Outside the jailhouse people yelled, pelting the jail with stones. Pounding the outer door, they threatened to take Nat Turner. Frenzy. His six final days Nat Turner spent alone without visitors, except for one visit by Thomas Gray.
None of his family, no black people could be seen in town; it was too dangerous. The white people of Cross Keys and Jerusalem were united now. All of Southampton County and their guests were celebrating; they had tied a black man to a horse and dragged him to his death.
Two days after Nat Turner’s trial, Thomas Gray came. Gray was his friend. But Thomas would have to be both friend and family now. Nat Turner was comforted at the thought of him.
Tears filled Thomas’s eyes when he saw Nat Turner. “I wanted to come sooner. But it has been too dangerous for me to see you. You understand?”
What did Thomas want him to say in response? Weren’t friends born for times of adversity?
“Now they’ve asked me to come to you. They’ve asked me…”
They? It was so easy to read his childhood friend’s thoughts and heart. It was what made him endearing. It was also the same trait that made him dangerous. It was always a game, a game Nat Turner could not win.
“With all the confusion in the courtroom, they’ve asked me to help clarify what happened. They’ve asked me to write, to create a sort of confession.”
“A confession? What confession? I pled innocent, just like all the others. I have confessed to nothing. I am not guilty. I have offered no confession. The trial is over. There is already a record.”
“They mean to recreate the record… the trial.”
They meant to devise a lie. “Trezvant, Nathaniel Francis, Levi Waller? They want you to be their writer.”
Thomas Gray bowed his head. Nat Turner thought he saw a tear slide down his friend’s face.
“You don’t understand, Nat. They threaten my family… me.” He looked up and then down again. “I’m not as strong as you.”
“What have you done, Thomas? What is your part in this?”
To save his own life, Thomas would offer up the private things the two of them had shared, their childhood—Nat’s private thoughts, not Thomas’s—Nat’s dreams. “Will you write it alone? Will others work with you to create the lie? Trezvant, I suppose?” His sense of betrayal was worse than any anger he had ever felt. “What part will you tell in the story? Our childhood, the things I told you in private? I imagine Trezvant will add his fantasies to it.”
“I am not the only one. John Clarke is involved, and Nathaniel Francis, and Levi Waller.”
“I might have known. You trade men’s lives for a few coins. What was your share?” Nat Turner looked at his friend. “They use you to plunge the blade and turn it; they use you to betray me.” The drying scabs made it painful, but he smiled at his friend. “So, finally, you will write your novel.”
“You don’t understand.” Thomas Gray wept.
Of course he understood. Everything Nat Turner had and hoped for in this world was lost. He was about to give up his life, and what would be left behind now, the story of his life, would be a lie. It was futile. He should have sailed away.
There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.
He could not sail away. He had promised and there was a family debt he owed.
For his surrender, for his service, he was promised an eternal reward. The first resurrection. What of Thomas? Nothing now, nothing hereafter. “Repent while there is still time. Ask God to forgive you and walk away from this thing, Thomas. Repent.
“They will do it, no doubt, but you don’t have to be involved. Don’t surrender your soul for this—for nothing.” He looked at Thomas Gray, pleaded with him. “You are my friend.”
“You don’t understand. My life would be worth nothing.”
There was no point. It was finished. It was over. “Go, my friend.”
“I have no choice. If I did, I—they are forcing me.”
“What you do, do quickly!” When his friend left, Nat Turner prayed to God to cauterize the spot where his heart bled.