Allie's Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

gaze assessed, judged. It was very easy to
assess and judge from that side of the bars. Oh, and didn’t Jeff
know that.
    Maybe if he didn’t look at him, if he kept
his eyes on his plate, the sheriff would get bored and go back to
his desk. But he didn’t. He just leaned against that wall,
watching.
    “ Don’t you have something better to
do?” Jeff finally asked, throwing down the fork. He couldn’t make
himself look up into those hard, shadowed eyes. “I’m not planning
to try an escape, if that’s what you’re worried about. Farley
caught me in his henhouse fair and square.”
    Will pushed himself away from the bricks and
uncrossed his arms. “Hell, that isn’t why I’m keeping you here. If
you were any other man, you’d have gotten a sharp talking-to and
that would have been the end of it. And you know it.”
    Now Jeff looked up, wary. “So, what’s your
grudge against me, Mason?”
    Will shook his head. “I don’t have a grudge
against you, Jeff. But you do raise my dander more than most men.
You’re drunk half the time and sleeping it off the other half.
Cooper Matthews was already the town drunk before you decided to
join in. We don’t need two of them in Decker Prairie.”
    Hearing himself compared to Matthews, Jeff
felt hot blood rise to his face, partly from shame but mostly from
anger. It seemed like all of his troubles could be traced to that
bastard. He put the unfinished tray on the floor and stood. “I mind
my own business. What do you care how I spend my time? You’re a
lawman, not a preacher recruiting souls.”
    “ I hate to see a man lie down and
wallow in self pity, that’s all. Are you going to spend the rest of
your life feeling sorry for yourself? Do nothing more than an odd
job here and there for whiskey money? Your hands shake so bad, I’ll
bet if I gave you a pistol you wouldn’t be able to hit the side of
a barn. There was a time when no one could hold a candle to your
aim.”
    Smarting from his last comment, Jeff looked
at Will Mason’s holstered Colt and then turned his eyes away from
the sheriff’s granite stare. Jeff couldn’t tolerate the idea of
even holding a gun again. The last time he’d tried, when he’d still
worn that silver star on his shirt, the tremor in his hands had
been worse than now. If his own life depended upon it—and from his
viewpoint, that was little reason—Jeff knew he couldn’t fire a
pistol again. Not to defend himself or anyone else. The knowledge
was somehow emasculating, and was a notion that Will seemed to
share.
    “ Being good with a gun never made
anyone a man,” Jeff muttered, more uncomfortable than
ever.
    “ And sleeping it off in someone’s barn
does?” Will’s gaze did not waver.
    “ Don’t go flapping your gums until
you’ve walked in my boots for a while. Things look a whole lot
different from here.”
    “ I remember what happened that night at
Wickwire’s. It was bum luck, but you don’t have to throw everything
away trying to forget it.”
    Will’s words hit a little too close to the
truth and made Jeff feel even more weary than he had before. “Look,
just leave me be, Will. It’s none of your business what I do as
long as it isn’t against the law.” Turning, he went back to the cot
and lay down with his hands locked beneath his head.
    Will shrugged, then walked to the door. “I
guess you crossed that line this morning, didn’t you?”
    ~~*~*~*~~
    The sun angled through the high, barred
window above Jeff and caught him in a bright rectangle that threw
striped shadows across his torso. He lay on his back, watching a
spider weave an intricate web in the corner overhead. The hours
dragged on, yet Will Mason hadn’t returned. Maybe Mason was
sticking with his plan to leave Jeff alone to think. It was the
last thing Jeff wanted to do, but the thoughts came anyway.
    He’d tried to sleep, but his mind had jumped
around from memory to memory as if he’d had a whole pot of coffee
instead of one lukewarm cup.