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oil off his arms. He’s yelling at Dara Lynn and Becky, who are playing in the doorway, screen wide open, letting in the moths.
    I go inside and Ma’s putting the dishes away in the kitchen, lifting them out of the drain rack and stacking the plates on the shelf. She’s got the radio on and is humming along with a country music song:
    Â 
    It’s you I wanna come home to,
    It’s you to bake my bread,
    It’s you to light my fire,
    It’s you to share my bed.
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    She sort of blushes when she sees me there by the refrigerator, listening to her sing.
    I know I’m not going to sleep much that night. I sit on the couch staring at the TV, but not really watching, while Ma gives Becky her bath. Then I wait till Dara Lynn is out of the bathroom so I can take my own bath. Don’t know if I soaped up or not. Don’t even know if I washed my feet. I go back in the living room, and Ma has my bed made up there on the sofa. The house gets dark, the doors close, and then just the night sounds come from outside.
    Know there’s a piece of cardboard somewhere out in the shed I can print on. There won’t be any trouble getting Shiloh to Friendly, either. I’ll put that rope on his collar, and he’ll follow along good as anything. We won’t take the main road, though, in case Judd’s out in his truck. Take every back road I can find.
    Then I’ll plant myself on the road to Sistersville, holding that sign, Shiloh waiting beside me wondering what it is we’re going to do next. What am I fixing to do, anyway? Give him to the first car that stops? Don’t even know the person driving? Might even be I’ll give Shiloh tosomebody who’ll treat him worse than Judd Travers. Now that Shiloh’s come to trust me, here I am getting ready to send him off again. I feel like there’s a tank truck sitting on my chest; can’t hardly breathe. Got one day to decide what to do with Shiloh, and nothing I think on seems right.
    I hear Shiloh making a noise up on the far hill in his pen. Not now, Shiloh! I whisper. You been good as gold all this time. Don’t start now. Can it be he knows what I’m fixing to do?
    Then I hear a yelp, a loud yelp, then a snarl and a growl, and suddenly the air is filled with yelps, and it’s the worst kind of noise you can think of. A dog being hurt.
    I leap out of bed, thrust my feet in my sneakers, and with shoelaces flying, I’m racing through the kitchen toward the back door. A light comes on. I can hear Dad’s voice saying, “Get a flashlight,” but I’m already out on the back porch, then running up the hill.
    There are footsteps behind me; Dad’s gaining on me. Can hear Shiloh howl like he’s being torn in two, and my breath comes shorter and shorter, trying to get there in time.
    By the time I reach the pen, Dad’s caught up with me, and he’s got the flashlight turned toward the noise. The beam searches out the pine tree, the fencing, the lean-to. . . . And then I see this big German shepherd, mean as nails, hunchedover Shiloh there on the ground. The shepherd’s got blood on his mouth and jaws, and as Dad takes another step forward, it leaps over the fence, same way it got in, and takes off through the woods.
    I unfasten the wire next to the pine tree, legs like rubber, hardly holding me up. I kneel down by Shiloh. He’s got blood on his side, his ear, a big open gash on one leg, and he don’t move. Not an inch.
    I bend over, my forehead against him, my hand on his head. He’s dead, I know it! I’m screaming inside. Then I feel his body sort of shiver, and his mouth’s moving just a little, like he’s trying to get his tongue out to lick my hand. And I’m bent over there in the beam of Dad’s flashlight, bawling, and I don’t even care.

CHAPTER 10
    D ad’s beside me, holding the flashlight up to Shiloh’s eyes. Shiloh’s still