The Money Tree Read online

  And suddenly Doyle linked up that familiarity — linked it to the woven mass of vegetation that had damned the creek bed. And as he linked it up, he knew without a question the nature of this Christmas tree riding in the sky.

  The rollas worked with plants as Man would work with metals. They could grow a money tree and a protective strip of nettles that obeyed, they could make an oak tree fall and if they could do all that, the growing of a spaceship would not be too hard a job.

  The ship was moving slowly, slanting up across the ridge, and the doll still struggled at the end of the trailing vine and its screams came down to earth as a far-off wailing sound.

  Someone was shouting in the woods below:

  'It's the boss! Bill, do something! It's the boss!'

  It was quite apparent there was nothing Bill could do.

  Doyle sprang from his bush and ran. Now was the time to make his dash, when all the other men were yelling and staring up into the sky, where Metcalfe dangled, screaming, from the trailing vine — perhaps an anchor vine, mayhaps just a part of the ro//«-grown spaceship that had become unravelled. Although, remembering the craftsmanship of that woven barrier blocking the creek-bed, it seemed unlikely to Doyle that anything would come unravelled from a rolla ship.

  He could imagine what had happened — Metcalfe glimpsing the last of the rollas clambering up the ship and rushing at them, roaring, firing those two shots, then the ship springing swiftly upward and the trailing vine twisted round the ankle.

  Doyle reached the woods and went plunging into it. The ground dropped sharply and he went plunging down the slope, stumbling, falling, catching himself and going on again. Until he ran full tilt into a tree that bounced him back and put exploding stars inside his skull.

  He sat upon the ground where the impact had bounced him and felt of his forehead, convinced it was cracked open, while tears of pain streamed down his cheeks.

  His forehead was not cracked and there seemed to be no blood, although his nose was skinned and one lip began to puff.

  Then he got up and went on slowly, feeling his way along, for despite the moonlight, it was black-dark beneath the trees.

  Finally he came to the dry stream-bed and felt his way along it.

  He hurried as best he could, for he remembered Mabel waiting in the car. She'd be sore at him, he thought — she'd sure be plenty sore. He had gone and let her think he might be back by dark.

  He came to the place where the woven strip of vegetation dammed the stream-bed and almost tumbled over it onto the rocks below.

  He ran the flat of his hand across the polished surface of the strip of weaving and tried to imagine what might have happened those several years ago.

  A ship plunging down to Earth, out of control perhaps, and shattering on impact, with Metcalfe close at hand to effect a rescue.

  It beats all hell, he thought, how things at times turn out.

  If it had not been Metcalfe, given someone else who did not think in dollar signs, there might now be trees or bushes or rows of vegetables carrying hopes such as mankind had never known before — hope for surcease from disease and pain, an end to poverty and fear. And perhaps many other hopes that no one now could guess.

  And they were gone now, in a spaceship grown by the two deserting rollas under Metcalfe's very nose.

  He squatted atop the dam and knew the blasted hopes of mankind, the hope that had never come to be, wrecked by avarice and greed.

  Now they were gone — but, wait a minute, not entirely gone! For there was a rolla left. He had to believe that the deserting rolla he had never seen was with the others — but there was still his rolla, locked in the trunk of that old heap down on the river road!

  He got up and stumbled through the darkness to the end of the dam and climbed around the clump of anchor trees. He skidded down the sharp incline to the stream-bed and went fumbling down the hollow.

  What should he do, he wondered. Head straight for Washington? Go to the FBI?

  For whatever else, no matter what might happen, that one remaining rolla must be gotten into proper hands.

  Already there was too much lost. There could be no further chances taken. Placed in governmental or scientific hands, that one lone rolla might still retrieve much that had been lost.

  He began to worry about what might have happened to the rolla, locked inside the trunk. He recalled that it had been banging for attention.

  What if it is suffocated? What if there were something of importance, something abut its care, perhaps, that it had been vital that it tell him? What if that had been the reason for its banging on the trunk?

  He fumbled down the stream-bed in sobbing haste, tripping on the gravel beds, falling over boulders. Mosquitoes flew a heavy escort for him and he flapped his hands to try and clear them off, but he was so worried that they seemed little more than an inconvenience.

  Up in the orchard, more than likely, Metcalfe's mob was busy stripping trees, harvesting no one could guess how many millions in brand new, crinkly bills.

  For now the jig was up and all of them would know it. Now there was nothing left to do but clean out the orchard and disappear as best they could.

  Perhaps the money trees had required the constant attention of the rollas to keep on producing letter-perfect money. Otherwise why had Metcalfe had the rolla to tend the tree in town? And now, with the rollas gone, the trees might go on producing, but the money that they grew might be defective and irregular, like the growth of nubbin corn.

  The slope of the land told him that he was near the road.

  He went on blindly and suddenly came upon the car. He went around it in the dark and rapped upon the window.

  Inside, Mabel screamed.

  'It's all right,' yelled Doyle. 'It is me. I'm back.'

  She unlocked the door and he climbed in beside her. She leaned against him and he put an arm around her.

  'Sorry,' he said. 'Sorry that I took so long.'

  'Did everything go all right, Chuck?'

  'Yes,' he mumbled. 'Yes, I imagine that you could say it did.'

  'I'm so glad,' she said, relieved. 'It is all right, then. The rolla ran away.'

  'Ran away! For God's sake, Mabel…'

  'Now, please don't go getting sore, Chuck. He kept on with that banging and I felt sorry for him. I was afraid, of course, but more sorry than afraid. So I opened up the trunk and let him out and it was OK. He was the sweetest little chap

  'So he ran away,' said Doyle, still not quite believing it. 'But he might still be around somewhere, out there in the dark.'

  'No,' said Mabel, 'he is not around. He went up the hollow as fast as he could go, like a dog when his master calls. It was dark and I was scared, but I ran after him. I called and kept on following, but it was no use — I knew that he was gone.'

  She sat up straight in the seat.

  'It don't make no difference now,' she said. 'You don't need him any longer. Although I am sorry that he ran away. He'da made a dandy pet. He talked so nice — so much nicer than a parakeet — and he was so good. I tied a ribbon, a yellow piece of ribbon around his neck and you never seen anything so cute.'

  'I just bet he was,' said Doyle.

  And he was thinking of a rolla, rocketing through space in a new-grown ship, heading out for a far-off sun and taking with him possibly some of man's greatest hopes, all fixed up and cute with a ribbon round his neck.

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