A Light to My Path

by Lynn Austin

  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.

  “For one thing, you may not realize it, but everything our regiment does is groundbreaking. Folks thought slaves were simple, fearful creatures who would run off in a panic when the first bomb exploded. You proved them wrong. Other people said slaves would never be able to handle military discipline—that they were flighty and lazy, quick to give up and slow to learn. But there have been fewer disciplinary actions and desertions in our regiment than in any white regiment in the Union army. People have been watching us. Our every move is reported in the Northern presses. And thanks to our success, several other all-Negro regiments have formed. There’s one up in Massachusetts that’s made up of free Negroes, not slaves. You should read some of the articles that they’re writing about us in the newspapers.”

  Grady nodded, but he still couldn’t read. His lessons had ended when the regiment left for Jacksonville. He determined to return to his studies when he got back to Beaufort and learn to read those newspapers for himself.

  “We broke new ground in Jacksonville, too,” Metcalf continued. “When those two white regiments arrived, it was the first time in history that white and black soldiers served together on regular duty. I witnessed a lot of mutual respect between the races back there. You proved that skin color doesn’t matter on the battlefield.”

  While Captain Metcalf was speaking, Colonel Higginson himself—the regiment’s commanding officer—walked over to join them. Grady was stunned when Higginson entered the stream of conversation as if all three of them were white.

  “I’ll tell you what else it accomplished,” the colonel said. “After John Brown’s slave rebellion, many Northerners believed that if we gave a slave a gun he’d exact vengeance, indiscriminately killing men, women, and children all over the South. That hasn’t happened. Except for that one civilian fatality, no whites were ever harmed in Jacksonville. And we only have the word of the man’s wife that it was Negro soldiers who killed him. Frankly, I don’t believe that it could have been anyone from my regiment. I’ve found my soldiers to be honest, honorable men.”

  Grady stood very still, holding his breath. He didn’t dare speak, afraid he would betray his guilt. But when the colonel turned to him, Grady couldn’t help averting his gaze, pretending to look at the passing scenery.

  “The former slaves’ exemplary behavior under arms has shamed the nation,” Higginson continued. “A lot of people up north are feeling guilty for not coming forward sooner to help free the slaves.”

  “What’s your understanding of why we’re leaving?” Captain Metcalf asked the colonel. “Were the troops needed elsewhere? Were there too few to hold the post alone?”

  “Maybe one of those was the case,” Higginson said with a shrug, “and maybe not. I’ll tell you what I think—but I have no proof. Our slave regiment has made history and changed a lot of prejudices. But there are still people in Congress who aren’t so eager to see slavery abolished. They’re willing to compromise with the South in order to bring this war to an end. Our regiment has freed a great many slaves … I wonder if maybe the pro-slavery people wanted the recruiting to halt.”

  Anger boiled up inside Grady before he could stop it. “Anyone who’s thinking slavery is okay ought to come down here and try being a slave himself for a while! He ought to see how he likes being owned by someone. How it feels to be so powerless that even your own wife can’t be yours.”

  The colonel nodded faintly and rested his hand on Grady’s shoulder. “I hope you realize, son, that the end of the war won’t bring an end to the battles your race will face. No, I’m afraid your fight is only beginning.”

  * * *

  Great Oak Plantation

  Missy Claire’s face flushed with anger as she confronted her father at the dinner table. “You promised you’d take me back to Charleston for Easter! You can’t go back on your promise now!” Kitty had never heard Missy speak to Massa Goodman in that tone of voice before, and she shrank back into the doorway, fearing that both of their tempers would erupt. But Massa Goodman’s response
was surprisingly patient.

  “We can’t sail down the Edisto River anymore, Claire. Our soldiers have barricaded it near Wiltown Bluff to keep the Yankees out. Besides, we’d never get past the Union fleet that’s anchored outside Charleston harbor. It’s a dangerous trip, even for the blockade-runners—and they do it at night in ships that are much smaller and swifter than ours.”

  “Can’t we go by carriage?”

  He exhaled. “It’s a long, rough journey by carriage. The spring rains turn the roads into mud pits this time of year. We’d need a team of Negroes just to push us out of all the bogs. That’s why I go back and forth on horseback. Can’t you wait until summer?”

  “No! I’m so bored out here! I want to visit with my friends in town and see our cousins. It’s been two years since I’ve been to Charleston. Please, Daddy. You promised.”

  He kept his eyes on his plate as he cut off a piece of meat and chewed it slowly. “Don’t you think your baby is a bit young to travel so far?”

  Missy frowned. “The baby isn’t going. He’s staying here with Mammy Bertha.”

  Kitty looked at her mistress in surprise. She couldn’t imagine leaving her own child behind for months at a time. Babies grew so fast, changed so quickly. Kitty would miss little Richard while she was in Charleston, and he wasn’t even hers.

  Richard had just celebrated his first birthday in February and was learning to toddle around the nursery on his sturdy white legs. It hardly seemed possible that a year had passed since Richard was born. That was the day Kitty’s life had changed so horribly, the day the Confederates had come for the horses and Missy had ordered Grady whipped and sent down to Slave Row.

  “I wish you would change your mind about going to Charleston,” Massa Goodman said. But Kitty could have told her massa that the more he tried to discourage Missy Claire, the more determined she would be to go. Missy never gave up on anything until she got her own way.