Cy in Chains (23 page)

Ring shook his head. “You gone crazy, Cy. Do what you want, but I's staying right here.”

Some boys muttered their agreement. Cy could sense their uncertainty, their fear. He felt those things, too, but there was no time for feelings now.

“Okay,” he shouted to everyone. “I ain't forcin' nobody to come with us. All I's sayin' is that if you stay here, chances are you gonna die here. Look at Pook and West. Look at what happen to Jess. How many boys you ever seen leave this place?”

Several boys agreed.

“Don't listen to him,” Ring ordered. “Stay here and stay safe.”

Cy felt like shooting Ring, anything to make him shut up. “Safe?” he retorted. “Safe from what? White man's whip? From him beatin' us to death like Prescott done to West? From rapin' us?” The moment he spoke those words, Cy realized he was no longer ashamed. Shame had been replaced by rage.

There was a murmur from the boys, and suddenly Cy knew that he wasn't the only one who'd encountered Prescott in the icehouse.

“Like I said, I ain't gonna make nobody do this. But to me, it's the only way! If you got enough guts, take a chance! If not, stay here.”

“Everybody who's stayin', over here by me,” Ring shouted.

Cy held his breath. He hadn't taken the risk of killing the white men just to have his authority challenged. His finger felt for the trigger of the pistol. He hated Ring at that moment. The yellow coward had no right to frighten the others into staying.

Two boys moved in Ring's direction. Then a couple more.

Cy felt his power slipping away. “Jack,” Cy cried, “join us. Your guys'll do what you say. Show 'em what's right!”

If Jack decided for Ring, things could end right then. Cy was not about to let that happen.

There was a moment of breathless silence. Then Jack walked across the yard and stood beside him. “I's with you,” he said. “Cy right,” he called out. “Anyone what want a shot at his freedom, come on! You ain't never gonna get another.”

Relief swept over Cy. He put his hand on Jack's shoulder. “Decide now! We ain't got all night.”

In a minute, half of the boys stood around Ring, who had suddenly become their leader. Cy realized what had to be done. “Back to the bunkhouse,” he ordered, pointing the pistol at Ring's chest.

“What for?” he cried.

“Y'all got to be chained back. Can't take the risk you'll run squealin' to the white man.”

“We won't!”

“Maybe not, but I ain't gonna give you the chance to change your minds. Now, go on. We leave you some food and water. 'Sides, somebody come around askin' questions in a day or so. Y'all can stand it until then.”

Cy half expected Ring to charge him, and he was ready to shoot him down if he had to. What difference would one more killing make now, even though Ring was a black man like himself despite his white skin? But Ring told his new followers to obey. Once in the bunkhouse, they let Rosalee put them back in leg irons and lock them onto their beds.

Cy and Rosalee helped the remaining boys find clothes, and Rosalee said she was going to finish getting herself ready to go. The boys gathered in the yard, and Cy counted them: seventeen in all, including himself. Looking at them, he nearly smiled. They were a ragtag bunch, for sure, but at least the hated stripes were gone. In their arms and tied in bundles were as many supplies as they could carry.

Rosalee appeared from the barn, leading one of the horses. Bulging saddlebags hung from the saddle. At first, Cy didn't recognize her. She had cut her wavy brown hair very short and had somehow darkened the skin of her face. She was wearing a man's outfit: shirt, pants, jacket, and boots. Cain's pistol was tucked into her belt, and a slouch hat was clutched in her hand.

Rosalee had thought things out carefully. Cy respected her for that.

“You got 'em ready?” she asked.

“Yeah. We can go anytime. Which way we headed?”

“
We?
They ain't no
we
, Cy. You told these boys they got to go in small groups, two, three, maybe four. Go different ways, you told 'em. That what they got to do, if they wants any chance at all.”

He could feel himself going tense. “I know that. But I figured you was gonna come with me.” The words surprised him. Cy didn't remember ever having thought that, but now that the idea was spoken, he realized, embarrassed, that he wanted Rosalee to be with him. He
needed
her.

Something touched his hand and he jerked away. He turned to find it was Billy, searching his face with imploring eyes.

And he need me
, Cy realized. What had Jess called out to him, about looking after Billy and Mouse?

Rosalee's voice brought him back to the world. “I ain't goin' with you,” she told him coldly. “I done what you asked me. Now I got to look out for myself, and I can't have none o' y'all draggin' me down.” She put one foot into the stirrup. “I reckon they get me sooner or later, but till then, I's gon' enjoy every minute, knowin' I got revenge on the man who killed my children.”

With that, she swung into the saddle and tossed the keys to Cy. “Open the gate,” she commanded him. He obeyed, too stunned to argue or refuse.

Rosalee urged the horse forward. Once in the road, she turned back, and her eyes locked with Cy's. “I hope it all turns out good for you,” she told him. “The others too. And I thanks you for givin' me the courage to do what shoulda been done a long time ago.” She kicked the horse's sides and disappeared into the darkness.

No one spoke for a few seconds, then everyone started talking at once. Cy ordered silence, and the boys quieted down. Someone was whimpering.

Cy felt alone—and he felt scared. But now that the moment had arrived, he had to act.

Billy took his hand again, and Mouse left the other boys and came and stood beside him. They looked pitiful in their ragged clothes. Of course, Mouse's pants were too large, and he'd found a length of rope to use as a belt. Cy knew Mouse and Billy didn't stand a chance on their own.

“We got to get outta here,” Cy told the boys. “Billy and Mouse is comin' with me. The rest of y'all, decide who you's goin' with. Older fellas, take a couple o' the younger guys. Some of you head north, up toward Tifton.”

“What about the other horses?” Jack asked. “We can take them.”

“Too risky,” Cy said. “Somebody sure to recognize 'em. 'Sides, we got to stick to the woods, and horses can't go there.”

“Where Tifton?” someone asked.

Cy wasn't sure, but he couldn't let on now. “Turn right on the road once you get outside camp. Some o' you go through the woods back o' here, and some go straight.” He had no idea what lay in those directions, but that wasn't his problem.

“Which way
you
goin'?” a boy asked.

“Left, down toward someplace called Moultrie.”

“To find my daddy,” Billy said softly.

“We's comin' with you,” another boy said.

Cy took a step toward the boys. His hand touched the pistol tucked into his belt. “No, you ain't!” he declared. “We's all goin' different ways, like we said. That the only way we got a chance. Long as it dark, you can pretty much stay on the road. If you go through the woods, just get as far as you can, then stop and wait till the sun come up. Then you can see where you's goin'.”

“And where that?”

Cy didn't want any more questions. He had no answers, and he was desperate to leave.

“Look for folks to help you,” he said. “Colored folks. They hates the white man just like you do. Tell 'em you runnin' away, and they hide you, find you places to live.”

Maybe
, said a voice in his head.
Remember Sam Arnold?

It was time to quit talking. “If we doin' this, we got to do it now,” he said. “It be dawn soon, and we got to be far from here as we can. Get movin'.”

Silently, the boys moved forward and stepped into the road. Cy pulled the gate closed and snapped the padlock shut. Then he took the ring of keys Rosalee had given him and hurled it into the woods.

“Hurry now,” Cy urged. One by one, each group disappeared into the night, leaving Cy, Billy, and Mouse. Cy stood looking at the camp, wishing its fences would fall to earth, its bunkhouses crumble, all the chains and locks turn to powder and blow away in the wind.

Billy brought him back to the real world. “Thank you for takin' us with you,” he said. “It ain't but a few miles down to Moultrie. We can get there for breakfast. Daddy gon' be right surprised to see us. He for sure gon' cook us up some hotcakes and fry up some bacon. And coffee—”

“Stop,” Cy told him. He couldn't let himself think of such things—not yet. “Let's go,” he said.

Off they went down the dark road to freedom.

C
Y LED THE WAY, STAYING TO THE SIDE OF THE
road so they could melt into the blackness of the woods at the slightest sound of an approaching traveler. From the start, Mouse had a hard time keeping up. It was torture for Cy to wait for him to catch his breath, when everything in Cy shouted that they must run. If Cy were on his own, he'd be racing through the woods, panicked like a deer fleeing a pack of hunting dogs.

Cy searched his memory for the directions to reach the woman called Aunt Miriam. Somewhere, they had to leave the road, turn off—he wasn't sure which way. He fought down the thought that in the darkness, they would miss the turnoff. In the gray half-light before sunrise, that fear was replaced by another: getting caught. Soon they would have to move into the woods.

You just sent all the rest o' them boys to the Alabama mines
, a voice in his mind accused him.
What chance they got, not knowin' where they goin'? What make you think any black man or woman gon' offer them help? Them boys gon' be picked up, taken back to camp, whipped till the skin fall off they backs, and then sent off to die diggin' coal. They was better off the way they was
.

I won't listen to you
, Cy told the accuser.

But the taunting voice was not so easily silenced.
You gon' be caught too, lynched, and sent straight to hell. And for what?

“Shut up!” Cy cried out loud.

“You okay?” Billy asked him. “Cy, you all right?”

“Yeah. Never mind. Follow me. We got to get off the road now.”

They headed into the woods and stopped to rest. Cy had no idea how long they'd been walking. Dawn was coming quickly now, and rays from the rising sun turned the young spring leaves to gold.

“Eat somethin',” Cy told Billy and Mouse. “I can stand watch. Get some sleep if you want.”

“I's too tired to eat,” Mouse complained. But he did fall asleep. One moment he was awake, shaking his head to refuse the food Cy was coaxing him to try, the next second, he was out. Cy wondered if he himself would ever be able to sleep again. But as he listened to Billy's quiet breathing and watched Mouse curl up just the way he used to on the straw tick back in camp, Cy found his own eyes beginning to shut. Right away, images of Stryker's and Davis's bloody bodies loomed in his mind.

Cy's head jerked up, and he realized he had been asleep—for how long, he couldn't exactly tell, but the sun was fully up and the birds were in joyful song. He stood up and stretched, reaching for the sky. No matter what happened later, at this moment, he was a free man.
A free man
.

He let the others sleep while he crept up to the road and listened. No sound. Then he crawled back and lay down again.

The sun was overhead when he woke. Billy and Mouse still slept. Cy roused them. Now it was time to move, to find the turnoff that would lead them to Aunt Miriam—if she really existed. Failing that, they would make their way to Moultrie and find Billy's father—if
he
existed.

When Cy told them they were going to Aunt Miriam, Billy objected. He wanted to keep heading toward Moultrie. If they hurried, they could still get home by suppertime, he argued. Cy said no. They would go to Aunt Miriam first, and she could help them go the rest of the way.

They gathered their things and started through the woods, keeping the road to their left. Right away, Mouse complained of being thirsty. Then Billy did, too. They had brought all the food they could carry, but no one had thought about water. They looked for a low place where there might be standing water or, better, a creek.

A creek
. Now Cy remembered. His daddy had told him the road crossed a creek, and beyond that . . . he wasn't sure. He would have to trust that when they got to the place, he'd know.

The going was slow because Mouse was so weak. Soon, Cy had to pick Mouse up and carry him on his back. That slowed them even more. The road was deserted, and Cy wondered why until he remembered that it was Sunday. God-fearing folks would be in church and sinners still lying in their beds, sleeping off last night's whoring and drinking.

Just when Cy was beginning to believe they'd missed the place his father had told him about, or that his memory was all wrong, the land started going downhill and the woods grew thicker. Cy knew it was a sure sign that water was ahead. They came to a creek, running brightly over a white sand bottom, and all three threw themselves face-down on the ground and scooped cool water into their mouths. Never had anything tasted so good, Cy thought.

When they had drunk their fill, Cy sat and tried to jog his memory. What had his father told him about the creek? He ventured up to the road and saw a bridge—yes, Pete Williams had said there was a bridge. Looking left and right, Cy climbed up a weedy bank and scrambled onto the road. He crossed the bridge and—yes!—there was a turnoff to the right. That was the way to Aunt Miriam's!

In two minutes, he was leading Billy and Mouse along the narrow path that wound its way into thick oak woods. When they came to an enormous dead oak and an even smaller path to the right, Cy knew which way to go. His heart was beating fast again, but not from fear. Soon, he felt in his bones, they would be safe.