by Ron Marasco
This man had been speaking to the commanding soldier, who had called an order up to the soldiers on the ladder and then walked away. Once that head soldier was gone, the well-dressed old man began to reverently unfurl a length of clean white cloth with the help of a lady with long hair and a younger man who had been standing next to him.
The older man, the young-faced man, and the lady were now holding the outstretched cloth under the cross. The soldiers on the ladder had taken hold of the Kind Man’s body and were lowering it down to the group waiting below. But one of the soldiers lost his grip on the Kind Man’s rain-slicked skin, and the body fell awkwardly, dangling unevenly until the Kind Man’s friends were able to maneuver it to the center of the cloth. The small group of followers paused for a moment, standing very still, holding the body of the Kind Man.
Then the lady in blue walked over and stood beside her son.
The Kind Man’s head was thrown back, hanging limply. Barley could see that the part of a man’s throat that moves up and down when he laughs was jutting out sharply. And the Kind Man’s hair was draped across his bloody face.
The Kind Man’s mother gently placed her right hand under her son’s head and slowly raised it up, allowing it to rest against her body. Then she reached over with her other hand and used one of her fingers to move aside the veil of hair covering the Kind Man’s face.
Barley could see that, even now, his face looked kind.
After a few quiet moments, the older man touched her shoulder. The soldiers were becoming impatient. The Kind Man’s mother nodded knowingly. Then she turned back and stared down one last time into the face of her son.
Barley saw a look in her eyes that he had seen before.
It was the look of a mother who has to let her son go.
After a long moment the Kind Man’s mother closed her eyes, turned her head away, and stepped back from her son’s body. The Kind Man’s friends wrapped his body in the white cloth, and soon the older gentleman nodded to the group, indicating it was time to go.
Barley could see the deep pain etched on the younger man’s face and understood that he felt lost without his master but was trying to be brave. The young man’s strength was needed to bear most of the Kind Man’s weight, and then the old man joined him, gently hoisting the body into a carrying position.
As they moved, one of the Kind Man’s lower limbs slipped from under the cloth. The young man stopped and turned his head away at the ugly sight of the wound. But Barley saw the woman with the long hair calmly walk over, gently take hold of the Kind Man’s foot, and press it to her face sweetly—like it was not ugly at all—before placing it back under the cloth. Barley understood this. The foot of the master is always beautiful—there to walk beside you, the familiar flap of his sandal tapping reassuring music as he leads you on the way. On days when Duv was at the market and Barley missed him, he would sometimes curl up next to one of Duv’s old sandals to feel better. Barley hoped the Kind Man’s friends had an old sandal of his to keep nearby when they missed him.
As the rain began to fall again, the sparse band of the Kind Man’s loved ones made their wobbly way down the hill. As the Kind Man was carried along, Barley watched the white cloth that held him move against the darkened vista surrounding Golgotha, like one bright cloud floating through a troubled sky.
It was a long time—several minutes—before Barley could bring himself to turn his head back around and look at the cross on which Samid’s body had been hanging.
It was empty.
Barley felt relieved.
As he stood alone in the rain, he was glad to know his master was somewhere else. He hoped it was a place that had no rain, a place where masters and their dogs could stay together.
CHAPTER 18
Barley looked around and found himself completely alone on Golgotha.
He finally stood up slowly and began the journey down the hill.
Barley was too tired to be hungry and too hungry to be tired. The rain had subsided slightly and had left behind a night sky filled with softly mournful clouds.
Now Barley would do what the only instinct that hadn’t yet been shattered by this day told him to.
He would walk. Walk and walk. Walk somewhere, nowhere, anywhere.
By the time the rain had stopped completely, Barley had walked for hours and hours and had traveled for miles.
Darkness had come long ago, and in spite of his exhaustion, Barley kept on moving.
In this way, Barley traveled for much of the night.
At long last he came to a small indentation at the bottom of a low cliff. The mouth of this rocky burrow was positioned so that when Barley crawled into it, he could still see up and down the road. The tiny den was nestled under a large cliff wall, and Barley thought it as fine a home for the night as he was likely to find.
Barley curled himself up puppy-tight to sleep for what he hoped would be an eternity.
And soon Barley’s exhausted, rhythmic breathing lulled him into a sleep so deep that not even dreams could reach it.
And he slept.
And slept, and slept.
The weather the next day was neither sunny nor rainy, with dull, pale silver skies that were nice to sleep under. And that was exactly what Barley did.
But this time, he did dream.
Or at least that was how it seemed.
Barley had been having a dream about one of Duv’s wooden birds. The figurine had come to life and was flying around Adah and Duv’s little house, making a sad sound. It wasn’t a singing or chirping but more like crying or a mournful groaning. It was a sound that made Barley feel bad for the little bird.
As Barley lay there in his little den in half-sleep, he suddenly realized he was not dreaming. But he could still hear the bird—faint, but very near.
Then, to Barley’s distress, he realized where the sound was coming from. The sound was coming from inside of him. It was the growling of his own stomach—which Barley understood was now so empty there was room enough inside it for a sad bird to be flying around.
Barley had found a fine shelter for himself. But now he knew that if he didn’t find some food soon, he would not survive. He had to find either food or a person who would be kind enough to feed him.
Barley crawled out of the snug shelter, sneezed a few times as the sun hit his face, shook his head to rouse his instincts out of their many hours of sleep, and resolved to set out on the hunt for some food. He took a look up and down the road. He saw nothing but rocks and sand and sparse trees that had died long ago. There was not a living man, beast, or flower in sight.
Barley knew he would have to leave his temporary little home in order to find food. He gave one last look back at the small cave and began to trot down the road.
Soon, in spite of his hunger, Barley realized how fine it felt to once again be running with the sun on his back, the wind on his fur.
He made his way over narrow roads and hilly terrain. After many hours, he found himself on a road that seemed to have no other roads jutting off of it for him to turn down. Barley began to worry. He could tell by the slant of light on the road that the sun would be setting soon. And being caught on a wrong road at night would be dangerous. Hunger would take days to kill him, but a nocturnal desert predator could do the job in seconds.
Just as these worries were swarming in Barley’s head, he saw, at the end of this long road, a huge boulder and a small patch of tall grass where the road forked in two different directions.
To the left, the road veered down. To the right, it veered up.
The sun fell across the boulder in a way that made it look warm, so Barley trotted up to the huge rock and stopped in front of it, glancing down one possible direction and up the other. He knew he would have to make a choice. And this would not be easy for Barley. He missed having a master to guide his way and worried what would happen if he chose poorly.
As Barley stood there wondering, he heard the tiniest, faintest sound coming from the grass in
front of the big boulder. It was just a soft flutter, but on a quiet road, it reached Barley’s ears and made his eyes go wide.
On the end of a blade of grass, just an inch from his nose, Barley saw a butterfly.
He took a step closer, drawn by the butterfly’s bold colors and funny flutters. And the butterfly did not seem to mind having a dog look at it so closely. Barley stood for a long while staring at the wings, admiring their perfect patterns and colors. The butterfly reminded Barley of the birds Duv created with the pretty paints Adah made. The butterfly was the first beautiful thing Barley had seen in a long while. After yesterday’s dark hours of clouds, rain, muddy iron, blood-soaked wood, and the gray haze of human cruelty over every inch of stony hilltop, the lovely butterfly was a welcome sight indeed.
As Barley observed the butterfly, its delicate wings began flitting more swiftly. Barley wagged his tail as he watched the little creature gracefully rise off the blade of grass then turn and trace ribbons into the air as it flew away and disappeared . . . up the road to the right.
Barley’s mind was made up.
If the road to the right was good enough for a butterfly with such nice wings, it was good enough for Barley.
Barley had galloped up the road only a few hundred yards when he saw, on either side of the narrow roadway, off in the distance, some scattered clusters of humble-looking houses. These were smaller even than Adah and Duv’s house, but they looked well kept. And most importantly, Barley could smell dinners cooking. He began to step livelier as he continued up the road, hopeful he might find someone who would be kind to him.
But then he saw something strange coming down the hill.
It was a tall, thin, shadowy presence, outlined by the flat light of the late afternoon sky. The figure was clearly that of an old person—twisted, hunched over, and moving with an eerie gait.
As the figure neared, Barley could see it was a man, the cowl of his gray robe thrown over his head in a way that made the man’s head look monstrous against the dusky sky. Barley could discern from amid the shadows under the man’s cowl a bald head and the mottled skin of a hideous-looking face. Barley could hear the man voicing a mournful, rhythmic, rasping chant.
And this hunched, hooded, disfigured, mumbling figure held a big, heavy stick, gripping it tightly in his hand.
Then Barley heard another sound behind him. As he turned away from the ghoulish, hooded figure, he saw a younger man with reddish hair and a bushy beard ambling up the road from behind. The man was so tall and so broad that to Barley he looked like a giant. He wore a grubby tunic and was making long, fast strides.
With a scary old man coming down at him from one direction and a redheaded giant coming up at him from the other direction, Barley wondered what sort of place the butterfly had pointed him to.
Barley caught the giant red-headed man’s eye as he passed, but the man just looked back at Barley blankly. He was not like most people, who when they see a dog at least say hello or sometimes even stop for a quick pet before passing by. Barley gave the man a good, strong tail wag as he passed by, but the huge man just looked at Barley as though he were invisible and picked up his speed a little as he headed up the road toward the scary man.
Barley watched as the two odd men neared each other.
When they finally met on the road, Barley saw the scary-looking hooded man do an unexpected thing.
He stopped mumbling, bowed politely, and said something through his cowl in a gravelly voice that sounded surprisingly cheery for a scary man with a stick.
Then Barley saw something else he didn’t expect.
The redheaded giant lunged at the scary man, clutching the man’s cowl with one hand as the other hand held a gleaming blade across the man’s throat.
“No! Oh please! Do not—! For your own sake, do not—” The scary man’s gravel-voice became loud with fear. But Barley also heard a sweetness in the old man’s tone.
“I have so little to take . . .”
Barley realized that this was not a scary man; this was just a poor man, like the people at the camp—who weren’t scary, just poor.
Barley watched as the giant robber put out his wide leg and yanked his victim’s cloak until the poor man tripped, sending his stick flying into the air and his tall, hunched frame toppling onto the road so hard that Barley could feel the street shake under his paws.
Barley did not know what to do.
Then the robber pointed his knife down toward the poor man’s face.
“You need not use that. Please . . .” the poor man rasped as the robber began to pat the poor man’s body forcefully, looking for his coin purse.
Barley saw the poor man trying to rise onto his knees, reaching into the pocket of his tunic for his money. He said gently to the robber, “I shall give you what you wish, friend!”
To which the red-haired man growled, “I am not your friend!” and kicked dirt in the man’s face. But the poor man looked up at his attacker and said kindly, “You need not use a knife. You may take all I have.”
And he reached up and handed the robber, not a proper coin purse, but a small, tied rag.
The robber tore it open and saw what was in it.
Just two small coins.
“That’s all?” the man bellowed, furious.
The robber was enraged he had gone to so much trouble for so few coins. He stormed a few paces away from the man, reached down to the ground, and picked up the poor man’s heavy walking stick. Then he walked back to the poor man, stood over him, and gripped the stick in his beefy hands as he raised it up over the man’s frail chest.
When he saw this, Barley felt anger rise in him.
He had seen so much evil over the last day.
Now he would finally strike back at it.
Barley ran up the road toward the two men.
Once he got to the giant redheaded man, he would bite!
But just as Barley reached the two men, he heard a familiar sound.
“Give us today our daily bread . . .”
The robber was standing over the poor man who was kneeling in the street, his bald head bowed and his raspy voice calmly reciting the same sweet and solemn words that he had been mumbling to himself when he was first limping down the road.
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
These were words Barley had heard before, and they were spoken in the same soft murmur Barley had heard over almost eight years of life with Adah and Duv.
Barley understood.
The poor man was a follower of the Kind Man.
He also understood that, with these words in his ears, he would not be able to bite the redheaded giant.
The only problem was, Barley was still racing at top speed up the road in attack mode. And he had no plan.
Barley wished at this moment he had a master to give him some guidance, but he didn’t have a master to guide him.
Or did he?
That’s when it dawned on Barley what he should do.
He had learned it from Adah and Duv, as he saw them live humbly and treat each other sweetly in a house filled with simple joys. And finally from Samid, who was strong enough, even at the last, to look at his dog and try to smile. And these masters had all learned it from their master—the Kind Man, whom Barley had seen look with boundless love at a weeping thief on a cross and see only a lost child whom he asked to follow him home.
Barley now understood the lesson of lessons—the way to overcome evil.
Look for the good.
Look for the good, and forgive.
Running like a champion, Barley announced his arrival on the scene by launching himself through the air—arcing over the fallen body of the thin, bald man and right into the unsuspecting arms of the redheaded robber.
The stunned man looked down, amazed at how fast he’d gone from robbing a man with a knife to holding a scruffy white dog in his arms. Having dropped his knife and the poor man’s walking stick instinctively to catch th
e foreign body flying toward him, the robber was now defenseless.
Before the robber could react, Barley began to lick his bearded face wildly. He was looking for the good! The giant didn’t know what to do. He just stood there confused, frustrated, and embarrassed that a thief of his size and experience was making such a poor job of robbing.
The man heaved Barley out of his arms and into the air. Barley landed hard in a sprawl, but he shook himself up to all fours quickly and ran back toward the giant.
The robber bent his wide frame down and picked up his knife. Then he planted his feet firmly as Barley sped toward him, his knife pointed forward and at the ready.
Barley raced toward the robber with all his might and launched himself into the air with the force of a small and well-aimed projectile. As Barley slammed headfirst into the giant’s legs, the robber let out a scream that was almost as high as the arc the knife made flying out of his hand. It landed with a clank on the street between the robber and Barley. Dazed as Barley was from the collision, he collected himself and ran immediately for the knife, while the giant scrambled on all fours to reach the knife first.
Barley won.
Now Barley held the handle of the knife in his snout like a fetching stick and began running around the robber in speedy circles.
The giant roared, now purple with rage.
“Give me that, you lunatic cur!”
As the robber lurched down to grab the knife from Barley, Barley pivoted and ran in the other direction. And when the robber tried to grab the knife again, Barley repeated this tactic. Barley and the giant engaged in this silly dance for so long that the robber got dizzy and had to stop for a moment. But Barley drew him back to the game through one of the oldest tricks known to dogs. He trotted up and dropped the knife just inches in front of the man’s feet. When the man doubled over to grasp it, Barley scooped it up before he even had a chance and started a new round of his crazy game as the robber chased, panted, and swore.