Clifford Simak: The Money Tree

Two blocks away he came up to the car. Mabel had kept the motor idling. She moved from behind the wheel and he slid under it and shoved the car in gear.

They took it on the lam,' he said. There ain't nobody there. They dug up the tree and took it on the lam.'

'Well, I'm glad of it,' Mabel said defiantly. 'Now you won't be getting into trouble-not with money trees at least.'

'I got a hunch,' said Doyle.

'So have I,' said Mabel. 'Both of us is going home and getting us some sleep.'

'Maybe you,' said Doyle. 'You can curl up in the seat. Me, I got some driving to do.'

There ain't no place to drive.'

'Metcalfe told me when I was taking his picture this afternoon about a farm he had. Bragging about all the things he has, you know. Out west some place, near a town called Millville.'

'What has that got to do with it?'

'Well, if you had a lot of money trees…'

'But he had only one tree. In the backyard of his house.'

'Maybe he has lots of them. Maybe he had this one here just to keep him in pocket money when he was in town.'

'You mean you're driving out to this place where he has a farm?'

'I have to find an all-night station first. I need some gas and I need a road map to find out where is this Millville place. I bet you Metcalfe's got an orchard on that farm of his. Can't you see it, Mabel? Row after row of trees, all loaded down with money!'

The old proprietor of the only store in Millville-part hardware, part grocery, part drugstore, with the post office in one corner-rubbed his silvery mustache.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Man by the name of Metcalfe does have a farm-over in the hills across the river.

He's got it named and everything. He calls it Merry Hill. Now, can you tell me, stranger, why anyone should name a farm like that?'

'People do some funny things,' said Doyle. 'Can you tell me how to get there?'

'You asked?'

'Sure I asked. I asked you just now…'

The old man shook his head. 'You been invited there? Metcalfe expecting you?'

'No, I don't suppose he is.'

'You'll never get in then. He's got it solid-fenced. And he's got a guard at the gate-even got a little house for the guard to stay in. 'Less Metcalfe wants you in, you don't get in.'

I'll have a try at it.'

'I wish you well, stranger, but I don't think you'll make it. Now, why in the world should Metcalfe act like that? This is friendly country. No one else has got their farms fenced with eight-foot wire and barbs on top of that. No one else could afford to do it even if they wanted to. He must be powerful scared of someone.'

'Wouldn't know,' said Doyle. 'Tell me how to get there.'

The old man found a paper sack underneath the counter, fished a stub pencil out of his vest pocket and wet it carefully with his tongue. He smoothed out the sack with a liver-spotted hand and began drawing painfully.

'You cross the bridge and take this road-don't take that one to the left, it just wanders up the river-and you go up this hollow and you reach a steep hill and at the top of it you turn left and it's just a mile to Metcalfe's place.'

He wet the pencil again and drew a rough rectangle.

'The place lies right in there,' he said. 'A sizeable piece of property. Metcalfe bought four farms and threw them all together.'

Back at the car Mabel was waiting irritably.

'So you was wrong all the time,' she greeted Doyle. 'He hasn't got a farm.'

'Just a few miles from here,' said Doyle. 'How is the rolla doing?'

'He must be hungry again. He's banging on the trunk.'

'How can he be hungry? I bought him all of them bananas just a couple hours ago.'

'Maybe he wants company. He might be getting lonesome.'

I got too much to do,' said Doyle, 'to be holding any rolla's hand.'

He climbed into the car and got it started and pulled away into the dusty street. He clattered across the bridge and instead of keeping up the hollow, as the storekeeper had directed, turned left on the road that paralleled the river.

If the map the old man had drawn on the sack was right, he figured, he should come upon the Metcalfe farm from the rear by following the river road.

Gentle hills turned into steep bluffs, covered with heavy woods and underbrush. The crooked road grew rougher. He came to a deep hollow that ran between two bluffs. A faint trail, a wagon-road more than likely, unused for many years, angled up the hollow.

Doyle pulled the car into the old wagon road and stopped. He got out and stood for a moment, staring up the hollow.

'What you stopping for?' asked Mabel.

'I'm about,' Doyle told her, 'to take Metcalfe in the rear.'

'You can't leave me here.'

'I won't be gone for long.'

'And there are mosquitoes,' she complained, slapping wildly.

'Just keep the windows shut.'

He started to walk away and she called him back.

'There's the rolla back there.'

'He can't get at you as long as he's in the trunk.'

'But all that banging he's doing! What if someone should go past and hear all that banging going on?'

'I bet you there ain't been anyone along this road within the last two weeks.'

Mosquitoes buzzed. He waved futile hands at them.

'Look, Mabel,' he pleaded, 'you want me to pull this off, don't you? You ain't got anything against a mink coat, have you? You don't despise no diamonds?'

'No, I guess I don't,' she admitted. 'But you hurry back. I don't want to be here alone when it's getting dark.'

He swung around and headed up the hollow.

The place was green-the deep, dead green, the shabby, shapeless green of summer. And quiet-except for the buzzing of mosquitoes. And to Doyle's concrete-and-asphalt mind there was a bit of lurking terror in the green quietness of the wooded hills.

He slapped at mosquitoes again and shrugged.

'Ain't nothing to hurt a man,' he said.

It was rough traveling. The hollow slanted, climbing up between the hills, and the dry creek bed, carpeted with tumbled boulders and bars of gravel, slashed erratically from one bluff-side to the other.

Time after time, Doyle had to climb down one bank and climb up the other when the shifting stream bed blocked his way. He tried walking in the dry bed, but that was even worse-he had to dodge around or climb over a dozen boulders every hundred feet.

The mosquitoes grew worse as he advanced. He took out his handkerchief and tied it around his neck. He pulled his hat down as far as it would go. He waged energetic war-he killed them by the hundreds, but there was no end to them.

He tried to hurry, but it was no place to hurry. He was dripping wet with perspiration. He wanted to sit down and rest, for he was short of wind, but when he tried to sit the mosquitoes swarmed in upon him in hateful, mindless numbers and he had to move again.

The ravine narrowed and twisted and the going became still rougher.

He came around a bend and the way was blocked. A great mass of tangled wood and vines had become wedged between two great trees growing on opposite sides of the steep hillsides.

There was no possibility of getting through the tangle. It stretched for thirty feet or more and was so thickly interlaced that it formed a solid wall, blocking the entire stream bed. It rose for twelve or fifteen feet and behind it rocks and mud and other rubble had been jammed hard against it by the boiling streams of water that had come gushing down the hollow in times of heavy rain.

Clawing with his hands, digging with his feet, Doyle crawled up the hillside to get around one end of the obstruction.

He reached the clump of trees against which one end of it rested and hauled himself among them, bracing himself with aching arms and legs. The mosquitoes came at him in howling squadrons and he broke off a small branch, heavy with leaves, from one of the trees, and used it as a switch to discourage them.