Free Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Page A

pen. Make the fence high enough so the shepherd can’t get in.”
    Dad opens the Jeep door on his side. “No,” he says, and gets out.
    I get out, too. “Just till Shiloh’s better, then? You know how Judd treats anything that don’t work right. He’ll shoot Shiloh, Dad! I found a dog once before over near Judd’s place with a bullet hole in his head. We could at least get Shiloh well. I’m going to pay Doc Murphy’s bill. I promise you that. You get all my can money for the next three years, and I’ll deliver the county paper, too, if I get the chance. Honest! I promise!”
    Dad studies me. “You can keep him here tillhe’s well, that’s all. Then we’re taking him back to Judd.” And he goes in the house.
    My heart starts pounding again. Thumpity, thump. Thumpity thump . There’s still time, I’m thinking. Shiloh’s still alive, and I ain’t licked yet.

CHAPTER 11
    I t’s only after I lie back down on the couch that night that I realize what all I’ve done. To Ma and Dad, for one thing. Ma’s still awake. I can see the light in the bedroom as Dad goes on down the hall. And then I hear their voices. Not all of what they say, but enough:
    â€œRay . . . told you I just found out about that dog myself. . . .”
    â€œ. . . secrets from me, you and Marty.”
    â€œ. . . till tomorrow. I would have told you then. . . .”
    â€œ. . . every day . . . the mail to Judd’s place . . . mentions that dog to me, and all the time . . . upon my own property, me not even knowing. . . .”
    I bring my arms up against my ears and hold ’em there. So many things going wrong, it’s hard to remember anything going right. Doc Murphy knows I’ve got Judd’s dog now, Dad’s mad at Ma, and we won’t know till tomorrow if Shiloh’s even going to make it. Worst of all, I’d brought Shiloh here to keep him from being hurt, and what that German shepherd done to him was probably worse than anything Judd Travers would have brought himself to do, short of shootin’ him, anyways. This time, when the tears come again, I don’t even fight. Don’t even try holding back.
    I must have slept through Dad’s going off to work the next morning, ’cause when I wake, Becky’s standing beside the couch eating a piece of honey toast and breathing on my face. Dara Lynn’s already told her about the dog, because she asks right off, “Where’s it at, the doggy?”
    I sit up and tell her the dog’s at Doc Murphy’s and we’ll find out how he is that afternoon. Then I look in the kitchen at Ma. There’s the set look about the lips that means trouble—that means don’t mess with her, ’cause she’s already in trouble with Dad.
    I go outside, pick me a couple wormy peaches, and sit on the stoop, eating at them, spitting out the wormy places.
    Dara Lynn comes out and sits beside me. Today she’s all kindness.
    â€œJudd Travers don’t take care of his dog, Marty, no wonder it come up here,” she says, trying to say the right thing. I can tell she’s been figuring it all out, from what she could overhear between Ma and Dad and anything else Ma told her.
    I take another bite of peach.
    â€œIt wasn’t like you stole him,” she says. “That dog come up here on its own.”
    â€œJust hush up, Dara Lynn,” I say, which I had no business saying. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, that’s all.
    â€œWell, you could have told me and I wouldn’t have told anyone.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œMa says we’ve got to give him back to Judd Travers when he’s better.”
    I get up and start toward the hill to clean up the ground where Shiloh was attacked. See if there’s any way I can put some fence wire over the top of the pen to keep out the shepherd.
    â€œWhat’s his name, Marty?” Dara Lynn