The Dog Who Was There

by Ron Marasco

  It was at this point that Barley and the robber began to hear loud, feisty laughter.

  They heard the raspy, gravelly chuckling of the poor man who—still on the ground and with dirt on his face—was watching all of this and loudly cackling at the heroic little dog who had arrived on the scene and was giving the giant robber quite a time of it.

  The exhausted redheaded man was growing tired of Barley’s game and moved to end the humiliating escapade by returning his focus to what he had come for—the poor man’s coins.

  “To blazes with a knife,” he said to himself. “I’ll beat his pathetic money out of him!”

  He ran toward the old man.

  But so did Barley.

  And Barley got there sooner. By the time the robber reached the old man, Barley had deposited the knife into the old man’s lap, who now held it up at the robber. The giant man found himself in the awkward position of being a defenseless robber facing a knife-wielding victim and tail-wagging dog.

  The robber at long last admitted defeat and turned to flee.

  “Here, sir,” the old man said. “I believe this belongs to you.”

  The robber turned around to see the poor man holding the knife out toward him. Sensing some kind of trick, the robber inched forward slowly, then snatched the knife from his hand in a millisecond and turned on his heels again.

  “And here,” the poor man said. “I believe you wanted these as well.”

  The robber turned toward the poor man again to see him holding out his meager couple of coins.

  “You must be crazy, old man.”

  “It’s all right,” the man said, still holding out the coins. “You may have them.”

  After hesitating a moment, the robber walked over to the old man and reached for the coins. The robber gasped at seeing the pebbly flesh covering the old man’s arms, and when the robber raised his head, he was close enough to see the man’s face under his cowl.

  The robber screamed as he dropped the coins and backed away.

  “The disease! You have the disease!”

  The poor man said calmly, “You needn’t be afraid. I was afflicted years before.”

  The robber stared wide-eyed and panicked at the old man. He clutched the knife hard, pushing the point aggressively into the air between them.

  After a moment, the poor man tossed the coins at the redheaded man’s feet.

  “I don’t understand,” said the robber. “Why would you give these to me?”

  “Because I learned to.”

  “You learned to?”

  “From my Teacher.” Then the poor man’s already broken voice cracked further with deep sadness. “My Teacher who yesterday was crucified by the Romans.”

  “What teacher, you crazy fool?”

  “A man I was brought to see . . . to be healed of this disease.”

  Then the redheaded man said scornfully, “By the looks of you, he didn’t do a very good job of it!”

  The poor man lowered his head for a moment.

  “Ah . . . yes. They say this is the disease of the poor and the filthy. But I was neither when I became afflicted. I had money, servants, lands, all a man could wish for, until I was struck with this disease. Then I was shunned. I lost all I had. Then . . . I was brought by my family to the Teacher to be healed. But when I listened to what the Teacher said, I realized I had been a prideful, greedy, wicked man. I was callous, cared for nothing but money and property, and was cruel to many, including my own family. The Teacher has said, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.’ He made me see that I was better off and a better man without all that I once had. Hearing his words, I knew that I was already healed.”

  Then the man smiled sadly.

  “But now they have killed my Teacher. Since first I heard the terrible news last evening from some of his followers, I’ve walked the streets in prayer.”

  There was silence.

  The robber stared at the man intently. Then he took a step toward Barley and the old man, jutting the knife forward as he inched closer to them. As Barley watched, the poor man placed his hand gently on Barley’s back, petting down the soft bristle of his fur that stood on end with fear.

  The robber looked at the old man and Barley. Then he looked back at the coins that the old man had thrown at his feet. Then he paused.

  The robber stuck the knife into the ground. He looked at the old man and said meekly, “I am sorry.”

  To which the poor man, rasping through a smile, said, “I forgive you.”

  The robber turned and, with his head hanging down, walked past the coins without even glancing at them. Barley and the old man watched as the redheaded giant ambled slowly up the road toward the crest of the hill.

  CHAPTER 19

  After the departure of the robber, Barley and the old man sat together for a time, just resting and enjoying the safety of one another’s company. After a time, Barley heard the voice of an approaching man, deep and clear and strong but filled with emotion.

  “There you are! Oh! Thank God! Thank God!”

  A man ran to the injured old man and buried him in his arms as the old man grasped this younger man closely around his neck and clung to him. This was the first real happiness that Barley had witnessed in days, and it made Barley wag his tail.

  “I was so scared when you were gone,” the younger man said, near tears. “Our whole neighborhood has been looking for you. We’ve all been so very worried.”

  “I am sorry to have worried you. But . . . you heard about the Teacher?”

  The old man’s raspy voice continued mournfully, “They . . . they . . . cru—” The man’s gravelly words trailed off into silent emotion as tears streamed down his scarred cheeks.

  The young man hugged him and said, “I know. I know. And I am so sorry for you. And for him. And for us all. For the whole world.”

  “We mustn’t be sorry,” the old man said gently, recovering his voice and lifting up his hooded head. “We must love. And care for those who need us. Just as he taught.”

  The young man released the old man from his tight grasp, looked into his face, and smiled.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  But then the young man gasped sharply when he saw the old man’s injured face beneath his cowl.

  “You’re bleeding,” boomed the man’s voice in alarm. And he lowered the hurt man’s cowl to have a closer look. Barley could now see the man’s bald head was covered in what looked like many little rocks made out of flesh.

  “I am fine. It’s just a scratch,” the old man said, lifting back his cowl and laughing. “And it’s the least of my physical defects, wouldn’t you say?”

  “What happened to you?”

  “A huge redheaded man tried to rob me.”

  “Who? Where is he?” the young man asked, looking around protectively. His eyes suddenly fell, in amazement, on the knife sticking up from the dirt road.

  The old man said proudly, “Not to worry, my boy. There is one less robber in this world!”

  Staring at the knife, the man’s deep voice rose. “You killed him?”

  “No, I didn’t kill him. I forgave him. It seemed to do the trick.” And the old man chuckled.

  Then the old man looked at Barley, who stood nearby wagging his tail.

  “And I had some help from my little friend here, who saved me!”

  The old man patted his thigh and called out to Barley, his raspy voice now full of merriment.

  “Come here, little one!”

  Barley did not need to be asked twice.

  He bolted over to the man and reached up to lick his bumpy face, pushing his snout up into the man’s cowl.

  The old man said proudly, “This little creature saved your father’s life!”

  And with that, the other man reached over and began petting Barley vigorously.

  “He did? Well, what a good fellow!”

  The son was the sort of young buck who knows how to have fun with a dog, and soon he was crouche
d on all fours, bobbing his head at Barley and swiping his strong arms out at him playfully.

  The father watched Barley rise up on his hind legs to bat his front paws at his new playmate.

  “Are you my friend?” the young man squealed.

  “He likes you, son!”

  And then in a special, high-pitched, gritted-teeth voice, through scrunched lips, he squeaked again, “Are you my friend?”

  Barley froze.

  Time may change a man’s face and age and height and weight and hair, but his dog voice never changes. Nor does his dog’s reaction to it.

  The young man stared intently at Barley’s face, examining his eyes, his ears, and especially his snout.

  “What is it?” the father asked. “What’s wrong, Micah?”

  There was silence and stillness for a few long seconds as he continued to stare at Barley’s white scruff and runty body and tail set madly wagging by the voice he’d heard.

  Then Micah said breathlessly, “This dog . . . he . . . he . . . looks like a pup I had when I was a little boy.”

  “Oh . . . no . . . you must be mistaken, son,” the older man gently corrected him. “Back then I was not the kind of father who would have let you keep a little dog.”

  “You didn’t.” Micah looked away.

  Then, lowering his eyes, the old man stared at Barley and had a vague memory of something terrible he had done long ago.

  “Son . . . it couldn’t possibly be that pup.”

  So Micah tried again.

  As he leaned forward on all fours, Barley could see past the square-jawed face that had made the indelible sound to the boyish bright green eyes beyond.

  “Are you my friend? Are you mine?”

  The second Barley heard Micah’s dog voice, he dove forward with such zeal he knocked Micah onto his back. Then Barley pranced on his chest, giving him eight years’ worth of missed hellos. Micah tried to lift Barley off of him but was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe. He was, however, able to peer up close at Barley’s fig of a nose and see the pink splotch his ten-year-old finger had loved to trace.

  “Father!” Micah called out after catching his breath. “Father, this is the dog I had when I was a boy.”

  “Oh, Micah! Let me see him,” the father pleaded, peeling back the hood of the heavy cowl he kept draped over his forehead, exposing his scarred face, disfigured with the reminders of his disease.

  The old man took Barley gently into his arms.

  “Oh . . .” he said, his raspy voice thickening with feeling. Then he lowered his face down to Barley’s head, closed his eyes, pressed his scarred lips against Barley’s fur, and whispered so softly not even Micah could hear what his father was saying.

  As Barley leaned against Micah’s father, he remained still, held by the same man who long ago had separated him from his mother and from the boy he had loved. And from deep inside this very man, Barley began to hear the same soothing tune he recognized from his mother—bum-BUM, bum-BUM, bum-BUM.

  In that moment, as the sun was going down on an empty stretch of dirt road, Barley not only forgave the man who took his mother from him, he craned back his small head, looked up into the man’s craggy face, and licked him.

  “Well,” Micah said as he watched, “looks like someone’s found a friend.”

  The old man sat in the road, accepting kisses on a face that had not been kissed in years.

  “Micah,” he sighed as he held Barley, “our Teacher said, ‘It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.’”

  Micah looked with amusement down at Barley licking his father and said, “Well, he sure doesn’t seem too harmed to me!” And he laughed loudly.

  “He is not the only little one I’m thinking of.”

  Micah stopped laughing.

  Father and son looked at each other.

  “I had in mind a young boy,” his father said sadly, “and all the chances for a young son’s joy I put a stop to.”

  Micah smiled understandingly.

  “Father, you said that we must now do two things. We must love, and we must care for those who need us. Since this dog has done the first for us, can we do the second for him?”

  “Micah,” he said decisively as he patted Barley’s head, “one thing I will tell you for certain—this dog will live out his days in the home of two followers of the Teacher from Galilee.”

  Then he gave Barley a little nudge and said, “Go see your master.”

  Barley walked to Micah’s feet and stood looking up at him. As the old man rather spryly attempted to stand up, Micah reached down to help his father and with one strong hoist lifted his frail form up from the ground. Micah made sure his father was steady on his feet, patted his shoulder, and said, “Let’s go home.”

  Then he turned to Barley, who looked up, wagging pleadingly until Micah looked down into Barley’s anxious, upturned eyes and spoke. “Do you want to come home with us?”

  Home.

  It was a word Barley knew. And when Micah repeated it in his dog voice, Barley’s joy let loose. He ran as fast as any dog had ever run—in circles! He dashed like a rabbit around Micah and his father, round and round, then stopped, reversed direction, and dashed madly around the other way as the Father scrambled for his walking stick and then for his coins. Micah pulled the knife from the ground and hurled it far into the roadside brush.

  Micah helped his father raise up the cowl of his cloak to keep him warm, and the three of them started for home as the sky’s last rays of pink faded to gray.

  “We have to find a name for him,” said Micah. “Though I suppose we could just call him Boy.”

  “No!” the father blurted. “We need something better than that.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” the father admitted. “I’ll tell you what,” he said to Micah, “tomorrow, after you get up and eat breakfast, take him for a walk over to the farm across the way from our cottage. I imagine if you spend the day playing in the fields and crops there, a good name will come to you.”

  “Speaking of eating, you must be famished, Father,” said Micah.

  “That I am.”

  “I have soup waiting for us at home.”

  “Soup sounds like just the thing.”

  “And bread. Our neighbor was worried about you. She brought it by today for your return.”

  “Very kind of her,” the old man said with a smile.

  As they walked along, the father reached his hand down, tousled the scruff on Barley’s head, and said, “Are you going to sit by the fire and have dinner with us, little one?”

  “Remind me, Father—we’ll need to get him a bowl.”

  The sun was just about to disappear over the road these three were walking down. Early the next morning that same sun would light the way of two women—friends of the crucified man—as they went at dawn to the tomb of their loved one to anoint his body with sweet oils, as was custom on the third day after death. But for now, the sun was still a sliver of orange in the sky under which Barley and his new master were heading home. Micah walked next to his father, holding on to his arm as Barley trotted alongside them both, walking and wagging, wagging and walking, but mostly wagging. He couldn’t contain himself. Tomorrow would be Sunday, and Barley had a feeling it was going to be the best day ever.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  The story of Jesus’s Passion has been called “the greatest story ever told.” What are the elements of plot, character, and theme that have made this story so universal?

  The epigraph of the book from the gospel of Matthew is about the good that comes to those who make sacrifices because of love. How does Barley’s character arc exemplify this?

  Barley, like all dogs, learns from his masters. What did he learn from Adah and Duv? And what are some of the harder lessons he learned from Samid?

  It is Prisca who first sets Samid on his path to becoming “a good
man.” In what ways—both subtle and overt—does she do this?

  The story is told primarily from Barley’s perspective. How can looking at the story of Jesus’s last days on earth through the eyes of a small, innocent creature bring new insights or resonances to this age-old story?

  One of the major themes of the book is forgiveness. How does the power of self-forgiveness impact the characters in this book?

  The setting of the book is Roman occupied first-century Judea. What do Barley and the other characters’ tribulations tell us about the values of the world in which they live?

  One of the few times Jesus speaks in the book he says, “For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” What do you think Jesus means?

  The question of what does or does not make someone a criminal is an important theme in the book and also a controversial issue in our own time. What relevance does Samid’s plight have to the current conversation of the relationship between poverty, social marginalization, and incarceration?

  Bread is one of the most powerful biblical metaphors of all. In The Dog Who Was There bread functions in both a metaphorical and a very literal way. What are the figurative and literal uses of bread in the book? And what, in your own life, would you identify as your “daily bread”?

  Many of us nowadays tend to greet our dogs more lovingly than we greet our family members and friends! Why do you think this is? What would happen if we treated each other in the same loving way we do our pets? What can we learn from animals about how to heal people with affection? (Animals can be healers. Have you ever seen the magic that a dog can work at a nursing home?)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I must begin with endless thanks to Daniel Mallory whose wisdom and kindness were the wings that launched this project. My editor, Daisy Hutton, gave this book the gifts of her immense emotional intelligence and canny editorial instincts, and the team she has assembled at Thomas Nelson is all any writer could ask for. In my agent, Susan Schulman, I am blessed with a person of equal parts heart, mind, and soul. (And, let’s be honest, there are some agents who are 0-for-3!)