A. Tree's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

A. Tree sat on the boulder while Jerome worked the barrel. The rest was helping. The gray around A. Tree's mouth had faded to a dull green. But the line on the near side had grown. Word had spread. People pushed in from the road, and the ones at the back could not see who was at the front. A man in a maroon pinstripe suit stepped out of the line and walked its length like he owned it. His mustache was waxed into two points. A gold watch chain swung at his vest. He clapped a thin woman on the shoulder and slid past her. He pushed a boy sideways with his hip. He reached the front and held out both hands to Jerome. "Four," the man said. "For my associates. They're waiting in a cart down the road. Can't leave the horses." Jerome looked at him. "One each. In line." "I am in line. I've moved up." He smiled at Jerome the way a man smiles at a dog he plans to kick. "Victor Dupree. You'll want to remember it." Behind Dupree, an old woman had been knocked to one knee. A child was crying without sound. A. Tree saw a thin man at the back sit down in the dirt because he could not push anymore. "Jerome," A. Tree said. Jerome looked up at the boulder. "Don't give him one." Dupree turned. He saw A. Tree on the rock — the bark, the wet gouges, the leaves in the grass — and his smile widened. "You're the tree," Dupree said. "I'll speak to you, then. I can move product. I have a cart. I have contacts in Storyland. You grow, I sell, we split —" "No," A. Tree said. "You don't understand the offer." "I understand it." A. Tree stood up on the boulder. His roots gripped the stone. From up there he could see the whole line, all the way back, every face. He pointed past Dupree at the old woman on her knee. "Her first. Then the boy you pushed. Then the man sitting in the dirt at the back. Then the woman with the gray scarf. Then the child behind her." Jerome was already moving. He walked around Dupree as if Dupree were a post in the ground. He put an apple in the old woman's hands and helped her stand. Dupree's smile stayed but his eyes went flat. "You'll regret turning me down." "Get out of the line," A. Tree said. "You're not hungry." A few people in the line looked at Dupree then. Not many. But enough. He felt it and stepped back onto the road, brushing his sleeve where the boy had touched him. Jerome worked down A. Tree's list. The desperate ones ate. A. Tree watched Dupree walk toward the cart on the road and knew he had not gone far.