Read Online The Touch by Randall Wallace - Free Book Online Page A

but Virginia was first. So many of the great men of America’s past were Virginians—Jefferson, Washington, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson—they were all Virginians. But it’s the common people I really love, the ones that came over as indentured servants and pushed their way into those mountains when there were no roads, no towns, nothing to depend on except themselves and God, and they did it because they were determined to choose their own path and not be ruled by someone else.” Jones paused, saw that she was listening eagerly, and went on. “During the Revolutionary War, when Washington was losing every battle, he said, ‘If this war continues to go badly I will withdraw into the Blue Ridge Mountains and plant my flag among the Scots-Irish, who will not submit to tyranny as long as there is a man alive to pull a trigger.’”
    Lara saw the energy alive in Jones, the passion burning so brightly that it seemed for a moment to blot out the stars. She watched him in fascination; she had never met any man like him. But the moment she realized that, another voice inside her told her to be careful; men, especially the ones who had intrigued her, had always disappointed her in the end.
    Then she noticed that Jones had stopped as if he too had caught himself and was turning inward. Maybe he thought he was talking too much. Maybe he thought he was enjoying himself too much. Lara wasn’t sure. “Please don’t stop talking,” she pleaded. “This is the first interesting conversation I’ve had in five years.” As she said this she patted his shoulder and was surprised that it was hard as a bowling ball; most doctors, if they exercised at all, jogged or swam to keep their hearts healthy; Jones felt like a boxer.
    Jones smiled—he seemed to Lara to be enjoying himself—but he did stop talking for a moment, and led her across the quiet street, and they strolled in the opposite direction, past more antique shops and hardware stores and small businesses that sold drapery and wallpaper. Then Lara looked up again and halted; one of the streetlamps was out, and in that deeper darkness the stars showed in even greater numbers. Jones gazed up too and said, “Yeah. That’s another thing about Virginia: we have great stars, especially this time of year.”
    â€œI don’t look at them enough,” Lara said and immediately regretted it because she was being too personal, opening up too much. For two days she had been excited in anticipation of meeting him, excited for reasons that were anything but professional. Over and over she had reminded herself that this evening was all about Dr. Jones and getting him to do what she needed him to do.
    But she kept having the feeling that he was as isolated in his life as she was in hers, and as hungry to talk about the wonders that lay beyond the boundaries of work and career. As they strolled back toward the restaurant he said, “I heard something recently about the Hubble Telescope.” He paused, as if unsure about letting the conversation wander.
    â€œThe Hubble? What about it?” Lara asked. “I’m like every girl; I love the stars.”
    â€œThe director of the Hubble project, as one of the perks of being director, gets a little time each month to point the telescope anywhere he chooses. So one month he decided he wanted to explore a tiny piece of the cosmos that was totally black. I believe it was somewhere within the Big Dipper but I’m not sure; wherever it was, it had been the accepted wisdom of every astronomer in the world that there was nothing there. And his fellow scientists in the project all urged him not to waste his time, because they’d pointed many telescopes at that spot before, and they’d found nothing but black emptiness. But the director said he wanted to hold the Hubble on the spot and do a long time exposure and see what they