They started out at sunrise. When they reached the Edwards place, Peter Edwards’s eyes widened and his face blanched. Benjamin Phipps looked at his feet, mumbling the tale of how Nat was captured. Nat Turner nodded at Peter Edwards to confirm Benjamin Phipps’s story.
Inside, there was a fire roaring in the fireplace. It had been months since he’d been inside, even in a barn, and as he warmed, Nat Turner realized that he had been shivering. There was a mural, probably of the English countryside, painted on one wall, and a chandelier hung overhead.
Peter Edwards led them to the living room, where wood burned in another ornate fireplace. The polished hardwood floors felt smooth, but still warm, under Nat Turner’s bare feet. There were rugs here and there that felt like patches of soft spring grass. Sunlight poured through the windows bordered by heavy blue drapes.
At the center of the room was a large table surrounded by padded chairs. Peter Edwards motioned to him to sit down. Nat Turner, hesitating, shook his head. He was covered with mud and there had been no place for him to bathe.
Peter Edwards waved his hand. “Sit down. It’s only a chair. New ones are easily purchased.” Nat Turner sat on the wooden chair, the bottom padded and covered with tapestry. He slid his hands over the smooth fabric.
There was a wine decanter on a silver tray and a bowl of fruit in the center of the table atop a large lace doily. So this was comfort. Was it worth all the lives required to secure it?
Peter Edwards frowned. “You know they’ll tear you apart when they get their hands on you. I won’t be able to help you. Trezvant and Nathaniel Francis continue to make trouble. None of this would have happened if not for Nathaniel Francis…. Now he dupes Levi Waller into lying for him while Nathaniel grows rich sending poor wretches to the gallows. All the while James Trezvant is in cahoots with Francis. Our good congressman sends stories to the newspaper and he has taken control of the court, intimidating the rightful judges. He runs back and forth to Richmond, using this tragedy to build himself a national reputation, with sights set on the Senate or governorship. When things begin to settle, the two of them stir things up again.”
He paced back and forth. Peter Edwards continued to frown. “We had heard rumblings that some slaves were dissatisfied. But Nathaniel and his ilk are men with property rights. How could we interfere?” Peter Edwards resumed pacing, then stopped. “Enough have already been killed. I could put you in a wagon and get you away from here.”
“I will not leave my wife and son.”
“For goodness’ sakes, man! We have all been through enough. Let it die down; let this whole rotten affair end. Get away! Your family can follow!”
He could sail to New Orleans and pretend to be Creole. He could sail to India or Armenia and hide among them. He could return to Ethiopia. Would his people recognize him as one of their own?
Nat Turner shook his head. He could not leave his wife; he had promised. He had promised his mother. “There is a family debt I owe.” He could not leave, he could not turn back; there was a family debt he owed. The only acceptable payment was to set the captives free.
PETER EDWARDS WRUNG his hands. He opened his mouth as though about to argue and then sighed. “It won’t be safe to take you into town alone, Nat, with just the two of us. We’ll have to send for an armed guard.” Peter Edwards raked his hands through his hair. “Why didn’t you come to me before? It could have been taken care of peacefully. All of this could have been avoided.”
“What could you have done?”
“We all knew the Cross Keys bunch were troublemakers, poor white trash! It was better when white men like them were still slaves!”
Edwards’s face reddened when he looked at Phipps, remembering that he was present. “I didn’t mean you, Mr. Phipps, I meant …”
Edwards turned to a well-dressed servant waiting nearby. “Get these men some food.” Then Peter Edwards shoved his hands into his pockets. “A hundred Negroes, maybe more, have been killed right here in Southampton County—more around the state. Good people killed because of the color of their skin … and money.”
His eyes filled with tears. “My Sam… his mother is beside herself with grief … a month after the whole business was over…. John Clarke and some other ne’er-do-wells dragged poor Sam from her house … beat … hanged him … liars!” Edwards pounded the table. He flopped into a nearby chair and buried his face in his hands. Edwards looked up. “You could have come to me, Nat!”
Nat Turner stared and then Edwards turned away. “You knew but you did nothing. What choice did we have but war?”
“War?” Edwards looked back at Nat Turner, startled, then perplexed. He rose from the table and hollered toward the kitchen. “Hurry with the food!”
A servant entered the room carrying food and drink for Nat Turner and Benjamin Phipps. There was roasted chicken; the skin was crisp and still warm from the oven, served on a white ceramic plate with blue trim along with a hunk of bread made from white flour, spread with warm butter.
Nat Turner lifted the blue earthenware cup set before him. In it was hot tea sweetened with sugar. He tried not to stuff the food in his mouth, but he had been hungry too long. His hands and mouth took control. Across from him at the table, Benjamin Phipps was having no more luck being civil than he—the salty grease from the chicken smeared his face and dirty hands.
Peter Edwards sighed looking at Nat Turner. “This is probably the last decent meal you will eat.”
He allowed them to finish the meal, and then Peter Edwards sent a rider for the sheriff. “Stop for no one else,” he told the captive he sent. “Only speak to the sheriff. Tell no one else what was said or done here. Tell no one else that Nat Turner is here!”
The captive’s eyes met Nat Turner’s briefly and then looked away. The captive would remember. He would have a story to tell.
It was late morning, but the hutch and table shadowed the room. Nat Turner looked around at the heavy, dark, highly polished furniture that filled the room like great animals watching them.
Edwards’s farm lay at the edge of Cross Keys and there was often discussion among the white captors about whether his farm was actually in Cross Keys or at the edge of Jerusalem—both groups wanted to claim the plantation was in their jurisdiction. When other farmers talked of how large they wanted their farms to be, how large they wanted their homes to be, how many windows, how big the front porch, how many slaves—Peter Edwards’s place was always the standard. His home was the fantasy.
The portraits on the walls, the tiled floors, the crystal chandeliers, the stuffed velvet settees—how many captive people had died, how many lives had been stolen and ruined as others dreamed of having what Peter Edwards had?
Most likely, the elder Francises and the Whiteheads, and other Cross Keys families were once indentured to the Edwardses, the Parkers, and other wealthy landowners. But those memories were gone. White slaves had become captors, murdering and stealing to wipe the memory away.
There was a knock at the door. Congressman Trezvant, acting as senior judge, and acting judge James Parker had heard the news from the sheriff. They were first to arrive.