Saving Shiloh (15 page)

I see my dog start to turn. I see Judd's hand go out, and I hear Judd sayin', “Come on, boy. Come on, Shiloh. Ain't going to hurt you none.”

And then . . . then my dog's in his arms, and Judd's shoulders go easy. He is just letting that current swing him on downstream and back to the bank. The rope is holding, and Judd don't have to work much—just let the creek do all the carrying.

I slosh along the bank down to where I can see Judd is headed. The Ellisons are going there, too, and a couple of men up on the road.

“Anybody got a blanket?” I hear someone say.

“I got one in my trunk,” a man answers.

Arms are reaching out, hands ready. Somebody puts an old blanket around Judd's shoulders soon as he climbs out.

And now Shiloh's against my chest, his rough tongue licking me up one side of my face and down the other, his little body shaking. With Shiloh in one arm, I reach out and put my other around Judd.

“Thanks,” I say, my voice all husky. “Thank you, Judd.” I'd say more if I could, but I'm all choked up. I just give him a hug with my one free arm, and strangest of all, Judd hugs me back. It's a sort of jerky, awkward hug, like he hadn't had much practice, but it's a start.

•  •  •

I won't repeat what-all my folks said to us later. Dad does the yelling, Ma the crying, and David's got to sit and listen to the whole thing. That me and David went down to that swollen creek in the first place! That we left the girls alone! That Dara Lynn was reckless enough to climb up on that bridge railing. . . .

“Isn't it enough I have the worst toothache of my life without having to come home and find one of my daughters almost drowned?” weeps Ma.

I keep sayin', “I'm sorry”—David, too—but Dad tells us “sorry” wouldn't bring a dead girl back to life. Neither of 'em says anything about Shiloh. That ain't their worry right now.

Dara Lynn hangs her head like the starch has been knocked out of her. Just sits all quiet by the potbellied stove, arms wrapped around her middle. Becky's on the couch, suckin' her thumb. We are the sorriest-looking family right now, but my dog's safe in my arms, and I can't ask for more. Every time he wriggles to get down, I just hold him tighter, and finally he gives up and lays still, knowin' my arms'll get tired by and by.

Next day, though, after Mr. Howard comes for David, my folks are quiet. Seem like every time they walk by one of us, they squeeze a shoulder or pat a head or stroke somebody's hair.

That night after Becky's had her bath and has gone around givin' everyone her butterfly kiss, battin' her lashes against their cheeks, I go out in the kitchen where Dara Lynn's having her graham crackers and milk, and say, “Well, pretty soon you're goin' to have to be sharing that milk with someone else, you know.”

She looks at me suspicious-like. “Why?” she says.

“ 'Cause we're gettin' another member of the family, that's why.”

Dara Lynn's eyes open wide. “Ma's having another baby?”

I laugh. “Not this kind of baby, she ain't. It's gonna be your birthday present from me, Dara Lynn. Somebody brought in a litter of kittens to Doc Collins. You want to
come with me some Saturday and pick one out, it's yours.”

Dara Lynn leaps off her chair and, with graham cracker crumbs on her fingers, hugs me hard. I hug back—a little jerky and awkward, but it's a start.

•  •  •

Everybody's talkin' about Judd Travers. Michael Sholt thought he was going to have the best story of all—that Halloween dummy he and his cousin dumped in the creek to fool us—but it's Judd everyone wants to hear about.

After David told his dad what had happened, Mr. Howard drove up to Judd's a few days later to write a story about him for the paper. But then, everyone from here to Friendly could tell it—how Dara Lynn fell in the creek, how Shiloh jumped in to save her, and Judd went in for Shiloh.

Asked what he was thinking about out there in that rushing water, Judd said, “Well, I guess I was worried some but I was more scared of not saving Shiloh, on account of that dog once saved me.”

Once that newspaper story come out, someone even asked Judd if he'd like to be a volunteer for the Rescue Squad down in Sistersville. He's thinking on it.

We talk about it some in school—how dangerous a flood can get—and on the way home one afternoon, sittin' there beside David Howard, I say, “If you'd asked me last summer if Judd Travers would be a hero, I would have bet my cowboy hat it couldn't happen.”

“I'd have bet my new Nikes,” says David.

“Not in a million years,” I say.

I eat the snack Ma's put out for me, and then—with Dara Lynn and Becky playin' out on the bag swing—I head
over to Judd Travers' place. His pickup's not there—he's still at work—but I got a hammer stickin' out of one pocket, pliers and wire clippers out of the other.

His dogs bark like crazy when they see me comin' around the trailer, but they know me now, and I let them sniff my fingers before I unhook that wire fencing and start to work on the gate. Me and Judd almost had it done. I see how he got one of the hinges around that pole, and I set to work on the other. What'll it be like, I'm wondering, not to have to worry anymore about Judd Travers hurting my beagle? To visit him and not have to worry is he drunk? Pretty nice, I reckon.

Gettin' the gate to swing right ain't—isn't—as easy as it seems. You got to get the hinges on straight up and down, or the gate will hang crooked. I see I got the pin shafts turned to one side so the gate's tipped. Got to loosen the bolts and start all over again. But finally, when I give the gate a push, it opens in and it opens out, just the way Judd needs it to do.

I clip off the extra fencing, put it back behind Judd's shed. And then, makin' sure that gate's latched the way it's supposed to be, I go back up the road to where Shiloh's still waiting for me at the bridge. I scoop him up in my arms and let him wash my face good—beagle breath and all.

I'm thinking that someday, maybe, when I cross that bridge and head down this road to Judd's trailer, Shiloh might come along, sure that he's mine forever and nothing's going to change that.

Don't know if a dog—or a man, either—ever gets to the place where he can forget as well as forgive, but enough miracles have come my way lately to make me think that this could happen, too.

Shiloh

Shiloh Season

Saving Shiloh

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Text copyright © 1997 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Book design by Nina Barnett

The text of this book is set in Goudy.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.

Saving Shiloh / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Sequel to: Shiloh season

Summary: Sixth-grader Marty and his family try to help their rough neighbor, Judd Travers, change his mean ways, even though their West Virginia community continues to expect the worst of him.

[1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. Family life—West Virginia—Fiction. 3. West Virginia—Fiction. 4. Prejudices—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.N24Sav      1997

[Fic]—dc21

96-37373

ISBN 978-0-6898-1460-0 (print)

ISBN 978-1-4424-8662-1 (eBook)