The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial (39 page)

How can you say that? Look at you! Look at the chains! Look what they've done to you! How could a loving and just God allow that?

As soon as she said the words, Nat Turner felt the weight of the chains around his ankles and wrists. The iron bars between the two of them seemed colder. He felt the soreness, the ache from his head to his feet. The dried scabs around his mouth made it difficult to speak.

The silver moon made a halo in her hair.
Evil men did this to you! Is that love? How can that be just?

He wanted to hold her. God knew us before we were born into this world. I believe He asked me to leave my heavenly home to
come here. I believe He asked the same of you, of all of us, even if we are only here for a moment. I believe He told us we were needed here.

A lot of good we have done!

I believe He told us ahead of time that we would be sheep among wolves and that we would suffer to help others. She was so beautiful, his Cherry. She was a princess in the moonlight. I believe He told you there would not be much joy for you here—no fine dresses, no great houses—but He promised you flowers. He looked down at her feet covered in moonflowers; he smelled the honeysuckle. He looked up at the dark blue sky. Stars and the moon. I believe He promised you me.

That promise is broken!

I think He promised that I would sing to you.

Another broken promise. You never sing.

And I believe He told you that I would need you—that you would be my joy, that you would make my life bearable. He wanted to remember everything about her—her hands, her feet, her smile, her frown. I believe you agreed to come, Cherry. Even knowing that you would suffer. He heard her weeping. Her shoulders shook; she cried from her belly. I believe you agreed to come for me and to bear my son. I believe you agreed to come to help the world, to bring joy to the world.

But who have I helped, Nathan? What good has it all been?
She came closer. Pressing herself against the cold bars, stretching, hoping to touch him, even if only with the tips of her fingers. Reaching. Reaching.

I agreed to come, Cherry. He told me that I would be beaten for His name's sake. Hated. I believe that He told me that I would be heartbroken, hated by the people I loved. He whispered her name. But not you, Cherry. Not you. He tried to smile.

I don't want you to die, Nathan.

He promised me a few joys—my mother, my son, the books…. He promised me you, the love of my life, your love. He choked.
The tears surprised him, sudden and stinging. It was hard to talk through the tears. We all agreed to come. Don't you remember? Hoping we could make it better. Out of love; love for Him and love for them, even the ones who don't love us back. Don't you remember? We have to remember, Cherry.

We agreed to come. This world is so cruel and so hard, some only have the heart to come for a short time, just a flash, a hope. Some only have the heart to come close, but not to stay. But you and I agreed to come, to live in this world and sacrifice everything—just in hopes that we might help one person—sad Charlotte, Mother Easter, or maybe even Nathaniel Francis. Knowing that we will return to a better home.

All our lives matter, all our comings to this world. Sheep among wolves… it matters. He was quiet for a moment. He searched her face. He wanted to remember everything. I could not have done it without you. She brushed her feet through the flowers. He sang to her.

O Shenandoah, I love your daughter

Away, you rolling river

O Shenandoah, I love your daughter

Away, I'm bound away

I could not have done it without you. His voice failed him. He tried again. Tell my son… tell my son I did my best. Tell him I love him.

He knows.

I did my best. It was a beginning. Tell him the truth.

He knows.

We died as men. Tell him that we are all heroes!

I will, my love.

Away, I'm bound away

Cross the wide Missouri.

S
aturday, November 5th, 1831. Nat Turner repeated the date to himself. Saturday, November 5th, 1831. As the armed guard marched him into the courtroom, he looked at the faces—lies and anger in their eyes, countenances full of poison.

They were all slavery men and women, but maybe a tiny bit of mercy would still save them—a pig's foot, a shriveled potato, or an old, torn blanket.

The people screamed and cursed at him, and they cried. They would take him away and hang him themselves. There was no need for a trial; they already knew the truth. Claws grabbed at him. The judges ordered twenty-five more armed guards so the people wouldn't carry him away.

Nat, alias Nat Turner, v. the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The courtroom was crowded, packed even with people from out of town. They had set extra chairs in place for the visiting judges. Ten judges.

And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.

There were no black faces in the room—at least none that were not passing as white—no Negro guards, no one. The armed guards around him were three men deep on all sides, except his front, which faced the judges.

Benjamin Phipps, invisible in the throng, was pressed against the back wall. Nat Turner saw his brother John Clarke Turner pointing at him, sitting near Nathaniel Francis.

It was difficult to see the crowd once he sat down, but Nat Turner felt them and heard them. He felt the anger, the hot bloodlust in the air around him. Nothing would satisfy them but death.

“You had us fooled before, nigger, with your reading and your bowing, but we got you now!”

“You gonna dangle from that tree, boy!”

When William Parker entered Nat Turner's “not guilty” plea, the crowd erupted with outrage. He was a murderer, they said, and they demanded his head.

There was not to be much to the trial. Nat Turner did not expect more. He was not allowed to speak in his defense. There was no one to speak in his defense.

There was only one witness against him: an eyewitness, Levi Waller.

Levi Waller spoke lies, drunken lies. He drank even as he gave his testimony. Then Levi Waller said one true thing.

A slip of the tongue, or the hand of God?

William Parker seemed startled, then quickly regained his composure. He paused momentarily. He sighed and then began to press Levi Waller. “My question is this: Where were you, Mr. Waller?” Parker sighed again. “You testified you were in your home, and then you testified you were hidden in the weeds. Now, today, you tell us you were hidden in the plum grove and then in the swamp. Is there a swamp close to your house?”

Levi Waller was silent.

Parker cleared his throat. “Where were you? Where were you, Mr. Waller?”

Levi looked at the judges but did not answer.

“You mentioned some other place I've never heard you mention before, Mr. Waller. You said the teacher came to meet you there. Where was it you said you were?”

Waller looked at Nathaniel Francis. He nodded at Levi to reassure him, but Levi's mouth began to tremble. He hung his head. “My still.”

Waller did not see anything. He frowned as though the words hurt, as though they were being pulled from inside him. Waller did not see anything. He was at his still.

Nat Turner looked away then. He imagined those who had died because of Waller's perjury. Families left fatherless. Children without a mother. So many broken hearts. He thought he saw them among the martyrs, among the witnesses. Though the courtroom was silent, as before a tornado, he thought he heard their voices among those of the witnesses.

Who would pay for their murders? No one moved to charge Levi Waller.

Then, in the courtroom, the screaming and shouting began again. The crowd demanded Nat Turner's blood. Waller's lies, his failure, only intensified their need.

Nat Turner looked at the two judges, Trezvant and James Parker. Would they speak? Would they warn the people and encourage them to repent?

Then Congressman Trezvant smiled at the people in the courtroom, as though to reassure them. Then his face was solemn, sitting as a judge, now testifying as a witness, Trezvant began to speak. “Nat Turner is a religious zealot, a fanatic, carried away by the lust for power and money. He has confessed his guilt to me. Persuaded by zealotry, Nat Turner and his band were motivated by ignorance and greed—by the love of money,” Trezvant said.

But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.

For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.

“Nothing I have done has ever been for money!” Nat Turner shouted the words in the midst of Congressman Trezvant's impromptu testimony. Nat Turner had not intended to speak.

The words had gushed from him, pushed up from his belly. But the people and the judges did not want to hear him. Nat Turner was warned to be quiet.

He sat mute in front of the drunken, screaming mob. There was no deliberation.

Trezvant smiled as he delivered the verdict. “The Court after hearing the testimony and from all the circumstances of the case is unanimously of the opinion that the prisoner is guilty. It is considered by the Court that you be taken hence to the jail from whence you were taken therein to remain until Friday the 11th day of November, on which day between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and four o'clock in the afternoon you are to be taken by the sheriff to the usual place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead.” Trezvant struck the gavel thrice for show.

The congressman looked at the clerk and then at Nathaniel Francis. “The Court values the said slave to the sum of three hundred and fifty”—Nathaniel Francis objected and Trezvant changed the amount—“three hundred and seventy-five dollars.” William Parker, relative to young Acting Judge James Parker, was allowed the sum of ten dollars for defending Nat Turner.

O
utside the jailhouse people yelled, pelting the jail with stones. Pounding the outer door, they threatened to take Nat Turner. Frenzy. His six final days Nat Turner spent alone without visitors, except for one visit by Thomas Gray.

None of his family, no black people could be seen in town; it was too dangerous. The white people of Cross Keys and Jerusalem were united now. All of Southampton County and their guests were celebrating; they had tied a black man to a horse and dragged him to his death.

Two days after Nat Turner's trial, Thomas Gray came. Gray was his friend. But Thomas would have to be both friend and family now. Nat Turner was comforted at the thought of him.

Tears filled Thomas's eyes when he saw Nat Turner. “I wanted to come sooner. But it has been too dangerous for me to see you. You understand?”

What did Thomas want him to say in response? Weren't friends born for times of adversity?

“Now they've asked me to come to you. They've asked me…”

They?
It was so easy to read his childhood friend's thoughts and heart. It was what made him endearing. It was also the same trait that made him dangerous. It was always a game, a game Nat Turner could not win.

“With all the confusion in the courtroom, they've asked me to help clarify what happened. They've asked me to write, to create a sort of confession.”

“A confession? What confession? I pled innocent, just like all
the others. I have confessed to nothing. I am not guilty. I have offered no confession. The trial is over. There is already a record.”

“They mean to recreate the record… the trial.”

They meant to devise a lie. “Trezvant, Nathaniel Francis, Levi Waller? They want you to be their writer.”

Thomas Gray bowed his head. Nat Turner thought he saw a tear slide down his friend's face.

“You don't understand, Nat. They threaten my family… me.” He looked up and then down again. “I'm not as strong as you.”

“What have you done, Thomas? What is your part in this?”

To save his own life, Thomas would offer up the private things the two of them had shared, their childhood—Nat's private thoughts, not Thomas's—Nat's dreams. “Will you write it alone? Will others work with you to create the lie? Trezvant, I suppose?” His sense of betrayal was worse than any anger he had ever felt. “What part will you tell in the story? Our childhood, the things I told you in private? I imagine Trezvant will add his fantasies to it.”

“I am not the only one. John Clarke is involved, and Nathaniel Francis, and Levi Waller.”

“I might have known. You trade men's lives for a few coins. What was your share?” Nat Turner looked at his friend. “They use you to plunge the blade and turn it; they use you to betray me.” The drying scabs made it painful, but he smiled at his friend. “So, finally, you will write your novel.”

“You don't understand.” Thomas Gray wept.

Of course he understood. Everything Nat Turner had and hoped for in this world was lost. He was about to give up his life, and what would be left behind now, the story of his life, would be a lie. It was futile. He should have sailed away.

There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses,
and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.

He could not sail away. He had promised and there was a family debt he owed.