The farther we went into the woods, the more my spirits rose. If the Madman had the strength to wander this far, he couldn’t have been hurt too bad. We’d been on his trail for close to half an hour and there hadn’t been any signs of blood for quite some time.

What worried me was the direction he seemed to be running. It made sense to me that since he had been born in Buxton, he would head southwest to reach help. But he was running more in a wandering, northeast way, heading toward neither Chatham nor Buxton. This might mean he was hurt so bad that he was running in panic. If that were the case, we might reach him only after he’d run himself to death.

Red was about thirty yards behind me. I’d told him to follow me at a distance and double-check if there was anything I’d missed. Every once in a while, I’d see him through the trees, his hair a bright red flare. And even if I couldn’t see him, he was making enough noise that I knew where he was. I wanted to keep him close so he wouldn’t wander off and get lost. But also in case … well, in case of anything.

A good woodsman knows when he’s near to whatever he’s trailing, and the woods were telling me we were very close. The Madman of Piney Woods was close, but whether he was alive or not, I couldn’t tell.

I froze. There was a sound that didn’t belong.

I closed my eyes to try to feel where the sound was coming from.

The second I heard the dry wheeze, a memory began fighting its way from deep inside me. I should know why this sound was so familiar, but try as I might, I didn’t. This was that same bad feeling I get when there’s a word stuck on the tip of my tongue and nothing will make it fall off.

I waited, but the memory refused to cut itself loose. I opened my eyes and took a few more careful steps.

As the wind shifted, I flared my nostrils and closed my eyes. What I smelled caused the memory to explode from within me.

Clinging close to the ground like a low fog was a strong scent. A scent of rot and fear.

I gasped.

I remembered the lung-shot deer Father tells that story about!

Father had misremembered that afternoon in the North Woods those many years ago. It must have been May or June, because we had been hunting morels, not coming back from fishing. I remember how much fun it was seeing which of us could spot more of the mushrooms. I’d gathered twice as many as he had, though I had the feeling he was letting me win.

I’d heard the same dry wheezing sound I was hearing now, and I did tell Father to stop.

He heard it too and I pointed at a tangle of underbrush and vines to our left.

I had followed him, and what he said after he moved the underbrush aside and fell to his knees was spoken so low and so soft, it caught my attention like the loudest scream would.

He’d moaned, “Aww, naw, naw, naw … you poor girl.”

There was a note in his voice that I’d never heard from my father. It was almost a cry, and it had scared me like I’d never been scared before.

I’d rushed to him and buried my face against his back, wrapping my arms around his neck, afraid to see what had forced those horrible sounds from the strongest, bravest man in Canada.

I was scared, but I looked over Father’s shoulder anyway. I saw the doe lying on her right side, tangled in the underbrush. She drew another wheezing, bubbly, crackling breath. Her rib cage rose and fell like air going into and seeping out of a punctured brown-and-white balloon.

I remembered a moment of relief. I’d feared, when I looked over Father’s shoulder, there would be some horribly hurt little girl lying there.

Father’s hand was on the animal’s neck. He stroked the doe and almost whispered, “It’s all right, girl, it’s all right.”

That was when Father said, almost to himself, “Some ignorant …” and for the first and only time in my life, I heard my father swear.

He didn’t say “fool” at all like he says in the story. Father swore.

And they weren’t just mild swear words either; they were the type of words you hear from men who’ve drunk alcohol for hours. But the way Father spit them out was different. They weren’t sloppy like the drunkards slur them. Father’s words were crackling and alive with anger. The words jumped off his lips, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d started a fire as they sparked and danced through the dry brush and undergrowth of the North Woods.

I finally understood why adults are always telling us not to swear.

Father knew how swearing was supposed to be done, and when it was done right, it wasn’t something a child would be able to handle. Even with me being as young as I was, the deep respect and fear I already had for the power of words grew even more.

He’d forgotten I was there. I squeezed his neck harder and he quickly changed his words to “Some ignorant fool’s lung-shot her.”

He kept stroking the doe’s neck and asked me, “Did you bring your knife, son?”

That was the first time the doe knew we were there. Its front legs kicked once and it wheezed again, drawing my eyes to where a ragged, black, blood-crusted hole interrupted the beautiful white of its underbelly. Maggots crawled there, so impatient that they couldn’t wait for death.

I patted my right-hand pocket, then pulled my knife out as Father moaned again, “Aww, look at her teats; she’s nursing a fawn somewhere.”

The doe tried to get up but could only raise her head and neck a bit before she crashed back to the forest floor.

She looked at Father.

Her eyes swung over Father’s shoulder and she looked right at me. There was so much fear and sadness and gentleness in her eyes that for the first and only time in my life, my heart skipped a beat. The injured doe wheezed again and began twitching. Her movements sent a foul, frightening smell into the air.

I can’t believe I’d forgotten all of this, but I do remember thinking it was all too much.

I’m sure I could have easily handled any one of the things that had happened back in the North Woods all those years ago if they’d’ve happened by themselves. Maybe even two of them happening at the same time would not have bothered me so.

But when you added up Father’s swearing with the ragged wheezing sound of death, with the way the doe looked at me, with the humiliation and shame of being eaten alive by the maggots, with the thought of a fawn slowly starving in the forest or becoming so weak it wouldn’t be able to outrun whatever wanted to pull it down and kill it, the sum was way too much.

Father had been right about me leaving him right after we found that poor doe, but it wasn’t like he’d said. It was much worse. Like a bad reporter, he’d left out all the details that gave the story its heart, its touch to human emotions.

I remember I’d set my knife on the ground, put my hands over my ears, and wanted to get away from all that I had just seen and heard.

Father had changed the story, and I knew why. It wasn’t to teach me a lesson or because he misremembered or because he wanted to poke fun at me. No, Father had changed what happened because he knew the truth would embarrass me.

I hadn’t just walked off into the woods, I panicked. I ran and ran and maybe screamed, because as I tore through the forest, I remember a sound trailing behind me.

I’d forgotten all of that until this moment.

Until the emotions of sound and smell triggered a memory of the forest.

I fought to find the courage to separate the twisted vines and discover what was making this familiar wheezing sound. If Father had done it, I could too, even though I knew this time when I looked I’d find what I’d dreaded seeing that late spring way back when. I knew this ghastly sound was going to lead me to a person, a human being, someone my Mother knew and used to be friends with, and he would be very near death.

As I began pulling at the vines, I hoped I wouldn’t run. I hoped I’d be able to do what Father had done and supply some type of comfort.

I paused when I saw what looked like a strange-shaped, gnarled black root.

My mind reeled when I realized it wasn’t a root at all. It was a man’s foot tangled in the vines, his toes tightly clenched, folded down upon the sole of his foot.

My head spun, but I kept on.

My eyes followed from the foot to the leg of a pair of buckskin trousers.

I felt tears start to burn my eyes, but I kept tearing at more of the vines.

And once again my eyes fell upon the poor man we used to call the Madman of Piney Woods.

And this time I felt no fear.