Eight

THE DECISION

45

USHER PATRIARCH DIES; LODGE DESTROYED.

FOXTON ROCKED BY TREMORS

_____________________

By Raven Dunstan Editor and Publisher, Foxton Democrat

Walen Erik Usher, patriarch of the powerful Usher clan and owner-chairman of the Usher Armaments Company, died Wednesday, October 31, at Usherland, the family's estate seven miles east of Foxton.

Usher had been ill for several months, and was confined to bed. The cause of death, according to Dr. John Howard Francis of Boston, was massive cerebral hemorrhage. On November 2, private funeral services were held at the estate, attended by many government and armed forces officials.

Survivors include his wife, Margaret Usher, a daughter, Kattrina Usher; and two sons, Boone and Rix Usher.

Rix Usher has been named successor to the family business. Through a spokesperson, Boone and Kattrina Usher have announced extended travel plans.

Within hours of Usher's passing, a violent series of earth tremors, localized in the Briartop Mountain area, leveled Usher's Lodge, the 143-year-old landmark constructed by Hudson Usher. According to Rix Usher, there are no plans to rebuild.

The tremors, which were felt as far away as Asheville, shattered windows in Foxton, Taylorville, and Rainbow City. Taken to the Foxton clinic for treatment of injuries caused by flying glass were Neville S. Winston, Betty Chesley, Elton Weir, and Johnny Faber, all of Foxton.

Geologists at the University of North Carolina are puzzled by the tremors, and are currently beginning a study of the area in hopes of finding their origin.

The Briartop Mountain-Foxton area suffered an earthquake in the autumn of 1893 that caused severe property damage and left more than twenty mountain residents dead.

The staff and management of the Foxton Democrat wish to offer their condolences to the family of Walen Usher.

It was the middle of January, and a cold wind was blowing as Raven stopped her Volkswagen before the closed gates of Usherland. She lifted the collar of her coat up around her neck and then rolled her window down. Within reach was a small speaker. She pressed the mechanism's button and waited.

"Yes?" the voice asked.

"Raven Dunstan. Mr. Usher's expecting me."

The gates clicked open to admit her. After her car had passed through, the gates locked themselves again.

She was met at the front door of the Gatehouse by a young maid who took her coat, then escorted her not to the living room - where she'd been several times since that horrible day -  but upstairs, along a corridor where the only sound was that of a softly ticking grandfather clock. Raven was led to a staircase that ascended to a white door with a silver knob.

"Mr. Usher's waitin' for you," the maid said. She glanced nervously up the stairs.

"Thank you." Raven climbed up to the door, then paused. There was the faintest hint of an unpleasant odor in the air. It smelled like meat that was going bad. She knocked at the door. The silence of the house unnerved her. When Rix didn't answer, she opened the door and peered inside.

He was sitting on the edge of a large bed with a bare mattress. There were no lights in the room, and no windows, and he squinted as he looked toward the door. "Raven?" he asked. "Come in. You can leave the door open, if you like."

She entered, and approached him. The smell was stronger in here. The walls, she saw, were coated with rubber, and she knew this was the Quiet Room that Rix had told her about - the room where Walen Usher had died.

Rix was wearing an expensive gray suit and a blue-striped tie. In the tie was a small diamond stickpin. His face was wan and tired, as if he'd gone without sleep for a long time; there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked at her with a troubled gaze, and Raven saw that he held the ebony scepter across his knees.

"I came as soon as I could get away from the office," she said. "Are you all right?"

He smiled faintly. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything anymore."

"Neither am I," she told him. It was cold in here, and she hugged her arms around herself for warmth. "Dad's getting better," she offered. "The doctor says he's making real progress. He knew who I was the last time I visited."

"Good. I'm glad." He ran his hand over the smooth ebony. "My mother's found a condominium, at last. She says I ought to come out to Hawaii sometime for a vacation."

"Does she . . . know about Boone and Kattrina yet?"

"I think she really wants to believe that Katt is in Italy and Boone is on a tour of Europe. Of course, she knows something's wrong. If she lets herself realize that they're dead, she'll go to pieces. She'll have to know sometime, I guess, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm . . . really grateful for that story you wrote, Raven. I still don't understand why you didn't blow the lid off everything, but I want you to know how much I appreciate it."

She had had the chance of a lifetime, she knew, but she'd let it go. What was the point? The Pumpkin Man was dead - the chain of Pumpkin Men broken - and there would be no more children vanishing without a trace. There was still so much she couldn't comprehend about what she'd been through; sometimes it seemed like only a particularly nasty dream. Except that her limp had never returned, her father was in a sanitarium, and Usher's Lodge lay in ruins. Down deep, though, she was repelled by the thought of writing a story that would tell the mountain people exactly where their children had been going over the years. Her perception of evil had been sharpened dramatically, and when she saw a report of missing children in another newspaper, her flesh broke out in cold goosebumps. The Democrat's circulation continued to climb, and New Tharpe was working out just fine as a copyboy. Pretty soon, she intended to let him write his first story for the paper - but for the time being, he was going to school like any other normal kid.

"I got a letter yesterday," Rix said. "It was from Puddin' Usher. She's in New York City now, and she wrote to tell me that she'd just signed a contract with a publisher."

"What?"

Rix nodded, a grim smile stitched across his mouth. "They're going to pay her a hundred thousand dollars to write an account of her life as an Usher. She's going to do talk shows and newspaper interviews. Isn't that a kick in the ass?"

"Can she do that?"

"I don't know. My lawyer's looking into it right now. Jesus," he said softly. "Listen to me. I think I sound more and more like my father, every day. I look in the mirror and see his face staring out."

"What have you decided to do? About your condition, I mean?"

"No more Welsh pies," he said, and she winced. "Sorry. I didn't mean to say that. Dr. Francis called me. He still wants to run the tests I told you about. I'd have to go to Boston and stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks."

"Are you going?"

"I want to, but . . . what if there's no cure for the Malady, Raven? What if it's so deep in the Usher genes that there's no way to root it out? I watched my father die, right on this bed. What I saw I wouldn't have wished on anyone. Not even him." He looked up at her pleadingly, and whispered, "I'm . . . so afraid."

"But you have a chance," Raven said. "All the other Ushers had that chance and turned away from it. But you've got the best chance of all; with modern medical technology, there's a real possibility the Malady can be controlled, Rix. Isn't that what you said Dr. Francis told you?"

"He said they'd give it their best shot. But what if it isn't good enough? What if I have to die in this room, just as my father did?"

She shook her head.-"You're not your father, Rix. You see things your own way. You don't have to live the same kind of life. But it's up to you to make the effort to change things. If you don't . . . who will?"

"I can still smell him in here," Rix said, and closed his eyes. His fingers caressed the scepter. "He's inside me. All of them -  Hudson, Aram, Ludlow, Erik, Walen - they're all inside me. I can't escape from them, no matter how hard I try."

"No," she agreed, "you can't. But you can be the Usher who makes the difference for all the Ushers to come."

"I'm the last of the line, Raven. It dies with me. I wouldn't bring a child into the Usher world."

"I see. Then you've decided to turn your back on life? Are you going to lock yourself in up here and swallow the key? Damn it, Rix, you have everything and you can't see it! And I'm not talking about the money - you'd probably be happier if you started using it instead of letting it sit in banks. "Think of the schools you could build with it! The hospitals! Think of the people who need homes and food, and there are plenty of those right in this area! You have the chance, Rix! You can be a thousand times the man any other Usher ever was!"

She was right, Rix knew. The first thing he could do was to build some decent houses for the people on Briartop Mountain -  some brick houses, far better than the cabins that leaked rainwater like sieves. There were people who needed food and shelter, and kids like New Tharpe who wanted the opportunity of education, to stretch their boundaries far beyond the limits of their present lives. One-tenth of the Usher fortune could create a university complex that would be unsurpassed anywhere.

"Will you go to Boston with me?" he asked.

She paused, trying to read his eyes. There was light in them now. "I'd like that," she replied. "Yes. I'd like that very much."

"I . . . asked you here because I need your help in a decision I've been trying to make. I don't know if I can make it alone, but it's a very important one."

"What is it?"

"Usher Armaments," he said. "It's got to be shut down. The weapons have got to stop rolling off those assembly lines, Raven."

"If that's your decision," she told him firmly, "the Democrat will stand behind you."

Rix rose from the bed. He began pressing buttons on the control console, and the television screens flickered on, showing scenes of the Usher world. In the glow, Rix's face was heavily lined. "I want to shut it down, but my sister was right. Someone will always make the weapons. Does that mean there'll always be wars? Are we so hopeless that we can see no end to the destruction? My God . . . I've thought about this day after day, and I still can't decide. If I shut down Usher Armaments, more than six thousand people will lose their jobs. If I don't, there'll be no end to the weapons; they'll get more insidious, more deadly, year by year."

He held the scepter up before her. His hand was shaking. "I know what this means now, and what it meant to all the Ushers -  power. Why can't I throw this away? Why can't I snap it over my knee? God, I've tried! But something inside me doesn't want to give up the power!"

Rix's face was tormented with doubts. "Do I shut down Usher Armaments, and lose whatever influence I might have over this madness? Or do I let the factories churn out the bombs and missiles, and join the madness? What do I decide?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Usher?"

Rix looked toward the door, where the maid stood. "Yes? What is it?"

"You have some visitors, sir. A General McVair and a General Berger. Mr. Meredith's with them, and they're askin' permission to come through the front gates."

Rix sighed deeply and let the air trickle from his nostrils. "All right, Mary," he said finally. "Let them come in." He ran a hand across his face. "I knew I couldn't keep them away for long," he told Raven. "They're going to be carrying their briefcases and their plans. They're going to smile and tell me how good I look, considering Walen's tragic death. Then it'll start, Raven. What do I tell them?"

"Whatever you decide," she said, "I'll help you. I'll stand with you. Use your chance. Be the Usher who makes a difference."

Rix stared at her, and suddenly he knew what decision he would make when he faced those smiling generals in his father's house. He prayed to God that it would be the right one.

He took Raven's hand, and they went down to face the future.