A Light to My Path (45 page)

Grady tried to act unconcerned as he walked toward headquarters, but inside he was trembling uncontrollably. If the provost marshal asked for details, Grady knew that Preacher Joe was much too religious to ever tell a lie. Grady wished he knew exactly what his tentmate had seen, but he couldn’t think of a way to ask him without admitting his guilt. Maybe he should threaten Joseph, drop a few hints that he also might die mysteriously in the night if he said too much. But before Grady could finish weighing the idea, Joseph spoke.

“Can I ask you a question, Grady?”

He nodded, his heart racing.

“Why’d you join up? Was it so you could kill a few Rebels, get revenge?”

Grady considered a moment before answering. Joseph knew how much Grady hated white men. He would see right through him if he lied. “Sure. Killing Rebels was part of the reason. But mostly it was to help set our people free.”

“Well, you got your freedom,” he said dryly. “And thanks to us, every slave in Jacksonville is free. So—has that been enough to satisfy you?”

Grady knew that the answer was no. So did Joseph. Grady hadn’t been able to hide his restless, pent-up anger from anyone, least of all his tentmate. Grady was not a happy man, and Joe knew it.

“How can I be satisfied?” Grady said angrily. “You know this is more than just a fight to win our freedom. We’re still fighting for respect and dignity.”

“And you think being mad all the time, shooting off your anger and rage at white folks, is the best way to be winning respect and dignity?”

“If we don’t fight for what we deserve, our people are never getting it.”

Joe shook his head. “I don’t agree. Dignity ain’t something we need to be fighting for or trying to earn. It’s something we had all along. We’re God’s children, made in His image.”

“Why are you preaching this stuff to me?” Grady said bitterly. “Go tell it to all the white men who hate our guts. They think we’re animals, not people. Try telling them we’re all God’s children. They’ll laugh in your skinny black face.”

“Some people were hating Jesus so much that they crucified Him. But that didn’t change who He was. I don’t need a white man’s opinion to know that I’m worthy in God’s eyes. I’m His child, and I don’t care what any man thinks about me, white or black.” He slowed to a halt and turned to Grady. “Ready?” he asked.

Grady looked around, as if emerging from a fog, and realized that they had reached the provost marshal’s house. His stomach lurched. “Sure. After you,” he said coolly, but his knees felt rubbery as he followed Joe up the steps. They told the officer’s aide why they had come, and he offered them seats while they waited.

More than fifteen minutes passed but neither of them spoke. The longer he waited, the more ill Grady felt. He was afraid he might vomit. Joe would surely tell the truth. Maybe he already had. Maybe that’s why Captain Metcalf had sent them here together.

Grady would be arrested and tried and hanged for killing a man who deserved to die. Coop was white. The provost marshal was white. The men Grady would face at his court-martial would all be white. Grady was black, and that was the end of the matter. A white man like Coop could kill a black man like Grady, but not the other way around. Grady had seen the gallows in Jacksonville where a Negro had been lynched for “insulting” a white woman. Grady’s crime had been much worse. He had
killed
a white man. He didn’t stand a chance of escaping the gallows.

At last the provost marshal called for them. Grady and Joseph went into the man’s office together and stood before his desk. The officer looked up briefly as he continued to shuffle papers around on his desk.

“Thank you for coming,” he said gruffly. “I assume you’ve both heard about the civilian, Edward Coop, who was found beaten to death last night?”

“Yes, sir,” they said together.

“Did either of you hear or see anything unusual while you were on watch last night?”

Grady cleared his throat and hurried to speak first. “I might have heard something, sir,” he began, but the marshal interrupted him.

“Which watch were you on?”

“The second one, sir. I even crossed the street and went over to check it out, but things was pretty quiet when I got there. I didn’t think I should be straying too far from my post, in case it was the Rebels. I was just coming back when my friend Joe came on duty.” Grady turned to face him, forcing himself to meet Joseph’s gaze. He tasted bile as he asked, “Ain’t that right, Joe?”

“Yes, sir. I saw Grady coming back.”

Grady held his breath. Joe must have seen the blood on his hands and on the butt of his rifle. Surely he’d noticed the odd way Grady had carried it.

“Then what happened?” the marshal asked Joe. “Did you see or hear anything after that? During your own watch?”

Joseph paused for a long moment. “No, sir. Everything was quiet on my watch.”

The officer exhaled. “Very well. Give my aide your names and the name of your company. And if anything else comes to mind, please let me know right away. I’d like to get this matter cleared up as quickly as possible.”

Grady walked from the room like a blind man. He staggered from the house feeling worse than when he’d gone inside, his nausea so severe that he had to stop and lean against a lamppost until it passed. Joseph stopped and waited beside him, but Grady couldn’t look at him. He couldn’t comprehend why Joe had protected him, why he hadn’t told the provost marshal everything he had seen.

Eventually Grady’s dizziness passed. The two men walked nearly all the way back to camp before Joseph finally spoke. “God knows what happened to that poor fella,” he murmured. Grady heard the irony in his voice and was more certain than ever that Joe knew the truth.

“Don’t waste your pity or your prayers on him,” Grady said quietly. “The man was a slave trader. He caused our people untold suffering and got rich destroying lives. Besides, I know for a fact that he murdered at least one of his slaves—whipped the man to death. Feel sorry for him if you want to pity someone. Edward Coop got exactly what he deserved.”

“It’s up to God to be dealing out vengeance, not us,” Joseph said.

“Yeah? Well, Coop told me that he didn’t believe in God.”

“Then he’s in hell.”

There was something about Joseph’s matter-of-fact certainty that sent a shiver through Grady. It was the same feeling of icy horror he’d felt last night when Coop had confessed that he didn’t fear God’s judgment.

“If you had any part in his death,” Joe continued, “then you’ll be living with it on your conscience for the rest of your life. But just so you know, God will forgive you if you ask Him to.”

“I don’t want to hear—” Grady began. But Joseph halted and spun to face him.

“Well, for once in your life you’re gonna hear it, Grady. If you don’t want me telling everybody that I saw you coming from that direction with blood all over your hands and on your rifle, then you’re gonna have to shut up and listen to my preaching.”

“Okay, okay … I’ll listen,” he said, holding up his hands.

“Maybe this Coop fella was a murderer, like you say. But if you’re taking justice in your own hands, then you’re a murderer, too. That guilt is gonna start eating away at you in time to come, and when it does, I want you to remember something. I want you to remember that God will forgive you for everything you done if you ask Him to.”

His speech made Grady uneasy, but he resisted the urge to interrupt, afraid of what Joe could do with the knowledge he had.

“Three of the greatest men in the Bible were all murderers,” he continued. “Before Moses led all the slaves out of Egypt, he once killed an overseer when he thought nobody was looking. And King David—the man after God’s own heart—was sleeping with another man’s wife, so he fixed things up for her husband to be killed. David ain’t pulling the trigger, but he may as well have—the man’s blood was on his hands.”

Grady saw Joseph’s gaze stray to his hands, and he had to resist the urge to hide them behind his back.

“The third man was the Apostle Paul,” Joe said. “He’s standing by and cheering the murderers on when they’re stoning an innocent man named Stephen to death.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Grady asked quietly. “Because later on, God forgave them all when they repented. Not only that, He used all three of those men to do great things for Him.” Joe started walking again, his voice thick with zeal. “There ain’t no doubt that our race has suffered. Ain’t no question that the white folks deserve to pay for all they done to us. But I believe that God can use our suffering to teach us to have faith in Him. And who knows? Maybe someday we can be showing the white people how to obey Jesus’ command to love our enemies—even when they don’t deserve it.”

Delia had preached a similar sermon to Grady. So had Eli. Grady wondered why God didn’t just give up on him and leave him alone. Then he recalled Delia’s warning that the Lord would hunt him down and hound his steps like a master chasing his escaped slave until He finally got him back. Grady already felt hounded. The seething anxiety that twisted through his gut felt nearly as painful as the lash. He steeled himself to ask Joe the question he dreaded to ask.

“So are you ever gonna tell anybody about what you saw last night?”

“No. Not this time. But I will if there’s a next time.”

Grady exhaled but he felt no relief. “I don’t get it,” he said. “You believe in all that Bible stuff—good and evil, the Ten Commandments, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’—right? So why didn’t you turn me in?”

“Because I’m a sinner, too, Grady. Jesus says anyone who sins is a slave to sin, and that’s just what I was. But now, the Bible says, we have been purchased by God. It’s just like someone put me on the auction block and sold me to a new owner. Everything in my life changed. My new massa set me free, and if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed. I don’t have to be serving that old massa no more, and neither do you. It’s time for you to get free from your sin, Grady. Jesus bought and paid for you, and He wants to set you free.”

Grady couldn’t help remembering how his life had changed when Massa Fletcher put him on the auction block and sold him to Coop. Nor could he forget the glorious sense of freedom he felt under his new owner, Massa Fuller. When Old Jesse had driven him down the shell road from Beaufort to the plantation, leaving his life with Coop behind forever, Grady had felt … born again.

“Jesus forgave me the same day I asked Him to,” Joseph said. “He gave me a second chance, and now I’m serving Him. That’s God’s grace. He keeps offering us His love, even when the only thing we deserve is death.” He gripped Grady’s shoulders, forcing him to face him. “You could hang for killing that man, Grady. But God’s giving you a second chance. Use it.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Jacksonville, Florida
Spring 1863

Grady stood onboard the
John Adams
and watched the houses of Jacksonville burn, the bright flames dancing through their windows and licking their rooftops. Bitter smoke filled his nostrils and permeated his uniform. He felt ash on his tongue and in his throat. Then the ship rounded a bend in the river and the city disappeared from sight. His regiment had strict orders
not
to burn the city they were abandoning—and they hadn’t. It had been white soldiers who had ignited the blaze, not the colored troops. Grady watched the plume of smoke billowing into the sky above the trees and imagined all the fortifications he’d worked so hard to build being reduced to ashes. But at least the Rebels wouldn’t be able to make use of them.

In a way, Grady felt relieved to be leaving Jacksonville. He’d heard nothing more about the investigation into Edward Coop’s death, but every time he glimpsed Coop’s house across the street, his stomach had churned. Was it fear or guilt? Grady couldn’t decide. At least now he would no longer have to see the house, a daily reminder of what he had done.

But they shouldn’t be abandoning Jacksonville after occupying it for barely a month. Why were they all leaving? Even the two regiments of white soldiers that had arrived to serve as reinforcements had been ordered to leave. There was no reason for it that Grady could see. The city had been secure in Union hands. In fact, Colonel Higginson had announced plans to move his men upriver seventy-five miles to Palatka and establish a second foothold farther inland. But suddenly the order had come, recalling the entire expedition, evacuating Jacksonville. Everyone Grady talked to about it felt as bitterly disappointed as he did.

As he stood at the ship’s rail, he saw Captain Metcalf come up from belowdecks to stand alone in the stern. Grady usually avoided white men, but his need to understand why they’d left Jacksonville outweighed his natural aversion. He crossed the rolling deck to where the captain stood and saluted.

“Excuse me, Captain. I’m sorry to be bothering you, but … but I don’t understand why we’re leaving. Seems like the wrong thing to be doing.” Grady was aware that his anger was showing—in the way that he stood, in the tone of voice he used, and in his scowling features. He wished he could disguise his resentment, but he didn’t know how. Anger had ruled his life for a very long time.

“I understand your frustration,” Metcalf replied. “A lot of us are leaving Jacksonville with heavy hearts.”

“But why give up a place that we worked so hard to secure?”

“That’s the way war is,” the officer replied, spreading his hands. “Men in the lower ranks like you and me are seldom told what the orders from above are all about. We just have to trust that the people in command know what they’re doing. They can see the bigger picture. We’re part of a much larger plan than what we can see.”

Grady had the eerie feeling that the captain was delivering one of Joe’s sermons or Delia’s lectures, telling him to trust God no matter what, even when things didn’t make sense. But Grady needed to know that his life, his hard work, did somehow make sense.

“But what did it accomplish?” he persisted. “All that time we spent reinforcing the city. Was it just a waste?”

“Well, no. I can see a couple of things.” Metcalf leaned against the rail and faced Grady. He was talking to him as an equal—as if Grady were a white man. Grady still wasn’t used to that, but he shoved his astonishment aside for a moment to concentrate on what the captain was saying.