Cy in Chains Read online

  “Few days, sir.”

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  Billy didn’t seem sure what to say.

  “Answer when you’re spoken to!” Cain growled.

  “I reckon so,” Billy said.

  “That’s good,” the doctor replied.

  “This here boy,” Cain said, pointing at Mouse, “had it real bad, but he’s a lot better now. On the mend, ain’t you, Mouse?”

  “Yessir.”

  “And you?” the man asked Cy.

  He felt Cain’s eyes on him. “I’s better, sir,” he lied.

  “Take care of yourself,” the man said. “Get your rest. Soon you’ll be able to go back to work.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you want to examine any of ’em?” Stryker asked.

  “I don’t believe that will be necessary,” the doctor replied. He put his hands in his coat pockets. “No point in taking the risk of spreading the contagion.”

  “We’re gonna keep on doin’ all we can for ’em,” Cain promised. “They’ll soon be back on the job.”

  Suddenly Billy jumped off his bed and ran at the doctor. He threw himself on the ground and grabbed him by the legs. “Please, sir!” he cried. “I ain’t suppos’ to be here! I didn’t do nothin’! My daddy say he come an’ get me after he make it all right with the judge. But that been a long time ago. You got to help me! Please, mister!”

  The doctor stepped back, trying to shake Billy off without touching him.

  “Dawson!” Cain cried.

  Stryker moved in. He grabbed Billy and pulled him off the doctor. Billy fought back, but a coughing spell came on him, and he fell onto the hard-packed dirt floor.

  “Get him out of here!” Cain ordered. Stryker and Prescott took hold of Billy and dragged him away.

  “Sorry,” Cain said to the doctor. “That one’s a little crazy. Been like that since the first day. Got some wild notion that his daddy is gonna come for him. Ain’t even got a father, from what they told me when they brought him in. None of ’em do, for that matter. They ain’t like us, Doctor. Got no concept of family the way the good Lord revealed it to us in his Holy Scriptures.”

  “Indeed?” The doctor seemed unimpressed.

  Cain chuckled. “Course, they all claim to be innocent.”

  The doctor gave him a look.

  The men started for the door. “Do you have time to see the child?” Cain asked.

  “Certainly. How old is he?”

  “About four.”

  They were at the door.

  “And how long has he been ill?”

  “Fits started last night.”

  So Pook had it too.

  Cy got deathly sick. They told him later he had it worse than any other boy, even Mouse. The coughing spells exhausted him. One was so bad he broke a rib. He found that out when he roused from a feverish sleep to feel someone poking at his chest. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized it was Stryker.

  “Yeah, it’s a rib,” he heard the man say through the haze of his fever. “Can’t bind him, though, not with that sickness in his lungs. He’s just gonna have to live with the pain.”

  Later, he woke again after what seemed days, only to hear Stryker say, “Pneumonia, Cap’n. Not much hope for this one.”

  Other times, Cy would find Jess beside him, holding a water cup, insisting he drink. Sometimes it was Billy. Once, Cy stayed awake long enough to realize he had on a clean cotton shirt under his jacket. He recognized it as the one his father had brought him, the one he’d made Billy take when he thought he wouldn’t be needing it any longer. When he thought he’d be free.

  While he was lying awake, too weak and sick to get up but not needing to sleep, Cy wondered why Jess and Billy had taken care of him. Jess never did come down with the sickness, but Billy had had it bad. Even so, he’d done what he could to help the others. Cy knew he wouldn’t have done as much for Billy. Why had they looked after him so kindly, even cleaning him up when he was no better than a baby too small and helpless to wipe off his own puke?

  Slowly, he began to get better. His fever broke, and he slept easier as the coughing attacks subsided. Then one morning he overheard Stryker tell Cain that the epidemic seemed to be over. No boys in the other gang had come down with it, and all the sick boys had recovered. It was a miracle, actually, Stryker had said. A miracle that only one boy had died. But the disease claimed most of its victims among the youngest and weakest, so it was surprising that Mouse had survived. And it wasn’t surprising that Pook had not. The little fellow had died and been buried during the empty days and nights Cy had been so sick. So Death had perched above the camp, claimed one life, and then moved on.

  Seventeen

  LOSING POOK HIT ROSALEE HARD. SOMETIMES Cy could tell she’d been crying. Other days, in the mornings especially, she simply looked empty, her dark eyes strangely unfocused, the black pupils just pinpoints. Mostly silent before, she was mute now. Often, her face looked unwashed, her hair unkempt. At some meals, she was absent, and Sudie had all she could do to serve up the sloppy food by herself.

  No one knew where Cain had buried Pook. The boy was his son, too, but he gave no sign that he missed the child or grieved his loss. Maybe he was just as glad that now no one could claim he’d lain with a black woman.

  Jess felt sorry for Rosalee. No woman should lose a child, he said. Cy allowed that it was too bad Pook died, but he didn’t feel sad. Still, Rosalee had helped him that one time when he’d been locked in the icehouse. That made her worth some sympathy, but he didn’t have much to spare.

  The whooping cough had done something to West, too. His case had been mild, compared to what Mouse, Billy, and Cy had been through. But when it was all over and life got back to what passed for normal in Cain’s camp, West was different, changed. Before, he’d kept the other boys laughing with his jokes and mocking imitations of the white men. Now, like Rosalee, he was silent most of the time. He had always been on the lookout for extra things to eat, but now he had no appetite and often gave away half his meals. Instead of being in the middle of every game, he kept to himself, slept more than ever, and didn’t seem to notice most of what was going on around him. Jess fretted over him, the way he did over any boy who was having a hard time. Cy tried not to care. It wasn’t his problem. Still, he missed West’s jokes.

  Then West started doing dangerous things. He talked ugly about the white men, cursing them openly, sometimes when they were close enough to hear his tone of voice, if not his exact words. He talked freely about how much he hated Cain and his slaves, which is how he referred to Stryker and Prescott. He did this even in front of some boys that Cy and others suspected of being snitches, ready to inform on other boys in hopes that Cain would grant them favors.

  When Jess tried to warn West, he was told to mind his own business, and what did it matter now, anyway? Jess tried to get West to explain what he meant by those words and got a cussing for his trouble.

  One morning in late January, Prescott and Stryker both came into the bunkhouse smelling of stale cigars. Stryker’s neck was marked with purple bruises, and West muttered that last night must have cost him a lot of money.

  Prescott was in a black mood. He went up and down the line yelling at everyone, and even started giving Jess a hard time for playing “Mammy” to the other boys. Jess took it like he always did: eyes on the ground, answering every one of Prescott’s ugly questions with polite yessirs and nosirs.

  “Cracker must not o’ got hisself none last night,” West muttered, loud enough for Cy and Mouse to hear him. Cy managed to keep from laughing, but Mouse giggled.

  That was a mistake.

  Like lightning, Prescott was on him. “What’s so goddamn funny, you ugly little toad?”

  “Nothin’, Mr. Prescott, sir.”

  Prescott slapped Mouse across the mouth. “Don’t you know better than to lie to me? I asked you what’s so funny.”

  “Nothin’. I just laughed, that’s all.”
r />   Prescott hit him again. Mouse hadn’t died of the whooping cough, but he hadn’t recovered any strength, either, and weighed not much more than sixty pounds. Mouse fell against Cy, who caught him before he hit the ground. Jess was standing at rigid attention but breathing hard.

  “Easy there, Onnie,” Stryker said. “Maybe the kid wasn’t laughing at you.”

  “Like hell! That’s all these niggers do—laugh at us behind our backs. Or ain’t you noticed?” He took Mouse by the collar of his jacket. “Tell me what you was laughing at!”

  “At somethin’ I said,” West announced.

  Prescott released Mouse and went for West. “And what was it? Tell us so we can all enjoy it.”

  West hung his head, pretending to be sorry. Cy could tell he wasn’t, though. He was never sorry for talking ugly about the white men. “I don’t reckon you think it be funny, Mr. Prescott.”

  “That’s for me to decide! Now spill it, unless you want a dose of what your friend here got.”

  West kept his eyes fixed to the ground. The bunkhouse had gotten quiet except for the sound of Jess’s breathing. Prescott glanced in his direction. “Shut up, you!”

  Jess took one deep breath and was silent.

  “Now tell us what’s so funny. I could use a good laugh.”

  “Well, sir, I just wonder if you in a bad mood this mornin’ ’cause you didn’t get none at the whorehouse last night.”

  All the boys except Jess started to laugh.

  “Kid got you pegged,” Stryker commented. He was trying not to laugh, too. “Didn’t get none last night. It wasn’t for lack of trying, though, was it?”

  Prescott grabbed West and slapped him across the face. Stryker let Prescott get in three or four licks, then grabbed his arm. “That’s enough, Onnie. Let it go. You made your point.”

  “I hate you all,” Prescott panted. “I wish you was all dead. I wish all niggers was dead! You’re a plague on the nation. A scourge! A curse!”

  “Calm down,” Stryker soothed. “You been listening to too many speeches.”

  Prescott shook him off. He got in West’s face again. “Apologize,” he demanded.

  “I’s sorry, sir.”

  “If you disrespect me again, I’ll kill you.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the building.

  The minute the white men were gone, everyone started talking at once. Cy was all over West. “You got a smart mouth! Quit causin’ trouble.”

  “Leave him alone,” Jess said. “He done had enough already.”

  “Stop makin’ excuses for him! And for everything. He got to learn to keep quiet.”

  “I’s tired o’ keepin’ quiet,” West said.

  “We got to go,” Jess said. “If we late for lineup, it only give Prescott more reason to mess with us. And I don’t feel like puttin’ up with no more o’ that kind o’ stuff. Already had more’n enough for the day.”

  Cain had a surprise for them that morning. Instead of clearing palmetto, the boys were going to help on a stretch of railroad a couple miles in the other direction from camp. He made it sound like he was doing everyone a favor, giving them a change of work. He said there would be another gang there, all grown men, and the boys were to stay clear of them. They were hardened, desperate criminals, Cain warned, ready to cut a boy’s throat if he did or said something he shouldn’t.

  Cy remembered the feel of Prescott’s knife against his own throat. He glanced down the line at West, wondering if Cain’s words were meant especially for him.

  While they were loading up for the trip to the railroad line, Jess kept wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

  “What’s a matter?” Cy asked.

  “I failed.”

  “Failed how?”

  “When Prescott was beatin’ on West, I shoulda done somethin’. Stopped him. I wanted to, but I didn’t.”

  “If you did anything, you be on your way to Alabama by now.”

  “That don’t matter. We should of done somethin’ to help West, but we didn’t. Prescott could of killed him, and the rest of us just be standin’ there watchin’.”

  “West needs to learn to shut up.”

  “I promised God I look after all the ones what couldn’t help theyselves, and when it come down to it, I just stood there like a coward. That’s all I is—a yellow coward.”

  “Don’t talk like that. What could you do?”

  “Somethin’.”

  “What happen to all that stuff about prayin’, waitin’ for God to take care o’ things?”

  Jess was clearly troubled. “I dunno, Cy. That use to make sense to me, but now—I dunno.”

  “I been tellin’ you we got to do somethin’!”

  “Maybe.”

  A faint hope stirred in Cy. Perhaps he could get Jess to come around to his side, after all. He’d wait until the right moment and make his case again.

  When they got to the railroad site, the chain gang men were already hard at work. It was open country, big fields all around. Standing water filled the low places, so the ground was soft and wet, but a railroad needed solid ground so the tracks wouldn’t sink when the heavy trains came along. The men worked in two long lines facing each other, everybody shoveling dirt toward the middle to build up the bed.

  The men from the other chain gang didn’t look dangerous, and they didn’t act dangerous. Cy had seen chain gangs of grown men before he ended up on a gang himself, and he remembered how the men laughed and joked, even sang as they worked. But these men were different—lifeless. They were heavily chained on their ankles and waists. And silent. No songs, no jokes.

  Guards stood along both lines, rifles ready. One had a whip.

  The faces of the chained men bothered Cy the most. They had dark, dead eyes. When Cain’s boys approached them, not one even glanced their way.

  After talking with the boss man, Cain came back and said the boys would be divided into two groups, one on each side of the railroad bed. They would be chained, and there was to be no talk. He unchained all the boys, mixed them up so friends wouldn’t be together, and had the chains put back on. Jess, Billy, Ring, and Davy were assigned to the other team, just not side by side. Cy, West, and Mouse were on the same gang, but not next to each other, either.

  There was trouble with Cy’s team right away. Prescott wasn’t finished with West for embarrassing him earlier that morning. He was on West from the start, calling him names, accusing him of not working hard. Finally, West dropped his shovel, stared Prescott in the face, and seemed to be waiting for everyone to look his way. Then he said, loud and clear, “I know why you didn’t get none last night. You didn’t want none. Everybody know you likes boys better’n girls any day.”

  Cy was shocked to hear that spoken aloud.

  Prescott stood stunned for a second, then went nuts. He grabbed West’s shovel and swung it so that its edge caught West on the side of his head. The force broke his neck, and the boy dropped like a stone. He must have been dead before he hit the ground.

  The boys chained on either side of West pulled away from the body. Everyone began shouting. Some boys were crying. Mouse dropped to his knees and wailed. The boys working on the other side of the embankment appeared at its top to see what had happened. Stryker was with them. Cain and the other boss man were running to where Prescott stood over West’s body, the shovel still in his hands. He looked at it like he didn’t recognize it, then let it drop.

  From the top of the embankment, Billy began shrieking. Jess put his hand over his mouth and tried to shush him.

  Cy felt dazed, trying to make sense of it. Part of him wanted to get to Mouse, comfort him. But he didn’t move.

  Cain knelt by West and put a finger on his neck, feeling for a heartbeat, but one look at his head, bent at a crazy angle to his shoulders, told the story. West’s brown eyes, open wide, stared into blue sky.

  Just the way Travis’s eyes had done on that day so long ago . . .

  Cy wanted to look away, but he couldn’t.

 
“He’s dead,” Cain declared, getting to his feet. “What the hell, Onnie?”

  “I warned him! No white man could say that to me and get away with it, let alone a nigger! I warned him!”

  The men in the other gang, at a word from their boss, went back to work.

  “He told a lie on me! A goddamn lie!” Prescott cried.

  “What was it?” Cain asked.

  Prescott whispered something to him.

  Cain stepped away, like Prescott smelled bad. “And you killed him for that?”

  “He didn’t have no right to tell a lie like that on me! I warned him.”

  Cain looked at Stryker and the rest of his boys standing atop the embankment. “Dawson, get down here. Day’s over.”

  Stryker ordered everyone to stay put and slid down the embankment. He huddled with Cain and the other boss man, then unchained the boys in both gangs. Those who had been working near West backed farther away from his body, which still lay crumpled where it had fallen.

  Cain called out, “Y’all get your tools and head to the wagons.”

  Cy heard a snarl of fury and turned to see Jess charging down the embankment, straight at Prescott. Jess tackled the white man and took him down. Sobbing, shouting curses, he pinned Prescott’s shoulders to the ground with his knees and started beating his face.

  “Hey!” Cain shouted, and rushed at Jess. Stryker and the other boss man were right behind him. Together, the three of them managed to pull Jess off of Prescott. Still on his back, Prescott scuttled away as fast as he could. Stryker punched Jess full in the face, and he collapsed.

  Cy stood with the others, struck dumb. Jess had finally done something, but Cy understood that Jess would now pay a huge price.

  The white men ordered Jess to his feet. He obeyed without question, and he didn’t object when he was told to put his hands behind his back for the handcuffs.

  Prescott stayed where he was in the dirt. “The nigger made me!” he shouted suddenly. “He didn’t have no right to say a lie about me in front of everybody!”

  Stryker stalked over to him. “Shut up!” he commanded. “You’re the biggest goddamn fool I ever met, you know that, Onnie? You make me ashamed to be a man. Now get your sorry ass up off the ground. We got work to do.”