Usher's Passing

by Robert R. McCammon

  He dug into the box again, and uncovered a treasure of old blueprints that had been rolled up and secured with brittle rubber bands. Spreading some of them out on the worktable, Rix switched on the high-intensity lamp. The blueprints were items from Usher Armaments’ black bag of tricks, circa 1941. Shown in breakaway detail were an antitank mine, a handheld rocket launcher, a flamethrower, and various machine guns.

  The next thing that caught Rix’s curiosity was a small, battered black book, veined with mold. He opened it under the lamp, and loose pages threatened to spill out. The paper was mustard-colored with age, and in danger of crumbling. Rix carefully turned the pages. His bewilderment mounted. Scribbled in the book were mathematical formulas, some of them going on for page after page; there were strange sketches of what looked like horseshoes with their open ends upward, supported on pedestals. The formulas continued, so dense that Rix couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

  Then the formulas changed into musical notations: groups of chords, bars of music. More horseshoe drawings, and then sketches of long rods with round, half-moon, or triangular shapes at their bottoms. The last pages of the book were water-stained and too moldy to decipher. Puzzled, he returned it to the box and sat for a moment staring at the wealth of documents in all the other boxes.

  How in God’s name could he ever hope to make sense of all of it? Months of research would be involved, and the actual writing would be a bitch. Besides, he had no control over these documents; at any time Walen might decide to return them to the Lodge, and then they’d be lost to Rix—because he could never set foot in that house again. But why had Walen brought them out? What was he looking for?

  The story of the Ushers, who’d built a multibillion-dollar empire out of bullets and bombs, lay in those cardboard boxes—certainly not all the story, Rix knew, but enough to start with. How many skeletons and scandals were buried in those moldy graves? The material was all right here, if he could only figure out how to put it together.

  He imagined the horror that was his father, lying up in the Quiet Room. His thoughts turned toward the silent Lodge, brooding at the center of Usherland, and its twisting corridors that had drawn him deeper and deeper.

  The skeleton with bleeding eyes swung slowly through his mind. Logan Bodane’s cunning smile—so much like Boone’s, Rix thought—surfaced in his memory.

  Wheeler Dunstan had been working on the Usher history for six years. Six years. Wouldn’t he at least have the framework assembled by now? Wouldn’t he know how the generations linked together? And what other secrets might he know, as well?

  Rix wished he could get his hands on Dunstan’s manuscript—if indeed one existed. He’d never met the man, but he’d heard his mother fume about Wheeler Dunstan before. The Foxton Democrat had evidently been owned by the Dunstan family for generations, and though it was only a weekly county tabloid, it delighted in running stories about the Ushers, and editorials on how Usher money had ruined the competitive tobacco market in the Rainbow-Taylorville-Foxton area. The Ushers had subsidized almost every large tobacco farm in the country, and owned every square block of Foxton except for one: the land on which the Democrat office stood.

  Rix rummaged through one of the other boxes, and found a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about the opening of the Usher factories in San Diego and Washington, an old ledger containing notations and monetary figures written in strong, ornate letters, and a brown book inside a manila envelope.

  He opened the brown book, and an aroma like dusty roses drifted out. He found himself looking at graceful feminine handwriting. It was a diary, the dates clearly marked before each entry. He began to read the entry dated November 5, 1916:

  “Mr. Usher sat across from me at the dining table. While he and Father were occupied in discussion about the war and the economy, I could feel his eye upon me. He commented on the new blue dress I was wearing, and inquired as to whether I enjoy the horse races. I told him yes, if the winning horse belongs to St. Clair Stables. Mr. Usher curls his lip when he smiles.

  “In the candlelight he appeared handsome, though I have seen photographs of him in the news journals, and in them he looks like a schoolyard bully. He is in his late twenties or early thirties, I believe, and he has the build of a sportsman. His eyes are very dark, but in the light I thought I could detect a spark of color in them, like the glint of a copper coin. Mr. Usher has a laugh like a bassoon, which Father encouraged by telling him dreary business anecdotes.

  “For all his coarseness, Mr. Usher does possess a certain appeal. He has a strong, uncompromising face. I noted he was wearing bay rum. Was that for my benefit? No, silly! Mr. Usher only came because he was interested in buying some of the new colts. Over dessert, Father inquired about the health of the elder Mr. Usher, and a change came over our guest. He said his father was in fine health, but he seemed to bite the words off with his teeth, and I wonder if Mr. Usher doesn’t wish his father were ill. The strained mood soon passed, however, as Mr. Usher began telling Father about a new automatic pistol his company was producing. Mother and I were dismissed from the table, while Mr. Usher and Father took their brandy and cigars in the parlor.”

  Rix looked ahead to the next entry with Erik Usher’s name in it, dated the eleventh of November: “Amazed at Mr. Usher’s generosity. Today arrives a wagonload of red roses. For me! Father said that Mr. Usher was quite taken with me, and I should write him at Usherland to say thank you for his attention.”

  On November thirteenth: “Mr. Usher has interesting taste in gifts. This afternoon a gilded carriage, pulled by four of the finest white Arabians I have ever seen, came up the drive. Inside it were more than a hundred fishbowls full of Japanese goldfish. It was testimonial to the carriage and horses that none of them had spilled out. A letter from Mr. Usher—he wants me to call him Erik, dear diary—said he hoped I would enjoy the fish, and that I would use the carriage and stallions to visit him at Usherland for Christmas. Mother says I shouldn’t go unescorted, but Father got angry and said all those things written about Erik Usher were simply lies, and that he is a fine, upstanding Christian businessman.”

  Right, Rix thought. He pulled the wool over your daddy’s eyes, didn’t he, Nora?

  This diary belonged to Nora St. Clair Usher—Erik’s only wife, Walen’s mother, his own grandmother.

  The grandfather clock in the smoking room chimed out one o’clock. For a moment Rix listened to the wail of wind, moving past the Gatehouse’s walls.

  He could start with this diary, he told himself. At least it might help him get a better understanding of Erik Usher, and certainly of Nora St. Clair Usher, whom Walen rarely talked about. Then he might begin to make sense of some of the other material.

  Rix returned everything to the cardboard boxes and left the library, taking the diary with him. He switched off the chandelier and locked the door again, then climbed the stairs to his bedroom. The house, but for the noise of the raging wind, was quiet.

  In his room, Rix sat at his desk and began to read where he’d left off. On the first day of 1917, Erik had asked for Nora’s hand in marriage. Nora was indecisive. Her mother told her she’d have to make up her own mind, but Erik was the catch of a lifetime. Nora’s father said that only a fool would pass up such a sterling opportunity.

  They were married at the First Methodist Church of Charlotte on the second of March, 1917. Ludlow Usher did not attend the ceremony. Details of the wedding night were omitted. The next entry was a week later Erik had left on a business trip to England, and Nora was alone in the Lodge.

  Old bastard, Rix thought.

  A spark of light caught his attention, and he looked up from the diary.

  There was nothing but darkness beyond his window; then, lasting for only a second, there came the glint of a light, out in the forest between the Gatehouse and the Lodge. It did not reappear.

  Rix sat watching for several minutes longer. The darkness was absolute. Had he imagined a light out there, or not? Christ! he thought. Th
inking you saw a light in a dark forest past midnight was the oldest horror-fiction cliché in the book! At this point, in his books at least, the gallant—and stupid—hero would go out there to investigate and get turned into walking hamburger. But this was real life, and Rix was no hero. He knew no local thief would be prowling across Usherland in the dark; you couldn’t find one man in the whole county who’d set foot on the estate after nightfall, not with all the stories that circulated about the Pumpkin Man, the black panther, the hag who supposedly lived in the depths of one of the lakes, and all the other beasties roaming about.

  There was nothing out there, anyway. Nothing except Erik’s zoo, and that lay in ruins.

  Still—had he seen a light, or not?

  There was no light now, if he had. If some fool had fallen into the empty alligator pit, he’d still be there with a broken leg in the morning.

  Rix returned to his reading, but every now and then he glanced into the darkness.

  The Lodge was out there. A malengine, waiting for someone to turn the key again, set it thundering. Waiting for Katt? Or for Boone?

  Ten billion dollars, he mused. Then he submerged himself into the life of Nora St. Clair Usher.

  Three

  RAVEN

  12

  SHE’D BEEN IN SOME rough places before, and right now she wished she were back at any one of them. The narrow dirt road that led her yellow Volkswagen Beetle up Briartop Mountain was so littered with loose stones and muddy potholes that she feared from one moment to the next either a blowout or a stuck wheel. She’d climbed more than a mile in first gear, and she kept thinking she smelled the transmission burning. Since leaving the Perry cabin, way down at the foot of Briartop, a bone-jarring forty-minute drive away, she’d seen not a living soul and only a few cabins all but hidden in the thick woods.

  Clint Perry had told her to look for a clapboard house with red shutters and two big oaks that sprawled above the roof. He’d warned her not to put the Volkswagen in any of the ditches alongside the road; hard to get a tow truck up some of them trails that pass as roads, he’d said. Get stuck in a ditch and you won’t get your car down till after New Year’s.

  She definitely didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary on Briartop Mountain. She was surrounded by the densest forests she’d ever seen, and though it was almost ten in the morning, even the bright golden sunlight failed to penetrate the overhang of foliage. An occasional bird called from a treetop, but otherwise all was quiet. The wind, so vicious last night that it had awakened her constantly, had died to a still, soft whisper. Yellow and red leaves drifted down from the trees, forming a colorful carpet across the road.

  The Volks jarred over a series of potholes. Hope the damned suspension holds! she told herself. She passed a rickety-looking cabin with a smoking stone chimney and saw a big red dog lying in front of it in a splash of sunlight. The dog’s ears perked up at the sound of the car’s straining engine, but the animal was obviously too lazy even to bark. It watched her go by, its tongue hanging out like a pink towel.

  The road ascended at a still steeper angle. She was torturing the engine, but if she shifted down to second gear it wouldn’t pull. Not going to make it, she thought grimly.

  And then she came around a wooded bend and nearly ran right over an old man in rags, who was slowly crossing the road with the aid of a gnarled walking stick.

  For an instant she knew she was going to hit him. She could almost hear the crunch of bone. Then her foot moved toward the brake and the car stopped so suddenly she was jerked forward against the steering wheel.

  The old man continued on his way, his shoes—old orange fisherman’s boots—shuffling through the dead leaves. He was emaciated, his head bowed by the weight of a long yellowish gray beard, his bony shoulders stooped. His cane probed carefully ahead for potholes.

  She stuck her head out the open window. “Excuse me.” He didn’t stop. “Mister, excuse me!”

  Finally the old man paused, but he didn’t look in her direction. He was waiting for her to speak.

  “I’m looking for the Tharpe house.” She spoke with a Southern accent that still carried faint hints of a Scots-Irish brogue. “Is it near here?”

  He cocked his head to one side, listening; then, still silent, he continued crossing the road and began moving away into the woods.

  “Hey!” she called, but the forest had closed behind him like a multicolored door. “Some great hospitality up here,” she muttered, and gunned the Volkswagen onward and upward. It came to her then that the car had stopped an instant before she’d put her foot to the brake. Or had it?

  Going screwy, she thought, and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the cabin with the red shutters ahead. It was set about thirty feet or so off the road, and in the front yard there was a beat-up old pickup truck with a green fender, a brown door, a red roof, and rusted-out bumpers. A discarded hand-crank washing machine lay on its side in high weeds. What looked like a truck engine lay over there as well, gathering rust.

  She pulled her car off the road and behind the pickup truck.

  As she was getting out, the cabin’s screened front door opened and a skinny middle-aged woman with lank brown hair and wearing faded jeans and a pale yellow sweater stepped out onto the front porch.

  “Mrs. Tharpe?” the younger woman inquired as she approached.

  “Who might you be?” It was asked sharply, brimming with suspicion.

  “My name is Raven Dunstan. I’ve come from Foxton to see you.”

  “What about?”

  “I talked to Sheriff Kemp yesterday afternoon. He told me your youngest son’s been missing since night before last. Can I come up and talk to you for a few minutes?”

  Myra Tharpe crossed her arms over her chest. She’d been a pretty woman once, a long time ago, but the years had been unkind to her; the harsh weather of Briartop Mountain had etched deep lines along the ravines and crests of her sallow face, and her small dark brown eyes were ringed with wrinkles. Now they were puffy from the crying she’d been doing. Her mouth was a thin, grim line, and her chin ended in a sharp point. She regarded her visitor with a bitter, unyielding stare. “Nobody called the sheriff,” she replied. “Nobody told him about Nathan.”

  “Clint Perry did, yesterday. He’s a part-time deputy, you know.”

  “Nobody asked an outsider to butt in,” Myra said. “It’s nobody’s business.” She examined the other woman: a city woman, dressed in corduroys and a dark blue jacket over a white blouse. City woman, through and through. Maybe about twenty-five, tall, with a curly mane of black hair that spilled around her shoulders. She had clear, pale blue eyes and a fair, smooth complexion that showed she sure didn’t work in the weather. She wore almost no makeup, and she was pretty, but something was wrong with her left leg because she limped when she walked. As Raven came closer to the porch steps, Myra saw a white scar slashed through her left eyebrow, hitching it upward. City woman. Even her hands were white and smooth. What was she doin’, way up here on Briartop?

  “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about Nathan,” Raven said. “May I come in?”

  “No. I’ll hear what you’ve got to say right here.”

  “I’m from the Foxton Democrat.” Raven brought her wallet out of her shoulderbag and showed her press card, but the other woman didn’t look at it.

  “That newspaper? I don’t never read it.”

  “Oh. Well, Mr. Perry told the sheriff that a search party went out looking for your two sons the night before last, and that one of them—is Newlan his name?—came home the next morning. He said the search party went out again yesterday, but they didn’t find a trace of Nathan. Are they going to look again today?”

  “A few men are out in the woods right now,” she replied. “If my boy can be found, they’ll find him.”

  Something in the way she said that put Raven on guard. “Don’t you think they’ll find him, Mrs. Tharpe?”

  “If he’s to be found.”

&nb
sp; She’d been prepared for resistance. Her father had told her about the mountain people. But what Raven felt from this woman was direct hostility. “May I talk to Newlan, then?”

  “No. New’s sleepin’. He got hurt in the woods.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “Cuts and bruises. He’ll be all right in a few days.”

  “Who are the men who’ve been searching for Nathan, Mrs. Tharpe?”

  “Men,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “You wouldn’t know ’em, you bein’ an outsider and all.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the sheriff about this?” Raven asked. “He would’ve organized a proper search—”

  “Is this gonna be in that newspaper? You writin’ a story about my boys?”

  “No. This is for my own information.”

  “I see,” Myra said, nodding. “Well then, I’ve said about all I can say.”

  Raven asked, “All you can say…or all you will say?”

  “Both.” She turned away and started to go back inside.

  “Mrs. Tharpe?” Raven called. “I’d like to talk to you about the Pumpkin Man.”

  The other woman stopped dead. Raven saw her shoulders tense; then Myra turned around again, and this time her face was squeezed with emotion, the cheeks splotched with color. “Get off my land, city woman,” she said.

  “You’re familiar with the Pumpkin Man, then?”

  “I’m through talkin’.”

  “Why? Because you think the Pumpkin Man’s listening? Come on, Mrs. Tharpe! Talk to me! Let me come in and see Newlan.”

  “I said get off my land. I won’t say it again.”

  “What’s wrong with you people?” Raven’s voice was tinged with frustration. “What are you trying to hide? My God, Mrs. Tharpe! Your son’s been missing for two nights! You don’t even report it to Sheriff Kemp! What are you people afraid of?”