Shiloh (6 page)

“My first pet!” David says. “His name is Hermie. See all those shells in there? We bought them for him. At night he gets out of one and puts on another, just like changing clothes.”

I look at David and I look at that crab in a fishbowl and I want to tell him about Shiloh and how we run up and down the far side of the hill every day and roll in the grass and how he licks my face, but I can't tell him anything. Not yet. Not ever, maybe.

Hermie's sort of fun, though. We get out David's old blocks—the kind you play with back in kindergarten—and we build this big maze with walls on both sides, and then we put Hermie in it. He skids along the maze, looking which way to go, and we laugh when he gets himself in a dead end. I guess any kind of pet's okay once you get used to it, but I wouldn't trade Shiloh for all the hermit crabs in the world.

“When can I come up to your house?” David asks me when we put the blocks away.

“I don't know,” I tell him. “Ma's had this sort of headache lately, and she can't take any noise at all.” Boy, I am sure asking for trouble with that one.

“We could stay out on that big hill,” David suggests. “Chase around in that field. Play lookout.”

“Don't think we ought to till she's feeling better,” I say. “I'll let you know. But I can come down here again next week, maybe.”

I tell Mrs. Howard I got to be home by late afternoon to help out, and she says surely I can stay for lunch, which is what I was hoping. I sit down at the table with place mats, which are little doll-size tablecloths, one under each plate. Mrs. Howard's made us each a chicken-salad sandwich with lettuce and tomato, and toothpicks with olives on top to hold it all together. David's ma is
like that. I think it's because she's a teacher—always looking for ways to make something better than it is.

She does the same with boys. She don't just leave us to eat by ourselves. My ma packs us a lunch and lets us eat it out in the woods. Mrs. Howard always sits down to eat with us and talks about grown-up things. Today she tells us about how we've got some new people elected to office who are going to be more honest, she hopes, than the people they defeated, and how the county's going to be better because of it, and so will the whole state of West Virginia. David's ma thinks big.

“You can't just go on electing people to government because they were friends of your father or grandfather,” she says, chewing on a bite of celery.

Mostly I'm thinking about the food. I eat every bit of my chicken sandwich. I'm so hungry I don't even save some for Shiloh; then I'm ashamed of myself. Mrs. Howard notices the way I pick up every little crumb, and she says, “I've got enough chicken salad left for another half a sandwich, Marty. Would you like it?”

“Sure would taste good on the walk back home,” I tell her, and she sets right to work wrapping it up for me.
Shiloh's dinner,
I tell myself.

But lunch isn't over yet. After the sandwich
there's tapioca pudding and chocolate-covered graham crackers, which I love almost as much as Christmas. I don't see any way to get the pudding to Shiloh, so I eat that, but I ask can I take a couple cookies along to eat on the way home, too, and she opens the sack and sticks in six cookies. Ma would have blushed with shame if she heard me ask this, but seems I'm at the point where I'll do most anything for Shiloh. A lie don't seem a lie anymore when it's meant to save a dog, and right and wrong's all mixed up in my head.

Worse than that, when I leave David's house, I don't even head home. First I go down the street to the corner store and ask Mr. Wallace does he have any sort of old cheese or lunch meat he can sell me cheap. I got fifty-three cents for the cans I collected so far that Dad turned in for me, and I show Mr. Wallace how much I got.

“Well, Marty, let me see what I can find back here,” he says, leading me into the little room behind the counter. He's sort of talking without looking at me, the way folks do when they don't want to embarrass you. “I got some stuff here that's not exactly spoiled, but it's too old to sell. Wouldn't want your family getting sick on it, though.”

I blush then, 'cause my dad would die of embarrassment if he knew what Mr. Wallace is thinking—that I'm buying this food for our
supper, but there's no way in the world I can let on about Shiloh.

I give him all the change I got, and he lets me have a big hunk of cheese, moldy on one side, a carton of sour cream, and half a package of frankfurters that somebody opened and bought five of. I'm happy as a flea on a dog. Somehow I know without asking that Mr. Wallace isn't going to go tellin' folks about it, because people around here tend to keep quiet out of someone else's business.

Next problem I got to solve, though, is how to keep all this stuff from spoiling in the July heat. Can't keep it in our refrigerator or Ma would notice right off. When I get home, Ma's ironing and watching TV and Dara Lynn and Becky's out on the front swing with paper dolls spread out all over the place, so I fish around out in the shed till I find me an old Hi-C can.

I sneak off up the hill with the can and all the food I got with me. Then, with Shiloh watching, I put a rock in the bottom of the can to hold it down, set it in the cool stream, surround it with rocks, and put the container of sour cream, the frankfurters, and the cheese and cookies in there. Put the plastic lid on and set a large rock on top to keep the raccoons out. I'm so proud of myself I like to crow. Hungry again, too, but that half chicken-salad sandwich from Mrs. Howard is
Shiloh's dinner, and I give it to him right off.

After that Shiloh and me go on a good long run over the meadow on the far side of the hill, and after I take him back, put fresh water in the pie pan, and love him good, I start down the hill. Halfway to the bottom, here comes Dara Lynn.

“What
you
doin' up here?” I ask her, heart starting to thump.

“Just wanted to see what
you're
doing,” she complains. “You go off up here every day almost.”

“You leave Becky by herself while Ma's ironing?”

“Becky's okay.” She turns and follows me back down the hill. Shiloh, up in the pen, don't make a sound. That's how smart a dog he is.

“Well, I was lookin' for that snake again, but he's hiding from me good,” I tell her.

“You
still
didn't get him?” she asks, and when I look back, she's got her eyes to the left, then to the right. “You didn't even take your snake stick,” she says.
She's
a smart one, too.

“Got me a stick back up on the hill,” I tell her.

“How many snakes you figure are up there, Marty?”

“Oh . . . 'bout twenty-nine that you can see. Baby snakes all over the place, though, hiding. Growing into big ones all the time.”

Dara Lynn's walking faster now, hurrying to git on by me, watching every place she sets her foot.

I don't feel good about the lies I tell Dara Lynn or David or his ma. But don't feel exactly bad, neither. If what Grandma Preston told me once about heaven and hell is true, and liars go to hell, then I guess that's where I'm headed. But she also told me that only people are allowed in heaven, not animals. And if I was to go to heaven and look down to see Shiloh left below, head on his paws, I'd run away from heaven sure.

N
ext two days go by smooth as buttermilk. Shiloh gets biscuits or toast and a couple bites of ham for breakfast, and then in the evening, I fix him up some frankfurters, cut up and mixed with sour cream, and little chunks of cheese. He don't much like the cheese. It sticks to his teeth and he turns his head sideways when he chews, trying to get it off. Licks his chops afterward, though.

He throws up the first time he eats the stuff—too rich for his belly, I guess—but after that he manages to keep it down, and all the while he's fattening out a little. Each day it's harder to see his ribs.

I know my secret can't go on forever, though. Only had the dog for six days, and that evening I find out that Judd Travers wants to hunt on our land. Up the hill and over in the far woods. Thinks maybe he could find himself some quail over there, he says.

When Dad tells us that piece of news at dinner, my whole body goes cold. I want to jump up and scream, “No!” but I just grip my chair and wait it out.

“Ray, I don't like that idea at all,” Ma says. “You never ask to hunt on his land, and I don't want him hunting on ours. If we let him, we've got to let anyone else who asks, and one of those shots could find its way down here.”

“I'll tell him no,” Dad says. “Don't like the idea of it myself. I'll tell him the kids play up there.”

I stopped gripping the chair, but my heart still goes on thumping hard. I'm thinking how maybe Judd Travers has hold of the idea that I got his dog hid up there and he's looking for an excuse to snoop around. Having Shiloh a secret is like a bomb waiting to go off.

Next day Dad comes home with more news—good news to him, bad news to me.

“Can't figure it out,” he says, walkin' through the door with a sack in his hands. “Folks are taking to leavin' me food in their mailboxes, Lou.
Used to be it was just Mrs. Ellison and her banana bread, but found me a ham sandwich today in Nora Klingle's box and half a baked pie in the Saunders'. I look thin to you or something?”

Ma laughs. “Maybe it's just you're the best mail carrier they ever had on the route.”

“Well, we got half a pie for dessert tonight, anyways,” Dad says.

Oh, brother! I say to myself. Maybe Mr. Wallace is doing more talking than I figured. He wouldn't come right out and tell folks I was in his store buying cheap food, but he might just pass it along that the Preston family's in hard times, and suddenly food starts appearing. That's the way it is here.

The next day, Ma rides into town with Dad, taking the girls along, and goes shopping for new sneakers for Dara Lynn and socks and underpants for Becky. First time I have the whole place to myself, and I let Shiloh run pure free. Bring him down the hill to the house, feed him the heels off a loaf of new bread, all the leftover sausage from breakfast, and a bowl of milk. Then I let him lick the oatmeal pan.

Show him every one of our four rooms, hold him in my lap on the porch swing, and laugh when he tries to stand up on the seat himself while the swing's moving. I let him smell the couch where I sleep and crawl under the front
steps to sniff out the mole lives under there, follow him all over creation when he takes out after a rabbit. Then he gives up when he sees I'm not going to shoot that rabbit no way.

But I figure my luck's going to run out if I don't get him back to his pen soon, so about noon I take him back, and he goes right to the gunnysacks in the lean-to, he's so tuckered out.

It's just in time, 'cause when I get back and get the dishes done for Ma, the house picked up some, I look out and here she comes up the lane with Dara Lynn and Becky and their packages. Somebody gave 'em a lift; you can always count on that around Friendly.

Ma's pleased I got the dishes done, I can tell.

“Nice to come back to a clean house, Marty,” she tells me. “Had good luck with my shopping, too. Wasn't a thing I bought that wasn't on sale.”

Dara Lynn's wore her new sneakers home and got a blister already, but she don't care, she's so glad to have something new.

When I walk in the kitchen next, Ma's looking at her face in the mirror over the sink. Got her eyebrows raised high, then she pushes them low, then raises them again. When she sees me studying her, she says, “Marty, I got frown lines on my face? Tell me the truth now.”

I look at her good. “Sure don't see any,” I say.
I don't neither. Ma's got a pretty face. Plain, but smooth.

“Well, I don't, either, but two people this morning asked me how I was feeling, and one of 'em wants to tell me what to take for headaches. I figure that if folks think I have headaches, I must be doing a lot of frowning.”

Whomp, whomp, whomp
. That's my heart. “Folks think they got a remedy for something, they'll tell it to you whether you need it or not,” I say. Sound so grown-up I hardly recognize myself. So scared inside, though, my stomach's shaking.

Ma's taking out all the things she's bought and putting 'em on the table, taking the price tags off Becky's underpants and socks. “I saw David's mother at the dollar store,” she says, “and they've got relatives coming in tonight. She wanted to know if she could bring David up here tomorrow when the rest of them go to Parkersburg. I told her yes.”

“Okay,” I say, but all the while I'm thinking what I'm going to do with David to keep him off that hill. Take him up toward the old Shiloh schoolhouse, maybe, and walk along the river. Funny thing is, you've got yourself a dog, you sometimes feel like you don't need anyone else. Used to be I'd be waiting at the window for David Howard to come up here for a visit. Nobody else loves you as much as a dog. Except your ma, maybe.

That night Ma makes us fried chicken for supper. First time in a long while. I put away a wing and a thigh on a saucer—to eat later, I tell Ma—and add a spoonful of squash, which might be good for Shiloh's insides. He eats anything. The frankfurters and cheese and sour cream is all gone, so I got to be watching for table scraps again and go out can collecting soon.

Dad's working on the pickup after dinner—changing the oil—Becky and Dara Lynn's turning somersaults in the grass, and Ma's cleaning the kitchen. Soon as her back is turned, I sneak the food off the saucer and head up the hill to see Shiloh.

I can tell Shiloh likes the fried chicken better than he liked the sour cream-frankfurter mess he'd been eating all week. Even eats the squash, and then he licks my hands and fingers to get all the salt off, anyplace I'd touched a piece of chicken.