Son of the Hero Read Online Free Page A

path didn’t come directly to the cave but went around the base of the hill to my right. It was a well-defined track, wide enough for a subcompact car, but rough enough that I’d want four-wheel drive to try it. In the ten minutes that I watched, I didn’t see any traffic.
    “None of this is real,” I told myself. “It can’t be.” There was no tract of land like this anywhere near our house. It wasn’t in our yard, and that cave hadn’t been long enough to get me clear of our subdivision.
    I wasn’t too crazy about continuing, but I also wasn’t quite ready to go back and risk facing that lizard again. Well, I knew what was behind me, and I didn’t know what was in front of me. That may have made the difference. I moved out of the cave, put the safety on my pistol and holstered it, then stretched. The hill rose two hundred feet behind me. I considered climbing to get a better look at the land, but that scratchy heather wasn’t very inviting. It was knee-deep, stiff and prickly. It smelled vaguely like lilacs.
    Mother’s note didn’t say which way to follow the path, just to bear left at the fork. I didn’t see the fork. I assumed—initial hypothesis—that I wanted to head toward the forest. The temperature was comfortable, the breeze perfect. “Nice day for a hike,” I mumbled as I started. Sometimes I can’t help being sarcastic even when I’m my only audience.
    I don’t know what I expected. After the lizard, I don’t think anything would have surprised me. I felt relieved that the forest looked so normal when I got into it. The bottom twenty or thirty feet of the trees were bare trunk, giving it the air of a pillared hall with a thick canopy. Firs, some oaks, other types I didn’t recognize. From the new green, I assumed it was spring there too. Birds sang somewhere. I didn’t recognize the calls, but I only know about half-dozen. A flaw in my education as an outdoorsman. The only birds I’ve ever been interested in watching are beyond singing—usually brown and steaming, on their backs on a platter on the dining-room table … or in one of the Colonel’s boxes or buckets.
    There was a heavy earth smell of recent rain in the air. The path was soft, spongy but not muddy. Part of the time, I moved slowly, observing, checking out the scenery. The rest of the time, I stepped out smartly, trying to cover ground fast since I didn’t know how far I had to go—and I might have to backtrack to try the path in the other direction.
    It was a pleasant place to walk. It gave my nerves a chance to unwind a little, gave me time to start breathing normally. I might almost have been down in the Land Between the Lakes, or any of a dozen other places where Dad and I had gone hiking and camping over the years.
    I had walked about a quarter of a mile before I saw any animal life on the ground in the forest—another one of the damn lizards. It disappeared too quickly for me to be positive, but with the better light, the lizard appeared to have rudimentary wings folded back along its sides. Crazy—there’s that word again, but it’s hard to avoid. I stopped and listened, not nearly as nervous as I had been when I stumbled on the lizard in the cave. I was out in the open and this one was farther off than the first had been. The beast wasn’t very quiet. I drew my pistol again and kept it ready until I was long past where the animal crossed the path. I’ve never liked reptiles.
    The fork in the path was about three-quarters of a mile from the cave. The track to the left was the less well traveled, no more than a footpath. There were thick brambles, knotty vines, along both sides for quite a distance. The trees seemed shorter, meaner. Low branches needed ducking under. Uncle Parker—Parthet—evidently didn’t get a lot of company.
    The farther I went, the more disorganized the forest became. It made me think of a PBS show a long time back that showed the crazy webs spun by spiders on drugs. Smaller, twisted