Saving Shiloh (6 page)

“David, you don't even know whose boot that is!” I say. David Howard's case against Judd is as stupid as flypaper in winter. “Even if it
does
belong to that man from Bens Run, and even if Judd
did
murder him, just 'cause he wrecked his truck here don't mean that's where the man is buried. The one don't have a single thing to do with the other.”

Even Shiloh's laughin'. Sittin' there in the snow with his mouth open. Sure looks like a grin to me.

But David says, “You know how a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime? He just can't help himself! Same with Judd Travers. Maybe his conscience drove him here.”

If I was a teacher and this was homework, I'd give David a failing grade. One thing sure, he's never going to let himself be bored, and that's what I like about David Howard: He don't have enough excitement, he'll make it up.

We walk upcreek for a spell, watching a flock of ducks fly low over the water. Probably going to light down on one of the islands out in the middle. A little farther on, we can make out Judd's trailer across Middle Island Creek.

“Who named this a creek instead of a river? Paul Bunyan?” says David. “Sure looks like a river to me.”

“We walk far enough, we'd get up to Michael Sholt's cousin's house,” I tell him. Michael lives down toward Friendly, but his cousin lives way upcreek and takes a different bus to school.

“If we walk far enough we'll get to the North Pole!” says David. Think he's getting a little tired of all this hiking. Getting cold, leastways. Probably got his mind on Ma's cinnamon rolls.

“Want to go back?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “But keep the boot.”

I don't know what I'm going to do with a frozen shoe, but I throw it under the porch steps when we get home, and we eat a plate of cinnamon rolls.

On Sunday, Ma's listening to Brother Jonas preach on TV and Dad's cleaning his razor. Dara Lynn and Becky have
pulled bedsheets over a couple chairs in their room to make a tent, and they're pretending that Shiloh's a bear, tryin' to get in. The more they squeal, the more Shiloh wiggles about, tryin' to get his nose under the edge of the sheet, tail going ninety miles an hour. If that dog had wings, he'd fly, except his propeller would be on the wrong end.

“I'm going over to visit Judd—see how he's doing,” I tell Dad.

Dad don't look at me, just frowns a little at his razor. “You could always pick up the phone,” he says, not too sure, I guess, about me goin' over alone to visit a man like Judd, no matter how many chances he'd give him.

“I might could give him a hand with somethin', help him out,” I say.

“Well, don't stay too long,” says Dad.

Outside, I pull that boot out from under the steps, tuck it under my arm, and start off.

I cross the bridge, Shiloh beside me, and watch to see if he'll come ahead or turn back. This time he goes a few steps beyond the other side, then sits down in the snow and whimpers. I walk on about fifty yards and look back over my shoulder. Shiloh's trottin' back across the bridge. Guess he's decided not to freeze his bottom waiting for me.

Sky is bright, but cold. Sun don't seem to warm me at all. The thing about West Virginia is it takes so long for the sun to come up over those hills on one side of the creek that it don't seem any time at all before it's sliding down behind the hills on the other. Boy, you live in Kansas, flat as an ironing board, I'll bet the sun comes up in the morning before you even open your eyes. You go to bed, it's still got a way to go before it's down.

Then I realize I'm not cold from the weather, I'm cold
from fear. The goose bumps I can feel popping out on my arms under my jacket don't have nothing to do with the snow. Shiloh had the right idea turning back. What I am fixing to do is walk right up to Judd Travers holding the one piece of evidence he just might kill for to get. Could be he's thinkin' on digging around over on that bank himself as soon as his leg gets better, and here I am, showing him what I got, what David and me know.

I got this far, though, I got to go on. If Judd's looking out of his trailer now, he's already seen me comin', knows what I got. I wonder if there's a rifle pointed at me right this very minute.

Climb the steps to his trailer and knock, but I don't hear any sound at all from inside—no TV, no radio. Can hear my teeth chattering. I hug my arms tight around my body, the boot still tucked under my arm, and knock again. Then I hear this engine. I turn around, and here come Judd's pickup. He gets out, hauling his left leg down first, then his crutches. The cast is a dirty white, but nobody's wrote his name on it or anything, the way they'd do at school. He don't have his gun with him, and that cheers me right quick.

“Hey!” I call. “You're driving now!”

“I can get where I want to go, that's about it,” Judd says. He unfolds himself like an old man. Got a paper sack in his hand, and I hope it's not whiskey.

I knew that as soon as Judd could start driving again, he would, because he loves his truck almost more than anything else in this world. Washes it every weekend, and finds any excuse he can to drive to Friendly and back, just ridin' around, listenin' to his radio. Last summer, on the Saturdays he wasn't working, wouldn't be anything at all to see Judd passing three
or four times out on the road, goin' nowhere in particular.

He's comin' slow up his board walk, cast and crutches tapping a rhythm like old Peg Leg the Pirate. “What you doin' over this way?” he wants to know.

“Just came to say hello, see how you're doin'.”

“Well, I'm alive,” he tells me.

Judd goes in first, leaves the door open behind him, and I figure that's all the invitation I'm gonna get, so I go in, too. Close the door. I guess what I plan to do is show him the boot and ask does he know who it belongs to. I figure I can tell by the look on his face if it belongs to that man from Bens Run, and if Judd's the reason he disappeared. With Judd hobbling about on that leg of his, I can be out the door and in the bushes if he gets mad.

Judd puts the sack on his table, then reaches inside and pulls out a half gallon of milk, some bread, and a tin of sardines.

“What you got there?” Judd asks, nodding toward the boot.

I swallow. “Oh, just somethin' I wonder if you'd recognize,” I say, and hold it up. Wonder if I'm sounding smart-mouth.

Judd's jaw drops and he stares at it for a moment. “Where'd you find it?”

“Over by the creek.” I study his face, my heart thumpin' hard. “Know who it belongs to?”

“Of course,” says Judd. “It's mine.”

Talk about feelin' stupid! I don't tell him what David Howard figured.

“Never thought I'd see
that
again! Couldn't wear it anyway, it's soaked up so much rain and snow. Most of my clothes, they just cut them off, you know. In the emergency
room, they don't fool around.” He takes the boot and throws it back into his bedroom.

“Didn't you miss it when you dressed to come home from the hospital?”

“Missed it before then, so a guy from work brought me a pair of his old sneakers to get home in. You want a pop or somethin'?” Judd asks me.

“Okay.” I sit down on Judd's couch, remembering how only a few months past, he had me workin' out there in the summer sun in order to earn his dog, and then, when I'm about done, tells me I can't have Shiloh after all—that nobody witnessed our agreement, and I'm a fool to do all that work. Guess I'd have to say it was the worst day of my life. No—the worst hadn't happened yet; I'm gettin' to that—but it was a time I'll never forget.

Judd gets me a 7Up from his refrigerator and pours himself a mug of leftover coffee. Then he sits down, his jacket still on, 'cause he keeps his trailer cold. Holds the cup under his chin, lettin' the steam warm his face.

“So how's things?” he asks.

“Okay,” I tell him. “I been working for that vet down in St. Marys on Saturday mornings. Learnin' a lot about dogs.”

“Yeah?” says Judd.

“We see a lot of dogs that have been chained up, and most of 'em are mean as nails. John Collins—he's the vet—says it's because they feel trapped that way. If something came along to attack 'em, they'd be in a tough spot 'cause they can't fight free, so they act real fierce to scare you off.”

“That a fact?” says Judd, and I'm tryin' to read his face as he takes another drink of coffee. “Well,” he says at last, “I
sure know how it is to feel cornered. Know what it's like to feel trapped.”

I don't say nothing. I'm remembering what Doc Murphy told me about how he knew the Traverses when Judd was a little kid, and how the father used to whip those kids with the buckle end of a belt.

Judd stares out the window beyond my head like he don't hardly see me at all. And suddenly he stands up and says, “Well, I'm goin' to take a nap, Marty.” That's a good-bye if I ever heard one, so I set my empty pop can on the floor.

“Okay,” I say. “See you around.”

I'm halfway across his yard when I realize what I've done. My hands feel all clammy. Why do I think I can believe Judd Travers? If David Howard
was
right, and Judd done something to that man from Bens Run, and if that boot belonged to him, you can bet Judd'll burn it faster than a dog can pee. Why didn't I ask to see that other boot—see if it matched? I can't believe how stupid I am—just handed the evidence right over!

Figure I got to steal a look in the back of his pickup as I walk by, see if there're any clues in there. Judd keeps all sorts of stuff in there, but he's got a tarp over it now, and the tarp's covered with snow. I manage to lift a corner and peer underneath. Piece of plywood, a coil of rope, truck battery, tires, roofing shingles, iron pipe, canvas. . . .

And then I see Judd Travers watchin' me from his window. I drop that tarp right quick, give him a wave, and head on home. Feel like the worst kind of fool.

But I feel even worse later. Walk in the house and Ma says, “David called, Marty. Wants you to call him back right away.”

I go out in the kitchen and dial David's number.

“Marty!” he says. “Guess what?”

I kid around. “They found the guy from Bens Run with a bullet in his head?”

There's silence from the other end. Then, “There wasn't any bullet, but they found him. And he's dead.”

I
don't see David again till we go back to school after New Year's. By then I'm ready for vacation to be over. Becky's come down with chicken pox, and Dara Lynn's stepped on my Steelers watch and broke the glass. Now we got to send it all the way to the factory for a new face cover, which means I can't wear it on the first day back to school.

Big news is that the man from Bens Run died of a blow to the head, says the
Tyler Star-News,
and David and I been on the phone to each other most every day about it. Body was found down along the Ohio River by a highway maintenance crew, but the man's shoes were missing. Murder weapon's missing, too, and David's sure Judd's the one who done it. I'm not so sure about the shoes—they could have come off and floated most anywhere. I'm thinking about the murder weapon. What I'm remembering, and wish I wasn't, is that piece of iron pipe in the back of Judd's pickup.

School bus comes up our road as far as the bridge, then turns around. Anybody living on the other side has to walk over here or catch another bus somewhere else. I think it's because that old bridge might not hold a bus full of kids. Fire truck come up once makin' a safety run, and had to empty its tank before it crossed, then fill up again from the other side of the creek.

Driver picks up anybody who's ready on the way up, and everybody else on the way back, so that kids who live along this route got two chances to catch the bus.

“Happy New Year, Marty,” says Mrs. Sims, the driver. “How you doin', Dara Lynn?”

Dara Lynn never smiles at nobody before nine o'clock in the morning, and she don't say nothing, but I wish Mrs. Sims a Happy New Year, too, and go sit across from Michael Sholt. Out the window I can see Shiloh trotting back up the lane to the house. Ma says that sometimes after we're gone in the mornings, she picks that dog up and rocks him like a baby. Don't many dogs have a grown woman who'll do that, I'll bet.

“Heard the news?” Michael crows as soon as I step on the bus. “The man from Bens Run was found murdered, and they think Judd did it.”

“Who
thinks?” I say.

“Everybody!”
says Fred Niles. “Everyone's talking that it's Judd!”

Sarah Peters is up on her knees on the seat so she can see around the whole bus. “The sheriff's questioning a whole lot of people, and one of 'em's Judd. It was on the news this morning.” I see pretty quick that whether Judd done it or not, the feelin's going against him.

“Just because they questioned him don't mean he did it,” I say.

“How come you're stickin' up for Judd, Marty?” asks Sarah. “Thought you used to hate him worse'n poison.”

“Maybe he's tryin' to change. You ever think of that?” I ask her. But I don't even know that myself.

One by one, other kids climb on, and everyone's wearin' a little something they got for Christmas—a jacket or sneakers or cap. By the time David gets on, the other kids are looking at Michael Sholt's baseball cards and telling what all they got for Christmas. David sits down beside me.

“Anything new?” I ask.

“Judd was called in for questioning, but the sheriff released him,” David says. “Doesn't mean he's innocent. It just means they haven't charged him with anything yet.”

“Do they know where he was when the guy was murdered?” I ask.