Read Online Saving Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor - Free Book Online Page A

anymore, he wished he didn’t have a fence around that vegetable plot, just a nuisance when he mowed.
    Doc’s got a couple of men patching his roof and cleaninghis gutters, and he’s out there scattering grass seed on all the bare patches of lawn. Shiloh goes right over and waits for Doc to pet him. I wonder if in his little dog brain he remembers that Doc saved his life after the fight with the German shepherd.
    â€œHello there, Marty,” he says, scratchin’ Shiloh behind the ears. “I’m getting a jump on old man winter. Figure if I can get this seed in the ground before the next snow, it’ll be the first grass up come spring.”
    â€œToo bad that fence is still there, or you could plant right over the postholes,” I tell him.
    â€œI was thinking the same thing,” says Doc. He lets Shiloh go, and scoops up another handful of seed from his bag.
    â€œI could maybe take it down for you,” I offer.
    He gives this little laugh. “That’s not a job for a kid. Lot of wire there, and those posts are heavy.”
    â€œI bet I could. Would haul it away for you, too.”
    Doc studies me over the rim of his glasses. “Your dad wants this fence?”
    â€œIt’s for Judd Travers. To keep his dogs happy when he gets ’em back. He won’t let ’em run loose, ’cause they’re his hunting dogs, but John Collins says they wouldn’t be half as mean if they weren’t chained—if they had a yard to play in.”
    Doc Murphy don’t say anything for a minute. Just turns his back on me and goes on scattering that seed. Finally he says, “Tell you what: I’ll have Joe and Earl there”—and he nods toward the men on the roof—“take that fence down if you can have it off my property by tomorrow. I don’t want a pile of fencing sitting around here. Then I can get the whole place seeded in this warm spell. Deal?”
    â€œDeal,” I say. “Dad and me’ll come pick it up in the morning.”
    I don’t even have time to be happy, because I realize Judd Travers don’t know a single solitary thing about any of this. You don’t just show up at a man’s house and start fencing his yard.
    Only thing I can think of to do is walk on over to Judd’s and ask. I’m not real eager to go over there by myself, though. I mean, what if that boot we found did belong to the dead man, and Judd knows that I know what it looked like? Where it was found? ’Course, why would Judd kill a man, leave his body by the river, but bury his boots someplace else? That don’t make a whole lot of sense, either.
    I walk back up the road and my mind’s goin’ around and around, first how Judd must have done it for sure and then how he didn’t, like to drive me crazy. I cross the bridge, but when I head for the brown-and-white trailer, Shiloh turns back. I get to Judd’s about the time he’s sittin’ down to lunch.
    Any other man would ask me to come back later or invite me to share his food. Judd Travers invites me in to watch him eat, I guess, ’cause I sit at his table and he only offers me a pop. And right off he says:
    â€œWhat you want? Everybody else seems to think I killed a man. That what you come to say?”
    â€œNo,” I tell him. “ ’Course not.” Already my heart’s knockin’ around beneath my jacket.
    â€œThen what were you doin’ snoopin’ in the back of my truck last time you were here?”
    My breath seems to freeze right up inside my chest. One thing about Judd Travers, he don’t forget. I decide to tell it straight. “Trying to figure where that other boot of yours was,” I tell him. “To match the one I found.”
    â€œWhy should you care?” asks Judd, his narrow eyes on me.
    I shrug. “No particular reason. Just wondering, that’s all.”
    â€œWell, I threw it out,” Judd