Nat Turner risked everything. Kill or be killed. Outside in the dark, he looked in through the window at Nathaniel Francis.
If there was such a thing, Nathaniel was the worst, the vilest. Not much more than a boy, he treated the people around him like cornshuck dolls, like disposable toys. He had made the lives of so many miserable, had destroyed lives—Mother Easter, Will, Sam, Charlotte, Davy. And when he was tired of them, he sold them to a hangman’s noose for money to buy more things. How had Nathaniel grown from a boy to become this monster?
The younger man, a rifle across his lap, jumped at every sound or movement—a log shifting in the fire or the candle’s flickering flame. Across the room, on the floor, Nat Turner saw poor Mother Easter. Without cover, without even leaves, she was curled into a ball lying on the cold, hard floor.
He stared inside, knowing that with the flame inside and the window’s reflection Nathaniel Francis could not see him. Nat Turner gripped the scythe tighter in his hand, felt every notch and nick.
He had no gun so he would have to strike within arm’s length. Nat Turner ducked under the window so there would be no shadow and then, squatting, inched his way closer to the door. Closer. Closer. You must destroy the root.
Closer.
One of Nathaniel Francis’s dogs began barking. Nat Turner tried to quiet the dog, but it wanted to play. The dog continued to bark. Nat Turner held his breath.
Then a crash inside; Nathaniel Francis stumbled from his chair.
Nat Turner heard the younger man’s hand jerking the door open. Nat Turner turned to run. Past the window, through the stream of light, he heard Nathaniel Francis shout, “You black devil!”
Before he stepped from the clearing into the darkness again, Nat Turner heard a blast, then heard and felt something whiz by his head—a pellet from the shotgun blast. Nat Turner’s chances were over. Nathaniel Francis had seen him.
The captors would let no one rest until they found him.
WHEN HIS NEXT visitor came to the great oak, he brought bread and news. “Hunting you. They’ve gone after the freemen—the Artis brothers, the Hathcocks, and Berry Newsom—hoping to rout you.”
Nat Turner sent for Benjamin Phipps.