Usher's Passing (17 page)

"Been callin' you, boy," Robert said. "Where'd you go?"

"Toolshed," Logan replied; he had a deep, rough voice that grated on Rix's nerves. "Just messin' around in there."

"Well, don't just stand there. Shake hands with Edwin and Mr. Usher."

The young man turned his attention to Rix. When he smiled, only one side of his mouth hitched up, so the smile was more like a sneer. "Yeah?" he asked. "Which Usher are you?"

"Mr.
Usher," Rix said.

"Are you gonna be my new boss?"

"No. Edwin is."

"Got it." Logan extended his hand toward Rix, who saw a red crust around the fingernails. Logan's smile faltered a fraction, and he drew his hand back. "Been workin' in the shed," he said. "Got some woodstain on me, I guess. Ought to be more careful."

"You ought to be."

Edwin rose from his chair to shake Logan's hand. Logan was almost as tall as he was, but much broader; the young man had wide, thick shoulders and the large hands of a laborer. "We should be getting back to Usherland," Edwin told him. "Are your bags ready?"

"Just take me a few minutes. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Usher.'' He smiled—the smile of a cunning animal, Rix thought— and then went into the house.

Edwin was watching Rix carefully. "You're wearing your opinions like a red scarf," he said. "Give him a chance."

"Logan's a fine boy, Mr. Usher," the old woman offered, shelling her peas. "Oh, he's got his rough edges, but then again, all boys his age do, don't they? He's a smart one, though, and he's got a strong back."

"He's a rounder," Robert said. "Reminds me of myself, when I was his age."

"That was long before I straightened him out." She winked quickly at Rix, then let out a sharp whistle. "Mutt! Here, boy! Come on! Where'd that dog get off to? Heard him barkin' fit to bust before sunup."

"Chasin' squirrels again, most likely."

Rix stood up as Logan came out of the house, carrying two suitcases. Edwin took one of them for him. Rix said it had been a pleasure to meet the Bodanes, then walked on to the station wagon and climbed in.

Logan and Edwin slid the suitcases into the rear, then the young man took his place in the back seat. He rolled down his window as Edwin started the car.

"You be a good boy!" Mrs. Bodane called to him. "Pay attention to what Edwin tells you, now!"

"Hey, Gramps," Logan said, "I was doin' some work in the shed and forgot to clean up. I left kind of a mess, I suppose."

"I'll get it. You listen to Edwin and you make us proud of you, hear?"

"I'll make you real proud," Logan said, and rolled his window back up.

Edwin drove away from the house as Logan waved to his grandparents from behind the glass. "This thing got a radio?" he asked.

At the toolshed door, Robert Bodane stopped to watch the station wagon out of sight.

"Fresh peas for lunch!" the woman called. "You want some potatoes to go with 'em?"

"That'd be fine," he replied. The dust was already settling. He unlatched the door and went into the toolshed. The work his grandson had been doing was covered with an apron atop the workbench. There was a strong smell in the place.

He lifted the apron.

It took him a moment to realize that the mess on the workbench had once been a dog. Mutt had been decapitated and disemboweled, the intestines laid out in pools of thick, congealing blood.

He heard his wife calling the dog again, and he started looking for something to scrape the remains into.

PARKED IN FRONT OF THE GATEHOUSE WAS A NEW SILVER-GRAY CADILLAC
. From the back seat of the station wagon, Logan whistled appreciatively, breaking the silence that had descended on the drive back from Taylorville.

"That car belongs to Dr. Francis," Edwin told Rix. He stopped the station wagon under the porte-cochere. "I'll show Logan around the estate. You'd better find out what's going on."

As Rix started to get out, Logan said, "It was good meetin' you, Mr. Usher." Rix glanced back into the young man's chilly smile, and told himself that Logan Bodane wouldn't last a week.

Then he went up the steps to the Gatehouse, where a servant told him that his mother was looking for him and wanted him at once in the living room.

He hurried along the corridor and slid the living-room doors open. ". . . destructive cellular activity," were the only words he heard before the man who was seated and speaking to Boone and Margaret stopped to look across the room at him.

Margaret said, "Dr. Francis, this is our younger son. Rix, come in and sit down. I want you to hear what the doctor has to say."

Rix sat in a chair behind and to the left of Boone, where he could watch Dr. Francis as the man spoke. John Francis was a trim, middle-aged man with dark brown, gray-flecked hair receding from a widow's peak. He wore tortoiseshell-framed glasses, behind which his dark, intense gaze was fixed firmly on Margaret. He had the artistic hands of a fine surgeon or a concert pianist, Rix noted, and he was dressed immaculately in a herringbone suit with a brown striped tie.

Dr. Francis continued from the point of interruption. "The destructive cellular activity in Mr. Usher's tissue samples was increased by radiation. That tells us that the traditional treatments for cancer—to which this condition seems related on a cellular basis—are not going to work." He removed his glasses and polished the lenses with a paisley handkerchief. There were dark hollows of fatigue beneath his eyes. "His blood pressure has shot into the stratosphere. The fluids in his lungs build up as fast as we drain them. I'm afraid his kidneys are going to shut down at any time. The sensitivity of his nervous system, of course, increases every day. He's complaining that he has trouble sleeping because of the noise of his own heart."

"What I want to know," Margaret said, "is when Walen will be well again."

There was a moment of dead silence. Dr. Francis cleared his throat and put his glasses back on. Boone suddenly rose from his chair and crossed the room to the sideboard where the bar glasses and decanters of liquor were kept.

"Mrs. Usher," the doctor said finally, "one thing is very clear, and I thought you understood: Usher's Malady—at this point—is an incurable deterioration of the body's cellular structure. White blood cells are consuming the red. His digestive system is feeding on the tissues of the body. Brain cells, connective-tissue corpuscles, cartilage, and bone cells are being broken down and devoured. I don't pretend to understand why or how it's happening."

"But you're a doctor." There was a faint quaver in her voice. Her eyes were getting glassy, like a madwoman's stare. "A specialist. You should be able to do something." She flinched when Boone clacked ice cubes into his glass.

"The tranquilizers have helped him rest, and the painkillers have had some effect, too. Mrs. Reynolds is a fine nurse. Our research on the tissue samples is going to continue. But I can't do very much more for him unless he consents to enter a hospital."

"Walen's never been inside a hospital in his life." Her face was stricken. "Publicity. There would be . . . such
awful
publicity."

Dr, Francis frowned. "I think publicity should be the least of your concerns. Your husband is dying. I can't make it any clearer; I cannot adequately treat him up in that room."

"Could you cure him if he was to go to a hospital?" Boone asked, stirring his Scotch with a finger.

"I can't promise that. But we could run more thorough tests on him, and take more tissue samples. We'd be better able to study the degenerative process."

"Use him like a guinea pig, y'mean?" Boone took a quick slug of his drink.

Rix saw the frustration in the doctor's eyes, and a hint of red surfaced across the older man's cheeks. "How can you treat something, young man, if you don't know a damned thing about it? As I understand, the physicians who've attended other generations of your family were just as puzzled as I am. Why does it occur only in your family? Why does it begin almost overnight, when the subject is in otherwise perfect health? Why is the nervous system superhumanly enhanced while the other bodily functions crash-dive? In the past, your family prohibited autopsies as well." He glanced quickly at Margaret, but she was too dazed to react. "If we ever hope to cure this thing, we've got to first understand it. If that means making your father into a 'guinea pig,' is that such a terrible thing?"

"The press would tear that hospital apart, lookin' for him," Boone said.

"Walen's always been so healthy," Margaret said in a soft, feeble voice. She looked at Dr. Francis, but was staring right through him. "He's never been sick before. Never. Even when he cuts himself shaving, the wound is gone the next day. I've never seen him bleed more than a drop or two. Once, when we were first married, Walen took me to the stables to show off a new Arabian stallion. The horse threw him, and he . . . he landed on the back of his head. I'll never forget the sound of his skull hitting the ground. I thought his neck was broken . . . but then Walen stood up, and he was just fine. He doesn't get hurt, and he's never been sick before."

"He's sick now," Dr. Francis said. "I can't help him if he won't go to a hospital."

She shook her head. Her vision cleared, and her mouth became a firm, hard line. "No. My husband doesn't want to leave Usherland. The publicity would be terrible for the whole family. Bring your equipment here. Bring your entire hospital staff. But Walen has made it clear he won't leave the estate."

Dr. Francis looked at Boone and Rix. "How about you two? Would you enter a hospital for tests?"

"What for?" Boone asked nervously.

"Blood and tissue samples."

Boone downed his Scotch with one quick, jerky movement. "Listen, doc, I've never had a sick day in my life. Never set foot in a hospital and never intend to."

"What about you?" Dr. Francis turned to Rix.

"I'm not too keen on hospitals, either. Anyway, I'll be leaving here in a few days." He felt his mother glance at him.

The doctor sighed, shook his head, and rose from his chair. "I don't think you people fully understand what's at stake here. We're not only talking about Walen Usher's life. We're talking about yours, and about those of the children who come after you."

"My husband is your patient," Margaret said. "Not my sons."

"Your sons will be, Mrs. Usher," he replied firmly. "Sooner or later, they will be."

"I'm very tired now. Will one of you boys show Dr. Francis to the door, please?"

Boone busied himself by pouring a second drink. Rix escorted the doctor out of the living room, along the corridor, and to the entrance foyer.

"How long does my father have?" Rix asked him in a guarded voice at the front door.

"His bodily systems may shut down within a week. Two weeks at the most." When Rix didn't respond, Dr. Francis said, "Do
you
want to die like that? Odds are you will, you know. It's a grim fact you're going to have to face. In the meantime, what are you going to do about it?"

Hearing a stranger tell him how long his father had to live had numbed Rix. "I don't know," he said dully.

"Listen to me. I'm staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Asheville, near the medical center. If you change your mind about those tests, will you give me a call?"

Rix nodded, though his mind was made up. Walen had impressed upon him and Boone at an early age that hospitals were full of quacks who experimented on dying patients. As far as Rix knew, Walen had never even taken prescription drugs.

Dr. Francis left the Gatehouse and walked down to his Cadillac, and Rix closed the Gatehouse door behind him.

When he returned to the living room, he found Boone alone, nursing his drink in a chair before the fireplace. "It's shit, ain't it?" Boone commented. "A real heap of shit."

Rix poured himself a bourbon, added ice cubes, and swallowed enough to make his throat burn.

"What's wrong with
you?
So happy you can't talk?"

"Meaning what?"

"Meanin' just what I said. This should be your happy day, Rixy. The doc says there ain't a shred of hope to pull Daddy through this thing. That should put a real glow in your heart."