25

THE CLOSER THEY CAME to Shechem, the more the strange thoughts came. They were wild-eyed thoughts, giddy and foolish thoughts, but had he not a right to a little foolishness? Simon did not care to see the inside of their workroom ever again. His chances to become a scribe had long since vanished, but the thought of a carving knife . . . the thought of his bench sent invisible fingers to his throat.

Why not explore the possibilities? Why not see what was out there? Normally he kept such reckless ideas in tight rein. This time he sent them on a gallop.

The crazy odd notion to visit Kardus . . . well, and why not? Did not Simon have a right to a time apart from it all? He did not even know what Kardus did to earn his living. It would be interesting to find out. He lived in a mostly pagan territory, with Jewish pockets here and there, and that was a comfort —but Simon was ready for a change of landscape. He ducked his head to hide a smile. Pagan territory, a change of landscape?

When they came upon Shechem, upon its outskirts, the thoughts agitated him even more. This road led to Nazareth. What was he doing going back to Nazareth? He could not go back. He could not.

“What ails you, Simon?” Judas asked, with more than small irritation. He walked beside him, eyes ever on the hillsides. He carried a length of grimy burlap he had picked up, snapping it at things on the road.

Judas had noticed? Well, it wouldn’t be James who would. “I don’t know.” Simon kept his eyes averted.

Jude snapped the burlap at a gecko on a rock. The gecko skittered away. “He brings change.”

Simon ignored that and, keeping his voice low, said, “What do you think about Jorah?”

Jorah and James trailed not far behind the cart. They walked together, but in silence. Simon had not heard them speak all day, not since leaving Bethany. Nor had James eaten anything. They had stopped twice for refreshment, and James did not have a crumb. Simon shrugged. Not that he fretted about it. James could take care of himself.

But Jorah . . . How he longed for her to skip up to him with a palmful of rocks. How he wished she would fix a posy in the donkey’s bridle, giggling as she did so. He glanced over his shoulder at her. It wasn’t only sorrow that kept Jorah silent. Her face was as dark as the cloud wrapped around her. And it bothered him that she wore Nathanael’s tefillin.

He first noticed it when he glanced at her as she was adjusting her head covering. Her tunic sleeve slipped to her elbow, exposing the straps wound about her arm. It was a dark shock. Women did not wear the tefillin. There was probably a law against it, written or oral. Worse, it seemed wrong to see them there. What was in that act? A defiance. A rebellion. Against whom, Simon did not know.

He could see on her face the despair he felt. But he felt something more, something so tenuous and vague it was almost not there.

Jude glanced over his shoulder. “Give her time,” he murmured. “We will all need it.”

They walked for a while, until Simon said, “He brought change.”

“What?”

“You said he brings change. He is gone, Judas. He brought change. For us, anyway.”

“Yes . . . of course. That is what I meant.”

“And I am not going back to Nazareth.” Simon stopped the cart. Jude walked a few steps more, then stopped. He kept his back to Simon. Then he dropped the piece of burlap and put his hands on his hips, gazing somewhere ahead.

“What am I to do with that, Simon?”

James and Jorah must have figured this for the stopping place. Jorah went to the side of the road, selecting a boulder to settle upon. James went off to visit the brush. Well, it was nearly time to make camp anyway. Simon leaned against the cart and pulled off a sandal. He turned it over and went to work on an embedded pebble. “Do whatever you want with it. But I can’t go back. I can’t breathe for the thought.”

“Of all people . . .”

“I know. But I’m not going back.”

Jude turned, and his face was cold and blank —viciously neutral. Shaking his head, he stalked off for the brush, muttering, “You’re all mad. The lot of you. At least I still have my wits.”

Simon watched him go. Clouds without water? Trees without fruit? “That’s what you think!” he shouted after him.

Jude half-turned, only to wave dismissively and keep stalking.

Simon led the donkey to the side of the road and began to unharness it. He unhooked the cart pole on one side, went around to unhook the other, and stopped, pole in hand. He felt giddiness, as though he stood on the edge of a promontory, gazing at a great lethal depth. Not going back to Nazareth? Was he Simon? What was he thinking? He had with him his writing tools, his prayer shawl, and his tefillin. A change of clothing and a bedroll. That was all. No money. Certainly none of the sense he was born with.

“I’m not going back,” he whispered in wonder. He lifted his head and looked to the purple hill crests in the northeast, to the province of Decapolis.

What would Kardus think when he showed up on his doorstep again? What would he think to learn the one who had driven off the demons was dead? Was that why Simon needed to go? To tell him? It’s what he would tell himself for now.

Judas sought to prove his disgust with Simon by not helping to unload the supplies. That was his reason for being gone an hour now. James did not have a reason.

Twilight came fast. Jorah began to pace the length of the campsite, hands on her hips, looking to the hills flanking the road. “Where are they? What are they thinking to take a walk at this time? In this place?”

Simon avoided her eyes. He knew why Jude had not returned but could not tell her. Not yet. “Maybe they needed some time alone.”

“In Samaria?”

“It isn’t bad here,” Simon assured her, glancing up the road. “Not in Shechem.”

“Shechem,” Jorah said bitterly. “The place of promise.” She dropped down next to Simon. She pulled off her sandals and began to clean out the sand from between her toes. He deliberately kept his eyes off the tefillin.

Simon adjusted the metal pan set on the tripod above the campfire. The pan held only bread for the warming; there was dried fish in their supplies, but no one was eating much lately. He reached into the pan and turned the pieces of bread over, then settled back on his heels, his gaze straying once again to the northeast. Jorah, I’m not going back. I’m off to see a man who had touched something so strong it drove away a legion of demons. Maybe I want to see if the miracle held. See if the death of Jesus did not erase all the good he did while he lived.

“You’re always saying I’m the coward.” James stood on the other side of the campfire, Jude right behind him. “Just who is the coward, Simon?”

Jorah lowered her sandal. “Where have you been?” she demanded.

Simon poked the bread about in the pan. “So Jude told you.”

Darkness from twilight cascaded down James’ face while firelight lit it from below. The effect was not pleasant, not with that pinched snarl in the thin face. “You of all people,” he sneered.

“Funny, that’s what Jude said.” Simon took a cloth and wrapped it around the pan handle. He removed the pan and set it on the ground, then rose to look at James across the campfire.

“What are you talking about?” Jorah said uncertainly.

“I am going to Decapolis,” Simon said without taking his eyes from James.

“You’re what?”

Simon thought he had no more weeping left. He had cried himself dry, soul and spirit, cried himself hollow for his gentle brother and that cocky apprentice, for his mother and his brothers, for his sisters and for himself. Cried until he thought it was enough, but looking at James, new grief came.

Where was the old James he knew? He began to fade the day Jesus left. Who was this standing before him? James, the old James, had contentment of life, had a sense of humor and a wonderful laugh. Simon loved to hear it, that old laugh.

This pale, thin man with hatred on his face was not the brother he grew up with. James might as well be dead, right along with Jesus.

“I am sorry, James,” Simon said sadly. “Sorry that we were not strong enough for it, none of us. He had to be somebody’s brother.”

Jude folded his arms. His face matched that of James. There would be no understanding from either of them, and Simon did not expect it. Did not deserve it. “When are you leaving?” Jude asked.

“You mean it?” Jorah gasped, coming beside Simon.

He could leave in the morning. They were just past the road that had broken north for Beth Shean. But he didn’t want them to travel the Samaritan route without him. He owed them at least that. “I’ll stay with you until we reach Kfar Otnai. You’ll be fine after that. Then I’ll take the east road to Beth Shean.”

James said he was a coward. Perhaps it was so. There were many reasons he was going to Decapolis; there was only one reason he could not return to Nazareth. It was why Jude and James glowered at him; they were in sick dread of it too.

“But why, Simon?” Jorah cried, grasping his tunic. He pulled her in with both arms and held her tight. Her cries were muffled against his chest. Had he any weeping left, he would cry with her.

He rested his cheek against her head. “Because I cannot walk into that workroom, knowing all hope of his return is lost.”