Saving Shiloh Read online

  I walk over to pick up Dad’s lantern, but then my heart almost gives out and my legs start to buckle. All I can do is grab David’s sleeve and point, ’cause there, sticking out from under one of the fallen rafters, with snow and shingles on top, are the curled fingers of a man’s glove. And on down the pile of rubble, about where his foot would be, is half a man’s boot showing.

  Fifteen

  Forget Dad’s lantern. David and me tumble back down those steps, scrambling over junk in the basement, sure that any minute someone’s goin’ to snatch us by the ankles, pull us back. We get outside, and go floppin’ and falling through the snow till we reach the road, then tear across the bridge and on up the drive, our breath comin’ in steamy puffs.

  We reach the house, scramble up on the porch, and we’re both trying to squeeze through that door at once, falling over Dara Lynn’s boots she’s left right there on the rug.

  “Marty, what . . . ?” asks Ma, lookin’ up from her sewing.

  “Over in the schoolhouse . . . ” I point. “The roof caved in from all the snow and there’s a dead man under the rafters.” I collapse on a chair, my chest heaving.

  Ma rises from the sofa, her scissors sliding to the floor. “You sure ’bout this, Marty?”

  “Sure as Christmas,” says David, and we wait, starin’ at each other while Ma makes the call to the sheriff.

  Dara Lynn says she will never forgive us, not takin’ her along.

  “I never seen a dead person in my whole life!” she cries.

  “You have too. You seen Grandma Preston,” I tell her.

  “I never seen one that got a roof caved in on him,” she wails.

  I am actually thinking of taking Dara Lynn over there and showing it to her, but Ma says David and me are not to go back till the sheriff gets here, and Dara Lynn’s not to go at all. Not somethin’ for a little girl to see. So we watch from the window, and when the sheriff’s car shows up out on the road later, David and me go on over. They got a police dog with ’em.

  Sheriff rolls down his window. “You the boys who found a body? Your ma called?”

  I nod. I point to the schoolhouse.

  Car moves on slow across the bridge, and David and me follow. We show ’em the path in the snow from the basement window to the outhouse, and one of the deputies points out another path leading off into the woods. David and I didn’t notice that one at all.

  “Okay, now,” the sheriff says. “I want you boys to stay outside with Frank here while Pete and I go take a look.” Frank’s the man with the police dog, I guess.

  David and I stand there watching, wondering how in the world Pete, the fat one, is going to get himself through that basement window—jacket, gun, belly, and all—but he does.

  Frank lets us pet his dog while we wait. We can hear the other men talking inside, but can’t make out the words. Now and then a board creaks, something else giving way, I guess. Footsteps going back and forth across the floor.

  After a while the men come out again, Sheriff crawling out first through that basement window, Pete behind him, dragging a leaf bag filled with stuff. I can see the shotgun sticking out of the bag. I tell ’em Dad’s lantern is in there, but they say they’ve got to keep all the evidence for a while.

  “So what you got?” Frank asks the others.

  Sheriff grins at us. “Well, there was a glove and a boot, all right, but nobody in ’em. I’ll admit, it sure looked like there was a body under there, but it was just some clothes.”

  But before David and I have a chance to feel really stupid, Sheriff says, “But look what else we found, Frank,” and holds up a pair of bright orange pants.

  Frank whistles, then smiles.

  “Know what this is?” the sheriff asks David and me. “The uniform over at the county jail. We’ve been lookin’ for those two escapees, and it appears this is where they’ve been.”

  My hand moves into my jacket pocket and deep down in one corner where I’d forgotten all about it, I find this piece of orange cloth that Shiloh and the Lab were playing with.

  “There you go!” says the sheriff when he sees it. “Piece of the shirt! Where’d you find that?”

  “My dog brought it home,” I say, as David stares.

  “Surprised they got this far,” says Pete. “Probably dropped their clothes as soon as they could steal something else to put on their backs.”

  “Well, we figured they’d show up sooner or later, weather like this,” says the sheriff, taking the piece of shirt in my hand and sticking it in the bag, too. “What I can’t figure, though, is why two men, who only had thirty days to serve for disorderly conduct, would pull something like this. Walk off that work detail. Now they’ve got to serve even more time when we catch ’em.”

  “Heck,” says Pete. “I’d choose jail just to stay nice and warm. Three square meals, a bunk and blanket . . . who knows what they were eating here!”

  I’m wondering the same thing. I’ve been up to Middlebourne before with my dad, and the jail actually don’t look too bad. Sort of like a castle snuggled there next to the courthouse, with the words, COUNTY JAIL in bright red letters. You put a wreath on the door, it’d look right cheery.

  “But where are they now?” I ask.

  “That’s what Sergeant here is going to find out,” Sheriff says, and he gives that dog a good healthy sniff of the jail clothes.

  David and I watch as that dog buries his nose in the uniform, like he’s drinking in the scent, and then he starts running around, nose to the snow. Pretty soon he’s on the path to the outhouse and, after that, the path through the woods.

  • • •

  The story makes the next edition of the Tyler Star-News. There’s a picture of the old Shiloh schoolhouse with its roof caved in, and the story says how two boys found the hideout. And then it tells how those men, who’d been arrested for disorderly conduct, turned out to be the chief suspects in the murder of the man from Bens Run. David was right about that much, anyway. They’d figured that the longer they were in jail, the better chance the sheriff had of connecting them to the killing, so they got away when they saw the chance. Seems they’d been gambling with the man from Bens Run, who owed them a pile of money, and when he said he couldn’t pay them, they got in a fight. Whether they meant to kill him or not, the court, I guess, will decide.

  The story says that the police dog found them a couple miles away, coming back through the woods with some more blankets and half a roast beef. Photographer wanted to come and take our picture, but Mr. Howard wouldn’t let him. Dad wouldn’t even let the newspaper use our names. Said he didn’t especially want the men to know who the boys were who found the hideout, and where they lived.

  But it felt pretty good to be a hero for a day—me and David both. Tell the truth, I’d forgot about those men escaping from the county jail, and never dreamed they’d got clear over to Shiloh lookin’ for a place to hide.

  The kids on the bus Monday morning want to hear all about it—don’t take them long to figure out who the two boys were.

  “It was you and David, wasn’t it?” squeals Sarah Peters.

  “You see ’em go in the schoolhouse, or what?” asks Fred Niles.

  “They pull a gun on you?” Michael Sholt wants to know.

  Tell the story all over again, but I guess I skim the truth a little by leavin’ things out—like how David and me run like roosters when we saw that glove sticking out from under the rafter. But if I leave things out, David puts things in, and after he gets on the bus, each of us giving our account in our own way, we have a story rolling like you wouldn’t believe.

  One kid tells another, and he tells somebody else, each of ’em tacking on a little something, so that by the time the bus gets to school and the story reaches Miss Talbot, it seems David and me had trapped the vicious killers in the old Shiloh schoolhouse, and then we climbed up on the roof and tramped around so that it fell down, burying the men in snow up to their armpits.

  But wouldn’t you know, M
iss Talbot made a lesson of it? She can make a lesson out of anything. First it’s Pilgrims, then Alaska, and now we got to find out all about prisons—how many in the state of West Virginia, how you get there by doin’ what, and how long you got to stay. Don’t ever tell your teacher somethin’ she don’t need to know, or she’ll make homework out of it quicker’n you can say, “My dog Shiloh.”

  Each time we tell the story, though, I say, “See? It wasn’t Judd, after all! You had him all wrong. He’s changin’! You should see all he’s done for his dogs.”

  But the worst was right around the corner, and maybe, if I’d known what was comin’ next, I wouldn’t have said nothing at all.

  Sixteen

  Valentine’s Day, and David and me get more valentines than any other boys in our class—most of ’em from girls. In sixth grade, we don’t go much for valentines—just the gross and crazy kind—but here are all these hearts with our names on ’em. I even got a valentine from Sarah Peters with a stick of spearmint gum stuck to the front, and the words VALENTINE, I CHEWS YOU! Sarah Peters never give any boy a valentine before, namely ’cause she’s so stuck on herself, and all because she can swim. On a swim team or something. But here’s this big valentine with her name on it. Embarrassing is what it is, especially since I didn’t give out any valentines at all.

  On the way home, after David Howard gets off the bus, Dara Lynn comes and sits beside me. She’s showin’ me all her valentines, and then she reaches in her coat pocket and pulls out the one from her teacher. Got a whole Milky Way bar with a ribbon around it.

  I can’t believe her teacher gave everybody a big candy bar like that. Dara Lynn, of course, starts peelin’ the wrapper off that chocolate real slow like, wavin’ it around in front of my nose till I think I hate my sister worse’n spinach.

  And then, all of a sudden, she breaks that candy in half and hands a piece to me. “Here,” she says.

  I look at the candy. Look at Dara Lynn. “That half got poison in it?” I say.

  “No,” she tells me, jiggling it a little. “Go on. You can have it.”

  I take the candy and look it over good. Seems fine to me. Take a bite. The purest, sweetest chocolate you ever did taste. Dara Lynn settles back in her seat, swingin’ her legs and eatin’ that chocolate bar, and I eat my piece, too, and think how if I live to be a hundred, I will never understand my sister.

  Kids still talkin’ about the men from the county jail hidin’ out in the old Shiloh schoolhouse. All the stuff that they’d stolen was returned, and Fred Niles’s dad got his shotgun and two jackets back.

  “See?” I say to Fred. “You were accusing Judd for nothing.”

  “I’ll bet he’s taken stuff we don’t even know of, though,” Fred says.

  I turn halfway round in my seat. “Why are you always tryin’ to blame Judd for every little thing that happens?” I ask, angry.

  But Sarah says, “The way he used to treat Shiloh, Marty, I’d think you and Judd would be enemies. Tell me one good thing he’s done.”

  “He plowed us out after the blizzard. Plowed out a few more besides,” I say, and try hard to think of something else. Judd wasn’t drinkin’ anymore that I knew of Wasn’t knocking down anybody’s mailbox. Wasn’t going around stealing all the stuff people thought he had. Then I see that all I’m doing is thinking of things he wasn’t doing. I was short on things he did.

  “You know what I think?” says Michael Sholt, maybe jealous of all the attention David and me got that day. “I think you and your dad are afraid of him. No matter what he does, you say a good word. He’s got you scared!”

  Now I’m really mad. “Has not! I wasn’t too scared to stand up to him and take Shiloh!” I say. “Dad wasn’t scared to go tell him not to hunt on our land!”

  “Well, my dad says the Traverses have been trouble ever since they been here—my granddad knew his granddad—and they are bad news, the whole lot of them! If a man goes driving around drunk, destroying people’s property, you don’t reward him by fixing up his truck and taking him food.”

  “But it worked, didn’t it?” I say. “He’s not driving drunk anymore! He didn’t kill that man or rob those houses. What else do you want him to do?”

  “Move to Missouri, as far from here as he can get,” says Michael, and laughs. Sarah and Fred laugh, too.

  At dinner that night, I tell Dad what Michael said.

  “Well, Marty,” he says, “a person’s got to make up his mind: Does he want someone to change for the better or does he want to get even? And if you want to get even with somebody, you’ll get back at him, he’ll get back at you, and there’s no stopping it.”

  “But I wish there was some way we could make people like Judd better,” I tell him.

  Dad don’t answer for a moment. Puts a square of margarine on his mashed potatoes and covers it all with pepper. “You can’t make folks like you, Marty, and you especially can’t make folks like somebody else.”

  I lay on the living room floor after supper over by the woodstove and wrestle with Shiloh. He had his head on my leg all through dinner, his big brown eyes watchin’ every morsel of food that travels between my plate and my mouth, like why don’t something make a detour down his way? And sometimes, when Ma ain’t lookin’, I’d slip him a piece of fat off my pork chop.

  But now we both been fed, and Shiloh sure loves to romp after a good dinner. I lay down on the floor and hide my face in my arms, and that dog goes nuts. Tries every which way to roll me over, and finally he’ll run his nose up under my arm and all down my side, and get to tickling me so I laugh and have to turn over, and then he’s happy.

  Ma’s watching from over in her chair and smiling. “Maybe he thinks you’re not breathing, Marty, lyin’ so still. Maybe he’s got to see you’re still alive,” she says.

  Hard to tell sometimes if that dog’s playin’ or workin’, but we roll around till we’re both wore out, and then I lay still on my back and let him put his head on my chest. Stroke his ears and think how I must be one of the luckiest people in the whole state of West Virginia.

  • • •

  February turns to March, and every now and then we get a little taste of spring. Wind feels just a bit warmer. You walk outside and everywhere you hear the sound of running water. Snow sliding off the roof, ice melting on the shed, and all the extra water makes the creek run higher and faster, so the sound’s louder than it was. Every day the heaps of dirty snow that the plow left at the side of the road get smaller and smaller, and now and then there’s a good hard rain that almost melts it down while you watch.

  In between the rains, the sun shines warmer and brighter, and all the water in the ditches and gullies shines back at you. Ma sees her crocuses starting to come up, and goes out to count them.

  Judd works at Whelan’s Garage every other Saturday, meanin’ that every other week he’s got the weekend off. Once in a while I hang around his place—help him wash his truck, maybe.

  Can’t say I see a huge change in the way he treats his dogs, but I see some. He don’t cuss at ’em like he used to, and I don’t see him kick ’em. Now and then he’ll reach out to pet one of ’em, but they always shy away a little when he does that. Guess it’s the same with animals as it is with people—takes them a long time to win back trust.

  “I think your dogs are happier now that they got a yard to run in, don’t have a chain around their necks,” I tell him as I wipe the hubcaps on his pickup.

  “Seem happy,” Judd says. “Neighbors say they don’t bark as much.”

  “Well, that’s good, then,” I tell him. “Fence holding up okay?”

  “Yeah, but I wish I’d put a gate in it after all. When I’m in the backyard and want to go round front, I got to go in through the trailer first,” Judd says.

  “Well, we got the extra fencing behind your shed,” I say. “Want me to help you put the gate on?”

  “I’m going over to Middlebourne today, but you can come by tomorrow, you want to,” Judd says.

/>   “Sure,” I tell him.

  • • •

  Sunday’s on the cold side, but when the sun comes out from behind a cloud, the air takes on a different feel. Something about a March sun on the back of your neck, you know spring’s not far off. Shiloh’s out with the black Labrador somewhere, and I’m glad, ’cause we both seem to feel guilty when I head for Judd’s—Shiloh, for not comin’ with me, and me, ’cause I’m goin’ somewhere without him. But today he don’t have to watch me leave, and I tell Dad I’ll be back soon as I help Judd put on that gate.

  When I get to the trailer, Judd’s dogs are having a fine time out in the yard. He’s thrown ’em an old sock with a knot in it, and they are just chewin’ it to pieces, growlin’ and tugging and shakin’ their heads back and forth, holding on with their teeth for dear life. Keeps ’em busy while we work on the fence. Judd’s got pliers and a hammer, and he unhooks the wire from one of the poles. We roll it up and haul his gate into place. Got to move another pole over closer, and fasten some hinges on it.

  It ain’t as easy as it first seemed. I’m holdin’ the gate upright and Judd’s tryin’ to hammer a pin down inside a hinge. His dogs are still at work on that sock, tumbling around and makin’ like they’re all so fierce. John Collins says that tug-o’-war’s a game you shouldn’t play with your dogs—makes ’em aggressive; turns ’em mean. But we done enough preaching already, and I’m not about to tell Judd how his dogs should play.

  Suddenly—it happens so fast I almost miss it—Judd steps backward to test the gate, and the heel of his boot comes down hard on the left front paw of the black-and-white dog. Dog gives this loud yelp, Judd turns, lookin’ to see what’s happened, and next thing we know, the black and white’s sunk his teeth deep in Judd’s leg.

  Judd’s bellowing in pain, I’m trying to call his dog off, the other dogs are barking, and a neighbor down the way opens her back door to see what’s going on.

  All the noise just seems to put the black-and-white dog in a frenzy. He’s the biggest one of the lot, and he’s tuggin’ at Judd’s leg like a piece of meat, growlin’ something terrible. It’s as though all the anger and meanness that dog’s felt for Judd all these years is right now comin’ up out of his mouth. Judd groans, swears, bellows again, tryin’ to swing himself around, get the leg free, but he can’t.