A Light to My Path (36 page)

Kitty had been a slave since the day she was born, but for the first time in her life she felt like one—a captive, forced to labor for other people against her will. She closed her eyes and prayed to Delia’s God—her papa’s God—that wherever Grady was tonight, he was safe. And that he was free.

Chapter Nineteen

South Carolina
November 1862

Grady awakened when something sharp prodded his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw the barrel of a gun. The bayonet that was attached to it poked his shoulder again. For a long moment his heart seemed to stop beating.

“Get up!” a voice said.

Grady’s heart started up again, pounding as if it would burst. They’d caught him. Rebel soldiers had caught him.

“Stand up. Nice and slow,” the man with the gun said. “Hands above your head.”

Grady obeyed, his limbs stiff and numb from sleeping on the cold ground. Massa’s suit was wrinkled and coated with dirt and leaves. When Grady could take his eyes off the bayonet, he saw that the gun was loaded and ready to fire.

“Hey, Johnson,” the man holding it called. “Come over here and check this fellow for weapons.”

A second soldier stepped forward and carefully rifled through Grady’s clothing. The only weapon Grady had was the tool he used to trim horses’ hooves. He’d taken it from the stable and sharpened it on a whetstone before leaving home. The man named Johnson found it and slid it into his own pocket.

Grady squinted in the scant daylight, trying to focus on his captors’ faces. The sun hadn’t quite risen on another overcast day, and he wondered how the Rebels had ever found him. They didn’t seem to have dogs. As he shook off his sleep and battled to rein in his panic, he realized that the men wore dark blue uniforms. They didn’t look at all like the outfits that Massa Fuller and his Confederate soldiers wore.

“Y’all are Yankees?” he breathed.

“You bet we are.”

Grady’s knees went weak with relief. He was wide-awake now. He looked past the loaded rifle and into the clearing where more than a dozen men searched through the bushes, alert for enemy soldiers. It startled Grady to see that some of them were Negroes. They carried rifles with bayonets attached and wore Yankee uniform jackets, just like the white soldiers. A Negro soldier carrying a gun was such an unbelievable sight that Grady wondered if he was dreaming.

“Hey, Captain, come here!” Johnson called. “We caught a fancy Rebel gentleman trying to sneak off. Should we just go ahead and shoot him?”

Grady panicked. “Wait! I ain’t a Rebel! I’m a slave. I ran away from Massa Fuller’s plantation two nights ago. I’m trying to escape to y’all. Let me show you.” He knew that his dark wooly hair would prove it, but when he started to remove his hat, the soldier jabbed the bayonet against his ribs.

“Hold it! Get your hands up! You move again, and I just might have to kill you.”

“Listen,” Grady pleaded. “I stole my master’s clothes so I could fool the Rebels. But I’m a Negro, just like him.” He tilted his head toward a black soldier who had wandered over with the captain to stare at him.

“You sure look white to me,” Johnson said. “What do you think?” he asked the Negro soldier.

“He’s all dressed up just like my massa,” the Negro replied. “I say shoot him.” He turned and walked away.

“Wait! Please!” Grady begged. “I’m light-skinned because I’m half white.”

“Now, that’s a good one, isn’t it?” Johnson said. “What these Rebs won’t think of to save their scrawny necks.”

“Yeah, who would ever sleep with a Negro?” The three men laughed at the idea.

Grady felt a rivulet of sweat roll down his neck. “It’s true,” he said. “My white massa used my mother for … for his pleasure. She was his slave. I’m half white.” He hated admitting that his father was white, that his mother had been abused that way. And he hated that these men thought he was white, like they were. He wasn’t anything like them.

“What do you think, Captain?” the gunman asked. “His story sounds made-up to me.”

“He talks just like a Southern boy. He’s probably a spy.”

“Shoot him. Who cares about one more dead Rebel?” Johnson said.

“Wait! I know how I can prove it,” Grady said. He had a desperate idea, but his hands were still raised in the air and he didn’t dare lower them. “Lift up my shirt and look at the scars on my back,” he said. “Nobody ever done something like that to a white man.”

The soldier kept the gun trained on him while Johnson walked around behind Grady. He felt his jacket being jerked up and his shirt pulled out of his trousers, then the damp morning air bathed his bare back.

“Oh my gosh! Come here and look at this, Captain.”

The officer peered behind Grady to look. “He’s telling the truth. I saw a slave at an abolition meeting back home who had been whipped for trying to escape. His back looked just like that.” He called to the Negro soldier again, and he came over to look, too.

“Yes, sir, that’s just what some massas like to do to us.”

The soldier who had captured Grady finally lowered his gun. “Sorry, friend. No hard feelings?” He extended his hand for Grady to shake. Grady stared at it, his own hands still raised in the air. No white man had ever offered to shake hands with him as an equal before. But the gun was lowered. They weren’t going to kill him. He gripped the soldier’s hand in his own clammy palm.

The captain thumped Grady’s shoulder. “You’re free, son.”

Grady heard the words, understood what they meant, but he couldn’t comprehend them. He took off his hat and wiped his sweating brow with his sleeve.

“Are there any others with you?” the Captain asked.

Grady struggled to think clearly as a floodtide of emotions washed over him. “Um … yeah. About a hundred of us escaped from Massa Fuller’s plantation. B-but we went our separate ways yesterday.”

Anna. He had left Anna behind. She would be free right now if only she had come with him. They would both be free.

“Come on over here and join your brothers,” the Negro soldier said. The other Negroes beckoned to him, welcoming him. One of them held out a canteen of water to him.

“I-I can’t believe I made it,” Grady murmured. He accepted the canteen and tilted his head back to take a long drink, hoping to hide the tears that had sprung to his eyes. But when he lowered the canteen again, the man who had given it to him had tears in his eyes, too.

“You don’t have to be ashamed,” he said. “We all know exactly how you feel. My name’s Joseph. What’s yours?”

“Grady.”

“Well, Grady, you can start praising the Lord right now, because you ain’t never gonna be a slave again.”

Grady closed his eyes and allowed his silent tears to fall. He had nothing in the world except his freedom, and that was enough.

All that glorious day, his first day of freedom, Grady had to remind himself over and over again,
I’m free! I’m a free man! I’m not a slave anymore!
He could scarcely believe it was true. If only Anna had come with him. And Delia. If only they could feel the way he felt right now.

Grady followed the band of Union soldiers as they scoured the woods for more runaways, and by some miracle they found thirtyseven other slaves from Massa Fuller’s plantation and led them all through the woods to the landing site. Another squadron of soldiers arrived a few hours later with twenty-three more rescued slaves. Then to Grady’s astonishment, he suddenly recognized one of the Negro soldiers in the second squadron. The big man was several years older than when Grady had seen him last, but the tension and anger on his dark face looked exactly as they had years ago.

“Amos!” Grady called out to him.

The big man looked up, puzzled, then slowly walked toward Grady. He carried his rifle with both hands, his finger on the trigger. “Do I know you?”

Grady quickly removed his hat, suddenly remembering that he still wore white men’s clothes. No wonder Amos looked him over with distrust and suspicion. “Yeah, Amos. It’s been nine years and I guess I’ve grown some since you saw me last. But we was in the slave pen together in Richmond. You looked out for me. We both got sold on the auction block to that slave trader.”

Amos’ face relaxed, coming as close to a smile as Grady had ever seen. “Right, I remember now. You was just a boy… . Now look at you! I thought you was some rich white man.”

“I stole these clothes from my massa when I run off,” Grady said with a grin. “But here you are with a gun and everything. How’d you get to be a soldier?”

“The Yankees come to our plantation near Savannah and set us all free,” Amos replied. “They talked me into joining Hunter’s regiment and gave me a gun. I finally got a chance to kill some white men, just like I said I would. Why don’t you join us?”

“And take orders from them?” Grady asked, gesturing to the white soldiers. “No, sir! I ain’t ever doing what any white man says again.”

“Not even for the chance to kill a few of them? Help set our people free?”

“Oh, I still plan on killing plenty of white men,” Grady said. “But I ain’t taking orders anymore or being a servant to nobody. Besides, I don’t need their permission if I want to kill somebody.”

“Suit yourself,” Amos said with a shrug. “They always willing to sign you up if you’re changing your mind.”

An officer shouted for the soldiers to begin lining up. They were about to board the boats. They told the rescued slaves to crowd in wherever they could.

“Where you headed?” Amos asked as he prepared to leave. Grady considered the question for the first time.

“Um … I don’t know. Where’s this boat going?”

“Beaufort. We’re camped near there,” Amos replied.

“Then I guess that’s where I’m going, too.”

Amos nodded. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

The ship with Grady on board arrived in Beaufort late that afternoon. He walked around town in a daze, barely recognizing the place. Supply boats and warships bristling with cannons filled the harbor. White men in uniforms swarmed everywhere, and the Stars and Stripes flew from every flagpole and church steeple. Soldiers tramped in and out of the finest houses along Bay and Craven Streets as if they owned them, using them as their headquarters or to house officers or store army supplies. Even the pretty white church that Massa Fuller used to attend had been turned into an army hospital. Vandals had pillaged and ransacked many of the homes, tearing down fences and outbuildings, chopping down trees. In one short year, the quiet beauty of pre-war Beaufort had vanished.

But Grady was free. He could stroll down the sidewalk heading anywhere he wanted, anytime he wanted, and nobody could stop him or shove him into the gutter. Dressed in Massa’s clothes, Grady was treated just like a white man in downtown Beaufort, although he saw many former slaves on the docks and in the streets who were being mistreated by the Yankees. Even so, he made up his mind not to pretend he was white. He was a Negro and proud of it.

As night fell and the sky began growing dark, Grady’s stomach rumbled with hunger. He had eaten the last of his food onboard the ship that afternoon, and now he was starved. He had no money, no friends, nowhere to sleep that night. Unsure what to do or where else to go, he walked the familiar route to Massa Fuller’s town house, circling around, by habit, to the rear carriage gate in the backyard. The washhouse and slaves’ quarters appeared deserted. He crossed the yard to the abandoned stables and ran up the stairs two at a time to the room he’d shared with Anna. He found it just as they had left it when they’d been forced to flee.

Grady hurried downstairs again, and was heading over to the kitchen to scrounge for food when he noticed smoke rising from the town-house chimney. He halted. As he stood staring at the back door, wondering what to do, it suddenly opened and Jim walked through it. Grady was astonished to see that the former slave wore one of Massa Fuller’s jackets and was smoking one of his cigars. Jim glared at him with suspicion for a long moment before Grady thought to remove his hat.

“Hey, Jim. It’s me—Grady,” he called.

“Grady? I almost didn’t recognize you. What’re you doing here?”

“I run off from Massa’s plantation a few days ago. Didn’t know where else to go, so I came here.”

Jim grinned, the cigar clamped between his teeth. “So you’re a free man now, eh? Just like us. Ain’t it great? Come on inside. Minnie will be tickled to see you.”

“Come in … into the house?” Grady stammered. He had never been allowed inside before, but Jim held the door open wide for him.

“Sure. Who’s gonna stop you? Massa Fuller ain’t coming back with all these Yankees hanging around town, that’s for sure. Me and Minnie got the whole place all to ourselves.”

Grady followed Jim inside the Big House for the first time in his life, astounded by what he saw. Beautiful furniture and carpets and household goods filled room after room, making the town house even more lavish than the fancy hotels where Massa Coop used to stay. Minnie was nearly unrecognizable in a white lady’s dress made of shiny, rose-colored material and lots of lace. She even wore one of those things beneath her skirt that made it stick out like a bell. Like Jim, she was wearing her former owners’ clothing—but then, so was Grady.

Minnie had set the dining room table with bowls and tableware for the two of them. A delicious-smelling pot of stew and dumplings waited in the middle of it. “Want some dinner?” she asked. “We was just sitting down to eat when Jim thought he saw somebody snooping around out back.”

“Yeah, thanks—if you got enough, that is.”

“We can make do.” She pulled another shiny white bowl and some silverware from a dining room cabinet and set a place for Grady at the table. He hesitated, then finally sat down at his master’s polished dining room table, certain that he was dreaming. He had to keep telling himself that there was no reason to be nervous, nobody was going to burst through the door and punish him for sitting at a white man’s table. These were his friends, Minnie and Jim. Massa Fuller was gone, and Grady was free.

“Where’s your pretty little wife?” Minnie asked.

Grady had to draw a deep breath before he could answer. It pained him to recall that Anna truly was his wife in every way. He loved her. But at the moment, he had no idea where she was.“She … um … she couldn’t come with me.” He was relieved when Minnie let it go at that.