Cy in Chains Page 19

  It was too much for Cy to think about. Aunt Miriam seemed to sense his uncertainty. “Don’t fret about it jus’ now. We got other things to do. They’s boys on the run, and I got to get the word out.”

  “How?”

  “Come dusk, my grandson Simon be here. He check on me every evenin’. Been wantin’ me to come live with him and his wife now that Aaron and Johnny Boy both gone.”

  “Who they?”

  The woman looked out across the yard. “My husband and son. Aaron died ’bout a year back, just plain wore out.”

  “Johnny Boy?”

  “White men killed him. Don’t want to talk about that.”

  “I’s sorry.”

  “Thank you, son. I miss ’em both real bad, but one day soon, I gon’ be joinin’ ’em on the streets o’ gold, and then everything gon’ be all right. Father gon’ keep his promise, wipe away all our tears.”

  She talked the way Billy and the others had talked at West’s funeral.

  “Simon’ll spread the word,” Aunt Miriam went on. “He can get you boys started on y’all’s way to Louisville.”

  “When can we go? Tomorrow?”

  Just then, Billy came through the front door, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. “Home?” he asked. “Daddy be waitin’ for me!”

  “Where he be?” Aunt Miriam asked.

  “Jus’ down at Moultrie! Only couple miles from here. We can go this evenin’, surprise Daddy before bedtime.” Billy’s eyes glowed with hope.

  “Course you ready to get home,” Aunt Miriam said. “But we gotta go slow. When Simon come, you tell him everything, and he can check things out in Moultrie. Find your daddy and figure a way for you and him to meet where it be safe. Come tomorrow, they gon’ find out what happen at the camp, and then they be lookin’ under every rock and behind every tree and bush to find you boys.”

  When Aunt Miriam sent Billy to check on Mouse, Cy asked the question he’d been wanting to ask all along. “Aunt Miriam, how you know it was me when you saw me in the yard?”

  “Oh, yo’ daddy tell me what you look like. He done a right good job, too. I knew the second I laid these old eyes on you.”

  “But it been a long time! How come you still waitin’ on me?”

  The woman smiled. “Any man brave enough—or crazy enough—to risk what you done that first time, bound to try it again. I didn’t know how or when you’d do it, but I reckoned you would, when you wanted yo’ freedom bad enough. And here you is.”

  “I got to find Daddy.”

  “I know, sugar. Louisville a long way, but that ain’t nothin’.”

  Cy wasn’t happy with what he knew he had to say next. “First, I got to help Billy.”

  The woman nodded agreement. “I figured you say that, too. What about that other one—Mouse? How he get to be so sick?”

  Cy told her that Mouse had never had any strength, and that the whooping cough had just about finished him.

  “Where he stay, ’fore Cain got hold o’ him?” Aunt Miriam asked.

  “I dunno. He say he from way down by Florida, near some big ol’ swamp.”

  Aunt Miriam nodded. “Okefenokee,” she said. “Long way from here, and that child couldn’t make it a half mile, the state he in. Maybe we could get him down that way, but I dunno. It’s a shame, seein’ a child like that already used up. A real shame.”

  “I just want to get home. See my daddy.”

  “Course you do. And we gon’ do everything we can to see to it you gets what you want.”

  Aunt Miriam’s grandson Simon was a giant of a man with the biggest shoulders Cy had ever seen. He appeared just as darkness was settling over the clearing. Like his grandmother, he showed no surprise when he heard about what had happened at Cain’s camp. In fact, he shook Cy’s hand and thanked him. That made Cy feel better. So did the look of devotion on Billy’s face as Cy retold the story.

  Sitting close to a small fire that felt good even on a mild April evening, they talked until Mouse fell asleep in his chair and Simon carried him to bed.

  The plan was for Simon to venture into Moultrie the next morning, taking Billy with him. Simon would look for Billy’s father, and Billy could stay hidden under a tarpaulin in the back of the wagon. Billy liked that plan. When Billy couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, Simon led him to bed. He wouldn’t let Simon carry him—said he was too old for that stuff.

  Simon returned, poured himself some whiskey, and sat down again.

  “Can I come to Moultrie with you?” Cy asked. The idea had been in his mind since Simon had first suggested it.

  Simon looked serious, troubled. “I figured you might want to, but to my mind, it too dangerous. First thing tomorrow mornin’, they gon’ find out the state of affairs at that devil’s camp, if they ain’t already found out. Word gon’ go out ever’ which way, and you can bet they gon’ send fast riders to Moultrie and up Tifton way too. Folks know me in Moultrie, so I got to be careful. I don’t really want to take Billy with me, but I think we’d have to tie him to a tree otherwise.” He sipped from his cup and said no more.

  “What is it?” Aunt Miriam asked him. “Somethin’s botherin’ you.”

  “Granny, that boy say his name Billy Parrish, and his daddy name AJ.”

  “And?”

  “I knows just about all the colored folks in Moultrie, but I don’t know of no folks name o’ Parrish livin’ there now. But that name—AJ Parrish—soon as Billy mention it, I knew I recognize it for some reason, just couldn’t call it to mind. But now I remember.” Again, he was silent.

  “You got to tell us,” Aunt Miriam said. “Ain’t no good holdin’ back the truth.”

  “I know. But if I’s right, it gon’ be hard on Billy. What he told us ’bout how he end up in Cain’s camp is most likely true. From what I recall now, they was a big mess in town some months back, and a black man made a big stink after his boy got arrested and sent off for stealin’.”

  “Right from the start, Billy told us his daddy was comin’,” Cy said. “Said his daddy would get it all fixed with the court, or somethin’, and then come get him. He went crazy when his daddy never showed up.”

  “He didn’t make it ’cause he ran ’round town accusin’ the sheriff and the judge o’ framin’ his boy. Got drunk and stood in the street in front o’ the judge’s house, call-in’ on God for justice. I didn’t see it myself, ’cause I was workin’ at the sawmill up in Ty Ty then. Heard about it later, though.”

  “And what happen?” Aunt Miriam asked.

  “They run Mr. AJ Parrish outta town, that’s what.” Simon looked into his glass of whiskey. “We ain’t gon’ find him come tomorrow mornin’.”

  “What about the child’s mama?” Aunt Miriam asked.

  “He never said nothin’ about havin’ a mama,” Cy replied. “I figured she was dead or gone away.”

  Aunt Miriam shook her head. “Po’ child. If you can’t find his daddy, he gon’ be some disappointed.”

  As Cy listened, anger had been rising in him. Mouse was bad off. Billy would be destroyed if they couldn’t find his father. Why did the white man have the power of life and death over colored folks? And why did colored folks have to risk everything if they ever dared to fight back?

  “We can be in town first thing, and I can ask around, see what I can find out,” Simon told them. “Maybe somebody know where AJ Parrish gone. Maybe he left word with somebody, case Billy ever come ’round lookin’ for him.”

  “The way Daddy left word with y’all,” Cy said. Hope rose in him a little. He had to keep believing it wasn’t too late for Billy to find his father again, or for him to find his own.

  Twenty-Two

  SIMON LEFT EARLY WITH BILLY. AROUND DINNERTIME, Aunt Miriam and Cy heard the wagon in the yard and went out to the porch to meet it. They had gotten Mouse up to eat breakfast, but he hadn’t touched the hotcakes and milk Aunt Miriam put in front of him. Complaining of being too tired to eat, he’d returned to bed.

  Simon had t
o help Billy down from the wagon seat. The boy seemed to be in a daze. Cy remembered that look from when Billy was new at Cain’s camp. Lost and helpless, like a bird fallen from the nest.

  “What is it?” Aunt Miriam asked. “It bad, ain’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Simon answered. “When we arrived in town, the place was already buzzin’ like a nest o’ angry hornets. News about Cain’s camp come last night, from what all them told me. Rumors flyin’ ever’ which way, folks talkin’ ’bout bands o’ black men armed with knives and guns, roamin’ around like Nat Turner and his men back in the day, just waitin’ to ambush white folks and cut ’em down without mercy. I got dirty looks from some o’ them white trash boys what hang out in the courthouse square.”

  “They been hatin’ you long as I can remember,” Aunt Miriam noted.

  “Most black folks is stayin’ off the streets, and I heard tell that the sheriff is callin’ for volunteers to catch the killers.”

  Cy went cold when he heard that. Killers. That’s what he and Rosalee were. Not the other boys, but now they’d all be rounded up and punished, if the white men could find them.

  “What about Billy’s daddy?” Aunt Miriam asked.

  Simon shook his head. “More bad news. I remembered right. AJ Parrish did live in Moultrie, and Billy was accused o’ stealin’ some money. After the sheriff sent him off to Cain’s, AJ went sort o’ crazy. The city council ordered him to leave, and they took him to the city limits. Ain’t nobody heard a word about him since that day. Was all I could do to keep Billy quiet till we got outta town. If they’d of heard him, I reckon we both be in the jail.”

  Aunt Miriam gathered Billy into her arms. “All right, now,” she told him, her voice low and soothing. “It’s all right, sugar. We gon’ take good care o’ you.”

  Cy wanted to shout that it wasn’t all right. The whites would get horses and guns and dogs, and they wouldn’t stop until every last runaway was found. Suddenly he was afraid, the way he hadn’t been since he found himself standing over Stryker and Davis, the gun in his hand.

  “We got to get these boys away from here,” Simon declared. “Farther the better, and sooner the better.”

  “You’s right,” Aunt Miriam agreed. She stroked Billy’s head. “But this child ain’t fit to travel, and Mouse—”

  “After dark,” Simon replied. “I can take ’em. Back roads. Go ’round to the west, avoid Tifton, cross the Alapaha, head north.”

  “To Louisville?” Cy asked. Hope rose in him again.

  Simon nodded. “Only other choice is to stay here and hide, but I ain’t one to sit and wait for trouble to come to me. I say we take off soon as it dark.”

  Cy felt himself trembling, a wild mixture of fear and excitement running through him like icy water. “We got to leave,” he exclaimed. “Billy, hear that? We got to go.”

  Billy didn’t move.

  “Billy, you hear me? You can come with us. We can make it to Louisville. Daddy take you and Mouse in.”

  Billy wiped his eyes with his jacket sleeve and looked at Cy. “You mean it, Cy?”

  Cy realized that he did mean it. “Sure I do! Daddy be glad to have some more boys. You, me, Mouse—we can have a good time together. Hunt, fish—”

  “Go to school,” Aunt Miriam broke in. “Get you some education so you can grow up and be somethin’ more’n a sharecropper.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cy agreed. “What you say, Billy?”

  “All right. Least for a while, until things quiet down and I can come back and find Daddy.”

  “That’s my boy,” Aunt Miriam said. “Just ’cause Simon couldn’t find him today don’t mean he lost from you. One day soon, you can come back and find him.”

  “Okay,” Billy said. He sighed deeply. “I’s ready.”

  Simon went down the porch steps. “We got to gather up supplies and make our plans. I’ll fix up a load o’ somethin’ for the wagon so I can have a reason for goin’ toward Tifton and beyond, case anyone stop me.”

  “How we gonna hide?” Cy asked.

  Simon looked thoughtful. “I figure out somethin’.”

  “Come on,” Cy told Billy. “Let’s go tell Mouse.”

  They made their way to the small lean-to room at the back of the house. It was cool and dim. Afternoon sunshine filtered through the curtain drawn over the window. Mouse lay on the bed, one of Aunt Miriam’s crazy quilts pulled up to his chin. He was so small and thin that Cy could hardly see him under the cover.

  “Mouse?” Cy went to the bed and looked down at the boy. “Mouse, wake up. Billy an’ me got some news. We gonna leave here soon as it get dark. Simon gonna take us. We goin’ home, up to Louisville. My daddy can be yo’ daddy from now on.”

  Mouse didn’t answer. Then Cy noticed how still he was. There was no movement to show that he was breathing.

  “Mouse!” Cy exclaimed.

  Billy climbed onto the bed and touched Mouse’s face. “Come on,” he cried. “Wake up!”

  Cy pulled back the quilt, but still Mouse did not move. His hands were cupped together at his waist. In them, he held the moth with the two dark eyespots on its wings.

  Simon dug the grave in the woods in back of the cabin. Aunt Miriam washed Mouse and wrapped him in a clean sheet. As Simon gently placed the tiny body into the earth, Aunt Miriam read from a tattered Bible: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

  Listening to Aunt Miriam, Cy realized she was the first black person he’d ever known who knew how to read. Again he was reminded of what Billy and the other boys had said at West’s funeral. Like their words, these offered comfort, especially the part about God wiping away all the tears. Billy was standing on the other side of Mouse’s narrow grave, not even bothering to stop the tears that coursed down his cheeks. Was there really a place where God, whoever he was, would put an end to all the pain of being alive?

  When they were done, Aunt Miriam led Billy back to the cabin, but Cy wanted to help close the grave. He hated the sound of the dirt dropping onto the shrunken, sheeted figure at the bottom of the hole, but he was glad, in a way, that Mouse wasn’t being buried by complete strangers.

  Cy kept his eyes on the quickly shrinking pile of brown, sandy soil as he worked. The sound of weeping made him look up, and he was surprised to see Simon crying openly, like a child. Simon had known Mouse only a day, yet he looked as if his heart was broken. At that moment, love for Simon and Aunt Miriam flooded into Cy. He’d known them only a day too, but they had been kind to him and his companions, even at the risk of their own safety. Rosalee had been kind as well, bringing him water and bread when he was in the icehouse. His father had brought apples and molasses cakes, clean soft clothes, and a plan for his escape. And Jess—he had tried to help, even when all he had to offer was a word of hope, a cup of water, or a hand to hold Cy’s forehead while he vomited from the whooping cough. Such kindnesses had been rare in Cy’s world for a long time, and each one shone in his memory.

  Cy and Billy were helping Aunt Miriam gather food for their trip when Simon burst through the front door. He’d been loading the wagon in the yard.

  “Quick!” he cried. “Get ’em into the hidin’ place. They’s folks comin’.”

  He pushed the eating table to one side and pulled back the rag rug. Underneath it was a trapdoor. Simon slid the blade of his knife into the space between the door and the floor and pried the door up enough to grab with his fingers. When the door was open, Cy could see a ladder leading down into a tiny, dark room.

  Billy began to whimper.

  “None o’ that!” Aunt Miriam told him. “It the only way. They’s some water in a jug and some food. You and Cy go on down, and we take care o’ things up here. Don’t you worry!
Simon an’ me won’t let nothin’ bad happen to you.”

  Billy didn’t move.

  “Let’s go!” Cy grabbed his hand and pulled him to the opening in the floor. He went down the ladder first and caught Billy as he stumbled down after him.

  “Not one word!” Aunt Miriam warned. “We get rid o’ whoever it is, and y’all be back up here in no time.”

  Simon closed the trapdoor over them, and Cy could hear the rug being pulled back and the table put into place. Then the cabin door opened and the sound of footsteps meant that Simon and Aunt Miriam had gone onto the porch. Then silence.

  The hiding place was pitch-dark, and it smelled damp but not bad. Billy and Cy sat down on the floor. Cy put his arm over Billy’s shoulder and whispered to him to be quiet, to stay calm, that nothing would happen to them. He wanted to believe that himself.

  As they waited, Cy realized that Billy was his responsibility now. Mouse was dead, and there was nothing he could do about it. The other runaways were being hunted down like animals, and there was nothing he could do about that, either. But so far, he and Billy had escaped. They were safe for now. Simon would help them all he could, but no matter what happened next, it was up to him to look after Billy.

  He’d never wanted it this way. Only the day before yesterday, he’d dreamed of escaping by himself, free from having to think about anyone else. But he’d let Billy and Mouse come with him. To his surprise, he didn’t regret it. Why?

  Cy thought of Jess again and how the last thing Jess had ever told him was to look after Billy and Mouse. Cy hadn’t wanted to do it, but somehow things had worked out differently. And now, he found himself glad that Billy was with him. Billy, who had also helped nurse him when he had nearly died with the whooping cough. He had shown kindness, too.

  From above came the sound of loud voices in the yard. The voices rose and became shouts, and then they gradually died away into silence. Finally, the door opened and someone was moving the table and the rug. When the trapdoor opened, it was Aunt Miriam’s face that appeared in the fading light of late afternoon.