Shiloh Read Online Free Page B

pet. But with Grandma seeming to need more care, we just don’t, and that’s that.”
    I nod. Ma knows me better’n I know myself sometimes, but she don’t have this straight. I don’t want just any dog. I want Shiloh, because he needs me. Needs me bad.
    It’s Friday morning when I hear the sound. Dad’s off on his mail route, Dara Lynn and Becky’s watching cartoons on TV, Ma’s out on the back porch washing clothes in the old washing machine that don’t work—only the wringer partworks if you turn it by hand. I’m sitting at the table eating a piece of bread spread with lard and jam when I hear the noise I know is Shiloh. Only the softest kind of noise—and right close.
    I fold the bread up, jelly to the inside, stick it in my pocket, and go out the front door. Shiloh’s under the sycamore, head on his paws, just like the day he followed me home in the rain. Soon as I see him, I know two things: (1) Judd Travers has taken his dogs out hunting, like he said, and Shiloh’s run away from the pack, and (2) I’m not going to take him back. Not now, not ever.
    I don’t have time to think how I had promised Judd if I ever saw Shiloh loose again, I’d bring him back. Don’t even think what I’m going to tell Dad. All I know right then is that I have to get Shiloh away from the house, where none of the family will see him. I run barefoot down the front steps and over to where Shiloh’s lying, his tail just thumping like crazy in the grass.
    â€œShiloh!” I whisper, and gather him up in my arms. His body is shaking all over, but he don’t try to get away, don’t creep off from me the way he did that first day. I hold him as close and careful as I carry Becky when she’s asleep, and I start off up the far hill into the woods, carrying my dog. I know that if I was to see Judd Travers that very minute with his rifle, I’d tell him he’d have to shoot me before I’d ever let him near Shiloh again.
    There are burrs and stickers on the path up the hill, and usually I wouldn’t take it without sneakers, but if there’s burrs and stickers in my feet, I hardly feel ’em. Know Judd Travers and his hounds won’t be over here, ’cause this hill belongs to my dad. Get me as far as the shadbush next to the pine, and then I sit down and hug Shiloh.
    First time I really have him to myself—first time I can hug him, nobody looking, just squeeze his thin body, pat his head, stroke his ears.
    â€œShiloh,” I tell him, as though he knows it’s his name, “Judd Travers isn’t never going to kick you again.”
    And the way his eyes look at me then, the way he reaches up and licks my face, it’s like it seals the promise. I’d made a promise to Judd Travers I wasn’t going to keep, Jesus help me. But I’m making one to Shiloh that I will, God strike me dead.
    I set him down at last and go over to the creek for a drink of water. Shiloh follows along beside me. I cup my hands and drink, and Shiloh helps himself, lapping it up. Now what? I ask myself. The problem is looking me square in the face.
    I got to keep Shiloh a secret. That much I know. But I’m not going to keep him chained. Only thing I can think of is to make him a pen. Don’t like the idea of it, but I’ll be with him as much as I can.
    I take him back to the shadbush and Shiloh lays down.
    â€œShiloh,” I say, patting his head. “Stay!”
    He thumps his tail. I start to walk away, looking back. Shiloh gets up. “Stay!” I say again, louder, and point to the ground.
    He lays back down, but I know he’s like to follow, anyways. So I pull him over to a pine tree, take the belt off my jeans, loop it through the raggedy old collar Shiloh’s wearing, and fasten the belt to the tree. Shiloh don’t like it much, but he’s quiet. I go down the path and every so often I turn around.