Cy in Chains Read online

  The cakes looked just like the ones his mother used to make. They’d been his favorites. For a second, a crazy hope rose in him. Had she returned?

  “Where you get these?”

  “Bought ’em from a store up in a place called Tifton.”

  “Where that?”

  “Little place ’bout ten miles north o’ here. Ain’t much to it—sawmill and a few businesses.” He offered the molasses cakes again.

  “You never come for me,” Cy whispered. He could smell the spices and molasses in the cakes, and his mouth was watering. Something told him that if he took one bite, he wouldn’t be able to stop until every one of them was stuffed into his belly. “What happen to your leg?”

  “Please look at me, son. I wanted to get here! I been tryin’ to get here for more’n three years now! You got to believe me.”

  Cy wanted to. “I thought—you didn’t care. I thought—you forgot about me.”

  Pete Williams choked back a sob. “Forget you? Oh, son!” He dropped his molasses cake on the ground and tried to take Cy into his arms.

  “You didn’t forget me?”

  “You all I got left in this world. I couldn’t no more forget you than I could my own name.”

  Cy let his father put an arm around his shoulder. Then he let himself cry. When he was done, he wiped his eyes and runny nose. He grabbed one of the molasses cakes and took a bite. It tasted so good it startled him. All these years, he’d had no sugar, no syrup, no sweetening. He took another bite and had to keep himself from swallowing it whole. He didn’t stop until he’d eaten four.

  Pete Williams watched his son, a sad smile on his face. “You ain’t had nothin’ like them in a long time, right?”

  Cy shook his head. “No, sir. No coffee, neither. No chicken, no ham, no biscuits, no food fit for a dog!” He had to wipe tears away again.

  “I’s so sorry,” his father told him. “Sorry from the bottom o’ my soul. But I found you at last. That the important thing now.”

  “Daddy, please get me outta here.”

  “I know. I got a plan. But first, I want to explain a couple things. Why it took all these years for me to find you.”

  “All right.”

  Williams looked at the sky, like he was trying to remember, or maybe because he didn’t want to remember. “That day—the day Travis got drowned—Strong’s men come for me in the field. They got hold of me and tied me, took me to a curing barn and locked me in.”

  “That’s what they said,” Cy remembered.

  “Them Sconyers boys?”

  “Yeah. They got me after they locked you up. Uncle Daniel tried to stop ’em, but they hit him, knocked him out, I guess, and took me away.”

  Cy’s father’s face showed that remembering was painful. “Strong didn’t let me outta that barn till the next evening. By then, you was long gone.”

  Now Cy understood. “Bastard made sure you couldn’t find me.”

  “Like I said. I’s sorry, son. O’ course Uncle Daniel told me who kidnapped you, but they didn’t show up for almost two weeks. By that time . . .” He fell silent and fixed his eyes on the sky again.

  “What, Daddy?”

  “By that time, Strong was dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “Two days after Travis drowned, Strong had that poor child buried in the graveyard next to his mama. Uncle Daniel said after all the folks left, Strong went into the barn and barred the doors from inside. Then he shot that black devil and turned the gun on hisself. They found him lyin’ dead in Teufel’s stall, right next to the horse. I dug his grave, and the white folks come and bury him next to Travis. So all them Strongs is together again, at last.”

  Cy wasn’t sorry Strong was dead. But Travis? An old ache, one he thought he’d killed long ago, grabbed at his heart. And Teufel? Why?

  “I got to piss,” Cy said. He stood up, went to the corner of the camp, and relieved himself. When he returned, he found his father eating one of the molasses cakes.

  “They mighty good. Have another.”

  Cy took one and chewed it slowly.

  “After they bury Strong, his creditors come ’round right away, and ’fore we knew it, we was all kicked off the place. Daniel an’ Dorcas had to leave. I don’t even know where they is now.”

  “How you find me after all this time?” Cy asked.

  “I went to them Sconyers boys and begged ’em to say where they took you. Jeff acted like he was halfway ready to, but that damn Burwell put in his two cents, and they made me a deal: for one hundred dollars, they agreed to tell me where they brung you. It taken me all this time to save up that much.”

  Was it possible? His father had had to work to earn the money to find out where he was? Cy looked at the man sitting opposite him and noticed things he’d missed earlier: how his father’s hair had thinned, the deep lines of sadness around his eyes.

  “Gettin’ kicked off Strong’s place didn’t make it no easier, and then I hurt my leg,” Williams went on.

  “How that happen?”

  “When Strong’s creditors show up sayin’ we had to leave, I took one o’ the wagons and a mule and cleared out.”

  “You stole ’em?”

  “Yep. Figured I had the right.”

  “You did.” Cy’s old familiar hatred of John Strong blazed up in him.

  “I headed in the direction I thought they took you. Turns out I was goin’ farther away from you, not closer. Anyways, I ended up near a place called Louisville, found a man what needed hands to work his place. Things went okay for a year or so, exceptin’ I was mighty lonely. So many times I wanted to drink all my sorrows away, but somethin’ inside stopped me. I ain’t had a drop in two years, Cy.”

  “That’s real good, Daddy.”

  “Then I was returnin’ from town one Saturday afternoon, ’long a stretch o’ road where they’s deep gullies cut on either side, to keep the road from floodin’. Here come Rafe McReynolds, the son of Ol’ Man Tucker McReynolds, the man I was workin’ for, and a bunch o’ his friends, ridin’ hard toward me, side by side, all stretched out across the road. Prob’ly drunk as usual. I thought they’d slow down, give me room to pass, but they keep comin’ on, at a full gallop, like they warn’t gon’ to stop. I had to get out they way fast, but the road drop off so steep there that I didn’t know what to do. Then that mule Jupiter—you remember him—decide for me. He shied, and down we went, crashing down into that ditch. I got pitched off the seat, and here come the wagon down right on top of me. Broke my thighbone right in two. Jupiter broke a leg too, and they had to shoot him.”

  Cy did remember Jupiter. How many times had he helped Uncle Daniel hitch him up? How many times had he curried him? Jupiter wasn’t like most mules, ornery and lazy. He’d been a good fellow. And now he was dead, like Teufel.

  “Them boys stopped above me, laughin’, and one of ’em shout, ‘Why didn’t you get out of the road, nigger?’ Then they went. Reckon I passed out after that, ’cause next thing I know, some colored folks is pattin’ me on the face, askin’ me how I am.

  “They was right kind, them folks. Got me back to McReynolds’s place and told him what happen. Course he wouldn’t speak nothin’ bad ’bout his boy—they never do—but he did send for a doctor. He come right away, too, and set my leg. Hurt worse than anything I ever felt in my life. Took three men to hold me down. Leg healed up, sort of, but it ain’t been right since then. I had to quit sharecroppin’ and find some easier work in town. Done all sorts o’ things, but finally earned that one hundred dollars. Then I made it back near Davisville and found the Sconyers boys. Paid ’em what they asked, and they told me how to find you.”

  “You trusted ’em to tell you the truth?”

  “I thought about that, son. Sorry crackers like them be just as likely to tell me a lie. But what other choice did I have?”

  “I hate white folks,” Cy muttered.

  Pete Williams spat in the grass. “We got plenty o’ cause, don’t we? I treated ol’ Jupite
r a hell of a lot better’n any white man ever treated me.”

  “Better than Cain and his men treat us.”

  “They rough on you fellows, ain’t they?”

  “You got to get me outta here, Daddy!”

  The man glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear him. “That’s why I’s here. Listen to me now, Cy. Listen real careful. This is important. Listen and do just like I tell you, and be brave.” He reached into the carpetbag and brought out an apple. “Have one. They’s real good. Little sour, but good.”

  Cy took the apple and ran his fingers over its smooth green surface. He hadn’t touched a piece of fresh fruit since the last time he and Travis had snitched peaches from the trees in Strong’s orchard. Again, his mouth watered, even though he was stuffed with molasses cakes. The taste of that apple made him want to cry some more.

  Cy could feel his heart beating. “What I got to do, Daddy?”

  “I been ’round these parts a couple days, checkin’ on things. I know where they got you boys workin’, out in that pine wood. I even know how the day goes—at dinnertime, that Cain take a swig and gets in a nap, and them other sorry sons o’ bitches tend to they own messes.”

  “How’d you find all that out?”

  “No matter. Tomorrow, keep a sharp eye at dinnertime. When Cain go down for his nap and them others ain’t payin’ much mind, pretend you got the stomachache and got to go off and do your business.”

  “Okay.”

  “Go toward a place where six pines grow thick together, almost in a circle, like someone planted ’em that way. You know where I’s talkin’ about?”

  “No, but I can find it.”

  “Go there. Then keep goin’, quick as you can. You won’t be missed right away. Past them pines, you come to a wet place where the palmetto is real thick. On the other side o’ that, you gon’ meet a colored man on a horse. Name’s Arnold. You go with him. He gon’ take you to a safe place off the main road toward Moultrie. You turn off to the right just past a little bridge over a creek, then keep goin’ till you come to a dead oak tree, then take a right. That how you know Arnold be takin’ you the right way. I be waitin’ there for you. We can hide there a few days with the woman who own the place, name of Aunt Miriam. When they quit lookin’ for you, she help us get away. You got all that?”

  “What if this Arnold ain’t there?”

  “He be there. But if he ain’t, you get on back to the camp, act like you done your business and that’s that. But he is gon’ be there, Cy. He got to be! I already done give him ten dollar to help us out. He an honest man.”

  “Ten dollar? That ain’t right! Why we got to pay for every damn thing?”

  Pete Williams frowned. “Ain’t nothin’ free in this life, son. I know that now. Whatever you want, you got to pay for, one way or ’nother, ’specially if you a black man.”

  Cy realized he’d always known that too.

  “Can you do it?” his father asked. “Find Arnold and trust him to bring you to Aunt Miriam’s?”

  Suddenly, Cy knew the plan was crazy. Too many things could go wrong. His heart was still beating fast, but not from excitement.

  From fear.

  Pete Williams looked at his son hard. “Can you do it?”

  Folks said that no one could survive in Cain’s camp more than five years. Cy had been there three, going on four.

  “Yes, sir. I can.”

  Pete Williams held his son tight. “Then I’ll see you at Aunt Miriam’s. Tomorrow evenin’, you gon’ be free.”

  That’s what West had seen in blood and water: Cy Williams, free.

  Eleven

  “HOW YOU GET HERE, DADDY?” CY ASKED, reaching for a second apple.

  “Walked.”

  “Walked?”

  “Surprised? You mean how I get here with a bum leg, right?”

  Cy felt embarrassed. “Yes, sir,” he answered, eyes on the ground.

  “Man do what he got to do, I reckon. Good Lord gimme strength. Hitched some rides in wagons too. Folks is usually ready to help out a cripple’ man.”

  It hurt to hear his father use that word. “You ain’t crippled, Daddy!”

  “Try tellin’ that to this ol’ leg. Many’s the time I’s had to give it a good talkin’ to, remind it of its duty, to help me find my boy.”

  “How far you walk? I never could tell how long it was between Strong’s place and here.”

  “’Bout hundred seventy miles, they tells me.”

  “That far? It a mighty long way.” Especially for a . . . cripple, he found himself thinking.

  Pete Williams smiled a little. “Ain’t nothin’ compared to what slaves done back in the old days. Some of ’em run hundreds o’ miles, by night, with only the North Star to guide ’em. Shucks, Cy. Any daddy’d do what I done. Anything to find his son.”

  So his father hadn’t forgotten him. Once again, white men were to blame for all the bad things that had happened. Cy felt the hatred rising up in him—hatred for John Strong, the Sconyers boys, Cain and his men. They could do whatever they wanted to black folks, and no one would stop them.

  “Time’s up,” Prescott called from across the camp.

  “So soon?” Pete Williams said.

  More than anything in the world, Cy wanted to walk through the gate with his father, leave Cain’s camp forever. Maybe Pete Williams could say something, ask, beg. Surely Cy had long since paid for whatever crime the white men thought he’d committed.

  If he let such thoughts take over, he’d fall to the ground, wailing. That wouldn’t help. No—he’d have to wait, follow the plan his father had made. It would work; it had to.

  Cy went behind a tree and put on the drawers and undershirt his father had brought him. They felt soft against his skin. Now the coarse material of his uniform wouldn’t always be rubbing him wrong. Then he remembered: after tomorrow, he wouldn’t have to wear that hated uniform ever again. If everything went the way his daddy promised it would . . .

  Cy sat and put on the new stockings. He’d forgotten how it felt to have the soft padding of knitted cotton between the skin on his feet and cheap, brittle leather boots. “I’s gonna need other pants and a jacket tomorrow,” he said. “I can’t wear this uniform once I get outta here.”

  “I thought o’ that. I left some pants and a coat with Aunt Miriam.”

  “What about my chains?”

  “Don’t worry. Arnold get ’em off you.”

  “He don’t have the key.”

  “No matter. I seen how you boys is chained up. Shucks! Them leg irons is right pitiful. Won’t take but a couple licks with a good, strong hammer and chisel to get ’em off. Cain too cheap even to buy decent stuff.”

  “They ain’t strong?”

  “Hell, no! Any man who know what he doin’ and what got a couple simple tools can get ’em off in a minute. And let’s not even talk ’bout the sorry way you boys is bein’ guarded. Three men for forty of y’all? When they take you out to work, at dinnertime Cain go to sleep, and them two sorry crackers use the time to slack off. Y’all could make a break for it then.”

  Cy and some of the others had talked about that lots of times. Had made plans even more outlandish than his father’s. Such scheming had helped pass many a long evening. But despite all their big talk, they always came back to the same reality, which stopped them cold. “Cain and his men got guns.”

  “No matter. You think three men could stand up to forty? Make a plan, take a chance.”

  “They’d shoot us!”

  “Maybe—couple of y’all, at most. But you really think they could stop you? You bigger fellows go for the guns, while some others hustle the smaller boys away. You got tools right there—after you take care o’ Cain and his men, you break off the chains—”

  “We couldn’t ever do that.”

  “That way o’ thinkin’ is why y’all still here,” Pete Williams said quietly.

  His father’s words stung. “We ain’t yellow, Daddy.”
>
  But you ran from Strong that day at the river, said a voice in his head. You’re yellow, all right, and see where it landed you.

  Cy felt he had to defend himself and the others too. “If we got away from Cain, the sheriff would hunt us down! We couldn’t never escape.”

  “You don’t know till you try, son. Tomorrow you gon’ be free, ’cause you got the courage. Maybe one day, them other boys’ll find theirs, too.”

  Then Prescott reappeared and said Williams had to go. Father and son followed him toward the gate and found Billy, still standing, waiting. Cy had forgotten all about him.

  “Your daddy ain’t here yet?”

  Billy looked like he didn’t understand the question. Then he turned back toward the road and declared, “Any minute now.”

  Pete Williams walked Cy a few paces away from Prescott, hugged him hard, and whispered, “Be brave. Arnold bring you right to Aunt Miriam. I be waitin’ there for you. Tomorrow evenin’, you free.”

  Cy wanted to believe him. Saying goodbye was hard.

  When Prescott unlocked the gate to let Williams out, Billy bolted through it and started racing down the road.

  “Stop, you!” Prescott shouted.

  Billy kept running.

  Prescott yelled for Cain and Stryker. All the boys in camp rushed toward the gate. They had a clear view of the road and Billy speeding away.

  Prescott ran through the gate. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” he shouted. If Billy heard, he didn’t respond. Just kept going.

  As Prescott raised his rifle and took aim, Jess pushed through the crowd of boys, burst into the road, and grabbed Prescott’s arm from behind. The rifle went off, and down the road, Billy dropped into the red mud. Cy couldn’t tell if he’d been hit.

  “Don’t, Mr. Prescott!” Jess cried. “You don’t got to kill him. He just upset ’cause his daddy ain’t come to see him.”

  Prescott pushed Jess away and whirled around, pointing the rifle at Jess’s chest. “Get back! I swear to God, I’ll shoot you dead if you make another move.”

  Cain appeared, urging his horse forward. He galloped through the gate and down the road toward where Billy lay, unmoving.