Cy in Chains

by David L. Dudley

  Strong and Sconyers scrambled alongside, crashing through the web of small trees and wild grapevines, Strong shouting to his son to make an effort, try and swim back to the riverbank.

  Cy kept swimming. Straight ahead he could see a wall of floating debris that wasn’t moving. Travis was swept past it and disappeared. Cy was slammed directly against it, and the force of the current held him there. Slowly, he began making his way back toward the open channel, grabbing on to branches and pulling himself forward. Just beyond where he was about to take his next handhold, a snake dropped into the river. Let it not be a water moccasin, Cy thought. Last thing I needs is for a poison snake to bite me.

  Finally, Cy reached the end of the snarled debris. Only open water lay between him and the riverbank. The current was pulling ferociously toward his left, but maybe he could swim across it and get back to safety.

  He took a huge breath and made himself let go of the log he’d been clinging to. Right away, the current seized him, but he swam with all he had. Slowly, he made progress toward the land. He struggled on, forcing himself to take the next breath, the next stroke. When he finally made it to the water’s edge, he dragged himself through a mat of slimy leaves and grass and up the muddy bank, then collapsed on top, his chest heaving. He retched and vomited up water as brown and thick as the river itself. His body heaved with sobs. “I tried to save you,” he moaned. “I tried.”

  A kick made him cry out. “Get up, nigger,” Strong commanded, his voice hoarse.

  “I—I don’t know if I can,” he gasped.

  Strong stood over him, silent, while Cy labored to catch his breath.

  In a moment, Cy pushed himself to his knees and tried to speak. “I do anything you want—Mist’ John—but—but please, sir, don’t make me—”

  “Make you what?”

  Cy looked at the mess of mud and vomit where he’d been lying. “Don’t make me get back in that water. Please!”

  “Who said anything about that? Travis got ashore somewhere downstream. All we got to do is find him. Durned if I ain’t gonna tan that boy’s hide for playin’ me such a mean trick. Now let’s go. I’m too old for this kind of nonsense.”

  The man done lost his mind for sure, Cy thought. Did he really think Travis would be playing a game with him? Cy, too, wanted to believe that somewhere they’d come across Travis, wet and all tuckered out, scared half to death, yet safe. But he knew that couldn’t be. Travis had drowned. Cy was the better swimmer, and the river had almost beaten him.

  Strong brought a coil of rope out from his rucksack and shoved it into Sconyers’s hands. “Tie him first,” he said.

  The man looked down at Cy with disgust. “On your feet,” he growled. Cy managed to stand, but his legs felt wobbly. “Hands behind your back.”

  “Mist’ John, why I got to be tied? I ain’t gon’ try nothin’.”

  “You sure as hell ain’t. You caused me enough trouble already, and I ain’t taking no chances with you.”

  Sconyers bound Cy’s hands so tightly that his wrists throbbed.

  “Let’s go,” Strong ordered.

  Cy took a few steps downstream. He was afraid now. With his hands tied, there was nothing he could do. If Strong decided to push him back into the water, he was done for. Something hard poked him in the back. The barrel of Sconyers’s pistol.

  Cy kept moving, watching every step so he wouldn’t slip and tumble down the embankment. If he was going to die in the river, he didn’t want it to be from his own mistake.

  The maze of vines and low-hanging branches made the going slow. Branches snapped Cy in the face because he had no way of pushing them aside. Strong kept shouting for Travis. Nothing. They stopped often and scanned the river. Still nothing. A long time passed, and the fear in Cy’s belly grew.

  “There!” Sconyers shouted. Travis, his shirt torn away by the force of the water, was caught on a dead cypress tree sticking up like a bony finger from the middle of the river. The boy’s face was pressed against the trunk, his left arm pinned, and his right floating free and seeming to point downstream.

  Strong cried out, then bit his own knuckles.

  Cy felt his legs buckle, and he collapsed onto his knees.

  “No time for prayin’,” Strong cried. “Get up!”

  Cy obeyed. “I’s sorry, Mist’ John. Oh, God, I’s so sorry.”

  “You ain’t got time to be sorry just now. There’s a job to do.”

  “Sir?”

  “Go get my boy! You think I’m gonna leave him out there for the fish to eat?”

  “How can I—”

  “Let him go!”

  Sconyers undid the rope.

  “Now tie one end around his waist.”

  Sconyers did that, too.

  Cy shrank from the white man’s touch, but at least his hands were free.

  “You’re gonna swim out there,” Strong told him, “get the bod—get my boy, and bring him back. We’ll hold the rope.”

  Cy wanted to run away, hide, be anywhere except here by the river that had killed his friend, being forced to go back into it by a man mad with grief.

  “I got to piss first,” Cy whispered. “Please, sir.”

  “Go on, then. I ain’t stopping you.”

  They turned away while Cy relieved himself. His bowels wanted to move too, but that would have to wait. So would the vomit that rose in his mouth again. So would his tears.

  “All right, Mist’ John. I’s ready.”

  “Remember: You swim out there, get him, and hold him tight. We’ll pull you back. Got that?”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Cy stumbled down the bank and tried to hold his footing just above the water. There was nowhere to wade in; he’d have to jump. His body begged him not to do it. The first time he told himself to go, his legs refused. Come on, he commanded them. When he hit the water, the cold shock jolted him just as hard as it had before. The men put tension on the rope to keep him from being pulled downstream. That helped.

  When he reached Travis, a sob rose in his throat. It took all the strength he had to free the boy’s arm, catch him around the waist, and pull him close. He hated how Travis’s eyes, the color of a robin’s egg, gazed unseeing into his own. The dead boy’s head fell forward against Cy’s left shoulder. Having him so close was almost more than Cy could stand, and for a second, he considered simply letting the body go. But Travis deserved better.

  Cy couldn’t swim now, not with both arms wrapped around Travis’s body. He hoped Strong and Sconyers would be able to haul him back to shore.

  “Ready?” Strong shouted.

  “Yes, sir.”

  It took a while, but finally Cy and his burden reached the bank. The father, oddly calm, seized his son’s body and cradled it against his heaving chest. With careful steps, he made his way up the embankment.

  “C’mon, you,” Sconyers told Cy. He waved the pistol toward the top of the embankment. “Up there.”

  Above them, Strong was sobbing. When they reached the top, he was standing over the naked body of his son, which he had laid on the ground. Cy approached and looked down at his friend. The eyes were open yet, and the mouth, too. In death, Travis looked small and defenseless, his ribs showing under the pale, thin skin of his chest, his arms and legs like sticks. Cy grasped for the right words to let Strong know how much he ached for Travis, how sad and sick he was over what had happened. But there were no words.

  “Give me your shirt,” Strong ordered him.

  Cy undid his overalls and peeled the filthy, tattered rag from his chest, which was heaving with sorrow. Strong wrapped it tenderly around his son’s nakedness, then lifted the body and held it to himself. “Let’s go,” he said. “Tie the nigger, Jeff.”

  They struggled back the way they had come. From time to time, the barrel of Sconyers’s pistol nudged Cy’s back, as if reminding him how much the man would enjoy pulling the trigger.

  When they came to where the boys had slept, Strong draped Travis over Te
ufel’s back. “Let’s go home,” he said gently. “Your mama’s waiting on us.”

  Strong’s words made a chill run up Cy’s back. How could Travis’s mother be waiting back at Warren Hall? She’d been lying in the family graveyard for two years. Strong outta his head, Cy thought. And a crazy man be likely to do anything . . .

  As they went, Cy’s thoughts tormented him. Why had he let Uncle Daniel talk him into going to find Travis? He’d messed in the white man’s business, and just as his father had warned, he was in bad trouble now—the worst trouble of his life. Most of all, Cy wished he hadn’t run when Strong came at him—hadn’t turned yellow. If he hadn’t jumped into the river, Travis wouldn’t have followed him. He’d be alive now, instead of lying limp and pitiful across Teufel’s back.

  Teufel. This was all really his fault. If he hadn’t lost the race, none of this would have happened. No, it was Travis’s fault! If he hadn’t run away, he’d be alive this minute. No. It was all his own fault. If he, Cy, had stood and faced Strong like a man, maybe he could have held his own. Maybe Travis would have come and helped him fight. Maybe together they could have gotten Strong to listen to the truth . . .

  Maybe. What a cruel word. It was all too late; all the maybes in the world couldn’t help Travis now . . .

  Cy felt as if he were trapped in one of those dreams that are so terrifying you wake up pouring sweat, scared to death but grateful it was only a dream. Only this was real, and it wasn’t over yet. Something terrible was going to happen. He felt it in his bones.

  When they approached Warren Hall, Aunt Dorcas appeared at the kitchen door. She screamed and covered her face with her hands. Uncle Daniel hurried from the stable and eased the body off of Teufel’s back.

  “Take him upstairs,” Strong ordered. He turned to Aunt Dorcas. “I need your help,” he said. “You know what to do. I’ll be up shortly.”

  Sobbing, she followed Uncle Daniel into the house.

  Strong turned his attention to Burwell Sconyers, Jeff’s brother, who had been waiting for them. The two men walked toward the barn and stood close together. Strong talked, and Burwell listened and nodded. Cy felt jittery and wished he knew what was going on. His bowels demanded relief. Next to him, Jeff Sconyers kept fiddling with his pistol. At last Strong dismissed Burwell and trudged into the house.

  Burwell sauntered up to his brother. “Strong says to untie him, let him go back to the quarter.”

  Again, Jeff did as he was told.

  “Mr. Strong says for you to git home,” Burwell said. “Wait at your place till he sends word.”

  Cy was suspicious. This was all? Strong wasn’t going to whip him, tell him to clear out? “He ain’t mad at me?”

  “How the hell should I know? That’s all he said. Just do like the man says. If I was you, I’d sure want me a bath. You stink, boy!”

  The two men walked away. The hound sniffed at Cy’s leg and then, losing interest, followed his masters to the barn.

  Free, Cy raced to the outhouse, where he sat in the half-light. His chest was heaving, and he stayed there long after he’d finished his business, trying to calm down and figure out what to do next. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know whether or not to believe what the Sconyers boys had told him. But he couldn’t think of anything else to do but go to the cabin.

  He was headed down the hill when he heard Uncle Daniel calling. The old man caught up with him. Cy could tell he’d been crying. Together, they walked toward the quarter.

  “They told me to go home and stay there,” Cy told him.

  “That’s right. Mist’ John say for me to tell you the same thing. He tol’ Dorcas an’ me what happen. I’s suppos’ to take that horse and rub him down good. They gon’ wash and dress that po’ child, and Mist’ John say we got to dig his grave next to Miz Annie’s.”

  “What happened, Uncle Daniel? How Mist’ John find Travis an’ me?” Cy had been wondering this on and off ever since the point of Strong’s boot had wakened him at dawn. Had Uncle Daniel betrayed the two boys? He didn’t want to believe it, but how else could Strong have known how to find them?

  “He come ’round to our place ’bout four in the mornin’, knockin’ on the door fit to bust it down and shoutin’, ‘Where Travis?’ I didn’t like to let him know the truth, but I was afeared to lie, so I told him.”

  “Aw, why you do that? You shouldn’t o’ said nothin’!”

  “Please don’t be angry with me, son. I cain’t stand it if you is. I never thought things could turn out thisaway.” Tears coursed down his cheeks.

  Cy felt sorry for him. “It’s all right, Uncle Daniel. You didn’t mean no harm. What happen then?”

  The old man wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Mist’ John an’ me went over to yo’ place and looked in, and we didn’t see you, so I knowed you wasn’t back yet. Yo’ daddy was still sound asleep, so Mist’ John say to leave him be.”

  “Where Daddy now?”

  “I’s comin’ to that. Strong say he was gon’ to get some help to look for you boys and for me to stay ’round the place. At dawn I was suppos’ to find Pete and tell him to get to work first thing and see to the plowin’, considerin’ how the wet weather done kept him outta the field till now and it so important to get that seed into the ground. I did like he told me. Mist’ John was actin’ calmed down by then, like you boys bein’ gone warn’t really no big thing—he just wanted to find y’all, and them Sconyers boys got theyselves a good trackin’ dog.”

  Uncle Daniel’s explanation still didn’t make sense. “He for sure ain’t mad at me?” Cy asked.

  “Not now, son. He allowed that maybe back at the river he was mad, but he don’t blame you none. He say he had time to think it over while y’all was walkin’ back, and he realize it all jus’ a accident. ‘A terrible accident,’ is how he put it. And he say he ’preciate how you tried to save his boy.”

  “Is that really what he say?” None of it sounded like the John Strong Cy knew.

  “God’s truth. And also he know you must be all tuckered out after tryin’ to save Travis and for you to rest. You can tell yo’ daddy what happen when he get back from the fields. Strong say he send word later when he finish makin’ plans ’bout when we gon’ bury Travis.”

  The thought of burying Travis was too much. Now it was Cy’s turn to cry.

  “It was a accident, Uncle Daniel! The whole thing. I found Travis just where you say he be, and I try to make him come home, and he didn’t want to, and he cry and then he fell asleep and I did too . . .”

  “Hush now. I knows you done what you could. And remember, I’s the one who sent you to find him.”

  Cy could feel his stomach knotting. He retched and threw up another mouthful of river water. “I’s scared. What he told you—it don’t feel right. He wanted to hurt me. Look!” Cy pointed to the slash marks the cat-o’-nine-tails had left on his back and arms. “He kept hittin’ us. Then he started for me. He wanted to kill me! That’s why I jumped into the river. And then Travis did too—”

  “Easy there, son. Mist’ John ain’t hisself. First losin’ that race, now this—”

  “Somethin’ bad gon’ happen. I know it, Uncle Daniel. I got to get away from here! Daddy too.” His mind was running like a scared rabbit, trying to think of what to grab and throw into a sack, then where to find his father and escape before—

  Uncle Daniel placed a gnarled hand on his shoulder. “Easy, son. Strong give his word that things between you and him is okay. Jes’ do like he say. You all to pieces ’cause you so tired and grieved. Besides, would yo’ daddy let anyone mess with you?”

  That was some comfort. Uncle Daniel was right—his father would protect him.

  “Go on now. You ’bout to drop in yo’ tracks. Anybody can see that. I check on you later.”

  They’d gotten to Cy’s cabin. His head was pounding, and the tears continued sliding down his face. He wished his father would be home, but he knew that wasn’t likely. For a moment, he simply wanted to run�
�run anywhere—the swamp, a hollow tree, a hole in the ground. Or go into the fields and find his father. But he was too tired.

  A silent, empty cabin greeted him. The sight of his mother’s pink bonnet brought a new wave of tears, and Cy dropped onto his narrow bed. His body craved sleep, but he had to get out of his wet clothes. He stripped them off and let them lie where they fell. A bath would feel good, but he was too tired for that too. Instead, he put on his other drawers and overalls. The only shirt and jacket he owned were lost now. Cy dropped onto the bed. He would sleep just a little, he told himself, and then he would go find his father.

  Four

  CY WAS SWIMMING TO REACH TRAVIS, WHOSE body kept floating away from him, just beyond his grasp. The force of rough hands pinning his shoulders to the straw tick woke him from his nightmare. He looked up into Jeff Sconyers’s eyes, and their gray emptiness frightened him. Cy tried to sit up, but two more hands forced him back. Burwell Sconyers. Cy struggled for all he was worth, but the brothers flipped him face-down and bound his hands.

  “You fight us, nigger, I’ll kill you here and now, understand?” Jeff warned.

  Cy fought to roll onto his back, to free himself, then took a slap to the side of his face.

  “Quit, ’less you lookin’ to die, which would be a shame after how hard you worked to save that sorry kid this morning.”

  He let himself go limp. They were too strong for him, and he believed Jeff Sconyers’s threat. The man had been looking for an excuse to shoot him all morning.

  “That’s better,” Jeff said. “Do like you’re told, boy, and it’ll go easier on you.”

  “Lemme turn over. I won’t fight you.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yessir.” The word was bitter in his mouth, but he had to say it.

  “Let him up, Burwell.”

  Cy turned over and sat up. “Please, sir! Don’t do this,” he begged. “I didn’t mean for none o’ this to happen. Strong told Uncle Daniel he didn’t blame me.”