The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial (24 page)

“You stand with him as one. You are a slavery man.”

“Why do you rail at me, Nat? You have known me since we
were children. It is not I who beats slaves. I am good to those I own. They are better off with me than if they were free in this world, unprotected. Why trouble me?”

“You are my friend and it is true that you do a little good, but it does not erase the wrong.

“Perhaps you are better, wiser, and more talented than Nathaniel Francis and all the rest of us, Thomas.”

“What are you talking about, Nat? You are one of the most brilliant men I know.”

“But you believe you are better. Be honest; part of what you cherish about our friendship is the difference in our stations. No matter how smart I might be, you are smarter. No matter how many books I have read, you have read more. No matter how great my vocabulary, yours is greater.”

“You think wrong of me, Nat Turner.”

“Don't hear in what I say that I do not love you, my friend. I have enjoyed being in the presence of your sharp mind and even sharper tongue, to hear you expound on things that would otherwise be hidden from me.

“But let us just suppose for a moment that I am correct—that you think yourself greater—better, wiser, and more articulate. Even more, let us assume that you are right in your thinking.

“What good is it, my friend, to be smarter, wiser, and more talented than everyone around you if you do nothing with your talents? What good are your superior gifts if you bury them or drown them in alcohol?

“What good is it if you use your knowledge and words to harm others? What good is it if you only use your many words to break others' hearts and weigh them down?”

Thomas Gray was frowning. He picked at the leather strap he held in his hands.

“It is better to be poor.”

“I could have your head for speaking to me this way.”

“You could.”

“You play upon my friendship, my affection for you. Sometimes I think others are right. You have the devil in you, Nat Turner. I have done nothing to harm anyone.”

Nat Turner was tired; tired of explaining and reasoning, tired of trying to help people understand what seemed so simple. He was weary of being hated because he wanted to do good while those who did wrong were rewarded. No one called them devil. Society celebrated men like Nathaniel Francis, gave awards to men like those he had seen beating the pregnant woman on the banks of the Great Dismal Swamp, called them heroes. “What is it that I have done wrong that I am called devil?”

“This is craziness you speak.”

“It would be no wonder if I were crazy, if I lunged at every white face I saw. Enough has been done to leave me crazy. Giles Reese buys my wife, misuses her so that his children are born between her thighs. Then he calls both his children and mine slaves; the law supports him. The church agrees with him, participates with him, in the name of God. I am the one who is crazy? The miracle is that I still hope. It would be more rational to poison my wife, tie my baby in a weighted sack, and throw him in the river to die. That would be rational.”

“Nat, you are being melodramatic again. If the truth is told, slavery benefits both of us. If you were not a slave, you'd be in some godforsaken jungle. I think you are choosing to see only the bad. You have food, you have clothing, and a roof over your head. You have a pretty wife and a family. Those who complain about beatings and punishments bring it on themselves. I do not see what is so bad.”

“You have no idea what has been stolen from me.” Before him, Nat Turner saw the rolling, green hills of Ethiopia. He felt sea breezes blowing on his face.

“You have no idea how I suffer. We are friends. We are brothers, but your joy in the midst of my despair is proof that our friendship is shallow. I am bound in chains, but you do not try to free me.”

“Nat, you sound as though you are ready to say the word, claim it as your own.”

“What word? Freedom? Abolition? I am ready to
be
the word!”

“If you say
abolition
in the South, Nat, you might as well say
traitor
or rebellion. White men will have your head.”

“What is better? If I satisfy myself with the life slavery men want for me, I am as good as dead. I stand against the very will of God.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “And how would you know God's will, Nat?”

“He speaks to me.”

“He speaks to you?”

1856

H
arriet stood by a window in William's Boston shop. She looked over the notes of her earlier conversations with Benjamin Phipps and with William. The story was a puzzle and she worked to put the pieces together.

She wondered if the meeting between Thomas Gray and Nat Turner might have been the one that Nathaniel Francis had witnessed from his hiding place in the woods. Harriet read from her notes about Nathaniel Francis—notes of Nathaniel's conversation with Thomas Gray at Waller's still—a conversation about seeing Thomas Gray with Nat Turner.

“This past spring, near Cabin Pond. I saw the two of you. Had him in the site of my rifle. You handed him a package. You were speaking to each other earnestly. Not like slave and master, but like friends.”

Harriet tried to imagine what it must have been like for Nat Turner and Thomas Gray to have been friends in 1831. She imagined how difficult things must have been for Thomas Gray after Nat Turner's rebellion.

A quarter of a century later, there were still people who criticized her brother and her for associating with Negroes, for inviting them to their homes. There were people who were furious with Henry and had vandalized his Brooklyn home because of his work as an abolitionist and because he welcomed Negro visitors to his church and his pulpit.

It was extraordinary to think of the two men, separated by law, custom, and culture, still struggling to be friends, to understand each other.

“Excuse me. I thought you might like this.” William returned with two cups of tea and biscuits.

Harriet returned to the small table where they had been working. She sat and then sipped at the tea, but her thirst overcame her. Her cup was soon drained dry. Her face warming, she looked across the table at William. “Please forgive me. I am mortified.”

“Please forgive me for being such a poor host.” He called to his sister to bring more tea and offered Harriet one of the biscuits. “It was thoughtless of me. I should have noticed that you were famished.”

She touched his hand. “You owe me no apology, Mr. Love.” Harriet quickly removed her hand. They were strangers, almost, but they were sharing the intimacies of so many lives. She looked down at her notes again. “So Thomas Gray and Nat Turner were indeed friends?”

William nodded. “Though they were born to different circumstances, they were born the same year in the same area.”

But for slavery, the two of them might have been even greater friends, almost brothers.

“The story is still told in Southampton County that not only Thomas Gray but also Sallie Moore Travis were Nat Turner's friends.”

Harriet looked across the table at William. It was unacceptable and unheard of, even in Massachusetts, for a white woman to touch a Negro man's hand. What did it mean for Sallie and Nat to be considered friends? Was cooking for him, in a time when no mistress cooked for her slaves, enough to have made them friends?

The story of Nat Turner being revealed to her was one she could never have imagined.

William's sister returned with a pot of tea. “Thank you.” Harriet smiled to her. When his sister was gone, Harriet nodded to him. “Thank you, Mr. Love.”

She adjusted the napkin on her lap, then lifted her pen and pressed it to the paper in front of her. “Let us resume.”

Cross Keys

1831

N
at Turner had never shared his intimacies with God with Thomas Gray. It was deeper water than they had ever trod. He held his breath waiting for the onslaught of his friend's disapproval. “He has shown me things and given me visions. I saw a battle unleashed in heaven—black men struggling with white men. I saw a great battle loosed here on earth and blood spattered on the corn. God said to take the yoke of Jesus upon me.”

“You? King of kings? A slave king? Who's the man with grandiose dreams now? If you were a drinking man, I would say that you are intoxicated.”

It was too late to regret telling Thomas about the vision. They had already argued over so many things they had never touched on before.

“It is preposterous to say that God, if He does exist, speaks to you… a mere man… a mere nobody… a mere…”

“A mere what? Slave? You believe God speaks even to Richard Whitehead, but not to me? Because of the color of my skin?”

Thomas Gray grimaced. He rose in the saddle, then sat, rose, then sat, as though he were undecided. The horse beneath him sidestepped restlessly.

“Perhaps, because of what I say and believe—in freedom, emancipation, and equality—you will turn away from me.”

“I am your friend, Nat. I do not see color.”

“If you did not see color, you would not speak to me as you do. You would not own slaves.”

“You don't know all that I risk to be with you. Can you imagine what others would say if they saw me? If they heard our conversation or saw me sharing these books with you, they would run me out of town like your Ethelred Brantley. But I am your friend and I will always, no matter what, be your friend, Nat Turner.”

“Don't say ‘always'; the price might be too high one day.”

“I will be your friend forever, no matter what the cost.”

They parted as friends and shook hands, as was their custom. “Until we meet again.”

Nat Turner wound his way on foot back through the woods, down the traces he knew. He passed by the twin oaks. Then a thought stopped him.

This might be the last time. He might never see his friend again. The day of God's judgment was coming.

A bird called. A butterfly drifted by.

Then Nat turned. He ran.

H
e would not have blood on his hands. Nat Turner plunged through the thicket, leaves and branches smashing against his face. He crashed through the bushes, scratching his arms. Time was running out. He had to give Thomas the warning.

Nat Turner stumbled as he ran, crashing downward, but then regained his balance. He yelled when he caught sight of his friend. Still picking his way through the woods, Thomas Gray reined in his horse before he entered the road.

The clearing was quiet; even the birds seemed to have stopped singing. “Hypocrite!” Nat Turner was surprised to hear the word leap from his mouth. The only sound, other than his voice, was the irregular clomping of the anxious horse's hooves. “You are my friend, but you are a coward! You lie to yourself! You are too afraid to stand apart from Nathaniel Francis and the others.

“You mock writers like Shakespeare, while you are afraid to risk doing anything yourself.” Thomas's life and soul were at stake. This was no time to mince words.

“You lie to yourself, Thomas! The difference between you and Nathaniel Francis is not much more than appearance. You exchange the false friendship of drunkards like Nathaniel for transforming the world. What good are your gifts if you do nothing with them? What good are the blessings you have if you waste them on wickedness instead of using them to do good?”

Thomas looked beyond the trees to the road as though he wanted to bolt away.

Winded, Nat Turner grabbed the reins of Thomas's horse. His
lungs burned, his chest heaved. “Repent now! As your friend and brother I beg you. God's judgment is coming!”

“Nat, quiet yourself, you fool! Someone will hear!”

“Perhaps you will escape the first death because you don't believe. But trouble will find you where you stand in the middle, Thomas.”

“You sound like a crazy man!”

“You judge yourself lightly but for others you use a heavier measure! You tell yourself you have no problem, you are just a little drunk. Ask those who are sober if you are a drunkard!

“You and the others like you try to judge for yourselves if you are bigoted, patting yourselves. Ask slaves and free black men if you are fair, if you are without stain! If you want to know if you have a problem, ask the ones you have harmed. Better still, if you truly have courage, ask your enemies!”

Nat Turner loosed the reins and stepped back from Thomas's horse. He stretched out his arm and pointed his finger at his friend. Then, his heart pounding, he gave the pronouncement he had given many times to others.

“God has sent me to the oppressors, to the captors, to plead with you to turn. The cries and moans of my people have risen to God's ears. I warn you, even now He is preparing the death angel.

“God has seen your sins and the hardness of your hearts. Turn before it is too late, before brother rises against brother and nation against nation, before plowshares are turned to swords!”

Nat Turner planted his feet. “Woe to you because you demand justice and turn away from mercy!

“Woe to you because you want the best for yourselves and ignore your brothers in need!

“Woe to you because you withhold justice from the alien, the fatherless, and the widows!

“Woe to you because you point out sin in other men and ignore your own!

“Woe to you because you deny your own children, abandoning them to slavery, and selling them for concubines.”

Thomas Gray stood in his stirrups. “You are a crazy man, Nat Turner. A religious fanatic! You will be sorry for the words you have spoken to me this day!”

Nat Turner could not stop. The pronouncements controlled his mouth, controlled his words. He did not want Thomas Gray's eternal blood on his hands. He wanted his friend to awaken. He wanted his friend to live. “Woe to you because you put wealth and titles above brotherly love!