Read The Man in the Tree Online
Authors: Damon Knight
The Man in the Tree (4 page)
Inside, the living room was in some disorder; sofa cushions and scattered
newspapers were on the floor. Gene went through into the pantry, found a
gunny sack, and began to fill it. He took cans of soup, condensed milk,
Spam, beef stew, green beans, corn, and peaches; a tin plate and cup,
a candle, and a roll of toilet paper; a flashlight and some batteries,
a kerosene !amp, a bar of soap. In one of the closets he found a pair
of heavy boots, a sheepskin coat, and a hat with earflaps; they were
all too big for him, but he took them anyhow.
The gunny sack was full, and he began on another one. In the tool shed
he found a gallon jug, a bucket, a screwdriver and some other tools, a
yardstick, a rusty pair of scissors, some brushes and cans of paint. He
finished filling up his sack with the books he found over a desk in the
living room: a dictionary, a cookbook, the "Boy Scout Handbook for Boys,"
and four novels in worn cloth bindings. He copied and replaced all the
books, because he was afraid their absence would be too conspicuous. He
gathered up the newspapers from the floor and put them in too, and an
old copy of "The American Boy." A little kerosene heater and a can of
kerosene went into a third sack, along with a pillow from one of the beds.
He now had far more than he could carry in one trip, but it was getting
late, and he was afraid of being caught in the house if someone should
come back. He carried the gunny sacks, and a folding canvas chair that
caught his eye at the last moment, a few hundred yards into the woods
and left two of the sacks there while he carried the third sack home. By
the time he had come back twice, for the other two sacks and the chair,
he was too tired to sort out his belongings. He set up the kerosene stove,
filled and lit it, and for the first time had a hot meal in his own house:
vegetable soup, Spam, pork and beans, with condensed milk to drink and
a chocolate bar for dessert.
Afterward he took the folded newspapers out of the sack and put them in
order. One was the "Oregonian," the other the "Dog River Gazette." On
the first page of the "Gazette" was an article headlined "Missing Boy
Sought in Death of Juvenile."
Police are seeking a 9-year-old Dog River boy for questioning in
connection with the death of another boy Sunday. The dead youth is
Paul Cooley, 12, son of Chief of Police Tom Cooley.
According to witnesses, young Cooley and Gene Anderson, 9, were
playing in the upper story of an unfinished house under construction
by the Anderson boy's father, Donald R. Anderson. The two quarreled,
and young Anderson pushed the Cooley boy out the window.
The witnesses, two youngsters who were also playing in the house,
ran for help. An ambulance from the Memorial Hospital was dispatched
at 3:50 P.M., but young Cooley was found dead of a broken neck and
internal injuries.
Gene Anderson has not been seen since Sunday afternoon. He is tall
for his age and gives the appearance of a boy of 12 or 13. When
last seen he was wearing a blue sweater and dark pants.
A reward has been offered for any information as to his whereabouts.
Chief Cooley ran into Frank Buston, the carrier who delivered the mail to
town, at the Idle Hour Billiard Parlor, where he could usually be found
after work. They took their beers to a table in the corner behind the
pool tables. Two cowboys from eastern Oregon were playing eight-ball,
with loud whoops of triumph or defeat. "Frank," Cooley said, "you know
I'm hunting for the boy that killed my kid."
Buston nodded sympathetically. He was a man in his fifties, with gray
strands of hair combed sideways over his bald head. "Terrible thing,
Tom," he said. "I heard Ellen was all cut up."
"That's right," Cooley said. "Now, Frank, there's a little something
you could do for me if you was a mind to."
"What's that, Tom?"
"The Andersons might be getting a letter in a kid's handwriting, or
maybe a postcard."
"From their kid," Buston said, nodding.
"Right. Now, all's I'd want you to do is just let me see that letter
before you deliver it."
Buston was shaking his head. "Can't do that, Tom, no. That's against
the law. Federal law, Tom, can't do that."
"All right, how's this?" Cooley said. "If they get a letter like that,
you just write down the return address. Or, say there isn't any return
address, then just tell me the postmark. I'll make it worth your while,
Frank, and I'd sure appreciate it."
Buston hunched his shoulders. "Well -- guess there's no harm in that. All
right, sure."
Cooley had sent out a flyer about Gene Anderson to police departments in
seven states. California was his choice; he thought the boy would have
hitchhiked down there where it was warm and nobody knew him. Two or three
times a month he got a report of some kid picked up for vagrancy, and
he would get on the phone and talk to somebody in Modesto or Stockton,
but the description never came near matching. Cooley had some friends
on the police force in Portland and, Seattle, and one in Austin, Texas,
and they were keeping an eye out for him. It was not enough.
Cooley sometimes closed his eyes and tried to imagine where the kid
was. He was in a pickup truck rolling through the desert; or he was in a
flophouse in San Francisco being hustled by a wino. None of these images
satisfied him. A nine-year-old kid traveling alone was too conspicuous,
even if he was over five feet tall. It didn't make sense that
nobody
had
seen him;. he must have found a hiding place, or someone to protect him.
Maybe even right around here.
The novels Gene had brought from the Boy Scout camp were "David
Copperfield," "Treasure Island," "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The
Benson Murder Case," by S.S. Van Dine. He found the murder mystery
incomprehensible, but he read it anyhow. The others he read over and
over. His favorite parts were David's school days, so much worse than
anything he had suffered; Jim Hawkins climbing the mast to get away
from the pirate; and Edmond Dantés being thrown into the sea from the
Chateau d'If. All these scenes were so vivid to him that he felt he was
living them.
There were many words he did not know in these books, but he was
satisfied to guess at their meaning. When he did look up a word, as
often as not he could not find it. The "Handbook for Boys," for instance,
advised him to talk frankly to his doctor about masturbation. "If it has
happened, don't let it scare you into being blue and ill. If it's a habit,
break it for your own peace of mind." But "masturbation" was not in the
dictionary. And in "The Count of Monte Cristo," he was puzzled' by the
scene when mysterious veiled women seemed to come into the room where
the two men were eating hasheesh. He looked up "hasheesh," and found that
it was something that made you drunk; but that did not explain the women.
He read the "Handbook for Boys" with close attention, especially the parts about knots and woodcraft. With his yardstick as a guide, he made a six-foot rule marked off in quarters
of an inch, and by using this he was able to fill in the blanks in
the section on "Personal Measurements":
My height is 5 feet 2 inches
Height of my eyes above ground 4 feet 8-1/2 inches
My reach up to tip of
outstretched fingers 6 feet 6-3/4 inches
My reach across, from
outstretched fingertips 5 feet 2-1/4 inches
Span of my hand, from
thumb to little finger 0 feet 8-1/4 inches
Length of my foot 0 feet 11 inches
Length of my step 1 feet 6 inches
One afternoon, lying on his bed after lunch with the door-flap open,
he fell into a doze and dreamed, or half-dreamed, that he was floating
invisible over the treetops, down the hill to his own street, moving
easily and weightlessly to the kitchen window and then through it like
a sound too faint to hear. His mother was sitting at the table with one
hand on an open cookbook and the other holding a red-and-white checked
napkin against her chin. He whispered, "Mom, I'm all right." She heard
him without knowing it. "It's so hard to hear," she said.
"I can't come back now, but don't worry, I'm okay." She wiped her eyes
with the napkin, gave a deep sigh, and put the napkin down. She began
to read the cookbook.
He went out as he had come in, and found himself drawn unwillingly up
the slope to the unfinished house Where Paul had died. He expected to
see Paul's body still on the ground, but even the bloody two-by-four was
gone. Gene's father and his father's helper were sitting on the sill of
the doorway with their hands hanging over their thighs. The fine sawdust
that clung to the hairs on their hands was pale orange in the sunlight.
"Dad, I'm sorry," Gene said.
"Takes the heart out of a man," said his father. His mouth twitched. He
rubbed his face for a moment, then let his hand fall again.
"Sure is tough on you and the missus," said the other man. "Maybe he's
safe somewheres."
"I'm safe," Gene said. "It's all right, Dad, I'm okay."
His father took a deep breath and stood up. "Well -- this isn't getting
the job done." He and the other man turned and walked into the house.
Early one morning in October Gene heard gunshots in the woods, and when
they continued through the day he realized that the hunting season had
begun. He was afraid of being surprised by a hunter, and he stayed in
his house in the daytime except for visits to the latrine.
For the next two weeks, in spite of the rain, he continued to hear
occasional gunshots; then they stopped, and since it was now the first
week of November, he concluded that the season was over. When he ventured
out, he found the woods transformed, all their color gone. Tree trunks
and branches were black with moisture, every leaf dripping; the ground
squelched underfoot. Down the middle of the valley, the little stream
had expanded into a sluggish, muddy river, widening in places into a
pool black with fallen leaves and debris.
He kept up his calendar, marking off each day in pencil before he went to
bed. On weekends he stayed in his house or close to the tree. One Thursday
in November, he was returning from a walk when he heard voices down the
valley. He climbed the slope hastily and worked his way diagonally up
to his house. When he looked at the calendar, he realized that it must
be Thanksgiving; he had forgotten about that.
He celebrated with a special meal of all his favorite things: Spam,
beef stew, kernel corn, and canned peaches for dessert.
On Christmas Day he cut a little spruce sapling, made a wooden base for
it, and decorated it with painted fir cones and acorns. For tinsel he
used the foil wrappings from chewing gum, cut into narrow strips.
While the wind howled outside and the snow pattered against his walls,
he sang "Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Old Black Joe,"
"Git Along, Little Dogie," and a tune whose name he did not know, the,
one his father had taught him that summer when they went camping in
the desert:
I love the flowers, I love the daffodils.
I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills.
When all the lights are low, I love the picture show,
Boomelay, boomelay, boomelay, boom..
Chapter Four
The disappearance of Gene Anderson was a seven days' wonder in Dog
City. In six months even the children had forgotten him. Grownups
sometimes said to each other, "Wonder what ever happened to that
kid?" The reply was usually, "Guess he'll turn up." After a year it
became: "Must be dead by now."
The only ones who did not forget were the Andersons and the Cooleys. Ellen
Cooley, whose health never had been strong, grew increasingly despondent
after the death of her son. She was not able to care for the house;
her sister, Mrs. Williams, had a husband and children of her own to
worry about. Cooley hired a woman, Agnes Yount, the widow of a railway
telegrapher, to come in by the day, take care of the children and prepare
meals. A year after the accident, Ellen seemed to he better, but in
January she had a minor automobile accident near the Safeway store: her
little Ford struck a car driven by Orville Newcome as Newcome was pulling
out of the parking lot, damaging his right-front door and crumpling the
fender of the Ford. Ellen Cooley got out of the car and walked away,
ignoring Newcome's shouts. She was found hours later walking hatless
down by the railroad tracks; she did not seem to know where she was or
what had happened. Dr. Phillips treated her for a few days, and when
there was no improvement, he sent her to the State Hospital in Salem
for observation. When it became obvious that she was not coming home,
her sister took the two children in.
Cooley let Mrs. Yount go and stayed on in the house by himself, cooking
an occasional meal and washing the dishes every four or five days.
On a Monday in March, he walked into the "Dog River Gazette" office after
lunchtime. The two printers looked up incuriously; one of them was sitting
at the linotytype keyboard, the other was feeding the job press in the
back. There was a smell of ink and hot metal. Cooley knocked on the door
of the glass-enclosed office where Desmond Pike sat with his bookkeeper,
Miss Knippel. Pike looked up, beckoned him in.
"Yes, Chief? What can we do for you?"
Cooley sat down in the oak chair and put his hat on his knee. "Like to
see your subscription list, Mr. Pike."
"The list? What for, may I ask?" Pike was a tall white-haired man with
an abrupt manner; he did not like Cooley.
"Police business. I have an idea somebody we're looking for might of
took out a subscription under a phony name."
"You don't intend to make any other use of this information?"
"I don't get you."
Pike looked sour. "Show him the card file, would you please, Miss
Knippel."
"It isn't up to date. I'm trying to catch up on the ledgers." She pulled
out a long file drawer and brought it to the desk. "We file these by
expiration, and under each date they're alphabetical."
Cooley leaned forward, fingered the cards. "How do you tell which ones
are new?"
"Hard to say. Most folks subscribe for a year, but some for six months,
some for two years. Expiration date is what we go by. That's when the
subscription runs out." She pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear
with a pencil.
newspapers were on the floor. Gene went through into the pantry, found a
gunny sack, and began to fill it. He took cans of soup, condensed milk,
Spam, beef stew, green beans, corn, and peaches; a tin plate and cup,
a candle, and a roll of toilet paper; a flashlight and some batteries,
a kerosene !amp, a bar of soap. In one of the closets he found a pair
of heavy boots, a sheepskin coat, and a hat with earflaps; they were
all too big for him, but he took them anyhow.
The gunny sack was full, and he began on another one. In the tool shed
he found a gallon jug, a bucket, a screwdriver and some other tools, a
yardstick, a rusty pair of scissors, some brushes and cans of paint. He
finished filling up his sack with the books he found over a desk in the
living room: a dictionary, a cookbook, the "Boy Scout Handbook for Boys,"
and four novels in worn cloth bindings. He copied and replaced all the
books, because he was afraid their absence would be too conspicuous. He
gathered up the newspapers from the floor and put them in too, and an
old copy of "The American Boy." A little kerosene heater and a can of
kerosene went into a third sack, along with a pillow from one of the beds.
He now had far more than he could carry in one trip, but it was getting
late, and he was afraid of being caught in the house if someone should
come back. He carried the gunny sacks, and a folding canvas chair that
caught his eye at the last moment, a few hundred yards into the woods
and left two of the sacks there while he carried the third sack home. By
the time he had come back twice, for the other two sacks and the chair,
he was too tired to sort out his belongings. He set up the kerosene stove,
filled and lit it, and for the first time had a hot meal in his own house:
vegetable soup, Spam, pork and beans, with condensed milk to drink and
a chocolate bar for dessert.
Afterward he took the folded newspapers out of the sack and put them in
order. One was the "Oregonian," the other the "Dog River Gazette." On
the first page of the "Gazette" was an article headlined "Missing Boy
Sought in Death of Juvenile."
Police are seeking a 9-year-old Dog River boy for questioning in
connection with the death of another boy Sunday. The dead youth is
Paul Cooley, 12, son of Chief of Police Tom Cooley.
According to witnesses, young Cooley and Gene Anderson, 9, were
playing in the upper story of an unfinished house under construction
by the Anderson boy's father, Donald R. Anderson. The two quarreled,
and young Anderson pushed the Cooley boy out the window.
The witnesses, two youngsters who were also playing in the house,
ran for help. An ambulance from the Memorial Hospital was dispatched
at 3:50 P.M., but young Cooley was found dead of a broken neck and
internal injuries.
Gene Anderson has not been seen since Sunday afternoon. He is tall
for his age and gives the appearance of a boy of 12 or 13. When
last seen he was wearing a blue sweater and dark pants.
A reward has been offered for any information as to his whereabouts.
Chief Cooley ran into Frank Buston, the carrier who delivered the mail to
town, at the Idle Hour Billiard Parlor, where he could usually be found
after work. They took their beers to a table in the corner behind the
pool tables. Two cowboys from eastern Oregon were playing eight-ball,
with loud whoops of triumph or defeat. "Frank," Cooley said, "you know
I'm hunting for the boy that killed my kid."
Buston nodded sympathetically. He was a man in his fifties, with gray
strands of hair combed sideways over his bald head. "Terrible thing,
Tom," he said. "I heard Ellen was all cut up."
"That's right," Cooley said. "Now, Frank, there's a little something
you could do for me if you was a mind to."
"What's that, Tom?"
"The Andersons might be getting a letter in a kid's handwriting, or
maybe a postcard."
"From their kid," Buston said, nodding.
"Right. Now, all's I'd want you to do is just let me see that letter
before you deliver it."
Buston was shaking his head. "Can't do that, Tom, no. That's against
the law. Federal law, Tom, can't do that."
"All right, how's this?" Cooley said. "If they get a letter like that,
you just write down the return address. Or, say there isn't any return
address, then just tell me the postmark. I'll make it worth your while,
Frank, and I'd sure appreciate it."
Buston hunched his shoulders. "Well -- guess there's no harm in that. All
right, sure."
Cooley had sent out a flyer about Gene Anderson to police departments in
seven states. California was his choice; he thought the boy would have
hitchhiked down there where it was warm and nobody knew him. Two or three
times a month he got a report of some kid picked up for vagrancy, and
he would get on the phone and talk to somebody in Modesto or Stockton,
but the description never came near matching. Cooley had some friends
on the police force in Portland and, Seattle, and one in Austin, Texas,
and they were keeping an eye out for him. It was not enough.
Cooley sometimes closed his eyes and tried to imagine where the kid
was. He was in a pickup truck rolling through the desert; or he was in a
flophouse in San Francisco being hustled by a wino. None of these images
satisfied him. A nine-year-old kid traveling alone was too conspicuous,
even if he was over five feet tall. It didn't make sense that
nobody
had
seen him;. he must have found a hiding place, or someone to protect him.
Maybe even right around here.
The novels Gene had brought from the Boy Scout camp were "David
Copperfield," "Treasure Island," "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The
Benson Murder Case," by S.S. Van Dine. He found the murder mystery
incomprehensible, but he read it anyhow. The others he read over and
over. His favorite parts were David's school days, so much worse than
anything he had suffered; Jim Hawkins climbing the mast to get away
from the pirate; and Edmond Dantés being thrown into the sea from the
Chateau d'If. All these scenes were so vivid to him that he felt he was
living them.
There were many words he did not know in these books, but he was
satisfied to guess at their meaning. When he did look up a word, as
often as not he could not find it. The "Handbook for Boys," for instance,
advised him to talk frankly to his doctor about masturbation. "If it has
happened, don't let it scare you into being blue and ill. If it's a habit,
break it for your own peace of mind." But "masturbation" was not in the
dictionary. And in "The Count of Monte Cristo," he was puzzled' by the
scene when mysterious veiled women seemed to come into the room where
the two men were eating hasheesh. He looked up "hasheesh," and found that
it was something that made you drunk; but that did not explain the women.
He read the "Handbook for Boys" with close attention, especially the parts about knots and woodcraft. With his yardstick as a guide, he made a six-foot rule marked off in quarters
of an inch, and by using this he was able to fill in the blanks in
the section on "Personal Measurements":
My height is 5 feet 2 inches
Height of my eyes above ground 4 feet 8-1/2 inches
My reach up to tip of
outstretched fingers 6 feet 6-3/4 inches
My reach across, from
outstretched fingertips 5 feet 2-1/4 inches
Span of my hand, from
thumb to little finger 0 feet 8-1/4 inches
Length of my foot 0 feet 11 inches
Length of my step 1 feet 6 inches
One afternoon, lying on his bed after lunch with the door-flap open,
he fell into a doze and dreamed, or half-dreamed, that he was floating
invisible over the treetops, down the hill to his own street, moving
easily and weightlessly to the kitchen window and then through it like
a sound too faint to hear. His mother was sitting at the table with one
hand on an open cookbook and the other holding a red-and-white checked
napkin against her chin. He whispered, "Mom, I'm all right." She heard
him without knowing it. "It's so hard to hear," she said.
"I can't come back now, but don't worry, I'm okay." She wiped her eyes
with the napkin, gave a deep sigh, and put the napkin down. She began
to read the cookbook.
He went out as he had come in, and found himself drawn unwillingly up
the slope to the unfinished house Where Paul had died. He expected to
see Paul's body still on the ground, but even the bloody two-by-four was
gone. Gene's father and his father's helper were sitting on the sill of
the doorway with their hands hanging over their thighs. The fine sawdust
that clung to the hairs on their hands was pale orange in the sunlight.
"Dad, I'm sorry," Gene said.
"Takes the heart out of a man," said his father. His mouth twitched. He
rubbed his face for a moment, then let his hand fall again.
"Sure is tough on you and the missus," said the other man. "Maybe he's
safe somewheres."
"I'm safe," Gene said. "It's all right, Dad, I'm okay."
His father took a deep breath and stood up. "Well -- this isn't getting
the job done." He and the other man turned and walked into the house.
Early one morning in October Gene heard gunshots in the woods, and when
they continued through the day he realized that the hunting season had
begun. He was afraid of being surprised by a hunter, and he stayed in
his house in the daytime except for visits to the latrine.
For the next two weeks, in spite of the rain, he continued to hear
occasional gunshots; then they stopped, and since it was now the first
week of November, he concluded that the season was over. When he ventured
out, he found the woods transformed, all their color gone. Tree trunks
and branches were black with moisture, every leaf dripping; the ground
squelched underfoot. Down the middle of the valley, the little stream
had expanded into a sluggish, muddy river, widening in places into a
pool black with fallen leaves and debris.
He kept up his calendar, marking off each day in pencil before he went to
bed. On weekends he stayed in his house or close to the tree. One Thursday
in November, he was returning from a walk when he heard voices down the
valley. He climbed the slope hastily and worked his way diagonally up
to his house. When he looked at the calendar, he realized that it must
be Thanksgiving; he had forgotten about that.
He celebrated with a special meal of all his favorite things: Spam,
beef stew, kernel corn, and canned peaches for dessert.
On Christmas Day he cut a little spruce sapling, made a wooden base for
it, and decorated it with painted fir cones and acorns. For tinsel he
used the foil wrappings from chewing gum, cut into narrow strips.
While the wind howled outside and the snow pattered against his walls,
he sang "Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Old Black Joe,"
"Git Along, Little Dogie," and a tune whose name he did not know, the,
one his father had taught him that summer when they went camping in
the desert:
I love the flowers, I love the daffodils.
I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills.
When all the lights are low, I love the picture show,
Boomelay, boomelay, boomelay, boom..
Chapter Four
The disappearance of Gene Anderson was a seven days' wonder in Dog
City. In six months even the children had forgotten him. Grownups
sometimes said to each other, "Wonder what ever happened to that
kid?" The reply was usually, "Guess he'll turn up." After a year it
became: "Must be dead by now."
The only ones who did not forget were the Andersons and the Cooleys. Ellen
Cooley, whose health never had been strong, grew increasingly despondent
after the death of her son. She was not able to care for the house;
her sister, Mrs. Williams, had a husband and children of her own to
worry about. Cooley hired a woman, Agnes Yount, the widow of a railway
telegrapher, to come in by the day, take care of the children and prepare
meals. A year after the accident, Ellen seemed to he better, but in
January she had a minor automobile accident near the Safeway store: her
little Ford struck a car driven by Orville Newcome as Newcome was pulling
out of the parking lot, damaging his right-front door and crumpling the
fender of the Ford. Ellen Cooley got out of the car and walked away,
ignoring Newcome's shouts. She was found hours later walking hatless
down by the railroad tracks; she did not seem to know where she was or
what had happened. Dr. Phillips treated her for a few days, and when
there was no improvement, he sent her to the State Hospital in Salem
for observation. When it became obvious that she was not coming home,
her sister took the two children in.
Cooley let Mrs. Yount go and stayed on in the house by himself, cooking
an occasional meal and washing the dishes every four or five days.
On a Monday in March, he walked into the "Dog River Gazette" office after
lunchtime. The two printers looked up incuriously; one of them was sitting
at the linotytype keyboard, the other was feeding the job press in the
back. There was a smell of ink and hot metal. Cooley knocked on the door
of the glass-enclosed office where Desmond Pike sat with his bookkeeper,
Miss Knippel. Pike looked up, beckoned him in.
"Yes, Chief? What can we do for you?"
Cooley sat down in the oak chair and put his hat on his knee. "Like to
see your subscription list, Mr. Pike."
"The list? What for, may I ask?" Pike was a tall white-haired man with
an abrupt manner; he did not like Cooley.
"Police business. I have an idea somebody we're looking for might of
took out a subscription under a phony name."
"You don't intend to make any other use of this information?"
"I don't get you."
Pike looked sour. "Show him the card file, would you please, Miss
Knippel."
"It isn't up to date. I'm trying to catch up on the ledgers." She pulled
out a long file drawer and brought it to the desk. "We file these by
expiration, and under each date they're alphabetical."
Cooley leaned forward, fingered the cards. "How do you tell which ones
are new?"
"Hard to say. Most folks subscribe for a year, but some for six months,
some for two years. Expiration date is what we go by. That's when the
subscription runs out." She pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear
with a pencil.
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