Usher's Passing

TWELVE MILES FROM USHERLAND, THE TELEPHONE WAS RINGING insistently in the Dunstan house.



Raven came out of her bedroom to answer it, switching on the hallway light. It was after three o'clock, and Raven had been reading since eleven, when she found sleep impossible. She picked up the phone. "Hello?"



"Miz Dunstan?" It was Sheriff Kemp's drawl. "Sorry to wake you up so early. I'm over here at the Foxton Clinic, and . . . well, a couple of hours ago the Tharpe woman and her boy brought in the old man who calls hisself the Mountain King. He's tore up pretty bad - "



"What happened?"



"Animal got him. The Tharpes won't talk to me, but it looks like they know what went on up there. The emergency nurse called me as soon as she saw how bad off the old man was."



"An animal? What kind of animal?"



"The Tharpes won't say. The doc here tells me they've done everything they can for the old man, but it don't look like he's gonna pull through. I'm callin' because the boy says he wants to see you. He says he'll talk to you, but not to nobody else."



"All right. Give me fifteen minutes." She hung up and dressed hurriedly in jeans and a dark blue pullover sweater, then put on a pair of warm socks and her battered but reliable hiking boots. She ran her hands through her black curls and shrugged into her brown tweed jacket. The books she'd checked out of the Foxton library that afternoon were on the table beside her bed. The librarian had looked at her as if she had two heads when Raven had told her what she needed.



After she'd driven down from Briartop Mountain, she'd sat shaking in her car on the side of the road. The things she'd seen the Mountain King do were beyond rational explanation. Her knee had been healed by one touch of his cane. The Volkswagen had been turned around by a superhuman force.



What Sheriff Kemp had said in his office had come back to her: Then there's the stories about the witches, too .. . Supposed to be that Briartop used to be crawlin' with 'em . . .



The book she'd been reading when the telephone rang was called Dark Angels, a history of witchcraft and black magic. It lay open on the table to one of its weird, phantasmagoric illustrations: a seventeenth-century Welsh woodcut showing a figure in black standing atop a mountain, arms upraised, summoning an army of reptilian demons. Crouched at its feet was a shape that resembled a huge dog - or a panther, Raven thought. In the book Raven had read about the power of the Evil Eye to command men and animals, about spells and magic wands passed down through generations of both "black" and "white" witches, and about the witch's familiar - a beast created by Satanic power to protect and help its master.



The other two books - one by Bill Creekmore entitled No Fear: The World Beyond, the second called The Unfathomed Mind - dealt respectively with life after death and extraordinary mental abilities. Raven had paged through a fourth book as well, and found that it included many elements of the witchcraft lore from the history volume: Rix Usher's Congregation, which she'd picked up from the shelf where her father had left it. She wondered what his reaction would be if he knew how close to the bone his fiction had carved.



Wheeler had rolled his chair into the hallway as she left her bedroom. She told him who'd called, and why, and said she'd be back before dawn.



As she drove toward Foxton, a scatter of hard rain hit the windshield. Dead leaves whirled before the headlights, and she tightened her grip on the wheel.



The question of the ruins themselves continued to nag at her. What had happened up there to burn the outlines of human beings on stone walls? She'd asked her father about the ruins today, but he didn't know who had lived up there, or how old the ruins were. The town that had stood at the peak of Briartop Mountain was not listed in any historical volume in the Foxton library, and a call to the Asheville library turned up nothing, either. There was no record of the people who'd lived there, where they'd come from, or - most importantly - what had happened to them.



The Foxton Clinic, a small red-brick building, stood a block away from the Broadleaf Cafe. A couple of doctors and nurses comprised the staff of the place, which saw more cases of flu and cold sores than anything serious. At night. Raven knew, one nurse ran the clinic and a doctor was on call.



But tonight the sheriffs car was parked in front, beside the Tharpes' pickup truck and two other cars. Raven guided the Volkswagen into a space and hurried inside.



Sheriff Kemp was sitting in the waiting room, paging through a copy of Field & Stream. Across the small room sat Myra Tharpe and her son. As Kemp stood up to greet her, Raven glanced at Myra Tharpe and saw that her shoulders were slumped, her vacant gaze fixed to the floor. Beside her, Newlan - wearing a flannel shirt and a baggy pair of trousers that were obviously not his - rose quickly to his feet when he saw Raven.



"We got us a mess here," Kemp said. His face was slack and unshaven, his eyes red from lack of sleep. "The old man's tore up like you wouldn't believe. Whatever it was jumped him from behind. Broke his ribs and collarbone, smashed his nose and jaw, too. Thing must've had godawful teeth, judgin' from the wound on the back of his neck."



"New," Raven asked. "What attacked him?"



He glanced uncertainly from Raven to the sheriff, then said to her, "The panther. It was Greediguts, Miz Dunstan."



Kemp snorted. "Ain't no such thing! It's a story you mountain people made up!"



"Like we made up the Pumpkin Man?" His voice was calm and steady, but the power in it made Kemp's thin smile slip right off his face.



"Lord God . . ." Myra Tharpe whispered, clenching her hands tightly in her lap.



"You saw it?" Raven persisted.



"I was standin' as close as I'm standing to you right now when the panther jumped the old man from behind. I . . . guess he was too concerned about me to know it was creepin' up on him. The Mountain King was outside our house. If it wasn't for him, I might've gone down to . . ." He let his voice trail off, and then he picked up the gnarled walking stick from where it leaned against his chair. "I hit Greediguts with this," he said, "and ran it off."



"A stick?" Kemp scoffed. "You're tellin' us you ran a black panther off with an old stick?"



"It's . . . more than that." He ran his hand along the wood. "I don't rightly understand what it is, but it burned Greediguts across the head. Knocked me flat on my back, too." New handled it carefully, with great respect; though he couldn't sense the power in it anymore, he felt as if he were holding a loaded shotgun.



That stick. Raven thought, had put her shattered knee back together. Spells and magic wands. Witches on Briartop -



"Miz Tharpe, you look faint," Kemp said. "Can I get you some water?"



She shook her head. "I'm all right, thank you."



Kemp returned his attention to the boy, and narrowed his eyes. "You been dippin' into the moonshine keg? Maybe a cat did jump the old man, but there ain't no such thing as Greediguts! I say a good-sized bobcat - "



"Is a bobcat black, Sheriff?" New moved forward a few steps. "Can it rear up on its hind legs and stand six feet tall? Does it have a tail that rattles like a snake's? You saw the Mountain King. You don't really believe a bobcat did that to him, do you?"



"I've had enough of this!" Myra Tharpe suddenly shrieked, and shot up from her chair. Her eyes blazed at Raven. "It's you who started all this . . . this evil! You, with your damned questions and nosin' about! The panther would've let us be if it hadn't been for you! Damn you to hell, woman! I should've shot you the first time I seen you!"



"You gone crazy?" Kemp asked. "What's Miz Dunstan got to do with this?"



"She stirred up things!" Myra pointed at Raven, her skinny hand trembling. "Comin' up the mountain, goin' up to the ruins, askin' fool questions about the Pumpkin Man and things that are best left alone! Oh, you couldn't take no for an answer, could you? You had to keep on a-stirrin' and a-stirrin' until you drew the very Devil hisself out of the cauldron!"



Calmly, Raven met the other woman's fierce stare. "You never wanted Nathan to be found, did you? You knew those men wouldn't find him and you didn't want them to. Why was that? Why did you refuse to talk about the Pumpkin Man, or to let your son tell me what he'd seen?"



Myra's face splotched with rage. "Because," she said with an effort, "if outsiders go up on Briartop lookin' for the Pumpkin Man, there'll be death and destruction for everybody in this valley! My ma knew it, and her ma before her! The Pumpkin Man is left alone! If anybody tries to stop him from takin' what he wants, he'll cause the earth to split open and take us all down to hell!"



Kemp was wide-eyed. "What in the name of Holy Jesus are you jabberin' about?"



"An earthquake!" Myra screeched. "He'll send an earthquake to destroy us all, like he did that autumn of 1893! Oh, the outsiders went up into the woods with their guns and bloodhounds and they started prowlin' over every inch of Briartop! They kept the Pumpkin Man from takin' what he wanted, and he cracked the earth open! Houses disappeared, boulders smashed people flat, the whole mountain shook like it was gonna split in two! My ma knew it, and her ma, and back a hundred years! Everybody on Briartop knows it, and they know not to talk about the Pumpkin Man to outsiders or let outsiders 'help' us! The Pumpkin Man takes what he pleases! If he's denied, it's destruction for us all!"



"You mean . . . the Briartop people believe the Pumpkin Man sent the earthquake of 1893?" Raven asked. She'd read an account of it in one of the old Democrats: on a sunny November morning, the tremors had begun, and within minutes every window in Foxton had shattered. The most violent activity had been centered on Briartop Mountain, where severe rockslides destroyed many backwoods cabins and killed twenty-two people. Even Asheville suffered broken windows from the aftershocks.



"We don't believe it!" Myra said sharply. "We know it! The law came up to Briartop with their bloodhounds. They searched the mountain all through the autumn, and staked the trails out after the sun went down. They denied the Pumpkin Man what he wanted - and he struck back. There's not been another earthquake since then, because we don't deny him . . . and we make sure no outsiders do, neither!"



The only year that the number of disappearances had declined was 1893, Raven remembered. "You mean . . . you people give up your children deliberately? Why don't you just leave the mountain? Go somewhere else?"



"Where?" she sneered. "Our families have always lived on the mountain! We don't know any other home but Briartop! Most of us couldn't live in the outside world!"



"You do know that the Ushers own Briartop Mountain?"



"We know it. The Ushers leave us be. We don't pay no rent. If a child goes out alone in the dark, or strays too far from home, then . . . maybe that child's meant for the Pumpkin Man."



"Like Nathan was?" Raven asked coldly.



Myra's dark eyes damned the other woman. "Yes," she answered. "Most all the families on Briartop got more mouths than they can feed. The Pumpkin Man takes three, four, sometimes five a season. We know that, and we harden our hearts to it. That's a fact of life."



There was a moment of tense silence. "New," Myra whispered, and held her hand out for her son. He didn't accept it. "Don't look at me like that," she begged. "I've done all I could do! If it hadn't been Nathan, it would've been somebody else's child. The Pumpkin Man cain't be denied, New! Don't you understand that?" A tear trickled down her cheek. New's stare scorched her.



"The . . . Pumpkin Man ain't real," Sheriff Kemp said weakly, glancing back and forth from New to Raven. "Everybody knows , . . it's just a story. Ain't no such thing as - "



"Sheriff?" A nurse had come into the waiting room. "He's regained consciousness. He wants to see the young man."



"Is he going to live?" New asked her.



"His condition is critical. Dr. Robinson doesn't think he could survive the trip to Asheville, so we're doing what we can for him. Other than that, I can't say."



"Go on, then," Kemp said to New as he eased himself into a chair. "Jesus Christ, I can't make heads or tails of this mess!"



"New?" Raven stepped forward as he followed the nurse. "I'd like to see him, too. All right?"



He nodded. Myra gave a soft sob and crumpled into a chair.



In one of the clinic's small rooms, a white-smocked doctor with sharp features and thinning gray hair turned toward New and Raven as the nurse showed them in. The room smelled strongly of antiseptic. On a bed, the Mountain King lay facedown, his back covered with a sheet. He was hooked up to two IV bottles, one containing whole blood and the other a yellow liquid that Raven assumed was glucose. The Mountain King's head was turned so his eye faced the door, and he was so pallid that the network of veins at his left temple stood out in royal blue relief. Mottled black bruises were scattered across his face, and stitches had been taken in a long, jagged gash across his forehead. A bandage covered the bridge of his nose. Under its pale film, his eye was dark green and unblinking. Raven could hear his slow, labored breathing.



Dr. Robinson's expression told Raven all she needed to know about the old man's prospects of survival. He left the room and closed the door behind him.



New approached the bed, clutching the walking stick with both hands. But for the faint rising and falling of the sheets as he breathed, the Mountain King was motionless. Then his mouth twitched, and he said in a raspy, garbled voice, "It's . . . time. Come closer, boy, so . . . I can see you."



New stood at his bedside. "I'm here."



"Somebody's . . . with you. Who is it?"



"The newspaper lady, from the Democrat."



"The lady with the yaller car," the Mountain King remembered. "She had a hurt knee. Tell her . . . to come closer. I want her to hear it, too."



New motioned her over. The Mountain King's eye was fixed directly ahead, looking at neither of them. "It's time," he repeated. "I've got . . . to pass it on."



"Pass what on?" New asked.



"The tale. It's time to tell the tale." One thin, braised hand emerged from beneath the sheet, and groped for New. "Take it," he commanded, and New did. The old man squeezed his hand so hard that New thought his knuckles were going to break. "You've . . . got the wand. That's good. You keep it. Oh, I've got a hurtin' in my ribs . . ."



New sucked in his breath. A ripple of fiery pain had shot across his own ribcage. The old man's hand wouldn't let him go. "You . . . listen to me," he rasped. "Both of you. I want to . . . tell you about the ruins . . . up on Briartop. I'll tell it . . . like my pa told me . . . before the comets fell." For a moment he was silent, breathing harshly. "Greediguts tried to get me . . . before I could pass it on," he said, "Them ruins used to be a whole town, full of people. But they . . . wasn't ordinary people. My pa . . . said they'd sailed from England . . . back when this country was just bein' settled. They . . . come down from the north . . . and they built a town of their own. Up on Briartop, where they could live in secret." The Mountain King's eyelid sagged and fluttered. Still, his grip on New's hand didn't weaken.



"A coven," he whispered. "It was . . . a town of warlocks and witches."



Raven looked at New, saw the boy's eyes narrow - and she knew he realized it was true, just as she did. She leaned closer to the old man. "What happened to that town?"



"Destroyed . . . by fire and wrath," he answered, and drew a pained, rattling breath. "One of their own . . . done it." Raven was silent, waiting for him to continue. "One of their own," he said softly. "One who'd done . . . what to the Devil is . . . the worst blasphemy of all."



"What?" Raven prompted.



The Mountain King's gray lips curled into a smile. "He . . . fell in love. With a girl from another town. A . . . Christian girl. He wanted to give up what he was . . . and marry her. But the others knew . . . knew they had to stop him. He was one of the strongest . . . warlocks of 'em all." He had to pause, gathering strength to speak again. "He must've gone through the fires of hell itself . . . in decidin' which path to take. 'Cause once the Devil leeches into you . . . he's like a drug . . . that beats you down and beats you down and keeps you needin' more." His eye fluttered again, then closed; but his grip was so strong it was grinding New's fingers together. "But . . . he loved her more . . . than he needed evil," the Mountain King whispered. His eye opened. "He made up his mind, and he went down . . . to the town in the valley. It's . . . called Foxton now."



As the old man spoke, his hand clutching the boy's, scenes began to form in New's mind - ghostly, faded images of people in dark clothes with white, stiff collars, a town's narrow dirt streets bordered by picket fences, horses and wagons stirring up a shimmering haze of dust, men in deerskin jackets and floppy hats, farmers plowing fields in the distance. One man in a three-cornered hat and a long dark cloak dismounted his horse in front of a small white house - then stopped, because on the door was a wreath of black ribbons.



Carrying a bouquet of wild flowers he'd brought from the forest, he was admitted by a tall, sad-eyed older man in dark clothes. The sad-eyed man told him what had happened: she had gone up to the attic room yesterday morning, and there she'd tied a rope around a rafter and hanged herself. There was no reason for it! Who could understand why such a lovely girl had done it? Her mother, the older man said, had found her, and was now confined to bed.



The man in the three-cornered hat slowly bowed his head. The flowers scattered to the floor. At his sides, his hands curled into fists. Who saw her last? he asked softly.



Her mother and me, came the answer. There was no sense in it! She went to bed and rose happy as a lark! Oh . . . she'd been troubled over a little traveling man selling knives and brushes who'd stopped for a cup of water. She'd spoken with him for a while, and after he was gone she said she wished wanderers such as he could find the love and happiness of a family. But why did she kill herself? Why?



On the floor, the flowers were turning brown. They were dead when the man in the three-cornered hat turned and stalked out of the house.



"The coven . . . had killed her," the Mountain King said. "He knew it. They'd . . . sent one of their own . . . to plant the seed of hangin' herself . . . in her mind. He went back up the mountain . . . and he summoned all the power of death and destruction from his soul . . ."



Blinding, white-hot flames filled New's head. The intensity of it scared him, but when he tried to pull away, the Mountain King held him fast. He realized he was seeing scenes of the past from the Mountain King's mind. New could do nothing but hang on, as a firestorm of awesome proportions blazed behind his eyes. He saw stone cabins blasted to pieces, burning bodies hurled against walls, charred corpses melting into the scorched and glassy earth. A wall exploded in blue fire, and the stones tumbled straight for him with terrible speed . . .



"They fought him hard. But they . . . wasn't strong enough to match him. Most of 'em died . . . some ran. He'd figured out the truth . . . that evil existed . . . to destroy love. When he was through . . . he built himself a cabin on the mountain. He . . . took it on hisself to watch over them ruins . . . to make up for his sinnin'. That man," the Mountain King said, "was my great-great-grandfather."



"But . . . if he gave up what he was, how did he keep the magic?"



The Mountain King scowled. "He gave up evil . . . not what was born in him. The Devil didn't teach him magic . . . just used it. Magic's an iron chain . . . that links gen'ration to gen'ration. The man don't find Satan. Satan finds the man." He paused, breathing harshly. His voice was quieter, almost gentle, when he continued: "Boy. What I want to know is - why are you like me?"



"I'm not," New said quickly.



"You are. The magic's in you somethin' fierce. Satan . . . finds the man. He's callin' you, like he called your pa . . . and like he called me, all these years. He wants the power that's in you . . . wants to twist it . . . wants to have you. Tell me. Are you descended . . . from one of those who ran from that coven?"



"No. I . . ." He stopped abruptly. His father had been like him. Who was his father? Bobby Tharpe had been raised in an orphanage near Asheville, but had chosen to live on Briartop. Who had his parents been? "My . . . pa was brought up in a state home," he said. "I don't know anythin' about his family. My ma . . ."



"A state home?" The Mountain King sounded choked. "How . . . old . . . was your pa when he died?"



"He wasn't sure what year he was born. But he said he was fifty-two."



The Mountain King released a soft, exhausted whisper. "Lord God . . . he was born in 1931. I've . . . killed my own son."



His grip weakened, and New wrenched his hand away.