Shiloh (9 page)

If Ma was mad at me before, she's not now, not the way Shiloh's licking her all over both arms,
getting a quick lick in at her face every time she bends close. Becky's sticking her hand out for Shiloh to lick, and when he does, she squeals and pulls back. Shiloh's tail going like crazy.

It's like a welcome-home party. Ma has me bring in this cardboard box from the shed and we put an old pillow in the bottom of it and cover it with a clean sheet, and Doc Murphy lays Shiloh down inside it.

Shiloh seems to know he can't walk too good, because as soon as he tries to stand up, he sits back down again and licks at his leg.

I'm glad Shiloh's back, I'm glad he's going to get better, and that we can keep him till he's well. But the more I sit there petting his head, feeling his happiness, the more I know I can't give him up. I won't.

S
ure seems strange having Shiloh in the house that night, after trying so hard to keep him secret. Strange, too, the way Ma takes to him. Seems like she can't hardly pass his box next to the stove without reaching down to pet him, making low sympathy noises in her throat, way she does when Dara Lynn or Becky or me gets sick.

Dad don't say much. He come home to find Shiloh there, he just stands off to one side, listening to what Doc Murphy said about him; he don't get close enough for Shiloh to take a lick.

But when supper's over and I go off to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I peek back through
the doorway, and Dad's over by Shiloh's box, letting him lick his plate clean. Dad crouches there a minute or two, scratching all down Shiloh's back and up again.

What I'm figuring, see, is by the time Shiloh's better, everybody will love him so much they just can't let him go—even Dad. I'm hoping Dad will go over to see Judd Travers, make him an offer for Shiloh, and then he'll be ours. The trouble with this kind of thinking, though, is we don't have the money.

I'll probably be through junior high school, almost, before I earn enough to pay Doc Murphy's bill. To buy Shiloh from Judd, even if Judd's willing to sell, I'd have to collect aluminum cans all through high school, too. Can't make very much with cans. I try to think about what other kind of work I can do that would pay me more, but except for delivering the county paper on Friday afternoons, nothing else comes to mind. And somebody's got that job already.

It's sort of like Shiloh's there and he's not. In the next couple of days, everybody's pettin' him every chance they get. Becky feeds him the crusts off her toast—breaks off little bits, and shrieks every time she feels Shiloh's mouth slurp them out of her fingers.

Ma's putting up beans in jars, and all the while she hums to Shiloh like he's a baby in a cradle, not
a dog in a box. Dara Lynn's got an old hairbrush, and she just can't seem to brush that dog enough. Even Dad sits down one evening and gets out every tick Shiloh's got on him. Takes a little dab of turpentine and rubs it on the tick's rear end, and the tick backs out of Shiloh's skin mighty quick.

The thing that makes it seem like Shiloh's
not
there is that nobody except me and Dara Lynn and Becky talks about him. Ma and Dad don't even once mention his name out loud, as though saying it makes him ours, which he ain't. As though if you don't talk about him, maybe he'll disappear as quietly as he come that day in the rain.

What everyone's waiting for, I guess, is something to happen. Every day Shiloh's getting a little stronger. Two days after Doc Murphy brought him here, Shiloh's up limping around on his bad leg. Ma puts some papers beside his box for him to do his business on, but he won't, so for the first couple days I pick him up, carry him out to the yard, and after he's done his business there, I bring him in again. But now he's pushing open the back screen himself and going down into the yard, then comin' back and tapping on the screen with one paw, so we'll let him in. Somebody, sometime, is bound to see him. Becky, sometime, bound to say something. Even David Howard, when his ma
came to pick him up the other day, opens his mouth right off and says something about Shiloh.

“Who's Shiloh?” she asks, and David realizes he's let it slip.

“Old stray cat,” he says, and now I've got David lying.

Worse part about having Shiloh here in the house where I can play with him anytime I like is that it's hard to leave him when I go out collecting cans. But I've got to earn money now more than ever, so each day, when Shiloh takes his long nap, I set out with my plastic garbage bag hanging out one jeans' pocket.

One day I walk all the way to Friendly and ask at the grocery, where the county paper is dropped, if they'll put in my name as a carrier. Mr. Wallace says he'll turn my name in, but he's already got six names ahead of me, and one of 'em is a grown man with a car. Don't see how I can match that.

I study the bulletin board at the back of the store where people put up notices. Stand on one foot and then the other reading the whole danged board, and seems like everybody got something to sell, or want to be hired, nobody wants to buy. Only two jobs listed, one for an appliance salesman and some woman who wants her house painted.

Mr. Wallace sees me looking at the board, and he comes over and takes down the notice about a woman wanting her house painted.

“That's already taken,” he tells me.

That night, while we finish supper, Shiloh's going around the table, putting his nose in everyone's lap, looking mournful, waiting for somebody to slip him something to eat. I can tell Ma and Dad's trying their best not to laugh. Ma won't let us feed him at the table.

What I'm dying to ask Dad is did he tell Judd Travers about his dog being here. Dad don't mention it so I don't ask. Maybe I don't want to know, I tell myself.

And then, just as Ma's dishing up a peach cobbler that we're going to eat hot with milk, I hear a sound outside that makes my bones feel like icicles inside me.

Shiloh hears it, too, and I know right away it's what I think it is, because Shiloh sticks his tail between his legs, puts his belly low to the floor, and climbs back into his box.

Ma and Dad look at Shiloh. They took at each other. Then there's the slam of a truck door outside, footsteps on the ground, footsteps on the porch, and a
rap, rap, rap
at the back door. Everybody stops eating, like we was all froze to death in our chairs.

Dad gets up and turns on the porch light, and there he is, Judd Travers, looking as mean and nasty as I ever seen him look. He don't even ask can he come in; just opens the screen and steps inside.

“Ray Preston,” he says, “somebody told me you got my dog.”

Dad's looking serious. He nods and points toward the box by the stove. “Over there, Judd, but he's hurt, and we've been taking care of him for you.”

Judd stares at Shiloh and then at Dad. “Well, I'll be danged,” he says, almost softly. “Somebody knows my dog is missing, takes him in, and don't even have the decency to tell me?”

“We
were
going to tell you,” Dad says, and he's looking straight at Judd. “Nobody wants to hear his dog's been hurt, though, and we wanted to make sure he was going to pull through.” Then he turns to me. “Marty,” he says, “you want to tell Mr. Travers how his dog come to be here?”

He knows I don't. He knows I'd rather swim a river full of crocodiles than face Judd Travers. But it's my story to tell, not Dad's, and he always did make us face up to what we'd done.

“Your dog come over here twice because you been mistreatin' it,” I say, and my voice don't sound near as strong as Dad's. Sort of quavery. I clear my throat and go on: “So second time it come over, I built it a pen up in the woods and Dad didn't know it, and that German shepherd of Bakers' got in and fought Shiloh.”

“Fought who?”

“The beagle. Shiloh, that's what I've been
callin' him. And Shiloh got hurt bad. It was my fault for not making the fence higher. We took him to Doc Murphy and he patched him up.”

Judd Travers is still staring around the room like he never saw the likes of us before. Finally he lets out his breath through his teeth and slowly shakes his head: “And I got to find out all this from Doc Murphy?”

I couldn't believe Doc would go tell him.

“Somebody goes to the doc the other day and sees a beagle lying out on his back porch. Tells me about it later. Says he thinks maybe the dog's mine. So I ride over to Doc's this evening, and he tells me it was you who brought him in.”

Judd walks across the kitchen, and at the thud of each footstep, Shiloh huddles down farther and farther in the box, like maybe he can make himself disappear. His whole body is shaking. Ma sees it, I know, because she watches for a minute, then turns her face away quick.

Judd stares down at Shiloh—at his bandage and the shaved place where he's all stitched up—the rip on his ear. “Look what you done to my
dog!
” he yells at me, eyes big and angry. I swallow. Nothin' I can say to that.

Travers squats down by the box. He puts out his hand, and Shiloh leans away, like he's going to be hit. If that don't prove the way he treats 'em, I don't know what would, but Judd's saying,
“I never mistreated my dogs. This one was shy when I got him, that's all. I sure never caused him an injury like this one. Wouldn't never have happened if you'd brought him back like I told you.” I close my eyes.

When I open 'em again, Judd's putting his hand on Shiloh's head, roughlike, sort of patting him, and you can tell he ain't got that much practice being kind. Still, hard to prove Shiloh wasn't mistreated
before
he got to Judd's. How do you go about proving something like that?

“It was wrong of Marty to pen up your dog, Judd, and we've already talked about that,” Dad says. “He's the one who's going to pay Doc Murphy for patching him up, and soon as the dog is strong, we'll drive him over to your place. Why don't you let us keep him until then, in case he needs more care?”

Judd stands up again and looks at me. I stare back, but I don't say nothing.

And then Ma can't take it anymore. She says, “Judd, Marty's got awful attached to that dog, and we'd like to know how much you want for it. Maybe we can scrape up the money to buy him.”

Judd looks at her like she's talking some kind of nonsense, like we are all getting crazier by the minute.

“That dog's not for sale,” he says. “Paid good
money to get me a hunting dog, and he could be one of the best I've had. You want to keep and feed him till he's better, okay with me. It's you that got him all tore up, and you paying the bill. But I want him back by Sunday.”

Screen door slams again, truck starts up, and then he's gone.

I
'm back to not sleeping again. Everything I can think of to try, I've already thought on and turned down. Even thought of Dad and me driving to Middlebourne and going to the county courthouse to report a man who's mean to his dogs, thinking maybe they wouldn't let Judd have Shiloh back again. Dad says that's where we'd have to go, all right, but how am I going to prove it about Judd? Think about that, he says.

I been thinking about it. Do I really suppose they'd send an investigator all the way out from Middlebourne to see about a man said to kick his dogs? And if they did, do I think Judd's going to
tell the man yes, indeed, he does kick them? Do I think the investigator's going to hide out in the bushes near Judd Travers's place for a week just to see for himself?

Tyler County hasn't hardly got the money to investigate reports of children being kicked, Dad says, much less dogs. Even if I told the animal-rights people that I found a dog with a bullet hole in its head up near Judd's house, don't prove that Judd was the one who killed it.

I go out to talk to Dad about it some more while he's chopping wood, and he just says, “Son, it's hard, I know, but sometimes you just got to do what has to be done. It's Judd's dog and there's no getting around it.”

Ma tries to make me feel better. She says at least I brought some joy and kindness into the life of a dog that never had any before, and that Shiloh will never forget me. But that even makes it worse. Wish he
could
forget. Keep thinking of how Shiloh's going to look at me when we drive him over to Judd's, and my eyes fill up again. Becky, she's been crying, too. So has Dara Lynn. The one good thing about it now is that the whole family loves Shiloh and we can talk about him out loud, but there's not one thing we can do. Three more days and we have to give him up.

I walk down to Friendly on Friday to talk with David Howard. David feels almost as bad as I do.
I hardly finish telling about Shiloh and he's got tears in his eyes already. David Howard's thirty pounds heavier and bigger than me, and he still don't care who sees him cry.

“I been thinking, David,” I say. “You got relatives in Ohio, don't you?”

He nods.

“You think any of them would take Shiloh? Could you call 'em up and ask could they drive down here tomorrow and take him back with them, and I'll tell Judd we let Shiloh out one day and he never come back?” More lies.

But David's shaking his head already. “It's only Uncle Clyde and Aunt Pat, and she's allergic to dogs. They had one once and had to give him up.”

On the way back home, I'm thinking about someplace really good I could hide that dog. The old gristmill, maybe, up by the bridge. The door's padlocked, but it don't take much to get in, 'cause the top of the building's open where some of the roof's blown away. I bet I could hide Shiloh in there for ten years and he'd never make a sound. But what kind of life is that? Couldn't never take him anywhere except after dark. Even then, he'd be so close to Judd's place, the other dogs would probably sniff him out.