A Light to My Path (32 page)

And one day, without making a conscious decision, Grady joined them. The release he felt as he sang along with the other slaves—his brothers and sisters—was even greater than what he’d felt when he’d learned to play the fiddle. This time it was his music, slave music, not a white man’s song. No one compelled him to sing. And he was very surprised to find that the music offered hope for a changed life, a better life:

My army cross over; O, Pharaoh’s army drowned!
My army cross over, we cross the river Jordan… .

Even the songs that talked about Jesus had an undercurrent of rebellion and a yearning for freedom that Grady grew to love:

Ride in, kind Savior! No man can hinder me.
O, Jesus is a mighty man! No man can hinder me… .

He rehearsed his plans to escape as he sang, “Brother, keep your lamp trimming and a-burning … for this world almost done” or “Way down in the valley, who will rise and go with me? We’ll run and never tire, Jesus sets poor sinners free.” They could sing about freedom and the overseer couldn’t stop them as long as freedom from slavery was disguised behind words of dying and going to heaven:

We’ll soon be free, when the Lord will call us home.
My brother, how long before we done suffering here?
We’ll walk the golden streets when Jesus sets me free.
We’ll fight for liberty, when the Lord will call us home.

Grady labored all that long, hot summer beneath a broiling sun, the humid air as thick as wet cotton against his skin. He dreamed of sailing down one of the waterways to freedom as he and the others opened the reservoir gates and watched the water pour through the channels to flood the rice fields. He thought of Anna’s love of color when he saw the rows and rows of ripening rice, the stalks a vivid yellow-green against the muddy water. When the heads of rice began to bend down, he helped drain the water again so the fields would dry before harvest—and he wondered if he would live this way until the day he died.

On a sweltering Sunday in August, Grady’s only day off, he sat outside his hut watching all the other families on Slave Row. He saw children playing, husbands and wives enjoying an hour or two together, and his longing for his own family was so great that he suddenly decided to sneak home and visit Delia and Anna. He knew that he stank of sweat and dirt, so he carefully rinsed out his shirt first, and laid it in the sun to dry while he shaved and washed himself as best he could. But when he arrived at the little cabin he’d once shared with the two women, he found it empty. He stared up at the rear façade of the Big House, bitterly disappointed, and remembered that house slaves didn’t get a day off.

Grady returned to his own hut on Slave Row, his loneliness multiplied. As he sat staring at the dirt, trying to ignore the smells of cooking food and the sounds of activity all around him, he heard a woman’s voice. “Hey, there. You look awful sad sitting all by yourself.”

Grady looked up. One of the young slave women who had worked beside him in the rice fields all week, smiled down at him. She was pretty and shapely but not as lovely as Anna.

“I just been cooking some greens,” she said. “You want to come on down to my place and have some?”

Grady’s stomach rumbled at the thought. Many of the other slaves managed to grow a little extra food in gardens of their own after the workday was finished. This girl was making a huge sacrifice in offering to share what little she had with him. He couldn’t take her food.

“Thanks. But I ain’t hungry,” he lied. He expected her to leave, but she surprised him by sitting down on the step beside him.

“Every time I see you, you’re all alone,” she said. “What I can’t figure out, is why a good-looking fella like you don’t have a dozen gals cooking for him. Don’t you know we all need each other to help make this sorry life of ours a little easier?”

Grady thought of his life with Coop—a lonely existence without companionship. He’d worked with William every day, but the servant had remained cold and distant, as if unwilling to get close to Grady and risk seeing Coop kill him as he’d killed the first “Joe.” Grady’s life with Delia and Anna had been very different. He had still been a slave, but the love they’d shared made it bearable.

“I know. You’re right,” he said. “But I have a wife. I’m already married.”

“You are? Where is she?”

“She works up at the Big House. Lives up there, too.”

“And you don’t ever get to see her?”

He shook his head.

“What’s she like?”

Beautiful,
he wanted to say.
Trusting and naïve
. She noticed colors and saw beauty everywhere, in things he never even noticed. But she had no more self-respect than a dog. “She draws pictures,” he said, instead.

The girl looked at him as if she’d never heard of such a thing. “What do you mean?”

“Come inside, I’ll show you.” He rose to his feet and led her into the deserted shack, pointing proudly to the drawings pinned to the wall over his bed. The girl crawled onto the bed and knelt there, studying them for a long moment, straightening the heatcurled edges with her fingers.

“Mmm. These are really something,” she said. She turned around to face Grady again but remained seated on his bed. “I heard you used to be Massa’s coachman. Why’d he send you down?”

“He didn’t, Missus Fuller did. Besides, Massa ain’t got any more horses for me to take care of. The Confederates came and took them all away for the war.”

She didn’t seem to be listening. Instead, she was looking him over from head to toe and smiling at him in a way that stirred his blood.

“Why don’t you come on over here and sit down?” she asked, patting the mattress beside her. Grady’s heart speeded up. He was so tempted, so lonely. Why not forget his miserable life for a little while, and take whatever love was being offered to him? Why not close the cabin door and take this girl in his arms and drown out his pain any way he could?

But Grady knew from experience that loving someone only led to more sorrow, in the end. He and this girl might grow to like each other—and then they might be separated in the blink of an eye, the same way he and Anna had been. He remembered how Anna had sat in the same place this girl was sitting. How she had stood to say good-bye and held him in her arms before she left.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. “But I … I love Anna. My wife.” Grady was astonished to discover that it was true. And that he was unwilling to risk loving one more person in this life—and losing them.

“Oh.” The girl looked disappointed and a little angry. She slowly climbed off the bed and stood close to Grady, resting her hands on his chest, looking up into his eyes. “Well, if you ever change your mind, let me know.”

Grady’s longing was almost more than he could bear. He gently lifted the girl’s hands from his chest and ducked out of the shack before he changed his mind.

Once a week Mr. Browning drove into town to pick up supplies and the mail, and he often took Grady along to wrangle the mules and help load the wagon. It was the only chance that Grady and the other slaves had to hear the latest news about the war and all the battles that were being fought. There might not have been many trade goods to buy in the general store these days, but the white men who gathered there loved to talk about the War for Southern Independence.

Grady quietly rejoiced when he learned that the city of New Orleans had fallen into Yankee hands. He imagined Massa Coop’s capture and arrest and pictured the slave trader rotting in a filthy jail cell like the ones where Grady and Coop’s other slaves had lived. Grady paid especially close attention when he heard that several battles were being waged near his old home in Richmond, Virginia. His hopes for freedom for his mama and Eli soared as a huge Yankee army marched all the way up the Virginia Peninsula that spring and summer, determined to conquer the city. But as the summer months passed and the last Yankee soldier was chased back to Washington City in defeat, Grady’s hopes were crushed. In August, the entire town celebrated the second Rebel victory at a place called Manassas. And September brought news that the Rebels were on the move, marching into Yankee-held territory in Maryland. While the plantation owners rejoiced at these victories, Grady despaired.

By the time the long days of harvesting and threshing began, Grady had become a trusted member of the slave community. Each time he made a trip to town and back, the men would gather in his hut at night to make whispered plans for escaping.

“There’s nearly a hundred of us and only the overseer to stop us,” one of them said. “Why wait any longer? Let’s escape now.”

But Grady remembered Anna’s warning and passed it along. “It’s too risky. We can never tell for sure where the Confederates are. They move all up and down this stretch of low country, guarding the railroad. They know this area. And they have lookouts watching. The only way we can safely get past the Confederate lines is if the Yankees attack and the Confederates all head off to stop them.”

“Even then, we’d need boats to get to the Sea Islands where the Yanks are,” someone added.

“Unless the Yankees come to the mainland,” Grady said. “I hear that the Yanks sometimes come ashore to help slaves escape—and they’re not returning us to our owners.”

Plotting with the others buoyed Grady’s hopes. They pooled all of their knowledge, gathering information about the land routes and waterways. Before the harvest was over, they had formulated a plan. All they needed was the right opportunity, when the Rebel soldiers were distracted, to put their plan into action. Grady was certain he would know when that golden moment had arrived.

One cold fall afternoon, while Grady was checking one of the mules for a sprain, he heard an unfamiliar sound. He paused to listen, gradually recognizing it as the sound of marching feet. He jogged to the edge of the pasture to peer through the trees and saw thousands of Confederate soldiers hurrying down the road past the Fuller Plantation. Grady had watched Massa Fuller drilling new recruits in Beaufort, and he knew that these men were marching on the double-quick. He’d never seen so many soldiers this close to the plantation before—probably two or three thousand of them—and he wondered what it meant. Before the dust cloud had a chance to settle again, Lewis came hurrying down to the barn from the Big House.

“Missy’s needing a wagon and team of mules, right away,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Grady asked. “Did them soldiers say anything when they came by?”

“They said the Yankees are coming. Whole bunch of them landed at McKay’s Point. The soldiers told Missus Fuller she better get out. They’re all in an uproar up at the Big House and fixing to run.”

“Where’s she going? With the soldiers?”

“No, the soldiers are heading toward Pocotaligo and she’s going to her daddy’s plantation on the Edisto River. Wants a wagon right away.”

Grady felt the sudden panic as if it was contagious. But his concern was for Delia and Anna, not Missus Fuller. “She’s leaving now? Today? What about Delia and Anna? Are they going with her?”

“Missus Fuller never said who’s going. She only told all of us to help load the wagon so she can leave first thing in the morning. Don’t know nothing else. She says to leave the wagon up by the house so she can pack everything, and bring the mules back first thing in the morning.”

It was only after Lewis left that Grady suddenly realized what all this meant. He glanced around the barn to make certain Mr. Browning wasn’t around, then whispered to his fellow slaves, “This is it! This is the chance we’ve been waiting for! We can all be free!”

“What’s going on?”

“The Yankees have landed here on the mainland at McKay’s Point. All the Rebels are heading to Pocotaligo to stop them. We’ll be able to circle to the south and get past the Rebel lines. Browning can’t chase all of us, especially if we split up into groups and go in different directions, the way we planned. Once we get to McKay’s Point we’ll be free. The Yankees won’t return us to our owners.”

“We gonna have to act soon, I reckon.”

“Yes. Tonight when the moon sets,” Grady said. “Start spreading the word to all the others.”

“What about bringing Missus Fuller her wagon?”

“Let me do it,” Grady said. “I need to talk to my wife and Delia.”

Grady parked the wagon in the yard outside the rear door and waited, delaying as long as he dared, hoping that one of the women would come out to talk to him. At last the door opened and Anna and Delia came out of the house together. As much as he longed for Anna’s embrace, he stayed away from her, unwilling to risk Missy Claire’s anger if she happened to look out the window and see them together. But there was no harm if Delia hugged him, and her embrace was as welcome as a warm fire on a cold day.

“Lord, Lord, honey! I hardly recognized you,” she said. “You driving Missy Claire’s wagon for her tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “I’m all through with being a slave,” he said quietly. “Me and the others gonna steal away to the woods tonight. Once we get to where the Yankees are, we’ll all be free.”

“You can’t run away, Grady!” Anna cried. “They’ll send the dogs out after you if you run!”

Her fear made him angry. “Who will? Ain’t nobody left to chase us but the overseer. He can’t catch all of us, can he?” He folded his arms across his chest and raised his chin in defiance to show her he was unafraid, that they had nothing to fear. “You don’t have to go with Missy Claire, you know. She can’t make you go with her.”

“What do you mean? She’s our missy. We have to do what Missy says.”

“No you don’t,” he said in a low, harsh voice. “We don’t have to do nothing she says no more, now that the Yankees are here. Y’all can come hide in the woods with us tonight … unless you think house slaves is too good to run off with field hands.”

“Nobody’s thinking that,” Delia said.

“Then come with us,” he urged.

Anna gazed into the distance as if trying to make up her mind. “Missy says the Yankees ain’t our friends,” she said after a moment. “She says they gonna have their way with all the women and—”

“Don’t you know them white folks is lying?” Grady felt desperate to convince her, but he didn’t know how.