The Prophet of Paradise

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

RYMAN MCKENDRICK STARED at a decorative box on a shelf in the Warrenton Alcoholic Beverage Control store. The box contained a bottle of Glenfiddich Ancient Reserve Single Malt ($84.80/750 ml). He held a liter bottle of Bowman’s blended scotch whiskey ($11.95) in his hand. The clerk recognized him as a regular customer, an aficionado of fine scotch, an occasional purchaser of top shelf brands when he was feeling flush, but lately settling for the blended cheap stuff. Ryman remained in the same spot for a long time, mesmerized by the Glenfiddich package.

“Can I help you with something?” the clerk asked.

“Did you know ‘Glenfiddich’ means ‘Valley of the Deer’ in Gaelic?” Ryman asked without taking his eyes off the label.

“Um…yeah, I think I mighta heard that somewhere.”

“Looks like an eight pointer to me.”

“Huh?”

“That stag.” Ryman pointed to the Glenfiddich logo, the image of a red stag’s head. “I counted them, only eight points. Mine had at least twelve. Maybe fourteen. It happened so fast, hard to tell. Plus there was that…what the hell was that thing?”

The clerk, a retired paper-pusher trying to stretch his meager pension with a part-time state job, began to think through the drill on how to refuse service to an inebriated customer. The sight of Ryman’s well-muscled, heavily veined arms, the sleeves of his polo shirt stretched taut around his biceps, caused the clerk to earnestly hope a physical confrontation could be avoided.

He took a few light sniffs, trying not to be too obvious in his attempt to detect any telltale odor coming off Ryman: manly sweat, hay, horse manure, leather cleaner, diesel fuel. No trace of alcohol.

“A stag,” Ryman muttered to himself. “Never occurred to me.”

“Are you all right, sir?”

Ryman looked down at the bottle of Bowman’s in his hand. “Well, as Daddy would say, looks like cheap booze and ugly women this weekend.” He flashed a friendly smile at the clerk and walked to the checkout counter, no hint of a stagger, just a slight limp in his left leg. The clerk breathed a sigh of relief and followed.

∗ ∗ ∗

The image of the stag continued to rumble around in Ryman’s thoughts as he drove due west, away from the gravitational pull of Warrenton and back into the still-rural terrain of Crutchfield County. He saw the Glenfiddich logo. He saw the deer that knocked him off his horse, then the vision of a mouth floating in the air above him, thin black lips moving over square teeth. These images percolated in his mind as he traveled along Paradise Turnpike, the winding two-lane road that followed the old east/west Indian trail through the foothills below the Blue Ridge. The absence of centerline markings required drivers to estimate their own lane space, more a gentleman’s agreement than a hard boundary. No curbs bordered the roadside. The pavement simply ended and the surface transitioned to either steep banks or deep ruts.

Just past the intersection with Montfair Lane, where a left turn toward the south led to the Billington and McKendrick farms, Ryman rounded a sharp curve. An approaching Mac Tools delivery truck drifted over toward Ryman’s side of the road. Both drivers hit the brakes and swerved their vehicles sharply. Tires squealed and a head-on collision was averted by inches. Ryman’s truck went up the bank to his right. The delivery truck barely missed rolling down the steep hill on the opposite side of the road.

Ryman was able to stop his truck before it reached the sharpest slope of the bank, only just avoiding a rollover himself. He rested his head on the apex of the steering wheel and took a couple of deep breaths. When he raised his head, there, on the crest of the slope directly in front of him, silhouetted against the cloudless summer sky, was the buck that had spooked his horse that morning. There were thousands of deer in that part of the state. But Ryman had no doubt this was the same one. Chest out, head erect, it was the biggest buck he’d ever seen. And there was still something in the center of its rack, directly above its head. He squinted to get a better look. The late morning sun’s reflection bathed the object in a whitish aura. It couldn’t be a natural part of the buck’s antlers. This was no ordinary deer. And why had it just appeared again, staring down at him like that?

Something about this image seemed familiar—a proud stag, a glowing object above its head. His concussed brain could not process the data. It was in there somewhere, but the file would not open.

A door slammed shut and the sound caused Ryman to glance in his sideview mirror. He saw the other driver coming toward him. When he looked back up the hill, the deer was gone.

Ryman jumped out of his truck and scrambled up the bank to where the deer had been standing.

“Hey, man!” the other driver called out. “You okay? You can’t leave the scene. Where you going?”

Ryman did not answer. He reached the crest of the hill and looked in all directions for some sign of the buck. There was little cover where it could have hidden, mostly open fields, the nearest tree line a hundred yards away. Yet there was no sign of the animal, only a couple dozen grazing Black Angus.

“What do you want, damn it?” Ryman called out. “Where the hell did you go?”

“I just wanted to be sure you were okay, man. I’m right here.”

Ryman looked down toward the road and saw a confused deliveryman staring up at him. He glanced back toward the fields, but he saw no trace of the buck. With a resigned slump he made his way down the embankment. “Yeah, I’m okay. You?”

“Fine. Probably got some things spilled around, but no biggie. Damn country roads you people got out here.”

“You oughta be used to ’em by now.” The driver had been making regular stops at McKendrick and Sons until recently. A problem about some payments in arrears led to the service being stopped. Ryman wasn’t sure of the details; he left those concerns to his father and the shop’s bookkeeper.

“You sure you’re all right?” the deliveryman asked. “What were you doing climbing up the hill there?”

“Huh? Oh, just thought I saw something. Musta been mistaken. I gotta get to the shop. See ya, man.”

As Ryman continued on, his thoughts returned to visions of stag heads. But now another image appeared with them, the Mac Tools logo, its rounded red “MAC” letters brightly displayed on a white background. Tools—something about tools. He wondered how badly the tools had been tossed around when the driver swerved to avoid him. Serve the son-of-a-b***h right for cutting off the service. Well, it wasn’t the driver’s fault. Just following company orders. Made it inconvenient, though, not having tools delivered right to the shop. Something about that prickled at Ryman’s thoughts.

Stag heads and the Mac logo were still with him as he cruised into Paradise Gap.

The “Gap” portion of the name referred to a crimp in the mountains above the village. It may have served as a suitable crossing for the more vigorous frontiersmen. But it was too steep and rocky for wagons and the heavily laden settlers who followed. More commodious routes into the Shenandoah Valley were chosen, paved roads followed, and the “gap” quickly reverted back to a tree-covered crease.

The provenance of “Paradise” was less certain. Some preferred the mythology that the landscape—rolling foothills sweeping away from the picturesque mountains, plus the fertile soil and abundant game—inspired an obvious Edenic comparison. Another less romantic but possibly more accurate story held that the first trapper to cross at the crease was named Jedidiah Paradise. Jed found a life of commerce more to his liking than that of trailblazer and so established a trading post at the base of the mountains’ eastern slope. When the westbound traffic took other paths, the enterprise folded. But a small settlement had already formed around it and, if for no other reason than the inclination of Virginians to resist change, it remained. Although no metropolis by any measure, the village achieved a respectable solidity and a degree of self-sufficiency as an oasis of service and social cohesion for the surrounding farming community.

At the east end of the village sat the General Store, frequented by the locals more for gossip than groceries. Most of the items on the rustic wooden shelves looked like they had been salvaged from a 1950s bombshelter pantry. A portion of the store’s scanty profits came from the extensive selection of wines, many from nearby Virginia vineyards, and microbrews more notable for their amusing titles than their taste.

Ryman drove past the store, toward the west end of the village, past Crutchfield County Bank, the post office, a tiny Methodist church, auto service center, two antique/junk shops, the fire-and-rescue station, and a smattering of houses interspersed here and there in a range of architectural styles from authentic colonials, three of them complete with National Historic Site plaques, to brick ramblers, rudely out of place among the gracious older homes. One of the more stately houses served as a bed and breakfast, owned by a couple who, fortunately, did not have to depend on a steady stream of guests to survive.

The occasional day-trippers from the ever-encroaching suburbs stumbled upon the village and lingered for an hour or so to soak up the Mayberry-like quaintness and imagine what life must be like where neighbors actually spoke to each other.

On the far end of Paradise Gap, official population 347—a number subject to decrease on any given day, considering the age of several residents and the occupations of others—was McKendrick and Sons Farm Implements. Ryman parked his truck and unfolded himself from the cab. Even before he reached the shop’s front door beads of sweat began to form on his bare arms and the back of his tanned, deeply lined neck. With Labor Day Weekend just ahead, the entire Piedmont was one enormous hothouse.