No Nest for the Wicket(37)

“Or he could at least keep them out of your yard,” Dad suggested, on a more practical note.

“Oh, great idea,” I said. “Turn him into a sheep-chasing dog. Wasn’t that a recurring plot device on Lassie—they want to put Lassie down because they suspect her of chasing sheep?”

“Killing sheep, actually, but yes,” Michael said. “Farmers don’t much like the idea of a dog messing around with their sheep.”

“But look at him,” Dad argued, leaning on the fence of the pen. “Would any sane farmer suspect him of killing a sheep?”

We looked at Spike, who yawned sarcastically.

“Definitely,” I said.

“It might take him time to figure out how, but yes, I can see it,” Michael agreed. “He’s got that sociopathic gleam in his eyes.”

“You’re just prejudiced against Spike,” Dad announced, climbing over the fence. “You’ll see.”

He bent over to pick up Spike, who, surprisingly, didn’t bite him.

“Leave him here for now,” I said. “He’s already working as a guard dog, remember.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Dad said, standing up again. “Well, I’ll see if your brother can fill in for a while.”

“Fill in guarding the shed or herding sheep?” Michael asked.

Dad climbed nimbly over the fence again and trotted away.

“I’ll borrow a few sheep from Mr. Early to get started,” he called over his shoulder.

“Why bother?” I called back. “We had half a dozen of them a little while ago. If they’ve gone home, I’m sure a few more volunteers will show up before the day is out.”

“I don’t think he heard you,” Michael said.

“Oh, he heard me, but he’s pretending he didn’t. This is a recipe for disaster.”

“Cheer up,” Michael said. “There’s a silver lining. What happens if the local farmers show up thirsting for Spike’s blood?”

“You’re not suggesting we give him to them!” I exclaimed.

“Of course not. But we can pack him back to Mom. Explain that he’s just not cut out to be a farm dog. That we can’t guarantee his safety.”

“You may have something there,” I said. “Just the same, let’s keep an eye on what he and Dad are up to.”

Just then, my cell phone rang, and I scrambled to pull it out. Kevin.

“Hello, Kevin,” I said, determined to set a good example of telephone etiquette. “How are you?”

“Not having much luck on this battle thing,” he said.

Maybe good examples were wasted on Kevin. At least he got to the point, which was rare in my family. Rare, and possibly worth encouraging.

“Found anything at all?” I asked.

“First of all, there’s no record of a Colonel Jedidiah Pruitt. There was a lieutenant by that name with the Thirteenth Virginia Cavalry, but no colonel.”

“So Mrs. Pruitt inflated her ancestor’s rank.”

“Hard to prove it—Civil War records aren’t perfect. But yeah, probably.”

“So was Lieutenant Pruitt the gallant hero of the Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge? Or did Mrs. Pruitt inflate his gallantry along with his title?”

“Beats me,” he said.

“What do you mean? What did you find on the battle?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Yeah, and that’s weird.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “I figure we’d have heard about it by now if it was a major battle.”

“Yeah, and Joss would have made us go there sometime, with it only an hour away,” he said, “Remember I said if I had trouble, I’d ask Joss?”

“Good idea.”

“Yeah, except Joss can’t find anything about it in any of her books, either. She tried a lot of variant spellings of Pruitt and Jedidiah. Tried all the spellings we could think of for Shiffleys, too. No go. She says she needs more information. Like when it happened and if it was part of another, larger battle. ’Cause the only thing she can think of is maybe the locals call it something different from what the history books do.”

“The way Yankees say the Battle of Antietam for what Southerners call Sharpsburg?”

“Joss used that example, too, only she said this would be like ignoring both names and calling it the Battle of Miller’s Cornfield, after a place where part of it happened. Which would be pretty stupid.”

“Unless you were one of the Millers,” I said. “Tell Joss I’m sorry I put her through all that.”

“She’s having a blast,” Kevin said. “She wants to come and visit you next weekend to interview the locals about it. Do some oral history stuff. Write a paper for one of her classes, or maybe even an article. So if you could start getting some leads, that would be great.”