Shiloh Read online

  "Got me a stick back up on the hill," I tell her.

  "How many snakes you figure are up there, Marty?"

  "Oh... 'bout twenty-nine that you can see. Baby snakes all over the place, though, hiding. Growing into big ones all the time."

  Dara Lynn's walking faster now, hurrying to git on by me, watching every place she sets her foot.

  I don't feel good about the lies I tell Dara Lynn or David or his ma. But don't feel exactly bad, neither. If what Grandma Preston told me once about heaven and hell is true, and liars go to hell, then I guess that's where I'm headed. But she also told me that only people are allowed in heaven, not animals. And if I was to go to heaven and look down to see Shiloh left below, head on his paws, I'd run away from heaven sure.

  CHAPTER 8

  Next two days go by smooth as buttermilk. Shiloh gets biscuits or toast and a couple bites of ham for breakfast, and then in the evening, I fix him up some frankfurters, cut up and mixed with sour cream, and little chunks of cheese. He don't much like the cheese. It sticks to his teeth and he turns his head sideways when he chews, trying to get it off. Licks his chops afterward, though.

  He throws up the first time he eats the stuff--too rich for his belly, I guess--but after that he manages to keep it down, and all the while he's fattening out a little. Each day it's harder to see his ribs.

  I know my secret can't go on forever, though. Only had the dog for six days, and that evening I find out that Judd Travers wants to hunt on our land. Up the hill and over in the far woods. Thinks maybe he could find himself some quail over there, he says.

  When Dad tells us that piece of news at dinner, my whole body goes cold. I want to jump up and scream, "No!" but I just grip my chair and wait it out.

  74

  75

  "Ray, I don't like that idea at all," Ma says. "You never ask to hunt on his land, and I don't want him hunting on ours. If we let him, we've got to let anyone else who asks, and one of those shots could find its way down here."

  "I'll tell him no," Dad says. "Don't like the idea of it myself. I'll tell him the kids play up there."

  I stopped gripping the chair, but my heart still goes on thumping hard. I'm thinking how maybe Judd Travers has hold of the idea that I got his dog hid up there and he's looking for an excuse to snoop around. Having Shiloh a secret is like a bomb waiting to go off.

  Next day Dad comes home with more news-- good news to him, bad news to me.

  "Can't figure it out," he says, walkin' through the door with a sack in his hands. "Folks are taking to leavin' me food in their mailboxes, Lou. Used to be it was just Mrs. Ellison and her banana bread, but found me a ham sandwich today in Nora Klingle's box and half a baked pie in the Saunders'. I look thin to.you or something?"

  Ma laughs. "Maybe it's just you're the best mail carrier they ever had oil the route."

  "Well, we got half a pie for dessert tonight, anyways," Dad says.

  Oh, brother! I say to myself. Maybe Mr. Wallace is doing more talking than I figured. He wtiuldn't

  76

  come right out and tell folks I was in his store buying cheap food, but he might just pass it along that the Preston family's in hard times, and suddenly food starts appearing. That's the way it is here.

  The next day, Ma rides into town with Dad, taking the girls along, and goes shopping for new sneakers for Dara Lynn and socks and underpants for Becky. First time I have the whole place to myself, and I let Shiloh run pure free. Bring him down the hill to the house, feed him the heels off a loaf of new bread, all the leftover sausage from breakfast, and a bowl of milk. Then I let him lick the oatmeal pan.

  Show him every one of our four rooms, hold him in my lap on the porch swing, and laugh when he tries to stand up on the seat himself while the swing's moving. I let him smell the couch where I sleep and crawl under the front steps to sniff out the mole lives under there, follow him all over creation when he takes out after a rabbit. Then he gives up when he sees I'm not going to shoot that rabbit no way.

  But I figure my luck's going to run out if I don't get him back to his pen soon, so about noon I take him back, and he goes right to the gunnysacks in the lean-to, he's so tuckered out.

  It's just in time, 'cause when I get back and get the dishes done for Ma, the house picked up some, I look out and here she comes up the lane with Dara

  77

  Lynn and Becky and their packages. Somebody gave 'em a lift; you can always count on that around Friendly.

  Ma's pleased I got the dishes done, I can tell.

  "Nice to come back to a clean house, Marty," she tells me. "Had good luck with my shopping, too. Wasn't a thing I bought that wasn't on sale."

  Dara Lynn's wore her new sneakers home and got a blister already, but she don't care, she's so glad to have something new.

  When I walk in the kitchen next, Ma's looking at her face in the mirror over the sink. Got her eyebrows raised high, then she pushes them low, then raises them again. When she sees me studying her, she says, "Marty, I got frown lines on my face? Tell me the truth now."

  I look at her good. "Sure don't see any," I say. I don't neither. Ma's got a pretty face. Plain, but smooth. .

  "Well, I don't, either, but two people this morning asked me how I was feeling, and one of 'em wants to tell me what to take for headaches. I figure that if folks think I have headaches, I must be doing a lot of frowning."

  Whomp, whomp, whomp. That's my heart. "Folks think they got a remedy for something, they'll tell it to you whether you need it or not," I say. Sound

  78

  so grown-up I hardly recognize myself. So scared inside, though, my stomach's shaking.

  Ma's taking out all the things she's bought v and putting 'em on the table, taking the price tags off Becky's underpants and socks. "I saw David's mother at the dollar store," she says, "and they've got relatives coming in tonight. She wanted to know if she could bring David up here tomorrow when the rest of them go to Parkersburg. I told her yes."

  "Okay," I say, but all the while I'm thinking what I'm going to do with David to keep him off that hill. Take him up toward the old Shiloh schoolhouse, maybe, and walk along the river. Funny thing is, you've got yourself a dog, you sometimes feel like you don't need anyone else. Used to be I'd be waiting at the window for David Howard to come up here for a visit. Nobody else loves you as much as a dog. Except your ma, maybe.

  That night Ma makes us fried chicken for supper. First time in a long while. I put away a wing and a thigh on a saucer--to eat later, I tell Ma--and add a spoonful of squash, which might be good for. Shiloh's insides. He eats anything. The frankfurters and cheese and sour cream is all gone, so I got to be watching for table scraps again and go out can collecting soon.

  Dad's working on the pickup after dinner--

  79

  changing the oil--Becky and Dara Lynn's turning somersaults in the grass, and Ma's cleaning the kitchen. Soon as her back is turned, I sneak the food off the saucer and head up the hill to see Shiloh.

  I can tell Shiloh likes the fried chicken better than he liked the sour cream-frankfurter mess he'd been eating all week. Even eats the squash, and then he licks my hands and fingers to get all the salt off, anyplace I'd touched a piece of chicken.

  Since I'd already taken him all over creation that morning, I don't feel he'll miss much if I don't take him out again, so I go around scooping up all the dog doo, like I do every day, toss it over the fence, and then I lie down on my back in thegrass and cover my face with my arms, our favorite game. Shiloh goes nuts trying to uncover my face, nudging at my arms with his nose, tail going ninety miles an hour. Never whines like some dogs do, though. Even when we're out in the far meadow, racing the wind, he'll start to bark and I'll say, "Shhhh, Shiloh!" and he stops right off.

  Wish I could let him make a little noise. It's not natural, I know, to keep an animal so quiet. But he's happy-quiet, not scared-quiei. I know that much.

  I move my arms off my face after a while and let him rest h
is paws on my chest, and I'm lying there petting his head and he's got this happy dog-smile

  80

  on his face. The breeze is blowing cool air in from the west, and I figure I'm about as happy right then as you can get in your whole life.

  And then I hear someone say, "Marty." I look up, and there's Ma.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ican't move. Seems as if the sky's swirling around above me, tree branches going every which way. Ma's face even looks different from down on the ground.

  Shiloh, of course, goes right over, tail wagging, but all the steam's gone out of me.

  "How long have you had this dog up here?" she asks. Not one trace of a smile on her face.

  I sit up real slow and swallow. " 'Bout a week, I guess."

  "You've had Judd's dog up here a week, and you told him you didn't know where it was?"

  "Didn't say I didn't know. He asked had I seen him, and I said I hadn't seen him in our yard. That much was true."

  Ma comes around to the trunk of the pine tree, unfastens the wire that holds the fencing closed, and lets herself in. She crouches down in the soft pine needles and Shiloh starts leaping up on her with his front paws, licking at her face.

  I can't tell at first how she feels about him, the

  81

  82

  way she leans back, away from his dripping tongue. Then I see her hand reach out, with its short, smooth fingers, and stroke him.

  "So we've got ourselves a secret," she says at last, and when I hear her say "we," I feel some better. Not a lot, but some.

  "How come you to follow me up here tonight?" I want to know.

  Now I can tell for sure her eyes are smiling, but her lips are still set. "Well, I had my suspicions before, but it was the squash that did it."

  "The squash?"

  "Marty, I never knew you to eat more'n a couple bites of squash in your life, and when you put away a spoonful of that to eat later, I knew for sure it wasn't you doing the eating. And then the way you've been sneaking off every night..." She stops stroking Shiloh and turns on me. "I wish you'd told me."

  "Figured you'd make me give him back."

  "This dog don't belong to you."

  "Mine more than Judd's!" I say hotly. "He only paid money for him. I'm the one who loves him."

  "That doesn't make him yours. Not in the eyes of the law, it doesn't."

  "Well, what kind of law is it, Ma, that lets a man mistreat his dog?"

  Ma just sighs then and starts stroking Shiloh's

  83

  head. Shiloh wiggles a few inches closer to her on his belly, rests his nose against her thigh, tail going whick, whack, whick, whack. Finally Ma says, "Your dad don't know about himf"

  I shake my head. More silence. Then she says: "I never kept a secret from your dad in the fourteen years we've been married."

  "You ain't going to tell him?"

  "Marty, I've got to. He ever finds out about this dog and knows I knew but didn't tell him, how could he trust me? If I keep this one secret from him, he'll think maybe there are more."

  "He'll make me give him back to Judd, Ma!" I could hear my voice shaking now. "You know he will!"

  "What else can we do?"

  I can feel hot tears in my eyes now and try to keep them from spilling out. I turn my head till they go away. "Judd Travers ever comes here to get his dog, he'll have to fight me to get it."

  "Marty. . . ."

  "Listen, Ma, just for one night, promise you won't tell Dad so I can figure out something."

  Can tell she's thinking on it. "You aren't fixing to run off with this dog, are you? Marty, don't you ever run away from a problem."

  I don't answer, because that very thing crossed my mind.

  84

  "I can't promise not to tell your dad tonight if you can't promise not to run off."

  "I won't run off," I say.

  "Then I won't tell him tonight."

  "Or in the morning, neither," I add. "I got to have at least one day to think." Don't know what good it will do, though. Have already thought till my brains are dry.

  Ma puts out both hands now and scratches behind Shiloh's ears, and he licks her all up and down her arms.

  "His name's Shiloh," I tell her, pleased.

  After a while Ma gets up. "You coming back to the house now?"

  "In a bit," I answer.

  It's hard to say how I feel after she leaves. Glad, in a way, that somebody knows: that I don't have to carry this whole secret on my head alone. But more scared than glad. Have me just one day to think of what to do, and not any closer to an answer than I'd been before. I'd spent all my can money on stuff to feed Shiloh. Only money I have now to my name is a nickel I'd found out by the road. Judd won't sell me Shiloh's spit for a nickel.

  My first thought is to give him to somebody else and not tell them whose dog it is, then tell Ma that Shiloh had run off. But that would be two more

  85

  lies to add to the pack. Word would get out somehow or other, and Judd would see David Howard or Mike Wells walking his dog, and then the war would really start.

  - All I can think of is to take Shiloh down to Friendly the next day, draw me up a big sign that says free-. world's best dog or something, and hold it up along the road to Sistersville, hoping that some stranger driving along will get a warm spot in his heart for Shiloh, stop his car, and take him home. And I won't ask him where home is, neither, so when Ma asks me where the dog is, I can tell her honest I don't know.

  When I get back to the house, Dad's just washing up at the pump, using grease to get the oil off his arms. He's yelling at Dara Lynn and Becky, who are playing in the doorway, screen wide open, letting in the moths.

  I go inside and Ma's putting the dishes away in the kitchen, lifting them out of the drain rack and stacking the plates on the shelf. She's got the radio on and is humming along with a country music song:

  It's you I wanna come home to, It's you to bake my bread, It's you to light my fire, It's you to share my bed.

  86

  She sort of blushes when she sees me there by the refrigerator, listening to her sing.

  I know I'm not going to sleep much that night. I sit on the couch staring at the TV, but not really watching, while Ma gives Becky her bath. Then I wait till Dara Lynn is out of the bathroom so I can take my own bath. Don't know if I soaped up or not. Don't even know if I washed my feet. I go back in the living room, and Ma has my bed made up there on the sofa. The house gets dark, the doors close, and then just the night sounds come from outside.

  Know there's a piece of cardboard somewhere out in the shed I can print on. There won't be any trouble getting Shiloh to Friendly, either. I'll put that rope on his collar, and he'll follow along good as anything. We won't take the main road, though, in case Judd's out in his truck. Take every back road I can find.

  Then I'll plant myself on the road to Sistersville, holding that sign, Shiloh waiting beside me wondering what it is we're going to do next. What am I fixing to do, anyway? Give him to the first car that stops? Don't even know the person driving? Might even be I'll give Shiloh to somebody who'll treat him worse than Judd Travers. Now that Shiloh's come to trust me, here I am getting ready to send him off again. I feel like there's a tank truck sitting on my chest; can't hardly breathe. Got one day to decide

  87

  what to do with Shiloh, and nothing I think on seems right.

  I hear Shiloh making a noise up on the far hill in his pen. Not now, Shiloh! I whisper. You been good as gold all this time. Don't start now. Can it be he knows what I'm fixing to do?

  Then I hear a yelp, a loud yelp, then a snarl and a growl, and suddenly the air is filled with yelps, and it's the worst kind of noise you can think of. A dog being hurt.

  I leap out of bed, thrust my feet in my sneakers, and with shoelaces flying, I'm racing through the kitchen toward the back door. A light comes on. I can hear Dad's voice saying, "Get a flashlight," but I'm already out on the back porch, then runni
ng up the hill.

  There are footsteps behind me; Dad's gaining on me. Can hear Shiloh howl like he's being torn in two, and my breath comes shorter and shorter, trying to get there in time.

  By the time I reach the pen, Dad's caught up with me, and he's got the flashlight turned toward the noise. The beam searches out the pine tree, the fencing, the lean-to. . . . And then I see this big German shepherd, mean as nails, hunched over Shiloh there on the ground. The shepherd's got blood on his mouth and jaws, and as Dad takes another step

  forward, it leaps over the fence, same way it got in, and takes off through the woods.

  I unfasten the wire next to the pine tree, legs like rubber, hardly holding me up. I kneel down by Shiloh. He's got blood on his side, his ear, a big open gash on one leg, and he don't move. Not an inch.

  I bend over, my forehead against him, my hand on his head. He's dead, I know it! I'm screaming inside. Then I feel his body sort of shiver, and his mouth's moving just a little, like he's trying to get his tongue out to lick my hand. And I'm bent over there in the beam of Dad's flashlight, bawling, and I don't even care.

  CHAPTER 10

  Dad's beside me, holding the flashlight up to Shiloh's eyes. Shiloh's still alive.

  "This Judd Travers's dog?"

  I sit back on my heels and nod. Wipe one arm across my face.

  Dad looks around. "Take those gunnysacks over there and put 'em in the back of the Jeep," he says, and then, still holding the flashlight in one hand, he slips his arms under Shiloh and picks him up. I can see Shiloh wince and pull back on his leg where it hurts.

  The tears are spilling out of my eyes, but Dad can't see 'em in the dark. He can probably tell I'm crying, though, 'cause my nose is clogged. "Dad," I say, "please don't take him back to Judd! Judd'H take one look at Shiloh and shoot him!"