Shiloh Season by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Page A

swing.
    Then I go looking for Becky. Look behind the bushes, under the steps, on the porch.
    "Allee, allee in come free!" I yell after a while. "You're home free, Becky. Come on in."
    But nothing happens. "Becky?" I call.
    Dara Lynn joins the search. But Becky's gone.
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    Nine is when I remember I last saw Becky sitting on the path to the far meadow that my legs like to give out. "Becky!" I yell again.
    Dad comes to the screen. "What's the matter, Marty?" "We can't find Becky," I say. "We were playing hide-and-seek and I can't find her."
    If he comes out on the porch. Then Ma.
    "What?" says Ma. Her face looks all pulled around the edges. I tell it again.
    "Where did you see her last?" asks Ma, hurrying down the steps.
    "Up on the path." I point to the steep dirt trail that leads to the woods and the far meadow. "I told her not to go up there, and she sat down. Then Dara Lynn hurt her toe, and I don't remember if I saw Becky after that."
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    Ma's running now, heading for the path. The sky's got that in-between look. Isn't day, isn't evening. Everything looks in sharp focus, but you know it's not for long.
    "Where's Shiloh?" Ma calls over her shoulder. "If Becky wandered off, how come he didn't go with her?"
    Shiloh is stretched out on the ground between the house and the shed, just enjoying himself.
    "Why isn't he with her?" Ma cries again, and she looks with such anger at my dog it scares me. "What good is he if he can't protect Becky?"
    "Ma ... wealts" I say.
    Then she turns on me. "You should've watched her!" "Get the flashlight, son," says Dad. "Dara Lynn, you go in the house in case she shows up there. Don't let her wander off again."
    I tear into the house and grab the flashlight from off the top of the refrigerator, then run back out. Shiloh sees all the excitement now, and he's up on his feet, ready to join in.
    I feel empty and rattly, like all my ribs are knocking together. How much should you expect from a dog, after all? How does he know where Becky's supposed to go and where she isn't? He's only been with us a month or so.
    "Becky?" Ma's yelling into the bushes on either side of her, and I follow her up the hill.
    "Becky!" yells Dad. "Where are you? Yell so we can hear you.
    Somewhere far off I hear a gun again. At least I think it's a gun. Could have been a firecracker, I suppose. It's hard to tell sometimes. I look at Dad, though, and he heard it, too. It's a gun. I can tell by his face.
    We get to the fork in the path. Go left, you end up in
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    woods, up near where I hid Shiloh-where I built his pen. Go right, you'll come to the meadow where I'd run him sometimes, nobody could see us from below.
    "Marty," says Dad, "you just sit right here and keep your eye on the yard. What I don't want to happen is for Becky to wander back home, think we're all gone, and go off again."
    "O-Okay," I say, and hand over the flashlight to him. He heads for the woods, Ma takes the meadow, and I sit down on the big flat rock at the fork where David and I used to play spaceship sometimes.
    I don't sit down so much as I sink. I just got a thought so terrible that it makes my knees give out in earnest. What if Judd Travers is up here hunting deer with a light? Some hunters do that way, which is about the lowest way you can hunt a deer-stun it with a powerful light and when it stops dead still in front of you, shoot it with a rifle.
    But that's not the terrible thought, that's just for starters. What if, because I didn't report Judd to the game warden when he killed that doe out of season, he feels he can get away with it again? If I'd reported him, maybe they would have taken away his license or something. But because I wanted Shiloh so bad, I didn't say nothing. And maybe saying nothing is why Becky's missing now. Maybe one of those stray bullets found her, and I traded Becky for Shiloh.
    I bend over, hugging my stomach, like I got belly cramps. So scared my arms are shaking. How can you think you're doing the right thing, and