Shiloh: Chapters 9-12

Seems as if the sky’s swirling around above me, tree branches going every which way.

“Well, I had my suspicions before, but it was the squash that did it.”

Then I hear a yelp, a loud yelp, then a snarl and a growl, and suddenly the air is filled with yelps, and it’s the worst kind of noise you can think of.

And then I see this big German shepherd, mean as nails, hunched over Shiloh there on the ground.

I kneel down by Shiloh.

He’s got blood on his side, his ear, a big open gash on one leg, and he don’t move.

Then I feel his body sort of shiver, and his mouth’s moving just a little, like he’s trying to get his tongue out to lick my hand.

And I’m bent over there in the beam of Dad’s flashlight, bawling, and I don’t even care.

I can see Shiloh wince and pull back on his leg where it hurts.

“What is it? What’s he got?” Dara Lynn says, pestering Ma’s arm.

“I sure am sorry to bother you this hour of the night,” Dad says, “but I got a dog here hurt bad, and if you could take a look at him, see if he can be saved, I’d be much obliged. We’ll pay....”

I’m shaking so hard I can see my own hands tremble as I keep one on Shiloh’s head, the other on a front paw.

He puts on his stethoscope and listens to Shiloh’s heart.

Finally he looks at the big, ugly wound on Shiloh’s hurt leg, torn open right to the bone, the bites around Shiloh’s neck, and the ripped ear.

“The thing we got to worry about now is infection. That leg wound is going to take twenty...thirty stitches. What happened?”

He comes back to the table and takes a big needle out of his bag, fills it full of something. Something to make Shiloh numb, maybe.

“You would have thought more of me if I’d let that dog wander around till Judd found it again, kick the daylights out of ’im?”

I get lonely sometimes up at our house, but today I want to be with that loneliness.

Can’t go down there pesterin’ Doc, him with patients to see.

“What do you want to do?” I ask David, trying to dig up the least little bit of enthusiasm.

I go over and yank his arm and make him sit down.

Then I think of how there are exactly seven people now who know I have Judd Travers’s dog, and it’s only a matter of time before somebody lets it out. Probably Becky. She’ll warble it to the first person coming up the lane.

“Well, son, that’s a generous thing to do, with a dog not even yours,” he says.

Think it’s going to take a couple weeks to heal, and I can’t promise you he’ll walk without a limp.

But I got him sewn back up and full of antibiotics. If you can keep him quiet for a few days and off that leg, I think he’ll pull through just fine.

Seems like she can’t hardly pass his box next to the stove without reaching down to pet him, making low sympathy noises in her throat, way she does when Dara Lynn or Becky or me gets sick.

But when supper’s over and I go off to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I peek back through the doorway, and Dad’s over by Shiloh’s box, letting him lick his plate clean.

Becky feeds him the crusts off her toast—breaks off little bits, and shrieks every time she feels Shiloh’s mouth slurp them out of her fingers.

Becky feeds him the crusts off her toast—breaks off little bits, and shrieks every time she feels Shiloh’s mouth slurp them out of her fingers.

Even Dad sits down one evening and gets out every tick Shiloh’s got on him.

Somebody, sometime, is bound to see him.

Old stray cat,” he says, and now I’ve got David lying.

That night, while we finish supper, Shiloh’s going around the table, putting his nose in everyone’s lap, looking mournful, waiting for somebody to slip him something to eat.

And then, just as Ma’s dishing up a peach cobbler that we’re going to eat hot with milk, I hear a sound outside that makes my bones feel like icicles inside me.

And then, just as Ma’s dishing up a peach cobbler that we’re going to eat hot with milk, I hear a sound outside that makes my bones feel like icicles inside me.

“Somebody knows my dog is missing, takes him in, and don’t even have the decency to tell me?”

Judd walks across the kitchen, and at the thud of each footstep, Shiloh huddles down farther and farther in the box, like maybe he can make himself disappear.

Judd walks across the kitchen, and at the thud of each footstep, Shiloh huddles down farther and farther in the box, like maybe he can make himself disappear.

"I never mistreated my dogs. This one was shy when I got him, that’s all. I sure never caused him an injury like this one. Wouldn’t never have happened if you’d brought him back like I told you.”

She says, “Judd, Marty’s got awful attached to that dog, and we’d like to know how much you want for it. Maybe we can scrape up the money to buy him.”