The Madman of Piney Woods

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  We were still a half mile away when they stopped again. The vibration of the falls rumbled up through the floor of the wagon. Small bits of straw, dirt, and dried leaves trembled and leapt on the boards there.

  We came upon the falls and my first surprise, other than how loud they were, was that every description of them I’d read or been told had been wrong.

  Yes, they were unbelievable.

  Yes, they interfered with you breathing natural because it seemed the air was charged like lightning.

  And, yes, it was a memory you knew was yours forever.

  But the one thing they were not that every description said they were was beautiful.

  The falls at Niagara were anything but beautiful.

  They were harsh and terrifying. They were ugly and confusing. They looked to me like a festering wound in the earth.

  I got even scareder when the mayor had made all of us under ten years of age get tied to one another with one adult at the front of the rope, one in the middle, and one at the rear.

  Then we were led to the wooden railing at the edge of the falls and I understood why we needed the rope.

  The strongest feeling surged over me when I looked down where the roaring water crashed below. If it weren’t for the rope and Patience and Stubby clinging desperately to each side of me, I’m sure I would have calmly climbed up on the railing, stepped over the edge, and allowed myself to be swallowed by the water.

  There was such a magnetic pull to go over that my knees buckled and I strained against the rope.

  That was the same electrical feeling I had as the Madman of Piney Woods, sitting mere feet from me, locked his eyes upon mine. For some reason, I knew I could jump into the swirling madness I saw there. I didn’t fear the rush of movement and noise and currents that lay behind his eyes. I wanted to look deeper.

  Either that or run as quickly as I could after those lucky little brats who had been excused earlier.

  Good sense prevailed and I was just about to tell Mr. Swan, I’m not comfortable with those children walking alone in the woods, sir. I’ll escort them home and come right back.

  Before that lie could pass my lips, the Madman freed my eyes and, peering back into the fire, said, “If what you looking to hear is something that’s truly frightening, you done come to the right place, your call been answered by the co-rrect man.”

  Mr. Swan seemed worried. “Uh, look, I ain’t so sure now’s a good –”

  The Madman said, “Naw, Willie, let me tell ’em. I’m-a tell ’em something true and frightening. I’m-a let ’em know the truth ’bout demons and monsters. I’m-a show ’em ’xactly where they’s laying in the cut waiting for ’em. I’m-a show ’em like no one took the time to show us. I’m-a give ’em the news ’bout who them demons truly is and where they be waiting.”

  The Madman never took his eyes off the fire. Time froze during those few moments of waiting for him to speak. They were the longest, most fearful moments I’d ever had.

  The Madman hadn’t lied. Once he began talking, I didn’t see where in my head his words could rest without causing huge distress to my every hour, waking or sleeping. I wished I had shown the same wisdom and bravery that the twins had shown and bolted screaming into the woods, never to be exposed to his horrible insanity.

  The Madman of Piney Woods began the process of absolutely destroying the sleep of seven children from Buxton by whispering one word: “Monsters …”

  There was no way to tell what made that word so terrifying, if it was because of what he said or because of the way he said it.

  He didn’t use any of the tricks Mr. Swan did to make his stories scary: He wasn’t lowering his voice to make you lean in closer; there weren’t any long pauses followed by sudden shouts that blasted coldness and shivers into your bones; he wasn’t waving his arms and pointing, suddenlike, off into the dark forest.

  He just started talking.

  “Let me open your eyes ’bout demons and monsters. I’m here to speak the truth, so get ready. Sometime that be the hardest thing to hear.

  “I know all them tales ’bout haints and dead chiefs and such wandering ’bout these woods once the sun’s gone down. And, no disrespect to you, Willie …”

  The Madman looked right at Mr. Swan, who said, “None taken.”

  “I was tolt them same lies when I was little. All us young folk was. Them tales was entertaining, but they was lies and that’s where we starts going wrong, filling young folks’ heads with folderol that don’t make no sense just like it the stone-cold truth.”

  He stared back into the fire.

  “Young folks is lots smarter than they gets credit for and all them stories and lies end up doing is planting seeds of doubt ’bout everything they’s tolt. Things what they should re-ject the second they hears ’em lingers in they head. The only thing them stories and lies do is crack the door open for every other pretty lie they hears, don’t matter how foolish it be, to blow in, lay down roots, and start growing in they ’maginations.

  “These young’uns starts up having pause at anything they ma and pa say, and caint no one blame ’em neither, ’cause they ma and pa be tellin’ ’em stories ’bout ghosts and Easter bunnies and the most ridiculous set of nonsense. And they tells ’em with the same straight face they tells ’bout not hurting no one else or treating folks the way you wants to get treated.”

  He stopped.

  Every eye around the circle was locked on him, every one of us waited.

  “Yessir, I got tolt ’bout the ghosts in the woods what come out at night too. But if y’all youngsters is smart, that there is your first clue that these is lies. Anytime someone start they story by saying it happened in darkness or fog or smoke, anything what cloak they words, you needs be suspicious ’bout what follows. Darkness hide a whole lot of things, but in talkin’, it’s used most of all to hide the holes in the words of whoever be talkin’.

  “Darkness? Real demons and monsters and devils ain’t gotta wait on no darkness.

  “Darkness?

  “Darkness?

  “They work get done as much at high noon as at the blackest midnight. They ain’t no respecter of the ’mount of light washing over the earth. They gunn get done what they need get done.”

  The Madman’s voice changed. It became steady and near monotonous, in the exact way Mrs. Brown warned us against during forensics lessons.

  I had no idea if the other boys were feeling what I was. All I could see, all I could hear, was this man with the huge head of wild hair.

  “I seent devils and demons and beasts and mostly I seent monsters. I seent how they walks upright, on two legs. I heard ’em talk and they sounds a whole lot like you and me.”

  He stopped and I realized I’d been holding my breath.

  Mr. Swan said, “Uhh … thank you, that …”

  “Uh-uh, Willie, lemme finish. These here boys wants to hear ’bout monsters and they ain’t got no idea they’s inviting them monsters right into they hearts. I seent how they likes playing war and soldiers in the fo-rest; I seent how they crashes ’round hollering and frightening every living thing in the woods. Let me tell ’em, let me tell what no one ain’t had the sense to tell us when we was young and excited by that foolishness. They needs to know what they’s playing at.”

  There was no stopping this. In the same manner that water in the Niagara River gets to a certain point and its fate is sealed, the Madman was unstoppable in pulling us into his nightmare.

  He moaned, “Lemme tell y’all ’bout who the monsters is and where they be hiding. It gonna be a big surprise, I promise y’all.

  “I always looked younger than I was. I’d just turnt seventeen, which was old enough to join up as a soldier, but they thought I was thirteen at the most and would only let me be a drummer boy. I knew at the first chance what come, I’d throw that drum down and pick up a rifle and kill me some of them Johnny Rebs. I knew it was gonna happen. But I sure didn’t think it would happen so soon and in the way it di
d.

  “I got attached to the Sixth Regiment Colored Artillery outta Mississippi, and the day I did, we was in a skirmish at Vidalia. It near cost me my life. But it open my eyes good.

  “We got charged by the Confederates, right after they’d shot us to tatters. I dropped my drum and grabbed the first dead man’s rifle I seen. The sergeant told us to prepare bayonets, but them rebs was atop us afore I got the chance to get the bayonet fixed on my rifle. The man next to me got a hole blowed in him, and the sight made me drop my rifle. I run. I ain’t ashamed to say it, I run.

  “I run down a little swale and could hear a reb right behind me. I didn’t get thirty yards afore a root reach up and grab me and drop me on my face. I felt the reb’s bayonet poke in my back.

  “He shouts, ‘Turn around, darky. I ain’t never shot no one in they back and I ain’t ’bout to start with you. I wanna see your eyes when you die.’

  “I turnt over and the rifle was pointed ’tween my eyes. I stayed still to give him a clean shot, but he lowered his gun. He looks at me and says, ‘Why, you ain’t nothin’ but a baby. I got kids at home older than –’ ”

  The Madman of Piney Woods stopped talking.

  When he started again, his voice was dead.

  He said, “That’s when I fount out where the real monsters was hiding. That’s when I seent who was truly a devil. The man reached his hand down to pull me up. I didn’t even know I hadn’t dropped the bayonet. I swung at him and it seemed like his chest welcomed it in. It went in that easy. And that deep. Must’ve pierced his heart. He fell atop me. And bled out right there.

  “I knowed right then I had good cause to be afeared of all the monsters I got told ’bout. I knowed right there that devils was real. I knowed I should be afeared ’cause I was carrying the devil ’round inside me. He waren’t hiding in no darkness; he was me. All he was doing was biding his time. Waiting for a sign. Waiting to come out.”

  I was dumbstruck. I waited for Mr. Swan to make him stop, but he was as stunned as the rest of us.

  The Madman wasn’t through.

  “I caint remember nothing what happened for two days. I only know we run them rebs off. But I soon got to see more ’bout them devils.

  “A couple weeks later at Fort Pillow, I seent more monsters treading the earth, watched ’em doing they evil work.

  “We was outnumbered bad. Four or five to one. Y’all know how in one n’em big storms what blows so hard, the rain be coming at you sideways? That just how them bullets was coming at us from the rebs.

  “I was hunkered down praying that one n’em rifle balls would plant itself in my forehead and make this go away quick. If I coulda got my hands on a gun, I’d-a done it myself.

  “Must’ve got grazed and knocked cold. In the time I was out, the monsters come upon the earth to practice doing they filth.

  “I ’members opening my eyes and thinking it was over ’cause I couldn’t hear no shooting nor cannons. But then my ears sharpens and I’m blast by wails and caterwauls like I ain’t never heard afore. I’d heard wounded men on the battlefield afore, but this was something worst. I raises up and –”

  He stopped; I breathed.

  When he started talking again, his voice sounded like one of the youngsters at school tiredly reciting something they had to memorize.

  “You’s half-unconscious and dazed and laying on your side and not understanding how come so many of your friends is laying ’round you with red caps pult tight over they heads. You might even laugh, ’cause you know that red caps ain’t no part of no uniform.

  “Then you sees. You sees they’s all been worked over by them monsters using bowie knifes to cut the scalp clean offen ’em. Seent laying not five feet from me the bleeding head of the man what I was talking to half a hour afore the rebs attacked. Same man I et breakfast with that morning. Same man what talked ’bout his family and listened whilst I talked ’bout mine.

  “Then something’s got a claw in my hair, snatching at my head so rough I feared my neck’s broke. There waren’t no real pain. All I feels was something score a line ’cross the back my neck at the hairline and I feel metal hitting bone, making a sound I recognize is the same sound I heard a thousand times afore when a goat or a pig’s getting slaughtered.

  “I looks back and up into the eyes of the demon what was scalping me and he waren’t mad nor fult up with hate. He waren’t in no rage with teeth bared and foam on his lips. He waren’t feeling nothing what a human would feel doing this. He was calm as if he was washing his socks at a crick or shaving stubble offen his chin in a camp mirror.

  “Then I feels this terrible sawing at the back of my neck. But the main thing is the sound as the monster commence ripping at my scalp. It sound just like a thunderstorm got trap in my skull. It sound like cannons booming in my head.”

  The Madman raised his voice as if he had to shout over the sounds.

  “Then it stop. My head got dropped back down to the dirt, and once the thunder quit booming in my ears, I hears a voice. I looks over and seent a different white man pointing a pistol dead at the demon with the bloody knife what was standing astride me.

  “They argues back and forth afore the one what been ripping at my scalp bend back over and snatch my head up again. The person with the gun holler at him louder and the monster growl something terrible back to the gunman and I feels that knife hit bone again, then hears a shot, and the monster what was stealing my hair fall atop me with a gaping hole where his heart use to be. I seent a swarm of them other gray demons with knives overtake the one with the pistol. Then I passes out.”

  When the Madman of Piney Woods stopped talking, his voice echoed in my ears like the fading ring of a church bell. I don’t know when it happened, but sometime during his story, he’d quit looking at the fire and locked onto my eyes again.

  He misread my look and said, “What? Y’all think I’s lying? Y’all thinking I ain’t had no truck with monsters?”

  I looked around the circle and the only people still there were me, Spencer, and Mr. Swan, who had stood up and was reaching a hand toward the Madman.

  “I ain’t afeared of the truth, and neither should y’all be. This is the truth. Look and tell me if I’s lying.”

  He stood and turned his back to me and dropped his chin to his chest. Then he used both hands to grab the thick hunk of hair that hung down his back. He lifted his hair as if he were raising up a trapdoor, showing me and Spencer and Mr. Swan the back of his skull.

  And that’s all that was there, his skull. Where you’d have thought would be more of the thick hair, there was a slice-of-bread-sized grayish-white patch of bone bordered by a band of thickened, shiny black skin.

  I couldn’t pull my eyes away as the Madman, with his back still to me and Spence, said, “I ain’t got no clue how long I slept after. When I finally gets up, it was long enough for clouds of flies to be rolling over Fort Pillow like waves. It was long enough for maggots to set up in my wound. I picks as many of ’em out as I can, then crawls to the river and packs mud on my head to try to cool it down.”

  He laughed and the bitterness of that laugh grated on every nerve in my body.

  “They tell me them maggots and that mud what saved my life.”

  I can’t say for sure if it was me or Spence who made the first move toward bolting. Being a much faster runner than he is, I was already in the house with my chest heaving and my back leaning against the front door when I heard Spencer’s wails as he ran past.

  Spencer’s howls, my gasps, and the slamming door disturbed Mother and Father from their bedroom.

  They appeared at the top of the stairs, Father holding a fireplace poker, and Mother the small coal shovel. Stubby and Patience joined them; she had her carving knife in hand.

  “Benjamin Alston,” Mother said, “what is the cause for this commotion?”

  “Mother, Father, I met him face-to-face! He sat right next to me!”

  Father said, “Who? What?”

  “The Mad
man of Piney Woods! He’s been scalped! His skull is showing, white as snow!”

  Mother said, “This was at Mr. Swan’s storytelling?”

  “Oh, yes, Mother.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s more I haven’t told you.” Even though I knew they might ban me from going in the forest if they knew, I had to admit I’d talked to him earlier.

  She said, “It can wait, all of you go to bed.”

  All three of us said, “But, Mother …”

  She raised her voice in a way I’d never heard before. “Now!”

  There was no thought but to listen.

  Mother and Father didn’t even change out of their night clothes. They hopped at the front door, pulling on their shoes, not even bothering to lace them.

  Mother said to Father, “Hurry, hurry, Tim. What Miss Ennis said must be true. He’s starting to talk to people again. That poor man has to be so lonely, maybe this time we can …”

  They left in such a rush, they didn’t notice that me and Pay and Stubby had ignored Mother’s order and were still standing on the stairs.

  The front door closed, the screen door banged, and they were gone.

  Patience said, “Benji? What should we do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should just go to bed like Mother said.”

  Stubby and Pay had their arms wrapped around each other.

  He said, “You really saw him, Benji? Honestly? Was he horrible?”

  I didn’t even have to think. “No, he was very scary, but most of all he seemed … I don’t know, I can’t describe it. Maybe Mother was right; maybe the only word to describe him is lonely.”

  Patience said, “Benji, did he really get scalped?”

  I could see that even Pay was frightened. I suppose it would be really terrible to hear about this the way they just had. I mean, even Mother and Father had looked horrified, and Mother had roared at us like a lion. It’s easy to see how this could shake a young person up.

  “Patience, it was dark. Now that I think about it, he probably wasn’t really scalped; it must have been some kind of trick.”