Without Will the days were silent. Autumn was coming—Nat Turner saw it in the moon and felt it in the air. Fall was coming in the way she came to Virginia, walking slowly to let everyone know she was in no hurry. The days were still warm, but the nights were cooler. The evenings came sooner and a few leaves had fallen. Autumn was adorning herself in bright colors—crimson, ginger, and gold—though most of the leaves were still green. Nat Turner smelled her perfume—smoke from hearth fires and the heady sweetness of fermented valley apples.
He wanted to make a fire—there were rabbits and squirrels to catch—but he knew he would be discovered. Instead, when he was out, he gathered more leaves and branches to warm himself.
Night had become his daytime. In the darkness, he gleaned in the abandoned fields. He found corn gone to seed, rotting potatoes, shriveled apples, whatever was left behind. He got bolder over time, creeping nearer the farmhouses so he was able to snatch a few eggs.
In the daylight he sheltered and waited in the darkness of the cave. From where he sat, he sometimes saw deer moving gracefully across the forest grounds or rabbits hopping by.
Nat Turner passed most of his daylight hours sleeping. In the beginning he had been afraid to sleep. He thought his dreams would be tormented by Sallie, by the Wallers, and the others. But God was merciful. Mostly he dreamed of Cherry and the last time he had seen her dancing near the oak in the moonlight in the early summer.
In his dreams he smelled her flowers. He heard her laugh. He smelled her hair. In his dreams he heard rhythms of a place he knew but had never been. He felt the cool tickle of the highland breezes on his neck.
Soon it would be winter, the days would be cold, the leaves would all fall, and his hiding place would be exposed. But for now, he was safe.
Two days had come and gone since Will left. The armed patrollers still guarded the roads at night on horseback, carrying torches. But one night, not long ago, he had risked letting Cherry know that he was alive and still near to her, and that he had kept his promise: He would never leave her again.
He had crept as close as he dared to Giles Reese’s farmhouse. Remaining in the woods, but close enough that he could see the candlelight in the windows, he had used the bird call and hoped she would recognize him.
The next night when he had awakened he had found a piece of corn bread and two pieces of fried salt pork wrapped in an old cloth near the tree. Cherry did not dare come to him herself; the captors were watching her. But she sent others she trusted to the tree.
It was dangerous to come, so it was not unusual for weeks to pass before anyone came by. They threw him leftover bread, sometimes a tiny precious morsel of meat, and they dropped him tidbits of news. They never entered the cave and he never came out. His visitors risked speaking only a few whispered words. “Hearings have started. Old John Clarke Turner fingered you.” He heard in the messenger’s voice that even he felt the sting of a brother’s betrayal.
More days and weeks would pass before anyone came again—days of wind, rain, more leaves falling, less food to be scrounged from the land. Then there was news of men being hamstrung—their tendons severed—and women being raped. There was word of men hanging from trees, their heads atop poles. Then weeks later, “All’s quiet now.”
To pass the time Nat Turner would try to imagine his visitors, to recognize the voices. Was it one of the freemen? One of the trusted captives who had recently visited Giles Reese’s place?
“A reward out for you,” he was told during his next visit. “Over one thousand dollars!” Almost seven times what a farmer could expect to earn in a year in Southampton County.
More weeks passed, weeks of prayer, prayers for the living and the dead, for captives and captors. Hark was gone. Sam was gone. Yellow Nelson and Dred gone…. Holy Maryam, the God-bearer, pray that your beloved son, Jesus Christ, may forgive us.His life was never going to be what he had hoped. He would never see Ethiopia. There was never going to be a family of brothers who welcomed him, who loved him. Like Canaan, it was his own family who condemned him to slavery. Like Joseph, it was his own brothers who beat him, though it was a brother’s wife who sold him into slavery. It was his brother John Clarke who betrayed him.
Nat Turner prayed for the witnesses to come, to comfort him, to reassure him. But he was alone. Only the words he had memorized comforted him. Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Then one day the news came he had dreaded. “More hangings.” Nat Turner mourned them. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Another visitor passed. “More hangings.” There were names among the deceased who were not part of the army. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
But it did not end there. There was more suffering. “Nathan, Curtis, and Stephen.” It was torment to hear the roll call of the dead. There were faithful soldiers among them. But the captors were also killing innocent men, women, and children—exchanging captive lives for money. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. “Joe and Lucy gone to the gallows. Little Moses sold, sent Deep South. Beat him. Poor little fella lied to save himself, just like Hubbard and Venus.” Lucy? A girl? And little Moses? Nat Turner wept over the names and the lives. He wept over the deaths of the innocents.
Nat Turner wrestled with himself. Perhaps, if he surrendered, the captors would free the others. But he knew, even as he prayed, that his death would bring peace to no one. It would cause heartbreak for his family, for his mother, and for Cherry. His surrendering now would do no good. He could not force his time to come. His hour and time were in the hands of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Jim and Isaac hanged.” All the innocents sent to slaughter. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
There were more leaves now, and green had given way to orange and scarlet. There were still patrollers with torches on the roads, but not as frequent, and there were fewer gunshots. The sun was shorter and the moon longer. Weeks passed and then Nat Turner got the word he dreaded most, “They beat your Cherry! Beat her awful!”