Saving Shiloh (12 page)

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, Miss 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.

V
alentine'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.

I'm about to run inside for a pail of water to throw on that dog when Judd lifts the hammer, hangs back a moment, then brings it down on the black and white's head.

The dog's legs give out from under him, his jaw goes slack, then he slumps to the ground and lays still.

I
can't hardly breathe. Don't know who to head for, Judd or the dog, so I don't move at all.

“Clyde!” comes the neighbor's voice. “Judd Travers just killed that dog!”

That gets my feet moving. I go over to the black and white and put my hand on his chest to see if the heart's beating. Then I feel for the pulse on the inside of his hind leg, the way John Collins taught me. Nothing at all.

I look over at Judd. He's sittin' on the ground, arms on his knees, head on his arms. His pant leg's soaked with blood. The other two dogs have crept off to a far corner, just watching. Don't make a sound.

“Judd,” I say, “you sit tight. I'm callin' Doc Murphy.” And I run to the back door of his trailer.

“What's happened over there?” calls the neighbor's husband.

“Dog attacked Judd,” I call back, but all the while I'm wondering, did he have to
kill
him? Judd's leg looks bad, though. Not the same leg that was broke, either. The other one. Now he's got
two
bum legs.

Doc Murphy says he's just about to walk out the door, going to visit his brother down in Parkersburg, and I say, “Doc, Judd's been hurt by one of his dogs and he's bleedin' pretty bad.”

“Where you calling from, Marty?”

“Here at Judd's,” I tell him. “He's out back.”