Cy in Chains (7 page)

Billy got quiet.

“That better?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don't go callin' me sir
. I ain't nobody special. Just 'nother dog like you.” Jess looked down the line. “Y'all ready?”

The door was unlocked from the outside, and Prescott came in, tapping his straight stick against his palm, like he was itching to use it. The man was short, wiry, and bad-tempered as a cornered wildcat. Thick hair the color of dirt sprouted from his nostrils, crept up from his open shirt collar, and covered the backs of his hands. His teeth were brownish yellow from the chaw he worked all day long. More than one boy had gotten tobacco juice sprayed in his face when Prescott was mad about something, which was a lot of the time. He looked around to see that everything was in order, then called Stryker to pull the long chain. In a moment, the boys were free from one another, but it wasn't time to stand up—not yet.

Stryker came in. He was bigger and heavier than Prescott, with hair the color of coal. His right eye was blue, the left, milky white, the blind orb covered by some kind of thick film. Of the two men, Stryker was less vicious, the way a bigger dog is often calmer than the smaller one that's always trying to prove something by its constant growling and snapping. But Stryker could be dangerous, too.

“On yo' feet,” Jess said.

Everyone lined up, backs straight, eyes on the dirt floor. The boys who slept with their caps on took them off now.

“Mornin', boys,” Stryker said.

“Mornin', Mr. Stryker, sir!”

“How'd y'all sleep?”

“Fine, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Prescott made his way down the line and came to a stop in front of Billy. “God damn! You done peed yourself last night, ain't you? Yer pants is soaked. Phew! Can you smell yerself, boy?”

Cy clenched his fist. Prescott was always on the prowl for someone to torment, and the new kid had given him more than enough excuse to have some fun.

Billy didn't look up.

“Answer me when I speak to you! You stink, don't you?”

“Yes, sir,” Billy whispered.

“Just like a baby,” Prescott declared. “See this, Dawson? Little baby Billy done peed hisself last night.”

“What you expect, Onnie? They're just animals. It makes me despair. Yessir, that's what it makes me do: despair. Country give 'em their freedom, and see what happens without the forces of civilization to keep 'em in check? They go back to the animal state in less than one generation. That's what I heard a preacher say: less than one generation.”

Prescott nodded, like he understood what Stryker was saying. He moved away from Billy and stopped in front of Mouse.

Not Mouse too!
Cy thought.
Don't Prescott ever get tired o' playin' God?

“Any critters on you this morning?” Prescott demanded. “Lizard in yer pocket? Little black snake in yer pants?” He laughed at his own bad joke.

Mouse knew to keep his eyes down. “Naw, sir.”

“Aw, come on. You always got
somethin'
hid somewheres. You ain't got even
one
little bug or nothin'? Better tell the truth. If I find out you're lying to me, then—”

Mouse sighed and unbuttoned his jacket pocket. He reached inside and came up with a big black beetle.

“Glory be,” Prescott said. “Look at the size of him! Lemme see. Hold him up.”

Mouse opened his hand. The beetle twitched a little.

“I thought you said you didn't have nothing on you. You ain't nothing but a little liar.”

Mouse was silent.

“Ain't you, boy?”

“Yessir.”

“That's better. One thing I can't stand is a liar.” Quick as a flash, he brought down his stick on Mouse's hand. The beetle fell to the ground, and Prescott crushed it with his boot.

Cy wished he could do that to Prescott.

“Piss-pants and liars in
this
group,” he told Stryker. “That's what we got here this mornin'.” He stepped in front of Jess. “Get these sorry niggers outta my sight. And try to get that baby's britches cleaned up before he stinks up the whole place.”

“Yessir.”

The white men went off to the other bunkhouse to unchain Jack and his gang. When they were out the door, everyone stirred. Jess had them line up, and they made their way outdoors.

Cy knew every boy in the gang: Jess, West, Mouse, Ring, Oscar, Davy, High Boy, Darius, and all the rest. Knew their habits, the sound of their footsteps, the colors of their skin that ranged from darkest black and brown to copper, coffee and cream, yellow, all the way to near white. Ring was as white as any white man Cy had ever seen, but here he was anyway. He said one of his granddaddies was a light Negro, all his other grandparents white, but that one bit of Negro blood was all it took to land him here. That and threatening to hurt a white boy who'd stolen all of Ring's mama's chickens.

The air was chilly—an early cold snap. Fog lay on the ground and hid the trees on the other side of the camp fence. Soon Cain would give out winter clothes, maybe before Sunday. The few decent things they got from Cain—clean uniforms, secondhand boots, a regular hot meal—somehow always came just before a visiting day.

They marched toward the outhouse. Cy pushed his way to the front of the line, just behind Jess. No one dared try and stop him.

The outhouse stank bad, but not like in summer. Cy yanked down his pants and sat. He pissed and tried to shit even though he didn't feel the need. Sitting down was a lot better than squatting in the woods later on, like a lot of the boys did. One good thing about going outdoors, though: you could usually find some leaves. Better not use poison ivy, though, as West had done a while back. He never made that mistake again. Here in the outhouse there was nothing, not even corncobs.

“You gon' sit there all day?” Jess asked him. “Somethin' on your mind?”

“Naw. Just thinkin'. What's it to you?”

“Do yo' thinkin' somewhere else. They's a long line waitin' to get in.”

Outside, boys were washing up by the pump. The boys from the other bunkhouse appeared, following Jack, their leader. They joined the line for the outhouse. Jess and Oscar poured water into a tub and stood by Billy while he stripped off his pants and started rinsing them, trying not to let anyone see his parts.

“Cy, see if you can get some clean britches for Billy, okay?”

It annoyed Cy when Jess asked him to do anything. Just because Jess was the head boy in their bunkhouse didn't give him the right to give orders. Whenever Cy was asked to do something, he told the next fellow to do it. He, in turn, would push the job off onto the next smaller boy. Everyone knew the order: Jess, Cy, Ring, Oscar, West, Davy, and so on all the way down to Mouse. Billy would quickly discover that his place was even below Mouse because he was the new kid. That's where he would stay, unless he could fight his way up the ladder and bully or bribe younger or weaker boys to do his bidding.

Cy cornered West, who had already found his place in the morning roll-call line and was standing, looking straight ahead at nothing in particular.

Cy poked his shoulder. “Jess say for you to go get the new kid some britches.”

“You mean he told
you
to do it, and now you passin' it on to me.”

“Could be. Don't matter, though. I's tellin' you to go. See if Rosalee got any.”

West shrugged Cy's hand away and trudged toward the cookhouse, muttering to himself.

“You best watch yo' mouth,” Cy called after him.

West knocked at the cookhouse door, and Rosalee answered. She looked annoyed—she didn't like to be disturbed when she was cooking, if that's what you'd call it. Like Ring, Rosalee was much more white than colored, but she too was doomed to live her life as a black person. She wasn't pretty, and she wasn't young. Sometimes she seemed in a fog, and certain mornings her speech was slurred and she was only half awake. “A drunk” was Oscar's verdict.

She might have been a drunk, but Rosalee wasn't a prisoner, even though she lived at the camp. She and her little boy, Pook, had a room behind the kitchen, but she clearly spent some of her nights with Cain, because Pook looked just like him: the same thin, wavy hair, gray eyes, small ears, and stocky build. Even so, Cain never let on the boy was his.

Sometimes Rosalee sneaked West some extra food when she thought no one was looking. Cy sometimes wondered why she would do that, but she had her favorites. No one minded West's luck, because he shared whatever he got. That made him popular, that plus his sassy mouth, which could make anyone laugh.

Rosalee disappeared and came back with a pair of uniform pants. They were dirt-stained and too big for Billy, but he wouldn't have to wear wet pants all day or go half naked.

As the boys finished in the outhouse, they lined up in their two gangs, Jess's boys facing Jack's across the small patch of red clay in the middle of the camp.

Jack strutted down the line of “his” boys, poking and threatening, trying to act like a big man. Prescott and Stryker didn't mind letting Jack do some of their dirty work, but Cy had seen him get cuffed when the white men thought he was being too big for his britches. That just made him meaner.

Prescott and Stryker stood by the cookhouse door, sipping coffee from tin cups. The aroma made Cy's mouth water. Of all the many things he missed about Aunt Dorcas's kitchen, her strong coffee was first. Inside the cookhouse, Rosalee was finishing getting breakfast. The smell of baking cornpone was in the air, and that made Cy think of Aunt Dorcas, too. Of home. But he blotted out those thoughts. If you let them get hold of you, you'd go crazy. Cy had seen it happen.

Rosalee appeared at the door of the cookhouse, Pook with her. He grabbed at her skirt with one hand while he chewed on the other. He looked even whiter than his mama did, with pasty skin, his gray eyes crusty at the corners, and his wispy hair uncombed. Pook never talked much, and some of the boys said he was simple-minded.

Rosalee folded her arms, waiting, frowning. Pook yanked her skirt. “Hungry, Mama.”

“Shush. Can't do nothin' till Mist' Cain get here.”

Cain made everyone wait to eat until he showed up. Sometimes that meant half an hour. It made Stryker and Prescott mad, but at least they had hot coffee. This morning he didn't take long. He came through the door of his cabin, his clothes buttoned up right and hair brushed back. West whispered that he must have run out of whiskey. The boys knew that was what made him late some mornings, sleeping off a bad drunk.

Cain took his place between the two lines. He was dressed like usual: riding boots, leather belt with a Confederate army buckle, worn-out gentleman's coat. Wide-brimmed hat stained dark with sweat. Clean and polished holster holding a Colt revolver.

“Good morning, boys,” Cain said to Prescott and Stryker.

“Morning, Mr. Cain.”

“Any problems?”

“Nothin' but the usual, sir,” Prescott said. “Boys who pee their britches, lie to you for no reason.”

“Stryker?”

“I got somethin' more serious than that, Cap'n. Seems like we still got thieves.”

“What's missin' this time?”

“Rosalee says a slab of fatback's gone—'bout three pounds—plus a bottle of cane syrup, a bread knife, and some flour.”

Cy knew Rosalee hadn't given those things to West. She wouldn't do that and then call attention to it. Besides, West would have shared anything he'd gotten. There was another thief in camp—or more than one.

Stuff was always going missing—food, tools, uniform shirts and pants, anything else Rosalee hung out to dry, even a little ball she managed to get for Pook. Just about whatever wasn't nailed down would disappear sooner or later.

“Damn it, Dawson! Ain't there anything you can do to keep these niggers from stealing us blind? Don't I pay you to keep an eye out?”

“With all due respect, Onnie and me keep careful watch, but you know how it is! Reckon some of them old-time niggers taught 'em. Back in the day, darkies'd steal a fried chicken leg out of a white man's mouth if he didn't watch out. Niggers used to think they had a right to anything they could lay their hands on. Nothin's changed.”

“This will stop!” Cain cried. “Unless someone identifies the thief, I can make it plenty hot for
all
of you. They need miners over in Alabama. You boys wouldn't want to get sent over there, now, would you?”

He stopped right in front of Cy. “Would
you?
”

“Naw, sir, Mr. Cain. I's happy to be right here.” Cy almost smiled at how sincere he sounded. He'd learned how to lie a long time ago, lie like he meant every word he said. Telling the truth—well, that was risky. Especially when the truth went something like this: “Naw, you dumbass cracker, I ain't happy to be here. Fact is, I wish I was in yo' place and you in mine. Then I'd lash you so long and hard you'd wish you was dead a hour 'fore I got through with you.”

“I know you're happy to be here,” Cain replied.

Could the man really be such a damn fool?

Cain looked over both lines. “I know y'
all
are, and you don't want to go to the coal mines, now, do you?”

“No, sir!”

“Then I better get the name of this thief—or thieves—before this day is over!”

No one said a thing. That was one of the boys' most important rules: no snitching. If any boy
did
snitch, he would pay. And when you were chained to other boys a lot of the time, you couldn't escape.

“You understand me?” Cain said.

“Yes, sir!” That would be the end of it. Cain was too lazy to do more.

“Let 'em eat,” he told Stryker and Prescott. “But don't let 'em dawdle. We got a lot of work today.”

S
TRYKER AND
P
RESCOTT FOLLOWED
C
AIN INTO
the cookhouse. Then Jack and his boys went in. Today was Jess's guys' turn to go last, so they waited outside.