Stryker hurried toward the gate, rifle in hand. Prescott kept his weapon trained on Jess. “Hands up,” he ordered. “And back inside.”
“I’s sorry, Mr. Prescott,” Jess said. “I didn’t mean to make no trouble. I just didn’t want you to shoot Billy.”
Prescott gestured toward Pete Williams. “Get goin’,” he said.
Williams squeezed Cy’s shoulder and went through the gate. He stood in the road, looking back at Cy. Then he nodded. Cy understood what his father meant. Tomorrow . . .
“I told you to get!” Prescott shouted.
Cy watched Williams walk away until Prescott ordered everyone to form their lines. Cy half expected Cain to return with Billy’s body, but before long, the man appeared, calmly sitting in the saddle. Behind his horse, a rope tied around his neck, stumbling, begging, was Billy.
Cain waited until dark. He had the boys build a bonfire by the whipping post and then lined everyone up to watch.
Billy had spent the afternoon locked with Jess in a tiny shed everyone called the icehouse. He didn’t resist when Stryker led him to the post and pulled off his jacket. He let Stryker tie his hands to the post and stood there staring into space. Somehow, he wasn’t there, even though his half-naked body was.
But he screamed when the whip hit him, and he kept it up the whole time Cain was lashing him.
Jess was standing between Stryker and Prescott, his hands tied behind his back. Cy stood with the other boys, Mouse on one side and West on the other. Rage boiled inside him. He remembered his father’s words: You think three men could stand up to forty? Cy wanted to shout, urge the others to do something, anything, to stop the whipping.
What had Billy done to deserve this? He wanted what they all wanted: to go home. And he had been brave enough, or crazy enough, to make a break for it. “We ain’t yellow,” Cy had told his father. But he felt yellow now, compared to Billy. He felt yellow, saying and doing nothing to try and save the kid. Then he reminded himself it was Billy’s own fault. If he hadn’t run, he wouldn’t be under the whip.
Mouse buried his face in Cy’s side. Cy made a move to push him away, then changed his mind. If Mouse could find some comfort that way, let him. It didn’t cost Cy a thing.
When Cain was done, Stryker untied Billy, and he collapsed onto the ground. Prescott dragged him back to the line and dropped his jacket on him.
Jess never made a sound when Cain whipped him. Then Cain stood aside and let Prescott get his licks, too. When it was over, they cut Jess loose. He picked up his jacket and walked slowly to the line. In the firelight, his face was resigned.
Cain had a little speech to make. “I run a tight camp,” he began, “but I run a fair camp. State says I got to open the place to visitors, I obey the law. Give y’all clean uniforms, new boots, blankets, let you wash up, feed you as decent as I can—”
West whispered a filthy word. Cy poked him to keep quiet.
“—and this is what I get,” Cain declared. He pointed at Billy, still lying in the dirt, and then at Jess. “And you! I put a lot of trust in you, makin’ you leader of your gang, and this is how you repay me.”
“I didn’t want Mr. Prescott to hurt Billy.”
“You ain’t gang leader anymore. Cy, job’s yours.”
That took Cy by surprise. Once, the news would have pleased him. Jess was too soft, let the guys get away with too much. Cy would have gotten them in line and used his new power to make things easier on himself. Now this so-called honor didn’t mean a thing. Tomorrow, he’d be long gone from here, and Cain could go to hell.
Cain turned back to Jess. “You ever cross me again, it’s Alabama and the mines. Understand?”
“Yessir.”
“Chains in ten minutes,” Cain told Stryker and Prescott. “If anybody gives you a lick of trouble, come get me. My arm was just gettin’ warmed up good.”
Cain walked into the darkness.
“You heard him,” Stryker shouted.
Jess helped Billy up and took him away. Then Cy led the gang—his gang, for a few hours, at least—to water, the outhouse, their bunk, and chains.
Twelve
THE BOYS WERE ALREADY ON THEIR PALLETS when Prescott brought in Jess and Billy. “I ain’t gonna put up with no mess from y’all tonight,” he warned. “I’m gonna check on you, and if I hear so much as a peep, y’all gonna get it.”
Billy was chained next to Cy. Jess was on Billy’s other side, and Billy lay down facing him. He couldn’t be on his back—not the way it was all cut up.
“You all right?” West asked from beyond Cy.
No answer.
“Billy, you all right?” West repeated.
“He hurtin’ bad,” Jess said quietly. “I look after him.”
“Daddy didn’t come,” Billy whispered.
“He be here,” Jess promised.
When will Jess quit lyin’? Cy wondered.
“They say you stop Prescott from shootin’ me,” Billy said.
“I had to do somethin’.”
“And they whipped you.”
“Yeah, they did.”
“You saved my life.”
“I don’t know ’bout that. Prescott can’t shoot worth a damn, and you was way down that road.”
“You saved me.” Billy moved closer to Jess, whose big arm came around and held him.
“Did what I had to do,” Jess said. “Now, you try to get some sleep—”
Cy lay on his back, staring into the darkness. Through a chink in the roof, he thought he could see a star. He pulled his blanket up to his chin. The night was cold, but his new shirt and stockings offered some extra, welcome warmth. Of course he wouldn’t sleep; he could think only about the coming day. Time after time, he imagined how he would play it:
“Mr. Prescott, I gotta go bad. My bowels is all water today.”
“Go on,” Prescott would say. “Just hurry it up, hear?”
He would already have found the place where the six pines grew in a circle. Beyond that, the wet place where the palmetto was thick. And beyond that—
“You awake, Cy?” whispered Jess.
“Uh-huh.”
“How it go between you and yo’ daddy today?”
That was just like Jess, to worry about another guy after he himself had been whipped. But Cy didn’t want to answer. All afternoon he’d been turning back questions about his father’s visit. When Mouse asked him, he got choked up. He had too much on his mind to dwell on all that, and he had to think straight.
“Okay,” Cy told Jess.
Jess sighed. “I guess it hurt too much to talk about.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe in a couple days, when you feel better.”
“Uh-huh.” You liar, said a voice in his head. In a couple days you won’t be here.
Cy put that out of his mind. “How’s Billy?”
“Sleepin’. Po’ kid. He too small to take a whippin’ like Cain give him.”
“All them should burn in hell.”
Now Jess would deliver a little sermon about forgiveness and not hating your enemies. But what he said surprised Cy.
“You right. They oughtta burn. And they will, too, one day. I don’t mind what they done to me. But Billy—he didn’t mean nothin’. Just wanted his daddy.”
“We got to get out of here,” Cy whispered fiercely. He was on the edge of saying that tomorrow, they could all be free.
“Ain’t no way we gonna get ourselves outta here,” Jess said. “What with they guns, and dogs, and how they can call in folks from all over to track us—ain’t no way.”
Cy didn’t want to hear about swarms of white men with rifles and bloodhounds closing in on a few black boys who didn’t have a chance.
“Cy?” Jess whispered.
“Yeah?”
“You know I’s right.”
“I don’t know that. What I know is, it only a matter of time till Cain pick up his whip again.”
“We got to face what is, not what might b
e! We got to keep goin’, one day at a time, lookin’ out for each other best ways we know how, and trust in God. He the one gonna come set us free, jus’ like he done freed the people o’ Israel from ol’ Pharaoh.”
“Would you stop with that stuff?” Cy whispered. “Billy trusted God to bring his daddy, and look at what happened. Got the shit beat outta him.”
“Billy daddy ain’t God, and God ain’t through yet. Look what he done for us black folks. We ain’t slaves no more.”
Cy rattled his leg irons. “The hell we ain’t.”
It was dark when the wake-up gong sounded—like always. No one moved—like always. Cy had slept, after all. Stryker burst through the door, shouting at everyone to get up.
This was how Cy’s day of freedom started.
Jess had a hard time getting Billy going. Even Mouse was ready before him. Jess put his hand on Billy’s forehead and said he had the fever. In the cold morning air, Billy was shivering.
“He can’t stay in the bed,” Jess warned. “Stryker ain’t in no mood for excuses this morning.”
Together, they got Billy to his feet.
“I’s cold,” he kept saying.
Cy’s new shirt felt soft and warm. “Here,” he said, unbuttoning his jacket and pulling off the shirt. “Put this on. It’ll help you.”
Cy could feel Jess’s eyes on him. “If he can’t make it, they’s gonna be more trouble,” he said. He was feeling irritated with Billy, and with Jess.
“I can’t take that,” Billy murmured.
Cy pulled the shirt over his head. The air was chilly on his body. “No matter. You have it.” I won’t need it anyway, he thought. I’m gettin’ all new clothes today.
“Naw, Cy, it ain’t right,” Billy objected.
“Go on. Take it,” Jess urged.
“Thanks, Cy.”
Jess helped Billy take off his jacket, and Cy saw Billy’s back—a tangle of raw welts.
Breakfast was little dabs of cold mush, half-cooked hunks of fatback, and water. Sudie’s eyes were red—she was softhearted, if simple-minded—but Rosalee’s face was blank.
As gang leader, Cy got to issue orders, see that everyone was there, that everyone worked to load the wagons and was ready to leave camp. No one gave him any back talk. Stryker and Prescott seemed to be everywhere, shouting, poking at boys with their sticks, making threats.
Black night was just giving way to gray dawn when they started the long march to the palmetto woods.
Cy turned back for one last look at the camp. He didn’t believe in praying, but he found himself wishing that the place would come crashing down to the ground, that the men who ran it would be swallowed up and dragged down to burn in hell forever.
Stryker and Prescott kept the boys at a trot. After the first mile, Jess was half carrying Billy. Mouse stumbled, but Cy helped him. Why not? After today, he’d never see Mouse again.
Then it began to rain—icy rain, mixed with sleet.
At the palmetto woods, Cy located the six pine trees his father had told him about. The palmetto did grow thick there. Other small trees and bushes crowded in, tall enough to hide a man—even a man on horseback.
His mind went back and forth about the plan all morning. One moment, he knew it would happen. Arnold would be there. The next second, he realized it was just plain crazy. Arnold wouldn’t be there. Even if he did show up, Cain and his men would quickly see what was happening. The plan was impossible. But maybe . . .
Cold rain kept coming down hard. In this kind of weather, sometimes Cain would call off work, let everyone go back to camp, mostly because he and his men didn’t want to stand outside in that mess. Not today. Everyone was being punished for what Billy and Jess had done yesterday. Even Stryker and Prescott. They’d be in an ugly mood later on. But Cy wouldn’t be there to see it, he kept telling himself.
As he worked, Cy wondered what Cain would do to the others once he realized Cy had escaped. He didn’t like to think about it. But he told himself it wasn’t his problem. The others had to look out for themselves. He’d tried to explain that they had to get free, not wait for Jess’s God to swoop down and rescue them, and Jess had disagreed. Sure, he felt bad for Jess and the other guys, but he had to take the chance he was being given.
The boys hacked at the palmetto as hard as they could, not just to avoid the white men’s beatings, but also to keep warm. Mouse took to shivering anyway. Billy tried to work, but he wasn’t up to much. Prescott was all for messing with him, but Stryker told him to back off. West cussed Cain, Prescott, Stryker, the world. Jess tried to help the others and do his own job too.
Finally Cain called the break for dinner. The rain had let up, but Cy was shivering, and not just from the cold. He couldn’t eat his cornpone and sweet potato.
“What’s with you?” Jess asked. “You jumpy as a squirrel.”
“My stomach,” Cy lied. But it wasn’t really a lie. He felt ready to vomit.
“Yo’ body here, but yo’ mind somewhere a million miles off,” Jess added.
“I ain’t the only one. Everybody tryin’ to pretend they ain’t here. Look.”
Mouse was poking in the muck with a stick, always looking for some little critter to befriend. West had folded himself up under a palmetto bush and gone to sleep. Ring was braiding long strands of pine straw together and dropping them into a pile between his feet. Sitting by himself, Billy picked at his food.
Jess nodded at him. “He bad off. Unless his daddy come, he might not make it.”
It was now or never. Cy clutched his belly.
“What is it?”
“Been hurtin’ all morning. Like a knife cuttin’ me.”
“Dysentery. You got the runs?”
Cy shook his head. “Not yet. But I got to go real bad. Right now.” He jumped up and hurried toward where the white men were huddled together by the wagons, passing a flask.
“What you want?” Stryker asked.
“I got to go real bad,” he gasped. “I think I got the dysentery.”
“That’s all we need,” Cain grumbled.
“Let him go. He ain’t never given you any trouble,” Stryker said.
“One of the ‘good’ ones?” Prescott shot back. “Like any of ’em is worth a pile of horseshit.”
“Please, sir,” Cy cried. “I got to go right now.”
“Then git!” Stryker said. “Five minutes. And don’t forget, we got an eye on you.”
Cy went straight toward the six pine trees. The ground got soggy, and he stumbled in a shallow pool where the water came up over his boots. He pushed his way through the thick palmetto that seemed to go on forever, and at last he came into a clearing. Gasping for breath, he stared around him.
No Arnold. His father was wrong. The idea of going back was more than Cy could stand. Dying would be better. Even without Arnold, he would keep going. That would give him a chance. Back at camp, there was no chance, no hope.
Anyone would be hard to spot among these palmetto thickets. That was the thing to do: hide in the underbrush. No one would find him, not if he concealed himself well enough. When they went to fetch the dogs, he’d go deep into the swamp beyond the woods, through water, so that the dogs couldn’t follow him. Somehow, he’d—
“Boy!”
He jumped.
“You Cy Williams?”
A black face was looking at him through a gap in the wall of leaves at the far side of the clearing.
Cy couldn’t speak. He nodded.
“I’s Arnold. Been waitin’ for you all morning.”
Cy wanted to shout for pure joy. His father hadn’t failed him.
“Come on.” Arnold’s face disappeared in among the leaves, and Cy followed. The palmetto thinned out, and Cy saw a black horse tied to a pine tree.
“Let’s go!” Arnold whispered. “Ain’t no time to lose.”
Arnold untied the horse and helped Cy get on. It wasn’t easy, not with his legs in chains. He sat sideways on the horse, just behind the saddle.
Arnold climbed up and took the reins. “Put yo’ arms ’round me and hold on. Soon as we get clear o’ here, I stop and get them irons off you.”
With the horse at a walk, they moved quietly away. “Road about half mile straight on,” Arnold whispered over his shoulder. “We got to follow it but not be on it. Too risky.”
The journey to the road seemed to take an hour. Cy kept looking back, certain they were being followed. Every second, he expected to hear the shouts of the white men, the sound of gunshots. His heart did a fearful dance inside his chest. But there was nothing, no sound of pursuit. Why? By now, he must have been missed. It was all too easy.
When at last they came to the road, Arnold turned left and made the horse trot.
“I thought we was gonna stay in the woods,” Cy said.
“Soon. Just hold on.”
“If you take off my leg irons, I can ride the right way.”
“We’s almost there.”
Almost where? His father had said Aunt Miriam’s place was miles away. Something was wrong.
Soon they came to a turnoff. Cy recognized the path back to where they were clearing palmetto.
“No!” he cried. He let go of Arnold and threw himself face forward off the horse, into darkness.
When he opened his eyes, he was lying on the ground. On his neck was an iron ring attached to a chain that ended in Arnold’s hand.
Arnold looked down at him. “You gonna come along quiet?”
Cy looked into the man’s eyes, trying to read the mind behind them.
“I said, is you gonna come along quiet?” Arnold repeated.
Cy nodded.
“Then git up.”
Cy took his time. He was shaky from the shock of his fall, from fear, and from the hatred he felt for this man who had betrayed him.
When he got to his feet, he hurled himself at Arnold. But Arnold was no fool, and he was fast. His right fist caught Cy square on the chin, and Cy went down again. Arnold pulled out a pistol and pointed it in Cy’s face.
“Now get up and let’s go.”
Cy fought back tears of rage and fear. “Why you doin’ this?”
Cy in Chains Page 10
