Lamb

by Christopher Moore

  “I have no idea.”

  “I’ll get word to you.”

  It was midnight. The party had wound down and the disciples and I were sitting in the street outside of the house. Joshua had passed out and Bartholomew had put a small dog under his head for a pillow. Before he had left, James had made it abundantly clear that we weren’t welcome in Nazareth.

  “Well?” said Philip. “I guess we can’t go back to John.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t find the camels,” Bartholomew said.

  “People teased me about my yellow hair,” said Nathaniel.

  “I thought you were from Cana,” I said. “Don’t you have family we can stay with?”

  “Plague,” said Nathaniel.

  “Plague,” we all said, nodding. It happens.

  “You’ll probably be needing these,” came a voice out of the darkness. We all looked up to see a short but powerfully built man walking out of the darkness, leading our camels.

  “The camels,” said Nathaniel.

  “My apologies,” said the man, “my brother’s sons brought them home to us in Capernaum. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get them back to you.”

  I stood and he handed the camel’s reins to me. “They’ve been fed and watered.” He pointed to Joshua, who was snoring away on his terrier. “Does he always drink like that?”

  “Only when a major prophet has been imprisoned.”

  The man nodded. “I heard what he did with the wine. They say he also healed a lame man in Cana this afternoon. Is that true?”

  We all nodded.

  “If you have no place to stay, you can come home with me to Capernaum for a day or two. We owe you at least that for taking your camels.”

  “We don’t have any money,” I said.

  “Then you’ll feel right at home,” said the man. “My name is Andrew.”

  And so we became six.