Shiloh (7 page)

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 the grass 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
-quiet. I know that much.

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

I
can'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 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 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 him?”

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.

“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 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.

 

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 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 running 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.

D
ad'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'll take one look at Shiloh and shoot him!”

“Take those gunnysacks to the Jeep like I said,” Dad tells me, and I follow behind as we go down the hill. I keep my mouth open to let the breath escape, crying without making a sound. Just like Shiloh.

Ma's watching from inside, the screen all covered with June bugs where they been buzzing about the light. Dara Lynn's up, standing there in her nightshirt, watching.

“What
is
it? What's he got?” Dara Lynn says, pestering Ma's arm.

“A dog,” says Ma. And then she calls out, “Ray, is it alive?”

“Just barely,” says Dad.

I put the gunnysacks in the Jeep, and Dad carefully lays Shiloh down. Without waiting to ask, I crawl in the Jeep beside Shiloh, and Dad don't say no. He goes in the house for his trousers and his keys, and then we're off.

“I'm sorry, Shiloh,” I whisper, over and over, both hands on him so's he won't try to get up. The blood's just pouring from a rip in his ear. “I'm so sorry! Jesus help me, I didn't know Bakers' dog could leap that fence.”

When we get to the bottom of the lane, instead of going up the road toward Judd's place,
Dad turns left toward Friendly, and halfway around the first curve, he pulls in Doc Murphy's driveway. Light's still on in a window, but I think old doc was in bed, 'cause he come to the door in his pajamas.

“Ray Preston?” he says when he sees Dad.

“I sure am sorry to bother you this hour of the night,” Dad says, “but I got a dog here hurt bad, and if you could take a look at him, see if he can be saved, I'd be much obliged. We'll pay. . . .”

“I'm no vet,” says Doc Murphy, but he's already standing aside, holding the screen open with one hand so we can carry Shiloh in.

The doc's a short man, round belly, don't seem to practice what he preaches about eating right, but he's got a kind heart, and he lays out some newspapers on his kitchen table.

I'm shaking so hard I can see my own hands tremble as I keep one on Shiloh's head, the other on a front paw.

“He's sure bleeding good, I can tell you that,” Doc Murphy says. He puts on his stethoscope and listens to Shiloh's heart. Then he takes his flashlight and shines it in the dog's eyes, holding each eye open with his finger and thumb. Finally he looks at the big, ugly wound on Shiloh's hurt leg, torn open right to the bone, the bites around Shiloh's neck, and the ripped ear. I turn my head away and sniffle some more.

“I'll do what I can,” Doc says. “The thing we got to worry about now is infection. That leg wound is going to take twenty . . . thirty stitches. What happened?”

I figure Dad will answer for me, but he don't—just turns to me. “Marty?”

I swallow. “Big old German shepherd chewed him up.”

Doc Murphy goes over to the sink and washes his hands. “Bakers' dog? Every time that shepherd gets loose, there's trouble.” He comes back to the table and takes a big needle out of his bag, fills it full of something. Something to make Shiloh numb, maybe. “This your dog, son?”