A Shiloh Christmas (13 page)

“I wish he
did
hit me!” she says, though I don't believe her. “I think I'd rather have that and get it over, than be told how I'm rotting my mind and disappointing my family and disobeying my father and losing my chance at heaven and . . .”

She picks up her fork and jabs at her salad like it's something evil. I take another bite of my sandwich, chewing in slow motion. Don't know what to say.

Rachel gives this little shrug. “Okay. Biography: We moved here from Weston. My dad had a church there for
a while. I'm not sure where we lived before that—down around Hinton, I think. Ma told me once we've moved seven times since I was born. What else do you need to know?” Her words come out all choppy and cold.

“Well . . . what do you like to do when you're not in school? Any hobbies?” I ask.

Right off I can see her face relax some.

“Dance. I like all kinds of dance—ballet and modern and jazz. I just like moving to music,” she says. “When both of my parents are out, I put on this CD and Ruthie and I dance together in my room. I wish I could take interpretive dancing. I saw that on TV once and really liked it.”

“Maybe you'll turn out to be a dancer,” I say, trying to think of something cheerful.

She looks at me like I just said pigs can sing. “Are you kidding? I can't even watch it on TV. Dad wouldn't let us go to the Halloween party because there might be dancing at it.”

“Oh. Well, you ever go places on your own? I mean, do you have a bike?” I ask.

Rachel shakes her head. “Wish I did. I think about leaving all the time. Once I'm eighteen I will, maybe. But what would Ruthie do? She never fights back, so I do it for her.”

“Your ma ever stick up for you?”

“She tries, but gives up. Never helps. You won't put any of this in the article, will you? About that, and the shed?”

“'Course not,” I say. Then, changing the subject, “What's the worst part about moving to a new place? I never did.”

“Having to start all over at everything,” she says. “New school, new church, new dentist, new doctor . . . I have a lot of earaches, so a neighbor suggested a Dr. Murphy. Is he nice?”

“He's the best,” I tell her. I start to say he stitched up my dog, but figure that's maybe not the right kind of recommendation to give out. For the rest of the lunch period she talks about the things she and her little sister like to do together—how she's teaching Ruthie to knit, and how once, in the last place they lived, they got this big piece of cardboard and used it to slide down a long, grassy hill. She's also started piano lessons.

I try to think of things that would make a good biography. Since I asked her all the things she likes, I ask her to name something she hates. Then I wish I hadn't, because she might think I'm trying to get her to answer, “My dad.” But no.

“Having my picture taken,” she says.

“Don't know why. You got nice teeth,” I say, and that makes her laugh. She really does have a nice smile, just don't use it very much.

It's a long morning at Dr. Collins's clinic the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Dogs come in to be groomed, cats to be rid of matted-up hair on their bellies. Got a parrot losing its feathers, a snake—can't tell if it's dead or not. A rabbit's got an eye infection. . . .

“Everybody wants his pet looking nice for Thanksgiving,” says Chris, the vet's assistant. He's studying to be a vet and says it takes a long time to pass all the tests.

You've got to know a lot to be a veterinarian. All humans have two eyes and ears and nostrils, two lungs and kidneys and arms and legs. All alike in that way. No feathers or scales or fur on any of 'em. But a whole lot of difference between a fish and a bird and a goat.

I probably work harder that morning than I ever have at the clinic. After I clean up the poop in the dog run, I put fresh towels in the cages, wash all the dishes in a special solution, and refill all the water bowls. I put fresh straw in a rabbit's cage and water in its bottle. I file records, answer the phone, make appointments, and check supplies in the cupboard.

Around twelve thirty, I see Dad waiting in the Jeep, so I get my jacket.

“I don't know what we'd have done without you today, Marty,” Dr. Collins says.

“Well, I like doing it all,” I tell him. “Except when an animal dies.”

“I feel the same way,” says Dr. Collins. And then, “I almost forgot. Someone brought in an injured dog a couple days ago. Hit by a car, and he died right here on the table. Hurt bad. A brown coon dog . . .” He goes to a cupboard and pulls out a drawer, but my stomach's already knotted up. “Had an old collar on him, but the letters were so worn I can't make out the name. Any idea who he belonged to?”

I know even before I look. It's a cheap fake leather collar, and the owner's name had been stamped on with some kind of machine in gold-colored lettering—
A . . . V . . . E . . . R . . .
is all I can make out, but I know right off it's Judd's.

“I'll take it to him,” I say. “Judd Travers.”

“You know him? Tell him we're sorry, but the dog had internal injuries and died before I could do anything for him.” He shakes his head. “A dog runs free, these things happen.”

I
SURE AS HECK DIDN'T
want the job of telling Judd that one of his dogs was dead.

If this had been a couple of years ago, it could have been Judd himself who killed it in a fit over how it didn't snap to soon enough when he whistled. Like I said, he never even cared enough to give his dogs names. All he cared about was how they could help him hunt each fall. Now it was November—deer season—he don't even have a gun. Those burned up too. Only thing he goes in the woods for now is to find his dogs.

I think he first started to feel something for them back when I earned Shiloh from him; after Shiloh saved his life by letting us know Judd had run his truck into a ditch and was hurt bad; and then, when
he
saved
Shiloh
, by jumping in Middle Island Creek last spring when it
turned into a river. After we fenced in Judd's backyard for him, giving his dogs a place to run instead of being chained, they got more playful. And now that they're gone, he misses a dog more than he ever thought he could.

I couldn't find my voice to tell Dr. Collins it was me who let those dogs out. I know he'd say it was better than letting them burn—I was giving them a chance. But I never thought they'd get all the way down here to St. Mary's.

When Dad picks me up, I tell him how worried I am of what Judd might do, he finds out one of his dogs got run over—start drinkin' and drivin' crazy. . . .

“Marty, where you get the idea you're responsible for what Judd does or don't do?” says Dad. “He's had problems before you ever came along. Judd's a grown man—got to make his own choices.”

I guess I'm worrying Judd might get the idea that he give up Shiloh too soon and want him back again—that Shiloh once and always will belong to him, no matter what, especially since I'm the one let those dogs out.

On the way home I'm wrestling with why I didn't ask Dr. Collins if he'd seen the white dog around there
somewhere, and what I should do next. Make some posters about the missing dog, that's one thing I haven't tried. But first, I got to face Judd.

When there's bad news to be told, though, I think it's better to come right out with it; the more disguises you put on it, the bigger the shock when it jumps out at you.

So I'm waiting out on the porch when Judd gets home from Whelan's. Ma's left him a big piece of caramel cake, and I watch him park his truck and walk over.

I hand him the foil-wrapped package and say, “Got some bad news, Judd. It's about your brown dog.” And then, when I see his face is ready for the worst, that's what I give him: “He got hit by a car down near St. Mary's a few days ago.”

Judd's face freezes into a stone-eyed, twisted look, and then he sits down slow on the steps. “He die?”

I hate telling him, but I gotta. “Yeah. Somebody picked him up and brought him into the clinic where I help out on Saturdays. Dr. Collins says he died almost as soon as they got him in. He was hurt bad—internal injuries. We're all real sorry to hear about it.” I hand him the dog collar, too.

Don't know how long Judd plans to sit on the steps,
'cause they are cold. It's almost Thanksgiving, and temperature's in the twenties. But he's sittin' there, cake in one hand, collar in the other, staring at those fading letters of his last name on the fake leather.

“What'd they do with the body?” he asks finally, voice all husky.

“I . . . don't know. Disposed of it, I guess . . . didn't know who it belonged to.”

For a minute I'm afraid he'll get up, drive to the animal clinic, and cause some kind of trouble—something he might used to have done when he was drunk—but he just nods.

“Anybody see the other dog? My terrier?”

“N-not that I know of. Nothin' said about another dog.”

“They'd be runnin' around together, wouldn't you think?”

“Could be. But I'm going to make some posters to put up, Judd. And I'll write our phone number on them, in case anyone sees him.”

Judd just sits there all hunched over, and I'm thinkin' maybe I ought to go inside. Not polite to stand around watching a man grieve. But Judd goes on, “Had me five dogs once. Killed one by accident; one on purpose; let you have the third; the fourth's been run over, and the
fifth's just run off, I guess. It's a sorry state when a man can't even keep his own dogs. Can't say I deserved 'em, though.”

He gets up finally, collar in hand, and heads for the tent. Leaves the cake behind on the steps.

I think all of us thought the dogs would be back by now. Thought they were just having a fine time running free, and when they got really hungry, they'd be back to the only place they'd known as home. And that when they found it all burned down, they'd follow Judd's scent over here. Never thought they'd get so far away. What will the white one do now that his buddy's gone? Hard to put my brain in the mind of a dog.

The next day Dad puts on his work clothes and goes across the creek to help haul away more of those burned-out walls and furniture and car engines. Once again, I can see he's not fixing to work on our new addition, so I go to church with Ma and the girls.

Just like last Sunday, Rachel sits there beside her ma and Ruthie, still as a post. Nobody would guess she's a girl her daddy locked in a shed. From where I sit, I don't see her look at her dad even once. Got her eyes down on the hymnbook or out the windows. He can make her go to church but can't make her look at him.

I'm thinking maybe she sits there every Sunday figuring how in six more years she's going to leave home, nobody coming after her, neither.

Preacher must have heard what Judd said at Wallace's store, 'cause he's on blasphemy this Sunday. I didn't even know what the word meant until he'd repeated it about nine times.

“Brothers and sisters, don't be deceived by those who blaspheme against you and this church, those who have never even set foot in this church,” he says.

And I'm pretty sure the women in Wallace's store have told the preacher about me mouthing off to them too, because a little later he reads a verse from the Bible prophesying that this is the kind of behavior we can expect among the godless.

“Isaiah, chapter three, verse five,” he says. “‘And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor; the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable.'” And he warns that those who stand idly by and do not defend the church when sinners revile it are just as guilty as if the words came out of their own mouths, for if you are not
for
the Church of the Everlasting Life, then you must be against it.