Judas by Frederick Ramsay

soldier moaned, his eyes as big as bread rolls. He could not have been more than sixteen, I thought, probably just someone like me, who survived the streets and found his way into the service of Rome as an alternative to starvation. We stared at each other. We could be brothers. But he was a Roman soldier and my enemy.
    “Kill him, man. Kill him, now.”
    I raised the knife. An eternity passed. I looked into the terrified eyes of that defenseless soldier and lowered the knife.
    “Not such a killer as I was lead to believe,” Barabbas said, voice flat.
    He took the knife from my hand and with one quick motion drew it across the soldier’s throat. The young man’s eyes closed and then snapped open as his body jerked against his bonds as if it was trying to run after the life that drained out of him into a crimson pool at my feet. Then he went limp. Barabbas wiped the blood from the blade on the poor man’s clothes and glowered at me.
    “That is how you kill Romans, Red Hair. Not with words or letters of credit, but with knives and clubs and swords, with fists, and teeth, and nails, and anything that comes to hand.”
    “I know, but—”
    “He was one of a squad of ten men who captured and then crucified one of my men. They nailed him to a cross, laughing at his screaming. They laughed and drew straws for the miserable clothes he had on his back. They sat, ate their midday meal, and watched him die as calmly as they would step on a beetle. No, this one was lucky. We were going to crucify him, too, on the Jericho road—one of theirs for one of ours. Now we must find another.” As he said that, he looked steadily at me.
    I thought I would be sick.
    “You fool. Do you think killing Romans because they hurt your family will have an effect on anything? We kill one of them, they kill ten of us. I do not live out here in this godforsaken wilderness because I think I can save the world from Rome. No, Red Hair, I am here because this is what is left for me to do, to rob and plunder whatever comes my way. If they are Romans, so much the better, but for me, anyone, you understand, anyone is fair game.”
    Something had gone wrong. I had borne my hatred for years and believed if given the chance, I would gladly dispatch a Roman soldier. Yet something held me back. When presented with the choice to be the person I thought I was, I failed and, instead, made the choice Patros would have labeled as moral. I shook my head in frustration.
    “Barabbas,” I said, “I will not hesitate the next time. Listen, you need me. I can provide you with materials and resources—”
    “Next time? With Barabbas there is no next time, boy.”
    I heard a sound behind me and, for the second time in my life, my world went black.

Chapter Eighteen
     
    “Don’t touch them. They are unclean.”
    “How can you tell, Ezra? That one looks like he might be breathing. We should be sure.”
    I heard the voices, men’s voices, angry voices. My head buzzed like a beehive. I ached all over. Pain that failed to mask a sense of overwhelming foreboding.
    “Alive or dead, Joseph, they are pagans. Look, the one in the ditch is not circumcised and this one, well, look at that hair. Did you ever see an Israelite with hair like that?”
    “No, well not often but—”
    “Even King David did not have hair like that. No, I think they are Romans or Samaritans. I think they have fallen into the hands of outlaws and if so, we do not want to be anywhere near them when the next patrol passes by.”
    Patrol? What patrol? Who would be patrolling? The sun beat down on my back and I could not move my arm.
    ***
     
    I tried to open my eyes but they were plastered shut. Pain radiated along my side and down my leg. I remembered something about a journey and painful legs, but this pain came from somewhere else. I knew something had gone wrong but in my broken state, I could not think what. Where did my right arm go? I rubbed my eyes with my left hand. They felt gritty, sandy