A Light to My Path

by Lynn Austin

Joe grinned and his thin face glowed in the dim light. “Want to hear what I just read?” He didn’t wait for Grady to reply but began to read in a slow, halting voice. “‘When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back… . In God I have put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.’”

  “You better be afraid,” Grady said. “They can kill you, Joe. That’s what man can ‘do unto you.’”

  “They can kill my body, but not my soul. That belongs to God.”

  Grady made a show of indifference, turning the newspaper to the next page, folding it in half, scanning the headlines. But who did his soul belong to? He’d asked God to forgive him for killing Coop, but Grady didn’t feel any different. As he listened to Joe humming the slave trader’s song along with the fiddle, he wondered if God had even heard his prayer.

  * * *

  Great Oak Plantation

  Kitty moaned as the carriage bounced over a rut, jarring her. For most of the way home on this long ride from Charleston, her abdomen had been tightening as hard as a stone with each jolt and bump in the road. Now the squeezing was becoming very painful as the spasms gripped her back and spread all through her middle.

  “You okay?” the driver asked. “Want me to slow down?”

  “No, please don’t,” Kitty breathed. “How much farther?”

  “Just another mile or two. We’re almost there.”

  She sat high on the seat beside the driver, with Cook and Daisy crammed in beside them. The sun beat down relentlessly, and the damp air wrapped around Kitty’s skin like a wet wool blanket. Clouds of dust from the road filled her mouth and lungs, and she longed for a drink of water. If only Missy would let her ride in the coach with her and Missus Goodman. The journey would have been just as long and tiring, but at least she would be out of the sun and dust—and the coach had springs to cushion the long, bumpy ride.

  The decision to return to Great Oak had been made in a hurry. Thousands of Union troops had landed on Morris Island to attack Fort Wagner. “If they win control of that strip of beach,” Massa Goodman had warned, “they could easily shell the city from there.” He had elected to remain in Charleston as part of the home guard. Massa Fuller had returned to fight with his regiment, in spite of Missy’s tears and pleas, his bandaged arm in a sling. The women had decided to return to the plantation.

  By the time the carriage pulled into the yard at Great Oak, Kitty was in so much pain that Daisy and Cook had to help her climb down from the seat.

  “Kitty, make sure you hang my gowns in the wardrobe right away, so they don’t wrinkle,” Missy ordered as she stepped out of the carriage. “And don’t forget … Kitty! Are you listening to me?”

  She was struggling to make sense of the orders Missy was issuing, but she felt so light-headed that she was afraid she might faint.

  “I’m sorry, Missy. I been having pains—” She inhaled sharply as another one gripped her. She doubled over, clutching her middle.

  “Are you having your baby?” Missy demanded.

  “I-I think so,” Kitty gasped.

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, go someplace else and have it, not in my house.” She hurried up the front steps and into the house as if Kitty’s condition was contagious.

  “Here, now, let me help you,” the driver offered after all the trunks had been unloaded from the carriage.

  “Take me to Delia’s cabin,” Kitty breathed. “It’s down on the Row.”

  “O Lord, you poor child,” Delia moaned when she saw her. “You come right on in and lay down. How long have you been suffering?”

  “I don’t know … it was taking forever to get home… .” She gasped as another pain twisted through her. Delia shooed two toddlers off her bed and helped Kitty lie down, then mopped her sweating face with a cloth.

  “I’m going for the midwife, honey,” she told her. “Don’t you be having that baby till I get back, you hear?”

  Kitty smiled faintly despite her pain. Then tears of relief and joy filled her eyes. Delia was here with her. She had come home to Delia, and now everything would be okay. Thank God for the Yankees. If they hadn’t attacked when they did, Kitty would still be in Charleston having her baby in the slave dormitory, all alone. As grueling as the carriage ride had been, at least it had brought her home to Delia.

  The next few hours in the stifling cabin all blended together in a haze of pain and sweat. Kitty was barely aware of Delia smoothing the hair off her brow, or of the midwife helping her onto the birthing stool, as pain gripped her like a fist and tried to rip her in half. Then her baby was born. Kitty heard his helpless cry, and her painful struggle was forgotten in a rush of love.

  “It’s a little boy, honey,” Delia told her. “You have a son.”

  The midwife wiped him clean and wrapped him in a cloth. Kitty stretched out trembling arms to take him. He was so beautiful, so warm and weightless as he rested in her arms, his smooth brown skin so perfect. And he was hers! Her child. She couldn’t recall ever holding something so beautiful that was hers alone.

  As she gazed down at him, the baby’s face puckered into a scowl, as if he was angry at the whole world. “Look, Delia,” she whispered in awe. “I see his daddy … don’t you?”

  “Oh yes. He surely does have Grady’s proud chin. You gonna name him after his daddy, honey?”

  Kitty drew a shaky breath. “I can’t—it’s too hard. Just seeing his face this way is hard enough. I can’t be saying his name, too… . I miss him so much.”

  “I understand. You can name that little boy whatever you want to. You’re his mama.”

  A tear rolled down Kitty’s cheek. “Grady was always talking about how much a person’s name means. He once took a beating for wanting to be called by the name his mama gave him. And he always called me Anna, the name my mama gave me. Missy Claire is the one who called me Kitty.” And as she gazed at her baby, she finally understood what Grady meant. It was an act of love and ownership for a mother to name her child. It was her right and no one else’s. She vowed to think of herself as Anna from now on.

  “Do you want me to call you Anna, too?” Delia asked.

  “Would you?”

  “Sure, honey.” Delia stroked the baby’s head, her brown hand dark against his bronze skin. “Is there someone else you’d like to name him after? Your own daddy, maybe?”

  Anna thought for a moment. “I can’t hardly remember my daddy, but I don’t ever want him to be forgotten. He died trying to help me be free.”

  “What was his name, honey?”

  “George.” She looked down at the tiny boy in her arms and kissed his soft brow. “I’ll name you George,” she told him. “After your granddaddy.”

  Delia helped Anna get settled in bed, and the midwife showed her how to nurse her baby. The warmth and closeness brought tears to her eyes each time he suckled.

  The next three days were among the happiest ones that Anna had ever lived. The only memory that came close to it was the night she had spent with Grady. But at the close of the third day, Mammy Bertha walked down from the Big House to see her.

  “How you doing, girl?” she asked. “My, what a beautiful baby boy. He sure is looking strong and healthy, ain’t he? You should be right proud of yourself.”

  “He’s a hungry fella, too,” Anna said with a smile. “Seems like he’s wanting to eat every time I turn around.”

  “I suppose you know that Missy Claire sent me to fetch you,” Mammy Bertha said, her smile fading. “You better be coming back up to the Big House, first thing tomorrow morning. She can’t get along without you, and she’s putting us through all kinds of misery. We can’t do nothing to please her.”

  “I’ll be there,” Anna promised. But her mind raced in a hundred directions as Bertha said good-bye, trying to picture how she would work things out. “What am I going to do?” she asked Delia.

  “Well, when slave babies are this little and still needing their mamas to feed them, the field slaves make a sling and carry their little on
es all around with them. I’ll show you how to do it. They’re carrying them right along to the fields while they’re working or laying them down at the end of the row to sleep in the shade.” The next morning, Delia helped Anna wrap baby George in her shawl so she could carry him up to the Big House with her. Anna arrived well before dawn so she could be in Missy’s room the moment she awoke and called for her. Since George slept for so many hours every day, Anna planned to ask Mammy Bertha to find him a place to sleep in a corner of the nursery, somewhere. But Anna was still carrying little George in his sling when Missy woke up and called for her. She hurried to her mistress’ bedside.

  “I would like my breakfast now, and—what is that thing around you?” Missy asked.

  “This here is my little baby, George—”

  “How dare you bring that child in here!”

  “You said you needed me to work and …”

  “I do need you, but not with a baby hanging on to you like an opossum.”

  “But I have to feed him every little while, Missy Claire. How else will he eat if I—?”

  Missy threw the covers aside and climbed from the bed so swiftly that Anna jumped back a step. Claire’s face flushed pink as her temper flared. “I don’t care how or what he eats—that’s not my problem. You didn’t care how my poor Richard would be fed after he was born, and I was forced to get a nurse from Slave Row. You’ll just have to do the same thing.”

  The summer morning was very warm but Anna suddenly felt cold with dread. “Oh no, Missy Claire. Please don’t make me do that. H-he won’t be any bother. I promise—”

  “You’re my chambermaid, not a wet nurse. Now get him out of here immediately, and don’t bring him into this house again!”

  Anna hugged him tightly to herself, her panic rising at the thought of being separated from her baby. “No!” she cried. “No, please, Missy Claire!”

  Missy’s eyes widened. “How dare you tell me no!”

  “I need to be with him… . He’s my baby!” She fell to her knees, gripping Missy’s nightgown as she wept and begged. “Please, Missy … please.”

  “Stop it! Get up!” Missy said, slapping Anna’s hands.

  “Please don’t take my baby away from me. He—” “The child will be reared on Slave Row, and that’s the end of it.”

  “Then send me down to Slave Row with him. I’ll work in the fields from now on, I don’t care, but I don’t want to leave my son!”

  “You’ll do what I tell you or I’ll have you whipped.”

  “Go ahead and whip me. Make me chop cotton—”

  “If you don’t stop fussing this instant, I’ll sell your son to the slave auction.”

  “No!” Anna screamed. Her fear and despair were so great that she could scarcely breathe. “No, you can’t sell him! He’s mine!”

  Missy Claire slapped her across the face, but Anna barely felt it, her agony at the thought of losing George so much greater.

  “Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” Missy said. “He’s my property, not yours, and I can do whatever I want with him. I’ll throw him into the river, if I please.”

  “Never!” Anna cried, hugging him fiercely. “I’ll drown myself with him, and you won’t have either one of us as your slaves!” She no longer cared if she made Missy angry. In fact, she hoped Missy would be so furious that she would banish her to Slave Row forever. Anna would defy her, insult her—whatever it took to be sent down with her son. “My son is a human being, not your property!” she cried. “You can’t take him away from me! You can’t!”

  “Oh no? Watch me!” Missy yelled for Mammy Bertha and Daisy, and ordered them to pry George loose from Anna’s arms. Anna tried to shield him with her body, the same way her papa had shielded her from the paddyrollers’ dogs. She understood her parents’ desperation—and she also understood Grady’s rage. George was being ripped away from his mama, just as Grady had been ripped away from his. But Anna would not give up her son without a fight. She would not.

  She screamed and fought with all her strength, but Massa Goodman’s butler came running upstairs to help them, and they finally tore George loose from her arms. She heard his frantic, helpless cries as Bertha hurried away with him, and she remembered her own mother screaming, calling her name as the men dragged her away. Anna knew a fury powerful enough to kill, for her baby’s sake. She rose from where she lay huddled on the floor and flew at Missy Claire.

  “I hate you! I hate you!” she cried as she beat her mistress with her fists. “I wish you were dead!”

  It took the butler and two footmen to restrain Anna. They carried her, kicking and screaming, out of the Big House and down to the slave jail, shackling her to the post inside the hut. She lay on the filthy floor, weeping in rage and despair.

  By the end of the day, Anna’s breasts were so full and sore that she wept in pain. She felt bruised all over from the beating she’d taken as the men had pulled her away from Missy. She only hoped that she had hurt Missy just as badly.

  She’d had nothing to eat or drink all day. But sometime after midnight, while the plantation slept, she heard a key rattling in the lock. The door swung open and Delia slipped inside, bringing Anna’s baby to her. Sobbing, she put George to her aching breast and fed him.

  “I know, honey … I know,” Delia soothed. She cradled Anna in her arms the same way Anna cradled George. She felt the little woman’s love comforting her, quieting her aching heart. Anna knew the risk that Delia was taking. Missy would surely punish Delia severely if she got caught.

  “How … how did you know… ? Where did you get the key?”

  “That don’t matter, honey,” she said. “At least we know, now, why the Good Lord sent me down here to take care of the slave babies—why I ain’t working up at the Big House like I used to do at the Fuller Plantation.”

  “Yes,” Anna said. And she also understood why her parents had taken the risk they had when they’d attempted to escape. They loved her. They wanted her to be free. She kissed George’s tiny fingers and asked, “What am I going to do, Delia? He’s Missy Claire’s property. She owns him, and she can do whatever she wants with him. She threatened to sell him or throw him into the river.”

  “Even Missy Claire ain’t that mean.”

  “But someone else will nurse him. He’ll never know his mama or his—” She couldn’t finish.

  “You know I’ll take good care of him, honey. You know I will.”

  “But why does it have to be this way? Why does my child have to suffer, just because he has black skin? He’s no different from Missy’s son. What matters is what kind of a man he grows up to be, not the color of his skin.”

  “God knows how you’re suffering, honey. Look what they did to His Son.”

  “Why is Missy doing this to me?”

  Delia sighed. “Because everything in her life is flying out of control, with the war and all. I guess you’re the one thing she’s always been sure of, and she’s wanting you all to herself.”

  “Don’t defend her, Delia! I hate her! I hate her so much!” She remembered how Grady used to say the same thing, and now she knew why. “I wish Missy was dead!”

  “Anna … Anna. Don’t start hating. You saw what it did to poor Grady. He poisoned his heart with bitterness, until there was no room left for love.”

  “Now I understand why, Delia! I know how he feels.”

  “And are you wanting your little baby boy to grow up hating, too? Because he will, you know. He’ll learn whatever his mama teaches him. Jesus can’t be listening to our prayers if we don’t forgive.” Anna felt despair pulling her down, immobilizing her with its massive weight. “What am I going to do?” she sobbed.

  “Pray, honey. Ask Jesus to light the way for you.”

  Anna suddenly remembered her Easter prayer, and how God had miraculously answered it. “Oh, Delia!” she cried. “In all the excitement of George’s birth, I forgot to tell you. Grady’s free! He’s free, and he’s a soldier fighting with the Yankees.” />
  Delia went very still. “Where are you hearing about all this?”

  “Massa Fuller told me. He saw Grady! I went to a church in Charleston, and I prayed and asked Jesus to please tell me, somehow, if Grady was alive. And Jesus answered my prayer.”

  “And you’re saying that Grady’s free? For sure?”

  “Yes! He’s alive and he’s free. He’s with the Yankees.”

  “Oh thank you, Lord,” Delia whispered. “Thank you.” Her voice trembled with tears.

  Anna remembered the beautiful church window and the woman who lay slumped at Jesus’ feet. She was as helpless as Anna was right now. But Jesus had stretched out His strong hand to help her, to lift her up.

  “Delia, I want to ask Jesus for something else,” she said. “He helped your daughter go free, and I want to ask Him to help George. I want my baby far, far away from here, away from Missy—even if it means never seeing him again. Will you help me pray?”

  “Of course, honey.”

  “I want my baby to be free.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Beaufort, South Carolina

  July 1863

  Grady stood outside Colonel Higginson’s tent with a select group of men, listening intently as the officer outlined his plans. “Excuse me, sir,” Grady interrupted. “What’d you say the name of that river was?”

  “The Edisto. It’s about halfway between Beaufort and Charleston.” The name sounded familiar to Grady, for some reason, but he couldn’t figure out why. He pulled his mind back to the mission Colonel Higginson was describing, eager for another chance to fight the Rebels.

  “Our goal is to destroy a bridge on the Charleston & Savannah Railway,” Higginson said. “But in order to do that, we’ll need to sail some thirty miles up the river, deep into Rebel-held territory. And as always, we want to rescue as many slaves as we possibly can. There are several large rice plantations on the Edisto.”

  Grady realized, suddenly, why the name sounded so familiar to him. Great Oak Plantation—Missus Fuller’s family’s plantation—was on that river. It was where Anna and Delia had gone. He sat forward, his heart racing.