Piers Anthony - Shade of the Tree

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2024-11-29 0 0 426.27KB 161 页 5.9玖币
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Shade of the Tree by Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony
SHADE OF THE TREE
Chapter 1
Josh heaved the microbus around the turn and angled it onto the sloping right
shoulder of the road. The blacktop gave way immediately to deep grass, and the
turf angled down to a crudely fenced pasture. The vehicle bumped to a halt
under a hugely spreading live oak tree: a typically scenic Southern giant girt
with hanging Spanish moss and arching branches.
He jabbed the seat belt release and climbed out, feeling his buttocks
unkinking as his feet took the weight. Today's drive had been relatively
brief: two hundred miles. But added to the thousand miles of the prior days,
it was more than enough.
Quickly he unlocked the side door and slid it open. "Hold the dogs!" he
snapped as the living cargo spilled out: two children, two dogs, and a
toppling sweet potato plant. Others had asked him somewhat disapprovingly why
he locked his family in; had they had a similar family, they would have known.
The last thing he needed was a door opening and a dog leaping out while he
drove at speed on the interstate highway.
"Let's go exploring!" Chris yelled, showing the way. His dog kept pace,
putting his head down and hauling forward with brute determination on the
leash. Neither boy nor dog evinced any interest in the pressing calls of
nature they had advertised for the last hour while Josh was trying to find his
way.
For a moment Josh felt light-headed. That happened sometimes, when he got to
his feet too quickly after prolonged driving. He was tired; he was glad the
journey was almost done. He leaned against the closed right-side door and
stared into the glass of the window.
His daughter moved in that reflection, a cute child almost the image of her
mother. Then his vision compensated for the glass, and Josh saw the juxtaposed
image of Mina as she rummaged in her handbag for the map and directions. Mina
was a tall, slender woman, brown haired and brown eyed, still attractive to
him after eleven years of marriage. Their years together had not all been
easy, and there were problems yet, but he still needed her. The most effective
cure for love was said to be marriage, but he had not found that to be true.
Wilhelmina—
Josh shook himself and the image vanished. No! He could not allow himself to
slide into that state again. Mina was not there, had not been there for eight
months. He squeezed his eyes closed, hurting.
Suzanne came up behind him. "You aren't supposed to do that, Daddy," she said
solemnly. "You told us—"
She understood too much! Josh opened the door, reached in, and lifted the
paper from the seat. But his eyes were teary and he could not read it.
The little girl took it from his hand and perused the directions with the
intense concentration only a child could evince. She looked up from the paper.
"It says there's a railroad crossing a mile west of the intersection of 480
and 581. After that we turn north on Forest Drive." She looked up, pleased
that she had read it without a hitch, and brightened further as she peered
back at the intersection they had just passed. "Was that—?"
"Why do you think I stopped?" he inquired with an edge. Mina had a way of
responding argumentatively like that, and it annoyed him. Now he was emulating
her tone, and that annoyed him worse. In fact he realized he had picked up a
number of Mina's mannerisms, perhaps as the visible manifestation of a
suppressed obsession. Maybe it was simply a matter of fulfilling the role he
had assumed: when the mother was absent, the father had to perform her
functions, and the only model he had to follow was hers. This tedious, tiring
journey had intensified it. It was impossible to be sure; he was no
psychiatrist, and in any event he had a low opinion of the medics of the
emotions. He was sure, however, that such mannerisms did not become more
endearing in the course of a thousand mile drive.
He realized abruptly that the child was fighting off the hurt from his tone.
"I'm sorry, honey," he said. "You're being very helpful, and I want you to sit
up front with me and read the directions while I drive, so we don't get lost
and drive into a swamp. Okay?"
Ray of sunshine through cloud. "Okay!"
Chris zoomed past, thrusting Pharaoh's leash into Josh's hand. "I'm hungry!"
he exclaimed. He was hyperkinetic; he seldom stopped moving about. They had
hoped he would outgrow it, but at age ten his energy was in its prime.
"Not until we get there," Josh said with the same edge he had used on Suzanne.
But the boy was already gone.
Josh circled the bus to check the fish. Without electricity for the bubbler
and filter, they had found it necessary to change the water frequently. The
two goldfish were frightened by this, and none too partial to the constant
vibration of the drive; they huddled together in the shadow. "There, there,
Hammerhead, Nurse," he murmured, half smiling. The fish were the pets of the
children, so naturally these timid creatures had been afflicted with
exorbitant nomenclature.
He moved back up front, hauling the balky dog along. It was hot even in the
shade, for this was August in Florida. They had the vehicle's corner windows
angled to blast air inside; now that the motion had stopped, sweat was
flowing.
Suzanne was poring dutifully over the directions. "Is the road paved or
guarded—graded?" she asked.
"How should I know?" Josh snapped, but caught himself immediately. He was a
ragged edge, emotionally, and that was no good for the children. "One way to
find out." He raised his voice. "Chris! Back in the bus!"
"Awww..." the boy complained routinely. He piled in.
Josh drove while Suzanne concentrated on the directions. "Kids, sing out when
you spot the railroad tracks," he said.
"Will we see a train?" Sue inquired eagerly. She was seven, and somewhat
disconcertingly bright. Josh had to keep reminding himself that though she
looked and acted like a fourth grader, she was a second grader. He knew that
he took such things as her reading too much for granted.
"Doubtful," he said, remembering her question. "It might see you first."
"Daddy!" she protested, with much the same edge as her mother, while Chris
snickered. But she was joking; she was extremely cute when she tried.
Unfortunately, she didn't always try. A bright child could be a joy—and
a great aggravation. She could throw a tantrum that—
"Tracks! Tracks! Tracks! Tracks!" Chris chanted. "I saw them first!"
"So what?" Sue muttered, going into a pout. "They're rusty. Who wants rusty
ol' tracks?"
Josh stared at the crossing, blinking. There were no tracks, though this was
obviously the place. They had been paved over. Were the children playing a
game?
Sue returned to the directions, her bastion of responsibility. "Next, Forest
Drive taking off to the north," she announced, brightening. She pointed.
"North is that way."
"Forest Drive! Forest Drive!" Chris screamed, causing the dogs to sit up and
cast about for the source of excitement.
"Dummy," Sue retorted smugly. "That's just a car track."
So it was. But in a moment, just over the crest of a hill, a full-fledged
gravel-and-shell road opened out. A huge sign proclaimed HEATHER HILLS, with
two numbers for interested buyers to use. Neither number, Josh was later to
discover, was current. Both children screamed glad recognition.
"Now we go north to Ridge Road," Sue said, squinting at the jiggling scrawl as
the bus bumped onto the gravel. "Then on up—it looks like Forest Drive
again."
"I'm hungry," Chris repeated.
"See if there's a cupcake left in the bag," Josh suggested. That distracted
the boy, who was always hungry.
They navigated Ridge Road—all fifty feet of it, it seemed to
Josh—and turned north on the renewed Forest Drive. There was a road sign
that seemed to have a different name, but if Sue's sharp little eyes were
satisfied, it was probably all right. He wondered what kind of a surveyor had
laid out these back roads.
He found a growing apprehension instead of the expected relief. They were
getting close to their destination, and that should be good—but he
really did not know what to expect. His uncle, Elijah Pinson, had been an
eccentric loner, prone to doing things his own eccentric way. Theoretically
the man had had fair success—but the most tangible part of the estate
Joshua had been able to assimilate was this property they were approaching. It
was supposed to be thirty forest acres and a residence.
Uncle Elijah. Biblically named, as were all the males in the family up to his
own generation, in a tradition extending back beyond the family records. But
Elijah had broken free of the mold established for him, and gone off on his
own, a black sheep. Joshua, a generation later, had followed his example.
Perhaps that was the reason he had inherited Elijah's estate, though he had
never met the man or even corresponded with him. Perhaps Elijah had seen in
Joshua a fellow traveler. That seemed the most reasonable explanation for this
windfall inheritance.
It also seemed that fate—Josh was unwilling to call so malignant an
imperative God—had punished Elijah for his transgression, just as it had
punished Josh himself. A one-two stroke, separated by a scant seven
months—an eyeblink in the stern history of the family. Blood had flowed,
abolishing first Joshua's wife, then his uncle. Who would be next?
"Not me, damn you!" he hissed through his teeth as though daring fate to take
up the gauntlet. "I have commitments—"
"What did you say, Daddy?" Sue asked with little-girl concern.
He should not have spoken aloud. His control was fraying again. Fortunately
the noise of the moving bus had largely drowned him out. "Just thinking,
honey."
"You shouldn't think, Daddy. It's bad for you."
Josh felt a surge of love and gratitude toward her. She was such a sweet
child, when she wanted to be. "You're right, honey. What's the next landmark?
We must be very close."
"The road dead-ends," she said. "Then turn right, no left, though a
chap—chap—"
"Chaparral," he said. "That's a thicket of small oaks." He peered ahead. "I
think we're coming to the dead end now."
"How can you keep driving past a dead end?" Chris demanded.
"Good question," Josh replied. "We'll just have to examine the situation at
close range."
The scrawny oaks closed in, squeezing the road. The telephone line terminated
in a pole set dead center of the right-of-way, which of course indicated that
thereafter it was the wrong-of-way. There was space cleared to make a fifty-
foot turning circle, and two desultory forest trails spun off from it, north
and west. Beside one of them stood a mailbox on a post, with the name crudely
printed on the side: PINSON 27P.
"This would seem to be it," Josh said as they drew to a halt.
"No house?" Sue asked blankly.
"There's a house," Josh assured her. "We just have to find it. Probably down
one of these trails."
"The left," she said, remembering the directions. "Past the chap-ar-ral."
They piled out again. Bahia grass grew thickly in the road right-of-way,
shifting abruptly to dry leaves a few feet beyond. Grass did not have much
success in a thorough forest.
They followed the trail nearest the mailbox into the thicket. The path wound
about, turning northwest, then southwest, finding its way through a wilderness
of shrub and bramble, brushing by a thick-trunked pine tree here, a clump of
palmetto there, and crowding blackberry bushes elsewhere. A bee flew up from a
hole in the sand, startling the children. A bird flitted between branches,
silently. Florida jungle, indeed. Sue halted, afraid to pass the bee. Josh
decided to experiment with a little psychology. "Known dangers can't hurt
you," he explained. "The bugs aren't out to sting you; they're just minding
their own business. All you need to do is understand them, and honor their
home territory, and they will ignore you. Why don't you start a list of all
the strange bugs you see, and keep track of where they live? Then you'll never
be unpleasantly surprised."
She hesitated, and he wasn't certain she was buying it. Then she smiled in
that sudden way she had. "Okay, Daddy. Can I have a notebook?"
"One notepad," Josh agreed. "First chance I get to buy one."
"What about me?" Chris demanded. "How come she gets to do everything?"
He should have known! "You can keep track of the birds," Josh said. "There
should be many of them out here."
"Birds?" Chris asked, disappointed. "That's girl stuff."
"It is?" Sue asked hopefully. "I'll take them!"
"I didn't say you could have them!" Chris rapped. "It's just that—"
"Birds do eat bugs," Josh reminded them.
"Yeah!" Chris said, suddenly more interested.
"Hey!" Sue protested. "Not my bugs!"
This was getting out of hand, as always. "Then there are the other animals.
The mammals and the reptiles. That is, the rabbits and deer, and the
snakes—"
"I got the snakes!" Chris cried.
"I wanted the rabbit anyway," Sue said. "Nyaa."
"Notepads for both of you," Josh said. "Now let's get on with our business
before darkness falls."
"Hey, this is sort of fun!" Chris exclaimed, running ahead with Pharaoh on the
leash. Sue followed more diffidently with Nefertiti. Josh walked last. Another
minor crisis navigated! Joy came so readily to children.
"Oooo, a butterfly!" Sue exclaimed, abruptly halting. "Pretty." Then, as an
afterthought, "That puts me ahead of Chris. Two for one."
It was a pretty butterfly, Josh had to agree. It was large and striped with
black and white, perched on a tall green weed. He would have to buy some
nature books so that the children could identify the creatures they
"collected." This would be a positive way to commence their residence here,
and it might help keep them from being frightened by the proximate wilderness.
"Oooo, pancakes!" Sue exclaimed, pointing to a clump of toadstools that did
indeed resemble nicely browned pancakes. Then, before Josh could speak, she
said: "I know, Daddy. Don't eat them. They're poison pancakes."
"The point is, we don't know," he said. "Some fungi are edible, and many are
only mildly toxic, but—"
"Hey!" Chris called, out of sight ahead. "Come here!"
Trouble? Josh's heart jumped. He pressed on, reassuring himself that it had
not been a cry of distress. Still, this was a kind of wilderness, and—
"Wait for me!" Sue pleaded. But Josh didn't wait. Unreasonable fear burgeoned:
bear advancing on uncomprehending boy, hornet's nest jogged and stirring
balefully, rotted-wood cover of some old deep well giving way slowly under
feet...
He rounded the bend. Chris was all right. Josh relaxed, regretting the
unreasonable fears. Normally he wasn't so reactive, but after the wearing
drive—
"Oh! It got me!" Sue exclaimed.
Josh whirled, his fear exploding. Rattlesnake?
"With its thorn," Sue said, extricating herself from the encounter with a
blackberry plant.
Josh relaxed, ashamed of his overreaction. He turned back to face the boy.
Chris was standing with the dog, looking ahead. "See the tree I found!" he
exclaimed.
Josh looked south, humoring his son. And stood amazed.
The tree was monstrous. Perhaps seven feet thick at the base, it diverged
immediately into three major trunks, each about three feet through, that
gnarled outward like the tentacles of some giant squid. It was not
tall—perhaps no more than fifty feet at the highest—but it spread
enormously, its extremities reaching down almost to the ground in several
places as though resting. It stood in a hollow, so that the ground was rising
where the branches reached, making contact easier. Josh had never before seen
a tree of this scale and configuration.
"Oooo, what a pretty house!" Sue said, coming up behind him.
House? Josh had been so absorbed by the tree that he had not even noticed the
house. It stood almost nestled within the embrace of the tree, just east of
it: a two-story wood-shingled cube about twenty-five feet on a side. It had a
bright metal roof, a number of windows, a green-topped back porch, and a front
porch facing south with some apparatus on top. The house seemed complete, yet
looked unfinished. A power line came to the southeast corner, evidently a
devious offshoot from the pole at the end of the main access drive.
"I believe we have found it," Josh said. He felt a gradual and growing relief
as his suppressed fears dissipated. There was a house here; it was intact; it
had electric power. They would not have to camp out.
They advanced somewhat warily on the house. The dogs sniffed the air, alert to
something. Josh followed the line of their attention. "Oh, no!"
"A horse!" Sue cried jubilantly. She was just coming up on the age when all
girls became aware of horses.
"That's a pony, dum-dum," Chris said witheringly.
There it was: a brown and white little equine tethered to a smaller tree north
of the great one. A female pony. She neighed as the children approached.
"Wait!" Josh cried. "We don't know that animal. She might not be friendly."
Indeed, as they drew closer the pony became uneasy, her ears tilting back.
Josh remembered that this was a signal of warning. "Stay clear," he called.
He approached the animal himself. She had a water bucket that she had kicked
over, and had grazed the grass down to bare ground in the circle the tether
allowed her to reach. Josh knew he could not leave her there, but he didn't
want to get bitten or kicked. He stood just out of range and extended one hand
slowly.
The pony's ears angled forward. She sniffed his hand. He realized she thought
he held feed; he was inadvertently teasing her. Still, she was reacting much
more positively to him than to the children. Had she been mistreated by a
child?
Josh patted her shoulder, then leaned down to pick up the water bucket. The
pony nuzzled his hair. Her muzzle was velvety soft. "We'll see what we can do
for you, pony," he said, taking the bucket.
Now he had to find water. He saw an external tap at the southwest corner of
the house. He went to it, while the children and dogs exchanged wary glances
with the pony. No question about it, she liked Josh, not the children. This
摘要：

ShadeoftheTreebyPiersAnthonyPiersAnthonySHADEOFTHETREEChapter1Joshheavedthemicrobusaroundtheturnandangleditontotheslopingrightshoulderoftheroad.Theblacktopgavewayimmediatelytodeepgrass,andtheturfangleddowntoacrudelyfencedpasture.Thevehiclebumpedtoahaltunderahugelyspreadingliveoaktree:atypicallysceni...

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