“Whuuuuut?” the dog asked, becoming curious; he had a simple mind, as she well knew; he was easily taken in.
“I learned how to throw a stick so far nobody can find it,” she said. She bent, picked up a nearby stick. “Want me to prove it?”
Within her Bill said, “Who’re you talking to?” He was agitated, now that the time was drawing near. “Is it Mr. Tree?”
“No,” she said, “just the dog.” She waved the stick. “Bet you a paper ten dollar bill if I throw it you can’t find it.”
“Surrrrre I cannnnnn,” the dog said, and whined in eagerness; this was his favorite sort of sport. “Buuuut I cannnn’t bettttt,” he added. “I haaaaave no monnnnnneyyyy.”
From the wooden shack walked Mr. Tree, all at once; taken by surprise, both she and the dog stopped what they were doing. Mr. Tree paid no attention to them; he continued on up a small hill and then disappeared down the far side, out of sight.
“Mr. Tree!” Edie called. “Maybe he isn’t busy now,” she said to the dog. “Go ask him, okay? Tell him I want to talk to him a minute.”
Within her Bill said restlessly, “He’s not far off now, is he? I know he’s there. I’m ready; I’m going to try real hard this time. He can do almost anything, can’t he? See and walk and hear and smell—isn’t that right? It’s not like that worm.”
“He doesn’t have any teeth,” Edie said, “but he has everything else that most people have.” As the dog obediently loped off in pursuit of Mr. Tree she began walking along the path once more. “It won’t be long,” she said. “I’ll tell him—“ She had it all worked out. “I’ll say, ‘Mr. Tree, you know what? Well, I swallowed one of those duckcallers hunters use, and if you lean close you can hear it.’ How’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Bill said desperately. “What’s a ‘duckcaller’? What’s a duck, Edie? Is it alive?” He sounded more and more confused, as if the situation were to much for him.
“You sissy,” she hissed. “Be quiet.” The dog had reached Tree and now ‘the man had turned; he was starting back toward her, frowning.
“I am very busy, Edie,” Mr. Tree called. “Later—I’ll talk to you later; I can’t be interrupted now.” He raised his arms and made a bizarre motion toward her, as if he were keeping time to some music; he scowled and swayed, and she felt like laughing, he looked so foolish.
“I just want to show you something,” she called back.
“Later!” He started away, then spoke to the dog.
“Yessirr,” the dog growled, and loped back toward the girl. “Nooo,” the dog told her. “Stoppppp.”
Darn it, Edie thought. We can’t do it today; we’ll have to come back maybe tomorrow.
“Gooo awayyyy,” the dog was saying to her, and it bared its fangs; it had been given the strongest possible instructions.
Edie said, “Listen, Mr. Tree—“ And then she stopped, because there was no longer any Mr. Tree there. The dog turned, whined, and within her Bill moaned.
“Edie,” Bill cried, “he’s gone; I can feel it. Now where’ll I go to get out? What’ll I do?”
High up in the air, a tiny black speck blew and tumbled; the girl watched it drift as if it were caught in some violent spout of wind. It was Mr. Tree and his arms stuck out as he rolled over and over, dropping and rising like a kite. What’s happened to him? she wondered dismally, knowing that Bill was right; their chance, their plan, was gone forever now.
Something had hold of Mr. Tree and it was killing him. It lifted him higher and higher, and then Edie shrieked. Mr. Tree suddenly dropped. He fell like a stone straight at the ground; she shut her eyes and the dog, Terry, let out a howl of stark dismay.
“What is it?” Bill was clamoring in despair. “Who did it to him? They took him away, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” she said, and opened her eyes.
Mr. Tree lay on the ground, broken and crooked, with his legs and anns sticking up at all angles. He was dead; she knew that and so did the dog. The dog trotted over to him, halted, turned to her with a stricken, numbed look. She said nothing; she stopped, too, a distance away. It was awful, what they—whoever it was—had done to Mr. Tree. It was like the glasses man from Bolinas, she thought; it was a killing.
“Hoppy did it,” Bill moaned. “Hoppy killed Mr. Tree from a distance because he was afraid of him; Mr. Tree’s down with the dead, now, I can hear him talking. He’s saying that; he says Hoppy reached out all the way from his house where he is and grabbed Mr. Tree and picked him up and flung him everywhere!”
“Gee,” Edie said. I wonder how come Hoppy did that, she wondered. Because of the explosions Mr. Tree was making in the sky, was that it? Did they bother Hoppy? Make him sore?
She felt fright. That Hoppy, she thought; he can kill from so far off; nobody else can do that. We better be careful. Very careful. Because he could kill all of us; he could fling us all around or squeeze us.
“I guess News & Views will put this on the first page,” she said, half to herself, half to Bill.
“What’s News & Views?” Bill protested in anguish. “I don’t understand what’s going on; can’t you explain it to me? Please.”
Edie said, “We better go back to town now.” She started slowly away, leaving the dog sitting there beside the squashed remains of Mr. Tree. I guess, she thought, it’s a good thing you didn’t switch, because if you had been inside Mr. Tree you would have been killed.
And, she thought, he would be alive inside me. At least until I got the oleander leaves chewed and swallowed. And maybe he would have found a way to stop that. He had funny powers; he could make those explosions, and he might somehow have done that inside me.
“We can try somebody else,” Bill said, hopefully. “Can’t we? Do you want to try that—what do you call it again? That dog? I think I’d like to be that dog; it can run fast and catch things and see a long way, can’t it?”
“Not now,” she said, still frightened, wanting to get away. “Some other time. You’d better wait.” And she began to run back along the path, in the direction of town.
XIV
Orion Stroud, seated in the center of the Foresters’ Hall where he could clearly be heard by everyone, rapped for order and said:
“Mrs. Keller and Doctor Stockstill asked that the West Marin Official Jury and also the West Marin Governing Citizens’ Council convene to hear a piece of vital news regarding a killing that just took place today.”
Around him, Mrs. Tallman and Cas Stone and Fred Quinn and Mrs. Lully and Andrew Gill and Earl Colvig and Miss Costigan—he glanced from one to the next, satisfied that everyone was present. They all watched with fixed attention, knowing that this was really important. Nothing like this had ever happened in their community before. This was not a killing like that of the glasses man or of Mr. Austurias.
“I understand,” Stroud said, “that it was discovered that Mr. Jack Tree who’s been living among us—“
From the audience a voice said, “He was Bluthgeld.”
“Right,” Stroud said, nodding. “But he’s dead now so there’s nothing to worry about; you have to get that through your heads. And it was Hoppy that done it. Did it, I mean.” He glanced at Paul Dietz apologetically. “Have to use proper grammar,” he said, “because this is all going to be in _News & Views_–right Paul?”
“A special edition,” Paul said, nodding in agreement.
“Now you understand, we’re not here to decide if Hoppy ought to be punished for what he did. There’s no problem there because Bluthgeld was a noted war criminal and what’s more he was beginning to use his magical powers to restart some of the old war. I guess everybody in this room knows that, because you all saw the explosions. Now—“ He glanced toward Gill. “There’s a newcomer, here, a Negro named Stuart McConchie, and ordinarily I have to admit we don’t welcome darkies to West Marin, but I understand that McConchie was tracking down Bluthgeld, so he’s going to be allowed to settle in West Marin if he so desires.”
The audience rustled with approval.
“Mainly what we’re here for,” Stroud continued, “is to vote some sort of reward to Hoppy to show our appreciation. We probably would all have been killed, due to Bluthgeld’s magical powers. So we owe him a real debt of gratitude. I see he isn’t here, because he’s busy at work in his house, fixing things; after all, he’s our handy and that’s a pretty big responsibility, right there. Anyhow, has anybody got an idea of how the people here can express their appreciation for Hoppy’s timely killing of Doctor Bluthgeld?” Stroud looked around questioningly.