Cross Keys
February 1831
Ten years had passed since Nat Turner’s return from the Great Dismal Swamp. Now he waited for a sign. Standing next to Yellow Nelson, he looked over the Whitehead farm, then back toward the fields, toward the singing. No one told the love story like a prostitute, a leper, a slave. There was nothing like God loving you when everyone and everything said He should not, including the law.
He had learned to give thanks for them—for the singing captives and their troubles—just as he did for the cold and the frost on the ground.
They believed each day might be the day when God would turn their captivity. It was strange that no one seemed to believe God’s promises more than those who had already paid with their blood.
Since his return, Nat Turner had continued his prayers—for the captives and for the captors. He prayed that he would be ready for war at the same time that he prayed for change, hoping there would be no need to be ready. He prayed that the captors would turn, and each day, with the miracle of each new sun, he prayed for the miracle of new hearts. He prayed for mercy. He prayed for vengeance, that the captors would receive their just reward.
How long, Lord? The men were tired and angry. The women were heartbroken. The children had never learned hope.
Nat Turner carried a burden—a burden from his mother and from Christ’s yoke—he hoped he would never have to lay on his people’s shoulders. Every day he prayed for mercy for his enemies—his brothers. Every day he prayed that the call he’d been given would not have to be fulfilled, that they would choose mercy and not judgment.
God had given him the gift of His holy confession, but it was a weighty gift. It was a God-sized burden resting on his too-human shoulders.
Every day he prayed it would not happen. Every day part of him tried to convince himself that he had hallucinated. But when he looked around him, at the suffering of the people, Nat Turner knew it was true and he waited for a sign.
He preached to those who would listen to the warning that God had given. Most of them laughed and called him crazy. No white man would listen to a word from a black man, not even a word sent from God. But there was the case of the cruel overseer Ethelred Brantley.
Brantley was known and admired about Cross Keys, in Jerusalem, and throughout Southampton County as a violent and sadistic man. There was nothing he would not do to torment a captive. He had been known to hack limbs off those he had charge over for missing quotas. He smiled as he beat them, even killed them—man, woman, or child.
But there was a time when, covered with boils, Brantley sought out Nat Turner. Brantley had heard there was healing in Nat Turner’s hands. He preached to Brantley God’s warning. Nat Turner expected the man to beat him, to be like Pharaoh, but instead Brantley fell to his knees and begged forgiveness. He became a follower of the way and begged to be baptized.
Many of the slaves had grumbled at the thought of Brantley being forgiven. They had nodded agreement—though for different reasons—when Richard Whitehead, the pastor of Turner’s Meeting Place, refused to baptize him.
“How dare you approach me, you savage? You might be pampered and fawned over by others, but I know who you are. I’ve known who you were since we were boys. You are a soulless demon using your tongue and your wit to fool innocent people. But I know who you are!” Richard Whitehead spit at him.
“You may think you are more than the others, but you are nothing. I would no more baptize you, no more baptize you with Jesus’ sweet name than I would a dog!”
Whitehead pointed a shotgun at the two of them. “You have seduced this fool Brantley, Nat Turner, but you will not fool me. You are a cunning one, aren’t you. What is your plan, to be baptized and then petition the court for your freedom? You heathen!
“You think you will be a preacher or a trustee? You think your mother will sit on a pew next to mine? All you will ever be is a nigger!” He spit at Brantley. “And you are a nigger-lover!” Whitehead yelled after the two of them. “Get away from here, you devils!” Whitehead ran him and Brantley off his farm.
Nat Turner had chafed under the people’s criticism when he baptized Brantley at Pierson Mill Pond, was saddened that some still did not understand his return to slavery from the freedom of the Great Dismal Swamp.
There had been white people who mocked him and Brantley as they arose from the water. But it was the mocking of those he was risking his life for—the condemnation of the other captives—that hurt Nat Turner the most. He understood their suffering and their anger; he was a partaker, too.
But he reminded himself that he had not been sent back to please them; he came back to obey and please God. He had not come back for their praise; he had returned for their deliverance.
The morning passed quietly into the afternoon. His stomach rumbled. It was winter and there were no bruised apples lying on the ground. He smelled the aroma of good things being baked in the Whiteheads’ kitchen.
A cock crowed.
Nat Turner looked up then.
The sky darkened.
The sign.