The Fallen Tree
David Hoogterp
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 David Hoogterp
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I lived in the kind of neighborhood where people looked out for one another, where they signed for a neighbor's deliveries without being asked, and one could not walk from one end of the street to the other on a Saturday afternoon without a dozen greetings of “howdy neighbor,” or “nice day, isn't it?” “Typical” might describe it, but “typical” in that idealistic way that people often mean when describing the environs of a happy childhood. Friendly working class people lived in houses that were old but sturdy, built for soldiers returning after the war and still after all the years retaining the essence of that optimistic time. And me, I moved there shortly after the head injury left me unable to work. After my wife left I needed a place to live and I lucked out to find that house, with its tiny rooms, its red brick facade, and its magnificent porch. Great place. Great neighborhood. I loved it.
Everything else being so “normal” made the new neighbor who moved into the Avila place across the street seem all the odder. He fixed the place up nicely, replacing the rotten porch rail, resealing the windows, even putting on a fresh coat of paint. He did a lot of work in a very short time. Yet, strangely I rarely saw him actually doing the work. He came and went at odd hours, I would often see the headlights of his cars as he pulled out of the driveway on nights when my headaches kept me up, and he didn't seem to talk to anyone.
Never the less I did not think much about him - until one day it began to rain.
It rained hard. After three months of soil-baking drought the rain came all at once and by the third day every one in central Texas could see relief turning to a new kind of disaster. Roads washed out. Rivers over-topped their banks, and low fields, so recently parched by the sun, turned to shallow glassy lakes.
A loud snap ripped through the sound of rain drumming on the roof then the unmistakable rustling crackle of a falling tree, and the final whoompf as it hit the ground.
I dropped the plate I was washing back into a sink overflowing with dirty dishes and wiped the splash off the counter top with a nearby towel before walking to the front door to see what had happened. It had sounded close, very close, and big. I expected to see one of the trees in the front yard lying on the ground but through the rain pouring in sheets off the roof eaves everything looked as it always had, everything I could see anyway.
A few hours later, though dark clouds still threatened, the rain came to a slow drizzling halt. Of course the first thing I did was investigate the fallen tree. I saw it across the street in the yard of the new neighbor I didn't know, a large forked cedar elm, half of which had fallen on his porch and destroyed the decorative rail he just installed. Being a good neighbor, and since he was apparently not home, I quickly went back to my house and got a piece of paper on which to write a note, found a magic marker and penned, “If you need some help cutting this up let me know and I'll bring my chainsaw. I live across the street at number 27.” I wrote my phone number at the bottom and pinned it to one of the branches since the front door was inaccessible.
Over a week passed and I heard nothing.
I thought surely by then my neighborly gesture would have elicited some response. But strangely, no, not only had he not called me, he failed to do anything about the tree lying on his porch even though he had been home every day. I know because the note I left pinned to the foremost branch of the fallen tree was gone, what's more, I had seen his car parked in the driveway. I had the impression worked nights because he was never out in the day time but occasionally I saw him pull out of his driveway late at night.
You'd have thought he'd be glad to have an offer like mine. In many neighborhoods new people aren't so easily accepted, especially men living alone. I should know since I was in the same boat. When I moved there a years before people did not talk to me nor did they even wave good morning when I would see them retrieving their newspapers as I sat on the porch, even the ones I saw everyday. Some of them I did see everyday, day after day, month after month. My chronic trouble sleeping gave me the opportunity to see what was happening up and down the street both day and night. I saw their children growing up. I saw when they mowed their lawns. I saw when Harold Mayweather got his promotion and had to start wearing a suit to work. I saw when Molly Johnson had her baby. I saw when old Mrs. Avilar left her home for the last time in a county ambulance.
I gave them all hearty “Good Mornings.” I made small talk when I saw them in the street. I attended community events. For those that were less social I learned who they were from the lettering on their mailboxes so I could call them by name. And gradually I made friends of them.
This new guy, though, he didn’t seem to be trying, as if he did not want to know his neighbors – or perhaps he did not want them to know him. The day after the tree fell, for instance, I saw from my window when he came home and found the note. He just looked across the street at my house with a critical look on his face, almost as if he resented me coming into his yard in the first place, and me, all I did was try to do something nice. He just took the note into his house and never said a word about it.
There was definitely something weird going on there. He ded not talk to anyone and no one ever came to visit.
A few days after he found the note I went for a walk shortly after dusk. I find the night air refreshing. As I neared home I looked over at his house to see if he had done anything with the tree and saw him on the porch with a hand saw, mostly concealed by the branches. He had sawn one limb off the wreckage and it dangled tenuously, caught in the other branches, it’s freshly cut end just touching the ground, but he wasn’t working as I approached. Instead he was staring at me. I gave a friendly “Good Evening” and he just nodded sullenly. I don’t think he meant for me to see him there.
I never noticed before then that he was the only one on the block who always kept the curtain closed on all his windows. Why would a man not want his windows open unless he is hiding something?
When a few more days had passed he had trimmed back most of the limbs on the fallen tree and had only the trunk remaining, a trunk too thick for any sane man to try and cut it by hand, but still he never let on that he wanted my help, or even wanted to borrow my tools. A stack of branches, leaves browning for lack of water, had formed by the curb where it awaited the trash collector. I don’t know when he did the work as I rarely saw him, and I kept an eye out in case the opportunity came to offer my help again. It didn’t.
I took a chance last night. My curiosity overcame me. After he left for work and I was certain no one else was watching, I slipped through the gate into his back yard. I just wanted to look around and try to determine what the guy was up to. The shed in the yard was not locked and contained the typical variety of garden tools, a shovel, rake, hedge clippers, ax, despite there being no sign of a garden. A length of nylon rope hung in the corner but there was nothing else of any particular interest. A cheap green water hose coiled next to the patio and the grass in back of the house was not well maintained. The neighborhood association would not approve if they knew.
I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the sliding glass door into the house. Nothing. Between the vertical blinds I could make out the outline of a dining chair near the door but it was too dark to see inside so I abandoned the attempt and went home.
In the early morning before the rest of the neighborhood was awake my worst fears were confirmed. He pulled the girl by the arm and glanced around with the same look on his face I saw the night he found my note, ignoring her cries of “No! No! No!” She looked about twelve and still wore her pajamas which had some pattern printed on them, indistinct from across the street. He dragged her bodily around the end of what remained of the tree trunk on his porch, picked her up when she faltered, and bundled her through the door as I watched in horror.
I knew that guy was up to something. I knew it.
I continued to watch. Long moments went by as in my head I debated what to do then my chance came. My neighbor stepped back out onto his porch and looked around before reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a set of keys. Then with a determined stride he walked to his car, got in and started the engine. He looked angry as he backed out of the driveway.
As he drove away my heart, which seemed to have stopped the moment I saw the girl began to beat again like it would hop right out of my chest. I had to do something. I had to do something but I didn’t know how much time I had.
I started for the door but paused. I picked up the phone and dialed.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” the voice said on the other end.
“I’m at 27 Windy Hill Court. There is a little girl across the street. I think she has been kidnapped, maybe assaulted.”
“Do you mean the little girl from across the street is missing?”
“No, I mean the guy across the street has kidnapped a girl and has her in his house. I’m going over there.”
“Wait, sir…”
“He left the house but he might be back any minute. She has to be got out now.” I hung up the phone
Across the street I picked my way around the fallen tree, knocked on the door, and waited. I knocked again, and a third time. A few houses down I heard the Johnson’s dog barking in their back yard but heard no movement from inside the house, so I made my way around the side to the gate which led to the back yard. The rising, just peeking over the horizon gave enough illumination to see a set of matching chairs and table in the dining area inside the glass door. But there were no lights on in the house. I tried the door but it was locked.
After a moment’s thought I remembered the tool shed and walked across the high grass to the plywood door. The wooden door, swollen in its frame by the moist night air was hard to open but came loose after a couple of pulls. I noticed that the rope was gone but what caught my eye was ax. Brand new, it could not have ever been used before that time. The red paint on the blade had not a scratch and the lacquered wood handle shone.
Once back on the patio I hefted the ax in both hands and let fly with all my strength. Glass shattered and shards tinkled as they fell. The sunrise sparkled on the glass covered floor inside what had recently been my neighbor’s back door.
Strangely I still heard no sound from within the house, though I listened intently as I crept over the broken glass, ax at the ready across the front of me. The furnishings were typical, if old, a mixture of veneered particle board and wood, bookshelves full of paperbacks, a buffet table with molded plastic, made to look like carvings on the front. Through the door on the left of this dining area lay a hallway, to the right I could see into the kitchen and ahead, through a large archway I could see into the living room. The television was on but the volume muted.
I expected to find the girl there but did not. Instead I found an empty green sofa, but one that had evidently been occupied not long ago by the indentation. I heard a muffled noise from the direction I had come. I turned and stepped forward carefully. I t had come from the hallway.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing in my house?” I turned to see the neighbor standing in the entry way holding a stuffed toy in one hand, a brown and white dog with large eyes and a lolling red tongue. The front door stood open behind him.
“I said what the hell are you doing here?”
“You won’t hurt her.” I said with all the determination I could force into my voice as my heart pounded in my ears.
“Hurt…what?”
“I live across the street. I know what you’re doing. The cops are on the way.”
“I know who you are. The neighbors warned me about you.”
“Warned you? What do you mean, warned you?”
“Look out for the creepy guy over there that’s always watching everybody, that’s what they said. That’s you. I’ve seen you looking over here constantly.” His eyes moved to the ax. “Now, what have you done? Allie? You there?”
The neighbors…they were my friends. “Warned you?” I felt constricted as if the walls were closing in.
“Yeah. Warned me.” His face screwed up in puzzlement. “What? You retarded or something?” He took a softer tone. “Not all there in the head? Why don’t you give me the ax?” He reached out his hand but I shrugged away and raised the ax threateningly.
“Don’t touch me!” I needed a moment to think. I could not let him confuse me. I only had to hold on until the police arrived. “I won’t let you hurt the girl!”
A new voice cried out from the hallway I had passed on the way in, a child’s voice. “Daddy!”
“Allie?” The man answered. “Are you all right?”
“Daddy, there’s a man in the house!”
“I know, Honey, you stay in your room till I come get you.” He turned back to me. “My daughter,” he said, “I picked her up from her mother’s this morning. We’re divorced. She was mad because I left something there.” He held up the dog and waggled it side to side.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. All I could do however was gasp out, “No. I…I saw…”
Even in the growing daylight I could see the red and blue strobes reflecting off the open door. The police were there. Someone was going to jail. I was pretty sure who it would be.
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About the author:
David Hoogterp is an author living near Austin, Texas who has published numerous online articles and short works of fiction, though this is his first important work after a long hiatus. Since first putting pen to paper more than twenty-five years ago he has wasted untold hours on his unusual pass-time and looks forward to wasting many more. When not at the keyboard or scribbling on a pad he enjoys the outdoors, cooking, vegetable gardening, books, movies, and many other pursuits of ordinary life.