Usher's Passing

Usher's Passing Page 21

USHERLAND'S FORESTS BLAZED WITH COLOR IN THE STRONG LATE-morning sunlight. Leaves in the giant, ancient oaks had turned brilliant scarlet and deep purple; ash leaves gleamed like golden coins; chestnut trees held variegated patterns of green, gold, and violet.

Katt and Rix were on horseback, following one of the many trails that meandered through the woods. It had been a long time since Rix had hoisted himself into a saddle, but Katt had come to his door this morning and urged him to join her for a ride before lunch. The stablemaster, a burly, middle-aged black man named Humphries, had chosen a mild-tempered roan mare for Rix, while Katt had taken her favorite horse, a nimble white stallion with a black star on his forehead.

They were about a mile from the Gatehouse and heading eastward. Rix had the impression of being inside a tremendous cathedral roofed with tall, multihued treetops. Every so often the light breeze showered Rix and Katt with falling leaves. The sunlight filtered down as if through stained-glass windows.

Katt, wearing a tan crushed-velvet riding outfit, silently pointed into the woods off the trail, and Rix looked in time to see two white-tailed deer freeze for a second before they leaped into the cover of denser undergrowth.

If there was a God, He was at this moment on Usherland. The world seemed still and peaceful; a serenity that Rix hadn't known for years settled around him. The crisp air smelled pungent and earthy. Sandra would have enjoyed this perfect moment. She had been the rare type of person who found the silver lining in even the blackest cloud. Right up to the end, she'd encouraged Rix to try to purge himself of the old family hurts. He was especially halting in talking about his father, but Sandra had patiently listened and drawn him out. She'd even suggested she go to Usherland with him and stand by him as he struggled to strike a truce with his parents and brother. She was helping him feel that he was worth a damn - and then he'd walked into that bloody bathroom and almost lost his mind.

Rix blamed himself. He'd been too caught up in his own problems to sense a need in Sandra. Or, more horribly, maybe he'd expressed his emotions too well - and Sandra had been overcome by the ghosts of his childhood.

"Where are you?" Katt asked, checking her horse until Rix could catch up.

He blinked, returning from the haunted world. "Sorry. I was thinking how beautiful this is."

"Like old times, isn't it?" Katt's smile was radiant this morning. There was no trace of the cold practicality she'd displayed yesterday, when talking about the future of Usher Armaments. He was comfortable with her again. "I've missed having a riding partner."

"Doesn't Boone ride with you? I thought he was such a great horseman."

She shrugged. "He stays to himself most of the time. Usually he's over at the racetrack, clocking the horses."

Shades of Erik, Rix thought. He remembered Puddin's shouts as Boone pulled her out of the dining room. "What did Puddin' mean about Boone's talent agency yesterday?" he asked.

"I don't know. I thought she was drunk and babbling. Why?"

"Boone's the type who crows from dusk till dawn, but he doesn't talk very much about his work. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

"I've never thought about it. I know it's a legitimate business, though. Dad put up the cash for it." She smiled mischievously. "What's on your mind, Rix?"

"Boone's too evasive when he should be beating his chest. Does he go to his club every night?"

"Just about."

"Good. I think I'll have a little talk with Puddin'."

"I wouldn't mess around with her if I were you," Katt warned. "She's trouble."

He nodded, but he hadn't heard her. As they continued along the trail deeper into the woods, Rix's thoughts turned toward the documents in the library. "Katt?" he said casually. "Why did Dad bring all those books from the Lodge?"

"Is your writer's curiosity working overtime?"

"Maybe. Has Dad been working on a special project or something?"

Katt hesitated a moment. "I don't know if I should answer that or not."

"Why not?"

"Because . . . you know, the security and everything."

"What do you think I'm going to do?" He grinned tightly. "Sell out to the Russians? Come on. What's the big secret?"

"Well, I don't suppose it would hurt. I don't know a lot about it, really, but Dad's told me he's working on something new for Usher Armaments. It's called Pendulum, but what it is and what it does, I don't know. General McVair and Mr. Meredith have been coming to see him a lot lately. It must be important to him, because he lets them use the Jetcopter."

"Pendulum," Rix repeated. "Sounds ominous." What new witch's brew was the business cooking up? he wondered. And what did the old documents have to do with it? The picture of the infant in Nora's arms flashed through his mind. The family cemetery was to the north, nearer the Lodge. It might take twenty minutes or so to get there from here. If Walen did have a brother or sister who had died as a child, wouldn't there be a grave and a headstone? "We're not too far from the cemetery, are we?" he asked Katt.

"Oh my God!" she said with mock horror. "Don't tell me Boone's right!"

"About what?"

"Boone says you missed your calling. He says you have a deep-seated desire to rob graves."

"Not exactly, though whenever I'm around Boone, I feel like digging a grave for him. No, really. I'm serious. I'd like to ride over and look around."

"To the cemetery?" She made a face. "What for?"

"Because it's a beautiful day. Because I'm crazy. Because I want to. Okay? Will you take me over there?"

"Boy, you sure know how to have fun!" she said, but she turned her horse northward at the next intersection of trails.

They came out of the forest onto a paved road, and crossed a small bridge spanning a dark, peat-laden stream connecting two lakes. On the other side of the bridge was Usherland's Memory Garden, two acres of sculpted grounds surrounded by eight-foot-high marble walls and a large bronze gate.

Rix and Katt left their horses tied to the lower branches of a pine tree and entered the cemetery. Inside, brilliantly colored trees shaded a phantasmagoria of intricate marble and granite monuments, obelisks, grotesque statues, and religious totems.

Walkways intersected each other, cutting through manicured hedgerows to converge on the white marble chapel at the Memory Garden's center. Elsewhere on the grounds were a Japanese rock garden, a manmade waterfall that spilled down several terraces into a pond stocked with goldfish, a Grotto of Solitude where one could meditate in a fake cavern in the presence of statues of the saints, and a collection of antique Baldwin steam engines from the early days of railroading. The Usher graves, Rix knew, were located near the chapel; on the outer edges of the garden were the graves of servants. There was even a section for pets, over near the steam engines.

Rix, followed at a distance by his sister, went along a walkway toward the chapel. He passed a series of statues that were at once fascinating and repellent: The first was a young child in vibrant health, the second a teenaged boy with his face toward the sky - and, grotesquely, the same figure was repeated every fifty feet or so, becoming progressively older and more infirm until the last statue. It was a skeleton with beckoning arms.

And near it was the twenty-foot-tall gilded pyramid that was the final resting place of Hudson Usher. A scrolled inscription in bronze letters read: HE SAW THE FUTURE. Hudson's date of birth was not given, but his death date was July 14, 1855. Ten yards away, beneath the statue of a nun with clasped hands, lay his wife, Hannah Burke Usher. A neat hedge and a row of limestone cherubs separated Hannah's grave from a simple black marble headstone that bore the name RODERICK. Whether the man's dust actually lay under that stone or not, Rix didn't know. There was no grave for Madeline Usher.

Rix had come to this place only once before, to seek peace after Sandra's suicide. He hadn't made it to the pond before he had to get out. There was something terribly decadent in the ostentatious monuments and statues of death angels. This place was almost a celebration of death, a shout of debased joy from the lips of the new generation over the graves of the old.

Aram Usher lay entombed in a marble cube ten feet high. At each corner stood a life-sized statue of a man standing at attention, holding what looked to be a dueling pistol. Each figure had different eyes: rabies, emeralds, jade, and topaz. Next to him, in a similar cube but without the figures, was Cynthia Cordweiler Usher. The legend on her stone read: ASHES TO ASHES. DEAD OCTOBER 8, 1871. Near their stones, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, was a marble column topped by, of all things, a small grand piano of marble. The name SHANN was spelled out in wrought-iron letters.

Thirty feet or so away, Ludlow Usher was buried under a granite representation of the Lodge that had to weigh at least a ton. Erik's handiwork was all over this gravesite, Rix mused. The inscription read LUDLOW USHER, DEAR FATHER Flanking him were the graves of two wives, Jessamyn Usher and Lauretta Kenworth Usher.

A rearing horse marked Erik's tomb, which was engraved with golden finials and studded with gemstones. He lay alone, without the protection of shade trees. There was no grave for Nora, and none for Simms.

A new section had been added since Rix's last visit. Freshly carved angels rose from a block of gold-veined marble. It bore the name of Walen Usher, with his date of birth. Nearby, a pink marble stone was inscribed MARGARET - MY LOVE.

"You ready to go now?" Katt asked from behind him. "This isn't my favorite place."

He stood looking at the two gravesites that were ready for his mother and father, and he felt very old. Seeing this stone brought home Walen's impending death even more than hearing what Dr. Francis had said. In a week - if that long - his father would be lying in the earth. How was he going to handle it? He was long familiar with the turbulence of intermingled love and hate, but now a sadness seeped into the tangle of contradictory emotions. "Yeah," he said distantly. "I'm ready."

But he stopped again, before Erik's tomb. A three-foot-high hedge stood beyond it, about twenty feet away. He could see the back of a small head - another statue on a monument. He walked toward it.

"Rix!" Katt called irritably. "Come on!"

He went through an opening in the hedge and around to the front of the gravestone, which was an angel strumming a lyre. Rix's heart kicked, and he said, "Katt? Come here for a minute, okay?"

She sighed and shook her head, but went over to him. She looked at the monument. "So what?"

"That's what." Rix pointed toward the stone. Etched into the lyre was SIMMS - OUR GOLDEN BOY.

"Simms? I never heard of anybody named Simms before."

"Maybe you weren't supposed to. Simms was Dad's brother. He must've died when he was a small boy, from the size of the grave."

"Dad's brother? Come on! Dad was an only child!"

"Maybe that's what he wanted us to think," Rix replied. "Why, I don't know."

"You're wrong. Simms must've been a servant's child. Have you gone off your rocker?"

"None of the servants or their children are buried up here," he reminded her. "These are all Usher plots. I can't tell you how I know, but I do. For some reason, Dad's kept Simms a secret all these years."

"Cut it out. You're making it sound creepy. I still say it's a servant's child. Christ, maybe it's a dog! Listen, I don't know about you, but I'm getting out of here. You coming or not?"

Rix bent down, running his fingers over the carved letters. SIMMS - OUR GOLDEN BOY. Whose sentiment was that? Nora's? There was no date on the stone, so conceivably Simms might have died as an infant. In that case, Walen would hardly have known his brother. When Rix stood up, he saw that Katt had stalked off. He didn't blame her; he must have sounded like a ghoul.

By the time he left the Memory Garden he was satiated with death imagery. Katt had taken her horse and gone. As he untied his horse and climbed into the saddle, he thought that Katt had better get used to death if she seriously wanted to control the business.

The road ran north and south. Going south would eventually return him to the stables. The northern path would take him past the Lodge. The sunshine was warm and strong, and Rix wanted a look at the massive crack that Nora had mentioned in her diary. He headed north.

Within fifteen minutes he saw the chimneys and lightning rods jutting above the trees. Before he was mentally prepared for the sight, the foliage cleared and he had reached the lake's southern shore and was looking across the smooth black water at Usher's Lodge.

It was a madman's dream, Rix thought. No emperor, tsar, or king had ever owned such an ungodly monument to the spoils of war. Rix gazed upward at the lions that stalked the roof, and then his eye found the discolored glass cupola that looked like a burned-out lightbulb. A breeze blew across the lake from the direction of the Lodge, and Rix shivered as if he were standing before a huge deep freeze. Water whispered against the shore through a mass of reeds and floating green algae.

The only way to the island was across the granite carriage bridge. Trying to follow the shoreline to the northern side of the Lodge was impossible, because over there the forest was impenetrable. Rix guided his horse toward the bridge. His heart had started beating harder.

Ten feet onto the bridge, Rix reined in sharply. The Lodge's shadow, bloated and monstrous, waited to engulf him.

He couldn't go any closer. The Lodge still held power over him. Even this far from the house, he felt disoriented and claustrophobic. As he turned the horse away, his palms were slick with sweat.

Rix guided the mare onto a path through the woods, intending to take a shortcut to the stables. The tension at the back of his neck eased only when the forest blocked his view of the Lodge. As he continued into the woods, the trees overhead cut the sunlight to a murky orange haze.

The mare suddenly tossed her head with such force that Rix almost lost the reins. She balked, neighing and snorting. After a minute or two of rubbing her neck, Rix got her settled down and moving forward again. He looked around to see what might have spooked her. The forest seemed tranquil. An occasional bird called in the distance, but otherwise the only sound was the wind whispering through the trees.

Again the horse jerked her head, her hindquarters dancing nervously. "Calm down, now," Rix said softly. From her throat came a quiet, ominous rumble, but she responded to the reins and kept moving forward.

They'd gone another thirty yards when Rix saw old, rusted gas-lamp poles on either side of the path. From the gloom emerged a series of large wire cages, battered out of shape, some of them broken open. Dark green trails of kudzu snaked through them, and the odor of decay rose from rotting trees slimed with gray fungus.

It was the wreckage of Erik's private zoo. He had set it aflame in the 1920s, Margaret had told Rix, but she didn't know why he'd done it. Most of the lions, tigers, panthers, crocodiles, pythons, zebras, gazelles, and exotic birds had died in the fire, but some had burst out of their cages and fled into the woods. Every once in a while, some farmer in the area had sworn he'd seen a zebra running through his tobacco field, and an old, toothless leopard had been shot by a hunter in 1943. Of course, there was Greediguts, too; the story was that Greediguts was a mutant, the offspring of a black panther who'd escaped the conflagration and mated with another animal in the wilderness.

Others said that Greediguts was as ancient as Briartop Mountain itself.

As he rode past the misshapen cages, the concrete crocodile pit now filled with rainwater and debris, the aviary a mass of twisted vines and hanging branches, Rix could almost hear the screams of the animals. The strongest ones must have thrown their bodies against the cages in a frenzy until they either killed themselves or broke loose. To Rix, this had always been a malevolent place. Boone had loved to come here as a boy and play among the cages, but Rix gave it a wide berth.

Once again the mare balked; she seemed confused about what direction to take. When he'd gotten her around the next bend, Rix saw what was spooking her.

Hanging on wires from low tree branches, suspended about five or six feet from the ground, were eight animal carcasses. There were three squirrels, two possums, a red fox, and two deer, all dangling by their legs. He could smell the blood that had pooled on the ground beneath them, and he knew his horse had smelled it long ago. Flies were abundant, merrily buzzing and plundering.

He moved as close to the carcasses as the horse would let him. The animals' throats had been deeply slashed, but other than that they seemed to be unmarked. Most of the eyes had been picked out by insects, and battalions of bugs feasted on the crusted blood. Rix waved away flies that darted around his head. "Christ!" he muttered.

He recalled the light he'd seen from his window. It had been in this area. Was this somebody's idea of a joke?

The carcasses swayed slightly on their wires, reminding Rix again of Boone's grisly surprise at the De Peyser Hotel. Surely Boone wouldn't be nuts enough to come out in the middle of the night and do this!

He guided the mare around the hanging trophies and left the zoo's ruins behind. Something about that scene disturbed him deeply, more than the cruel carnage.

It took him a few minutes to realize exactly what it was.

There had been no bullet holes in those carcasses, just the throat slashes.

How had they been hunted down?

He gave the mare a quick kick in the flanks, and she trotted back to the stable.