samid scratched his beard and remained silent for a few moments.
Prisca’s eyes began to fill with tears as she continued. “This Teacher from Galilee is the only reason I’ve been able to let go of something that has held me in one sad place for so long—an endless, joy-wrecking, unforgiving . . .”
“Despair.”
Samid said the word before she could. Which made them smile at each other, sweetly but sadly.
“Why is our despair such a difficult thing for us to give up?” asked Samid.
Prisca replied, “I think despair is so difficult to let go of because it helps us to justify the worst things inside of us. We think: I lack, so I can steal. I hurt, so I can injure. I failed at one thing, so now watch me destroy my whole life . . . But when the despair is gone, we cannot help but change. We simply must.”
The two were silent for a few moments.
Barley, who had been lulled to sleep by the gentle waves of their conversation, stirred from his napping just enough to twist his body over onto his back to solicit a stomach rub.
“Like this little one,” Prisca laughed. “He doesn’t despair,” she said, rubbing Barley’s belly. “He’s always looking for the next good thing. A hand to lick, some food to chomp, a stick to fetch, a sight to see, a friend to curl up next to.”
“The next good thing . . .” Samid said softly.
Now Prisca’s tone changed as she spoke purposefully. “Tomorrow evening,” she said in a serious whisper, “some of us will be meeting. Those who believe. It’s a secret place, in the city. We’re not to bring anyone that the whole group is not expecting. But I’ll tell them about you tonight. And you can meet us at sundown tomorrow.”
But Samid’s expression was uneasy.
Prisca stated frankly, “It could be dangerous. So I’ll understand if you don’t come.”
Before Samid could respond, Prisca took her finger and drew a map of the secret place, tracing the path in the dirt floor of Samid’s tent.
Soon, Prisca gave Barley a farewell pat and took her leave for the evening. Samid and Barley followed her out of the tent and watched as she crossed the field. They turned back to their own tent only when she had safely entered the tent she shared with some women of the camp.
“C’mon, boy,” Samid said, cocking his head toward the inside of the tent.
But Barley didn’t move.
Barley looked up at Samid, tilting his head to one side with a confused and slightly fearful look.
Samid crouched down, eye level with his dog, and let out a slow, mellow whistle, to which Barley responded with a slow, hesitant walk over to his master. Then Samid reached out, cupped his hand under Barley’s snout, and looked into his dog’s eyes.
“I’m sorry I was mean to you, Boy.”
Barley wagged his tail.
“C’mon.”
And they both started toward the tent.
“Sam-did . . . !”
The voice came out of the darkness, low and raspy.
Samid stood up straight. This voice in the night made him jump.
“Hog? Is that you?”
Samid peered into the shadows. Boaz—his flute in one hand, his hat made of rags in the other—was walking toward him.
“Boaz. ’Evening.”
Boaz stopped and stood close to Samid, with Barley below, looking up at them both.
“Sam-did,” Boaz said, the way he always mispronounced his name. “You gave bread . . .”
“Yes,” Samid nodded, “the other night . . .”
“Today,” Boaz told him, “I play . . . in city.”
And with a toothless grin, he added, “Beauuuuutifully,” as if the word itself was a song.
“I’m sure you did.” Samid smiled.
“Look,” Boaz said, and showed his upturned rag-hat to Samid. “I get!”
Samid looked down and saw three coins in the hat.
“Oh, Boaz!” Samid patted his shoulder. “Well done!”
Boaz reached his gnarled hands into the hat. He took out one of the coins and handed it to Samid.
“F
or you, Sam-did.”
Samid paused for a moment. Then he reached out, took the coin, closed it into his hand, and grinned, saying humbly, “Thank you,” as Boaz reached his hand down to Barley, who softly licked the old flute player’s knuckles.
CHAPTER 11
Barley stayed so close by his master’s heel, his rope-leash hung slack in Samid’s hand for most of their midday journey to the city. The air of the oncoming dusk was brisk, and the end-of-day smells of the city were nice to sniff as they wafted past Barley on the wind of early night. Samid was deep in thought as he led Barley through the quieting streets to the place where Prisca had told him to meet.
They were now on a hilly road that led down to a marketplace. Though Samid had an idle realization they were on “Old Stone Road,” he had no intention of stopping till he felt Barley tug, then halt, then stare across the road. Samid glanced toward the hilltop and saw near a thicket of bushes the massive boulder that gave the street its name. And sticking up over the top of that boulder: a familiar, fat head.
“Idiot!” Samid said under his breath as he watched. Hog was on tiptoes, peering over the boulder toward the market below, nervously awaiting an unsuspecting merchant to pass by his clever hiding place. So clever a hiding place he had no clue he was being stared at by a tall man and a tail-wagging dog. “Idiot,” Samid laughed again to Barley, as Barley wagged in what seemed like agreement. But Samid stopped laughing the second he heard the voice of a man and woman coming up the hill, a husband and wife, two merchants.
“Hello, friends!”
Hog’s figure emerged from behind the large tree, his tone friendly, his face smiling. The buoyant energy of his greeting took the couple by surprise, but the toothy grin on his wide, moonish face and the charm he sang into his tone disarmed the couple, and they smiled back warmly.
“I see you are merchants! You must know the city well. Could you perhaps give a lost traveler directions to where I am going?”
“Of course, sir,” the lady said as the man nodded obligingly.
Samid’s voice boomed through the air.
“Merchants! Step away from that odd-shaped man, if you know what’s good for you!”