The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial (38 page)

“Wrongdoers who see and grieve are blessed indeed”—Nat Turner nodded his head toward Trezvant—“even though others might mock him for wanting to change.”

Parker's face was still flushed. If Parker could not hear him now, maybe he would hear and understand the words later. “If your heart aches when you think of what you have done, then fall to your knees, turn from evil, and give thanks.” Nat Turner looked deeply into James Parker's eyes, blue eyes, looking for the life within him. “I do.”

Nat Turner sighed as he remembered Cherry and his son walking behind Giles Reese's horse after they were sold to him. He remembered the pain that brought him to life, the pain that helped him to hear God. “We must ask Him to help us to cry, to ache, so that we might repent and turn.” Parker was trembling now, and Nat Turner could not be sure whether it was anger or deep sorrow. “I pray that you do not refuse the gift. Repent and turn.

“Haven't you read the prophecy? Our Father will be brokenhearted and long for His children who are taken captive and scattered
all over the earth. When we return, He will welcome us home. Haven't you read the prophecy? Those you steal and sell into slavery will someday rule over you.”

Nat Turner continued to focus on James Parker. “Soon will come the time of sifting. Do you have the courage to stand against the wicked ones, to stand with those who are your brothers in spirit?”

Trezvant snarled. “I will die before I see you niggers free. Your little insurrection has only served to unite all white men against you. Every white man, even the abolitionists, will stand with us.”

Trezvant reached out his right hand and laid it on Parker's shoulder. “He is a wily serpent. Do not let the devil deceive you. If he is a preacher, he is the devil's preacher. Don't allow this serpent to poison your mind. God said the niggers were to be our slaves. God spoke the words, not you or I.”

It was men like Trezvant, like Nathaniel Francis, who deceived. God said all nations, but men like them said only white. “You are the serpent, Trezvant. You seek to hide in the Old Testament, knowing there is no slavery under grace. But if you hide in the Old Testament, God's Old Testament judgment will find you.

“God did not curse us; He loves us all. All the law and the prophets hang on love. Every lesson, every truth in the Bible, like sunshine through the leaves, must be filtered through love. Only man would hang the law on something as meaningless as skin color. God's Word rests on love.

“God knows who His children are. Anyone who does not love his brother is not a child of God.”

Nat Turner turned to look directly at Parker. “God says that we are brothers, one blood, adopted into one family. Trezvant says that you should only love white men. Who will you believe? Who will you follow? For the sake of skin color, will you follow him to hell?”

Trezvant stomped his feet and whistled now. “You are a slippery-tongued devil. But all your going on has not helped your case in the least. You will hang. Slavery will live!”

T
hrough the window, Nat Turner could see the early evening blue of the sky—turquoise blending into indigo. All the lives, all the suffering had led to this. He pleaded with the captors for mercy for his people and for themselves. The fate of the nation rested in their hands.

Things might have been different if the captors would listen, if their cold hearts melted. He might have sat beside his son, fishing now in the pond. Nat Turner closed his eyes and imagined Riddick smiling up at him. He wrapped an arm around Riddick's shoulders.

Whoa!
His son yelled when his pole tugged, a fish on the end of the line.

Nat Turner opened his eyes. That was all a dream. There would be no fishing. He had been sent to deliver this message. There was a family debt he owed.

“You worship white skin, not God. You teach the lie to others. If they are not light, they hate themselves; they feel forsaken by God.

“Today you called me prophet. So I warn you like Ezekiel, like Jonah, like Moses. Today I speak judgment against Southampton, against Virginia, and against this nation. God has heard and seen your wickedness and He knows the coldness of your hearts. Our voices, along with those of Nineveh and the Queen of the South, speak against you.

“Turn! It is your only hope! Repent and set my people free!”

Trezvant giggled. “O Moses, where are your plagues? Where are the locusts? Where is the bloody river?”

“We are slaves, dressed in tatters. We have no uniforms or flags. But we are part of the Lord's army. God's glory is our banner. God loves us all, but He will not endure your wickedness against us forever. War will come!

“God will make black men stand side by side with you. Children of Africa, children of our two continents—Africa and America will become leaders among you. ‘Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.'”

“The only thing a nigger can do for me is tend my fields or shine my boots. No nigger will ever lead me.” Trezvant mugged for Nat Turner and flapped his arms like a chicken. He bugged out his eyes, like a minstrel, and began to sing.

And wen Zip Coon our President shall be,

He make all de little Coons sing possum up a tree;

O how de little Coons will dance an sing,

Wen he tie dare tails togedder, cross de lim dey swing.

Nat Turner had seen it all before. “Would you choose whiteness over obedience to God? Whiteness over holiness?”

“Call it what you like, no black jig will ever be king over me. All your heads will be on poles before I let one of you be head over me.”

“As great as you are, my brothers, you are not greater than God. If you choose to lose your lives rather than grant our freedom, it is your choice!”

“Never!”

“Then you will hand this lie down to your children as inheritance. Like the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your children will no longer recognize their sin. They will wallow in sin, turning from mercy, turning from repentance. What God calls wrong, they will call right. They will point at evil in other places and not recognize it in themselves.

“As God blesses those they despise, they will be bitter, full of
rage. They will be angry when God shows the world that your truth is a lie. In the end, whiteness will rule them. It will choose who they love and where they live. It will choose where they pray, their family and friends. The idol will control the choices they make.

“You will leave your children a bitter inheritance. In your hands is the power to stop it all now. Look to God and turn.”

T
rezvant's face blanched. He looked wildly around the room at the others.

Nat Turner encouraged himself. This was the trial that mattered. He must find strength. He must finish. There was a debt he owed. “This is only a warning, only the beginning. Brother will take arms against brother and fathers against their own sons. You will slaughter yourselves. The rivers will flow red, blood will drip from the corn. The battle is already raging in the heavens. I have seen it with my own eyes. Death will come again to the Tidewater. It will spread across Virginia and across this nation. I have seen it.

“In the end, the captives will be free. Whether freedom comes now or after much bloodshed is your choice. It is for you to decide whether you will walk like Pharaoh in your arrogance or humble yourselves like the Great King Xerxes.”

Trezvant mocked Nat Turner, waving his hands in the air. “O great prophet, spare me! O great One, have mercy on me! Save all of us poor white people from the darkies!” Trezvant shook his head and stuck out his tongue as he laughed. “I am going to laugh as you hang, nigger! My wife and I are going to dance when they hang you from that tree!”

Nat Turner would not allow himself to be distracted. “You will bequeath damnation to your children. Their blood will be on your hands. Look to God, my brothers, you only have to turn.” He was brought to these shores for this moment. He would not die with their blood on his hands. “Turn from your evil ways. Live!”

Even as Nat Turner spoke the pronouncement there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Live? Life for them, forgiveness for them
after all the people they had murdered, after all they'd stolen, after all the broken hearts? Mercy? Nat Turner tasted bile.

He had been spit up on the shores of a foreign land among people who hated him and others like him. He would never see his homeland. Never see his grandparents or his sister. He would never smell the wildflowers of Ethiopia or see the green hills. These people, people who stole land that did not belong to them, who stole men and had no sorrow for it—these were the people that God wanted to pardon? Was no one beyond God's mercy?

How could the Lord shower mercy on people like Trezvant? Nat Turner looked at the proud man sitting before him. How could people like Trezvant and Nathaniel Francis escape punishment simply by repenting—simply by uttering a few words? Simply by feeling sorrow in their hearts for their deeds? After all they'd done? It was not fair.

But God was Father to them all. He was the Father of Cain and Abel. He was Father of the just and the unjust, of Nathan and John Clarke, and loved them both.

Nat Turner would do what he had promised; he would be obedient—his would be the voice that offered the nation an opportunity to repent. “God is the God of mercy, your Father as well as mine. It is He who sends me.

“Congressman, you have desired to be a great man, to have the nation's attention on you. So, like King Xerxes, like Pharaoh, the fate of the nation is in your hands. You have the power to speak to the people, to the governor, to persuade them to turn. There is still time.

“Virginia boasts that she leads the South and the whole nation. If you turn, if you set the captives free, the others will follow. It is in your hands to stop the coming war. You have the chance to turn the nation. If you do not, the judgment is against you and against this nation, and the blood will be on your hands.

“You stand at a crossroads today, and it is for you two judges to warn the people. If you choose the way of Pharaoh, you will bring
judgment on this nation, on yourselves, and on your children. This is the Word of the Lord: ‘He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.' This is the right and sure judgment of the Lord!

“Open your hearts, open your eyes. ‘He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.'

“Only repentance can change your destiny. Your fate is in your hands!” It was done now. It was finished.

Trezvant looked at James Parker. “We rushed here for nothing. He is a bloodthirsty maniac.”

Remembering his wealthy host, Trezvant rubbed his hands together as though he was finished and motioned to Peter Edwards. “I am done with this scoundrel. Take him away.” He looked down at his glass. “I am famished. Bring me more refreshment.”

T
he sheriff arrived as darkness dawned, along with twenty-five strong and armed guards; they chained Nat Turner hand and foot. The heavy iron clanked as he walked and tortured his skin as he stumbled down the road.

His head ached. Except for his own blood, his mouth was dry.

Patches of cold night with yellow-flamed torches. Fists and jeers. Familiar faces turned strange. Words and fists pounding him. Women's hat pins; who knew they could be so painful? On his knees, then up again. Heads on poles. Knees on hard ground. Swollen eyes. Threats, kicks.

Dragged into houses along the way, his face was pressed to their souvenirs. Fingers without nails, legs without feet, heads without eyes and ears. How much worse would they do to him? The Road with No Name. Black Head Sign Post Road. Jerusalem.

“Devil!” “Murderer!” “Thief!” “Give him to us!”

Slammed against cold metal bars, against rough, moldy concrete. He was alone except for the hands, the voices, angry steel. Outside the jailhouse, crowds shouted his name. Kill him!

THERE WERE NOT many visitors to his cell, other than those who came to beat him. There was only his lawyer: William Parker. “There is not much I can do.” There was nothing, really, that Parker could do. It was all in God's hands.

At night he dreamed of Cherry dancing among the moonflowers. He touched her hair; he kissed her lips and held her to him. In the blue-black night, underneath the stars, the flowers glowed and
the moonlight kissed her eyes and teeth. Suddenly she pulled away from him.
Aren't you angry with Him, your God?

Nat Turner didn't want to argue; he wanted to remember everything about Cherry and to hold her. He is your God, too.

Look what He has done to you. Look at our miserable lives! I know you are surprised at me. I know you are a holy man, better than me, and probably angry with me for saying this, but God took you away from me, the only man I ever loved. The only man who ever loved me. The only man who told me I was beautiful.
Cherry wept then, and in the moonlight, her tears glistened on her face.

Cherry had stepped too far away, too far away for him to touch her. He told us He would send us forth as sheep among wolves, Cherry.

I don't want to hear this, Nat. I don't want to hear it, Nathan!

She and his mother were the only ones who called him Nathan. The sound of his name in her mouth was like rose petals brushing his neck. Some of us are sheep in our family of wolves, some of us are sheep working among wolves, and some of us are sheep walking through a nation of wolves. They seek to devour us, but we must still love, Cherry. Some of us will lose our lives, lose our loves.

But it is not fair, husband!

God is loving and just.