What I don’t tell Doc is that maybe if I’d reported Judd, they would have taken his rifle away, and then what Judd did out on the road last night wouldn’t have happened. I don’t guess they’d take his gun, though.
“Some folks,” Doc’s saying, “think they know what’s right for every occasion. They say there’s a right and wrong for everything. Well, it’s good if things work out that way, but sometimes they don’t.”
“Even for you?” I ask.
Doc smiles just a little. “Especially for me. I grew up learning to tell the truth, Marty. My dad ever caught me in a lie, I’d get a whipping. Went through high school and college and medical school, and never once cheated on a test. The real tests, it seems, came later.”
I realize I’m getting paid for sitting here in the shade on Doc’s steps, drinking cold cider and listening to him talk, but he don’t—doesn’t—seem to care.
“There were a lot of them . . . tests. But not like the ones you get in school. There was a man with a sickness I couldn’t cure. I knew that most people like him didn’t have much time left to live. But he kept talking about how he was going to get well, and his wife said she knew he was going to get well, too, and when they asked me how he was doing, I’d just . . . I’d just beat around the bush. Figured I wasn’t going to be the one to make them sad.”
“And then . . . ?”
“He died. Got real sick on a Sunday and was gone by Monday. Hadn’t left a will. Hadn’t taught his wife to drive or what to do about his business. And the wife came to me and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us he was going to die? It would have made things so much easier.’ ”
“But you thought . . . ”
“Yes, but I thought wrong. So when I had another patient I couldn’t cure, I decided to tell her the truth. She was a painter. Had shows all over the state—Huntington, Charleston, Morgantown—even in New York City. I knew she didn’t have a lot of time left, and figured she must have a lot of business to take care of. So the next time she was in my office talking about some pain she was having, I told her, as gently as I could, that she ought to get her affairs in order because she might not make that next big show she was talking about.”
Here Doc takes a deep breath and puts his elbows on the step behind him.
“Well, she died five months later, and her friends sent me an angry letter. Why did I have to tell her? they asked. She was working on three paintings, her very best work, and after I told her the news, she never picked up her brush again. Just sat at home with the blinds drawn for five months and then died.”
I sat thinking about that. “Maybe you could have said something sort of in-between,” I suggested.
“Oh, I’ve tried that, don’t think I haven’t. I say, ‘Only God knows when we’re going to die.’ Said that to a man just the other day and he looks me right in the eye and says, ‘I know, Doc, but in your experience, how long does a man as sick as me usually live?’ Could hardly ask it plainer than that. Yet I wonder, does he really want to know?”
Doc picks up his glass again and drains it. “If folks know what’s right and wrong for themselves, I’ve no quarrel with that. And we’ve all got to obey the law. But beyond that, what’s right in one situation may be wrong in another. You have to decide. That’s the hard part.”
I realize when I go home that afternoon that Doc never did tell me what I should have done about that doe. And I see that no matter how old you get, you’ll always meet up with problems and they won’t have easy answers.
David Howard calls.
“Why don’t you come over tomorrow?” he says. “I got this puzzle last year for my birthday that I never opened—a map of the ocean floor.”
That’s the kind of presents David’s folks give him. No wonder he never opened it.
“You know how deep the deepest place in the ocean is?” asks David.
“No.”
“Guess.”
“A mile?”
“Almost seven miles!”
“You’re lying, David.”
“Come over tomorrow and see. Come around two o’clock and I’ll show you. There’re mountains and valleys on the floor of the ocean just like there are on land.”
It was sounding more interesting now. “Okay,” I tell him. “I’ll come.”
Dara Lynn’s feeling good ’cause she’s only got four more days to wait to see if Judd’s black-and-white dog has rabies, and it don’t look like he does. So she probably won’t have to have shots. She’s sliding around the kitchen in her stocking feet, pretending she’s on ice skates, and then she grabs Becky’s hands, and they’re both slipping and sliding on Ma’s waxed floor.
“Fine with me,” says Ma, eating an apple in our living room. “They’ll just shine it up all the prettier.”
They have to get Shiloh into the act, though, and pretty soon they’re trying to put Becky’s socks on his paws and then they got a pair of Dara Lynn’s underpants on him and a “Wild and Wonderful West Virginia” T-shirt. They’re screeching and giggling and looking around for a cap and some sunglasses. I figure any dog who puts up with all that should get a medal of honor.
Dad comes home with news. Heard on his mail route today that Judd Travers went to work drunk one day this week, and his boss tells him it better not happen again.
Seems like every new thing Judd does is worse than the one before. First he runs into mailboxes. Then he picks a fight. Drives drunk and goes to work drunk. Maybe he’ll get fired and move away from here, I’m thinking, and that would be just fine with me. Meanwhile, I’m not going out there on the road any more than I have to, and I’m not telling Dad what happened, neither. Dad would go see Judd and end up making him madder, and maybe he’d shoot at Becky next.
I sit up late that night watching TV with Ma and Dad. The nice thing about having the couch for my bed is I get to stay up as late as they do. That’s not very late, of course, ’cause Dad starts his mail route early, so he’s always in bed by ten o’clock. Saturdays, though, he’ll stay up till eleven.
’Course, you don’t get many TV channels up here above Friendly, unless you have a satellite dish, which we don’t. So on Saturday nights we either all watch TV together, or Ma and Dad sit out in the kitchen talking after I spread out my blankets on the couch.
Lately Dad’s been talking some of selling off a few acres of our land and maybe building on another room to our house—a new bedroom for him and Ma. Then I could have their old one. I’d like that. Seems like everyone who wants to live up here already does, though, so nobody’s much interested in our land.
I’m lying on the couch thinking how it would be to have a room, just Shiloh and me in it together. I’m wondering what rabbits Shiloh’s sniffing out tonight. Or maybe he’s with that black Labrador and they’re exploring all over the place. I listen to the sounds of our house after Ma and Dad go to bed—the refrigerator and the hot water heater, buzzing and clicking. I fall asleep about eleven thirty, I guess, dreaming of that puzzle of the ocean floor, and wondering if it’s got mountains and valleys down there, like David says.
Then I hear the noise.
It’s the kind of loud, scary noise that if you are sound asleep when you hear it, you think your heart is going to stop. You can’t tell if your eyes are staring into the blackness of the room or the blackness inside your eyelids.
All you know is you hear something—a loud bang and then a thump and another and another.
You are so scared your chest hurts. Your heart is beating so loud you can hear it. You can hardly breathe. Is somebody breaking in? Are you the only one awake? Why isn’t your dad getting up? you wonder.
And then, an even worse sound than that.
Shiloh.
Fourteen
I don’t think I can stand this again—Shiloh getting tore up by that German shepherd in the middle of the night. He ain’t penned up now! Shiloh can run!
But there’s the sound again, a dog sound, a yipping, yelping, dog noise, and it just won’t stop.
r />
Shiloh season?
I leap off the couch.
Dad and Ma are awake now, too, coming down the hall. I race over and turn on the porch light, expecting to see my dog with his ear half off, but Shiloh’s not there. He’s close by, though. I can tell.
“What is it?” asks Ma, pulling her arm through the sleeve of her robe.
“I don’t know,” I say, slamming my feet into my shoes. “I got to find him.”
“Wait a minute,” says Dad. “I’ll go with you.”
Ma gets the flashlight, hands it to me. Her hair is all loose around her face, eyes sort of sleepy-surprised.
The Shiloh noise comes again and I just go cold all over. Could he be poisoned? But I wonder. It’s not a whine, not a howl, not a bark—or maybe it’s all three. More like talking, is what it is.
Dad comes out of the bedroom. He’s pulled his pants on over his pajamas, and we both put on our jackets.
“Please be careful,” says Ma.
We start down the driveway, but in two seconds I’ve started to run, and Dad trots along beside me.
“Did you hear that noise? That bang?” I ask.
Dad nods. “Couldn’t figure out what it was. Thought maybe it was thunder, the way it rolled on. That dog’s not afraid of storms, is he?”
“I never saw Shiloh afraid of a storm. Maybe there’re hunters out,” I say.
The sky’s cloudy. When the moon breaks through, though, we can see pretty good. Nothing looks different or strange all along our driveway, but then we pick up Shiloh in the beam of the flashlight.
He’s standing out on the road, and he’s got his tail tucked between his legs like he’s done somethin’ really bad.
I run over and bend down.
“Shiloh!” I cry. “You hurt?”
That noise comes out of his throat again. Second time that night my heart almost stops beating. I run my hands over his head and ears. All over his body, feeling for wounds. Feel his legs and paws. No bones out of place.
He’s not foaming at the mouth or anything. He keeps looking to the right, though, so Dad shines the light up the road.
I can see there’s something in it—some small thing, a ’possum, maybe. We go over to check. Shiloh goes along with us a little way, but then he hangs back.
We get up to that big pothole in the road, just before the bridge, and I see that the thing I caught in the flashlight beam is an old muffler dropped off somebody’s car, that’s all.
“Don’t see anything else,” says Dad.
Shiloh’s stopped still now, won’t come any farther.
I shine my flashlight slowly all around the road, the bridge, and then we see the weeds over on the side. They’re all mashed down like some big steamroller come by. There’s something else in the weeds. We walk over. It’s the rest of the muffler. I shine my flashlight on down the bank. There at the bottom is Judd’s pickup, turned on its side.
“Oh, no!” breathes Dad.
We are scrambling down that bank. We can tell from the smell of oil and gasoline that the accident just happened. Engine’s still hot. Then we know that was the bang we heard, Judd’s pickup hitting the pothole and rolling over and over before it hit bottom.
I got to tell the truth, and the truth is that all the while I’m climbing down that hill behind Dad, same bank I scrabbled down with David Howard, lookin’ for a cave, I’m thinking how if Judd could just be dead, our problems would be over. Wouldn’t have to worry about his hunting on our land, wouldn’t have to wonder if he’d drive by drunk some night and run over Shiloh. Wouldn’t have to be scared he’d take another shot at me.
But as soon as the thought come into my mind, I’m ashamed, and saying, “No, Jesus, I didn’t mean it.”
If Jesus is getting one prayer from your lips and another from your heart, which one is he going to pay attention to? That’s the question.
We get to the bottom and Dad grabs the flashlight out of my hand and shines it on the truck. A man’s leg is sticking out from underneath the cab of the pickup. The leg don’t move.
I’m down on my hands and knees, trying to see into the cab. Dad gets down beside me and shines the light through the windshield.
Looks to me like Judd’s upside down, pinned between the steering wheel and the side. Smells like a brewery in there.
Dad gets the door on top open and leans way in, feeling for Judd’s wrist.
“I got a pulse!” he says.
Then he’s making his way around to the other side, and pushes on the truck to see if he can rock it. “See that big old limb over there?” he says. “Drag it here, Marty, and wedge it under, right next to Judd’s leg. He’s going to lose that leg if we don’t prop the truck up a little.”
He rocks the truck again, and I get the thick part of the limb wedged under. Figure the door on Judd’s side must have come open as the truck rolled.
“You run home and call emergency,” he tells me. “Do it quick, Marty. And then you call Doc Murphy in case the rescue squad takes too long getting here. Tell Doc that Judd’s still alive, but he’s unconscious.”
I run like the wind, Shiloh beside me. He’s been waiting up on the road, won’t come down. But now he thinks it’s a game almost. Looks happy again.
All the while I’m running, though, I’m wondering: Did Judd see Shiloh trotting along the road and try to run him over? Put on the gas, maybe, and that’s when he hit the pothole?
That’s my guess. All I really know is that if Shiloh hadn’t carried on like he did, I wouldn’t never have got up. Would’ve laid there a while, maybe, wondering if that bang I heard was thunder, but I would have gone right back to sleep. If Judd lives, it’s because of Shiloh.
Ma is standing at the screen, and Dara Lynn’s beside her, rubbing her eyes and looking cross.
“Marty?” calls Ma.
“It’s Judd!” I yell, more out of breath than I realize. “His truck went down the bank by the bridge. Call emergency, and then call Doc Murphy.”
Ma finds another flashlight for me, and I go out to the road, wait until I see Doc’s car coming real slow, looking for where it is he should stop.
Doc gets out at the bridge. He’s got his pajamas on, too, and a robe on top. Got his black bag with him. I help him down the bank and through the weeds and brush to Judd’s pickup. Dad’s got the door open, and Doc leans way in with his stethoscope as best he can. Takes the flashlight and checks out Judd’s eyes.
“Internal injuries, that’s my guess,” Doc says. “No way I can examine him without crawling in there, and doing more harm than good. . . . ”
It’s about then we hear the far-off sound of a siren, and I climb back up the bank to wait for them, show them where we are. I see that Shiloh didn’t come back with me; stayed home with Ma and Dara Lynn.
Then there’s lights and yelling and a truck motor running. Men are coming down the bank with a stretcher, the radio’s blaring. Floodlights are turned on me and Dad and Doc, all in our pajamas. Nobody cares.
The pickup is gently set upright again. Splints are being put on Judd’s neck and back before they place him on the stretcher. Then the men are carrying him up the bank, and at some point Judd opens his mouth and groans. Says something, but all I can make out is a cuss word.
“Sure sounds like Judd Travers,” one of the men says, and three minutes later the rescue truck is heading for the hospital in Sistersville.
Fifteen
Is he dead?”
First words out of Dara Lynn’s mouth when we get back to the house.
“No, but he’s unconscious,” Dad says, and tells them what happened.
“What about his truck?” Ma asks.
“Whelan’s will send up a tow truck tomorrow.”
“Do you think he’s badly hurt, Ray?”
“Likely so. Got a broken leg, I can tell you that.”
“Was the bone all sticking out?” asks Dara Lynn. I tell you, I got the strangest sister.
“All I know is that the truck
came down on it when it turned over,” Dad says.
Dara Lynn sticks around long enough to see if there’re any more gory details, then ambles off to bed. Becky, of course, sleeps through the whole thing.
Ma and Dad talk a little more out in the kitchen, then turn off the light and go back to bed. I lay on the couch, staring up into the dark. I’m having this conversation with Jesus again, only I’m doing all the talking. One minute I hope He’s listening, and the next minute I hope He’s not.
“Help him get well,” I’m saying, because I think I should. Because you’re supposed to pray for somebody who’s been hurt.
Then I find myself thinking, Just don’t let his leg get well enough to ever go hunting again.
Can you ask God to heal things, but only so much?
Next morning a tow truck comes up from Whelan’s, and people stand around to watch. It’s Sunday morning, so word hasn’t spread too far yet. Dad and me and Dara Lynn all go over to watch—Dad wants to be sure there’s nothing left in the weeds belonging to Judd. Finally the truck’s up on the road again, being towed to the garage where Judd works. Truck don’t look as bad as Judd did. Bet he didn’t even have his seat belt on.
After Sunday dinner, Dad drives me down to David Howard’s, and soon as I see him out on the porch, I run up.
“You hear what happened?” I say. Can tell by David’s face he hasn’t.
“What?” he says.
“You know that big pothole this side of the bridge?”
“It caved in?” whoops David.
“No, but you know Judd’s truck?”
“It fell through?”
“No, David, let me tell it! Judd was driving drunk again last night, and his truck must of hit the pothole and gone out of control.”
Then I tell him how the sheriff figures it hit the bridge first, then rolled on down the bank, Judd with it.
“Wooooow!” says David Howard, and the way he says it, dragging it out, sounds like air coming slow out of a bag.
We go in and tell his folks, and Mr. Howard calls his newspaper to be sure they’ve got the story.