Cy in Chains Read online

  “Who Jenny?” Jess asked.

  “Mr. Tal daughter. She took the money and blame me—”

  “Why she take money from her own daddy?” Jess wondered. “All she got to do was ask.”

  “Not him. That man never give nobody nothin’!”

  “But you said he pay you,” Ring pointed out.

  “Sometimes, when he feel like it.”

  “So why you keep workin’ for him?” Cy asked.

  “How come y’all askin’ me so many questions?” Billy cried. “I ain’t got to say nothin’ to anyone!” He got up and stomped away.

  So the kid has some backbone after all, Cy thought. He’s gonna need it.

  “Come on, Billy,” Jess said. “We didn’t mean nothin’ by it. We just interested in yo’ story, that’s all.”

  Billy came back and sat down. “Daddy made me keep workin’. Say we need all the money we can get. And if we didn’t do what Mr. Tal say, maybe he kick us off his land. So when he miss the money—two dollar, like I said—and he ask if anybody seen it, we all say no—Sally, Joe, me—but he don’t believe us. He make us come in his office one by one and ask us a lot o’ questions. And when he done, he call the sheriff, and they take me to the jail.”

  “But you ain’t done it.”

  “I swore I ain’t! Next time the judge come around, he say I got to be here—do two years.”

  “Two years for stealin’ two dollars.” Jess shook his head.

  At least you had a trial, Cy thought. Some of the other boys told similar stories, so he figured they were true. Having a trial and getting an “official” sentence still didn’t mean you would ever go free. Oscar claimed the judge had sentenced him to ninety days for vagrancy. That was two years ago. Jess liked to preach to the other boys that they needed to believe in God so they wouldn’t go to hell when they died. Once in hell, you could never get out. Cy had come to believe that the same was true about Cain’s camp.

  “I ain’t worried, though.” Billy sounded confident.

  You was plenty worried last night, Cy thought, but didn’t say so.

  “My daddy gonna come get me. He promise. Say it only take a couple days, then he be here. Just a little mistake, is how he put it. He gonna get it worked out—then he get me. You’ll see.”

  Cy had heard that kind of braggy talk before. They all had. Jess looked serious.

  “Don’t y’all believe me?” Billy asked. “Daddy be here. He promise!”

  “Course he will,” Jess assured him.

  Another lie to make the kid feel better.

  “Might take longer’n you think, though,” Ring said. “Where you stay before here?”

  “Over by Moultrie.”

  “Where that?”

  “Cain’t be too far. Daddy be here tomorrow.”

  So they were near a place called Moultrie. The name meant nothing to Cy. Was it near Davisville, where Warren Hall was? And where was that? Cy never could figure out how many miles the Sconyers boys had brought him during that terrible trip from his home to here. Fifty? A hundred? He wasn’t even sure how long a mile was.

  “What your daddy do?” Jess asked Billy.

  “Sharecropper.”

  “Mine too,” Cy said, then was sorry he’d opened his mouth. Now the questions would start.

  “Yeah?” Billy asked. “What you do to get here?”

  “Nothin’—same as you.”

  “Naw, really. What they say you done?”

  “Cy don’t like to talk about that,” Jess said.

  Cy stood up and walked away.

  “I say somethin’ wrong?” he heard Billy ask.

  “Naw,” Ring told him. “Just don’t ask him about that stuff . . .”

  Prescott emerged from the woods, his face white as paper. Everyone in camp knew he had bowel troubles, the dysentery, he called it. That explained why he’d drop everything and run off sometimes, and be gone a long time. He woke Cain, and the afternoon began.

  It was a long one. Mouse swore he saw a copperhead, but no one else did. Everyone was nervous after that. Cy kept looking at the bare toes sticking out of his ragged right boot. Each step he took could bring those toes to the poisoned fangs of a lurking snake. When would Cain give them the promised new boots?

  They were all glad when quitting time finally arrived. Billy had worked hard all day, so he had a bad time on the way back. He could hardly stay on his feet. But he’d caused no trouble, attracted no attention. That was more than Cy had expected.

  In camp, Stryker ordered a bonfire built. And there was a surprise: supper was ready. Usually the half-starved boys had to wait, sometimes more than an hour, but tonight, Rosalee and Sudie had the watery rice all cooked. There was cornpone again and some mushy red beans. There were extra-big servings for everyone.

  Cy knew why. Visiting day. Cain was feeding “his boys” extra well just in case somebody showed up and asked about the grub. The man seemed to think they were too stupid to remember farther back than one or two meals.

  Cy ate, and for the first time in days, he had a full stomach. When supper was done, he joined the others by the fire. Soon, Cain appeared, with Prescott and Stryker in back, toting feed sacks.

  “Get ’em to their feet,” Cain ordered Jess and Jack. “Then line ’em up.”

  Stryker and Prescott dumped out the sacks.

  “I got y’all new boots!” Cain announced.

  Cy smiled to himself. He knew Cain so well. A decent supper, a warm fire, boots they should have had weeks ago—all for visiting day.

  “There’s forty pair, and forty of y’all. I won’t stand for any arguing over who gets what. This is gonna be done in decent order, not like dogs fighting over a bone. Take care of it,” Cain ordered his men.

  The boys stayed at attention while Prescott picked through the boots and handed them out. Even by firelight, it was obvious the boots weren’t new. Wherever Cain had gotten them, he’d gotten them cheap. Soon, everyone had a pair.

  Prescott’s judgment about which boots would fit which boy was as bad as ever. Later, the boys would work it out on their own. The bigger and stronger would end up with the best ones, and the rest would make do with whatever was left.

  “Yours all right?” Cy asked Jess.

  “Too small. How ’bout yours?”

  “No worse’n usual.”

  Mouse’s boots were big for him—just as they had been last year. But his feet were so tiny that no boot fit right.

  Next came the “new” blankets. Cain was right on schedule.

  The boys got to use the latrine; then it was time for bed. Cy felt pretty good. His boots fit tolerably well, so maybe he wouldn’t have to fight for a better pair. His blanket didn’t have too many holes in it, and his stomach was full for once. Maybe tonight he’d sleep without the memories and dreams.

  Everything was fine until Billy started to cry for his daddy. Not even Jess could comfort him.

  Nine

  THE BOYS WORKED PALMETTO AGAIN THE NEXT morning, but Cain called a halt at dinnertime and sent everyone back to camp. Baths and clean uniforms were the order of the afternoon. Stryker and Prescott oversaw the filling of the washtubs. As usual, there weren’t enough tubs or pieces of soap for everyone to have his own, so the bigger guys pushed their way to the tubs first, before the water had become nasty from too many boys’ accumulated dirt.

  Cy welcomed bath days, not only because of the chance to scrub off the crusted filth from his feet and knees, but also because for once, he was free of his leg irons. After Stryker unlocked the metal rings, Cy sat down, pulled off his boots and pants, and looked at his legs. His ankles were rubbed raw in some places, scabbed over in others. Not even his pants or boots could keep the heavy, rough metal from eating at his skin. He touched the hurt places lightly. The open sores stung when he touched them, but he put his fingers on them anyway—as if by some magic he could make them disappear. He wished Cain and his men could find out what it felt like to be chained, to have the skin cut from th
eir legs by rough iron rings and from their backs by leather whips.

  He pulled off his jacket and stood up. The cool air felt good on his skin, and he let the sunshine warm his back. Already some of the biggest boys were washing themselves, lathering their heads with the soap, warning each other not to let the suds get into their eyes. It didn’t take long for them to start a splashing game, laughing and playing jokes on each other. Stryker and Prescott stood at a distance, smoking. For once, they seemed not to care what the boys did.

  Silly games weren’t for Cy. He pushed his way to one of the tubs and grabbed a piece of soap. When he was done, he headed for a patch of sunshine, clean uniform in hand. Billy was sitting on the ground, still dressed, and Jess, naked like everyone else, was talking to him in a low voice.

  “I don’t want to!” Billy was saying.

  “What now?” Cy asked Jess.

  “He don’t want to undress. You ain’t got no choice,” Jess told Billy. “Water feel good on you. Soap make you clean, and you get a fresh uniform.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to.”

  “Why not?” Cy asked.

  “I don’t know.” Billy sounded like he was ready to cry.

  “Come on,” Jess said, trying to lift him.

  “Lemme be!”

  Cy looked to see if Stryker and Prescott had noticed them. They hadn’t—so far. “If you don’t undress yo’self, they gon’ do it for you,” Cy warned Billy. “And you won’t like it. I seen ’em do it to other fellas.”

  “Naw!” Billy cried.

  Jess said quietly, “You don’t like for nobody to see you. That it?”

  Billy hung his head. “Yeah.”

  “Ain’t nobody gon’ pay you no mind,” Jess assured him. “They all be too busy scrubbin’ theyselves. ’Sides, with everybody nekkid, nobody got an advantage.”

  “I don’t want to,” Billy repeated. “Mine ain’t big. Joe say so. He say a boy my age oughtta have more’n I got. Say I’m a baby.”

  “Stuff like that ain’t important here,” Jess said. “Sooner or later, everybody gon’ see you, so you might as well show ’em what you got right now.”

  “Naw, I ain’t got to! I told you, Daddy comin’ for me today, tomorrow at the latest. Ain’t nobody have to see me—like you.” Billy glanced up at them and then looked away.

  “However God made you, it all right,” Jess said. “Big, little, black, brown, whatever. Some dark as night, like High Boy and Oscar. Others got all sorts o’ colors mixed up in ’em, like West. And they’s Ring, almost pure white. We is what we is, and cain’t none of us do nothin’ about it. You know, one fellow here got six toes on each foot.”

  “Naw!”

  “Cross my heart! See that big, high-yellow guy over there? Cornelius. You ask him to see them extra toes sometime, he show you. Ain’t no big deal. Nobody pay him no mind, and nobody gon’ pay you no mind neither.”

  Billy got up and removed his jacket. When his pants were off, he put his hands over his privates.

  What a baby, Cy thought.

  “Good boy,” Jess told Billy. “Come on with me. I make sure nobody mess with you.” Jess started toward the washtubs.

  That’s when Billy noticed Jess’s back. “Why you all covered with them marks?”

  Jess turned around. “From bein’ whipped,” he replied simply.

  Billy’s eyes got big. “Who done it?”

  “You get washed up, and I tell you ’bout it later.”

  “You must of done somethin’ real bad, get beat like that.”

  “He didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” Cy retorted. “Sometimes you get whipped all the same.”

  “Let’s get that bath,” Jess suggested.

  Billy relaxed and put down his hands, so Cy had a chance to look at him. That guy Joe was wrong about Billy. He had enough for a fellow his age. Maybe now he’d see that for himself.

  After supper, generous by Cain’s standards, there was another bonfire, and the boys were free to do as they liked until curfew. Cain was really laying on the soft touches: “new” boots, blankets, clean uniforms, decent meals, even free time. Was he really expecting visitors the next day?

  Cain left Jess and Jack in charge, with the usual threats about what would happen if there was trouble. He and his men went into Cain’s cabin.

  Cy felt stirred up inside, just as he always did before a visiting day. He needed something to keep himself from wondering if maybe his father would show up tomorrow. If he didn’t think about it, he wouldn’t be so disappointed when Pete Williams didn’t appear. He suggested that West tell some fortunes. He would do that every so often, and his mumbo-jumbo antics always made a big impression on the boys, especially the younger ones. Cy told himself he didn’t hold with such stuff, but that was only half true. Every older person he’d ever known had believed in all kinds of superstitions and hexes, so maybe there was something to it.

  West agreed—after Cy gave him the extra piece of cornpone he’d lifted at supper. Besides getting some extra grub, West enjoyed being the center of attention, and he knew how to put on a good show. He retrieved his “hoodoo” bowl from its hiding place inside the sleeping shed and sat near the fire with the bowl in his lap. Cy, Mouse, Ring, and Billy joined him. Billy wanted West to ask the spirits when his father was coming to get him. Jess wouldn’t have any part of it, insisting that telling fortunes was ungodly—devilish, even.

  Mouse brought a dipper of water, and West poured some into the red clay bowl. There were strange, curling designs scratched on the bowl. Cy had asked what they meant, but West would never say. West dug into his jacket pocket and came up with a thorn that he used to prick his finger. Then he squeezed a drop of his blood into the bowl.

  “Who first?” he asked.

  “Me,” Mouse said.

  “Here.” West handed the thorn to Mouse, who pricked his own finger and let a drop of blood fall into the water.

  “Why y’all doin’ that?” Billy asked.

  “You want me to tell your fortune, you got to join your spirit with mine. ’Less you do, I can’t see nothin’ ’bout you. ‘Life be in the blood,’ what the Bible say. So you got to mix your blood with mine.”

  Billy looked impressed.

  “What you see?” Mouse asked West.

  He stirred the water with his finger, held the bowl close to his face, and began singing softly. Whatever the words were, they weren’t English.

  Then West closed his eyes and the singing stopped. All the boys were silent, waiting. At last, he opened his eyes, but he seemed distant, off in some place that wasn’t Cain’s chain gang camp.

  “What you see?” Mouse wanted to know.

  “Two dark eyes, lookin’ at me.”

  “Is that bad?”

  West shook his head. “You gon’ be free, Mouse. I seen that real plain.”

  Mouse smiled. “I knowed it! I been feelin’ it for a long time now. Free!”

  But West didn’t look happy. “Anybody else?” he asked.

  “Me,” Billy said.

  “You sure? I might not see what you want me to see.”

  “I bet you will. You gon’ see my daddy comin’ to get me!”

  “Maybe. Ain’t no way of knowin’.”

  “Come on,” Billy urged.

  West emptied the bowl, refilled it, and squeezed another drop of his blood into it. Billy couldn’t make himself prick his finger, so Ring did it for him. West repeated the ritual. When he opened his eyes, he looked troubled.

  “What’s wrong?” Billy asked. “You saw Daddy, right?”

  West shook his head. “I didn’t see nothin’ like that.”

  “What, then?”

  “I seen—I seen you on a long, dark road. And you come to this river.”

  The word river jolted Cy. River—Travis.

  “And?” Billy asked.

  West closed his eyes again. The boys waited. Cy was eager to hear the rest, even if this wasn’t about him.

  West looked at Billy again. “You gon�
� get outta here, too. You gets your freedom.”

  “What about Daddy? He comin’ tomorrow, right?”

  “I didn’t see that. But you gonna be free for sure.”

  “West don’t always see everything,” Mouse assured Billy.

  “Daddy be here,” Billy replied doggedly.

  “Want me to look for you, Cy?” West asked.

  Cy had never allowed West to read his fortune, even though he’d wanted to find out what West would tell the other boys. He reminded himself he didn’t believe in hoodoo, but tonight he wasn’t so sure. And he wouldn’t let the others think he was afraid. He agreed.

  West prepared the bowl, and Cy pierced his own finger. Three drops of blood fell into the water and West mixed them with his own. His weird, tuneless song went on and on, and Cy felt more and more uneasy. What was West seeing?

  Finally, Cy had his answer.

  “They’s a lot gon’ happen to you, Cy. I sees you walkin’ along a long road, and eatin’ good food again, and—” West looked back into the water. His head jerked back, and he looked away.

  “And what?” Cy demanded. “What you see?”

  “Somebody gonna put a knife in yo’ back.”

  “Cy gonna be killed?” Billy asked.

  “Naw,” Ring said. “That’s just a way of talkin’. Means somebody gonna do you wrong.”

  Cy didn’t like what West had seen. Hadn’t he had enough betrayal in his life already?

  West looked into the water again. “That ain’t all,” he said. “You gon’ be free, too, Cy. I sees that real plain.”

  Cy wanted to believe West, but he wouldn’t get his hopes up.

  “You okay, Cy?” Ring asked him. “You look strange.”

  “Course I is. Ain’t nothin’ to this stuff, anyway.”

  “Then why you ask West to do it?” Billy asked.

  Cy felt like hitting him. “To keep you from cryin’ for yo’ daddy! You satisfied?”

  Billy looked hurt. “You ever tell your own fortune, West?”

  “Naw. It don’t work that way. You try and tell your own, all you sees is what you wants to see.”

  “Can’t somebody else see for you?”