Allie's Moon Read Online Free

paws and full weight resting on Jeff’s
only escape route. A clammy sweat broke out all over him that glued
his dirty shirt to his body and inched over his scalp. He knew he
was trapped. Fast thinking wasn’t one of Jeff’s more adroit
abilities these days, but by God, if he couldn’t out-think a
dog—
    Suddenly, the door flew open and glaring
lantern light filled his field of vision. Jeff found himself
staring down the double barrels of a shotgun.
    “ Just hold it right there, mister!” At
the other end of the weapon stood Farley Wright, half of his angry,
weather-seamed face covered with shaving soap, the other half
scraped clean. One strap of his suspenders looped down next to his
leg and brushed against the head of his still-barking
black-and-white sheep dog. “You stand right there now so’s I can
get a look at you before I blow you to kingdom come!”
    Jeff took a couple of dragging steps forward,
keeping his eyes on the shotgun, while the dog circled him and
jumped at his feet. He wasn’t afraid to die—in fact, he didn’t care
one way or the other if he lived. He’d just never expected to be
shot for raiding a henhouse.
    The farmer raised his lantern and squinted at
Jeff. After studying him closely, Farley lowered his shotgun a
notch, then scowled.
    “ Sheriff Hicks. I mighta knowed you’d
stoop to chicken stealin’. His expression disgusted, the farmer
looked Jeff up and down as though he were lower than a dog’s
pizzle. Well, the old man was right about that.
    Jefferson Hicks had fallen as low as a man
could.

    CHAPTER TWO

    “ I caught him red-handed and I’m
pressing charges, Will. To the full hilt of the law. I got rights—I
can’t have this man helping himself to my henhouse whenever the
notion strikes him. And I’ll warrant it’s struck often enough.”
Farley Wright stood before Sheriff Will Mason’s desk, brimming with
moral indignation.
    “ Have you got proof that anything was
stolen, Farley?” Will Mason asked. He glanced at Jeff and shifted
in his chair, making the badge above his breast pocket flash in the
early morning sunlight that came through the window.
    “ Well, just look at that!” His
weathered face vermillion with anger, Farley pointed to a big wet
spot on the front of Jeff’s shirt, just above his belt. “That’s
where he hid the egg ’fore it broke. Besides, isn’t it enough to
catch someone rummaging in my henhouse before dawn? I don’t suppose
he was there for a social visit!” The picture Farley presented—half
shaved, one suspender still dragging around his knee, his hair
sticking up like a privet hedge—rather detracted from his oration,
but not its vigor.
    Jeff Hicks guessed that Farley even fancied
himself as something of a hero for bringing in the big, bad egg
thief. His own head already thumping like a hammer on a rock, Jeff
shut out the sound of the farmer’s voice. He’d had to endure the
man’s outraged, nonstop monologue all the way into town. Farley had
tied Jeff’s hands behind his back and forced him at shotgun point
into the back of his wagon. He hadn’t needed to. Jeff had offered
no resistance.
    In fact, he hadn’t felt more than a twinge of
self-consciousness when Farley marched him in here, still under
cover of his shotgun. At least he kept telling himself that. He’d
sensed the curious stares from shopkeepers and people on the
street, but what the hell—Decker Prairie had been talking about him
for a long time. He’d given them lots to talk about.
    From his vantage point in the corner by the
stove, he let his gaze wander the confines of the sheriff’s office.
He hadn’t seen the inside of this place for more than two years,
but it seemed like twenty. Some of it looked familiar—the wall
clock, the blue enamel coffee pot on the stove, the rifle rack, the
scarred oak desk. With his hands tied with a rope that cut like a
saw blade, it was hard for him to recall that he’d once occupied
the same swivel desk chair that Will Mason