Shiloh Read online

  I can't help staring out the window at the far hill. Will Shiloh-- can he, even--leap that fence to try and go somewhere it's more dry? Is he smart enough to go under that lean-to I'd made for him? Have I built it right, away from the wind? What if he gets to howling?

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  In twenty minutes the rain stops, though, the sun comes out, the birds start to sing again--all those worms oozing up through the wet mud. Shiloh's stayed where he was, trusting me that where I put him was best. Being quiet, like he knows his life depends on it.

  "Marty," Dad says, going outside with a rag to wipe off his Jeep. "I saw Mrs. Howard yesterday and she said David was back from Tennessee, wanting to know when you boys could get together. She said David would like to come up here someday next week."

  I like David Howard fine, but I sure don't want him up here. David likes the hill; always wants to play there. He's not afraid of snakes the way Dara Lynn is. David, in fact, likes to go to the very top of that hill and then go running lickety-split down it, racing to see who's first to the fence at the bottom. Likes to climb the trees up there, too, and play lookout.

  "Well, I'll go down to David's tomorrow," I say. "I'd rather do that."

  "Why not do both?" Ma says, coming out to throw some mash to the hens. "You've hardly seen any friends all summer, Marty. Why don't you go down to Friendly one afternoon and ask David to come up here another?"

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  "There's nothing much to do up here," I say, not knowing how else to answer.

  It was the wrong answer. Both Ma and Dad were looking at me now.

  "You said just the other day you had plenty to do here," Dad tells me, wringing out his rag at the pump.

  "Lots for me to do, but not much for David Howard," I say. A lie. That's a flat-out lie. Funny how one lie leads to another and before you know it, your whole life can be a lie.

  I sit on the porch swing later, not even bothering to push it, and listen to the table being set inside.

  "What you figure is wrong with that boy, Lou?" Dad's voice.

  "Just being eleven, I guess," Ma tells him. "Eleven's a moody age. Was for me, anyways."

  "You think that's all it is?"

  "What pleases you one day don't please you at all the next. What more do you think it is?"

  "Don't think he's got that dog on his mind still, do you?"

  "Eleven's got about everything on its mind," Ma answers. And then the evening news comes on, and Dara Lynn and Becky come out to the porch, leaving the TV to Daddy.

  Dara Lynn's got the devil in her tonight--little

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  bit bored with summer, but not quite ready for school to start. Just for devilment, she plunks herself down beside me in that swing and starts doin' everything I do. I sigh, she sighs. I rest my arms on my head, she does the same. Gits Becky doin' it, too, both of 'em laughin' to beat the band.

  When I have my fill of this nonsense, I decide to go up the hill and see how Shiloh's doin', but as I go down off the porch, Dara Lynn gits up and makes as if to follow me.

  I stop. "I'm lookin' to find me a snake stick," I say as if to myself.

  "I'm lookin' to find me a snake stick," Dara Lynn says.

  I don't pay her no mind at all. Just start walkin' along the edge of the yard, picking up a stick here, a stick there, Dara Lynn tagging along behind.

  "It's got to have the longest handle and a good strong fork on the end," I say, "because that was the biggest, meanest snake I ever saw in my life."

  Dara Lynn stops dead still. She couldn't say all that right if she tried, but she's not interested anymore in trying. "What snake?" she says.

  "Snake I saw up on the hill this mornin'," I tell her. "Must have been four, five feet long, just lookin' for somebody's leg to wrap itself around."

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  Dara Lynn don't go a step farther. Becky don't even come down off the porch.

  "What you going to do when you find it?" Dara Lynn asks.

  "Try to keep it from bitin' me, first. Pick it up with my stick, second, put it in a sack, and carry it clear on up past the Shiloh schoolhouse, let it out in the woods there. Won't kill it unless I have to."

  "Kill it!" says Dara Lynn. "Git your gun and blow its head off."

  "You been watchin' too much stuff on TV, Dara Lynn," I tell her. "Even snakes got the right to live." I'm thinking how if I ever become a vet's helper, I got to take care of pet snakes, too.

  Next day, to head off David Howard from riding up from Friendly on his bike, I go down to see him. I'd tended to Shiloh first, taking a fistful of scrambled eggs left over from breakfast, a bit of bacon, and a half slice of whole wheat toast that I stuck in my jeans pocket. It's not enough for the dog, I know, but probably more than he'd get from Judd.

  It's not enough for me, either. Sneaking off half my breakfast, lunch, and dinner for Shiloh like I'm doing means me going half hungry all the time, but if I eat extra, then it means Shiloh's costing us money we can't afford. I fill my pockets with wormy peaches before I set out for Friendly, biting off each piece, spitting it out in my hand, and picking out the

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  worms before I put it back in my mouth.

  It pleased me that Shiloh was sleepin' in his lean-to when I'd gone up that morning. The ground was dry under there, and I'd brought up some old gunnysacks from the shed for him to lie on, made it seem more like a bed to him, more like a home.

  The walk to Friendly takes a good long time unless I hitch a ride. I'm not allowed to get in a car with somebody I don't know, but Dad being the mail carrier for this part of the county, I know most everybody who goes by. The first person to come along this day, though, is Judd Travers.

  When I hear the sound of a motor and turn to see his truck slowin' down, I turn forward again and keep on walkin', but he pulls up beside me.

  "Want a lift?" he sings out.

  "No, thanks," I say. "Almost there."

  "Where you goin'?"

  I couldn't think fast enough to lie. "David Howard's."

  "Hell, boy, you ain't even halfway. Hop in."

  I know I don't have to unless I want, but if he's already suspicious about me, that'll only make it worse. So I get jn.

  "See my dog yet?" First thing out of his mouth.

  "I been lookin' over all the roads," I tell him in answer. "No beagle."

  "Well, I don't think he'd stick, to roads," Judd

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  says. "Not a dog as shy as him. Shy as a field mouse, 'cept when he's around rabbits. That's what the man said who sold him to me, and he sure was right about that."

  "How much did you pay for him?" I ask.

  "Got him cheap 'cause he's shy. Thirty-five dollars. Worth a lot more'n that as a hunting dog, if I could just keep that damned animal home."

  "You got to treat a dog good if you want him to stick around," I say, bold as brass.

  "What you know about it?" Judd jerks his head in my direction, then turns the other way and spits his tobacco out the window. "You never even had a dog, did you?"

  "I figure a dog's the same as a kid. You don't treat a kid right, he'll run off first chance he gets, too."

  Judd laughs. "Well, if that was true, I would have run away when I was four. Far back as I can remember, Pa took the belt to me--big old welts on my back so raw I could hardly pull my shirt on. I stuck around. Didn't have anyplace else to go. I turned out, didn't I?"

  "Turned out how?" The boldness in my chest is growing, taking up all the air.

  Now Judd sounds mad. "You tryin' to be smart with me, boy?"

  "No. Just asking how you turned out, somebody

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  who wafis beat since he was four. I feel sorry, is what I feel."

  Judd's real quiet a moment. The big-old wad of tobacco in his cheek bobs up and down. "Well, don't go wasting your sorry on me," he says. "Nobody ever felt sorry for me, and I never felt sorry for nobody else. Sony's something I can do without."

  I don't say anything at all.

  We reach
the road where David Howard lives, and the truck slows down.

  "I can walk from here," I tell him. "Thanks." I get out.

  But as I come around the truck to cross the street, Judd leans out the window. "Like I said, that dog's a shy one. Don't think you'll see much of him near the road, but you keep your eye out for him in the fields. That's where he'll be, more'n likely. You see him, all you got to do is whistle. That's what I teach him. 1 whistle and he comes to me, he gits fed. But he does somethin' I don't like, I kick him clear to China. You see him, just whistle, then hang on to him and I'll come pick him up. You hear?"

  "I hear," I tell him, and keep walking.

  CHAPTER 7

  David Howard's house is about twice as, big as ours for about half as many people. Only hini and his ma and dad. Mr. Howard works for the Tyter Star-News in Sistersville, and David's ma is a teacher. They're always glad to have me come down to visit, partly because David and I are best friends, and partly, I think, because their old house is so big, the three of 'em get lost in it.

  It's got two floors--three counting the basement and four counting the attic. Has four bedrooms upstairs: one for David, one for his folks, one just for company, and one for his father's books, with a computer in it. Downstairs there's a big kitchen, a dining room with a fancy light hanging over the table, a parlor, and a side room with lots of windows just for plants, plus a porch that runs along three sides of,the house. I told Ma once the Howards had a room just for company, a room just for books, and a room just for plants, and she said that was three rooms too many. First time I ever saw any envy in my ma. David says the house used to belong to his great-

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  granddaddy, so I figure it'll get to be David's someday. Like maybe our little house and the hill and meadow and the far woods will belong to me and Shiloh, except I'd probably have to share it with Dara Lynn and Becky and whoever they marry, and that's a whole lot of people for four rooms.

  "Marty!" Mrs. Howard says when I ring their doorbell that sounds like church chimes. "We're so glad to see you! Come on in!"

  She always means it, too. It's as though she thinks about me even when I'm not there. Then David comes whooping downstairs, carrying the helicopter that flies when you pull a string, and pretty soon we're out in the backyard, chasing around after the helicopter and telling each other what we've been doing the six weeks since school let out. I got to bite my tongue not to let on about Shiloh.

  We sit on David's back steps and eat Popsicles his ma makes out of pineapple juice. I tell David about the fox I saw with a gray body and a red head, and he tells me about his aunt's Siamese cat that yowls just for the pure joy of making noise. Then I tell him about Judd Travers and how mean he is to. his dogs, not mentioning Shiloh, of course, and then David says he's got this surprise to show me.

  We go upstairs to his room and David says he got a pet and asks do I want to hold it.

  "Sure!" I tell him. "What is it?"

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  "Sit down and close your eyes and hold out your hands," says David.

  I sit down on the edge of his bed and close my eyes and hold out my hands. I expect something warm and wiggly and furry to plop into my arms. Instead I feel something cold and round and plastic, and when I look, it's a fishbowl with sand in it and a hermit crab, scurrying around with a shell on its back. This is a petl

  "My first pet!" David says. "His name is Hermie. See all those shells in there? We bought them for him. At night he gets out of one and puts on another, just like changing clothes."

  I look at David and I look at that crab in a fishbowl and I want to tell him about Shiloh and how we run up and down the far side of the hill every day and roll in the grass and how he licks my face, but I can't tell him anything. Not yet. Not ever, maybe.

  Hermie's sort of fun, though. We get out David's old blocks--the kind you play with back in kindergarten--and we build this big maze with walls on both sides, and then we put Hermie in it. He skids along the maze, looking which way to go, and we laugh when he gets himself in a dead end. I guess any kind of pet's okay once you get used to it, but I wouldn't trade Shiloh for all the hermit crabs in the world.

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  "When can I come up to your house?" David asks me when we put the blocks away.

  "I don't know," I tell him. "Ma's had this sort of headache lately, and she can't take any noise at all." Boy, I am sure asking for trouble with that one.

  "We could stay out on that big hill," David suggests. "Chase around in that field. Play lookout."

  "Don't think we ought to till she's feeling better," I say. "I'll let you know. But I can come down here again next week, maybe."

  I tell Mrs. Howard I got to be home by late afternoon to help out, and she says surely I can stay for lunch, which is what I was hoping. I sit down at the table with place mats, which are little doll-size tablecloths, one under each plate. Mrs. Howard's made us each a chicken-salad sandwich with lettuce and tomato, and toothpicks with olives on top to hold it all together. David's ma is like that. I think it's because she's a teacher--always looking for ways to make something better than it is.

  She does the same with boys. She don't just leave us to eat by ourselves. My ma packs us a lunch and lets us eat it out in the woods. Mrs. Howard always sits down to eat with us and talks about grown-up things. Today she tells us about how we've got some new people elected to office who are going to be more honest, she hopes, than the people they

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  defeated, and how the county's going to be better because of it, and so will the whole state of West Virginia. David's ma thinks big.

  "You can't just go on electing people to government because they were friends of your father or grandfather," she says, chewing on a bite of celery.

  Mostly I'm thinking about the food. I eat every bit of my chicken sandwich. I'm so hungry I don't even save some for Shiloh; then I'm ashamed of myself. Mrs. Howard notices the way I pick up every little crumb, and she says, "I've got enough chicken salad left for another half a sandwich, Marty. Would you like it?"

  "Sure would taste good on the walk back home," I tell her, and she sets right to work wrapping it up for me. Shiloh's dinner, I tell myself.

  But lunch isn't over yet. After the sandwich there's tapioca pudding and chocolate-covered graham crackers, which I love almost as much as Christmas. I don't see any way to get the pudding to Shiloh, so I eat that, but I ask can I take a couple cookies along to eat on the way home, too, and she opens the sack and sticks in six cookies. Ma would have blushed with shame if she heard me ask this, but seems I'm at the point where I'll do most anything for Shiloh. A lie don't seem a lie anymore when it's meant to save a dog, and right and wrong's all mixed up in my head.

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  Worse than that, when I leave David's house, I don't even head home. First I go down the street to the corner store and ask Mr. Wallace does he have any sort of old cheese or lunch meat he can sell me dieap. I got fifty-three cents for the cans I collected So far that Dad turned in for me, and I show Mr. Wallace how much I got.

  "Well, Marty, let me see what I can find back here," he says, leading me into the little room behind the counter. He's sort of talking without looking at me, the way folks do when they don't want to embarrass you. "I got some stuff here that's not exactly spoiled, but it's too old to sell. Wouldn't want your family getting sick on it, though."

  I blush then, 'cause my dad would die of embarrassment if he knew what Mr. Wallace is thinking-- that I'm buying this food for our supper, but there's no way in the world I can let on about Shiloh.

  I give him all the .change I got, and he lets me have a big hunk of cheese, moldy on one side, a carton of sour cream, and half a package of frankfurters that somebody opened and bought five of. I'm happy as a flea on a dog. Somehow I know without asking that Mr. Wallace isn't going to go tellin' folks about it, because people around here tend to keep quiet out of someone else's business.

  Next problem I got to solve, though, is how
to

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  keep all this stuff from spoiling in the July heat. Can't keep it in our refrigerator or Ma would notice right off. When I get home, Ma's ironing and watching TV and Dara Lynn and Becky's out on the front swing with paper dolls spread out all over the place, so I fish around out in the shed till I find me an old Hi-C can.

  I sneak off up the hill with the can and all the food I got with me. Then, with Shiloh watching, I put a rock in the bottom of the can to hold it down, set it in the cool stream, surround it with rocks, and put the container of sour cream, the frankfurters, and the cheese and cookies in there. Put the plastic lid on and set a large rock on top to keep the raccoons out. I'm so proud of myself I like to crow. Hungry again, too, but that half chicken-salad sandwich from Mrs. Howard is Shiloh's dinner, and I give it to him right off.

  After that Shiloh and me go on a good long run over the meadow on the far side of the hill, and after I take him back, put fresh water in the pie pan, and love him good, I start down the hill/Halfway to the bottom, here comes Dara Lynn.

  "What you doin* up here?" I ask her, heart starting to thump.

  "Just wanted to see what you're doing," she complains. "You go off up here every day almost."

  "You leave Becky by herself while Ma's ironing?"

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  "Becky's okay." She turns and follows me back down the hill. Shiloh, up in the pen, don't make a sound. That's how smart a dog he is.

  "Well, I was lookin' for that snake again, but he's hiding from me good," I tell her.

  "You still didn't get him?" she asks, and when I look back, she's got her eyes to the left, then to the right. "You didn't even take your snake stick," she says. She's a smart one, too.