Saving Shiloh (11 page)

Weren't all the roads in the county cleared, though, so the schools stay closed till Friday. Then everyone's got stories to tell of just how bad the blizzard was at his place, and I make a point of telling how Judd Travers come and plowed us out; plowed out some other driveways, too. To hear me tell it, Judd was part Paul Bunyan and part Jesus Christ, doin' all kinds of hero and wonderful things. No one says a bad word against him this time, but I don't hear no kind word for him, neither.

And then that evening, I see the light again over near Middle Island Creek. I stand at the window in the dark watching, and get the feeling like something real bad is out there. Why's it staying right across from where we live? Why don't it go somewhere else? How do I know that after I go to sleep at night, that light won't come floating and bobbing right up our driveway and around our place? I'm glad David Howard's comin' to sleep over the next day. Sometimes I feel we got us a mystery I'd just as soon not have.

I go to my job at the vet's Saturday morning, and when Dad picks me up at noon, we stop by David Howard's and get him. As soon as we finish our lunch, we're going to explore the gristmill, where I figure that light's got to be.

This time, though, Dara Lynn wants to go with us.

“No way,” I tell her.

“Why not?” she says.

“ 'Cause we're doing our own stuff. You go do yours.”

“I'll just watch,” says Dara Lynn.

“You will not!” I yell, as she follows us to the door.

Ma comes out of the bedroom. “Dara Lynn, you got things to play with in here,” she says. “I'll mix up some flour
paste, and you and Becky can cut pictures out of magazines, make a scrapbook.”

“I don't want to make no scrapbook! I can play out in my own yard if I want!” Dara Lynn says.

David and I go out, but leave Shiloh inside so he won't give us away when we give Dara Lynn the slip. We're tryin' to beat her to the bridge, but we get halfway down the drive and here she comes, clomping along in her boots, not even buckled. So we have to make like we're going hiking along the creek in the other direction, hide behind some trees, then head back the other way using the same footprints in the snow to confuse her.

By now the thirty-one inches have sunk down to twenty or so, and melting all the time, but every step we take is still a high one. Finally we see Dara Lynn headin' back up toward the house, so we make our way toward the bridge, down the bank, and push our way through the tangle of bushes and trees and snow to the cinder block supports of the old mill.

The old white-shingled building is propped up on a dozen or so columns to keep it out of the water in flood season, and one whole side of it's been burned or collapsed out of sheer misery, can't tell which. Dad won't let us climb up in there—too dangerous—but we take a good look below.

We hold on to each other, 'cause we know that the ground slants toward the creek, and it's full of ruts and gullies. One wrong step, and we're in a snowbank over our heads. Can't even tell where the bank stops and the creek begins. You get thirty-one inches of snow falling down in this place, plus the four or five inches more, plus all the snow that blows off the road or was pushed down here by the plow, why . . . a person could get buried, and nobody find him till spring.

I take this old dead limb and dig out a path in front of us. Even without snow, it's hard to see just what's here. Imagine the waterwheel was on the side next to the creek, but we sure can't make out anything.

“Know what?” David says at last. “If anybody had been down here, either we'd find his footprints or he's buried at the bottom of this snow.”

I stop and think. Without moving my feet, I twist my body all around, lookin' in every direction, and I don't see any footprints here at all, not around the gristmill nor the bank nor the path leading up to the road—only the tracks we made ourselves.

“Shoot!” I say, disappointed.

“If we dig, though, we might find a body under the snow,” says David.

“Yeah,” I say, not all that eager. We don't even know what we're lookin' for anymore—just talkin' nonsense. We both know we're not about to go back to my place, carry a shovel all the way down here, and start digging.

We claw our way back up the bank, same place we come down, and make a whole pile of snowballs—line 'em up on the bridge. Then we take turns seeing if we can hit a stick far out there on the ice.

We do a couple of throws, and I've just picked up my third snowball when suddenly there's this loud
whomp!
, like a whole house has rose up in the air and set down again.

David and I turn, starin' in the direction of the noise, just in time to see snow slidin' off the roof of the old Shiloh schoolhouse. We run over and wade through the school yard, and there's half the roof caved in, settin' there like it's been that way forever.

“Wow!” I say.

“It went just like that!” says David. “All that snow!”

“Let's check it out!” I tell him, and we go over and try the door. Locked, of course. Paint flecks scattered all about. Through the dusty window I can see an old refrigerator, a flowered armchair that the mice have nested in, some children's desks, a table. . . . We go around back to where the outhouse is. And then we stop dead still and stare, because there's a fresh path in the snow between the outhouse and a cellar window.

“Marty!” David whispers, his eyes half popped from his head.

We know what we're going to do. We check out the outhouse first, and my heart's like to jump out of my skin. The snow's been cleared away where the door's ajar, and I figure if anybody's in there hearing us talk, he'd probably pull the door to. But I know if we get up to that door and peer around it and see somebody sittin' inside, I will die on the spot.

We're lifting our feet so high with each step it looks like we're marching, and David gets to the door first.

Ready?
he mouths to me. I nod. He hooks one finger around the edge of that door and slowly, slowly pulls it open.

Creeeaaak!
it goes, just like in the movies.

“Whew!” I say, when I see the seat's empty.

Together, we turn and look at the school, knowing that somebody could be watching us that very minute. At the same time, we know as sure as we got teeth in our mouth that we're going to climb in there and take a look. You can see by that open window where somebody's been crawlin' in and out.

“Who's gonna go first?” asks David, meaning that he was the one who checked out the outhouse, and now it's my turn.

I get down on my knees, stick one leg inside, and back in. See that somebody's put an old bench below the window to step down on, and soon as both my legs are in, and then my back and head, I look around.

“What do you see?” David whispers.

“Junk,” I tell him. “Broken-down chairs. An old blackboard. Rats' nests—pigeon poop.” But I don't see a living soul. Don't hear a single sound except the creak of some boards where the wind blows through.

“Come on in,” I say to David, and he climbs in, too. The floor above us is sagging, so we hug the wall wherever we can. Have to crawl over a ton of stuff to get to the stairs, and then we stick to the sides in case they give.

When we get to the top, we see where the roof's come down, spilling snow onto what's left of a classroom.

“David!” I say, and point. There is my dad's lantern, sittin' right on the floor beside a blanket. I'd know it anywhere—got a piece of tape at the back to hold the batteries in. We look around, and there's a shotgun, too. And some chicken bones and a box of crackers. Any minute now, I'm thinking, I'll feel a gun in my back.

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.

F
orget 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.