The Insider

By Beverly Blackman

What does it take to be a hero? A ranch in Texas is hit by a tornado. What seems like a normal ranch however, isn't. A space travel portal is in a large oak tree and is compromised in the storm. Through that tree, Earth was able to strike an alliance with another planet in another solar system. Now things could go very wrong, especially since Sam the tree is hurt in the storm and starts oozing special alien birthing fluids and portal chemicals. Who could help with this precarious situation? Could it be one of the humans who witnessed the formation of the intergalactic alliance just last Christmas? Or maybe the hero had to be someone who knew nothing about that tree and how it came to be. Maybe the best person to help was an outsider becoming an unsuspecting insider. Sometime we have to choose between family and the greater good. What would you do? Read to see what happens to a special family and friends on a ranch in the heart of Texas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781682137451

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THE

INSIDER

Beverly Blackman-Mounce

Copyright © 2015 Beverly Blackman-Mounce

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2015

ISBN 978-1-68213-744-4 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-68213-745-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

This Can’t Be Happening

The weatherman said, Tornado Warning!—not just a tornado watch, but a warning! Take cover! Northern Texas had tornadoes, but usually by the time the storms got to the southern part of Bosque County, they were not as dangerous.

Rex was standing outside of his ranch house watching the storms roll in over Sugar Loaf Mountain (which was really just a hill). Every time he looked at Sugar Loaf, he thought about the experience he had last year before Christmas. It was an adventure of a lifetime.

Rex had just lost Beth Ann before Christmas. Beth Ann was his wife of fifty-seven years. However, he didn’t have time to feel a lot of grief because of…well…let’s say the government has sworn him to secrecy. He tried not to think about that time in his life for fear he will say something to somebody when he shouldn’t. Rex shuddered to think of what might happen to him if he should ever spill the beans. The government representatives who came to him had said he might have to be taken away somewhere and given a secret identity—like people in a witness protection program. He would rather die than not be able to see his grandsons and children anymore.

Even Rex’s best friends who experienced some of the adventure were also warned. At first, Rex and his best friends, J. T. and Dalton, all sat under the large oak tree down the hill by the old homestead every evening. They would recall that great adventure. Getting together like that had to stop, however, because it wasn’t long that they were asked politely, but firmly, to stay away from that tree. The very large, very old oak was named Sam. It was given that name by a special visitor to the ranch. Anything having to do with Sam was classified information now. The people at the government lab in Waco were trying to figure out a way to transplant Sam to a more protected piece of land. Every so often, some military personnel would accompany the lab technicians to see Sam. They would harvest that green glittery substance that came out of its bark.

The wind started picking up and Rex watched as an orange-yellow haze filled the sky and then hail began to drop. Rex quickly sought shelter in the house and began to wonder about Sam the tree. He ran to his ancient TV that did still get local channels from Waco. He wasn’t about to get one of those weightless, antigravity televisions that required all kinds of programming. Good grief, those new televisions could get thousands of channels from all over the world. What is the point of that? Who could ever watch all of those channels? JT had one of those with the thousands of channels, and Rex teased him about it all the time.

It’s just a lot of cow manure, Rex would say. Cow manure on a hot day at that!

Rex had learned a lot last Christmas—more than he could tell anyone—about new ideas and inventions. But at his house he was king, and he wanted things that made him feel comfortable, and that didn’t include those new inventions—period!

Right at the end of that thought, lightening crashed so loudly that it sounded like it was at the homestead, the original house on his ranch. The homestead was just a football field length down