Shiloh Season (8 page)

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right then, but if he learns to trust you, knows you'll treat him right, he can become a loyal, gentle dog."

We go home and I sit at the kitchen table and write all that down for my report. We got a vet now; I can call him and ask questions, and I'm thinking how maybe some day I'll have an animal clinic-my name there on the door. Folks will bring their pets in with all kinds of problems, and I'll know just what to do. But two days later, something happened and I sure didn't know what to do then.

It's after school on Wednesday-a common kind of school day. Couple kids give their reports for their "Imagine the Future" project.

Sarah Peters stands up and reads how she is going to be a swimmer and swim the English Channel. Miss Talbot says that's an interesting goal, but what about the rest of her life? She has to be thinking about what else she could do with swimming even after she becomes a champion.

Sarah turns her paper in, and Fred Niles reads the report he's written. He wants to be a policeman, and if he can't get on the police force, then he'll settle for rescue squad.

Miss Talbot says this is a good example of how you can use your desire to help and protect people in several different ways. The boys all give Sarah our smart look, but then Laura Herndon gets up and says she wants to own a restaurant. If she can't own her own restaurant, she says, she'd like to be a cook. If she can't be a cook, she'll be a waitress. And if she can't get a waitress job, she'll start out as a dishwasher and work her way up. Boy, Laura sure knows how to please a teacher. Miss Talbot likes Laura saying how she's willing to start out small and work up.

David Howard and I look at each other and figure

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maybe we better do a little more work on our reports before we give them.

It's about five o'clock that afternoon that something happens.

Dad's not home yet. Ma's in the kitchen cooking some turnips and onions, and listening to the news.

Dara Lynn has a wire strung between the chicken coop and the shed, and she's got these little cereal boxes fastened to it like cable cars or something, and she's running 'em back and forth. Sort of neat, really. Wish I'd thought of it myself.

Becky's rolling around in the grass with Shiloh, who's looking about as bored as a dog can look and still be polite about it. Becky rolls over his back and then rolls the other way. Each time Shiloh sort of braces himself, digging his paws in. Don't even protest. Just turns around and licks her now and then.

I'm trying to pick enough apples off our two apple trees to see if there's enough for Ma to make applesauce. The peaches are all gone now, but Ma wants every last apple I can find.

I've found about six, when I hear this barking and carrying on. Sounds like it's far away but coming closer. Shiloh turns his head in the direction of the sound and stands up, body all tense, and Becky rolls right off in the grass.

"Who's that? Your friend?" I ask Shiloh, thinking of the. black Lab.

But the noise is too much for a single dog. Gets louder and louder, and I'm wondering what it could be when suddenly, here come these three dogs through the trees back beyond the house. I know the minute I see them that they belong to Judd Travers.

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Eleven

T here's not even time to think. I grab Shiloh up in one arm, Becky in the other, and run up on the porch. "Ma!" I yell, and she's already halfway to the screen.

She opens it for me and I drop the two inside. Shiloh runs over to a window and stands up on his hind legs, front paws on the sill, wanting to see.

"Dara Lynn?" calls Ma.

I turn around on the porch to see Data Lynn backed up against the chicken coop, like her body's frozen, dogs all around her snappin' and snarlin', and first thought in my head is that Judd's sicced 'em on us.

Ma goes charging down the steps and grabs the clothes pole that props the line up on wash day. I grab my baseball bat from off the porch and we're running over to that chicken coop.

Dara Lynn's screamin' now, elbows up over her face, and

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this one dog, the black-and-white one, lunges forward and nips her arm.

Whack! Ma brings down the clothes prop on the black-and-white dog. The others snarl and turn our way, but I'm swinging that bat out in front of me ninety miles an hour and Ma's bringin' that clothes prop down a second time. The dogs back off.

Air is filled with noise. Dogs are yelping, Ma is shouting, Dara Lynn's screaming, Shiloh's yipping, Becky's standing at the screen squalling, and the hens are all carrying on in the chicken coop.

The black-and-white dog seems to be the leader. As Ma's pole comes down again he hightails it out of the yard, and the others follow.

Ma grabs Dara Lynn and rushes her in the house, cleans that bite with soap and water.

About this time Dad comes home.

"Whose dogs are those running up the road?" he asks. "Judd's!" I tell him. "They got loose and come over here, and one of 'em bit Dara Lynn."

She's sobbing. "I didn't do nothing! All I was doing was playing out in the yard and those dogs come up and bit me." "You sure they were Judd's?" Dad asks.

"I'd know 'em anywhere," I tell him.

Ma calls Doc Murphy and he says to call the sheriff and get those dogs picked up. The one that bit Dara Lynn'll have to be kept locked up for ten days to see whether or not he's got rabies. If he does, Dara Lynn's got to have shots. If we can't find the dog, she'll have to have 'em anyway.

Dara Lynn howls again.

Dad calls the sheriff and he says someone already

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reported them, that those dogs killed somebody's cat. He's got a man out looking for them.

lil Dara Lynn's sobbing now and Becky squalls, too, just to join in. Shiloh runs from window to window, whining, standin' up on his hind legs. Meanwhile Ma's turnips have boiled dry and the pan's starting to scorch.

Ma turns off the fire, takes Becky out on the swing, and tries to cool her own self down.

"Let's just sit out here a spell and rest," she says. "Becky, it wasn't you got bit, so quit squallin'. Dara Lynn, you're not going to die anytime soon, so just come sit here by me. Let me have five minutes of peace and quiet or my head is going to fly straight off."

Becky looks up at Ma's head and starts suckin' her thumb.

Dad and I come out on the porch then with Shiloh, and we sit on the steps while Shiloh goes trotting all around the yard, smelling for a trace of those dogs. Guess a dog's nose tells him a whole lot we don't know anything about.

"Wonder how in the world those dogs got loose," Dad says. "Judd had chains on 'em that would have held a grown man. Were they dragging their chains, Marty, or what? I didn't notice."

"No. Looked to me like they were all unhooked at the jill collar," I tell him.

And just when we thought we'd had about enough excitement to last us a while, here come Judd's pickup turning into our drive.

"Well, look who's comin'," says Dad.

Shiloh stands so still it's like he's turned to stone. He knows the sound of that pickup better'n he knows his own name, almost. And soon as it stops beside Dad's jeep and

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Judd puts one foot out, Shiloh races over to our steps and crawls underneath. Seem like he don't even trust that I can save him. Got to get to some deep dark place away from the reach of Judd Travers.

Judd comes stompin' across the yard in his cowboy boots, and his face looks like thunder. If you was to give Becky her crayons and tell her to draw it, she'd choose purple.

"Ray Preston, I accuse you of turning my dogs loose," Judd says right off, a voice three times too loud.

"Now calm down, Judd. I did no such thing," Dad tells him.

"You put your boy up to it, then."

"Marty didn't have anything to do with it."

"Well, somebody come by and unhooked the chains on all three of 'em, and a neighbor says he saw my dogs coming off your property."

Now Ma speaks up: "They were here all right, and one of 'em bit my daughter. Show him, Dara Lynn!"

Dara Lynn holds up her arm and gives a loud sniffle. "If Marty hadn't got Becky, no telling what they might have done to her," Ma continues.

But Judd don't believe it.

"That is a put-up lie, I ever heard one. Sheriff tells me he finds my dogs, he's keepin' the one in a cage for two weeks. That's my second-best hunting dog, the black-and-white."

"It's the only way they can tell for sure whether or not the dog has rabies," Dad says. "Any dog that bites someone has to be watched."

"I see what you're up to, don't think I don't!" Judd goes on, like he never heard one word. "You took my best

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hunting dog and now you're cooking up some story about my second-best. I'm going to lose two good weeks of hunting because of this, and I want you to loan me that beagle. I can use him."

My heart almost explodes inside my chest. "No!" I say.

"Judd," says Dad, "why don't you sit down? We can talk this over man-to-man without getting all hot-under-the-collar."

"I'm not sittin', and I have nothing to say, except you owe me the use of that dog."

Becky slides down off the swing. "You can't have him!" she says, her little neck thrust out, face all screwed up. She's sassing this big old man in the cowboy boots, but I notice she's got one hand still holdin' fast to Ma's skirt.

"Hush, Becky," Ma tells her.

"Judd," I say, trying my best to reason with him. "Even if we were to let you, Shiloh wouldn't go."

"He'd go, all right," says Judd. "Where is he?" And he gives a whistle.

Under the steps, Shiloh don't move. I wonder if he's even breathing.

"See?" chirps Dara Lynn. "He won't even come out!" and she points to the steps. I could have drowned Dara Lynn.

Judd goes over to the side and gets down on all fours. I'm just close enough I can smell the beer on his breath. Don't think he's drunk, but he's been drinking.

"Here, you!" Judd yells, and whistles again. "Come on outta there, boy! Come on!"

I'm wondering what Shiloh's thinking right now. Does he think I'm lettin' this man come get him?

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Stay there, Shiloh, I whisper. But I'm remembering the way he looked first day I found him back in the weeds over near Judd's, crawling along on his belly. Only thing that brought him to me was to whistle. What if he's so scared of Judd, of what will happen if he doesn't obey, that he comes out? Am I going to just sit here and let Judd take my dog, even for ten days? Will Dad let him?

I'm glad to see that nothing's happening. Shiloh's probably scrunched up in the far corner beneath the steps as far away as he can get.

Judd gets up off his hands and knees, cussing to himself, and goes to get the clothes pole. He comes back with it, ready to poke my dog out.

"No!" I say again, and this time I stand up. "You ain't goin' after my dog with that pole."

"Now, Judd, put that down." Dad gets up too, and his voice is strong. "That dog belongs to Marty now and you don't have permission to take him. I know you're upset about your dogs getting loose, but acting this way is not going to help."

And Ma says, "We got a daughter with a bite on her arm, but we're not going to press charges, so there's no 'cause for us to be mad at each other."

Judd stands there a full fifteen seconds, the pole in his hand. He glares at Dad. Then at me. He even glares at Ma and the girls.

Suddenly he throws the clothes pole to the ground.

"I ain't through with you, Ray Preston," he says. "I know you and that boy are behind this, I'll bet a week's pay. You ain't heard the last from me, you ain't seen the last, and I'm tellin' you now you'll be sorry."

He goes back across the yard, gets in his pickup, turns

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around on our grass, and with a loud roar and a squeal of tires, he barrels on down our driveway, the dust from the gravel rolling off to the left.

Shiloh creeps out and comes up the steps, tail between his legs. He huddles against me, 'bout as close as he can get, and I put my arm around him.

We don't say a word, none of us. Just sit there watching that cloud of dust till Judd gets out to the road again and makes his turn.

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Twelve

Everybody's talking about Judd's dogs the next day on the school bus. Dara Lynn, of course, had to go up and down the aisle showing off the place where Judd's black-and-white dog had bit her. To hear Dara Lynn tell the story, it had her arm in its teeth and had twisted it almost off before Ma whacked the dog with the clothes prop.

It was Michael Sholt's daddy who caught the black-and-white dog. After that the two other dogs scattered and were soon picked up. Michael's daddy said if someone else hadn't let loose Judd's dogs, he might have been mad enough to do it himself, on account of Judd's running into his mailbox twice. Guess there were a lot of folks starting to get mad at Judd Travers.

We all felt bad about the cat, though. Belonged to Mrs. Donaldson over there near Judd. Sarah heard that the cat had just been sitting out on the steps, sunning itself, when