Shiloh Season

  “She did, Hettie? Oh, land, what next?” Ma’s saying.

  Becky comes in and we give her a cracker. But soon as Ma’s off the phone, I say, “What happened?”

  Ma shakes her head. “I want the three of you to promise that I ever get to acting crazy, you’ll remember me the way I am now.”

  Dara Lynn gets this gleam in her eye. “I’ll remember you acting crazy!” she says.

  “What’d Grandma do?” I ask. “How much trouble can she get into when she’s in a wheelchair?”

  Ma sighs. “She’s been wheeling herself into other people’s rooms uninvited. Men’s rooms. She’s got it in her head that Grandpa Preston’s still alive and they’re hiding him somewhere.”

  Becky stares, but Dara Lynn laughs out loud, and it’s all I can do not to grin.

  “Aunt Hettie’s afraid if Grandma don’t behave herself, they’ll put her out, but those nurses know what to do. They understand.”

  Nice thing about a telephone is it helps you make plans. Before, when I wanted to say something to David Howard, I’d have to give the message to Dad, and Dad would tell it to David when he put the mail in their box. Then I’d have to wait all day for Dad to get home to find out what David said.

  Now when the phone rings, everybody wants to answer.

  Becky, when she gets there first, puts her mouth right up to the phone and says in this tiny little voice, “Hi, I’m Becky and I’m three years old and . . . and I have a dog.” Somethin’ like that. You almost have to sit on her to wrestle that telephone out of her hand.

  The phone rings again and I answer. It’s David.

  “Why don’t you stay at my house Friday night and I’ll stay at yours on Saturday?” he says.

  I ask Ma. She says yes, if I be sure my socks and underwear are clean.

  So Friday of that week, I put my toothbrush in my pencil case before I leave for school, and when Shiloh follows Dara Lynn and me down to the end of the driveway, I’m thinking how when the bus gets back that afternoon, I’m not going to be on it.

  I kneel down in the grass beside my dog.

  “Listen, Shiloh,” I say. “I’m not comin’ back tonight. I’m staying over with David Howard, but I’ll be home tomorrow, okay?” As though he understands a single word. I’m thinking that maybe he understands something’s going to be different, even though he don’t know what.

  The bus comes then around the bend, and Shiloh barks and backs away. He don’t much care for the big yellow monster that gobbles us up weekday mornings, and spits us out again each afternoon.

  After I get on and the bus turns around, I always go to the back window and look out. See Shiloh trotting up the driveway, tail between his legs. He stops every so often and looks back, then goes a few steps more.

  And I’m thinking that much as I like David Howard, much as I like going to his house, I sure don’t like the thought of me being gone a whole night, Shiloh at home without me, and Judd Travers maybe out there in the dark.

  Three

  Kids are always wild at school on Fridays. Restless to get the weekend started—go poking along the bank of Middle Island Creek, maybe—borrow someone’s rowboat and row out to an island, if the water’s deep enough. Could wade across, if it isn’t.

  Funny, but as long as I can remember, Ma’s called it “the river.” Dad told us, soon as she laid eyes on it after he married her and brought her here, she says, “That’s no creek to me; it’s wide as a river.” So we kids forget sometimes and call it “the river,” too.

  On the bus going home, Michael Sholt’s got another story about Judd Travers getting in a fight down in Bens Run a couple nights back, but I don’t hear the end of it, ’cause I get off with David Howard, and Dara Lynn rides the rest of the way without me.

  I always feel a little strange at David Howard’s. It’s a big house, for one thing—all kinds of rooms in it. A whole room just for David. Another room for his father’s books and computer. Even a room for plants! I told Ma about that once and she said if it was her house, she’d put some of those plants outside where they belong and make more room for people.

  Meals are fancier at David Howard’s, too. The food doesn’t taste any better than it does at home, but Mrs. Howard has placemats under all the plates and cloth napkins rolled up in plastic rings. The way I eat at David Howard’s, I watch what everybody else does before I start in.

  His folks are nice, though. His dad works for the Tyler Star-News, and talks to me a lot about basketball, even though I like baseball better. He always forgets. Asks me about the New York Knicks when it’s the White Sox I got my eye on.

  Mrs. Howard’s a teacher, and she can’t help herself: she sees something wrong, she corrects it.

  “Shiloh don’t like to see me climb on the bus each morning,” I say at dinner, about the time she’s passing out the dessert.

  “He doesn’t, Marty?” she says. “He doesn’t like to see you climb on the bus?”

  “No, he don’t,” I answer, my eyes on the chocolate pie, and then David giggles and I know I goofed again.

  After dinner, David and me go outside and play kick-the-can with some other kids till after dark, and when we come in, Mr. Howard teaches me some moves on a chessboard. After that we eat some more and watch a video, Homeward Bound. Then we take turns in the shower and have to mop up the floor.

  That night I’m lying on the top bunk in David’s room and I can’t believe I’m homesick. Thinking about my family, what they had for supper, whether or not the telephone rang, and who answered. What crazy thing Grandma Preston done this time, and whether Shiloh’s watching the door, waiting for me to come home.

  I’m thinking Ma will give him extra love tonight. She don’t know this, but once—when Shiloh was healing his hurt leg—I woke real early in the morning from where I sleep on our couch, and across the room I saw my ma in the rocking chair. She had Shiloh on her lap, and was rocking and singing to that dog like he was a baby. I figure Ma’s just getting herself ready for the day Becky, Dara Lynn, and me are grown and gone.

  Haven’t heard a peep from David Howard for a while down on that bottom bunk, and I figure he’s probably already asleep. We played so hard and so long he’s a right to be tired.

  I wasn’t, though. Hard to sleep with cars going by every few minutes, the beam from their headlights traveling along the wall. I’m lying there on my side, about to close my eyes, when suddenly this horrible face with red eyes and green lips pops right up beside me, not five inches from my own, and bobs up and down—a floating head.

  I yell. Can’t help myself, and then David’s having a laughing fit down below.

  “Settle down, you guys,” comes Mr. Howard’s voice as he passes our door.

  I want to know how David did that, though, so I crawl down the ladder and push my way onto David’s bed, punching his arm. David’s got his head under the covers, he’s laughing so hard.

  “How’d you do that?” I whisper.

  David shows me this rubber Halloween mask. He puts it on and holds a flashlight under his chin. Then, when he moves around and all that’s lit up is the mask, it looks like a floating head. I’m thinking how I can’t wait to try that on Dara Lynn.

  We lay on our backs on David’s bunk and talk some more about school and the story Michael Sholt was telling, about Judd getting in a fight with someone. We talk about the way he’s been drinking lately, and I tell him Ma’s guess—that Judd looks in the mirror and don’t like what he sees.

  David raises up on one elbow. I can just make out his face in the dark. His eyes are wide open.

  “You know what that means!” he says.

  “What?”

  “He’s a vampire!” David says, his eyes about to jump out of his head. Even when David knows it’s crazy, his imagination still runs off with him.

  “You’re nuts,” I say.

  “Vampires hate mirrors. If they ever look in a mirror, they die or something.”

  “Then if he was a vampire he wouldn’t e
ven have one!” I tell David.

  “Oh,” David says, and lays back down. A minute goes by and David pops right up again.

  “A werewolf!” he says.

  “David, you’re as crazy as Grandma Preston,” I say, and then I’m ashamed. It’s not like she wants to be.

  But David’s excited all over again. “It figures, Marty! He looks in the mirror and sees fur and fangs, and he just goes a little crazy. The only way to find out . . . ”

  I know what’s coming before David ever says the next word.

  “I’m staying at your place tomorrow night. We’ll go check out Judd then. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I tell him.

  David don’t think Judd Travers is a werewolf any more than I do. He just likes the idea of spying on him—stirring up a little excitement.

  I crawl back up in the top bunk and can hear David snoring after a while. I fall asleep some time later, but don’t know how long it’s been ’cause all at once, middle of the night, there’s this loud yell.

  My eyes pop open, and the yell seems to hang in the air like an echo.

  Can’t figure out where I am. The bed’s smooth, not lumpy like our couch. Then I remember I’m at David Howard’s, and figure it was me who yelled. Wondered if I’d woke him up.

  The dream was so real. Dreamed I’d just got up out of bed and walked home. Seemed to be half light—early morning, maybe—and I was hoping Ma would be up, tell me Shiloh was okay. But nobody seemed to be around, and I could see Shiloh sleeping out on the porch.

  Whew, I’m thinking. He’s all right.

  Everything looks calm and natural, but just as I get close to the house, I see this long stick there in the bushes. . . . Looks like a branch has fallen out of a tree, maybe, and then I see it’s not a stick at all, it’s a gun, and it’s pointed straight at Shiloh.

  It’s the kind of dream where your legs don’t move, and you yell and yell, but no sound comes out.

  Except I must have made some noise, because next thing I know I hear footsteps out in the hall and our door clicks open.

  “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.

  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?”

  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?”

  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.

  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 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.”

  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.