“You think I’m delusional? That these are just hallucinations I’ve been experiencing?”
“I told you. I don’t know what to think. I don’t have any easy explanations. Maybe he is a miracle worker. Maybe he’s a great magician. I don’t know. Maybe we’re all mad.”
He stopped, breathing hard now. “But what I would like to know is this. Why it is that all you talk about when you tell me about Jesus are his so-called miracles? Why don’t you talk about his teachings?”
Simeon had been preparing his next retort, but that caught him up short.
“You’re the one who told me his teachings used to infuriate you.” Yehuda waved his hand in grand eloquence. “Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile. You once said it straight out. ‘How could a man like that be the Messiah?’”
“Yes, but—”
“So why don’t you ever talk about his message now? It’s like you’ve pushed that out of your mind. It’s miracle this and miracle that. If he is really the great leader you think he is, why aren’t you trying to convert me to what he says?”
Simeon didn’t know what to say. Was that really what he had been doing? The answer came swiftly. Yes. So why?
“You want to know what’s bothering me, Simeon?” Yehuda said bluntly. “I am scared out of my head that you are going to go up for Passover and be with Jesus again and when you come back, it’s going to be some new twist, some new burden of guilt you’re carrying. You’ll decide you’ve made another mistake, just like the Roman uniforms and the bars of gold. Then what do we do? Get harps and sing to Ya’abin from the hilltops?”
Simeon felt his cheeks burning. “If you really feel that way, maybe you had better take command.”
“I don’t want command,” Yehuda said stonily. “Oh, yes, the men will follow me. But you’re the one they admire. You’re the one they respect.” His voice softened. “You’re the one with the natural ability to get men to follow you anywhere, any time. All I’m saying is, do it, Simeon. Come back to us. Lead us again. Let’s get this over with so we can go home.”
Simeon didn’t look up. “I thought that’s what we were trying to do tonight.”
“If it works.”
“If it doesn’t, when we come back after Passover, we’ll go after Ya’abin directly.”
His head came up sharply. “I have your word? Bow and arrow? Sword in hand?”
“Yes.” Simeon’s voice was dull.
Yehuda leaned back, a little overwhelmed by the passion they had triggered in each other. They sat together in silence for a time; then Simeon got to his feet, looking back towards the camp. “I was hoping Issachar would be back by now,” he said, ready to put this whole conversation behind them.
As if on cue, a voice called out. “There’s a cart coming up the road.”
“Good,” Yehuda said, lumbering to his feet as well. “Let’s get this over with.”
As they started back, Yehuda spoke again. “Shana will be here for Passover.”
Simeon stopped. After a moment, he shook his head.
“I was just wondering,” Yehuda murmured. “I know she’ll ask.”
“Let me ask you, Yehuda, and you think about it before answering. If my feelings about Jesus bother you so much, do you really want Shana to be my wife?”
There was only a moment’s hesitation. “No.”
“Then it’s better to leave things as they are. Tell her I’m sorry.”
“That’s what she said too.”
II
Simeon walked around the cart, examining it closely in the starlight. There were five large clay pots in all, each filled with a bath of wine, or about six Roman gallons each. Each was sealed with a wooden stopper with a rope handle. He grabbed the nearest one and pulled it off with a dull plop. He dipped his finger in the wine and put it to his mouth. “Not bad,” he said.
“I had to pay enough,” Issachar replied. “It had better be good. And by the way, the banker said we are down to less than thirty shekels in the fund now.”
Nodding, Simeon motioned for his men, who were also gathered around the cart, to remove the other stoppers. “I’ll talk to Sextus while we’re in Jerusalem. Mordechai is going to have to come up with some more money.” He turned to Yehuda. “Ready?”
His second-in-command stepped forward, several narrow glass vials in his hand.
“How much?” Simeon asked.
“One full vial per pot.” He handed one to Simeon, kept one for himself, then passed the other three to waiting hands. Simeon held it up to the firelight. It was filled with a white powder. Yehuda and Barak had purchased the vials from a Greek alchemist in the back alleys of Jerusalem, whose shop was called Pharmakeion. They had no way of knowing if the powder would really do what he promised it would do. No, Simeon corrected himself, there was one way to test it—in action. He uncorked the vial and dumped the powder into the wine.
“Mooli!”
Samuel, or Mooli as everyone called him, jumped forward.
“Get a stick and stir that in really well.”
Simeon waited until Samuel was done, then dipped his finger in again. He put the wine on his tongue and half-closed his eyes. Yehuda, done with the last pot, watched him closely. Finally, he nodded. “I can’t tell any difference. He’s right. There is no taste to it.”
Yehuda let out his breath slowly. “He’d better be right about the other too, or we are in for a very nasty night.”
III
“Ho! Pull up there!”
Issachar pulled sharply on the reins. The donkey stopped and the cart creaked to a halt. Two dark shapes materialized out of the darkness. They carried spears. A twig cracked behind him, and Issachar felt the back of his neck start to prickle.
“What’s your name and what’s your business?”
“I am Reuben of Beth Shemesh.” Beth Shemesh was in the heart of grape country. He hoped these men knew that.
He stiffened as he felt the point of a spear suddenly pressed against his back.
“Begging your pardon, sire,” he stammered, “but I seem to have lost my way. Is this the road to Hebron?” It wasn’t hard to put a touch of fear in his voice.
There was a raucous hoot. “Hebron? That’s five miles back, fool!”
“What’s in the cart?” the man behind him said, prodding him with the butt of his spear.
“Wine, sire. Destined for the tables of Hebron.”
“Wine?” It was a voice from his left, and suddenly three more men came forward. The sharpness in his back disappeared, but Issachar didn’t turn. He heard a soft plop as one of the plugs was pulled, then a soft exclamation.
He partly turned. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” he said in a shaky voice. “Perhaps this wine was meant for someone closer to where we are now.”
“How much?” the first man sneered.
Issachar licked his lips. “I was promised two shekels per jar, but would consider—”
A hand grabbed his tunic and jerked him roughly off the cart. He fell to his knees. He lowered his head, fawning, beseeching them now. “Please, sire. What I meant to say was that I would consider it an honor if you would accept this as my gift to you.” He jumped back, barely escaping the man’s kick.
“Get out of here!” the man snarled.
Issachar got to his feet and stumbled away, calling out his thanks for their boundless kindness. As he heard the cart begin to roll again, the guards hooting and hollering with joy, he looked one last time over his shoulder; then, grinning, he took off at a run back the way he had come.
IV
Yehuda was disgusted. He had fully expected the sentries to be awake. None were. One of the jars was standing next to their post, two-thirds empty. Eight men lay snoring heavily in the sand and brush. He turned to Simeon. “This is going to be like spanking a baby.”
“Let’s hope so.” Simeon motioned the others forward. “Stay alert. I don’t want anyone harmed, unless we have to.”
What they found a half mi
le farther on was both exciting and a disappointment. The camp was like a field of dead men. Men were sprawled everywhere, heads back, mouths open. The fires were down to burning coals, and horses stood untended on the far edge of the tents. This was the payoff for those months Yehuda and Simeon had spent building trust with the local shepherds. Now they knew almost every day exactly where Ya’abin and his band were. Simeon’s band lit their lamps using sticks from the fires, and then it quickly became obvious that this was only half of Ya’abin’s force. The shepherd boy who had brought them word of where the enemy was camped had sworn there were only about forty men, but Simeon had hoped that he had counted wrong. More devastating than the lack of numbers, however, was that Moshe Ya’abin was not among them. In the captain’s tent, they found only Eliab and one of Ya’abin’s other lieutenants.
Yehuda cursed in a low voice when he saw that. “If we could have taken Ya’abin tonight, we could have ended this in another month,” he muttered.
Simeon didn’t answer. The disappointment was bitter in his mouth as well. But they didn’t have time to stand around and wring their hands. Twenty-one men might keep forty prisoners in check long enough to get them to Jerusalem, but not with forty or fifty others in pursuit. They were going to have to leave them.
He looked up to where Issachar and Yehuda awaited his command. “Leave me the bowl we brought; then search the camp. I want anything and everything you can find that they’ve taken as spoils. Clean them out. I want to be gone in five minutes. Ya’abin might still be coming here tonight. And remember, leave no trace. Nothing!”
Yehuda carried a clay bowl of fresh goat’s blood, covered with a thick cloth to keep it from spilling over. He handed it to Simeon, then darted out after Issachar.
Simeon pulled the covering back. The blood was dark and starting to thicken. He took the cloth, dipped it in the blood, then smeared it on his hand. With a thin smile, he reached out with his other hand and carefully smoothed the edge of Eliab’s robe against Eliab’s leg, then pressed his bloody hand against the cloth. It left a perfect imprint.
He repeated the motion, leaving a second hand print on the pillow. He stood, wiped his hand on the blanket that served as Eliab’s mattress, then knelt down beside the sleeping form.
Simeon grasped Eliab’s tunic with both hands and yanked him up, shaking him hard. The bandit groaned softly. Simeon slapped his face twice, not hard enough to leave a mark, but sharply. The eyes fluttered opened, stared up at him for a moment, then started to close again. He shook him roughly again. “Eliab!”
The eyes were half-frightened, half-confused.
“Look at me! Do you know who I am?”
The lips moved, but only a mumbling incoherence came out.
“It’s me. Ha’keedohn, the Javelin. I’m back. Tell Ya’abin I’m back.”
He let go and Eliab fell heavily back on his blankets. Would he even remember? Simeon wasn’t sure. He reached inside his tunic and took out the signet ring a goldsmith had made for him in Jericho. He dropped it beside the motionless form. Then he began a swift but careful search of the tent. What he was looking for was under Eliab’s head in a large leather pouch. Simeon hefted it, hearing the soft clink. Two hundred shekels, he guessed, maybe more. Roman gold? The purse of some merchant on the Incense Road? Ransom from an unwary traveler headed for the Holy City for Passover? There was no way of knowing. Not that it mattered.
V
7 April, a.d. 31
Moshe Ya’abin was raging. He stalked back and forth, muttering and cursing, arms flailing. Eliab kept his head down, waiting for the storm to abate a little.
“What were you thinking, Eliab? Letting the men have access to that much wine. No wonder they were unconscious.”
Eliab felt a little flash of defiance. “I would like to have seen you stop them from helping themselves. These are not disciplined troops you lead. They’re rabble. They live by taking whatever spoils they can find.”
“Maybe so,” Ya’abin shouted. “But the sentries? Even an ox would know better than to give wine to the sentries.”
“I didn’t know they had any, not until this morning.” The man who admitted that he had left one jar with the outpost was now being flogged. If his chief had his way, the man would be dead now. But Eliab hadn’t completely lost his senses. Eight men had disappeared over the past few weeks. Ten more had deserted. Now the eight sentries were gone. That was more than two dozen men they had lost. Worse, with rumors of their camp being inhabited with evil spirits, the flow of new men had been cut off sharply. They couldn’t afford to lose even one more man.
Ya’abin’s voice dropped, though it was still thick with rage. “Same old story. The sentry’s outpost looks as though there had never been anyone there. Not a footprint. No tracks from the cart. Everything here in camp looks perfectly normal.”
Eliab felt his skin start to crawl again. He reached down and touched the dark handprint on his robe. Then he looked at the second print on his pillow. “There’s something else.”
Ya’abin picked up a cup and flung it across the tent. Eliab ducked, even though it wasn’t aimed at him. “Something else? What else could there be? The chest is gone. The purse is gone. Five bags of incense are gone. What else could there possibly be, Eliab? What?”
The man who had been with Ya’abin longer than anyone else let out his breath slowly, knowing this would bring yet another eruption. “I think I know who it was.”
Ya’abin stopped his pacing. “Who?”
“I’m not sure. I thought at first I was dreaming. But someone shook me in the night.” He swallowed quickly. “He said he was Ha’keedohn.”
“What! Ha’keedohn is dead.” Ya’abin slammed his hand against one of the tent poles, causing the tent to shudder. “You weren’t dreaming. You were drunk. Sloppy, stupid drunk. Pilate crucified the Javelin last September, along with all the men we lost at the Joknean Pass.”
Eliab looked sick. Fear had contracted the pupils in his eyes to pinpoints. And it wasn’t Ya’abin that was causing this reaction. He was thinking about the blurred face that swam before his mind. “That’s what I thought too, but then I found this.” He opened his hand and held out the ring.
Ya’abin snatched it up and looked at it in the light coming through the tent flap. It was a signet ring. There was a sharp intake of breath. He didn’t recognize the family crest, but the Hebrew letters were perfectly clear. “Simeon ben David,” he read in an awestruck whisper.
Eliab felt a small rush of triumph at the sudden fear that sprang into his captain’s eyes. “I don’t like this, Moshe,” he ventured. “What is going on? Dead goats? Bloody handprints? Miraculous camp fires? Yes, we drank too much last night, but it wasn’t that much. They must have come and gone like ghosts. Not a soul in the whole camp was awakened. I’m telling you, the men are getting terrified.”
Moshe Ya’abin was quiet for a time, his beard twitching, his head bobbing up and down as he continued to stare first at the ring, and then at Eliab. Finally he lifted his head. “I’ll tell you what is going on. Someone is trying to drive us mad. And they are very clever, Eliab. Very clever. But it isn’t ghosts that did this. And the only evil spirits in this camp are the ones that follow me.” He laughed at his own joke.
He began to pace again, jiggling the signet ring in his cupped hand as he did so. “I should have listened when we heard that rumor out of the Galilee. The Javelin wasn’t killed after all.”
Eliab’s eyes widened. “You think he’s alive?”
Ya’abin barely heard him. He was staring up, speaking to no one. “Yes,” he murmured. “Now it all makes sense.” He clenched the ring tightly in his fist and shook it at the ceiling of the tent. “You made a mistake this time, Simeon ben David. We shall find our ghosts and demons, and then it will be our turn to see who has terrible dreams in the night.”
Chapter 19
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
&nbs
p; —Proverbs 4:7
I
Bethlehem 8 April, a.d. 31
“Look at you,” Deborah said, reaching up and rubbing at the short, stiff beard. “Is this my son?”
Simeon laughed. “I hate it, actually. I have been so long without a beard, it’s driving me mad. But I can’t be wandering around the wilderness looking like a Roman, not if I want to survive. Even our Arabian friends would be suspicious of that.”
Deborah stepped back, eyeing him up and down. “You’ve not been eating right, have you?”
He laughed again. “If I told you what we’ve been eating, you would be downright covetous.”
Leah came forward, holding out her arms. “Don’t tell us.” She threw her arms around him. “Shalom, Simeon.”
He pulled her tightly against him, burying his face in her hair and smelling deeply. “Shalom, little sister. I’ve missed you.”
“And we’ve missed you.” She held him even more tightly. “Oh, Simeon, it is wonderful to see you again.”
He stepped back and looked at Ephraim and Rachel. “Where are the children?”
“They were so tired after three days of traveling,” Rachel said, “they went right to bed.”
Disappointment crossed his face. “I was hoping they would still be awake.” Then he looked more closely at Rachel, then made a motion with his hands that emulated the noticeable swelling of her stomach. “Congratulations.”
She blushed, smiling happily. “Yes, just three more months now.”
“Boy or girl?” he asked.
“Esther and I are hoping for a girl. Ephraim and Boaz are sure it’s a boy; and the way he was kicking me all the way down from Capernaum, I’m afraid they may be right.”
Ephraim came over and gripped his hand. “It’s a boy,” he whispered, “but don’t say that to Esther.” Then he too looked at Simeon’s beard. “And don’t have too many expectations. You know how Esther is about being kissed when we are ‘scratchy,’ as she calls it. She may not have anything to do with you now that you’re bearded again.” His grip tightened. “How are things going out there in the wilderness?”
“Well,” Simeon said, looking around at all of them, still a little awed at how wonderful it felt to be back with them. He turned to his father. “We haven’t lost a man yet, and so far we have not had to take a life.”
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