The Money Tree Read online

  Easy, he exulted. Just like picking plums. Just like being in a plum thicket. As easy as picking…

  Just five minutes, he told himself. That is all I need. Just five full minutes with no one pestering.

  He didn't get five minutes. He didn't get a minute, even.

  A whirlwind of silent anger came in a quiet rush out of the darkness and was upon him. It bit him in the leg and it slashed him in the ribs and it tore his shirt half off him. It was as silent as it was ferocious, and he glimpsed it in that first startled second only as a floating patch of motion.

  He stifled the hurt yap of surprise and fear that surged into his throat and fought back as silently as the thing attacking him. Twice he had his hands upon it and twice it slipped away and swarmed to the attack again.

  Then, finally, he got a grip upon it that it could not shake and he lifted it high to smash it to the ground. But as he lifted it, the cloud sailed off the moon and the garden came alight.

  He saw the thing, then, really saw it, for the first time, and clamped down his gurgle of amazement.

  He had expected a dog of some sort. But this was not a dog. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It was nothing he had ever heard of.

  One end of it was all mouth and the other end of it was blunt and square. It was terrier-sized, but no terrier. It had short, yet powerful legs and its arms were long and sinuous and armed with heavy claws and somehow he had managed to grab it in such a manner that the arms and murderous claws were pinned against its body.

  It was dead white and hairless and as naked as a jaybird. It had a sort of knapsack, or what appeared to be a knapsack, strapped upon its back.

  But that was not the worst of it.

  Its chest was large and hard and gleaming, like the thorax of a grasshopper and the chest was like a neon-lighted billboard, with characters and pictures and dots and hooks and dashes flashing off and on.

  Rapid-fire thoughts snaked their way through the fear and horror that tumbled in Doyle's brain and he tried to get them tracking, but they wouldn't track. They just kept tumbling round and wouldn't straighten out.

  Then all the dots and dashes, all the hooks and symbols cleared off the billboard chest and there were words, human words, in capitals, glowing upon it:

  LET GO OF ME!

  Even to the exclamation point.

  'Pal,' said Doyle, not a little shaken, but nevertheless determined, 'I will not let you go. I got plans for you.'

  He looked swiftly around for the sack and located it on the ground nearby and reached out a foot to pull it closer.

  YOU SORRY, spelled the creature.

  'Not,' said Doyle, 'so that you could notice.'

  Kneeling, he reached out swiftly and grabbed the sugar sack. Quickly he thrust the creature into it and jerked the drawstring tight.

  He stood up and hefted the sack. It was not too heavy for him to carry.

  Lights snapped on in the first floor of the house, in a room facing on the garden, and voices floated out of an open window. Somewhere in the darkness a screen door slapped shut with a hollow sound.

  Doyle whirled and ran toward the dangling rope. The sack hampered him a little, but urgency compensated for the hindrance and he climbed swiftly to the branch.

  He squatted there, hidden in the shadow of the leaves, and drew up the rope, coiling it awkwardly with his one free hand.

  The thing inside the sack began to thrash about and he jerked the sack up, thumped it on the branch. The thing grew quiet at once.

  Footsteps came deliberately down a shadow-hidden walk and Doyle saw the red glow of a cigar as someone puffed on it.

  A man's voice spoke out of the darkness and he recognized it as Metcalfe's voice.

  'Henry!'

  'Yes, sir,' said Henry from the wide verandah.

  'Where the devil did the rolla go?'

  'He's out there somewhere, sir. He never gets too far from the tree. It's his responsibility, you know.'

  The cigar-end glowed redder as Metcalfe puffed savagely.

  'I don't understand those rollas, Henry. Even after all these years, I don't understand them.'

  'No, sir,' said Henry. They're hard things to understand.'

  Doyle could smell the smoke, drifting upward to him. He could tell by the smell it was a good cigar.

  And naturally Metcalfe would smoke the very best. No man with a money tree growing in his garden need worry about the price of smokes.

  Cautiously, Doyle edged a foot or two along the branch, anxious to get slightly closer to the wall and safety.

  The cigar jerked around and pointed straight at him as Metcalfe tilted his head to stare into the tree.

  'What was that!' he yelled.

  'I didn't hear a thing, sir. It must have been the wind.'

  There's no wind, you fool. It's that cat again!'

  Doyle huddled closer against the branch, motionless, yet tensed to spring into action of it were necessary. Quietly he gave himself a mental bawling-out for moving.

  Metcalfe had moved off the walk and clear of the shadow and was standing in the moonlight, staring up into the tree.

  There's something up there,' he announced pontifically. The leaves are so thick I can't make out what it is. I bet you it's that goddam cat again. He's plagued the rolla for two nights hard running.'

  He took the cigar out of his face and blew a couple of beautiful smoke rings that drifted ghost-like in the moonlight.

  'Henry,' he shouted, 'bring me a gun. I think the twelve-gauge is right behind the door.'

  Doyle had heard enough. He made a dash for it. He almost fell, but he caught himself. He dropped the rope and almost dropped the sack, but managed to hang onto it. The rolla, inside the sack, began to thrash about.

  'So you want to horse around,' Doyle said savagely to the thing inside the sack.

  He tossed the bag toward the fence and it went over and he heard it thump into the alley. He hoped, momentarily, that he hadn't killed it, for it might be valuable. He might be able, he thought, to sell it to a circus. Circuses were always looking for crazy things like that.

  He reached the tree trunk and slid down it with no great ceremony and very little forethought and as a result collected a fine group of abrasions on his arms and legs from the roughness of the bark.

  He saw the sack lying in the alley and from beyond the fence he heard the ferocious bellowing and blood-curdling cursing of J. Howard Metcalfe.

  Someone ought to warn him, Doyle told himself. Man of his age, he shouldn't ought to allow himself to fly into such a rage. Someday he'd fall flat upon his face and that would be the end of him.

  Doyle scooped up the sack and ran as hard as he could to where he'd parked the car at the alley's end. Reaching it, he tossed the sack into the seat and crawled in himself. He took off with a rush and wound a devious route to throw off any possible pursuit — although that, he admitted to himself, was just a bit fantastic, for he'd made his getaway before Metcalfe could possibly have put someone on his tail.

  Half an hour later he pulled up beside a small park and began to take stock of the situation.

  There was both good and bad.

  He had failed to harvest as much of the tree-grown money as he had intended and he had tipped his mitt to Metcalfe, so there'd not be another chance.

  But he knew now for a certainty that there were such things as money trees and he had a rolla, or he supposed it was a rolla, for whatever it was worth.

  And the rolla — so quiet now inside the sack — in its more active moments of guarding the money tree, had done him not a bit of good.

  His hands were dark in the moonlight with the wash of blood and there were stripes of fire across his ribs, beneath the torn shirt, where the rolla's claws had raked him, and one leg was sodden-wet. He put down a hand to feel the warm moistness of his trouser leg.

  He felt a thrill of fear course along his nerves. A man could get infected from a chewing-up like that, especially by an unknown animal.
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br />   And if he went to a doctor, the doc would want to know what had happened to him, and he would say a dog, of course. But what if the doc should know right off that it was no dog bite. More than likely the doc would have to make a report on a gunshot wound.

  There was, he decided, too much at stake for him to take the chance — he must not let it be known he'd found out about the money tree.

  For as long as he was the only one who knew, he might stand to make a good thing of it. Especially since he had the rolla, which in some mysterious manner was connected with the tree — and which, even by itself, without reference to the tree, might be somehow turned into a wad of cash.

  He eased the car from the curb and out into the street.

  Fifteen minutes later he parked in a noisesome alley back of a block-long row of old apartment houses.

  He descended from the car and hauled out the sack.

  The rolla was still quiet.

  'Funny thing,' Doyle said.

  He laid his hand against the sack and the sack was warm and the rolla stirred a bit.

  'Still alive,' Doyle told himself with some relief.

  He wended his way through a clutter of battered garbage cans, stacks of rotting wood, piles of empty cans; cats slunk into the dark as he approached.

  'Crummy place for a girl to live,' said Doyle, speaking to himself. 'No place for a girl like Mabel.'

  He found the rickety back-stairs and climbed them, went along the hall until he came to Mabel's door. She opened it at his knock, immediately, as if she had been waiting. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in and slammed the door and leaned her back against it.

  'I was worried, Chuck!'

  'Nothing to worry about,' said Doyle. 'Little trouble, that's all.'

  'Your hands!' she screamed. 'Your shirt!'

  Doyle jostled the bag gaily. 'Nothing to it, Mabel. Got what done it right inside this sack.'

  He looked around the place. 'You got all the windows shut?' he asked.

  She nodded, still a bit wide-eyed.

  'Hand me that table lamp,' he said. 'It'll be handy for a club.'

  She jerked the plug out of the wall and pulled off the shade, then handed the lamp to him.

  He hefted the lamp, then picked up the sack, loosened the draw string.

  'I bumped it couple of times,' he said, 'and heaved it in the alley and it may be shook up considerable, but you can't take no chances.'

  He upended the sack and dumped the rolla out. With it came a shower of twenty-dollar bills — the three or four handfuls he had managed to pick before the rolla jumped him.

  The rolla picked itself off the floor with a show of dignity and stood erect — except that it didn't look as if it were standing erect. Its hind legs were so short and its front legs were so long that it looked as if it were sitting like a dog. The fact that its face, or rather its mouth, since it had no face, was on top of its head, added to the illusion of sitting.

  Its stance was pretty much like that of a sitting coyote baying at the moon — or, better yet, an oversized and more than ordinarily grotesque bullfrog baying at the moon.

  Mabel let out a full-fledged scream and bolted for the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  'For cripes sake,' moaned Doyle, 'the fat's in the fire for sure. They'll think I'm murdering her.'

  Someone thumped on the floor upstairs. A man's voice bellowed: 'Cut it out down there!'

  The rolla's gleaming chest lit up:

  HUNGRY. WHEN WE EAT?

  Doyle gulped. He felt cold sweat starting out on him.

  WASSA MATTER? spelled the rolla. GO AHEAD. TALK. I CAN HEAR.

  Someone started hammering on the door.

  Doyle looked widly around and saw the money on the floor. He started scooping it up and stuffing it in his pocket.

  Whoever was at the door kept on hammering.

  Doyle finished with the money and opened the door.

  A man stood there in his undershirt and pants and he was big and tough. He towered over Doyle by at least a foot. A woman, standing behind him, peered around at Doyle.

  'What's going on around here?' the man demended. 'We heard a lady scream.'

  'Saw a mouse,' Doyle told him.

  The man kept on looking at him.

  'Big one,' Doyle elaborated. 'Might have been a rat.'

  'And you, mister. What's the matter with you? How'd your shirt get tore?'

  T was in a crap game,' said Doyle and went to shut the door.

  But the man stiff-armed it and strode into the room.

  'If you don't mind, we'll look the situation over.'

  With a sinking feeling in his belly, Doyle remembered the rolla.

  He spun around.

  The rolla was not there.

  The bedroom door opened and Mabel came out. She was calm as ice.

  'You live here, lady?' asked the man.

  'Yes, she does,' the woman said. 'I see her in the hall.'

  This guy bothering you?'

  'Not at all,' said Mabel. 'We are real good friends.'

  The man swung around on Doyle.

  'You got blood all over you,' he said.

  'I can't seem to help it,' Doyle told him. 'I just bleed all the blessed time.'

  The woman was tugging at the man's arm.

  Mabel said, 'I tell you, there is nothing wrong.'

  'Let's go, honey,' urged the woman, still tugging at the arm. 'They don't want us here.'

  The man went reluctantly.

  Doyle slammed the door and bolted it. He leaned against it weakly.

  'That rips it,' he said. 'We got to get out of here. He'll keep mulling it over and he'll up and call the cops and they'll haul us in…'

  'We ain't done nothing, Chuck.'

  'No, maybe not. But I don't like no cops. I don't want to answer questions. Not right now.'

  She moved closer to him.

  'He was right,' she said. 'You are all bloody. Your hands and shirt…'

  'One leg, too. The rolla gave me a working over.'

  The rolla stood up from behind a corner chair.

  NO WISH EMBARRASS, he spelled out. ALWAYS HIDE FROM STRANGERS.

  That's the way he talks,' said Doyle, admiringly.

  'What is it?' asked Mabel, backing away a pace or two.

  I ROLLA.

  'I met him under the money tree,' said Doyle. 'We had a little fracas. He has something to do with the tree, guarding it or something.'

  'And did you get some money?'

  'Not much. You see, this rolla…'

  HUNGRY, said the rolla.

  'You come along,' Mabel said to Doyle. 'I got to patch you up.'

  'But don't you want to hear…'

  'Not especially. You got into trouble again. It seems to me you want to get in trouble.'

  She headed for the bathroom and he followed.

  'Sit down on the edge of the tub,' she ordered.

  The rolla came and sprawled in the doorway, leaning against the jamb.

  AINT YOU GOT NO FOOD? it asked.

  'Oh, for heaven's sake,' Mabel exclaimed in exasperation, 'what is it you want?'

  FRUIT, VEGETABLES.

  'Out in the kitchen. There's fruit on the table. I suppose I have to show you.'

  FIND MYSELF, the rolla said and left.

  T can't understand that squirt,' said Mabel. 'First he chewed you up. Now he's palsy-walsy.'

  T give him lumps,' said Doyle. Taught him some respect.'

  'Besides,' observed Mabel, 'he's dying of starvation. Now you sit down on that tub and let me fix you up.'

  He sat down gingerly while she rummaged in the medicine cabinet. She got a bottle of red stuff, a bottle of alcohol, swabs and cotton. She knelt and rolled up Doyle's trou-ser leg.

  This looks bad,' she said.

  'Where he got me with his teeth,' said Doyle.

  'You should see a doctor, Chuck. This might get infected. His teeth might not be clean or something.'

  'Doc would ask too many
questions. We got trouble enough…'

  'Chuck, what is that thing out there?'

  'It's a rolla:

  'Why is it called a rollaT

  I don't know. Just call it that, I guess.'

  'I read about someone called a rolla once. Rolla boys, I think it was. Always doing good.'

  'Didn't do me a bit of good.'

  'What did you bring it here for, then?'

  'Might be worth a million. Might sell it to a circus or a zoo. Might work up a night club act with it. The way it talks and all.'

  She worked expertly and quickly on the tooth-marked calf and ankle, cleaning out the cuts and swabbing them with some of the red stuff that was in the bottle.

  There's another reason I brought the rolla here,' Doyle confessed. 'I got Metcalfe where I want him. I know something he wouldn't want no one else to know and I got the rolla and the rolla has something to do with them money trees…'

  'You're talking blackmail now?'

  'Nah, nothing like that. You know I wouldn't never blackmail no one. Just a little private arrangement between me and Metcalfe. Maybe just out of gratitude for me keeping my mouth shut, he might give me one of his money trees.'

  'But you said there was only one money tree.'

  'That's all I saw, was one. But the place was dark and there might be more of them. You wouldn't expect a man like Metcalfe to be satisfied with just one money tree, would you. If he had one, he could grow some others. I bet you he has twenty-dollar trees and fifty-dollar trees and hundred-dollar trees.'

  He sighed. 'I sure would like to get just five minutes with a hundred-dollar tree. I'd be set for life. I'd do me some two-handed picking the like you never see.'

  'Shuck up your shirt,' said Mabel. 'I got to get at them scratches on your ribs.'

  Doyle shucked up his shirt.

  'You know,' he said, 'I bet you Metcalfe ain't the only one that has them money trees. I bet all the rich folks has them. I bet they're all banded together in a secret society, pledged to never talk about them. I wouldn't wonder if that's where all the money comes from. Maybe the government don't print no money, like they say they do…'

  'Shut up,' commanded Mabel, 'and hold still.'

  She worked swiftly on his ribs.