Read The Man in the Tree Online
Authors: Damon Knight
The Man in the Tree (7 page)
The FBI office in Portland put together a complete set of Gene Anderson's
fingerprints except for the left little finger, and these prints were duly
entered in their files together with a photograph of the boy furnished
by Chief Cooley.
Beach went out to talk to Alma Munk when she had had a day or two to
pull herself together. He asked her where Jerry's revolver was, and she
said she didn't know. Beach sent the serial number of the gun to the
manufacturer, and eventually learned that it had been sold in 1939 to a
sporting goods store in Laramie. Beach knew there was no point in trying
to trace it through the store's records; the gun had probably had three
or four owners since then.
The "Gazette" ran an unprecedented two-column front page story about the
"Tree House Murder"; reporters from the Portland and Salem papers came
out, and there was even a photographer from "Time," but his pictures
never appeared in the magazine. Souvenir hunters climbed the tree and
pulled off boards to take home. A psychic in Corvallis claimed to have
seen in a vision that Gene Anderson was living in a mountain cabin,
"in a Western state, near running water."
John and Mildred Anderson drove down from Chehalis as soon as they
heard. They talked to Sheriff Beach, and he showed them the books,
games, and papers he had taken from the tree house. There were letters
from correspondents in Switzerland, France, and Italy. "How did he ever
get to writing all those people?" Donald Anderson asked.
"Pen pals. They advertise in magazines for kids. I've written letters to
all those addresses, asking them to let us know if they hear from Gene,
but I'd guess he's too smart for that." There was also a letter to his
parents, never mailed.
"He was afraid to let us know where he was because Tom Cooley might find
out and kill him," Mildred said. "Is that what happened? Do you think
he's dead?"
Beach shook his head. "No telling. If he's alive, maybe he'll turn up."
"Can't you
find
him? -- can't the police -- ?"
"Mrs. Anderson, I know how you feel, but there's thousands of missing kids
every year. Runaways, mostly; they don't want to be found, and there's
just too many of them. If he happens to get picked up and fingerprinted,
then they'll identify him."
Beach would not give them their boy's belongings, but he allowed
Mrs. Anderson to copy down the names and addresses of his correspondents,
and when she got home she wrote them urgent letters. Eventually she got
three replies; the writers all said that they would certainly let her
know if Gene wrote to them again. After that there was nothing.
* * *
The coroner's jury met in late November; they listened to Cooley's account
of the incident, and Sheriff Beach's report, and they heard Dr. Swanson
testify that the victim's injuries were consistent with death caused
by a .38 revolver bullet, fired at short range, and passing through the
left ventricle of the heart. The jury brought in a verdict of murder by
a person or persons unknown.
Cooley went up to the district attorney's office afterward. "What the
hell do they mean, persons unknown, it was the damn kid!"
The district attorney, Quentin Hoagland, gave him a cold look over the
tops of his gold-rimmed glasses. "Mr. Cooley, that was a responsible
verdict in my opinion, and I'm a little surprised in fact, because this is
a one-horse county. I'll tell you this, too, there are things about your
testimony that I personally find hard to believe. I'm issuing a warrant
for Gene Anderson as a material witness, in case you're interested. But
there's something about this case that smells, and I don't mind telling
you that if I had a little more evidence I'd be putting out two warrants,
not one."
Early in March of the following year, word came back to Dog River that
Mr. and Mrs. Donald Anderson had died in a house fire of undetermined
origin in Chehalis, Washington. It had happened on a weekend when Chief
Cooley had been away on one of his trips, and the rumor went around that
the fire had been set by an arsonist.
Chief Cooley noticed during the following weeks that some people were
avoiding him on the street; even old friends, when he sat down beside
them at the Idle Hour or the Elk Tavern on route thirty-five, sometimes
sat in embarrassed silence for a while and then got up to play a game
of pinball or make a phone call.
Cooley was not surprised when Mayor Hilbert came to see him one Friday
evening. "Hello, Gus. Come on in. You can throw those magazines off
the chair."
Hilbert sat down. "Good Christ, Tom, this place is a damn pigsty."
"That what you came about?"
"No, Tom. It's about the Anderson business."
"Goddamn it, Gus, are you going to bring that up again? I was in
Sacramento -- I showed you the motel receipt."
"I know it, Tom, but people talk anyway. And, you know, there's some
bad feeling about what happened to Jerry. Well, maybe they're right or
maybe they're wrong, but people are telling me things like that shouldn't
happen in Dog River. You know what I'm telling you, Tom."
"Sure. You're not going to renew my contract."
"That's it. I'm sorry, Tom, that's the way it has to be."
"All right. Got anybody else in mind?"
Hilbert shifted uneasily in the chair. "Nothing definite. Walt Barrett
has an uncle, a police sergeant in Portland, he's retiring next month --
he might be innarested."
"Contract isn't up till September, Gus."
"I know that. Nobody's rushing you, Tom."
"Want a beer?"
"No, thanks -- well, all right."
Cooley brought two bottles from the refrigerator and a glass for Hilbert.
"Down the hatch," he said. "You know, Gus, I want to make this easy on
you if I can."
Hilbert wiped the foam off his upper lip. "You do?"
"Sure, I do. Let's make a deal. Suppose I resign, whenever you say --
May first or whatever. I'll show the new guy the ropes, break him in
and so forth. I been thinking of moving on, anyhow."
Hilbert looked thoughtful. "You said a deal, Tom?"
"All I want is two months' salary and a letter of recommendation. A good
letter, Gus. And if anybody asks you for a reference, I want you to tell
them I resigned to look for a better job, and I'm the best damn chief
of police you ever saw."
"That letter you can have, no problem. About the two months, I'll have
to talk to the town council."
"You do that. And, Gus -- "
"Yeah?"
"You tell them if I don't get it, I'm going to be the meanest son of a
bitch north of Mexico."
Cooley sold his house, auctioned off the furniture, and put everything he
had left into the trunk and back seat of the Buick. He closed his account
at the bank, took a few hundred dollars in travelers' checks and cash,
and got a cashier's check for the rest.
It was his belief now that the kid was alive, and he was still convinced
that he had gone south. The only thing he had to go on, besides a hunch,
was something Mrs. Anderson had said: "He likes to draw." Cooley got
into the Buick early one morning in May and headed for Los Angeles. If
he drew a blank there, it was his intention to work north again -- San
Francisco, then up to Salem, then Portland, but he didn't think the kid
would have stopped that close to home. He wouldn't feel safe until he
was as far away as he could get without leaving the country. Los Angeles:
that was where he'd find him.
Chapter Six
In his dreams, the boy was coming up out of deep water, fighting to reach
the surface. When he got there, he felt the hard ground under him and a
pain in his chest as if he had been clubbed with a baseball bat. It was
worse when he tried to roll over, and when he finally managed to sit up, a
pink froth dripped from his chin and spattered the legs of his pants. The
pain now was a hard thin spear that went through him slantwise, starting
under one arm and coming out over the shoulder blade on the other side.
He got to his feet, swayed, and saw the man lying half hidden by a clump
of vine maple. He walked toward the man, not able to stop himself until
he was standing right above him. The man's face was blue.
After the dream, he would sit hugging his knees and remembering. The
first thing he really remembered was being in the forest, all alone,
leaning against a tree and feeling under his shirt to find out what was
the matter. Low on one side there was a dimpled tender place, a little
soft bulge in his skin, and under that his rib was sore, but even that
pain was going away. He looked at his shirt and saw that there was a
great smear of dried blood down the side of it; there were spatters on
his pants, too.
Then he was sitting in a car, hurtling down a dark road, and the driver,
beside him, kept looking at the blood on his shirt. They were out on
the desert someplace; he didn't know where he was. The driver, a pale
old man with a white mustache, pulled up at a crossroads and said,
"This here's as far as I can take you."
He felt thick-witted and sleepy. "I have to get out?"
"Yeah, get out. I can't take you no farther."
The door slammed behind him; he saw the red taillights receding. He turned
and started walking up the other road, a gravel road between tall cut banks,
dim under the early stars. After a long time he came to a forest of
black trees growing in sand. It was dark now, and beginning to rain;
he went into the forest and lay down under a tree.
Early in the morning he woke up and heard a voice talking to him from
the sky. He couldn't understand what the voice said, but it scared him.
His pain was gone. Even the funny tender place on his side was gone,
but he was very hungry and thirsty.
It was strange to be out in the world, where people could see him; it
made him feel itchy and ashamed somehow, like the kind of dreams when
you walk into class and discover that you are in your underwear. And he
still couldn't remember what had happened in the woods, but he knew he
couldn't go back there.
It was nearly noon before he reached a traveled road again and got a
ride heading south. In a place called Lakeview he found a pay phone in a
grocery store and tried to call home. "That number has been disconnected,"
the operator said.
"Uh -- could you tell me if they have another number?"
"What is the name of the party you are calling?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Donald Anderson."
"One moment. I have a listing for a D. W. Anderson."
"No, that isn't it. Donald R. Anderson, six oh four Columbia Street?"
"I have no listing for an Anderson at that address."
"Thank you," he said numbly, and hung up.
He had had nothing to eat all day but candy bars and two hot dogs, bought
at a roadside stand early in the afternoon. He went into a railroad diner,
sat in a booth, and had roast beef with gravy and mashed potatoes, two
glasses of milk and a piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream; he
marveled that anything could taste so good.
There were only a few coins in his pockets, and the largest was a quarter.
Sitting in the back of the booth, out of sight of the counterman and
the waitress, he duplicated the quarter, making stacks and then copying
the stacks, until he had eight dollars' worth. At the counter he said,
"Could you give me some bills for these, please?"
"Sure -- I can always use the change." The woman counted out a five and
three ones, subtracted the amount of his check, and handed him the rest.
Then it was getting dark, and he was sleepy. He went into a motel and
asked for a room. "Traveling alone?" the clerk said.
"Yes."
"That'll be five-fifty, in advance."
He paid and took the key. His room was not very nice, but it had a bathtub
with a shower and soap and towels. He covered himself with soapsuds, washed
his hair, rinsed off and did it all over again for sheer pleasure.
In the morning he went into a store and bought two shirts and a little
canvas bag which he thought would make him look more respectable. He
changed his shirt in the back room, put the others in his bag, and got
on the road again.
Los Angeles now was his destination, but his first sight of the Golden
Gate Bridge -- that astonishing construction, soaring light as air
across the blue water -- so filled him with wonder that he stopped in
San Francisco and never thought of going on again. He liked the hilly
streets, and the cable cars, and the crowds of cheerful people.
He stayed in a cheap hotel for two nights, and might have stayed
there longer, but on one of his walks he passed a sign in a window:
"Furnished Apt. For Rent." He went in and asked about it: it was two
rooms and a kitchenette, with a linoleum floor and maple furniture;
the rent was fifty-five dollars a month.
He remembered that his Uncle Bruce lived in Provo, Utah; that had stuck in
his mind because of the funny name. He got the number from the operatorand
called on a Saturday afternoon.
"H ello?" A woman's voice.
"Hello, is this -- Does Bruce Anderson live there?"
"Yes, he does, but he's not home right now. Can I help you?"
"Well, this is Gene Anderson, I'm his nephew -- "
"Why, Gene! It's real nice to hear from you. How's your mom and dad?"
"That's what I was wondering. You haven't heard from them?"
"Why, no. Is there anything the matter?"
"Well, it's just that -- I was away from home, and they kind of moved,
and I don't know where they are."
"Well, I never heard of such a thing! My heavens! Where are you now, Gene?"
"I'm, uh, in Texas. Could you -- "
"Well, you tell me your address and phone number, Gene, and when your
uncle gets home I'll ask him -- You know, it's funny, your dad was
never much for writing, but we always used to get a Christmas card. And
I said to Bruce last year, no, it was two years ago Christmas, I said,
no card from your brother this year, I wonder if they're all right. Now
let me get a pencil."
"I can't -- I haven't got an address to give you, because I'm just
passing through, kind of, but I wondered, could you tell me my aunt
Cora's number? In Davenport, Iowa? I don't even know what her name is --
I mean her husband's name."
"Well, her husband's name is Johnson, or, wait a minute, is it Jackson?
Something like that, but Gene, what do you
mean
you're just passing
through? Who are you staying with? You tell me where to reach you,
because I know Bruce will want -- "
fingerprints except for the left little finger, and these prints were duly
entered in their files together with a photograph of the boy furnished
by Chief Cooley.
Beach went out to talk to Alma Munk when she had had a day or two to
pull herself together. He asked her where Jerry's revolver was, and she
said she didn't know. Beach sent the serial number of the gun to the
manufacturer, and eventually learned that it had been sold in 1939 to a
sporting goods store in Laramie. Beach knew there was no point in trying
to trace it through the store's records; the gun had probably had three
or four owners since then.
The "Gazette" ran an unprecedented two-column front page story about the
"Tree House Murder"; reporters from the Portland and Salem papers came
out, and there was even a photographer from "Time," but his pictures
never appeared in the magazine. Souvenir hunters climbed the tree and
pulled off boards to take home. A psychic in Corvallis claimed to have
seen in a vision that Gene Anderson was living in a mountain cabin,
"in a Western state, near running water."
John and Mildred Anderson drove down from Chehalis as soon as they
heard. They talked to Sheriff Beach, and he showed them the books,
games, and papers he had taken from the tree house. There were letters
from correspondents in Switzerland, France, and Italy. "How did he ever
get to writing all those people?" Donald Anderson asked.
"Pen pals. They advertise in magazines for kids. I've written letters to
all those addresses, asking them to let us know if they hear from Gene,
but I'd guess he's too smart for that." There was also a letter to his
parents, never mailed.
"He was afraid to let us know where he was because Tom Cooley might find
out and kill him," Mildred said. "Is that what happened? Do you think
he's dead?"
Beach shook his head. "No telling. If he's alive, maybe he'll turn up."
"Can't you
find
him? -- can't the police -- ?"
"Mrs. Anderson, I know how you feel, but there's thousands of missing kids
every year. Runaways, mostly; they don't want to be found, and there's
just too many of them. If he happens to get picked up and fingerprinted,
then they'll identify him."
Beach would not give them their boy's belongings, but he allowed
Mrs. Anderson to copy down the names and addresses of his correspondents,
and when she got home she wrote them urgent letters. Eventually she got
three replies; the writers all said that they would certainly let her
know if Gene wrote to them again. After that there was nothing.
* * *
The coroner's jury met in late November; they listened to Cooley's account
of the incident, and Sheriff Beach's report, and they heard Dr. Swanson
testify that the victim's injuries were consistent with death caused
by a .38 revolver bullet, fired at short range, and passing through the
left ventricle of the heart. The jury brought in a verdict of murder by
a person or persons unknown.
Cooley went up to the district attorney's office afterward. "What the
hell do they mean, persons unknown, it was the damn kid!"
The district attorney, Quentin Hoagland, gave him a cold look over the
tops of his gold-rimmed glasses. "Mr. Cooley, that was a responsible
verdict in my opinion, and I'm a little surprised in fact, because this is
a one-horse county. I'll tell you this, too, there are things about your
testimony that I personally find hard to believe. I'm issuing a warrant
for Gene Anderson as a material witness, in case you're interested. But
there's something about this case that smells, and I don't mind telling
you that if I had a little more evidence I'd be putting out two warrants,
not one."
Early in March of the following year, word came back to Dog River that
Mr. and Mrs. Donald Anderson had died in a house fire of undetermined
origin in Chehalis, Washington. It had happened on a weekend when Chief
Cooley had been away on one of his trips, and the rumor went around that
the fire had been set by an arsonist.
Chief Cooley noticed during the following weeks that some people were
avoiding him on the street; even old friends, when he sat down beside
them at the Idle Hour or the Elk Tavern on route thirty-five, sometimes
sat in embarrassed silence for a while and then got up to play a game
of pinball or make a phone call.
Cooley was not surprised when Mayor Hilbert came to see him one Friday
evening. "Hello, Gus. Come on in. You can throw those magazines off
the chair."
Hilbert sat down. "Good Christ, Tom, this place is a damn pigsty."
"That what you came about?"
"No, Tom. It's about the Anderson business."
"Goddamn it, Gus, are you going to bring that up again? I was in
Sacramento -- I showed you the motel receipt."
"I know it, Tom, but people talk anyway. And, you know, there's some
bad feeling about what happened to Jerry. Well, maybe they're right or
maybe they're wrong, but people are telling me things like that shouldn't
happen in Dog River. You know what I'm telling you, Tom."
"Sure. You're not going to renew my contract."
"That's it. I'm sorry, Tom, that's the way it has to be."
"All right. Got anybody else in mind?"
Hilbert shifted uneasily in the chair. "Nothing definite. Walt Barrett
has an uncle, a police sergeant in Portland, he's retiring next month --
he might be innarested."
"Contract isn't up till September, Gus."
"I know that. Nobody's rushing you, Tom."
"Want a beer?"
"No, thanks -- well, all right."
Cooley brought two bottles from the refrigerator and a glass for Hilbert.
"Down the hatch," he said. "You know, Gus, I want to make this easy on
you if I can."
Hilbert wiped the foam off his upper lip. "You do?"
"Sure, I do. Let's make a deal. Suppose I resign, whenever you say --
May first or whatever. I'll show the new guy the ropes, break him in
and so forth. I been thinking of moving on, anyhow."
Hilbert looked thoughtful. "You said a deal, Tom?"
"All I want is two months' salary and a letter of recommendation. A good
letter, Gus. And if anybody asks you for a reference, I want you to tell
them I resigned to look for a better job, and I'm the best damn chief
of police you ever saw."
"That letter you can have, no problem. About the two months, I'll have
to talk to the town council."
"You do that. And, Gus -- "
"Yeah?"
"You tell them if I don't get it, I'm going to be the meanest son of a
bitch north of Mexico."
Cooley sold his house, auctioned off the furniture, and put everything he
had left into the trunk and back seat of the Buick. He closed his account
at the bank, took a few hundred dollars in travelers' checks and cash,
and got a cashier's check for the rest.
It was his belief now that the kid was alive, and he was still convinced
that he had gone south. The only thing he had to go on, besides a hunch,
was something Mrs. Anderson had said: "He likes to draw." Cooley got
into the Buick early one morning in May and headed for Los Angeles. If
he drew a blank there, it was his intention to work north again -- San
Francisco, then up to Salem, then Portland, but he didn't think the kid
would have stopped that close to home. He wouldn't feel safe until he
was as far away as he could get without leaving the country. Los Angeles:
that was where he'd find him.
Chapter Six
In his dreams, the boy was coming up out of deep water, fighting to reach
the surface. When he got there, he felt the hard ground under him and a
pain in his chest as if he had been clubbed with a baseball bat. It was
worse when he tried to roll over, and when he finally managed to sit up, a
pink froth dripped from his chin and spattered the legs of his pants. The
pain now was a hard thin spear that went through him slantwise, starting
under one arm and coming out over the shoulder blade on the other side.
He got to his feet, swayed, and saw the man lying half hidden by a clump
of vine maple. He walked toward the man, not able to stop himself until
he was standing right above him. The man's face was blue.
After the dream, he would sit hugging his knees and remembering. The
first thing he really remembered was being in the forest, all alone,
leaning against a tree and feeling under his shirt to find out what was
the matter. Low on one side there was a dimpled tender place, a little
soft bulge in his skin, and under that his rib was sore, but even that
pain was going away. He looked at his shirt and saw that there was a
great smear of dried blood down the side of it; there were spatters on
his pants, too.
Then he was sitting in a car, hurtling down a dark road, and the driver,
beside him, kept looking at the blood on his shirt. They were out on
the desert someplace; he didn't know where he was. The driver, a pale
old man with a white mustache, pulled up at a crossroads and said,
"This here's as far as I can take you."
He felt thick-witted and sleepy. "I have to get out?"
"Yeah, get out. I can't take you no farther."
The door slammed behind him; he saw the red taillights receding. He turned
and started walking up the other road, a gravel road between tall cut banks,
dim under the early stars. After a long time he came to a forest of
black trees growing in sand. It was dark now, and beginning to rain;
he went into the forest and lay down under a tree.
Early in the morning he woke up and heard a voice talking to him from
the sky. He couldn't understand what the voice said, but it scared him.
His pain was gone. Even the funny tender place on his side was gone,
but he was very hungry and thirsty.
It was strange to be out in the world, where people could see him; it
made him feel itchy and ashamed somehow, like the kind of dreams when
you walk into class and discover that you are in your underwear. And he
still couldn't remember what had happened in the woods, but he knew he
couldn't go back there.
It was nearly noon before he reached a traveled road again and got a
ride heading south. In a place called Lakeview he found a pay phone in a
grocery store and tried to call home. "That number has been disconnected,"
the operator said.
"Uh -- could you tell me if they have another number?"
"What is the name of the party you are calling?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Donald Anderson."
"One moment. I have a listing for a D. W. Anderson."
"No, that isn't it. Donald R. Anderson, six oh four Columbia Street?"
"I have no listing for an Anderson at that address."
"Thank you," he said numbly, and hung up.
He had had nothing to eat all day but candy bars and two hot dogs, bought
at a roadside stand early in the afternoon. He went into a railroad diner,
sat in a booth, and had roast beef with gravy and mashed potatoes, two
glasses of milk and a piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream; he
marveled that anything could taste so good.
There were only a few coins in his pockets, and the largest was a quarter.
Sitting in the back of the booth, out of sight of the counterman and
the waitress, he duplicated the quarter, making stacks and then copying
the stacks, until he had eight dollars' worth. At the counter he said,
"Could you give me some bills for these, please?"
"Sure -- I can always use the change." The woman counted out a five and
three ones, subtracted the amount of his check, and handed him the rest.
Then it was getting dark, and he was sleepy. He went into a motel and
asked for a room. "Traveling alone?" the clerk said.
"Yes."
"That'll be five-fifty, in advance."
He paid and took the key. His room was not very nice, but it had a bathtub
with a shower and soap and towels. He covered himself with soapsuds, washed
his hair, rinsed off and did it all over again for sheer pleasure.
In the morning he went into a store and bought two shirts and a little
canvas bag which he thought would make him look more respectable. He
changed his shirt in the back room, put the others in his bag, and got
on the road again.
Los Angeles now was his destination, but his first sight of the Golden
Gate Bridge -- that astonishing construction, soaring light as air
across the blue water -- so filled him with wonder that he stopped in
San Francisco and never thought of going on again. He liked the hilly
streets, and the cable cars, and the crowds of cheerful people.
He stayed in a cheap hotel for two nights, and might have stayed
there longer, but on one of his walks he passed a sign in a window:
"Furnished Apt. For Rent." He went in and asked about it: it was two
rooms and a kitchenette, with a linoleum floor and maple furniture;
the rent was fifty-five dollars a month.
He remembered that his Uncle Bruce lived in Provo, Utah; that had stuck in
his mind because of the funny name. He got the number from the operatorand
called on a Saturday afternoon.
"H ello?" A woman's voice.
"Hello, is this -- Does Bruce Anderson live there?"
"Yes, he does, but he's not home right now. Can I help you?"
"Well, this is Gene Anderson, I'm his nephew -- "
"Why, Gene! It's real nice to hear from you. How's your mom and dad?"
"That's what I was wondering. You haven't heard from them?"
"Why, no. Is there anything the matter?"
"Well, it's just that -- I was away from home, and they kind of moved,
and I don't know where they are."
"Well, I never heard of such a thing! My heavens! Where are you now, Gene?"
"I'm, uh, in Texas. Could you -- "
"Well, you tell me your address and phone number, Gene, and when your
uncle gets home I'll ask him -- You know, it's funny, your dad was
never much for writing, but we always used to get a Christmas card. And
I said to Bruce last year, no, it was two years ago Christmas, I said,
no card from your brother this year, I wonder if they're all right. Now
let me get a pencil."
"I can't -- I haven't got an address to give you, because I'm just
passing through, kind of, but I wondered, could you tell me my aunt
Cora's number? In Davenport, Iowa? I don't even know what her name is --
I mean her husband's name."
"Well, her husband's name is Johnson, or, wait a minute, is it Jackson?
Something like that, but Gene, what do you
mean
you're just passing
through? Who are you staying with? You tell me where to reach you,
because I know Bruce will want -- "
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