Saving Shiloh (14 page)

“Marty!” he says. “I'm up at my cousin's, and there's a dead man floating down the creek! He just went by! Should be by your place in five minutes. Go see who he is!”

I
drop that phone and David and me grab our jackets and run outside, Shiloh at our heels. The rain's tapered off, but there's mud everywhere. We don't care, though. We run up on the bridge and wait right in the middle, looking upstream. That is one wild-looking creek!

“You suppose dead men float on their backs or their stomachs?” I ask David.

“Stomachs,” he says. “That's the way they do in the movies, anyway.”

Who could it be? I wonder. Bet someone's called the sheriff already and there'll be men waiting down at the bend where the water slows—see if they can snag him, pull him in. Wouldn't it be something if David and me could find out who he is, and be the first to call the paper? And then the thought come to me: What if it's Judd Travers? Don't know what made me think that, but it just crossed my mind.

We stand out there on the bridge watching that muddy water come rushing at us and disappear under our feet. No one in the
world
would think Middle Island Creek was anything but a river now.

“You figure five minutes are up?” I ask David.

“Probably ten,” he says. “What if Michael was kidding? Be just like him, you know. Get us standing out here on the bridge waiting to see a dead man, and him and his cousin laughing their heads off.”

We stare some more at the water. You look at a river long enough, it makes you dizzy.

“There's something!” David yells suddenly, and I look hard where he's pointing. Sure enough, bobbing around the curve ahead is something about the size of a man. When it bumps a rock, we see an arm fly up.

“Jiminy!” breathes David.

We run to the far side of the bridge where it looks like the body is heading. Can't tell what color his hair is—can't even see his hair, just the shape of his head, and then his feet, tossing about on the current like the feet of Becky's rag doll.

“Here he comes!” yells David, just as I see Dara Lynn and Becky cross the road.

“Go on back!” I yell. “We're comin' right up.” I turn toward the water again, and next I know, the body's coming smack toward us, sliding under the bridge, and we see it's no dead man at all, it's one of those dummies left over from Halloween.

“Ah, shoot!” says David, as we turn and watch it pop out from under the bridge on the other side, its straw-stuffed legs flopping this way and that. Even Shiloh's been fooled—runs across to the other side and barks.

“What was
that
?” Dara Lynn demands, hurrying over. She and Becky got their shoes on, but the laces are flopping, and Becky's jacket's inside out.

“It wasn't nothing—just somebody's Halloween dummy,” I say. “Go on back to the house, I said!”

“Don't have to!” says Dara Lynn, sticking out her chin. “Ma didn't say I couldn't come down here. I can walk on the bridge same as you.”

“We're all goin' back,” I tell her.

But David's mad at Michael Sholt. “Bet he knew it was a dummy all along,” he's grumbling. “Maybe he and his cousin dropped it in the creek themselves!”

Becky goes over to the edge of the bridge where the railing makes a diamond pattern. She's lookin' at a spiderweb strung in one of those openings. It glistens silver from the rain. I'm thinking that this water is rising faster than I ever seen it before, as though a couple more creeks have suddenly emptied into it up the way, and it's all of them together rushing under the bridge now.

“Come on,” I say again, stopping to tie Becky's shoes for her. “We're goin' up to the house. Mrs. Ellison'll be along, wonder where we went.”

Becky starts off again, Shiloh trotting ahead of her, and David catches up with me, talking about what he's going to do if Michael starts a story around that he saw a dead man in Middle Island Creek.

“Look at me!” sings out Dara Lynn behind us. I turn and see she's worked her head through one of those diamond openings in the railing, acting like she's a bird, going to sail out over the creek. Her big puffy jacket on one side of the opening, her head on the other, she looks more like a turtle. Girl can't stand not having all the attention on her.

“Dara Lynn, you cut that out and come on,” I say. “Get on up to the house.”

She just laughs. I grab her by the arm and pull her back through the railing just as the Ellisons' four by four turns in our drive and moves on up to the house.

“I got it!” says David. “If Michael says there was a dead man in the creek, we'll say we saw him, too. Only we'll make it different. Say it was a man with red hair and a blue shirt on.”

I laugh. “His face all swole up. . . . ”

“And he looked like he'd been shot in the heart!” says David. We both laugh out loud, thinking of Michael's face if we turn that trick around.

“ ‘What'd I miss?' he'll be thinking,” I say, “and . . . ”

“Who-eeee!” I hear Dara Lynn whoop. I turn around and my heart shoots up to my mouth, 'cause right at our end of the bridge, Dara Lynn's climbed up on the railing, her skinny legs straddling it, one foot locked behind a metal bar to keep her balance. Both her arms are in the air, like kids do on a roller-coaster.

“Dara Lynn,” I bellow, my voice cracking. “Get off there!”

She laughs, and in her hurry to climb up where I can't reach her, wobbles, grabs at the rail to steady herself, but misses. There's this short little scream, and then . . . then she's in the water.

“Dara
Lynn!”

Stomach feels like I'm on a roller-coaster myself. Can't even swallow. I'm hanging over the rail, but Dara Lynn's too far down to reach. She's lookin' up at me with the wildest, whitest eyes I ever seen, her arms straight out at the sides like the cold of the water has paralyzed her. And then,
just like the straw man, she disappears beneath the bridge.

David's shouting something, I don't know what, and Becky's run screaming up our driveway, then turns around and screams some more. I can see Mr. and Mrs. Ellison running down the drive toward her. David is running over to the railing on the other side of the bridge, his face as white as cream.

“Where is she?” he asks, turning to me. “She didn't come back out.”

I am running around the end of the bridge, slipping and sliding down the bank toward the high water.

“What happened?” Mrs. Ellison calls.

“Dara Lynn fell in,” I yell, and it's more like a sob.

“Oh, Lord, no!” cries Mrs. Ellison in the background, offering up a prayer for all of us.

All I can think of is havin' to tell Ma that Dara Lynn drowned. Of having to remember every last awful thing I ever said to her, like wishin' she'd fall in a hole and pull the dirt in after her. I am praying to Jesus that if he will save my sister I will never say a mean thing to her as long as I live, even while I know it's not humanly possible. “Just don't let her die, please, please!” I whisper. She'll drown without ever knowin' I gave her a kitten.

I squat down, lookin' under the bridge. I see that Dara Lynn's been snagged by the small trees and bushes sticking out of the water near the first support. At that moment she feels herself caught, and her arms come alive, floppin' and flailin' to turn herself around, and finally she's holding on, screamin' herself crazy.

Mr. Ellison's beside me now, and he's shouting instructions to Dara Lynn to pull herself hand over hand toward the bank, to grab on to the next branch and the next, and
not let go on any account, while he wades out into that swirling water as far as he can to meet her.

It's when Dara Lynn pulls herself close enough for us to grab her that I think maybe the thumpin' in my chest won't kill me after all. But then it seems my heart stops altogether, for I see Shiloh out there in the water, the current carrying him farther and farther away. I know right off he jumped in to save Dara Lynn, and now he's got to save himself.

A
ll I hear is my scream.

We're haulin' Dara Lynn out, her clothes making a sucking sound as she leaves the water, but I can see my dog trying to paddle toward us; the current's against him, and he can't even keep himself in one place.

Most times Shiloh could throw himself into Middle Island Creek, chasing a stick I'd tossed, and come right out where he'd gone in, the water moves that slow. But when the rains are heavy and the creek swells fast, the water just tumbles around the bend, and Shiloh's never been in nothing like this before. He keeps tryin' to turn himself around in the water and get back to us.

“Shiloh!” I'm yellin', while behind me, back up on the road, Becky sets up a wail of despair.

“Oh, Lord Jesus, that little dog!” cries Mrs. Ellison, praying again, while her husband takes off his coat and wraps
it around Dara Lynn. Dara Lynn's crying, too—huge sobs.

Is God puttin' me to some kind of test, I wonder—saving my sister and drowning my dog? Did I trade one for the other? Lord knows I can't swim. Oh, Jesus, why didn't you make me go to the park in Sistersville and take lessons with Sarah Peters? Why'd I get to sixth grade and not even know how to float?

My mouth don't seem connected to my head. Can still hear it screaming. “Shiloh! Shiloh!”

All he's doin' is tirin' himself out tryin' to swim back to us.

I slide farther down the bank, one foot in the water.

“Don't you try to go in there, Marty,” Mr. Ellison shouts.

I claw my way back up the bank, eyes stretched wide, thinkin' how I can make better time up on the road, maybe get myself down to the place where the creek narrows, and Shiloh might be close enough I can reach out to him somehow.

David's running beside me. I know I'm cryin' but I don't care. One foot squishes every time my shoe hits the pavement. Run as fast as we can.

And then I see this pickup comin' up the road from Friendly, and I'm like to get myself run over.

Judd Travers stops and leans out the window. “You want to get yourself killed?” he calls, right angry. And then, “What's the matter, Marty?” Sees Mr. Ellison comin' up the road behind me, thinks he's chasin' me, maybe. He gets out of the truck.

I'm gasping. Point to the creek.

“Shiloh! He's in the water, and we can't reach him!”

“Marty, that dog will have to get himself out!” Mrs. Ellison calls from far behind us. “Don't you try to go after him, now.”

But Judd crashes through the trees and brush, half sliding down the muddy bank, and I point to the head of my beagle back upstream, out there bobbing around in the current. Once, it looks like he goes under. Now David's cryin', too, squeaky little gasps.

Judd don't say a word. He's scramblin' up the bank again and grabs that rope in his pickup. Hobbles down the road, fast as his two bum legs will carry him, goin' even farther downstream, me and David at his heels. Then he ties one end of that rope to a tree at the edge of the water, the other end around his waist, taking his time to make a proper square knot, and I'm thinkin', Don't worry about knots, Judd—just go!

He's plunging into that cold water—all but his boots, which he leaves by the tree. I see now why he went so far downstream, 'cause if we were back closer to the bridge, Shiloh would have gone past us by now.

Another car stops up on the road. I hear voices.

“What happened?”

“Who's out there?”

And Mr. Ellison's giving the answers: “Judd Travers is going after Marty Preston's dog.”

Mrs. Ellison and the girls have reached the spot now. Dara Lynn is dripping water, but she won't hear of going home. Every muscle in my body is straining to keep me as close to the water as I can get, my eyes trained on that muddy yellow surface, looking for Shiloh. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I should have stayed back where we saw him last, kept my eye on where he went. What if he's pulled under? What if his strength just gave out, and he can't paddle no more?

David gives a shout. We can see Shiloh now. Looks for a time like he's found something to crawl up on out there in
that water, a tree limb or something, but while we watch, he's swept away again.

Judd's treading water out in the center of Middle Island Creek, fighting the current himself, and Shiloh's about twenty feet upstream from him. But then—as I stare—I see him turning away from Judd! I wonder if my dog knows how much danger he's in. Wonder if he figures that between the water and Judd Travers, he'll take the water.

“Here, Shiloh! Come here, boy!” Judd calls, his hair all matted down over his eyes.

Shiloh seems spooked. He's lookin' straight ahead, neither to the right nor left. I see his eyes close again, the way he looks lyin' by the stove at night when he's about to fall asleep.

Judd's working his way out farther and farther, trying to get out in the middle of the creek before Shiloh goes by. He's got his head down now, his arms slicing through the water, but it seems like for every three strokes he takes forward, the creek carries him one stroke sideways.

“Don't give up, Shiloh!” I breathe. And then I begin yelling his name. “Come on, Shiloh! Go to Judd. Come on, boy! Come on!”

I wonder if Judd can make it in time. What if Shiloh's too far out and sails on by? What if the rope's not long enough for Judd to reach him? My breath's coming out all shaky.

Judd's out now about as far as he can go, and that rope is stretched taut. One hand is reaching way out, but seems like Shiloh's still trying to paddle away.

“No, Shiloh!” I plead.

Just then Judd gives this whistle. I know that when Shiloh was his, he was taught to come when Judd whistled. Come or else.