A Shiloh Christmas (8 page)

He's right about that, 'cause the syrup bottle and the ketchup and the salad dressing have all left circles on the wood shelf. I set to work taking everything out and wiping the shelves clean.

Doc Murphy sits at the table, slicing up an apple and some cheese for us to eat when I'm through. Today we're talking about the drought. Well, water, anyway.

“Did you know,” asks Doc, “that since the world began, not a single drop of water has been added to the earth, or a single drop taken away?”

No, I tell him, I didn't know that, and I give the ketchup bottle a good swipe around the bottom.

“What it means is we can't afford to waste it, because the more people there are on the planet, the less each person gets,” he tells me.

“So it's not like there's a big reservoir in the sky God could let loose if he wanted?” I say.

“There's whatever has been sucked up by evaporation from the oceans, and at some point it will come down again as rain,” says Doc.

“You don't think the drought's because God's mad at us?” I ask.

“I believe there are cycles to nature, and not all of them are to our liking,” he answers.

He goes on cutting up apple, I go on cleaning shelves.
I wonder if I'm pestering him with these kinds of questions. After a while I say, “Guess I've got a lot of
whys
in my head.”

“So do I,” says Doc. “And the longer I'm a doctor, the longer I work with people, the more
whys
I get.”

At the animal clinic the next Saturday, Chris is busy tending to a cat got all torn up by a raccoon, so Dr. Collins asks me to come in and help while he puts a dog to sleep.

People still want to call it that, nobody brave enough to call death by its real name. When people die, it's somebody “passed.” Here it's “put to sleep.”

The lady who brought Ollie in says she's had him since he was eight weeks old, and now he's been alive for thirteen years, sick for two. Dr. Collins tells me Ollie's heart's failing, kidneys are failing, and he suspects he's got a tumor somewhere, giving him pain.

Miss Bowen can't hardly stand being in the room when Ollie gets the needle, but can't stand not being there neither, so she wants all the loving hands on her pet we can provide, and Dr. Collins asks can I come in and stroke the dog till its over.

Miss Bowen has her hands on Ollie's head, her face against his muzzle. I'm stroking Ollie's flank.

“Ready?” Dr. Collins asks, real gentle.

“Oh, Ollie, I love you so,” the lady sobs, and I got a lump in my own throat.

Dr. Collins gives the needle, and Ollie don't even jerk or flinch. His breathing stops, and a few seconds later Miss Bowen raises up and looks at him, and his eyes look just like glass marbles, not moving at all.

I hope I don't have to assist in any more going-to-sleep sessions, but I'll have to if I get to be a vet. Every time a dog comes in hurting, I think of Shiloh.

Even though I'm going home at noon this time instead of helping Dad deliver mail, he stops at Wallace's store in Friendly so I can buy me a PayDay candy bar—the way I treat myself for helping out at the clinic. Split it with Dad. Be nice if I could ever get a real part-time job at the clinic—get paid with money, not candy.

Ma had a headache this morning, so after Dad drops me off at home, she lies down for a nap and I keep the girls quiet out on the porch making a straw man. We've got us an old pillowcase, an old shirt and overalls of Dad's, and a raggedy pair of work gloves, and we're cramming them full of straw. We'll have that man sitting out here on the porch come Halloween. Dad says we can have the bale of straw he got for the chicken house to use
for stuffing, and after Halloween's over, we'll give it back to the chickens.

Shiloh's lying beside me, glad for a bit of sunshine, and Tangerine's jumping at every twitch of his tail, trying to catch it.

I found a perfect box for the head, and Becky's stuffing the arms. Dara Lynn took the job of patiently pushing crushed straw into each finger of the work gloves.

“See how real they look if I don't make 'em too stiff?” she says, holding up one glove. “We can bend 'em a little at the joints.”

Becky lifts her head and scrunches up her nose. “What's that?” she asks, and sniffs.

I'm sniffing at about the same time. “Somebody must be burning leaves,” I tell her. “Against the law when it's so dry.”

“I smell it too,” says Dara Lynn.

I put down the box and look out across Middle Island Creek, at the woods far off on Old Creek Road. I see a cloud of gray smoke rising up over the tops of the trees. Then I go out in the yard and climb on top the shed.

It's getting windier, and I can't tell if the smoke is all in one place or moving along. All in one place, it's
probably somebody's trash pit. But far down, I see this yellow-orange color, and it's moving. Dancing.

I jump down and yell, “Go inside and wake Ma. Tell her there's a fire! It's coming down Old Creek Road. And don't you move from here 'less Ma goes with you.”

And leaving Shiloh and the girls behind, I leap on my bike, go racing down the lane, and thunder across the planks of the bridge.

A
LL
I
CAN THINK OF
is Judd's dogs, penned up in his backyard. Judd's been working six days a week now at Whelan's. Don't get off till five. Can already see them in my head, smelling the danger, yelping and throwing themselves against the fence, trying to get out.

I pedal like mad, all the while hoping that maybe a neighbor's already opened the gate—the one neighbor close enough to see, anyway. But deep down I'm thinkin' that anybody who looks out and sees smoke and flames coming their way is probably going to think first of their own pets and babies, and how much of their things they can throw in the car in two minutes.

Quarter of a mile away and I can hear the barking—a frenzy of yips and howls, and I'm scared to death the flames have already got there. Heart's beating so hard
it can't go no faster. Neither can I. My legs ache, and I'm terrified to be heading right for the inferno, but I've already got my own strategy: once I see it's only twenty yards off, I'll drag my bike down the bank and throw myself in the creek.

A car's comin' down the road toward me and swerves to let me pass—hardly room, with trees on one side, creek on the other.

“Get out of here, boy!” a man yells out his window. “Place is on fire!”

“I will,” I yell back, but keep going. So does the car. Far, far away, I hear a siren.

Reach Judd's brown-and-white trailer, and I half fall off my bike. His pickup's gone, of course. I race around the side, the dogs so terrified they almost bite at me as I'm trying to work the latch. I swing the gate open and they run like rockets.

Then I think of Shiloh. Think how someone let Judd's dogs loose once out of spite, back when the dogs was kept chained and mean, and how they went running through the neighborhood, tearing stuff up. One even bit Dara Lynn on the hand. Now that Judd's been treating his dogs better and I been playing with them some, they aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. But who knows what two dogs will do, scared half out of their minds, if
they come upon a small child or a trembling little beagle.

So I'm on my bike again, going fast as my feet will pedal, and this time I can see the yellow-orange coming through the trees behind me, not as close as twenty yards, but I can hear the snap of branches falling, the hiss of the flames. Smoke is getting thicker, and I hit a rock and almost go down, but manage to keep the bike up. The dogs could be anywhere—could have crossed at the bridge or headed off into more woods farther on.

I reach the bridge myself and speed across those wood planks, thinking how the fire could eat them up, my heart beating so fast it hurts. Head up the lane toward the house, and I'm screamin', “Dara Lynn, get Shiloh and Tangerine in the house! Hurry!”

She's standing out there beside Ma and Becky, Ma turnin' this way and that, trying to make sense of what's going on—the smoke, the fire sirens, and me yelling.

“Shiloh!” I scream again. “Get him and your cat inside! Hurry!”

Dara Lynn don't bother to ask why. For once in her life she just does what I say—runs on up to the house where Shiloh's standin' at the door, tail between his legs, knowin' something awful's in the air, grabs up her cat, then opens the door and shoves them both in before she runs back down to Ma.

“Marty!” Ma calls, swinging herself around. “Where
were
you? Which way's that fire going?”

But I don't answer and she don't press me, 'cause a fire engine's coming along the road up from Little—a good big one—must be from St. Mary's, and the siren's going so loud can't hear nothing but that. I drop my bike, and all four of us go hurrying down the lane. See the truck stop at the bridge, half blocking the road so's cars can still get out, but nobody can drive over there.

Firemen jump off, unrolling the hoses, and even though this one siren stops, we can hear more in the distance. Fire trucks are coming from all directions, trying to find the best place to fight those flames.

Two firemen pull a hose onto the bridge and aim it at the glow coming at them through the trees, big spray of mist, not a thick stream of water like I'd expect. Three more men are hauling some equipment down the bank, getting ready to use a portable pump to refill the engine's tank with creek water.

“Oh no! Oh no!” Ma keeps whispering to herself over and over, one hand to her cheek, the other on Becky's head. We can't see what's behind the fire, just one big mass of gray smoke, but we know there's some houses in that woods. Some right nice ones too. Cars are coming to a stop now behind the fire truck, men won't let them
cross the bridge even if they got a house over there. People get out of their cars and come down to stand by us.

“The drought's turned the whole woods to kindling,” one woman says. “Do you suppose there's even enough water in the creek to fight this thing? Water level was already down two feet.”

“It's all we've got,” a man answers. “No hydrants up here.”

A tall tree, burning, falls to the ground on the other side, and the whole sky seems to light up for a minute or two, the flames so high, sparks going everywhere, setting more dry brush on fire.

Becky pulls Ma's hand away and looks up at her. “Is that hell?” she asks in a tiny voice.

Ma swoops down and lifts her up, hugs her. “No, Becky,” she says, trying to sound calm. “This is just a terrible accident that shouldn't have happened.”

Dara Lynn's crawled up a crabapple tree so she can see better. The line of cars behind the fire truck is longer, more coming all the time. Then I see this dark-green pickup come barreling up over the hill. It slows down, like all the others, then swerves over onto the shoulder, front tires in the field.

Judd Travers jumps out and starts running toward the bridge.

“I got to see Judd,” I tell Ma, and I'm running up the road to meet him.

By the time I get there, though, Judd's standing still, one hand to his forehead, eyes fixed on the fiery woods across the creek and the blackened land behind it. Suddenly his legs seem to give way. He squats down there in the road and buries his head on his arms.

I stoop down beside him.

“Judd, you okay?” I say.

“My dogs . . . ,” he's saying, over and over.

“I let 'em loose, Judd,” I tell him. “I don't know where they went, but they run off.”

He jerks around. “You got 'em out?”

“Yeah, I was—”

But I don't get a chance to say any more, 'cause he's got one arm around my shoulder so hard I almost sit down on the ground.

“Thank you, Marty. Thank you,” he says.

And then, almost as though he'd just thought of it, he says, “My trailer burned up, didn't it?”