The Devil's Touch Read Online Free PDF Page B

never before encountered this much stonewalling. "Nothing," he admitted. "That I can prove. Except he's got the finest collection of guns I've ever seen in the hands of any civilian. Especially one this young."
    Down in New York City, the captain's sigh was audible up in Logandale. "Monty, my boy, listen to me. I won't bullshit you. Get off this young man's back. I've had CID and CIA and FBI and NSC people all over my ass this afternoon. Whatever this Sam Balon King did in the paratroops, it was something special."
    "Rangers," Monty corrected.
    "Haw?"
    "The guy was in the Rangers, Captain."
    "I thought those people took care of trees!"
    "I think these Rangers eat the goddamn trees, Captain."
    "It wouldn't surprise me, Monty."
    "And they are trained to kill."
    Another long sigh from the Big Apple. "Yeah? Well, so are Green Berets, marine Raiders, navy Seals, and lots of other service people. Not to mention the Mafia and other assorted crazies running around. Whatever, Monty. This kid is to be left
alone
. Just drop it, Chief Draper. For your own good and my peace of mind."
    "You can't tell me anything else, Captain?"
    "No."
    "Can't, or won't?"
    "Take your pick, Chief."
    "Good talking to another member of the law enforcement field, Captain."
    The line went dead.
    So the mystery—if there was any mystery about Sam Balon, and Monty felt there was—was never cleared up to Monty's satisfaction. But it would be cleared up. Shortly.
    Sam took a Winchester Model 1200 from the gun cabinet and filled up the tube with double 00 buck. He pumped one into the chamber. He took a .41 magnum revolver from the cabinet and checked the loads in that. Fully loaded. He shoved the big pistol behind his belt and turned to his wife.
    "Stay in the house with Little Sam. You have your pistol with you and you know how to fire every weapon in this house." He smiled. "Well,
almost
every weapon. And I know you will if you have to. I'll be back in a little while."
    Sam walked out the back door and started across the field. It was then the faint odor struck his nostrils. Nydia had been correct. The Beasts were here. He remembered that smell from behind Falcon House in Canada.
    Sam and Nydia were falling in love. They both knew they were in love hours after they met.
    They had left Falcon House, walking toward the deep timber behind the great house, holding hands like kids. They walked into the timber, and the silence of God's free nature seemed to make them stronger and draw them closer. The mood was almost religious, the towering trees a nondenominational cathedral silently growing around the young couple. They came to a small, rushing creek and sat on a log by the bubbling waters.
    "Tell me more about being a Christian, Sam."
    "I don't know that much about it, Nydia. I sometimes think it's a feeling one must have. And I don't have it very often."
    "1 think you're a better person than you will admit to being, Sam."
    "Maybe."
    They sat and talked and both felt the evil from the great house. It penetrated even the deep timber. Nydia told him about a circle of stones not too far away, a place that frightened her. Sam wanted to see that place.
    At the circle of stones, Sam knelt down, studying closely and with great interest the largest stone of the circle, which depicted scenes of great depravity: of men with huge jutting phalluses; of women with legs widespread, exposing the genitalia; scenes of mass orgies: men with men, women with women, men with small children; scenes of hideous torture; of grotesque creatures, monsters, leaping and snarling. And finally, on the east side of the great stone, a scene depicting a saintly looking man who was locked in some sort of combat with a beastlike creature.
    "Let's see this hole in the ground," Sam said.
    They smelled the stench long before they came to the hole, both of them wrinkling their noses at the foul odor. "Can you imagine what it's like deep in that hole?" Sam tried a grin, unaware that his real father had