Shiloh Season (7 page)

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Ma's running now, heading for the path. The sky's got that in-between look. Isn't day, isn't evening. Everything looks in sharp focus, but you know it's not for long.

"Where's Shiloh?" Ma calls over her shoulder. "If Becky wandered off, how come he didn't go with her?"

Shiloh is stretched out on the ground between the house and the shed, just enjoying himself.

"Why isn't he with her?" Ma cries again, and she looks with such anger at my dog it scares me. "What good is he if he can't protect Becky?"

"Ma ... wealts" I say.

Then she turns on me. "You should've watched her!" "Get the flashlight, son," says Dad. "Dara Lynn, you go in the house in case she shows up there. Don't let her wander off again."

I tear into the house and grab the flashlight from off the top of the refrigerator, then run back out. Shiloh sees all the excitement now, and he's up on his feet, ready to join in.

I feel empty and rattly, like all my ribs are knocking together. How much should you expect from a dog, after all? How does he know where Becky's supposed to go and where she isn't? He's only been with us a month or so.

"Becky?" Ma's yelling into the bushes on either side of her, and I follow her up the hill.

"Becky!" yells Dad. "Where are you? Yell so we can hear you.

Somewhere far off I hear a gun again. At least I think it's a gun. Could have been a firecracker, I suppose. It's hard to tell sometimes. I look at Dad, though, and he heard it, too. It's a gun. I can tell by his face.

We get to the fork in the path. Go left, you end up in

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woods, up near where I hid Shiloh-where I built his pen. Go right, you'll come to the meadow where I'd run him sometimes, nobody could see us from below.

"Marty," says Dad, "you just sit right here and keep your eye on the yard. What I don't want to happen is for Becky to wander back home, think we're all gone, and go off again."

"O-Okay," I say, and hand over the flashlight to him. He heads for the woods, Ma takes the meadow, and I sit down on the big flat rock at the fork where David and I used to play spaceship sometimes.

I don't sit down so much as I sink. I just got a thought so terrible that it makes my knees give out in earnest. What if Judd Travers is up here hunting deer with a light? Some hunters do that way, which is about the lowest way you can hunt a deer-stun it with a powerful light and when it stops dead still in front of you, shoot it with a rifle.

But that's not the terrible thought, that's just for starters. What if, because I didn't report Judd to the game warden when he killed that doe out of season, he feels he can get away with it again? If I'd reported him, maybe they would have taken away his license or something. But because I wanted Shiloh so bad, I didn't say nothing. And maybe saying nothing is why Becky's missing now. Maybe one of those stray bullets found her, and I traded Becky for Shiloh.

I bend over, hugging my stomach, like I got belly cramps. So scared my arms are shaking. How can you think you're doing the right thing, and it's maybe not right at all?

Down below in the yard, I can see Shiloh standing up, looking around. I'd thought he'd follow us up here, been wanting so bad to come. Guess when you scold a dog four times in one day, he learns a little something. But

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why couldn't he have learned to stick with Becky? Why wouldn't he just naturally know that Becky, being the smallest, needed him most?

"Becky! Becky!" I can hear my ma yell. There's no answer.

It's going to get dark right soon, now. It's already black back in the trees. I can see the spot of yellow from Dad's flashlight from time to time, then it disappears again.

Ten minutes go by. Which is worse, I'm thinking, sitting here waiting for Becky, or lying in the weeds beside David Howard when Judd was yelling, "Who's there?" and was starting over with his gun to find us?

I think I'd choose to be back there and take my chances at Judd's. At least what was happening, or going to happen, would take place before my eyes. Here I don't know. All I can do is sit.

Dad's coming back through the trees now, then I hear Ma's footsteps not far behind.

"I'm calling the sheriff, ask for a search party," Dad says, and I hear a tremble in his voice. Ma's starting to cry.

We make our way down the steep path, and Dad's talking out loud. Praying, I guess he is, closest he comes to prayer: "I wish to God I hadn't riled Judd; wish to God I'd handled that better."

I can see right off I'm not the only one feeling responsible. Guess I'd thought that when you get to be thirty-eight, like Dad, you don't have these questions. You just know. Now I'm seeing the other side of things.

"Ray," Ma sobs, her nose all clogged up. "You don't think Judd would come through those woods and just take Becky, do you?"

"No, not even drunk. I don't think so." Dad puts an arm

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around Ma to steady her, but his voice gives him away. Needs a little steadying himself.

Shiloh's standing down at the bottom of the path waiting for us, tail wagging, tongue hanging out, glad to see us coming back.

But Dad's not glad to see him. In fact, seems to me that Dad's right foot sort of reaches out and gives that dog a push. Not blaming Shiloh, exactly, but not feeling so kindly toward him, neither.

Dara Lynn's standing at the screen door bawling 'cause she don't like being left in the house by herself at night, and nobody's paying her much mind. Dad steps up on the porch and goes straight for the telephone. Ma's telling Dara Lynn to hush.

I go up on the porch and wait for Shiloh to follow us in, the way he does when we're all on the porch in the evening. But he just trots back down the steps, goes over to the shed, and stands there wagging his tail.

And suddenly my heart begins to beat faster. I leap off that porch, not even bothering with the steps, and open the door of the toolshed a little wider.

There's Becky, sprawled out on the dirt floor, head on a bag of chicken feed, her lips letting out little fluttery sounds while she sleeps.

I'm so happy I shout. Then I hug Shiloh and get the wettest kiss this side the Mississippi. I shout once more. The shout don't even wake Becky up. Her body jolts for a second, then drops right back into sleep.

But now Ma is coming out of the house, then Dara Lynn and Dad.

"I found her!" I yell. "Shiloh was looking out for her all the time. Led me right over to the shed."

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Everyone comes running, and I can't tell who's hugging who. Ma's hugging Becky, Dad's hugging Ma, Dara Lynn's hugging Shiloh, but I'm not hugging Dara Lynn. Not that far gone. I guess I'm hugging Shiloh, too.

Dad picks up Becky in his arms and carries her into the house and she don't even open her eyes. Bet you could operate on her brain and she wouldn't even feel it.

Ma takes off Becky's shoes and lays her down on her bed, clothes and all, and then the only thing left to do is have some ice cream. Dad calls the sheriff again to tell him the search is off, and Ma's dishing up big helpings of fudge ripple. Shiloh gets the first dish.

"Would have saved us a lot of grief and worry if that dog could talk," says Dad. He's smiling now.

"He did talk, we just didn't ask the right questions," I say. "He knew Becky was in that shed the whole time. She must have gone in there to hide and fell asleep. He was watching over her, not making any fuss. It was when we all went in the house without her that he figured he ought to let us know."

"Well, if I don't see Judd before next weekend, I'm going over there and settle this whole thing peaceably," Dad says. "Can't go on worrying this way every time a gun or firecracker goes off."

I sleep real good that night.

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Ten

The Tyler Star-News says that rabies has been reported in Tyler County, and Dad says it's time we took Shiloh to a vet, make sure he has all his shots.

We know for a fact that Judd never takes his dogs to a vet unless he has to. Says with his dogs being chained and all, how are they going to get rabies?

Judd'll do most anything to keep from spending a nickel he don't have to, but Ma says if he took the money he spent on beer and spent it on his dogs instead, he'd have a lot happier, healthier animals. Happy and healthy ain't what interests Judd, though. Hunting is.

Doc Murphy gives us the name of his veterinarian friend down in St. Marys, and we make an appointment for Tuesday afternoon late. Dad goes to work early that morning to get his mail delivered in time, and about four o'clock, after Dara Lynn and me get home-have some pop and cheese crackers-Dad and Dara Lynn and me put Shiloh in the jeep and drive to the vet's.

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John Collins is his name and, just like Doc Murphy, he uses part of his house for his clinic. Shiloh is not one tiny bit happy about going, let me tell you. He's happy about gettin' in the jeep, though, and likes to ride up front with Dad, his head out, the wind blowing his ears. Dara Lynn and me laugh at the way spit drops off the end of his tongue. Jeep gets going fast enough and the wind'll blow that spit right into the backseat. Dara Lynn lets out a shriek when some of it smacks her arm.

Once we get to the clinic, Shiloh knows something is up. Don't know how dogs can tell that, but they seem to. Not a place he's ever been before, that's one thing. The scent of other dogs around, that's another. Scared dogs, too.

We're walking up the sidewalk with Shiloh on a leash, and the more he smells the bushes, the more scared he gets. By the time we reach the door, his tail's so far tucked in between his legs he can hardly walk. Dara Lynn picks him up in her arms and carts him inside.

Dad signs in at the desk, and a young woman in a blue shirt rubs Shiloh on the head, but that don't fool him one minute. He knows right off this is a place he don't want to be. Knows it for sure when a fifteen-pound cat reaches out and swats at him as we go past.

We sit in a row on the plastic chairs and Shiloh's sitting on the floor between my feet. I sort of press the calves of my legs close around him like a hug, but I can feel him shaking. I reach down and pat Shiloh on the head. He licks my hand, but it's not a very strong lick. Think he's saying, "I thought you liked me. How come you're bringing me here?"

Dad's reading some pamphlets on distemper, rabies, and something called hepatitis. I'm looking at a dog chart over on the wall. Shows a side view of a dog, and every part of

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him is named-parts of a dog I never even heard of before. Figure if I'm going to be a vet I got to know them all, so I start memorizing 'em right here-the hock joint, loin, croup, withers, brisket, stifle, flews.... Should've brought my notebook, I'm thinking, so I could put it all down.

Dara Lynn, though, is reading about worms. She sits there with her mouth full open, eyes big as quarters, and nudges me in the side.

"Marty," she whispers, "you know that puppies have worms in 'em?"

"Yeah," I tell her. "I know dogs can get worms."

"Live ones!" says Dara Lynn, eyes like fifty-cent pieces now. "Crawling around inside 'em!" She's looking more horrified every minute. Then she looks over at me. "Maybe Shiloh's got 'em."

"I suppose he could have."

"How would they know?" she asks me.

I lean over and whisper: "You have to look in his poop." "EEeeuu!" Dara Lynn cries, and claps her hands over her mouth.

Only thing I like better than teasing Dara Lynn is making her sick.

Now it's our turn to take Shiloh into an examining room. I get up and tug on the leash, and Shiloh follows, looking about as mournful as a dog can look.

The vet is a tall man-must be six feet four, I'll bet, and he's got on a blue shirt, too. Got a big head, big ears, and a big smile.

"Well, well, so this is Shiloh!" he says in a friendly, calm kind of voice as Dad lifts our dog up and puts him on the examining table. "This the one Doc Murphy told me about?"

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"He's the one," says Dad.

The first five minutes all John Collins does is pet Shiloh and talk real soft. Runs his hands behind his ears, smooths his head, and pretty soon Shiloh's feeling like maybe this isn't going to be so bad. Starts frisking up a little, tail begins to wag, and then he's lickin' John Collins all over his hands and chin. The vet laughs.

He asks us questions about Shiloh, about how many shots he's had, and of course we don't know the answers because we don't know who had him before Judd. Wants to know what we feed him, and I can tell he don't like the idea of table scraps.

"You've been taking real good care of him, but he'd be even healthier if he had more protein in his diet," John Collins says, and tells us what kind of dog food we should be buying and where we can get it cheapest.

Then he gives Shiloh a couple of shots-Shiloh's right good about it, just flinches a little-and tells us never to give him bones, make sure he has fresh water, clean his food dish every day, what to do for fleas....

When Dad and Dara Lynn take Shiloh out to the desk to pay the bill, I say to John Collins, "Something I've been thinking on: Chaining dogs makes 'em mean, don't it?"

"It makes them scared, so they act mean," the vet says. "When you chain a dog, he feels trapped. If other dogs or people come over and he thinks he might be attacked, he tries to pretend he's big and fierce in order to scare them off.

"And these dogs just stay mean for life?" I ask.

John Collins shakes his head. "They don't have to. Once you unchain a dog, he doesn't feel so threatened. Knows he can get away if he has to. He may not settle down