Cy in Chains by David L. Dudley

beans and cornpone, but Billy wouldn’t eat. He couldn’t do a thing except stand there, trembling.
    â€œI get him calmed down, Mr. Cain, sir,” Jess had said. “He be all right.”
    Don’t bother
, Cy thought.
    â€œDo it, then,” Cain told Jess. “He can sleep next to you tonight.” He turned to Prescott. “Chain him. Sooner it’s done, the better. Nigger looks like he’s about to have a fit.”
    Prescott moved toward Billy, who backed away and bumped into Jess.
    â€œIt be all right,” Jess assured him, his huge paw on the kid’s shoulder. “He just got to chain you. It don’t hurt.”
    Prescott brought out a set of leg irons. “Come here, you.”
    Billy didn’t move.
    â€œGo on,” Jess said.
    Billy took one step—stopped.
    â€œI ain’t got all night,” Prescott growled.
    â€œHe too scared to move, sir.”
    â€œHis feelings ain’t my problem! Come on. Move!”
    Do it!
Cy yelled in his head.
Hangin’ back ain’t gonna get you nothin’ but trouble. And, Jess, mind you own business. Let the boy find out for hisself what he got to look forward to. Sooner he understand how it is, the better
.
    Jess nudged Billy toward the white man. Billy went, feet dragging across the wooden floor. Prescott squatted in front of him and snapped an iron ring on each ankle. A chain joined the two rings. Fixed to the middle was another piece of chain with a ring at the end. Billy would learn to tuck that into his belt so he wouldn’t trip over it. But if he used his belt to try and hang himself, they’d take it away, and then he’d have to manage his chains as best he could. And he’d learn to shuffle. Playing tag, climbing a tree, walking somewhere in a hurry—no more of that stuff, not for a long time. Maybe never.
    It all depended on how long Cain said you had to serve. Some of the boys claimed they’d been sentenced to a certain number of months or years by judges who’d tried them for stealing or other offenses. Other boys hadn’t ever had a trial. Local sheriffs had picked them up as runaways or vagrants and delivered them to Cain without any kind of charges or formal hearing. Still others, like Cy, had been kidnapped. No trial, no sentence, no stated amount of time to serve.
    In the three and a half years he’d been in Cain’s camp, Cy had seen only a few boys leave. Some said if you were there more than five years, you wouldn’t make it. No one could last more than five. By then, the boss men would have worked you to death, or starved you, or beaten the life out of you.
    Prescott stood up, looking satisfied. “See, nigger? Nothin’ to it.”
    That’s when Billy puked all over Prescott’s boots.
    â€œGod
damn
it!” Prescott cried. “Stupid little son of a bitch!”
    Cain and Stryker laughed.
    Cy wanted to laugh too—he hated Prescott worse than anyone else in his world—but he didn’t want to risk having his face slapped or getting a whipping. Cain didn’t put up with any crap from his “boys.”
    â€œWhat’s so goddamn funny?” Prescott fumed.
    â€œStuff always happens to you, don’t it?” Cain said dryly.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œSeems like the world got it out for you, that’s all.”
    â€œHe didn’t mean to do it, sir,” Jess told Prescott.
    â€œShut up, you. My best boots! Damn it all to
hell
.”
    â€œWe clean ’em up for you, sir.”
    Not me
, Cy thought.
    â€œYou mean
he’s
gonna clean ’em up. I don’t care if it takes him all night to do it, either.”
    â€œDeal with it,” Cain told him. “I got no more time for this mess.”
    Prescott ordered them to their bunkhouse, where he made Billy wash off his boots and polish them until they looked decent. The kid started crying in an annoying, whiny way once he began, and