Free The Eye of Moloch by Glenn Beck Page A

rights, and various speculations. Since frontier times no part of the estate had ever left the family’s hands. Today the spread was best known as an upscale dude ranch and a twelve-thousand-acre training facility for working horses and their riders. The roster of regular clients included people of all stripes, from reclusive billionaires and celebrities to national rodeo stars. There was also a long waiting list of normal-Joe vacationers who might save up for years in order to flee their teeming cities for a few precious weeks of a saner, simpler life.
    These days the lion’s share of any profits quietly went toward charitable endeavors. Throughout the summer the ranch played host to a number of youth retreats from service groups, and no child’s request from the Make-A-Wish Foundation had ever been denied.
    The guest annex where Hollis and the other new arrivals were staying was of relatively new construction. On the private side of the atrium the original house had been built around, added to, and augmented with modern conveniences. Most of the growing lineage of the Merrick family made their home in those quarters, and they all made their living off the land. Tyler’s great-grandmother, in fact, still stayed in the roomsshe’d shared with her late husband back when this place was still just a small, hand-built outpost in the heart of a lot of rugged, untamed land.
    The ranch was normally closed to guests during the harsh winter season, and without much public explanation it had remained closed well beyond that time this year.
    This is where Tyler Merrick’s understanding of the recent goings-on became sketchy and incomplete. Whatever was currently happening, the details were being guarded and shared on a need-to-know basis, and evidently there was a lot he didn’t need to know. Still, he seemed to have a sense that something slightly unlawful might be afoot this week. While that clearly didn’t trouble his morals he seemed very curious as to the clandestine nature of these latest guests.
    It turned out that Tyler was new to these surroundings himself. His parents had finally split up after a long separation and sold their house in Albuquerque as the assets were divided. His mother, Cathy, had left her life as a successful graphic artist, moved back to her childhood home, reclaimed her maiden name for them both, and dragged her son along into this socially barren wilderness to start all over again.
    While the boy had met these relatives over the years he’d never imagined he’d one day be living with them. Though he didn’t say so, despite any warm welcomes it would be hard for even a well-adjusted teenager in such a spot to feel like anything but an outsider.
    The tour concluded at a small wooden pier on the lakefront, and they went to the end and sat down on its edge to rest. Having now walked a bit of the grounds, as far as Hollis could see it was all as picturesque as it had seemed through his window. But more striking than the view itself was how these surroundings made him feel. For the first time in months he found he could look at the horizon with no dread of what might soon be storming over it.
    He heard a distracted, private laugh next to him, and Hollis glanced that way and leaned to read what was on the screen. He was so alarmed by what he saw that he nearly knocked the boy into the lake as hesnatched the phone from his hands and canceled the entry before it could be sent.
    Tyler’s immediate verbal reaction went quiet in mid-profanity. Even if he didn’t know what he’d almost done, it seemed by the look on his face that he knew he was in trouble.
    “I’m sorry—”
    “I’m afraid sorry’s just not gonna cut it,” Hollis said. “Your folks told you we were lying low here, didn’t they? And you know what that means, don’t you?”
    “I said I was sorry. God, I didn’t mean anything—”
    “What you typed was Showing some hilbilly around the farm. Somebody please shoot me. ” Hollis