Cy in Chains by David L. Dudley Read Free Book Online Page A

gave
you
. Ain’t no use tryin’ to hold out on me. My men got you covered.” Now Cy noticed that another man had joined the fellow with the lantern. Both had drawn pistols. Did every white man in the world own a gun?
    Jeff went to the wagon and returned with more coins. Cain took them, counted them, and seemed satisfied. “I reckon you two gentlemen got more stashed away, but, hell! I’m a fair man. Whoever sent you knows the cost of doin’ business.”
    â€œSo now will you take him?” Jeff asked.
    â€œYep. You can be on your way. My men and I can manage.” Cain looked Cy full in the face. “What’s your name, boy?”
    â€œCy, sir. Cy Williams.”
    â€œFrom now on, Cy’ll be good enough. Ain’t no place in this camp for the niceties of polite society.” One of Cain’s men chuckled. “Thanks, fellas, for the delivery. You can get on home now and tell your boss we’ll take good care of his boy. He won’t need to worry himself none about him anymore.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Jeff said. “Come on,” he told Burwell. “Sooner we get goin’, sooner we get home.”
    â€œGood luck, nigger,” Burwell told Cy. “You sure as hell gonna need it!”
    They climbed onto the wagon seat, backed up, and turned around in the road. Cy heard the gate swing shut and the lock click.
    He felt like he’d been saved from drowning. No more sack, no more gag. No more hands tied. No more Sconyers brothers, who could be dying and begging for his help, and he’d spit on them and keep going.
    Where was he now? Anyplace had to be better than that wagon bed, that sack, that gag.
    Cain told his men to escort “the new boy” to a bunkhouse and get him settled for the night. They walked him to a door at the end of the nearer building, and one of the men unlocked it. Inside, he held the lantern high, and in the shadows, Cy saw them. Boys, all black. Some older than he was, others about the same age. And some young, just children, smaller than Travis. All lying side by side on a long, low wooden platform. All dressed alike in black-and-white-striped pants and jackets. All wearing ankle irons. All bound together by one long, thick chain. All pairs of eyes staring at him.
    Horror washed over Cy. “What kind o’ place is this?” he whispered.
    One of the men laughed. “Ain’t they got none o’ these where you come from? Chain gang camp, some folks call it.”

Five
    C Y BATTLED THE CRUELLY COLD WATER OF THE Ogeechee. Something like the slimy mouth of a gigantic fish kept pulling him under. He’d fight back to the surface, his lungs bursting. On the far side of the river, his mother and father stood together, calling to him to come on, to get there so they could all go home. He swam hard but was pulled under again. When he came up, he found himself looking into the lifeless blue eyes of his friend Travis. The corpse clutched him and dragged him down again.
    â€œNo!” he tried to scream, his lungs filling with water.
    Cy jolted awake, gasping for air, at first grateful but then disappointed to still be alive. The nightmare had haunted him now for more than three years, but it never grew less horrifying. Jess had promised him that prayer would make his bad dreams go away, and for a while, Cy had tried to pray. But prayer hadn’t worked because the “God of love” that Jess kept preaching about simply didn’t exist. Or if he did, he was busy with more important things than the bad dreams of one black boy. Perhaps he simply didn’t give a damn about black people. The world surely didn’t, and hadn’t God made the world, according to what Jess said? Or perhaps the white men who had taken charge of that sorry world were simply too strong for God. Even worse, maybe they worked for him.
    Cy was sick of trying to figure it out. One thing he did know, though: any God worth