Usher's Passing

Usher's Passing Page 13

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."

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?"

Myra Tharpe whirled and entered the house. She came back a moment later, carrying a shotgun. Without hesitation she swung it up, pointing its barrel toward Raven. "I'll give you a minute, city woman," she warned quietly. "If you ain't off my land in a minute, I'll blow your fancy ass into the trees."

Raven began carefully backing away from the porch. "All right," she said. "I'll go. Don't get nervous."

"I'll nervous a hole straight through your head."

Raven reached the car - damn, her leg was aching! - and climbed in. Myra Tharpe was still aiming the shotgun as she started the Volks, put it in reverse, and eased back onto the road. Then she drove away down the mountain, having to ride the brakes to keep the tires from slipping. Her hands were clenched hard around the wheel.

"Damned fool," Myra Tharpe muttered as she lowered the shotgun. It was an Usher gun, and had been Bobby's pride and joy before the accident. As she turned to go inside, she saw New standing behind the screen. There were bandages on his neck and across the bridge of his nose. His eyes were swollen, and beneath them were deep blue hollows. Bandages were wrapped around his raw, scraped fingers.

He stepped back as his mother entered the house and closed the door behind her. She crossed the small parlor and returned Bobby's shotgun to its rack near the stone fireplace. The house was simply constructed, with only two rooms and a kitchen in addition to the parlor; the plank floors in some places rose and tilted like a sea in motion, and the thin wooden roof often dripped rainwater like a sieve. Most of the pinewood furniture had been handmade by Bobby in a shed out back, near the outhouse, and cheap rugs helped cover the water stains on the floor. Now the house smelled of cooking blackberries and rich pastry. Mr. Berthon, owner of the Broadleaf Cafe, was expecting his pies today.

"So," Myra Tharpe said, looking at her son, "how much of that did you hear?"

"Most all."

"You shouldn't be out of bed. Run on, now."

"Why wouldn't you let that woman in to talk to me, Ma?" New asked quietly.

" 'Cause our business is our business, that's why! She's an outsider, a city woman. You can tell that just by lookin' at her."

"Maybe so," New agreed, "but I think she wanted to help."

"Help." She said it like a sneer. "We don't need no help from an outsider, boy! That's fool talk. Now you run on back to bed where you belong." She started toward the kitchen, the floor creaking under her steps.

"Ma?" New said. "I saw him. Up on the edge of that pit. I saw him, and I heard his black cat prowlin' - "

"You didn't see or hear nothin'!" she snapped, turning on him. She advanced a few steps, but New stood his ground. Myra reddened to the roots of her hair. "Do you understand me, boy?" She started to reach out and shake him, but he said "Don't do that, Ma," and an undercurrent in his voice stayed her hand. She blinked uncertainly; he was growin' up so fast! She dropped her hand to her side, but her eyes flashed anger "You didn't see or hear a thing out there!"

"He took Nathan." New's voice cracked. "He bundled Nathan up under his arm, and he took him off into the woods. I know, Ma, because I saw him and nobody can say I didn't."

"It was dark and you were a-layin' in them thorns all cut and busted up! You got a knot on the back of your head as big as a man's fist! How do you know what you saw out there?"

In his pale, scratched-up face, New's eyes were fiery, dark green emeralds. "I saw the Pumpkin Man," he said steadfastly "He took Nathan."

"Don't you say that name in this house, boy!"

"That woman was right. You are afraid. Of what, Ma? Tell me."

"Outsiders ain't never right!" Tears welled up in her eye "You don't understand a thing, New. Not a single blessed thing. You don't talk to outsiders - especially not about him. We don't want outsiders on Briartop Mountain, askin' their fool questions and pokin' their noses into every gully. We take care of of own."

"If I didn't see him," New replied, "then what happened to Nathan, Ma? How come none of those men have found Nathan by now?"

"Nathan got hisself lost in the woods. He took a wrong path somewhere. Maybe the thorns got him. I don't know. If he's to be found, they'll bring him back to us."

New shook his head. "They won't find him. You know that and so do I. If they were gonna find him, they would've by now. And Nathan wouldn't have gone off the path, Ma. Not in the dark."

Myra started to speak, then stopped; when her voice came, was an anguished whisper "Don't beg trouble, son. Don't go seekin' it. Lord knows, I'm just about to go crazy inside over Nathan, but. . . you're all I got now. You have to be the man of the house. We've got to be strong, and go on with our lives. Do you understand that?"

New didn't. Why had his ma prevented him from talking to the newspaperwoman? Why had she not even let him talk to the local men who'd volunteered for the search party? But he saw how close she was to breaking down, and he said, "Yes, ma'am."

"Good." She forced a weak, crooked smile, but her eyes were tortured. "That's my good boy. Now you get on back to bed. You need your rest." She paused for only a moment, her lower lip trembling, and then she went back to the kitchen to tend to her pies.

New returned to the room he'd shared with Nathan. There were two cots, divided by a rickety pine desk. The room had no closet; New's and Nathan's clothes were hung on a metal rod bolted to one of the walls. A single window looked toward the road, and it was through this that New had seen the newspaperwoman drive up.

New closed the door and sat down on his cot. He smelled the medicine his mother had used on his cuts: tobacco juice and iodine. It had stung him like the Devil's pitchfork.

He'd dreamed of the Lodge again last night. The house was ablaze with lights, the brightest things New had ever seen in his life, and as he'd watched, he'd seen figures pass back and forth behind the windowglass. They moved slowly, with stately cadence, as if they were dancing at a huge party. And in the dream, as it usually happened, he'd heard his name called as if from a vast distance, the whispering, seductive voice that he thought sometimes lured him to the edge of The Devil's Tongue.

Questions about the Pumpkin Man plagued him. What was the thing, and why had it taken Nathan? Better to ask the moon why it changed shape, he thought. The Pumpkin Man lived in the wind, in the trees, in the earth, in the thorns. The Pumpkin Man came out from his hiding places to snatch the unwary away. If I hadn't fallen into those thorns, New told himself, Nathan would still be here. He looked at Nathan's cot. I could've saved him. . . somehow. I'm the man of the house, and I could've done something.

Couldn't I?

His pa would've let him talk to that woman, he knew. His pa wasn't afraid of anything. And now he was the man of the house, and Nathan's cot was empty.

New lifted his cot's thin mattress and took out the magic knife.

He'd brought it home hidden inside his jacket, tucked up his sleeve out of sight. It was a trick his pa had shown him once; you put a knife up your sleeve, and when you want it you just straighten your arm out real fast and it slides right into your hand. Pa had been a hard drinker a long time ago, before he'd married Ma, and New suspected his father had used that trick to protect himself in some of the rough backhills honkytonks.

The magic knife was his secret. He hadn't shown it to his mother, and he didn't know exactly why, but he knew he wanted to test it further before he told her.

He laid it on Nathan's cot and then sat back down again.

I want it, he said in his mind, and held his bandaged hand out.

The knife didn't move.

He had to want it harder. He focused all his attention on urging the magic knife to come to him. I want it now, he thought.

Maybe the knife shivered - and maybe it didn't.

The image of the dark shape with Nathan under its arm came to him unbidden. He saw the moonlight on his brother's face, felt the thorny coils holding him tight as he tried to struggle, saw in his mind a hideous grin spreading across the Pumpkin Man's malformed head.

He took a deep breath.

I WANT IT NOW!

The magic knife flew up from the cot with a suddenness that amazed him. It spun in midair, gathering speed, and then came end over end toward his hand.

But it was too fast, faster than he could control, and he realized that the knife might go right through him and into the wall.

And then his mother opened the door to tell him she was sorry she'd lost her temper, and she was looking into the room when the knife curved in the air, inches away from his body, and slammed violently upward into the ceiling, three feet above her head.

She gasped, the breath shocked out of her.

The knife stuck in the ceiling and stayed there, quivering with a sound like a broken fiddle string.