Usher's Passing (47 page)

As Myra reached her son, New was bending over the Mountain King. The old man's back and shoulders were mangled, the flesh peeled away to the bone. Deep tooth marks scored the back of his neck, and were bleeding profusely. "God Almighty!" Myra cried out when she saw the wounds.

The old man moaned. Myra couldn't believe that anything so torn up could still be alive. "Ma," New said urgently, "we've got to help him! He'll die if we don't!"

"Nothin' we can do. He's finished. Listen to him, he cain't hardly breathe!" She was looking around, terrified of the panther's return, and backing away from the old man.

"There's a clinic in Foxton," New said. "The doctors can do somethin' for him!"

She shook her head. "He's through. Ain't nobody can live, tore up like that."

New rose to his full height. "Help me put him in the back of the truck."

"No! I ain't touchin' him!"

"Ma," he said firmly. He wanted her to stop moving away, before she broke and ran.
"Stop."
He'd said it so sharply he flinched at the sound of his own voice.

Myra obeyed. She stood motionlessly, her mouth half open, her eyes beginning to glaze over. She looked like a statue, only her brown hair moving, blowing around her shoulders.

"You're gonna help me put him in the back of the truck." New unhinged the tailgate and let it drop open. "Pick up his arms, and I'll get his legs."

Still she hesitated.

"Do it,"
he said, and again he heard—and felt—the icy force in his voice.

Myra lifted the Mountain King's upper body as New held his legs. He weighed about as much as a good-sized fireplace log. Together they got him in the back of the truck. Myra, who seemed to be lost in some kind of a trance, stared at the blood on her hands.

"We need some blankets for him, Ma. Would you get a couple from the house?"

She blinked, wiped her hands on her thighs, and shook her head. "No . . . blankets. Not gonna . . . get my good blankets all . . . bloody."

"Go get 'em," New told her. "Hurry!" His green eyes were fierce. Myra started to speak again—but the words froze in her throat. Blankets, she thought. Blankets got to get blankets. It suddenly seemed to her that fetching blankets from the cabin to cover the old man was the reason for her entire life. She could think of nothing but the blankets; nothing mattered in the world but bringing them from the house.

"Run,"
New told her.

She ran.

New rubbed a throbbing spot at his left temple, just above the ear. His entire body felt bruised and stretched. He had formed in his mind an image of his mother doing what he'd told her, just as he'd formed the glowing blue wall of stones that had protected him from Greediguts. She had obeyed his mental commands with just a quicksilver flicker of hesitation. This was a different element of the magic that had begun with the knife in the thorns, New realized. He had commanded her with his mind, and it had been
easy
—
as easy as shouting
boo!
at a squirrel and knowing it would flee.

Whatever the magic was inside him—witchcraft, black or white—it was getting stronger.

The panther might've torn the old man's head off if he hadn't attacked with the stick. New thought. He held the stick up, examining it. There was the smell of brimstone about it. What kind of walking stick was it that looked like an old dead limb by the side of the road, but could spit fire?

Magic.
There was magic in him, and in the Mountain King, too. There was magic of a different nature in Greediguts and the Pumpkin Man—and yes, in the Lodge as well. His dream had been so real; if it had been uninterrupted, might he have driven the pickup truck—like a black coach crossing a long bridge— right down to the Lodge?

The Mountain King stirred. "New," he whispered hoarsely. He struggled to form words, his gashed face lying in a pool of blood. "Don't... let it win . . ." His voice trailed weakly off, and his single eye stared vacantly.

Myra was coming, running with three thin blankets in her arms.

The silken voice crept into his mind, from nowhere and everywhere, and it sounded stronger than ever before, more confident, more darkly eager:

—
come home—

Something in the Lodge, he knew, was trying to command him—just as he had so easily made his mother go for the blankets.

—
come home—

He took them from her and quickly spread them across the old man's body. Her task done, she was breaking free again; she stepped back dazedly, as New slipped the stick in beside the old man and slammed the tailgate shut.

"Get in the truck, Ma. I'll drive us down."

"He's . . . finished, New. Ain't no . . . reason to . . ."

"Get in the truck."

Wordlessly, she did as he told her. As New slid under the wheel, Myra stared fixedly ahead, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. New started the engine and put the truck in gear.

—
New—

The voice shimmered and echoed through his head. He didn't know how much longer he could withstand its seductive pull. But one thing he did know: he was uncovering within himself layers of power, each stronger than the one before. Now, lifting the knife seemed like child's play to him. He was finding out that he could do things he'd never dreamed of before—and he liked the feeling. He liked it very, very much.

As they drove down Briartop, New glanced at his mother and thought very hard of making her fold her hands in her lap, just to see if she would. Her arms twitched.

When he looked at her again, she'd done what he wanted.

Except that her hands were folded as if in prayer. Her face was a blank mask but for her eyes—glittering, sunken, and very scared.

BY THE AMBER GLOW OF A FEW DOZEN CANDLES STUCK IN CANDELABRAS
around the library, Rix was methodically going through the Usher documents. Books, letters, ledgers, and photo albums lay in stacks around the desk. He opened a mildewed volume under the light and saw that it was an account book, the figures and notations entered in strong, clear handwriting. It listed dates— from 1851 and 1852—and amounts of money paid to various creditors. The Brewston Gunpowder Works in Pittsburgh had received twelve thousand dollars. Uriah Hynd and Company of Chicago had been paid fifteen thousand dollars. The Hopewell Lead Casing Foundry had gotten ten thousand dollars of Hudson Usher's money. The closely spaced entries went on, page after page.

Rix felt off balance, his vision blurring. "Damn!" he said softly, and leaned against the desk with his head bowed until the dizziness passed. He was still weak from the attack, and had been in bed for most of the afternoon and evening. His outburst had been forgotten, or at least forgiven, by his mother: she'd had Cass serve him his dinner in bed.

But it wasn't only the lingering effects of the attack that gripped him with deep depression. It was what he'd found in Katt's Quiet Room, the object that was now hidden beneath his bed. Sick to death, he'd wanted to stay in his room during dinner to avoid looking into his sister's face.

What had
happened
to this family? Rix asked himself. What further depths of evil and self-destruction could there be? Boone's plans for an amusement park of freaks on Usher property had been repulsive enough, but somehow that was in character for Boone. What Katt was doing, though, was totally unexpected. Christ! Rix thought. Surely Walen didn't know about it! If he did find out, God help Katt!

Rix returned to his work. Searching through the remnants of past lives now seemed the only thing that could take his mind off the present. Rix followed the entries, noting which ones got most of the money. The gunpowder works was listed several times, for varying amounts. Not happy with Hopewell, Hudson had tried seven different lead-casing foundries. Even the servants' salaries were written down, right to the penny.

But Rix paused at the sixth notation for Uriah Hynd and Company. The amount listed was always fifteen thousand dollars— quite a sum, and even more than Hudson was paying for gunpowder. What did the company sell to him? Rix wondered. There was no indication as to what sort of business Uriah Hynd and Company was.

He came to the end of the account book. During 1851 and 1852, Uriah Hynd and Company had been paid fifteen thousand dollars on a total of nine separate occasions. It was the only company listed so many times. Whatever it had sold to Hudson was lost in the past. Rix put the book aside and began to dig to the bottom of another box.

He uncovered a newspaper, old and brittle, falling to pieces even as he gently lifted it out. It was a copy of the
St. Louis Journal,
dated the tenth of October, 1871. The bold black headline blared, HUNDREDS DIE IN CHICAGO BLAZE, and below that, in smaller type:
GREAT FIRE DECIMATES FRONTIER CITY: INTERVIEWS WITH SURVIVORS, PARTIAL LISTING OF DESTROYED BUILDINGS AND BUSINESSES.

Beneath the layers of headlines was an artist's rendering of the city in flames, as seen from the shore of Lake Michigan. The picture showed hundreds of people fleeing the conflagration. The
Journal
had compiled interviews with about twenty survivors found in a field hospital, and among them Rix recognized a familiar name: Righteous Jordan.

Rix spread the paper carefully out atop the desk, and sat down to read the woman's story. In an emotion-charged, often hysterical voice, Righteous Jordan told the writer what had happened on October 8, 1871. It was the same date, Rix remembered, as that on Cynthia Cordweiler Usher's tombstone.

As Rix read, several of the candles around him sparked and hissed. He could imagine the great city in flames, buildings exploding, whole rooftops lifting off in the hurricane of fire, the earth shuddering as tons of bricks slammed into the streets. Righteous Jordan was speaking from the dead, and as Rix listened he could hear the din of screams, cries to God, clatter of hooves on cobblestones, and alarm bells ringing. Chicago was burning. Righteous Jordan, along with Cynthia and thirteen-year-old Ludlow Usher, were fleeing before the flames in a careening coach driven by elderly Keil Bodane.

"Lord God!" Righteous shrieked. "We gon' turn over!"

"Hush!" Cynthia commanded. A gust of hot wind had hit the coach broadside, making it pitch crazily. Keil was using his whip to keep the Arabians from rearing. "Keil's a good driver. He'll get us out of this."

A bedlam of bells rang out. Clybourne Street was snarled with other coaches, carriages, and wagons of all sizes. People were running, dragging sacks filled with belongings from Clybourne Row mansions. Ashes and cinders spun thickly through the air. The night had brightened like an eerie orange noon to the west, where the fire had started. Fireballs as big as steam engines hurtled across the sky, smashing into buildings and spreading the blaze faster than a man could run. Sitting beside his mother, with Righteous Jordan filling the seat before him, young Ludlow flinched at the reverberating explosions. Their force shook the ground, as if the entire city were trembling in its death agonies.

They had left everything behind but the clothes they wore. As the flames had neared the Chicago River, Cynthia had ordered her servants to bury in the yard the jewels, silver, and fine art collected in the white mansion she'd inherited from Alexander Hamilton Cordweiler. When the fireballs had started jumping the river, setting ablaze everything they touched, Cynthia told the servants to take the other coaches, carry whatever they pleased, and run. It was all too clear that the fire would not be sated with the Irish shanties and cowbarns—it was reaching out to engulf Clybourne Row with equal greed.

"I saw that fire comin' through the winders!" Righteous said. "I
knew
it wasn't gon' be stopped! Little ol' river wouldn't stop a fire like that, no sir!"

"Keil will get us safely to the harbor." Cynthia planned on boarding her private steam yacht and sailing out on Lake Michigan until the danger was over. "As soon as we break free of this traffic, Keil should be able to find a faster route."

"We're more than a mile from the lake," Ludlow said quietly. He looked at neither of them, instead peering out the window at the approaching wall of flames. His face glowed bright orange with reflected light, but his eyes were dark. "It's moving quickly, Mother. The wind's blowing too hard."