Cy in Chains Read online

  “Maybe. If he got the gift.”

  “I think y’all done enough for one evenin’,” Jess said. “West, put that bowl away and quit fillin’ these boys’ heads with nonsense.”

  West pouted. “It ain’t nonsense. It real.”

  “I believe it,” Billy said. “Tomorrow y’all gon’ see West be right.”

  “I hope so,” Jess said.

  That night, after they were chained together for sleep, Billy chattered on and on about the next day and how his daddy would come and free him. He was long past being annoying.

  “Can’t we talk ’bout somethin’ else?” Cy asked.

  “All right,” Billy agreed. “Who you fellows got comin’ to see you tomorrow?”

  No one replied.

  Billy didn’t understand. “Jess, you got somebody?”

  “Naw.”

  “Not a mama or daddy?” Billy asked.

  “Nope. Both dead.”

  “How they die?”

  “Don’t rightly know. They was both gone before I was big enough to remember ’em.”

  “What about you, Cy? You got a mama and daddy?”

  “Only a daddy.”

  “Cy been here for a long time, and his daddy ain’t never come see him,” West added.

  “Shut up!” Cy tried to poke West, but couldn’t reach him.

  “And your daddy ain’t never been here?” Billy sounded shocked. “Why not?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Cy snapped. “Ain’t none o’your damn business, anyway.”

  “No more questions,” Jess told Billy. “Some guys just don’t like to talk about that stuff.”

  Mouse lay silent. Like Jess, he didn’t have any folks to come visit.

  “You still got your critter there?” Billy asked.

  No answer.

  “That orange lizard?”

  “Salamander.”

  “You holdin’ him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Better be careful,” Jess cautioned. “You gon’ lose him in the dark.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You best let him go tomorrow. He got to eat. Besides, Prescott gonna find him.”

  “That ain’t yo’ problem.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “How you get them marks on your back?” Billy asked Jess.

  “Can’t we just go to sleep?” Cy asked. He’d heard Jess’s story plenty of times.

  “Jess promised he tell me ’bout it if I got my bath. Remember, Jess?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you got to tell it. Cy say you got beat a lot, Jess. That true?”

  Jess replied softly, “Yeah. Man I lived with done it. He warn’t my real daddy, thank God. He never got tired o’ remindin’ me about that.”

  “How you end up with him?”

  “I dunno, and he never would tell me. His wife, neither. Mr. George and Miz Ada Prettyman. Sharecroppers over by Sparta. Long way from here.”

  “How come he beat you?”

  “Dunno. He beat her just like he done me. Half the time he beatin’ her, half the time he on her in the bed, tellin’ her how much he love her, how she always gonna be his woman.”

  “You saw that?” Billy asked.

  “Huh! You stay in a one-room shack with folks, you sees and hears lots o’ stuff you rather not.”

  “Don’t tell him that mess,” Cy said. He remembered back before his mama left. Sometimes at night, when his parents thought he was asleep . . .

  “He asked,” Jess said. “You want to hear more, Billy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You guys hush,” West complained from the other side of Billy. “I want to go to sleep.”

  “Ain’t much more to tell,” Jess said. “Mr. George used to beat me bad. Use a belt, razor strap, switch—whatever he could get his hands on. Say I was a sorry excuse for a boy. Accordin’ to Mr. George, I couldn’t never do nothin’ right. Couldn’t plow a straight furrow, couldn’t chop cotton, couldn’t even slop a hog the right way. Didn’t matter what I done, Mr. George always find a reason to beat me.”

  “I’da run off from a man like him,” Billy declared.

  I’d of killed him, Cy thought.

  “I thought about runnin’, but I stayed for Miz Ada.”

  And see where it got you, Cy thought.

  “Mr. George beat her like she was a dog. It hurt me deep down to see how he use her. Nothin’ she did satisfy him, either. She and me tried to look out fo’ one another.

  “Miz Ada wanted a baby real bad—believed if she could give Mister George a son, maybe he love her and quit hittin’ her. Long time went by, and nothin’ happen, even though he on her all the time. Then she started to have a baby, and Mr. George soften up some, but she lost it, and he beat her again, like he blame her ’cause the baby born too soon—born dead.

  “After that, Miz Ada kinda give up. One time Mr. George go after her—for burnin’ the collards—and she tell him she pray he go ahead and kill her. She rather be dead and go see King Jesus in heaven than go on livin’ in hell. That stop him fo’ a while. But next time, he went at her like he planned to answer her prayer.”

  “And?”

  “I tried to stop him,” Jess said. “I was pretty big by then. When Mr. George got to hitting Miz Ada, I stepped in. ‘Run ’way,’ I told her. ‘Go ’way, and don’t never come back.’ And she did.”

  “I bet you whipped his ass good then,” Billy said.

  “I tried, but he too much for me. He knocked me out cold, and when I come to, he had me stripped and tied, and then he beat me worse than he ever done before. He just kept on with that strap . . .”

  Just like John Strong. The words hammered against Cy’s brain.

  “Mr. George kep’ me tied all night, and next morning he took me to town—made me walk half naked behind his horse with a rope ’round my neck—and turned me over to the sheriff. He kept me in the jail until the next time the judge come to town, and he charge me with disorderly conduct and sentence me to ten years. Cain got his hands on me, and I been here ’bout four years. Longer’n Cy.”

  “How old are you?” Billy asked.

  “Don’t know for sure. Seventeen, maybe.”

  “Y’all quit now!” West said. “We don’t want to hear no more about Jess and his hard times.”

  “Sorry,” Jess told him. “We be quiet now.”

  “What happened to that Miz Ada?” Billy asked.

  “Shut up!” West cried.

  “Hold on,” Jess told him. “Lemme finish all the way to the end, and then Billy won’t have no more cause to ask any questions. Will you, Billy?”

  “Naw. Sorry, West.”

  West turned over and put his hands over his ears.

  “I don’t know what happen to Miz Ada,” Jess went on. “She was gone that next morning when I come to, and we didn’t see her on the way to town, or in town, neither. Mr. George kept cussin’ her, sayin’ she was gon’ get it good when he got his hands on her, and he had a good mind to bring her up before the judge fo’ stealin’ his horse. I pray she got clean away from that man. Let’s go to sleep now. Big day tomorrow.”

  “Huh,” Mouse muttered. “What so big about it?”

  Then it was quiet. Soon, Jess started to breathe slow and deep, and Mouse curled into his little ball and slept too. But Cy couldn’t sleep. Jess’s story had worked on him the way it always did, put questions into his mind he couldn’t answer.

  On the other side of Jess, Billy wasn’t asleep, either. “Cy, you awake?” he whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “My daddy is gonna be here tomorrow. Remember I told you.”

  “All right.” There was no point arguing with the kid.

  “He is.”

  “Sure he is.”

  “You don’t believe me!”

  “Course I do.”

  “Maybe your daddy’ll come too. I want my daddy to meet him.”

  “Maybe he will.”

  “Good night,” Billy sa
id.

  But sleep still wouldn’t come. It wasn’t just Jess’s story that kept Cy awake. Jess had done something to help that woman. He, Cy, had tried to save Travis and failed.

  At least the woman had gotten away.

  Another sleepless night before visiting day. Every three months it was the same: some part of him still wanted to believe his daddy would finally come, the part that still held on to hope, and he had to fight it down.

  Tonight was no different. In fact, it was worse, after all that crap West had fed them. Getting their hopes up like that. Let the others keep on believing. He was done with that nonsense. Free? It was a word, nothing more.

  But maybe, just maybe, that hopeful voice said, tomorrow would be different. His father would come, would have figured out a way to take him home.

  Home. His mama’s pink bonnet . . .

  Ten

  NEXT MORNING, SUDIE, THE GIRL WHO HELPED in the cookhouse, had on a freshly washed apron. Pook, clinging to his mother’s skirt as usual, had on a clean pair of pants and jacket. His hair was brushed, too. Rosalee herself was wearing a different dress—blue calico. Her hair was brushed back from her face and tied at the back with a piece of red ribbon. For once, she looked pretty.

  “Somebody been extra nice to Cain lately,” Cy remarked while the boys were waiting in line for grits and fried fatback.

  “What that suppos’ to mean?” West asked.

  “New dress, pretty ribbon. Rosalee had to get ’em from somewhere, and Cain don’t give out nothin’ for free.”

  “Shut up!” West cried.

  “What’s eatin’ you?”

  “Cy didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” Jess broke in.

  “Then he can keep his stupid mouth shut,” West said. “I’s tired o’ the way he always got to say somethin’ low-down.”

  “Ain’t nobody askin’ you to listen,” Cy shot back.

  “It hard not to hear your big mouth.”

  Cy made a move toward West, but Jess stopped him. “Quit it!” he ordered.

  Cy pushed Jess away. He felt like punching West, but there’d be another time to settle things.

  After breakfast was done and cleaned up, Stryker and Prescott took off the boys’ leg irons, and they were free for a while. Eager to stretch their legs, some boys got up a game of tag. West went off by himself to a sunny patch of ground, lay down, and went to sleep. Mouse walked around, searching the grass for critters.

  Billy made his way to the front of the camp and stood gazing through the barbed wire in the direction the wagon had brought him from.

  Cy wandered around wishing he had something to do. He felt irritable, the way Teufel used to get when he’d been cooped up in his stall too long. That was when he was likely to bite or kick, even though you were trying to bring him out for exercise. Strange that when he was allowed free time, Cy couldn’t come up with a way to use it. Mess with West? That was tempting—the kid couldn’t mouth off to him that way!—but Stryker or Prescott might notice.

  Visiting day. Nothing more than a mean joke. Cy glanced at the gate where Billy had planted himself. Maybe his daddy would show up—most likely not. For a moment, Cy felt sorry for the kid.

  He had wandered up near the cookhouse when Rosalee appeared at the door with Pook. “Go on, sugar,” she told the child, gently removing his hand from her long skirt. “Let Mama see how fast you can run.”

  Pook stood still a moment, then looked up at Rosalee. She nodded and smiled at him. “Run, little man. Stretch them long legs.”

  Cy stopped and watched. The catch in his throat surprised him, but not as much as Pook did when the child ran right to him. Without stopping to think about it, Cy grabbed Pook under both arms, picked him up, and began to swing him around. The child squealed happily.

  Cy put Pook down, but the boy wasn’t satisfied. “Again!” he shouted.

  So he did it again, and again. Pook kept laughing and asking for more.

  “You havin’ fun, sugar?” Rosalee called.

  “Yeah!” he cried.

  “I got to stop,” Cy said. He was panting and dizzy, but happier than he could remember being in a long time.

  “Let Cy be,” Rosalee said. “He wore out from playin’ with you. Tell him thank you.”

  Pook hugged Cy’s knees. “T’ank you, Cy.” He started back to his mother, then spotted something in the weeds. He squatted to look. Cy followed, and Mouse came over, too.

  “Bood,” Pook said.

  “Dead bird,” Mouse said, holding it up.

  “Bood,” Pook said again. Rosalee came and stood by him.

  Mouse held the bird in his palm. It was small, with some yellow on its breast and throat, and white stripes on its wings. The back was darker, kind of dull green. “We got to bury him,” Mouse declared.

  “Bood,” Pook repeated, staring at the pitiful thing.

  “Just throw it over the fence,” Cy suggested.

  “We got to bury him,” Mouse repeated. He laid the dead bird on the ground and began scrabbling in the dirt with both hands.

  “Why? It only a bird.”

  Mouse didn’t answer, just tore at the earth, digging his nails into the slimy red clay.

  “Put him in,” Mouse told Pook when the hole was dug.

  “He don’t understand.”

  “Course he do. Put him in.”

  Pook picked up the dead bird by one scrawny foot and carefully placed it in the hole.

  Without warning, tears came to Cy’s eyes. Stop it! he ordered himself. You gonna cry over a dead bird?

  “Hey, you!” a voice shouted.

  It took Cy a second to realize he was being called. It was Stryker, at the gate. “Get over here, boy! You got a visitor.”

  On the other side of the barbed wire, near where Billy waited, staring at the road, stood Pete Williams.

  Stryker unlocked the gate and gestured for the man to step through. He carried a shabby carpetbag in one hand. His hair had started to go gray, and there was something wrong with his left leg.

  Cy didn’t move.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Stryker shouted across the yard. “Ain’t you gonna come see your daddy?”

  He started forward slowly. Many eyes were staring at him, and he didn’t like it.

  “Son?” Pete Williams limped toward him and looked into his eyes. “Ain’t you glad to see me?”

  Cy didn’t answer.

  “Oh, let me hug you! I didn’t believe this day would ever arrive.”

  Cy let his father put his arms around him, hold him, but he himself made no move. This was the moment he’d thought about nearly every day for three and a half years, and he supposed he should feel glad, but all he felt was anger.

  Stryker cleared his throat. “I got to see what’s inside that carpetbag,” he said.

  Williams went back to the gate, where he’d left the bag. Cy and Stryker followed.

  “I brought my boy a couple things he might be able to use.”

  “Like a file?” Stryker asked. He smiled as if he’d said something funny.

  “Oh, no, suh. I sho’ wouldn’t never do nuthin’ like that.”

  “So what is in there?”

  He brought out a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “This is for you, suh. And for yo’ helpers.”

  “I don’t run this place,” Stryker corrected him. “What is it?”

  “Best quality tobacco. Some for smokin’, some for chaw. I didn’t know what y’all might like.”

  “You ain’t put no poison in it?” It was impossible to tell if Stryker was serious or just making another bad joke.

  “Oh, no, suh! Just wanted to bring you somethin’ to show appreciation for how you takin’ care o’ my boy.”

  Cy felt disgusted by his father’s lie. If Stryker believed it, he was as stupid as he was mean. But he had to pretend to believe the words, just as Pete Williams had to pretend he meant them.

  Stryker took the tobacco. “What else you got?”

  “Some sweet cakes—
here’s some for you, too—and some apples.”

  “And?”

  “Stockin’s, and some drawers and a undershirt.”

  “Nothin’ else? No contraband?”

  “I swear it, suh. Just these couple little things for Cy.”

  “All right, then. Y’all go on and visit.” He walked away.

  Pete Williams picked up the carpetbag. “Cy? Can we go somewhere quiet and talk?”

  Cy was about to answer when he noticed Billy. He was still fixed in the same place, but now his eyes weren’t on the road. They were riveted on Cy’s father.

  “Who that?” the man asked.

  “Nobody. New kid. Name of Billy. Thinks his daddy gonna take him home today.”

  “That likely to happen?”

  “Probably not. Folks never show up to take anyone away.”

  “I’s here,” Williams said.

  “Took you long enough,” Cy said.

  “Let’s go find someplace to talk,” his father suggested again.

  Cy led the way to a front corner of the camp, as far from everyone else as they could get.

  They stopped, and Pete Williams put his hands on his son’s shoulders. “Let me look at you. You mighty thin! They don’t feed you much.”

  Cy stepped back and glared at his father. “Why you never come to see me?”

  “Son—”

  “Where you been all this time? You don’t care nothin’ ’bout me! Just go away and let me be.”

  Williams put his hand on Cy’s shoulder again, but Cy brushed it off. “Don’t touch me!”

  “I can explain, if you give me a chance. Let’s sit down. My leg hurts if I got to stand too long.”

  Cy didn’t reply.

  “Please, son! I tried to come right from the day them damn Sconyers boys snatched you away, but it done took me all this time to find you.”

  Cy still didn’t move. Inside him, a battle had begun.

  “Suit yourself,” his father told him, “but I got to sit.” Slowly, favoring his hurt leg, he eased himself onto the damp grass.

  Cy wanted to turn his back and walk away—or part of him did. The other part wanted to fall to the ground, crawl into his father’s lap, and cry his heart out. Instead, he simply sat down.

  Pete Williams opened the carpetbag and brought out another parcel wrapped in brown paper. Inside were molasses cakes. “They’s for you,” he said, offering them. “Please, son. Have one.”