A Shiloh Christmas (5 page)

“I think I'm just going to clean it out real well so it doesn't get infected, wrap it in sterile gauze, and let it heal,” he says. “We'll keep this fella around awhile and check on him. You could clean out that terrarium back there in the corner, and we'll make him comfortable.”

From the time I come in this morning to the time I leave, we have this turtle to mend, a new puppy for shots, a cat to keep for a couple days while her owner goes to a wedding, and a dog with a broken leg. When Chris comes in later—he and Dr. Collins are busy in the surgical room—I get to answer the phone. This is where
the kind of soft, lazy language we use at home don't—I mean, doesn't—work. I know that if I'm going to be a veterinarian someday with a good job, I got to use good grammar, and I better start practicing now.

Dad comes, picks me up at twelve thirty. We find a Wendy's and pick up a few burgers, then eat them in the Jeep while we start delivering the rest of the mail. Dr. Collins is always glad to have me, but I think Dad likes to have me along too. He can deliver the mail a lot faster with somebody helping, and I like to think I'm good company. He pulls up to each mailbox along the road, I reach out, open the flap, stuff the mail inside, and we're off again, hardly even come to a full stop.

There are some roads I've never been on at all way up in the hills. New houses being built some places, old houses that should have been torn down in others; a new little restaurant on one corner, another shop going out of business—my dad knows 'em all. Signs along the way,
TURKEY SHOOT, EVERY SUNDAY, 11 TO 3
, says one.
JESUS SAVES AND HEALS
, reads another. And then there's
WHERE WILL YOU SPEND ETERNITY? HEAVEN OR HELL?

I was thinking of starting a conversation about that last one, but if Dad says there's a real hell, I don't want to ruin my day.

Mostly, I want to have more happy times with him to make up for lying last year when I was hiding Shiloh up in the woods. That was back when he belonged to Judd Travers, and I'd promised that dog he'd be safe. Wonder sometimes if it's still on Dad's mind.

Wasn't what I'd
done
, exactly—tried to protect Shiloh from Judd so he couldn't be mistreated anymore—but that I'd kept it secret from him and Ma, and worse yet, lied about it. Lying is one of the worst things you can do in my family.

The thing is, the first time I tried to keep Shiloh away from Judd, I was honest about it—told Dad how Judd treated his dogs back then, but he made me hand Shiloh over anyway, all trembling in my arms. Guess there's a
legal
right thing to do, and a
heart
right, and anybody got a heart, I don't know how he could give that shaking, whimpering dog back to a man who kicked him in the side with his boot the minute we let Shiloh out of the car.

But that was last fall. Shiloh's mine now, Judd's changed—treats his dogs a whole lot better—I'm not lying about anything, everything out in the open. But sometimes, like, at dinner, if I don't eat all my meat, Dad'll say, “Not saving that for some other dog, are
you?” the way I used to do. Or if I spend some time up in the far meadow, he might say, “You haven't got something else hid up there, do you?” It's all said as a joke, but I just wonder sometimes if he totally trusts me.

How do you ever explain loving a dog so much I done what I did? Shiloh came to
me
to help him when he first run away. Followed
me
home. Looked at
me
with those big trusting eyes, like
Please help me!
Guess you have to experience it yourself to feel it. But it made me sick in my stomach to give him back to Judd Travers. And I was the happiest person in the entire world when Judd finally said he'd let me keep Shiloh if I'd work for him for forty hours, and I did. He worked me harder than I'd ever worked in my life, but I got me a dog.

Now there's a blue sky up above, a breeze coming in the car window, and Dad's got the radio on, listening to a ball game. I open Mrs. Ellison's mailbox and there's a paper plate with a half-dozen chocolate-chip cookies on it. And they're still a little warm. She must have put them out in her mailbox only a minute before we pulled up.

That makes Dad smile, and we both of us wolf those cookies down and wave at the window, can't see whether she is there or not.

“You think you could help me on the house tomorrow?”
Dad asks. “Be nice if I could get the siding on while the weather's dry. There'll be a lot of work to do on the inside, but I'll save that for cold or rainy weather.”

“Sure, I'll help!” I say, like he's just offered me a malted milk to go with the cookies. But I mean it, too. All I want for Christmas is that room to be done so I can have the other bedroom. Already know what's going up on my wall—a poster of the best basketball player for the West Virginia Mountaineers; a photo of David and me crashing bumper cars at the county fair last summer, and about a dozen pictures of Shiloh.

If Dad and Ma's concerned about lying, they ought to pay more attention to Dara Lynn. First off, she argues the point.

“It don't say ‘don't lie' in the Bible,” she tells Dad at the dinner table that night. She's talking about her new friend Ruthie, the preacher's younger daughter, who rides the school bus with her every day. Dara Lynn's in third grade, Ruthie's in second. “I looked up the Ten Commandments, and it's not there.”

“‘Bearing false witness' is the same thing, so stop it,” says Dad.

“Dara Lynn, you'd argue the sun didn't rise, just to
be arguing,” Ma tells her, reaching over to shove Becky's cup of milk back a little farther from the edge of the table.

What brought the discussion on this time is that Ruthie, according to Dara Lynn, claims her daddy don't let nobody touch his Bible when it's open. Can never set anything on top of it, and never, ever set it on the floor. Dara Lynn gets going good and next thing you know she's telling us that if you ever
do
touch his Bible when it's open, you got to walk three times around it saying the Lord's Prayer. She's almost got David Howard beat when it comes to exaggeration. We got to divide everything she tells us by half—half true, half story. And don't none of us believe the part about Ruthie having to walk three times around the Bible saying the Lord's Prayer.

“Either you or Ruthie's got an imagination as big as Nebraska,” Dad says to Dara Lynn. “And I don't think her mama would like her telling stories about her daddy every day on the school bus, 'cause we've been hearing a lot of them lately.”

Ma told me once that Dara Lynn acts like she does—first-class pest and storyteller—is because she's the middle child in the family. Hasn't got the privileges of the oldest or the advantages of being youngest, and
the only way she can figure to get attention is by acting out.

Can't say how many times I've made the vow to be kinder to Dara Lynn. Even promised Jesus once I'd give up quarreling with my sister for Lent. Maybe once I get me a room of my own, we'll make peace again.

I
DIDN'T NEVER HAVE TO
bring up that question about hell, because my sisters did it for me.

All Sunday morning, Dad and I work on that new addition. Ma takes the girls to church, while I'm all sweaty clear down to my underwear. Wouldn't care if the sky opened and drenched me good.

I hold up big slabs of plywood while Dad nails 'em in place. We got the frames for the windows ready, but there's a whole lot of work ahead. I stick by Dad every minute, though. Hand him tools, bring him a Pepsi, pick up any nails he drops, hold the boards while he saws . . .

Even though the drought's still on, Dad lets me use the outside pump for a couple seconds to cool down and clean up before Ma and the girls get home. I stick my
whole head under—hold my mouth open and gulp the cold water while Dad works the pump handle. Then I pump for him a second or two.

We sit down to Sunday dinner—Ma had a ham in the oven—and we dig in. All but Becky.

“What's the matter?” Dad asks her, as he shovels in the scalloped potatoes.

Becky just turns her fork over and over, but I see her bottom lip tremble.

“She's worried about hell,” says Dara Lynn.

We're not allowed to say that word unless we're talking about religion, which I guess we are.

“Hell?” says Dad. “Is that what the pastor was preaching today?”

“Everlasting torment,” says Dara Lynn, the drama queen, and there's something bright and snappy about her eyes. She lowers her voice and imitates the preacher: “It's real, brothers and sisters. You reject God, God rejects you. Think of eternal fire, eternal pain. . . .”

“Dara Lynn,” says Ma in her stern voice.

Becky suddenly bursts into tears and Ma says, “Oh, sweetheart, come here. . . .” And Becky slides down off her chair and buries her head in Ma's lap.

Ma gives Dara Lynn a look to hush her up, then glances over at Dad. “I miss Pastor Evans,” she says.

“Why did he leave?” I ask, only vaguely remembering him. I weren't that much older than Dara Lynn when he left.

“He retired,” says Ma. “But he was so wise.”

“I don't want to burn up,” Becky whimpers.

“You're not going to burn up, sweetheart,” says Dad.

“The way Pastor Dawes told it, the drought's all our fault, and he made it sound like half of us were heading straight to hell,” says Dara Lynn.

“Would you
stop
?” says Ma.

But I want to get in my two cents before we change the subject. “Here's what I don't understand,” I say. “How are we supposed to forgive our enemies if God can't forgive his? I wouldn't want even my worst enemy to burn.”

“Good point,” says Dad.

“Pastor Evans only talked about God's love,” says Ma. “You left his sermons wanting to be a kinder, better person.”

“All Pastor Dawes talks about is sin,” says Dara Lynn. “I don't know how Ruthie and her sister can stand him.”

“Well, he's not your daddy, so don't worry about it,” Dad tells her, and then, to Ma, “Maybe we should think about leaving Becky home on Sundays.”

But Becky raises up so fast her head bumps the table.
Hell don't seem to bother her as much as being left behind; she hates that worse than anything. “No! I want to go,” she says.

“Maybe he'll be preaching about something else next Sunday,” says Ma. “We'll see.”

I do my job of shoveling out the floor of the chicken coop. Then I ride over to Judd Travers's place late that afternoon. Shiloh sees me get on my bike, he jumps up, ready to run along. But when I turn toward the bridge, he stops and watches while I cross. And when I reach the other side, he lopes back to the house.

'Bout a half mile more, I pull up to Judd's yard. It don't look as bad as people say his dad's place looked, but Judd's not too good about taking things to the junkyard either. There's still the old Chevy he had before he bought his pickup—car hasn't run for a couple years—a shed with a broken door, old tires. But I try not to judge people by their housekeeping.

Judd's sitting on the step to his trailer with a boot in his hand, putting a new lace in it. He sees me coming through the trees and grins.

“Well, look who showed up,” he says. “Come to see me or my dogs?”

“Both,” I tell him, grinning back, and I get off my
bike. Already I can hear his two dogs yipping for me out back, jumping against the fence.

“You better go play with 'em, and then I'll give 'em some supper,” says Judd, picking up the second boot and poking a new lace in that.

I go round to the gate and ease in careful so the dogs don't get out. They leap up against me, nipping at each other in their excitement. Dara Lynn's not the only one acts a little nuts just to get some attention.

I pick up two sticks, throw them both at the same time so each of the dogs has something to fetch, and once they come running back, I play at trying to grab the sticks in their mouths. They run circles around me, while I chase them. Keep at it till I'm as sweaty as I was this morning helping Dad.