Waylaid

Hiram woke to the sound of ripping fabric. He tasted blood and felt gravel digging into his cheek. He tried to open his eyes, but only one would yield. Through a single slit of vision, he saw an empty water pouch lying in the middle of the road, its torn edges curled as they baked in the sun. If he could just reach it, maybe there’d be one drop. But his limbs would not obey.

Sandals shuffled around his head, and dust settled on his lips. Fabric ripped again. Cool liquid drenched his wounded hand and sent raging pain through his arm. Hiram groaned and shut his eye in exhaustion.

***

When he awoke, he was on his back, and the sun was gone. Fuzzy lines ran along the ceiling forming corners. Stone shelves jutted from the wall. An oil lamp flickered on an unfamiliar table cluttered with several glass bottles, and a figure sat hunched in a corner chair beside it. Hiram gasped. His quick breath induced a cough, and pain tore through his ribs. 

The slumping figure jumped up and swept the bottles from the table into a satchel. Hiram heard them clank together. One crashed onto the floor, and Hiram smelled wine. The man mumbled and bent, disappearing from Hiram’s view. When the man reappeared, he stared at Hiram as if wondering whether he was awake. His head covering was frayed, and his cloak was smeared with blood.

Hiram wanted to scream, but he could only manage a shallow breath. He felt cold and leaden.

The man shook his head, tipped a bottle to his own lips, and then sighed. Warm, fermented breath settled over Hiram like a nauseating fog. The man covered Hiram’s mouth with a rag soaked in balsam, and Hiram nearly choked on the pungent smell. He tried to yell, but a gurgling groan was all that came out. Hiram thrashed to free himself from the intoxicating aroma, but when he tried to sit up, stabbing pain ripped through his shoulder and arms. He fell limp, unable to fight. 

When the door latch clicked, Hiram turned toward the noise and watched the man with the torn head covering slip through the doorway. Coins and bottles clinked together in his satchel as he hurried away.

***

Hiram woke to muffled voices and realized he could now open both eyes, but the sunlight flooding the room forced them shut again. A dull ache galloped in his head, and he winced to the cadence. Every beat rushed in his ears and drowned out the conversation so that he only heard every other word.

The door creaked open, and a robust woman waddled through carrying a pot. Steam curled upward, and Hiram smelled meat. The corner chair was empty, and the table was cleared of bottles. She set the pot on the table and dragged it toward his bed. It scraped across the floor with a groaning protest as if it didn’t want to move either. 

Hiram reached for his ears to block out the scraping noise, and when he did, he saw a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his hand. His other arm was heavy with torn linen strips wrapped from his elbow to his wrist. 

“Who are you?” Hiram whispered.

“I’m Anna,” she said as she tugged the chair toward the bed. “And who are you?” 

“Hiram,” he paused and then remembered, “of Jerusalem.”

“Ahh. Then Shalom, Hiram. Can you sit up a bit?” 

He tried and moaned, “My ribs…” 

“Yes, I’m sure.” She dipped a spoon in the pot and brought it to his lips. “Bone broth.” 

As soon as Hiram swallowed it, she was ready with another spoonful. “Where are my things?” he asked.

Anna held the dripping spoon over the pot and looked behind her and all around the room. “I don’t see them. Did you leave them with the innkeeper?” Another spoonful was at his lips.

Hiram didn’t remember coming in or where he’d left his water pouch, his satchel, or his money. He shivered.

“Isn’t the broth warming you?” She laid the spoon on the table, “Hope you haven’t got the fever.” She stood, and her chair scraped against the floor again. “When a body’s been flung around the desert and leaked blood, it’s bound to react.” She ducked out of sight, then pulled another blanket from under the bed and draped it over his legs. “Soldiers come through here worse off than you, though.”

The thought of Roman soldiers made him uneasy and reminded him he was somewhere he hadn’t planned to be. The weight of the extra blanket and the warmth of the soup made him drowsy again, but he felt afraid to sleep. 

“You’ve got soldiers laid up in here too?” 

“Not right now, but I’ve got several other travelers just like you. Bloodied as butchers.” She shook her head.

As Anna tipped the pot and loaded the spoon, Hiram asked, “Who was in here last night?”

“Nobody,” she stiffened, “I gotta sleep too.”

“Somebody was,” he pointed to the empty corner where the chair had been.

“Not a chance.” Her brow furrowed, and she stopped spooning. “Plenty of bad fellows passing by, but none gets in here.” She pointed to the window. “Guards,” she nodded. “They’re always patrolling. Rome gets its taxes, and we get their protection.” 

“There was a man in here,” Hiram insisted, “And he wasn’t a guard.”

She stood and hugged the empty pot. “I’ll ask the innkeeper about your things.” 

And before he could ask when he’d arrived or how he’d stumbled in, she left. 

He knew what he saw. Whoever it was had sneaked past the guards, the innkeeper, and Anna. 

Dread crept from his stomach to his neck, and his head began to throb again. 

However Hiram had gotten himself here, staying meant he’d be racking up a debt he’d have to pay before he could leave. But he could not work. He couldn’t even stand. He vowed to rest, eat, and drink as well as he could so he could leave as soon as possible and keep his obligations to a minimum. 

But rest wouldn’t come. He tried to recall the man’s face, but it had appeared dark and fuzzy. In his mind, he could only see the blood smeared across his cloak and the ripped linen framing his face. He remembered the sound of coins jingling in the satchel, and he cursed his fate.

Anna returned in the evening with two warm loaves of barley bread, white curds of cheese, and the bad news Hiram had expected. Nothing that belonged to him was on deposit with the innkeeper. 

With great effort, he sat up in bed and turned to hang his legs over the side. He rested his bound hand and wrapped arm upon the bedside table. “Anna,” he said, “I’ve been robbed.”

Anna cocked her head. “Of course. That’s why you’re here.” She tore the bread into pieces and slid a little bowl of olive oil towards him. “Can you dip it yourself?” 

He showed her he could. “How long have I been here?” 

She bit her lip and squinted. “Two days? Three? I can’t remember. I’ve got four mangled travelers in here, and I haven’t had a moment to write down a history of who came when.” She threw her hands in the air.

Hiram bit the end of the bandage on his hand and unwound the soiled strip. It dropped to the floor. “I can’t stay. I have no money to pay.”

“You wouldn’t be the first, but that’s not my concern.” She handed him another piece of bread. “You’re in no condition to travel.” She stooped to pick up the coiled bandage and held it out to him. “Look at that. It matches your cloak.” She laughed. 

The same stitch that circled his sleeves ran the length of the bandage, now stained with dried blood.

“I’ll get water and a clean bandage,” she said, “But it won’t match your cloak.” The door slammed shut.

“It’s not my cloak,” Hiram said to himself. He hated feeling like a beggar. Lepers, Samaritans, and Romans were all accustomed to taking, but Hiram wasn’t. He pulled the green-stitched sleeve up to his elbow and made a weak fist. The cut on the back of his hand parted like a pair of thin lips. 

Hiram was not strong enough to fight if the man returned, but he wanted his things back. But why would he return? He’d already taken everything. Hiram had nothing left but a borrowed cloak and mounting debt. 

He glanced toward the window. Daylight burned his eyes and made his head ache again. If he meant to work himself out of this place, he’d better get started. 

With great effort, he stood. Standing felt wonderful and horrible at the same time. He shuffled toward the window and shaded his eyes.

Outside, Roman guards flanked the entrance below him. A narrow road slithered past the gate, over the bare gray hills of the Judean wilderness, on down to Jericho. And suddenly, he remembered. 

In the last light of the moon, Hiram had pulled his cloak tighter around his neck and started for Jericho. It had been foolish to travel alone at that hour. The guards at the city gate had mocked him for it, but Hiram hadn’t been deterred. 

Romans were never in favor of anyone leaving their taxable jurisdiction. 

But this was not Jericho. 

The latch on the door clicked, and he flinched. The sudden motion sent pain through his ribs, shoulders, and head. Anna was back with bandages, a little clay pot, and a pitcher of water balanced on a wooden tray. “You’re up and about?”

She set the tray on the table and fetched him from the window. It was a good thing. Dark clouds fluttered at the edge of Hiram’s vision. His face went cold, and he collapsed onto the bed. When he raised his unwrapped hand to push the drumming from his temples, he smelled wine and balsam where the bandage had been. 

Anna examined the gash and flushed it with water. She gently scrubbed dried blood from between his fingers. “Aren’t you going to flush it with wine or balsam?” he asked.

Anna wrinkled her nose. “Do you want it to sting?” She dried his hand, turning his palm toward the ceiling and then down toward the floor. “I only use honey for cuts like this.”

She lifted the lid from the tiny jar, twisted a wooden spoon, and dribbled honey across the back of his hand. When it was rewrapped, she asked. “Can you wiggle all your fingers?”

He could. 

***

Hiram spent the next week trying to ward off headaches with sleep. When he was awake, he swung between hatred and fear of the man in his room that first night. When he tried to sleep, he found himself calculating the charges he’d incurred and concocting far-fetched plans for payment or escape.

The lump on his head had flattened, and the gash on his hand had sealed, though he didn’t dare make a fist for fear of opening it again. His ribs had stopped screaming with every breath. Anna had unwrapped his left arm, and aside from breathtaking pain when he bumped it, only the yellow stains of an atrocious bruise remained.

In the mornings, Hiram explored the inn, its courtyard, and the donkeys kept there. Every day, a man with a bandage covering one eye cleaned up after the donkeys corralled outside Hiram’s window, and that had given Hiram an idea. 

He’d asked Anna what work he could do to defray the costs of his stay. “Don’t be ridiculous, Hiram. You need to rest. Besides, we don’t need you calling down curses on this place every time you bump that arm.”

But when he wouldn’t let the idea go, Anna became irritated. “If you’re dying of boredom, go feed the donkeys a few handfuls of barley straw. But do it in the dark before the stablehand gets there.” 

“Will it count against my bill?” 

“I have no idea. The innkeeper pays me to fix the beat-up men that stumble in here, and he thanks me to stay out of everything else. So if you get caught feeding those donkeys, don’t you dare say I knew.”

When Anna brought supper, she left a single copper coin. It was an insulting wage, but it was his way out. First, he’d buy a knife, maybe from a guard or a traveler. He held up the coin, and Anna shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t say a word about it,” she scolded. “You just keep getting yourself fresh air in the mornings and remind your legs what they’re supposed to do. If you lie down all day, you’ll be here longer than anybody wants.”

Every day he felt stronger, and if he stayed out of the sun, his headaches stayed away too.

***

As the lavender morning flamed into orange, Hiram let the donkeys nibble the last bits of straw from his hand. Anna had insisted he give only a handful to each, “You feeding them extra makes extra work for the stablehand,” Anna warned, “Be done before he’s up.” 

A third donkey was tethered in the courtyard this morning, so Hiram hurried back to the stack of straw piled on the other side of their corral. The guest’s donkey took the straw from his hand in one chomp, and as soon as she swallowed, she bawled for more. Her braying grated on Hiram’s fragile nerves, and he didn’t want to rouse the one-eyed stablehand. When he reached to quiet her with a scratch on the nose, she swung her head and smacked Hiram’s bruised arm. 

Hiram doubled over. He pressed his lips closed, exhaled loudly through his nose, and swallowed a string of curses. He silently cursed the donkey. He cursed this insulting little job and the offensive wage. He cursed the robber who’d sent him here. The donkey had scampered to the far side of the corral, and Hiram hurried indoors, still cradling his arm. 

Inside, he saw a traveler settling accounts with the innkeeper. Stacks of silver lined the counter as the innkeeper calculated weeks and services rendered. “There will be a charge for the return trip, Natria,” said the innkeeper.

“Of course,” Natria answered. He reached for his satchel. When he hoisted it over his head and plopped it on the innkeeper’s table, bottles clinked together. A stack of coins slid to the floor and rolled in every direction. 

Hiram froze. He had dreaded and anticipated this moment, but he never dreamed it would come to him here so soon. He clenched his teeth, balled his fists. His cut threatened to reopen, and his throbbing arm shook. He hadn’t earned enough to purchase so much as a knife, and the clay water pitcher on the counter wouldn’t do. 

Natria knelt and gathered his money, counting as he collected it. The last coin had come to rest near Hiram’s feet, and when Natria stood, Hiram smelled wine and balsam. 

The innkeeper looked up from the scale. “Well, there he is.” He pointed to Hiram. “Still alive.” 

Natria turned to look at Hiram. “Oh. Yes.” He looked Hiram over. “I didn’t recognize you.”

“I don’t doubt it, you snake.” Hiram scowled. He pointed to the satchel and said, “Where’s mine?”

Natria backed toward the counter. The innkeeper squinted and asked, “Your what?”

“My satchel? My cloak? My money?” Hiram’s voice rose with each accusation, and his whole body quivered. 

The innkeeper came around the table, “What are you talking about, you worm?” He stepped in front of Hiram. “Yours was stolen.” 

“I know,” Hiram answered through gritted teeth as he pointed toward Natria.

“Ha!” the innkeeper laughed. “You were in a naked heap when Natria found you, and he hauled you in here with nothing but makeshift bandages and a borrowed cloak.”

Natria wedged himself between Hiram and the innkeeper. “I’m sure he has no memory of it. You saw him.”

The innkeeper’s ire waned, but Hiram began to shake with rage. The pounding in his head told him he needed to sit. He pulled out a chair, and the innkeeper hollered for Anna. She rushed in scolding, “You know the sunlight aggravates your head.” 

Hiram felt a lump in his throat. His temples throbbed, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He cursed his weakness as Anna peppered him with questions. Had he been drinking the water she’d left upstairs? Had he slept well? Why was he roaming around? She promised bread and fresh milk as soon as he returned to his room, then she scurried away to prepare it.

The room had quieted, and Hiram cracked open one eye. The man with the satchel full of coins and bottles was gone. 

The innkeeper returned to his scale and began wiping its pans clean and reordering the counterweights. He looked up from his work and thrust the dirty rag in Hiram’s direction. “Where’d you think that fancy cloak came from anyway?”

“You? Anna?” Hiram puzzled. 

“A cloak from me?” He laughed and surveyed the room, “Am I running a Samaritan dress shop?” The innkeeper was exasperated, “It was Natria’s cloak!”

Hiram dropped his head and saw the green stitching on the hem of his sleeve. No wonder he hadn’t recognized it. He’d never had dealings with Samaritans, and here he was draped in a robe that was likely to get him kicked out of the synagogue. His skin should have been crawling. He should be scrambling to get it off.

“Is he gone?” Hiram asked. 

“Can’t say I’d have stayed with that kind of treatment.” The innkeeper poured a stack of silver into a box and locked it.

Hiram was stunned and humiliated. 

“I should find him.” Hiram tried to stand, but his head immediately began to pound, and he sat back down. 

“Don’t bother,” the innkeeper laughed. “He only paid for you to go as far as Jerusalem, and he doesn’t live there.”

“He paid?”  

The innkeeper cocked his head and squinted as if he expected Hiram to know. “Yes.” 

Hiram felt heat drain from his face. “What do I owe?”

The innkeeper rolled his eyes. “Numbers are going to be tough for you now, I suppose.” He stopped what he was doing and looked straight at Hiram. “You owe nothing. It’s all been paid.” 

************************************************************************

For many years, I thought the Good Samaritan was a story about doing good deeds. Everyone knows we ought to be kind and help people in need. When we say someone is a “Good Samaritan,” we mean they have done kind and probably unexpected deeds.

But as I read and reread Jesus’s story in the gospel of Luke, I discovered that one of the most remarkable aspects of the Good Samaritan is that he showed lovingkindness to a needy person who, in any other circumstance, wouldn’t have been caught dead with him. 

He sacrificed clothing, medicine, strength, money, time, and perhaps his own reputation to rescue someone who hated him. 

When Jesus told the story to a lawyer who wanted to justify himself without God’s help, it sounded pretty far-fetched, like a tall tale that was too silly to believe. 

And I think that’s why Jesus had to tell a story to make his point. There was nothing he could point to, yet, that would encompass the scope of loving one’s neighbor. So as he traced an outline of the ultimate good neighbor, he stirred a longing within his listeners for a rescuer who would lay down his life for his friends as well as his enemies. 

To some, the good news of the gospel still sounds like a far-fetched story of sacrificial love. 

But believers who have been changed by it–who have gladly exchanged their sin and self-effort for the gift of Christ’s perfect record credited as theirs–they have remarkable stories. 

If you have been in the metaphorical or literal ditch; if Christ has bandaged your wounds, cleaned them with the oil and wine of his sacrificial death, and restored your life; if you have found yourself in the safety of Christ’s declaration that all has been paid for you, would you tell that story? 

The world is dying to hear it.

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The post Waylaid appeared first on Shauna Letellier.