Ludlow picked the cane up and examined the lion’s-head. His hands were shaking.
“It’s full of luck,” Chance told him. “Look at me. I’m walking proof.”
And Ludlow said in a choked voice, “Your luck…has just run its course, Mr. Tigré.”
Chance—Randolph Tigré—looked as stunned as if he’d been kicked in the head by a horse.
“My name is Ludlow Usher. You murdered my father, Aram Usher. I think the police would like to—”
And then Tigré leaped violently to his feet with a shouted curse, throwing the table over onto Ludlow. Cards, money, and chips flew through the air. Nicholls squalled like a scalded cat, and Tyson fell over in his chair. As Ludlow toppled backward with the cane in his grasp, Tigré was already drawing an Usher “Gentlemen’s Defender” revolver from a holster under his coat. “No!” Brethren shouted, grabbing for the other man’s arm. The gun went off, blasting one of the lamps to smithereens. Burning oil splattered across the floor and wall. The second shot blew the side of Tyson’s head off as he was staggering to his feet. Then Tigré shoved Brethren aside and fired twice through the upturned table. One bullet snagged Ludlow’s sleeve, and the second caught the edge of his left ear like a burning whip. “Murder!” Nicholls shouted. “Help!”
Tigré fled for the door, burst through it and into the narrow passageway. Ludlow went after him, revenge fiery in his veins. As he came through the door and onto the promenade deck, he found Tigré standing at the rail six feet away. With an animalish growl, Tigré brought the pistol up to fire into Ludlow’s face.
But Ludlow was faster with the cane. He struck the other man’s arm, upsetting his aim, and the bullet blazed over his shoulder. Then Ludlow barreled headlong into him; they smashed together and there was a sharp cracking sound as the rail broke. Clinging to each other, Ludlow and Tigré fell over the side into the churning river.
Underwater, Tigré hammered at Ludlow with the pistol. They turned over and over, blinded by mud, wrenched by tremendous currents. Ludlow’s back slammed against something hard. A pounding, roaring noise filled his head—and he realized they’d been pulled underneath the Bayou Moon. The boat’s hull was over their heads, the grinding paddlewheel dangerously close.
His flailing fist struck Tigré’s body. He grasped the man’s coat, but a booted foot kicked him in the stomach and precious air exploded from Ludlow’s mouth. Tigré wrenched free, desperately swimming away. A fierce downward current caught Ludlow, and in the next instant he was caught in the branches of an underwater tree less than ten feet below the surface. He struggled to free himself, the last of his air burning in his lungs.
Tigré was caught in a current that hurled him toward the surface. His head slammed against wood, and then he gasped for breath. His relief turned rapidly to terror. The river boiled around him, and he was being lifted out of the water by his neck. His head was caught between the spokes of the paddlewheel. As it brought him up from the river, Tigré screamed with the pressure on his head and neck. His scream became strangled, and the knot of people who watched in horror saw Randolph Tigré’s body writhe as his neck snapped. As if on a hideous revolving gallows, Tigré was borne up by the paddlewheel and then down into the water—and up again, lifeless and covered with mud.
And in the paddlewheel’s wake, a tree that had been weighted down with mud rose suddenly from the bottom of the river. From its upper branches dangled Ludlow Usher, half-drowned and battered—but clutching in his hand his father’s cane.
Rix was staring up at the brooding portrait of Ludlow. “Randolph Tigré believed the cane protected him from death?” he asked softly.
“At least that’s the story Nicholls gave the reporter. Of course, he might’ve said anything to get off the hook.”
“I remember… Mom said something a couple of days ago about Dad being thrown from a horse and falling on his head.” Rix turned toward Edwin. “She said he got up and brushed himself off, and he was just fine. As far as I know. Dad’s never really been seriously injured.”
Edwin raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying the cane had something to do with that?”
“I don’t know. But if Tigré could survive all those injuries while he was in possession of the cane—”
“You’re thinking like a fiction writer,” Edwin said. “It’s just a cane, not a magic wand. I repeated the story as I recalled it from a newspaper article—and I think it goes without saying that the newspapers in those days exaggerated wildly.”
Rix stared for a silent moment at Edwin. “What if it is magic?” he asked. “A good-luck charm or something? That’s why it protected Tigré until Ludlow got it back. And that’s why every Usher has kept it so close to him. Look at those portraits.” He motioned with a sweep of his hand. “The cane’s within reach in every picture.”
Edwin nodded. “I know that. But the cane’s a symbol of power, too. It would naturally be in all the pictures, and naturally the Usher patriarch would always have it close at hand.” The thunder sounded nearer, and Edwin flinched slightly. “The storm’s building. I expect we’ll have a downpour before long.” He rose from his seat. “I was reluctant to tell you that story because of what I knew about Shann and the Usher Concerto. That’s not something that would reflect very well on your family.”
Rix walked beneath the portraits, noting where the cane was positioned in each one. “There’s something more to that cane than a symbol of authority, Edwin,” he said firmly. He recalled the almost overwhelming sense of power he’d felt course through him when he held it. Had the men in those portraits experienced the same feeling? Looking at Aram’s picture, he was struck by a new thought. Had Aram realized he was going to die on the day of that duel because he no longer had the cane? And had he used that realization against Tigré by simply failing to load his pistol?
“Well, I’ve got to find Logan. If you see him, please tell him to report to Cass or me.” Edwin paused at the door. “And make sure you eat lunch, Rix. There’s no sense in weakening yourself.”
“I will,” Rix said, and Edwin left the library.
Now he had the information that Wheeler Dunstan wanted. Perhaps, also, Dunstan could shed some light on the notebook containing the sketches and math formulas.
Carrying the notebook, Rix went out of the library. He was crossing the smoking room when a violent clap of thunder crashed over Usherland. The delicate mechanism of the ornate grandfather clock, which no longer chimed the hours due to Walen’s condition, let out a soft, musical tinkle. Rix glanced at the brass pendulum—and stopped immediately. Realization clicked into place in his mind like the tumblers of a lock.
He opened the book to the sketches and compared them with the long pendulum rod, with its half-moon decoration at the bottom.
The sketches were of pendulums with varying shapes of pendulum bobs.
Pendulum, he thought. Walen’s secret project. But this book obviously predated Walen. Whose was it? And what did it mean?
As he stood looking from the book to the grandfather clock, he imagined he felt the floor shiver—for just a fleeting second—under his feet. A wall groaned softly, and then was silent.
He waited, his heartbeat picking up, for another vibration, but none followed.
He had a lot of questions to ask Wheeler Dunstan, and he hurried up to his room to get the newspaper account of Cynthia Usher’s death.
And this time, Rix vowed, he intended to see the manuscript of Time Will Tell the Tale—one way or another.
Seven
THE LODGE
38
RAVEN AND NEW WERE alone in the Democrat office. It was a cluttered place with a few desks and typewriters, a row of filing cabinets, and metal shelves that held dictionaries, encyclopedias, and recent copies of the paper. At her desk, Raven sat drinking a cup of strong black coffee from the Mr. Coffee machine, and trying to compose her thoughts. On her blotter was a scatter of paper clips she’d straightened out. The IN compartment of the wire-mesh organizer on her d
esk held stories from the gardening editor and the features editor, color negatives of the fall foliage, and pictures of several young ladies who were getting married the following week—all items from a world that suddenly seemed very remote.
New stood across the room, clutching the Mountain King’s stick and staring at the poster with the four children’s photographs on it that Raven had taped to a wall. Beyond the Democrat’s plate-glass window, the morning had become a strange purple-tinged twilight. The thunder continued, still at a distance, but there had been neither lightning nor rain. The wind was rising, swirling grit along the sidewalk.
The boy had been silent since they’d arrived here from the clinic. After his demonstration in the waiting room, Raven avoided catching his gaze. She was afraid of him, of what might be lurking inside him, trying to break loose. It was like being around a muscle-bound brute with a short temper, though Raven didn’t think the boy would intentionally hurt anyone. Still, she sensed his tension; there was a fuse burning within him, and she didn’t know what the spark might set off when it reached the end.
He moved away from the poster and looked at the encyclopedias. “You read all these books?” he asked.
“Not all of them, but a little in each one.”
“You must be smart. To write stories and all, I mean.”
“Not necessarily. It’s just a job, like any other.”
New nodded thoughtfully. He selected the B volume and paged through it. “I don’t go to school much anymore,” he said. “Ma keeps me home to help around the house. The teacher came once to find out why I wasn’t in school, but Ma said there were more important things for me to be doin’.”
“She’s wrong. You should be in school. Your mother can make out without you.”
“I’m the man of the house now,” he told her, as if that made all the difference. “Ma says I need to be findin’ a job pretty soon.”
“That’ll be hard, without a good education.”
“I guess so,” he agreed. “It’s just…” He looked up at her with a pained expression. “I don’t want to stay on Briartop Mountain all my life. I don’t know what I want to do; I don’t know what I can do yet. I feel like… I’m in a cage or somethin’. Maybe that’s why… I dream about the Lodge so much. It seems like goin’ down to that Lodge is the only way I can ever get off the mountain. Usherland is so beautiful from up high. Briartop is all thorns and rocks. Nathan and I…used to talk about what we were gonna be.” A fragile smile played quickly across his mouth. “Nathan wanted to fly planes. We could stand and watch ’em pass over, headin’ to Asheville, I guess. They looked like they were a thousand miles away.
“And what did you say you wanted to be?”
“You…promise you won’t laugh?”
“I promise.”
“Before he died,” New said, “Pa used to read me stories from old magazines. Stories about detectives and cowboys and spies. I guess when I was a kid I wanted to be a detective, and carry a badge and all. After Pa died, I started…makin’ up my own stories, in my head. I never wrote any of ’em down or anything, ’cause Ma would’ve thought I was actin’ like a kid. I know you have to be real smart and all, but… I sure would like to be able to write down what was in my head. I’d like for other people to see the pictures in my mind. Does that make sense?”
“You mean you’d like to be a writer?”
He shrugged, but Raven saw a hint of color in his cheeks. “I don’t know. I don’t have the education for it, I guess. I mean…it’s pretty hard to do, right?”
“It takes patience and practice. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”
He returned the book to its place on the shelf and walked over to the window, where he stood facing the street. Briartop Mountain was a massive gray shape whose peak vanished in the low-hanging clouds. His hand tightened around the stick. “I should’ve been able to help Nathan,” he said softly. “I should’ve been able to do somethin’!”
“What happened to Nathan wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your mother’s, either. She’s afraid of the outside world, New. That’s why she doesn’t want you to go to school—because she’s afraid you’ll leave her alone on the mountain. She doesn’t want you to outgrow Briartop.”
“I don’t want to stay there all my life. I want to—”
He stopped speaking, and Raven saw his spine stiffen. He took two steps away from the window, his head cocked to one side as if listening.
“New?” Raven tensed. “What is it?”
He didn’t answer. A dull throb of thunder made the window shake. He thought he’d heard his name called in a soft, seductive voice that was neither masculine nor feminine but something more elemental, as if the wind and the thunder itself could speak. He listened carefully, expecting and dreading the voice.
It came—faint, urging, meant for him alone:
—New—
Answer, he told himself. He said mentally, I’m here.
—come home come home come home—
The voice was stronger now, and eager. New felt it battering at his mind, trying to sink deeply. “The Lodge wants me,” he told Raven. “I can feel it, even from here.” As the voice continued to pull at him, he turned toward Raven. His face was strained, his eyes dark green and full of purpose. “I’m going to it,” he said. “I’m going to find out what’s in that house, and why it wants me.”
“A storm’s coming. There’s no way for you to get into Usherland, anyway. The gates are—”
“Won’t go through the gates,” he said. “There are trails going down from Briartop to Usherland, through the woods.” But how could he protect himself from whatever waited in the Lodge? He had the cane, though he didn’t fully understand how it would help him. No, he needed something else: a snare, something he could trigger and control when and if he needed it. He looked around the office, and his gaze settled on a tape dispenser atop a nearby desk. He picked it up and peeled off some tape. “Do you have any tape stronger than this?” he asked.
Raven opened a desk drawer and brought out a roll of filament tape that she used to seal packages for mailing. He took it from her, examined it, and then put it in his pocket. “That’ll do.” He looked sharply at her. “Will you drive me to the cabin? I can take the truck down to Usherland from there.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? I can call Sheriff Kemp, and—”
“And what?” he challenged her. “The sheriff can’t help me. Nobody can. Whatever’s in the Lodge wants me. I have to find out why.”
Raven slowly untwisted another paper clip. The boy’s eyes pierced her, and she knew nothing could stop him. She took her keys from her purse and unlocked the lower drawer of her desk, bringing from it a camera case with a thirty-five-millimeter Canon and a flash attachment. “All right,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see what the Lodge looked like inside.”
“No.” His voice snapped through the air. “I don’t know what’s in there. I won’t take you with me.”
Raven’s stomach was knotted at the prospect of entering the Lodge; under any other circumstances, she would have leaped at the opportunity to penetrate the Usher world. Now, the unknown both terrified and tantalized her. “I know what’s in the Lodge,” she replied. “Answers. To your questions, and to mine. If you want a ride up Briartop, you’ll have to take me the rest of the way, too.”
I could make her do as I please, New thought. I can keep her out of the Lodge, if I want to.
“I deserve to know,” she said firmly, distracting him from his thoughts. “If you want to go in, we’d better get ourselves some good lights from the hardware store, a couple of those big lanterns that won’t go out if they’re dropped. And waterproof, too, from the look of those clouds.” She stood up and put the strap of the camera case around her shoulder. “Well?” she asked.
New decided he’d let her think he’d take her in, and then he’d send her back to Foxton once they got up the mountain. He could not take the responsibility of protecting
her from whatever waited in the Lodge.
“How about it?” Raven prompted.
He nodded, sliding his hand into his pocket to touch the tape. “All right. Let’s go.”
39
A JAGGED SPEAR OF lightning flashed over the mountains as Rix pulled the Thunderbird up in front of Wheeler Dunstan’s house. In the air was the chlorine odor of ozone, and dust whirled up from a distant field.
Rix walked up the front steps and pressed the door buzzer. He carried the notebook and the newspaper account of Cynthia Usher’s death under his arm. As he waited, Rix glanced uneasily down Dunstan’s gravel driveway. He’d passed a brown van that was pulled off the road, about twenty yards from the entrance to the driveway, and he recalled seeing the same van a few days before. Was Dunstan’s house being watched? he wondered, scanning the woods. If so, whoever it was had seen him in a highly visible Usher vehicle. Another concern nagged at him as well. When he’d gone out to the garage, he’d seen that Katt’s car was missing. Had she gone to Asheville to score more heroin? Boone’s Ferrari had been gone, too, but Rix figured he was sleeping off a bad night at the country club. He pressed the buzzer again, then turned to watch the woods at his back. Anyone spying certainly had a clear view of him.
“Who is it?” Dunstan asked from the other side of the door.
“Rix Usher.”
Locks clicked open. Dunstan, the corncob pipe clamped firmly between his teeth, guided his chair backward to allow Rix entry. Rix stepped in and closed the door behind him.
“Lock it,” Dunstan said, and Rix did. “Sorry it took me so long to get up here. I been workin’ since way before daylight.” He looked strained, with dark circles beneath his eyes. He glanced at the items Rix held. “What’ve you got?”
“First this.” Rix handed him the fragile newspaper pages. “It’s an account of Cynthia’s death in Chicago.”
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