Read Online Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor - Free Book Online

spoonful of that to eat later, I knew for sure it wasn’t you doing the eating. And then the way you’ve been sneaking off every night . . .” She stops stroking Shiloh and turns on me. “I wish you’d told me.”
    â€œFigured you’d make me give him back.”
    â€œThis dog don’t belong to you.”
    â€œMine more than Judd’s!” I say hotly. “He only paid money for him. I’m the one who loves him.”
    â€œThat doesn’t make him yours. Not in the eyes of the law, it doesn’t.”
    â€œWell, what kind of law is it, Ma, that lets a man mistreat his dog?”
    Ma just sighs then and starts stroking Shiloh’s head. Shiloh wiggles a few inches closer to her on his belly, rests his nose against her thigh, tail going whick, whack, whick, whack . Finally Ma says, “Your dad don’t know about him?”
    I shake my head. More silence. Then she says: “I never kept a secret from your dad in the fourteen years we’ve been married.”
    â€œYou ain’t going to tell him?”
    â€œMarty, I’ve got to. He ever finds out about this dog and knows I knew but didn’t tell him, how could he trust me? If I keep this one secret from him, he’ll think maybe there are more.”
    â€œHe’ll make me give him back to Judd, Ma!” I could hear my voice shaking now. “You know he will!”
    â€œWhat else can we do?”
    I can feel hot tears in my eyes now and try to keep them from spilling out. I turn my head till they go away. “Judd Travers ever comes here to get his dog, he’ll have to fight me to get it.”
    â€œMarty . . .”
    â€œListen, Ma, just for one night, promise youwon’t tell Dad so I can figure out something.”
    Can tell she’s thinking on it. “You aren’t fixing to run off with this dog, are you? Marty, don’t you ever run away from a problem.”
    I don’t answer, because that very thing crossed my mind.
    â€œI can’t promise not to tell your dad tonight if you can’t promise not to run off.”
    â€œI won’t run off,” I say.
    â€œThen I won’t tell him tonight.”
    â€œOr in the morning, neither,” I add. “I got to have at least one day to think.” Don’t know what good it will do, though. Have already thought till my brains are dry.
    Ma puts out both hands now and scratches behind Shiloh’s ears, and he licks her all up and down her arms.
    â€œHis name’s Shiloh,” I tell her, pleased.
    After a while Ma gets up. “You coming back to the house now?”
    â€œIn a bit,” I answer.
    It’s hard to say how I feel after she leaves. Glad, in a way, that somebody knows: that I don’t have to carry this whole secret on my head alone. But more scared than glad. Have me just one day to think of what to do, and not any closer to an answer than I’d been before. I’d spent all my can money on stuff to feed Shiloh. Only money I have now to my name is a nickel I’d found out by theroad. Judd won’t sell me Shiloh’s spit for a nickel.
    My first thought is to give him to somebody else and not tell them whose dog it is, then tell Ma that Shiloh had run off. But that would be two more lies to add to the pack. Word would get out somehow or other, and Judd would see David Howard or Mike Wells walking his dog, and then the war would really start.
    All I can think of is to take Shiloh down to Friendly the next day, draw me up a big sign that says FREE: WORLD’S BEST DOG or something, and hold it up along the road to Sistersville, hoping that some stranger driving along will get a warm spot in his heart for Shiloh, stop his car, and take him home. And I won’t ask him where home is, neither, so when Ma asks me where the dog is, I can tell her honest I don’t know.
    When I get back to the house, Dad’s just washing up at the pump, using grease to get the