The Madman of Piney Woods Read online

  To my beloved wife, Habon, thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  PART ONE: BUXTON AND CHATHAM

  CHAPTER 1: The American Civil War, 1901

  CHAPTER 2: Little Better Than a Workhorse

  CHAPTER 3: The Tree House

  CHAPTER 4: The True Story behind Curly Bennett Losing His Mind

  CHAPTER 5: The Phoenix Flies!

  CHAPTER 6: Curly and Hickman Make Peace

  CHAPTER 7: Demons Invade the Woods

  CHAPTER 8: “Who, Then, Shall Bell the … ?”

  CHAPTER 9: Never Trust a Genius

  CHAPTER 10: A Blessing from Northern Ireland

  CHAPTER 11: The Sad End of Charming Little Chalet in the Woods

  CHAPTER 12: The South Woods Lion Man

  CHAPTER 13: Face-to-Face!

  CHAPTER 14: Cornered!

  CHAPTER 15: Twenty-Six Letters

  CHAPTER 16: An Gorta Mór

  CHAPTER 17: Off to Work

  CHAPTER 18: The Coffin Ship

  CHAPTER 19: A Dirty Job

  CHAPTER 20: The Letter!!!!!!

  CHAPTER 21: The Return of the Madman of Piney Woods

  PART TWO: BENJI AND RED

  CHAPTER 22: A Boy Named Red

  CHAPTER 23: A Lad Named Benji

  CHAPTER 24: Strange Friends

  CHAPTER 25: The Invitation

  CHAPTER 26: Supper with Red

  CHAPTER 27: Dining with Benji

  CHAPTER 28: The Lung-Shot Doe

  CHAPTER 29: A Murder in the Woods?

  CHAPTER 30: The Emotion of Memory

  CHAPTER 31: The Quandary

  CHAPTER 32: Surprising the Spy

  CHAPTER 33: Attacked!

  CHAPTER 34: Starting the Hunt

  CHAPTER 35: The Scene of the Crime

  CHAPTER 36: Tracking

  CHAPTER 37: Joining Benji

  CHAPTER 38: Memory

  CHAPTER 39: Benji on the Edge

  CHAPTER 40: The Run for Help

  CHAPTER 41: An Irish Lullaby

  CHAPTER 42: The Betrayal of the Forest

  CHAPTER 43: Sleep

  CHAPTER 44: Madness Is Only One Letter from Sadness

  CHAPTER 45: Going Home

  CHAPTER 46: A Madman’s Final Wishes

  CHAPTER 47: He Has Passed

  CHAPTER 48: Church

  CHAPTER 49: The Service

  CHAPTER 50: Endings

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The old soldiers say you never hear the bullet that kills you. They say that as if there’s some sort of comfort in those words.

  The Johnny Reb who’d been hunting me down for nearly an hour was going to shoot me from behind and I wouldn’t hear it, but that wasn’t very comforting. I was as flat on my belly as I could be, but kept pressing my body down, trying to melt myself right into the ground.

  He’d slowed down; he knew I’d stopped and he was doing what any good hunter would: being careful. But he didn’t have to be. I’d lost my weapon right after he shot me in my side, and at the same time lost my urge to fight.

  More than anything, I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my mother and father and yes, even my brother and sister again. If only one more time.

  There was so much I needed to set straight with them, so many words I’d meant to say but hadn’t.

  I’d tell my father one of the reasons I’d left Canada and sneaked south to fight for the Union Army of the United States of America was because of how his father had been beaten to death by a slave owner. I hoped he’d be proud that his first son had died so that others would live free.

  I’d tell Mother how much she meant to me.

  I’d tell her how the main reason I’d come south to fight was that after I helped win the war for the Union I’d work on solving the mystery of her mother and father. Even though she hadn’t seen or heard anything of them since she’d escaped slavery a million years ago, my dream has always been to find them for her.

  It would cause me a real gut-ache, but I’d even apologize to my brother and sister, Stubby and Patience. It’s probably not their fault, but I find it irksome when Mother and Father and so many other people in Buxton get this surprised look of amazement whenever Pay and Stubby show off something they’ve made. Who cares that everyone says they’re geniuses when it comes to working with wood?

  I know Mother and Father go out of their way to praise anything I do, but I’ve never seen that genuine look of amazement directed at me. I’ve never heard anyone take a sharp gasp of surprise about anything I’ve done. I’ve never seen people exchange quick glances of disbelief over anything I’ve written or said.

  Mother told me with time I’d find my calling, that my siblings were unusual because they’d discovered theirs so early. But now, it was too late for me.

  The Johnny Reb let out a long, low whistle, probably calling more of the Confederate murderers to come help him find me.

  I knew what a horrible choice I’d made just six weeks ago. If only I could go back.

  Oh, why? Why hadn’t I listened when the boss of the Toronto Globe offered me the job of being the paper’s number one reporter and headline writer even though I’m only thirteen years old?

  If only I could take back my foolish hasty words when I told him, “Thank you very kindly, sir, but there’s a battle being fought in the United States of America to free the slaves, and there are recruiters in Michigan who need all the help they can get. This time next week, I will be a drummer boy in Mr. Lincoln’s army!”

  Now, I wished more than anything that I’d never heard about being a drummer boy, even if it was what all the bravest boys in Buxton dreamed about doing.

  But this Southern traitor who was hunting me down was going to spill into the soil, along with my blood, all the dreams I’d worked so hard on. It would all end here in the dirt outside of Macon, Georgia. My plans of becoming the best newspaperman in North America were over. All the headlines and leads I’d practiced writing in my head every day were for nothing.

  A waste of time.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see the rebel standing on the trail, not twenty feet from me. Neither one of us moved. Then he started moving away, looking for broken twigs or footprints, something, anything that would lead him to me.

  It wouldn’t be easy for him; the forest has always helped me. I lay as still as death, my nose pressed so tightly to the earth that little pieces of dirt and rotting leaves rolled up my nostrils when I breathed in and rolled back when I breathed out. They tickled me, but laughing was the farthest thing from my mind.

  I waited forever.

  And ever.

  Then I let myself believe the impossible: He was gone! He’d missed me! All the life that had been draining out of me started flowing back! I trembled from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head. To be safe, I slowly counted to one hundred.

  Just to be sure, I did it a second time.

  Then a third.

  I raised my head.

  He’d missed me! I was still alive! This seemed too good to be true!

  It was too good to be true.

  His voice came from behind me, so close that he could have whispered, but no, he gave that cursed rebel yell, and it felt as if a lightning bolt chucked from the heavens cut me clean in two. My head jerked up; I couldn’t help myself.

  “Yee-haw!” the Confederate murderer hollered. “I sho ’nuff knowed that you all was gonna move, little black boy! Now you all’s gonna find out what we’uns do to y’all Yankees what wants to come down he-uh to s
teal our grandpappy’s land and take away them slaves what loves us so-o-o-o much! Yee-haw! You all needs to get ready to meet yer maker! Y’all got any last words, huh, Yankee? Yee-haw! Yee-haaaaw!”

  I kept my eyes closed. My head dropped back to the ground like it weighed a ton.

  I was ready.

  He pressed something smooth and cool to the back of my neck, right at my hairline.

  The old soldiers say you never hear the one that kills you. And I suppose maybe there is some comfort in knowing that.

  But I heard everything. So there was no comfort to be found.

  He pulled back a bit, then fired. It hit with a loud thump right in the area between my neck and skull. A flood of light exploded from the back of my head and ran throughout my body.

  This was so unfair.

  And I was surely going to let him know.

  “Oww! Are you crazy? That hurt!”

  I jumped up and rubbed the spot where he’d shot me. A lump on the back of my neck had already begun swelling.

  “You cheated!”

  He was laughing.

  I snatched the bow away from him. “Where’s the arrow?”

  The way he was laughing got me madder and madder. “It ricocheted off your head and flew all the way into the woods!”

  One thing was settled. Spencer Alexander was about two seconds away from being seriously whipped by his own bow. The only question was how bad the beating would be. If he’d taken the plum off the end of the arrow, I’d really pummel him. If the plum was still on, I’d show a little mercy, something he hadn’t shown me.

  I spotted the arrow, the tip still covered by the plum. At least he hadn’t cheated that way.

  “Spencer?”

  “Huh?”

  I swung. The bow whistled, then made a sharp crack when it caught his leg.

  He didn’t waste any time; he ran down the trail and I was right behind him.

  I was able to hit him twice before he saw that if he got off the path and ran through the woods, I’d have a tougher time hitting him.

  “Benji! Wait! I’m sorry!”

  I missed again.

  “It’s too late for sorry, and what kind of accent was that? You think all white southern American people say ‘yee-haw’ and ‘you all’ every other word? And have such bad grammar?”

  He yelled over his shoulder, “I was just trying to be authentic.”

  “Well, then, Spencer Alexander, I hope you’re ready to take this authentic Buxton butt whipping!”

  I swung two more times, but he was dodging so closely between trees that I slapped more oaks and maples than my cheating friend.

  The spot where he’d shot the back of my neck throbbed as we ran through the woods.

  I swung again, but instead of hitting Spencer, the bow wrapped around a sapling and snapped back, giving me a stinging blow to my upper lip.

  I stopped and covered my mouth with my hand. I tasted blood.

  Spence turned around and leaned on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Serves you right, Benji; you know I was just –”

  Two plum-tipped arrows wobbled from the woods right toward Spence. One caught him in the chest, and the other went square into his ear.

  Pilot and Randall drew back two more arrows.

  Pilot said, “The choice is yours, Johnny Reb: a slow, long starving death in prison, or a quick shot to the heart here.”

  Spence rubbed his ear and yelled, “You cheated, Pilot! You know we said nothing above the shoulders!”

  I said, “Pilot cheated? Who shot me in the back of my head … point-blank?”

  “That was different. You flinched, and I accidentally shot.”

  “I flinched? I didn’t even move.”

  “Besides,” Spencer said, “we’re all square; you whacked me three times with my own bow!”

  I snapped his bow over my knee. “Well, now you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I’ll never play American Civil War with you again, Benji Alston. You take things too serious. If you were with the North, they never would’ve won the war.”

  Pilot said, “This is getting boring. I feel like a swim.”

  Spencer can always be counted on to do what’s right. He stuck his hand out. “Sorry, Benji, I just got caught up in the chase. It was like you were a rabbit and I was a fox – as soon as you put your head down, something inside quieted my good sense and the next thing I knew, the arrow was flying.”

  I shook his hand. “Sorry I whipped you with your own bow. I’ll get Pay and Stubby to make you a new one.”

  “Yee-haw! Reach for the skies, you all Yankee dogs!”

  Big Twin and Little Twin peeked out from behind two trees, their arrows aimed at me and Randall.

  Pilot said, “That’s it, I quit. Let’s go for a swim.”

  That was the end of the American Civil War as it was fought in the woods of Canada in 1901.

  The whole thing was a waste of time, but I was able to get a good headline out of it:

  JOHNNY REBS LOST THE WAR THIRTY-SIX YEARS AGO AND LOSE IT AGAIN TODAY. SOME FOLKS NEVER LEARN!!!

  Grandmother O’Toole says structure and consistency are the backbones of a righteous life, so at the exact same day and time of each week, she and I walk to purchase the week’s groceries.

  These excursions are a good and true measure of how much I have matured over the years. To the best of my recollection, they began around the time I was seven years old, well before I’d trained myself to think using the scientific method. If they had started after my education, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to wonder why, instead of walking straight down Main Street to buy the groceries, we took a detour that kept us off Main for one block before we returned to it.

  Without fail, every Saturday morning at seven thirty-five, we would leave home and walk four blocks directly east on Main Street. When we got to Second Avenue, we’d turn left and go north for a block, passing Harrison’s Furniture Shoppe. We’d turn right on Holmes Street, heading east again for a block, and once we reached Third Avenue, we would turn back right, head south for a block, and back to Main. Then we would turn left and continue east for another eight blocks to reach Shanahan’s Groceries.

  We had been doing it for so many years that the whole exercise seemed completely normal to me, never mind that we were walking three blocks out of our way and passing Langston’s Groceries, said to be a perfectly fine grocery store, only to walk another eight blocks down to Shanahan’s.

  Our behaviour was much like Mr. Younger’s old workhorse: The poor beast had walked a certain way home from the fields for years and couldn’t change its route even though the Youngers’ barn had burned down and they had long ago moved. The horse was walking a way that didn’t make any sense, but he was comfortable doing it. With the help of a fireman, I finally reasoned that Grandmother O’Toole and I were doing the same thing.

  But even as young as seven, I had an inkling that something wasn’t right with our walks. It was at that tender age that we’d made our usual Saturday morning turn north on Second and were in front of the furniture store when, as we passed, I looked into the window of Harrison’s.

  What I saw made me stop dead in my tracks. I called, “Grandmother O’Toole! Wait! Come back!”

  She said, “What nonsense is this? Ye’ve no money for buying overpriced furniture. Keep walking.”

  But my surprise had been real and deep enough that I ignored her. I pointed at the window and said, “There! Look!”

  She came back, looked into the window, and said, “Well?”

  I pointed, and even though she told Father otherwise, I truly wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or impudent; what I saw in that window caused heartfelt surprise.

  I’d always pictured Grandmother O’Toole as a towering silo of a person. I thought if she was standing in the east at six in the morning, the sun’s rays would have difficulty reaching earth until she decided to move. But as my eyes beheld the two people reflected in the shop window, my head
spun.

  There was no doubt who the boy with the dazed expression and the bright red hair was. It was obviously I. Who, then, was the tiny, sad, tired old woman standing next to the boy? The woman who was peering so intently into the window with her right hand shading her eyes? The woman in rather shabby clothes who was only a wee bit taller than the redheaded lad; the woman who couldn’t have weighed more than ninety-five pounds?

  I said, “Grandmother O’Toole, that’s you! And we’re the same size!”

  She swung her cane at me, but if I see it coming, I’m usually able to dodge it.

  Soon after that, on another Saturday morning, the smell of smoke was heavy in the air as we left home. The ruckus we’d heard earlier in the morning had been Harrison’s furniture store burning to the ground. When we made our turn onto Second Avenue, the street was completely impassable. Firemen were still pumping water on the smoking remains of Mr. Harrison’s store.

  One of the firemen said, “Hello, Mrs. O’Toole, Alvin. Afraid you’re a bit late. If you’d’ve come earlier, you’d really have seen quite a blaze.”

  I said, “Hello, Mr. Thompson. We didn’t come to look at the fire, sir; we’re on our way for groceries.”

  “Groceries?” Mr. Thompson gave me a peculiar look.

  He said, “Why didn’t you just keep heading down Main? Langston’s is right there, you know; why come this way?”

  Those words were as revelatory to me as the sight that led the little boy in the fable to say, “But the emperor has no clothes!” As soon as Mr. Thompson asked that question, our route to groceries became obviously strange to me as well. Why had we made this detour for all these years?

  I looked at Grandmother O’Toole, but she was glaring at the fireman. My skin flushed. About the only people she hates more than black Canadians are Canadians in uniform; this could turn into a terrible fight.

  She seemed to grow right before my eyes, becoming silo-sized again. “Why’s the way I walk to the grocery store any matter to ye? Perhaps if ye were as concerned about what goes on in yer house with yer wife and daughters when yer gone, ye’d not be so keen to be prying into other people’s business.”

  She grabbed my hand, and relief washed over me that she said no more. We went back to Main and walked the block we’d never walked before.