HOUSE OF USHER

By Andii Valo 

CHAPTER SIX

Doc Wallace scratched at his beard, a habit brought on by pressure and concern, and he was surely worried about the man in front of him. His young patient had appeared to be dozing but, when he’d heard how Henry Usher was waiting, he’d jumped out of bed like he’d been stung, a wild, scared look in his eyes like it was the devil himself come to visit. The doc had been seeing that look a lot lately – something was tormenting Cort bad enough to have him writhing and moaning when he was asleep, cagey and withdrawn when awake. Sometimes he‘d just stare with a blankness that was downright unsettling and the doctor wanted to assist but he didn’t feel equipped for the job. Sure he could patch up Cort’s body – he’d been doing that a lot lately, too – but whatever was hurting his soul needed a more specialised kind of help.

Cort was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands and unmoving. He’d been like that for several minutes and the doc’s mind turned to the visitor in his parlour, who might be getting impatient.

“If you don’t feel up to it, I can tell Mister Usher to come back.”

Cort twitched but didn’t raise his head. The doctor wondered, not for the first time, what it was with Henry Usher that made his patient so nervous. He’d just spent twenty minutes talking with the man himself and it seemed there was nothing to fear. Usher was courteous and polite; he’d donated ten dollars for the bourbon he was drinking and another twenty for the doc to keep his mouth shut about tonight’s visit. He’d invited him along to his next church meeting and asked a lot of questions about Cort. The doc hadn’t seen any harm in answering them – Usher could just as easily have got the answers he wanted in the saloons or hotels - though this way they were mostly free from embellishment. He’d made enquiries about Cort’s injuries and prognosis for recovery and the doc had told him straight, but nothing Usher had said or done had given any cause for suspicion or alarm. It seemed like he had only Cort’s best interests at heart, though Cort seemed to think different. And he still wasn’t moving.

“Look at me, son, so I know you’re listening at least.”

Cort finally raised his head. His eyes were red, his hair was sticking up all over the place, and there was that blank-eyed stare again, like his mind was in another place entirely. A dark and bleak place, for sure.

“Your body’s strong as an ox, Cort. You heal quick and you’ll be out of here tomorrow, but I figure there’s some other part of you that’s broke and hurting and no amount of medicine’s going to fix that. You hear what I’m saying, don’t you?”

Cort just kept staring.

“Son, there’s a man sitting right here in my house and he’s a man of God. Whatever’s bothering you, I reckon he can help.”

Cort shook his head. “He’ll only tell me what I already know. My soul’s cursed, Doc, damned to purgatory. Nobody can help.”

“Well now you’re just talking shit, son. I ain’t no preacher but even I know God forgives folks who sin, just so long as they realise they’ve done wrong. Isn’t that what’s eating you up right now? You want me to bring Mister Usher in here to see you?”

Finally he got a reaction. Cort pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself, glaring.

“Hell no, Doc! I don’t want him seeing me in a sickbed. It was bad enough that night in the desert…”

“You’ll talk to him then?”

Cort nodded wearily. “Do I have a choice?”

Cort’s legs were wobbling as he headed towards the parlour. He tried to blame it on lack of food, blood loss and injury, but deep down he know the real reason. He was scared, and he felt ridiculous for being frightened over something like this. Yesterday he’d stood before three gunslingers intent on killing him and whatever was going through his head then, fear certainly hadn’t been part of it. But the idea of coming face to face with a representative of the church was shaking him to pieces.

He approached the closed parlour door and stopped, rubbing at his face, trying to pull himself together. He clutched the blanket tightly around his shoulders, embarrassed at having to face Henry Usher without even the benefit of proper dress, but his clothes were gone, nothing in the skinny old doctor’s wardrobe would fit, and he’d had to make do with this.

He felt the doc’s hand between his shoulders, propelling him closer to the door.

“Just get it over with, son. Holler if you need me and don’t go drinking any of my whisky while you’re in there. It won’t do you any good.”

Cort opened the door cautiously, his heart racing. The room was acrid with odours of parchment, mothballs, dust and chemicals and he wrinkled his nose, trying not to sneeze. The walls of the parlour were lined with old books and there were a couple of glass cabinets containing phials and bottles full of various fluids. It was warm – a good-sized fire burning in a grate - and a couple of ratty old armchairs were pulled up close to it. Cort could see a man’s form in one of them, stretched out casually, a glass of bourbon in his hand. He wasn’t sure if Usher knew he was here, wasn’t sure what to say, so he took a step into the room, closed the door quietly and cleared his throat.

The man stirred and got lithely to his feet, turning to face him. He was smiling.

“Do forgive my manners. I guess I got too comfortable there with the fire and the bourbon.”

He walked forwards, hand outstretched, still smiling, and Cort took in his finely tailored three-piece suit, the fancy shirt, thick silver watch chain and expensive looking boots. He automatically dropped his eyes to the man’s waist, seeking out the gunbelt, but of course Usher was unarmed and he felt a little guilty for even looking. Then the man from his nightmares was standing right in front of him, shaking his hand with a warm, firm grip. Usher was a big man, taller than Cort by a couple of  inches, heavier by at least  40 pounds and looked to be in his early 50s, his age only belied by silver streaks in his finely coiffed hair. He exuded style and confidence and his smile seemed genuinely friendly. It reached all the way to his eyes – the same ice blue eyes Cort remembered from his nightmares and the desert – but these eyes were warm and sympathetic.

“Well, Cort, it seems to me you’re not much better off than last time we met.”

Cort pulled at the blanket, wishing it was bigger. “At least I had clothes then.”

The smile didn’t falter. “You go sit by the fire, son. Don’t want you catching cold.”

Usher strode away to a table in the corner of the room and Cort sat in the other armchair, watching him pour whisky into a glass. His heart had stopped pounding so hard, and he was reassured by the warmth and apparent sincerity of Usher’s greeting, but he couldn’t let his guard down. He still didn’t know what this man wanted from him.

The glass of whisky was pushed into his hand. “The doctor’s worried about you.”

Cort smiled. “All he’s worried about is me drinking his booze.”

He took a gulp of the liquor. It was good bourbon and he relished the slow burn as it slid down his throat and into his belly. Usher sat down in the other chair and suddenly he was serious.

“What happened to you, Cort?”

Cort frowned, unsure what Usher meant.”

“Uh, if you mean John Herod and all, I…”

Usher interrupted. “I know what happened after they dragged you here and I know what John Herod made you do. I’m asking what happened to your faith, Cort. When I met you in the desert you looked half dead but I was pretty sure I was looking at a man of God. Now, barely a month later, I find you trying to keep law in a town which doesn’t know its meaning, getting drunk every night and dreaming about purgatory.”

Cort was startled. “How the hell do you know all that?”

Usher shrugged. “Like I said, the doc’s worried about you and you didn’t answer my question.”

Cort eyed him. “Any reason why I should, Mister Usher?”

Usher’s smile was back. “None at all, though it might help you some. And you can call me Henry, no need to stand on ceremony here.”

Cort thought about it for a moment, not sure he should say anything. But this man had pretty much saved his life and he owed him something for that at least. He didn’t have much to lose and it was mostly academic now anyway.

“Well then… Henry… you’ll probably reckon I’m making excuses but the truth is John Herod stole my faith and a lot more besides. My soul always belonged to him more than God, and the bastard knew it. Renouncing violence was easy enough in Hermosillo, but he always knew the minute he put a gun back in my hand and stuck me in a gunfight I’d pull the trigger.” He shrugged. “So I killed a man for the first time in three years and then I knew I was done with preaching. I was never much good at it anyway.”

Usher shook his head. “That’s wrong...”

“I know it’s wrong. I should have stood there and just let the injun shoot me, but I was too much of a coward. My belief in that gun was stronger than my belief in the church and I wasn’t convinced I was going to heaven so I killed him before he killed me. That was the day I turned my back on God, and God turned His on me.”

Usher was still shaking his head but there was a smile tugging at his lips. Cort wondered, with irritation, what he was finding so damned amusing about the whole sorry affair.

“I got to Hermosillo two days after Herod’s men came for you and I spent some time talking to the people. They sure were sad you’d gone and most of the women were crying, thinking you were dead. Some of them were real pretty too. They loved you, Cort, kept telling me how much they enjoyed your services, how you brought the Bible alive, how you always knew the right thing to say or do to help them, how much better their lives were. Now, how do you figure that to be lousy preaching, boy?”

Listening to Usher talk about his old congregation was a wrench, and Cort could picture those well-remembered faces, twisted with grief and concern. But surely not for him, he didn’t deserve the respect or compassion of decent, hardworking people like those.

“Everything I ever did in Hermosillo was a lie. I deceived that town and I sure as hell deceived myself for a while. I’m just a killer, pure and simple, and no amount of remorse or guilt or confessing to a priest is going to change that. I’ve been shown exactly where I’m headed, Mister Usher, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Now, why don’t you tell me why you’ve been following me?”

Usher’s face darkened. “What’s wrong with you, Cort? You of all people should know how God grants forgiveness to those who truly seek it. The Bible isn’t a lawbook, son, it’s a guide to morality and if you’ve taken life and you know it’s wrong, God will forgive you. But if you don’t have the courage to even ask that favour then you might as well swill around in torment for all eternity. You’ll only have yourself to blame.”

He got up and walked back over to the cupboard in the corner of the room, snagged the bottle of bourbon then came back to refill Cort’s glass.

“I’d be glad to hear your confession Cort, any time you like, son.”

Cort watched the whisky flow. He didn’t actually recall drinking the first glass but he was grateful for a second. Suddenly it felt like he was on pretty thin ice.

“I’ll think about it, Mister Usher, and you haven’t answered my question.”

Henry Usher was the picture of tranquillity as he topped up his own glass, sat down and folded his hands across his belly. He levelled a peaceable kind of gaze in Cort’s direction.

“I’d been hearing stories about you for years, back when you rode with Herod and his gang. I confess I didn’t much care for what I was hearing, but it was mostly you people were talking about, not your boss, and that made me wonder. So I dug a little deeper, found out more about the fast kid with the fast gun who followed Herod like a dog but carried out his business with something you might almost call compassion. Seemed like you wasn’t so keen on hurting and killing people for sport, like the rest of them were, seemed like you stopped a lot of ugliness wherever you could, and folks remembered that.”

Cort shrugged. “It makes no difference if I had a conscience or not. The fact is I did everything Herod asked of me, and I killed more men than I can remember.”

“I’m not saying it was right, son, but I’m not here to pass judgement either. When I stopped hearing your name in those stories I got curious again, but nobody knew what happened or where you’d gone. Then, six weeks ago I got word you’d set up some kind of mission in Hermosillo, that you’d found God, and that’s when I figured I’d come pay you a visit. Unfortunately I was too late and by the time I’d caught up you were John Herod’s property again. I sure wasn’t going to mess with him.”

Cort nodded. It explained why Usher had simply left him in the desert that night.

“I want to thank you for what you did back then, Mister Usher. You probably saved my life, though it might have been kinder just to let me die.”

“I figured you were dead, Cort. I figured as soon as you got to Redemption John Herod was going to kill you. I can’t tell you how happy I was to discover you’d survived all that unpleasantness.”

Cort was beginning to feel the effects of the bourbon and hoped the next part of this conversation might be over with quickly. The narrow bunk in the little orange room was starting to seem very pleasant indeed.

“Are you going to tell me what you want now, Mister Usher?”

“I heard you were smart, son. Haven’t you figured it out for yourself yet? Do you think I followed you halfway across the state for my health? I came to make you an offer, Cort. A man with your talents deserves more than a crappy marshal’s job in a hole like Redemption!”

“What kind of offer?”

Usher shot him another of those warm, embracing smiles.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m offering you employment.”

Of all the possible motives Henry Usher might have had for hunting him down, this one had never crossed Cort’s mind. If he hadn’t just heard the words come out of Usher’s mouth, he would never have believed it possible. He still didn’t believe it, actually.

“Mister Usher, you’re a man of God, a real man of God, and I know something about your church and the good it does in this state. What possible use would I be to you?”

Usher sipped at his bourbon, an appraising look in his eye. Cort didn’t like being studied like this and picked at the blanket nervously.

“I admit I was going to ask you to join us as a priest. My ministry is expanding so fast I can barely keep track and I need good, charismatic preachers in my churches, men who can make religion mean more to folks than just being bored for two hours on a Sunday morning. It seems you’re not ready for that yet, Cort, but since you’ve taken a liking to the law, perhaps a job in security might suit you better?”

Cort frowned. It might have been the whisky scrambling his brain, but he honestly had no idea what Henry Usher was talking about. He’d suspected some kind of religious offer was coming, and been ready to turn it down, but how did security fit into the church?

“I’m not following…”

“It’s quite simple, son. My churches make a lot of money from donations. We use them to build more churches and bring the word of God to towns which need us most, towns like Redemption, for example. That money piles up fast and it needs protecting until we can get it to our banks in Tombstone and Tucson. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you about the number of outlaws and gangs on the roads these days.”

Cort smiled. “So you want me to kill in the name of the church?”

“No, son, I want you to be a deterrent.” Usher spoke slowly, like he was explaining something to a small child. “You might not realise but you’ve still got a fearsome reputation. I reckon most outlaws would think twice about robbing coaches carrying church money if they knew John Herod’s old deputy was in charge of the guard.”

Cort’s head was starting to throb. The doctor was right, whisky was no good for him right now. And Henry Usher, for all his charm, intelligence and conviction seemed to be missing a fundamental point. He tried to focus his thoughts and explain coherently.

“That reputation you mention will draw out every desperado in the state. Even if they don’t care about the money, which is unlikely, they’ll all want to pit their guns against mine to see who’s fastest. If I was guarding your money you’d wind up with more interest in it than you could handle. If you want proper security I suggest you go visit the Pinkertons.

Usher didn’t seem to be giving up and his persistence was tiring.

“You’re an easy target here, Cort. Redemption’s a town in chaos and you’re killing yourself trying to control something one man should never be expected to. They’re paying you exactly how much to put your life on the line every day?”

“You seem to know plenty about me, Mister Usher, so I reckon you know how much.”

Usher nodded. “I’m offering you a job where you’ll get to own more than one set of clothes. You shouldn’t have to sit around in a blanket whenever your shirt gets soiled.”

Cort felt his face redden. “I’ll get it back tomorrow.”

Usher pressed on. “Church money will always be a target but my ministry doesn’t make itself vulnerable, and most outlaws are getting that message. I’d appreciate it if you’d at least think on it awhile. We haven’t even discussed pay yet.”

Cort was pretty sure Henry Usher had made a fundamental miscalculation here.

“Money’s not important to me these days. I lived for three years in Hermosillo on the grace of God and the hospitality of the people. Right now I’m living on the charity of the folks here in Redemption and I figure as long as they need me enough to keep me fed and give me a bed then I’ll do whatever they need in return.”

Usher laughed, but there wasn’t much humour in it. “I saw something of Redemption’s charity last night. The whole town turned out to watch you die in a gunfight and took bets on the outcome. That’s a fine, Godly kind of charity and no mistake!”

Cort just wanted to lie down and sleep. Usher didn’t seem to be getting his message so he tried to make it as clear as possible.

“Mister Usher, tonight you’ve made me realise I might still have business with God, but it’s something I need to work out with Him directly. I don’t think the actual church is going to figure in my life for a while yet, so I’d like to thank you for your kind and generous offer, but I feel Redemption’s the best place for me right now.“

Usher nodded and stood up. Cort noticed how all the warmth had gone from his eyes. Now he was faced with the cold, penetrating stare so well remembered from his nightmares.

“Maybe something’ll happen to change your mind, Cort, and I’ll surely be praying for a miracle. I’ll be around for the next day or so, if you need me.”

He headed towards the door, slapped something down on the arm of Cort’s chair as he passed.

“Courtesy of the church. Buy yourself a new blanket, son.”

The door closed and Cort glanced down at what he’d left. It was a hundred dollar bill.

Henry Usher moved quietly among the back alleys of Redemption, avoiding the lights and knots of drunken revellers spilling from the saloons and hotels. Redemption didn’t need to know he was here, not just yet. His men were camped a mile outside the western edge of town and right now he had to get back to them quickly and adjust their orders.

He was puzzled and disappointed. He’d gone to Doc Wallace’s house believing that recruiting Cort would be easy, convinced the outlaw-turned-priest-turned-marshal would follow him willingly. He’d been certain that a man living on a moral knife-edge and tortured by dreams of damnation would do anything to redeem himself and not once considered the possibility of rejection. He couldn’t understand Cort’s motives, couldn’t fathom why somebody who so obviously believed in God, so desperately needed the forgiveness of God, would choose the law over the church.

Henry Usher wasn’t used to being denied and he sure didn’t like it, but he tried to remember how the Lord placed every obstacle into his path for a good reason. He needed to accept this new challenge and find a way to show the town marshal how the law of the church was stronger than the law of the land.

He’d got lucky with the original test. The three drunken bums who’d tried to outgun Cort had been cheap, stupid, dispensable labour, but next time his own men would be involved and he wasn’t taking any chances with their lives. He realised now that the second test he’d planned wouldn’t work; Cort was just too damned stubborn. But it only needed a little adjustment and he reckoned it would be just as effective.

He lengthened his stride as he cleared the last of Redemption’s outbuildings and covered the mile or so back to his camp quickly. By the time he spotted the campfire and three men hunched around it, the new plan was clear in his mind.

His deputy, Jack Bellows, saw him approach and came striding over. He looked relieved.

“You okay, sir? You’ve sure been gone a long time!”

“I’m fine. We just got a small change of plan is all.”

“Anything I can help with, Mister Usher?”

“What’s the word on Ben Carter?”

“The two fellas in town are keeping real close. Last I heard he was having some fun in the bordello.”

“Good. You ride into Redemption and tell them to stay alert. I don’t want that bastard sneaking off in the night. Tell them we’re taking him tomorrow at sundown.”

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