Cy in Chains (10 page)

“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?”

“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 said.

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 . . .

N
EXT MORNING
, S
UDIE, 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.