The Prophet of Paradise

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

RYMAN WENT OUT the back door and toward the barn. Along the way he was joined by the old hound Wycroft.

“Hey, Wy. Coming along with Ry? You and me buddy, Wy and Ry.”

He could swear the hound was smiling at him, understanding the word play.

A tube of medication in one hand and a lead-line in the other, Ryman headed for the pasture. He found Token grazing at ease. (As a colt, the horse had been the only dark bay in a field of adult grays.) Between the horse’s accepting nature and Ryman’s skill at treating equine ailments and injuries, the eye ointment was applied in seconds.

The job done, Ryman stood with the horse and hound, gazing up at the western sky, enraptured by the sunset. A fringe of pink glowed along the mountaintops and faded into a dark scarlet above as the last flickers of light played in the clouds. After fifty-six years of watching sunsets from Fair Enough Farm, Ryman still appreciated the splendor of an evening like this. He’d seen a few sunsets from an urban vantage point and they were all a pale imitation of what a ripping good one looked like in the country, absent the weakening influence of city light pollution.

Ryman recalled that his father always enjoyed a good sunset. But Fergus McKendrick would never see another one. The sense of loss flooded over Ryman and he felt terribly alone. It was obvious from an early age that his brother would be the one to fulfill their father’s expectations, that Teedy would carry the family name and honor forward. Teedy embraced that role eagerly, which left Ryman free to go his own pleasure-seeking way, avoiding responsibility whenever possible, accepting the role of spare son and frivolous little brother.

Teedy’s unexpected decision to quit college, forego his student deferment, and join the Marines surprised everyone, no one more than Rhetta who did her best to dissuade him. Fergus, although opposed to the move at first, came to accept it as his son’s patriotic duty. Proud of his own service, Fergus could hardly forbid his son from following him into the Corps. But it was the Vietnam conflict that escalated the situation from a philosophical debate over the merits of military service to the stark reality that this could be a life-or-death decision.

The mortar shell explosion that took Teedy’s life, and Barstow Reinhardt’s eye and ear, sent a rippling tide of consequences from a nameless rice paddy all the way back to Paradise Gap. Much changed after that. But some things remained the same. Ryman was too set in his ways, his outlook on life too ingrained, for him to step into Teedy’s now vacant role. And no one else questioned that. Parents, family, and friends all accepted the fact that the real son was gone, only the spare, frivolous son remained.

Ryman turned around toward the eastern horizon. A string of headlights gleamed along Montfair Lane. Vehicles turned into Fair Enough Farm, drivers parked anywhere they could around the house. The county was turning out in force to express their condolences.

“Well, I reckon I’m the boss of McKendrick and Sons now,” Ryman said aloud. He looked down at Wycroft. “And the farm too. Ain’t that a bitch.” The hound took a step and leaned his head against Ryman’s leg. “A major b***h for me anyway.” He reached down and scratched Wycroft behind the ears. The hound leaned in harder. “Shop’s seriously in the red. The farm’s getting by, but it’s not producing like it used to. A good year is breaking even. Looks like I’m going to have to get serious about some things, old guy. No easy retirement for me, like you got. Hell, I might even have to step up, be a man, and make Nardell an honest woman.” He gave the hound one more hard scratch. “Nah, I ain’t going that far.”

An image formed in Ryman’s imagination, a bowl of some sort. He felt Wycroft’s doleful brown eyes staring up at him. “Damn, you haven’t been fed yet, way past your chow time. Sorry, old guy, guess we’d better get…”

There was a whirl of motion behind him. Something rock hard struck him on the side of his head and he felt himself tumbling over. He saw Token’s legs brush past him, felt the whoosh of fast-moving hooves as they missed his falling body by a fraction of an inch. He landed on the hard earth of the pasture, a dusty patch of ground after the long summer drought. He came to a stop lying on his stomach, covered with red clay dust, a pounding pain just above his temple where Token’s boney head had hit him. The horse had spooked to one side, the hound to the other. Both had now stopped and faced toward the same spot, looking at something on the other side of the pasture.

Ryman lifted his head and found himself staring at the buck. The deer was in the pasture with them. His entrance in the dimming twilight had startled the horse. Ryman dared not move. Although the light was fading, he could still see well enough to get a good look at this animal. He quickly counted the points. Yes, a fourteen-pointer. The object between its antlers was gleaming white. He could make out a vertical shaft with what appeared to be a circle near the top. It was not attached to the antlers in any way Ryman could see. It seemed to be suspended in the air, as if floating above the deer’s head.

What was it that seemed so familiar about that image?

“Who are you?” Ryman whispered. “What do you want?”

This was mostly to himself. He did not expect an answer. But the deer’s mouth moved, as if in response. Did he hear something? A muffled noise, like “hhhbbtt”? He glanced over at Wycroft to his left, then at Token on his right. Both hound and horse continued to stand motionless, eyes fixed on this strange apparition. Had that sound come from one of them? Token snuffling maybe? No, it seemed to come from the direction where the deer stood. “Hhhbbbuutt.” Louder this time, and clearly from the deer.

From his left came another sound, with a questioning lilt, “Hhhnnnt?” Wycroft stood at attention, stern aloft, his eyes bright and focused on the deer. “Rrrrnnn?”

Ryman’s head began to throb. He wanted to lift his hand and rub the spot where Token had struck him but was afraid the motion would scare off the deer. The mouth moved again. “Hhhbbbbuuuttt.”

To his left again came, “Rrrrnnnn?” and Wycroft start to move a foot forward.

“No,” Ryman whispered to the hound. “Leave it.”

Wycroft relaxed, no longer ready to launch himself at the deer. But he did not break his stare off this tempting quarry.

Token, accustomed to sharing his turf with other harmless herbivores, became comfortable with the deer’s presence and went back to grazing. The movement of the horse’s head down toward the ground broke the stand-off. The deer looked away from Ryman and toward the horse. When he did, Wycroft shot forward, baying in full cry and off to the chase. The deer was away in two leaps, over the pasture fence and into the dark woods.

Ryman leapt to his feet. “No! Leave it! Wycroft, leave it!”

The hound stopped.

“Wycroft, come,” Ryman ordered and the hound returned to his master. “You know better than to run deer. Especially that deer.”

“Hhhhnnnttt?”

The hound’s mouth did not move, and Ryman could not be sure if this was an audible sound or only something he heard in his aching head. But he was sure he heard something. Did it come from Wycroft? No, he told himself. Too weird.

“Hhhhnnnntttt?” More insistent this time.

Now an image formed in Ryman’s imagination. Hounds running. He was among them, part of the pack. He recognized the terrain, their own hunting country. He even recognized some of the hounds around him, but every one of them was either dead or retired, like Wycroft. Now he saw Wycroft and the others as they were in their hunting prime, running hard, joyfully in pursuit of their prey.