Shiloh Season (3 page)

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"Everything okay in here?" comes Mr. Howard's voice, real soft.

"Yeah," I say. "We're okay."

Mr. Howard closes the door again and I look at the clock. Four fifteen. Can't wait for it to turn light so I can go check on my dog.

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Four

Dad come by in the jeep next morning to take me home. Six days a week he picks up the mail in Sistersville for two hundred and eighty families, and after he delivers that, he picks up the mail for three hundred and sixty more outside of Friendly.

We don't go directly home, of course. I got to wait while he stops at every mailbox between David's house and ours. Could've walked it, but I like to open boxes for Dad, stuff the mail in.

What I like most, though, is finding a loaf of banana bread or half an apple pie that folks sometimes leave in their boxes for Dad. People like my dad because he delivers their mail no matter what. Can be seven o'clock in the evening, snowing like you wouldn't believe, but Dad'll be out there in his jeep, getting that mail through.

Soon as I slide on the seat beside him, though, and we give the mail to David Howard, I ask, "Shiloh okay?"

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Dad's moving the Jeep on to the next house. "Looked fine to me this morning," he says. "Why?"

"Just wondering," I tell him.

"You have a good time with David?" "Sure. I always do."

I'm looking forward to Mrs. Ellison's box, which is coming up soon, because she leaves a piece of cake for Dad almost every day. Sure enough, I reach my hand in her box and pull out a loaf wrapped in foil, and my mouth's watering already. Then I read the label she's put on it: ZUCCHINI BREAD, it says.

"Why'd she have to ruin it?" I say. "Who would put squash in a cake loaf?"

Dad just chuckles. "You take a bite of that, you won't even notice," he says, but I figure I can last the morning on the pecan waffles Mrs. Howard made for our breakfast.

I get the mail ready for the next box. "Did you know there are two Denvers in West Virginia?" I say.

"Wouldn't surprise me if there are even a couple more," Dad says.

"How can there be two places named the same in one state?" I ask.

"If you don't incorporate, you can call a place most anything you want," he says. "We could call our own place Denver if we wanted."

"Could we call it New York City or Chicago?"

"Expect you could. Postmaster down in Friendly would have a laughing fit, that's all," says Dad.

After I put the mail in Mrs. Ellison's box and turn up the red flag on the side so she can see she's got mail, I ask, "Dad, what happened at Judd's last Saturday when you went over?"

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Dad gives a sigh. "Let's just say that Judd wasn't himself, Marty."

"He was drinking again, wasn't he?" "He'd been drinking some, yes."

"Did he say he'd been hunting up in our woods?" "Conversation didn't exactly go the way I'd planned." "So what'd he say?"

"Oh, he rambled on about how you took the best hunting dog he ever had. Just nonsense, Marty."

I can feel my chest tighten, though. It was the one thing I didn't want to hear.

"I earned that dog fair and square!" I say.

"Of course you did. Judd was just jawin' again. But I don't want you and Becky and Dara Lynn up in those woods till I've got this settled. Don't want you up in the meadow either. Next time I hear gunshots, I'm going up there myself and check."

Didn't make me feel any better.

It's nice to be riding along with my dad on a warm September day, though breeze coming in one window and floating out the other. When we get up as far as our driveway, I decide I'll go on across the bridge with Dad this time and help deliver the mail on the road where Judd lives. Figure this will give Judd a second chance to say something about Shiloh if he's got a grudge building up inside him. Maybe if we can talk it out, things'll be okay.

But when we get up to his trailer, an old brown-and-white thing with rust stains on the roof, Judd's nowhere to be seen. We know he's not out hunting because all three of his dogs are chained. They go crazy when they see the jeep. Leap and growl and bark, teeth showing, chains jerking.

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I put the mail in Judd's box and watch the door, thinking maybe he'll hear all the ruckus and come out. His truck's there. But there's no sign of him, living or dead, and I wonder if he's even fed his dogs this morning.

"Judd don't work Saturdays?" I ask as the jeep starts up again.

"Think he works every other Saturday, something like that."

"What kind of work does he do?" I try to think what kind of job would be right for a man like Judd Travers. Rattlesnake handler, maybe. Alligator wrestler ...

"Mechanic," says Dad. "Works on trucks and cars down at Whelan's Garage. I hear he's right good at it."

I guess a man can be good at some things and horrible at others. Good with car and truck engines, and bad with dogs and people.

Dad's route ends a couple miles down at a ford where water comes over the road, and that's where we turn around and head back. After we come across the bridge by the old mill, I take our mail and zucchini bread and head on up to the house, 'cause Dad's got a couple hours of deliveries yet to do.

And here come Shiloh to meet me, legs flying out from under him. I pinch off a piece of the zucchini bread and he gulps it right down. That dog'll eat anything. You give him a piece of bread made of spinach and brussels sprouts, bet he'd gobble that down, too, beg for more.

I go up the driveway beside Shiloh. I'm thinking how he's always in a good mood. Always ready to jump to his feet and do any fool thing you got in mind. Don't matter how tired he is or how hot or cold it is outside, he'll be right there

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at the door waiting to go with you. You treat a dog right, and he's your friend for life.

Better natured than sisters, that's for sure. Dara Lynn gets up some mornings, looks like she's about to break your arm you even look at her cross-eyed.

I eat lunch-Ma's got some turkey sandwiches waiting-before I head over to Doc Murphy's to do my work. "What'd you do at David's?" Dara Lynn asks me, mouth full of bread.

"All kinds of stuff," I tell her.

"Did Mrs. Howard have a good dinner?" asks Ma.

I'm only eleven, but I know that when your ma asks about somebody else's cooking, you got to be real careful. "The chocolate pie was good," I say, and Becky and Dara

Lynn both start squealin' about why don't we ever have chocolate pie? "But the rest wasn't anything special," I -finish.

"What was it?" Mothers have to know the details. "Some kind of meat, I guess. Some kind of vegetables," I tell her. She don't look so interested after that.

Shiloh follows me down toward Doc Murphy's. Before we get to the end of the driveway, though, I see Judd's pickup coming across the bridge on the right. It gets down at the bottom of our driveway and stops.

Thump ... thump ... thump.... Hard to tell sometimes if it's your heart beating or your knees knocking, or both of them together. It'd be cowardly to turn around and go back now, so I just keep walking. Shiloh don't, though. He stops dead still.

"Hey, Marty!" Judd opens the truck door and puts one foot out. "Come on down here."

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I don't know whether to go or not. "What you want?" I call.

"Want to show you something."

I don't want much to go, but then Judd gets out and walks around behind his truck. He's pointing to the back, so I go down and walk over.

"Look there," says Judd.

Somebody's taken a nail or screwdriver or something and made a long, deep scratch in the paint all the way from Judd's license plate to the door on the right-hand side.

I give a little whistle.

"You have any idea who might'a done this to my truck?" Judd Travers is uglier than a snake. Not face-ugly, exactly, but mean-ugly. He ever try being anything but mean, he might not look too bad. Eyes are all bloodshot, though, and his breath-whew! You put your nose down inside a beer bottle, that's his smell.

I shake my head.

He looks at me hard. "You think of any boys who could've done it?"

"Nobody I know."

"Well, you listen around, and if you find out who scratched my truck, you tell me, hear?"

"I'll listen," I say, but I don't promise nothing.

Judd gets in his pickup and drives off, and it's not till he's out of sight that Shiloh comes on down. Don't take a lot to prove that Judd Travers isn't the most popular person in Tyler County.

That man can scare you so bad that even if you haven't done something, you almost wonder if you might. The kind of man you keep imagining all sorts of horrible things happening to, and then you feel guilty you enjoyed it. I'm

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asking myself if it's such a good idea for David and me to go sneaking around Judd's tonight.

I walk on down to Doc's. He's got an office there in his house, but he don't see patients on Saturdays unless it's an emergency. His wife died ten years ago, and he tries to keep up the grass and flowers, just for her.

Doc figures I owe him about ninety-nine dollars for fixing up Shiloh after he was tore up by the German shepherd. I get three dollars an hour and work three hours every Saturday. Worked two Saturdays so far, so I got nine more to go.

"How's the patient doing?" Doc says, stepping out on the porch when he sees me coming. He's a heavy man, and he grunts some when he reaches down to pet my dog, check where he sewed him up. One of Doc's friends is a veterinarian down in St. Marys, and Doc checked with him after Shiloh was hurt, made sure he was doing right.

"Looks good, Shiloh," he says. "You keep out of trouble, now.))

Today Doc wants some bushes transplanted from one side of his yard to another where they'll get more sun. He digs awhile, then I dig. Shiloh just lies on the grass in the shade, smiling at us, mouth open, and we laugh at the way he's watching us work.

"That dog sure has an easy life," Doc Murphy says, stopping to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

I'm wondering what kind of life he would have had if I'd turned him back over to Judd-if Shiloh would even be alive at all, the way Judd used to kick him and starve him every time he run off. Can't help thinking of the three dogs Judd's got left, all chained up, yelping and snarling at one another.

Doc begins digging again, and I hold on to the bush so's

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it doesn't fall over while he works at getting the tip of the shovel down under the roots.

"You suppose the rest of Judd's dogs are ruined for good?" I ask. "I mean, once you chain a dog and he turns mean, is he going to be mean forever?"

"That I don't know, Marty," Doc says. "Sometimes I figure there's not all that much difference between a man and an animal. One has two legs, the other four-maybe that's the sum of it. I suppose some dogs and some people are born with meanness in them-something in their bloodline, maybe. . . ." He gives a final grunt, and the dirt ball lifts up. ". . . But a lot fewer than folks believe, I suspect. My own guess is that a little kindness will fix almost anything wrong with man or beast, but I wouldn't swear to it.

,,

I lift the last forsythia bush up out of the ground and carry it over to the hole we dug for it on the other side of Doc's driveway. We work together to set that bush straight. Doc is going to a symphony concert in Wheeling this evening, so I finish the bushes myself, packing in loose dirt in each of the holes, making sure the bush is standing up straight.

Feel like an old man when I'm through, my back so sore. I head home at four, and Ma says I stink. Got to take a bath before David gets here, so I'm smelling sweet as a rose when David's mom drives up to our house. Shiloh never barks at the Howards' car-he's always glad to see David.

"You just have a bath or something?" David says, seeing my hair all slicked down.

"Sweet as a rose," I say, drawing out the "to," and I stick my armpit in his face. "Smell."

He laughs and pushes me away.

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Ma comes out to talk with Mrs. Howard a few minutes, while David and I take turns on the bag swing we got hanging from our beech tree.

David climbs up the maple close by and sits out on a limb. Then I take the gunnysack hanging by a rope from the beech tree and toss it up to him, high as I can throw. David catches the rope, wraps his legs around the sack stuffed with straw, then slides right off the branch, hanging onto that rope for dear life. Swing swoops down toward the ground and way up in the air on the other side.

"Wheee!" yells David.

I should be having a good time, but I keep thinkin' about what David and me are going to do later.

He don't have any sisters or brothers, so he thinks Dara Lynn and Becky are cute. And they put on such a show of cuteness it almost makes your stomach sick.

Becky's got to sing the ABC song for him, only she always forgets what comes after the "L-M-N-O-P," so she starts all over again. Then Dara Lynn's got to get in the act, and after she shows David Howard all her scabs and bruises, she asks him jokes:

"How do you keep a bull from charging?" she says, grinning.

"I don't know," says David.

"Take away his credit card!" Dara Lynn shrieks. She don't even know what a credit card is.

At supper, Ma's got apple dumplings for dessert, and we pour milk over them while they're still warm. David runs his finger around the bottom of his dish when he's done to get every last bit.

"What are you two boys planning to do this evening?" Ma asks as she clears the table.