Saving Shiloh

  I’m about to run inside for a pail of water to throw on that dog when Judd lifts the hammer, hangs back a moment, then brings it down on the black and white’s head.

  The dog’s legs give out from under him, his jaw goes slack, then he slumps to the ground and lays still.

  Seventeen

  I can’t hardly breathe. Don’t know who to head for, Judd or the dog, so I don’t move at all.

  “Clyde!” comes the neighbor’s voice. “Judd Travers just killed that dog!”

  That gets my feet moving. I go over to the black and white and put my hand on his chest to see if the heart’s beating. Then I feel for the pulse on the inside of his hind leg, the way John Collins taught me. Nothing at all.

  I look over at Judd. He’s sittin’ on the ground, arms on his knees, head on his arms. His pant leg’s soaked with blood. The other two dogs have crept off to a far corner, just watching. Don’t make a sound.

  “Judd,” I say, “you sit tight. I’m callin’ Doc Murphy.” And I run to the back door of his trailer.

  “What’s happened over there?” calls the neighbor’s husband.

  “Dog attacked Judd,” I call back, but all the while I’m wondering, did he have to kill him? Judd’s leg looks bad, though. Not the same leg that was broke, either. The other one. Now he’s got two bum legs.

  Doc Murphy says he’s just about to walk out the door, going to visit his brother down in Parkersburg, and I say, “Doc, Judd’s been hurt by one of his dogs and he’s bleedin’ pretty bad.”

  “Where you calling from, Marty?”

  “Here at Judd’s,” I tell him. “He’s out back.”

  I go out the door again. Judd is in the same position I left him, but he suddenly rears back and socks the fist of his right hand into the palm of his left just about as hard as a man can hit, cussing hisself out. Then he slumps again, and don’t lift his head.

  “Anything we can do?” the neighbor woman calls.

  “Doc’s on his way over,” I yell back.

  I sit down beside Judd. He’s shakin’ his head back and forth, back and forth, his shoulders twitching once or twice like he’s about to hit himself again.

  “My best hunting dog,” he says. “Now I’ve lost two.” I know he’s counting Shiloh.

  “This one ever do anything like that before?” I ask.

  “Was always chained before. Don’t know what got into him this time. I never meant to step on his paw.”

  “I know you didn’t,” I say.

  He eases up his pant leg, and that is some bite. Big flap of skin just hanging there.

  We hear a car coming down the road from the bridge, and it’s not long before Doc Murphy makes a U-turn in front of Judd’s and pulls his car off the pavement. Comes hurrying around to the back and walks through the opening in the fence. Judd’s other two dogs don’t even bark. One of ’em’s lying down now, head on his paws. Look like they’re both too scared to move. They can tell something’s happened to the black and white.

  Doc Murphy grunts and sets his bag on the ground, then bends over Judd’s leg and gives a whistle. His eye falls on the dead dog, blood oozing out one corner of his mouth, eyes fogged over. Sees the hammer, too, and shakes his head.

  “You provoke that dog, Judd?”

  “No, he didn’t,” I say, answering for him. “I seen the whole thing. Judd accidentally stepped on his paw. The dog bit him and wouldn’t let go.”

  Doc sighs. “Well, we got trouble enough right here,” he says. “Come in the house, Judd, where I can sew you up. Don’t like to stitch up a dog bite if I can help it. Better to keep the wound open, keep it clean, but this one’s going to take a whole bunch of stitches, I can tell you.”

  Seems like Judd just got through limpin’ on one leg, and now he’s limpin’ on the other. I unwind that roll of wire fence back again and stretch it over the opening where the gate was to be so the other two dogs won’t get out, and I fasten it good. Then I go inside. Soon as the yard’s empty, I see the other dogs come over and sniff the black and white. One of ’em makes a whining sound in his throat. Don’t tell me dogs don’t cry!

  I sit off to one side while Doc works on Judd. Got him sitting up on the table, leg stretched out on a towel where Doc can reach it. I get some more towels, and some hot water, scrub up good, and hand Doc things as he needs them.

  “Okay, now, Judd,” Doc says at last. “Don’t want you to get that bandage wet. You come by in a couple of days, let me take a look at it, and we’ll take the stitches out in two weeks or so. I got to pump you full of antibiotics now before I leave.” He writes out a prescription, too. “And I got to take that dog with me; it’s the law. Check him for rabies.”

  “Tell ’em I want him back,” says Judd, real soft.

  Doc turns around. “What you say?”

  “I want the body back when they’re done with it.”

  “Sure, Judd,” Doc says. “I’ll tell them.”

  I find an old box out back. Roll the dog’s body into the box, and set it on the floor of Doc’s car.

  When he’s gone, I go inside to wash up, see if Judd wants me to stay. He don’t. He’s on the couch, staring straight ahead.

  Finally I tell him, “I’m sure sorry today turned out like it did.”

  But he don’t answer, and I leave.

  I tell my family what happened. Everyone’s looking real sorry, even Dara Lynn.

  Ma sighs. “Some people just seem to attract trouble,” she says at last.

  And Dad says, “Does seem like there should have been some other way to make that dog let go, but I don’t know what. A dog get his teeth in you like that, he can tear you up mighty quick.”

  One good thing about bein’ an animal is you don’t have to know all the bad things happening around you. When Dara Lynn and me walk down to the school bus stop on Monday, Shiloh goes dancin’ along beside us, frisky as you please. Don’t even know one of his own kind was killed. But I see that all the sorry’s gone out of Dara Lynn’s eyes, too, and there’s pure eagerness in its place.

  “Listen here,” I say. “I don’t want you tellin’ anybody that Judd killed one of his dogs. Hear?”

  “You can’t make me not tell!” she says.

  “If you tell what Judd did, I’ll tell the whole bus how you threw up on your new shoes last summer,” I say.

  Dara Lynn’s mad as hornets. “Okay!” she shouts. “I won’t say he killed a dog!”

  The bus comes and we get on, and the first thing out of her mouth is worse: “Judd Travers killed something yesterday!” And then, to me, “I didn’t say what, did I?”

  Fact is, couple of the kids had already heard, so the whole bus already knew.

  “Just picked up a hammer and hit his own dog over the head. That’s what his neighbor said,” Fred Niles tells the rest.

  “Listen!” I say. “I saw it happen. That dog was tearing up his leg. If Judd hadn’t hit him when he did, he might not be walking now.”

  “Yeah, but why do his dogs hate him so much? Ask him that!” says Michael Sholt.

  I worry a lot about Judd after that. Doc Murphy says he come by to have his stitches out, and the wound’s healing nicely. The black and white didn’t have rabies, the test showed, and as far as Doc knows, Judd’s going to work every day. But when Judd’s out in his truck and passes me on the road, it’s like he don’t even see me.

  I go over once to ask if he wants to finish putting that gate on yet, ’cause the wire fencing’s right where I left it, the gate swingin’ in the breeze with no opening there at all. Judd’s truck’s out in front, but when I knock, nobody answers. I call, but nobody comes.

  I go around in back to see if Judd’s there. His two dogs are inside the fence, but beyond that, out past his satellite dish, even, I see a little mound of fresh dirt at the edge of Judd’s property. I walk back, hands in my pockets, and look down. There’s a horseshoe stake driven in the ground at the head of this little grave, and around the stake is a dog’s leather collar.
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  Eighteen

  Seems like maybe we’re back where we started with Judd Travers. Can’t tell what’s going on in his mind, ’cause he don’t ever stop to talk to me. Saturdays I’ll see him pass by out there on the road two, three times, but if I’m out there he don’t even wave. Either he’s mad at me, I figure, for bringin’ that fence by in the first place, or he’s grievin’ for his dog.

  Maybe all my work to be friendly and to give his dogs a better life is going to backfire, and when he looks at me, what he’ll think about is how two of his dogs are gone.

  “Just you stay away from him for a while,” says Dad. “You got to give a man time to sort things through.”

  Closer it gets to April, the more it rains. Not a bit of snow left. Everything’s mud, and just when you think there’s not a drop of water could be left in the sky, it rains some more.

  When it rains hard enough and long enough, Middle Island Creek overflows its banks and we get stranded. Being up the hill a ways from the road, our house don’t get wet, but there’s a stretch of road near the church in Little that floods when the creek is really high. “The Narrows,” we call it, and Dad’ll have to get to work another way. What we do is count the layers of stones in the supports that hold up the bridge here in Shiloh. If we can only see nine stones between the bottom of the bridge and the top of the water, we know the road down at Little will be flooded. More than nine, we’re probably okay.

  On Saturday when I go to the vet’s, there’s a litter of kittens somebody found along the creek. A mama cat had gone in one of those school bus shelters, no bigger than a phone booth, and had her babies, and the water was threatening to carry them off. She was meowing and somebody heard and brought ’em to John Collins. Hadn’t even got their eyes opened yet.

  I’m making sure each of those babies gets a turn at the mother’s milk, and thinking how Dara Lynn wanted a kitten even before I wanted Shiloh. Can’t believe I’m thinking what I am, but I say, “I’ll take one of those kittens, Doc Collins.”

  “You get your pick, Marty,” he says. “But you’ll have to wait till they’re eight weeks old. You don’t want to take them from their mother too early.”

  Dara Lynn’s got a birthday in May, and that’ll be just about the right time to surprise her. But knowing my sister, she’ll probably say something ugly—like how come she didn’t get to choose it herself, or I got the wrong color. Sometimes you just have to take chances.

  Somebody brings in a dog that morning to be checked over ’cause he’s tearing up the furniture. The man says that every time he comes home from work in the evening, the dog’s destroyed something else.

  I scratch the retriever’s ears while John Collins talks to the owner—explains that dogs, like people, want a little more out of life than just hanging round waiting for somebody to come home, pay them some attention. They got to feel needed.

  “Let your dog know that when you come home, it’s his time, and you expect things of him,” Doc says, “even if it’s only to bring in the paper or chase the squirrels away from the bird feeder. Your dog wants to know he has a purpose.”

  The last Saturday in March, Dad picks me up after my job at the vet’s and then we pick up David. Been raining all week, off and on, and the water’s right high, lapping at the side of the road through the Narrows. When we get to the Shiloh bridge, we see there’re only ten layers of stones showing on the supports between the floor of the bridge and the top of the water.

  “It’s close,” Dad says.

  He drops us off at the driveway and goes on to deliver the rest of his mail, and David and I run up to the house where Ma’s got grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup waiting.

  “Da-vid!” sings out Becky, all smiles, when she sees him. Girls always like to show off for David.

  “Hi, Popcorn,” says David.

  Then Dara Lynn has to be her usual nuisance, and keeps kickin’ us under the table and pretending it was Becky did it.

  “Dara Lynn, will you stop it?” I snap, almost sorry I’m savin’ that kitten for her.

  “Dara Lynn, I’m not tellin’ you again! Behave!” says Ma, and I notice she’s holding her cheek. “I got no patience with you today.” And then she gives this little half smile to David and says, “Sorry I’m not more cheery, but I got a toothache that is making my whole face sore.”

  I take a good look at Ma. “It’s swelling up some, too,” I say.

  She feels with her hand, then goes and looks in the mirror. “Guess I ought to have gone to the dentist like your dad said,” she tells me.

  She goes back in the bedroom and lies down, and we try to keep it quiet in the living room. We spread out my Monopoly set on the floor and let Dara Lynn play, but when you get down on the rug like that, Shiloh thinks it’s playtime, and he wiggles and rolls and tries to lick our faces, and soon the houses on Park Place are all over the board. Becky thinks it’s funny, but Dara Lynn gets mad.

  “Stupid old dog!” she yells, and hits at him hard. Shiloh gives this little yelp and comes around behind me. I swoop all Dara Lynn’s houses and money off the board, and tell her the game’s over. “Don’t you ever, never, hit my dog!” I say.

  “Oh, who wants to play Monopoly, anyway? Come on, Becky,” she says, and the girls go off to their bedroom, get down the box of old jewelry Grandma Preston give them once, and try on all the pieces.

  It’s raining lightly outside, and David and me are waiting for it to stop. Then we’re going back to the old Shiloh schoolhouse to see if we can find any more stuff those men left behind—keep it for a souvenir.

  We horse around a little, try to teach Shiloh to help David take his jacket off, make himself useful. But Shiloh yanks too hard on one sleeve and a seam pulls out at the shoulder.

  Ma comes out of the bedroom and makes some calls in the kitchen, then comes over to me.

  “Marty, I’ve called the dentist and he says if I can get down there right now, he’ll take me today. This toothache’s gettin’ worse and worse. I called Mrs. Sweeney, and she said she and her daughter are going to Sistersville and they think they can squeeze me in the cab of their pickup, too. Mrs. Ellison is going to come up here and watch you kids till I get back.”

  “We don’t need a sitter!” I say, embarrassed.

  “Maybe not, but the girls do, and I want you to behave for her now. Hear?”

  She goes in the bathroom to brush her teeth, and by the time she’s got her coat on, we can see Mrs. Sweeney’s pickup coming up the drive. Ma goes out and gets in.

  Great! I’m thinking. David comes for an overnight, and we get a baby-sitter! Mrs. Ellison’s nice, though. Always leaves a little something in her mailbox for Dad when she bakes, and I’m thinking she might show up with a chocolate cake. At least Dara Lynn and Becky are having a fine time in their bedroom, and are leaving David and me alone for a change. We open a pop and watch a basketball game on TV.

  Fifteen minutes go by, though, and Mrs. Ellison still hasn’t come. Phone rings and she says, “Marty, your ma still there?” I tell her she’s gone, and Mrs. Ellison says, “Well, the water here in Little is higher than I thought, and I’m afraid if I get over to your place in our Buick, I might not make it back again. Sam’s on his way home right now, and he’s going to drive me to your house in the four by four. Everything okay there?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I tell her.

  No sooner hang up than it rings again, and this time it’s Michael Sholt.

  “Marty!” he says. “I’m up at my cousin’s, and there’s a dead man floating down the creek! He just went by! Should be by your place in five minutes. Go see who he is!”

  Nineteen

  I drop that phone and David and me grab our jackets and run outside, Shiloh at our heels. The rain’s tapered off, but there’s mud everywhere. We don’t care, though. We run up on the bridge and wait right in the middle, looking upstream. That is one wild-looking creek!

  “You suppose dead men float on their backs or their stomachs???
? I ask David.

  “Stomachs,” he says. “That’s the way they do in the movies, anyway.”

  Who could it be? I wonder. Bet someone’s called the sheriff already and there’ll be men waiting down at the bend where the water slows—see if they can snag him, pull him in. Wouldn’t it be something if David and me could find out who he is, and be the first to call the paper? And then the thought come to me: What if it’s Judd Travers? Don’t know what made me think that, but it just crossed my mind.

  We stand out there on the bridge watching that muddy water come rushing at us and disappear under our feet. No one in the world would think Middle Island Creek was anything but a river now.

  “You figure five minutes are up?” I ask David.

  “Probably ten,” he says. “What if Michael was kidding? Be just like him, you know. Get us standing out here on the bridge waiting to see a dead man, and him and his cousin laughing their heads off.”

  We stare some more at the water. You look at a river long enough, it makes you dizzy.

  “There’s something!” David yells suddenly, and I look hard where he’s pointing. Sure enough, bobbing around the curve ahead is something about the size of a man. When it bumps a rock, we see an arm fly up.

  “Jiminy!” breathes David.

  We run to the far side of the bridge where it looks like the body is heading. Can’t tell what color his hair is—can’t even see his hair, just the shape of his head, and then his feet, tossing about on the current like the feet of Becky’s rag doll.

  “Here he comes!” yells David, just as I see Dara Lynn and Becky cross the road.

  “Go on back!” I yell. “We’re comin’ right up.” I turn toward the water again, and next I know, the body’s coming smack toward us, sliding under the bridge, and we see it’s no dead man at all, it’s one of those dummies left over from Halloween.