Beaufort, South Carolina
July 1863
Grady stood outside Colonel Higginson’s tent with a select group of men, listening intently as the officer outlined his plans. “Excuse me, sir,” Grady interrupted. “What’d you say the name of that river was?”
“The Edisto. It’s about halfway between Beaufort and Charleston.” The name sounded familiar to Grady, for some reason, but he couldn’t figure out why. He pulled his mind back to the mission Colonel Higginson was describing, eager for another chance to fight the Rebels.
“Our goal is to destroy a bridge on the Charleston & Savannah Railway,” Higginson said. “But in order to do that, we’ll need to sail some thirty miles up the river, deep into Rebel-held territory. And as always, we want to rescue as many slaves as we possibly can. There are several large rice plantations on the Edisto.”
Grady realized, suddenly, why the name sounded so familiar to him. Great Oak Plantation—Missus Fuller’s family’s plantation—was on that river. It was where Anna and Delia had gone. He sat forward, his heart racing.
“When do we leave?” someone asked.
“Tonight. We’ll have a full moon and a flood tide,” Higginson said. “We want to take the Rebels by surprise, arriving at their doorstep at daybreak, before they even have a clue that we’re coming. That means sailing at night so the smoke from our stacks can’t be seen. But the Edisto is shallow and winding. We’ll need the full moon to navigate.
“Ten miles below the railroad bridge is Wiltown Bluff,” Higginson continued. “The Rebels have an armed battery there, and they’ve placed obstructions in the river. We’ll need to silence the battery and clear a passage through the barricade before we can continue upstream and burn the bridge.”
When the briefing ended, Grady returned to his tent. He had promised himself that he would forget about Anna, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her as he and Joseph packed their gear for the mission. He wondered if they would pass her plantation, if he would have an opportunity to rescue her and Delia. And if he did find her, he wondered if she would come with him this time. It still hurt him to recall how he’d pleaded with her to escape with him—and how she hadn’t trusted him enough to overcome her fear.
“What’re you so heated up about?” Joseph asked.
Grady realized that he had been shoving and slamming things all around in their tent as he packed, his face creased in anger. “Rebels,” he mumbled, hoping that would satisfy Joe. But he was remembering Anna’s cringing submission to Missy Claire, her refusal to think of herself as anything but a slave. He shouldered his knapsack with a grunt. Let her stay a slave, then, if that’s what she wanted.
Their three ships sailed from Beaufort late that afternoon, reaching the mouth of the Edisto close to midnight. They had no guide as they ascended the shallow, muddy river, and Grady felt a breathless anticipation as they approached each turn, listening for the enemy, waiting to be fired upon. He had read in the newspapers about all the great battles being fought in other parts of the country, with thousands of troops locked in combat. But Grady thought he preferred the more adventurous life of a bush fighter, ascending dangerous rivers in the darkness, fighting hand-to-hand, freeing his fellow slaves. Tonight the riverbanks remained dark, the unnerving silence broken only by the startled cries and flapping wings of herons nesting in the reeds. The full moon revealed the outlines of graceful plantation houses along both sides of the river, but Grady had no way of knowing if one of them was Anna’s.
They reached Wiltown Bluff shortly after four in the morning. Captain Metcalf ordered Grady and the others to take cover as the ship opened fire on the Rebel battery that guarded the river. The Rebels quickly returned fire, and Grady had to cover his ears to deaden the sound as the thundering roar of artillery rocked the predawn stillness. It seemed to last forever. He wondered if his or any of the other ships would be sunk in the brawl. But all three ships still were afloat when the Rebel guns gradually fell silent. The smoke of battle cleared, and Grady gazed in amazement at the shoreline. The dawning sun revealed hundreds of slaves, running down the dikes through the lush green rice fields, cheering as they headed toward the boats.
Grady joined the first boatload of troops that went ashore, his heart racing as he scanned the faces of the slaves waiting there, searching for Anna’s. The ragged collection of men who tugged Grady’s boat through the marshy reeds and onto the riverbank stared at him and the other soldiers in astonishment. “You’re Yankee soldiers?” they asked again and again. “And you’re black, like us?”
Captain Metcalf tried to get information from them about the size of the Rebel force that was stationed on the bluff. But the slaves’ excitement was so frenzied, as men, women, and children raced to the river to greet their saviors, that none of the slaves seemed to understand what the captain was asking. Hundreds of jubilant souls surrounded Grady—the men reaching to grasp his hands in thanks; the women weeping for joy, their bundled belongings balanced on their heads; the children hopping from foot to foot with delight as they carried their younger siblings on their backs. One old woman reminded Grady of Delia as she knelt in the grass repeating, “Bless the Lord … Oh, bless the Lord.”
But she wasn’t Delia. And Grady grew desperate as he asked the men who swarmed around him, “Who’s your massa? What’s your massa’s name? Is it Goodman?” No one seemed to hear him. Most were too incoherent with joy to reply.
When an elderly man finally told him, “It’s Elliot. We was working for Massa Elliot,” Grady felt his disappointment like a blow to the gut. But he forced himself to put Anna out of his mind as Captain Metcalf rallied the troops and gave the order to assault the hilltop battery.
Grady knew that they might be walking into a trap. They made easy targets as they ascended the barren slope. And he wondered briefly if he was prepared to die—if God had really forgiven him for killing Coop. But no shots greeted them as they jogged up the hill. They found the Rebel battery abandoned.
The captain sent a band of skirmishers into the woods to hunt for the Rebels. Another band went to search the plantation house and other buildings. Grady returned to the riverbank to help transport the waiting refugees to the ships. Each time he lifted a child in his arms or helped a woman onboard, he thought of Delia’s words to him on that long-ago night, after the white boys had whipped him: “Ever think that maybe the Lord’s preparing you to save your black brothers and sisters?”
Meanwhile, the obstructions that the Rebels had planted in the river proved difficult to remove. Progress was so slow that lunchtime came and went, the tide began to ebb, and all hope of a surprise attack on the bridge was lost. Grady paced impatiently beneath the blistering sun. He felt the heat from the wooden deck through the soles of his shoes, as warm as a bed of coals beneath his feet.
At last the barricade was cleared. Colonel Higginson left the John Adams behind for a rear guard and told Grady and the others to crowd aboard the two smaller boats for the ten-mile journey to the railroad bridge. They sailed with torches lit, ready to set it ablaze. But by now the tide was so low that both ships continually ran aground, frustrating everyone. Slowly, mile by mile, they made their way north, passing acres of emerald rice fields on both shores.
Grady knew that those fields should be filled with laborers on this sultry July day. Instead, they were strangely deserted. There were no joyous mobs of slaves rushing out to meet them, like the mob that had greeted them early this morning.
The route grew more and more treacherous. At one point, when the other ship lay aground, two excited slaves paddled out to Grady’s ship in a dugout canoe. “Are there any more of you onshore that need to be rescued?” Colonel Higginson asked.
“No, sir. We been hiding in one of the rice canals all day, waiting for y’all. The overseer move everybody else away from the river when they heard y’all was coming.”
“What’s the name of your plantation?” Grady asked them. “Who’s your massa?”
Again, the reply was disappointing. “His name’s Massa Ferguson, sir.”
The ship was finally freed to continue upstream. But a scant two miles below the railroad bridge, Grady’s boat ran aground on a mudbank. Unwilling to waste any more time, Colonel Higginson waved the other boat on, ordering them to steam ahead and burn the bridge without them. The ship soon disappeared from sight around a bend.
Grady pounded the rail with his fist in frustration. Grounded! Now he wouldn’t even have the satisfaction of watching the bridge go up in flames. When Joseph came to stand beside him at the rail, Grady’s anger boiled over. “Why is God always on the Rebels’ side?” he asked. “Why can’t He help us, for once, instead of working everything in their favor?”
“What makes you think He’s helping them?” No sooner had the question left Joseph’s lips when the boom of artillery fire sounded close by, coming from upstream.
“Hear that?” Grady said. “The Rebels have been waiting for us all day, and now they’re firing on our other ship. We’re sitting here with no way to help them. Why would God do this to us?”
“If we was smart enough to figure out what God was doing, then that would make Him pretty small, wouldn’t it?” Joe said. “You really want a God like that? A God you can figure out?”
“All I know is, every time I ask Him for help, He’s turning His back. We came here to set some slaves free, and look at that—there ain’t even a single slave left over there to save.” He gestured angrily to the empty rice fields on the shore across from them. “We been getting stuck so many times that the Rebels had all the time in the world to be moving their slaves away from here. Now, what reason would God have for doing that?”
“I don’t know, Grady,” he said quietly, “but I’m trusting that He has a good one.”
Grady shook his head, staring at the distant plantation house, its roof shimmering in the wavy heat. Then an egret caught his attention, wading near shore. Something unseen startled it, and the bird stretched its broad white wings to soar above the boat landing. Grady followed the path of its flight to the top of the hill above the landing—and that’s when he saw it: an enormous oak tree. The pale silver moss that was entwined with its leaves swayed gently in the breeze.
Grady drew in his breath so sharply that Joe asked, “What’s wrong? You seeing Rebels?”
Grady didn’t reply as he quickly scanned the crowded deck. “Where’s those slaves we rescued from the dugout?”
“Over there,” Joseph said, pointing. “What’s wrong, Grady?”
He jogged across the deck, not caring that he interrupted the slave’s conversation with Captain Metcalf. “Do you know this plantation?” he asked, pointing to it. “What’s the name of it?”
The slave seemed to take forever to reply. “Why, I believe that’s Great Oak. Owned by the Goodmans.”
Grady turned to Joseph, grabbing his lapels. “That’s where my wife is!”
“Your … your wife?” Joe stared at him as if Grady had lost his mind. “You never told me you had a wife.”
“Her name is Anna,” he said frantically. “She works in the Big House.”
Joseph gently pried Grady’s hands loose. “Then maybe she’s still up there. Maybe they’re just hiding the field slaves, not the house slaves.”
“Let’s take one of the skiffs ashore and find out,” Captain Metcalf said. “I’ll come with you.”
“Me too,” Joseph said.
Grady didn’t know what to do. Suppose Anna refused to escape with him after these men risked their lives to go ashore with him? Grady was afraid to be hurt a second time, afraid to have the others see that his wife didn’t love him enough to trust him.
Joseph tugged on his arm. “Come on, Grady. You have to try, even if she ain’t there. Maybe we can help somebody else.”
Captain Metcalf quickly gathered a squad of volunteers, and Grady found himself climbing into the skiff with them, rowing toward shore. He felt dazed and breathless—and more afraid than he’d ever been in his life.
“I hope I’m not leading y’all into an ambush,” he murmured as they approached the quiet landing dock.
“That ain’t likely,” Joseph said. “Don’t you think the Rebels would have attacked our ship by now, seeing as we’re stuck?”
“Which way should we go when we land?” Captain Metcalf asked.
“I-I don’t know. I ain’t never been here before.” The men looked at him as if he was crazy. “My wife worked for Massa Fuller’s wife, and this is her daddy’s place,” he explained. “She packed up and came here the night I escaped.”
Joseph bowed his head and closed his eyes, praying out loud. “O Lord, please lead us to her. Please help Grady find his wife and bring her home, safe and sound.”
His prayer made Grady’s entire body tremble—with anger and with something else that he couldn’t quite place. He wanted to yell at Joseph to shut up. God had stayed a long way off, all these years, unheeding when Grady had needed Him the most. But there was something else in Joe’s simple, heartfelt prayer that made Grady feel like a little boy, seated on Eli’s knee. He longed to have that little boy’s faith again—to believe that Massa Jesus heard and answered his prayers.
He stepped from the boat on rubbery knees and hurried up the driveway, glimpsing beautiful gardens to the right, the carriage house and other outbuildings to the left.
“Slave Row must be that way,” Joe said, gesturing to the left.
The captain nodded. “We’ll start there.”
Grady knew that Anna was most likely up at the Big House, but he felt relieved that they were going down to the Row first. This risky trip ashore would be worth it if they managed to save a few other slaves, even if Anna refused to come with them.
Joseph and Captain Metcalf ran to search inside the stable and carriage house. Grady and the other men hurried toward the slave huts. The first few cabins they searched were empty. But as he ran to kick open the door of the next cabin, he heard a baby crying inside. He halted, unwilling to scare the occupants, and slowly opened the door.
Delia! Delia was inside. Grady couldn’t believe it.
She sat on the bed, surrounded by children, staring up at him in surprise. Then recognition lit her face. “Grady? O Lord, Lord!” she cried as she sprang to her feet and into his arms. She seemed even smaller than Grady remembered. “The Good Lord brought you here—He brought you!” she wept.
Grady could scarcely comprehend that he had found Delia. And if she was still here at Great Oak, then that meant that Anna must be here, too. He released his grip.
“Get your stuff together, Delia, you’re coming with me. I’m going up to the Big House to find Anna, and then we’re leaving.” He turned to go.
“No, Grady, wait!”
“I ain’t arguing with you, Delia. This time you’re coming.” He ran out the door and was halfway across the yard when he heard her calling to him.
“Grady, stop! Come back! She ain’t up there! Anna ain’t up at the Big House.”
He halted. His racing heart felt as if it might burst inside his chest. They had taken Anna away with all the others. He wouldn’t be able to save her. He slowly walked back toward Delia. “Where is she?” he asked.
Delia motioned for him to follow her as she led him to a windowless, stone building behind the outhouse. “Kick the door in, Grady,” she said. “I ain’t got time to be stealing the key again.”
He stared at Delia, unable to comprehend what she was saying. What were they doing here? He needed to find Anna. They were wasting time. Why had Delia brought him here?
“Go on, kick it in,” she repeated. “Anna’s inside.”
He backed up a step and did as Delia said, aiming his foot as close to the lock as he could. He had to kick it three times before the metal locking pin bent far enough for the door to fly open. Anna sat slumped on the floor, her wrists in shackles, the shackles chained to a post. Grady couldn’t imagine what she was doing there. Why was his beautiful Anna caged like an animal? She was covered with sweat and filth, and her dazed eyes were filled with despair.
But then she recognized him, and her expression changed to one of joy and disbelief. “Grady… ? Grady, is it really you? You’re really here?”
He dropped to his knees beside her and wrapped her tightly in his arms. Tethered to the post, she couldn’t hug him in return. He wanted to ask her what they’d done to her, why she was here, but tears choked off his words. Instead, he took her face in his hands and covered it with kisses.
“Is it really you?” she repeated. “You came for us?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.” She felt so small and broken and fragile. What had they done to her? It made him half crazy to imagine. But then a sense of urgency suddenly gripped him. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “Where’s the key to these shackles?”
“I don’t know,” Delia said. “The overseer must have it.”
Grady stood up to examine the shackles. They were too strong to break. The only way to free Anna was to pry the ring they were fastened to, out of the post. He glanced around the shed, searching for something to use as a pry bar and decided to try his steel bayonet. It seemed to take forever to wedge the weapon into the ring and force it open. And it required every ounce of strength he had. But the chain on Anna’s shackles finally came free. He lifted her to her feet and looked around. For some reason, Delia had disappeared. Grady hoped she had returned to her cabin for her belongings.
“Come on!” he told Anna. “You’re coming with me this time.”
“Yes, Grady! Yes!”
He half-supported, half-carried her as they raced back across the lawn. Anna was crying uncontrollably, babbling as if trying to tell him something. He wasn’t listening. Whatever she’d been through, he would deal with it later. He would help her heal.
When they reached Delia’s cabin, Anna ran inside ahead of him and scooped up one of the babies in her arms. She had to hold it awkwardly with her hands still bound.
“Come on, Delia,” Grady said. “We have to hurry.”
Delia shook her head. “I ain’t coming.”
“No! Not this again!” he shouted. “Don’t try and tell me God’s wanting you here! I’ll tie you up and carry you to the boat if I have to!”
She rested her hand on his arm to calm him. “It ain’t that, honey. I can’t leave all these little ones here alone.” She gestured to the cabin full of children, and Grady saw them as if for the first time. There were at least a dozen children of various sizes and ages. Most of them were crying.
“Where’s Lucy?” Anna asked. “Can’t she watch them?”
“She passed on, honey. I’m here all alone, now. Go on, Grady. You got your wife and baby to look after.”
“My … my what?”
“That’s your baby, Grady. Your son.” Delia gestured to the child in Anna’s arms.
Anna nodded, hugging the child as tightly as her bound wrists would allow. Grady stared at them, speechless, and slowly realized what Anna had been trying to tell him. He couldn’t grasp it. He had a son?
“The overseer loaded all the field hands into wagons this morning when they heard that the Yankee gunboats was coming,” Delia explained. “They took the house slaves, too. Left just me and the babies. Who knows when they’ll be bringing all their mothers back home. Go on. Get going, now. I’ll be praying for you.”
Grady knew that Delia wouldn’t change her mind. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her fiercely, devastated that he would have to leave her behind a second time.
“Go on, honey,” she said, freeing herself from his grip. “Take your wife and son—and may the Good Lord watch over all three of you.”
Grady wiped his eyes on his sleeve and reached for Anna. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, gripping his rifle in his other hand, and hurried out of the cabin. They raced toward the landing together.
Captain Metcalf and the others had found only one or two old-timers in the cabins, and they were leading them toward the waiting rowboat. Joseph saw Grady coming and his narrow face lit with joy. “Bless the Lord, is that her, Grady? You found your wife?”
Grady could only nod. Anna was coming with him. Anna and his son.
His son.
Grady felt dazed as the soldiers pulled him and Anna onboard the gunboat. As he led her downstairs belowdecks, he slowly became aware once again of the sounds of battle in the distance upstream and of his ship’s engines laboring as the crew tried to free them from the mudbank. And his son was crying. Grady realized that he had been crying pitifully ever since Anna had snatched him from his bed in Delia’s cabin. Grady found a quiet corner where they could sit down, and the distraught cries finally stopped as Anna put him to her breast and fed him. Grady watched, and the love he felt for both of them overwhelmed him.
“I’ll be right back,” he whispered. He went into the engine room and asked to borrow some tools. Then he sat by Anna’s side again as she fed their son and began sawing her shackles off.
“Are you okay, Anna?” he asked. “What happened? Why’d they chain you up like that?”
“I hit Missy Claire.”
“You … you what?”
“She wouldn’t let me be with our baby, and she said she was gonna sell him to the slave auction or throw him into the river—”
“Oh, God!” Grady reacted instinctively, dropping the tools as he enveloped Anna and his son in his arms. As his horror slowly subsided, he released his grip and gazed down at the baby. He was asleep. His tiny brown face was as wrinkled as Delia’s, his arms and legs curled tightly against his body. He had Anna’s long eyelashes and beautiful, full lips. Grady saw a drop of milk in the corner of his mouth and wiped it with his finger.
“I just started hitting Missy—hitting her over and over,” Anna said. “I couldn’t stop. I wanted to kill her.”
Grady couldn’t believe what she was telling him. Anna, who had taken so much abuse from Claire all these years, who had never stood up for herself, had endangered her own life to defend their child. He shuddered at the risk she had taken, aware of what might have happened to her. Striking a white person was a crime punishable by death. He heard the tremor in his own voice as he said, “I’m surprised that all she did was lock you up.”
“No, Missy told them to give me forty lashes. They were going to do it this morning but the overseer found out that the Yankee warships was coming, so he didn’t have time.” She looked up at Grady and her eyes filled with tears. “And then you came.”
He held her tightly again, overwhelmed at the timing that had brought him there at the right moment.
“Delia and I prayed and asked Jesus for help,” she said. “I prayed that He would help set our baby free—and now he is free.”
The ship lurched suddenly as it broke free from the mudbank. The baby awoke, startled, his frail arms and legs jerking in fright. Grady reached instinctively to stroke his head, to soothe him. The ship began to move. He remembered questioning God a few hours ago, asking why He had grounded them here when they were supposed to burn a bridge. Now he knew why. But he heard the thunder of Rebel guns in the distance and knew that they still weren’t safe. He felt an overpowering urge to protect his family, to get them safely back to Beaufort or die trying.
“Anna, we’re moving again. These shackles will have to wait until later. I need to go back up on deck with the other soldiers. We have a job to finish. Stay down here where it’s safe, okay.”
“Please be careful, Grady,” she whispered.
He took the stairs two at a time as he raced up on deck. The ship had stopped again, and Grady quickly saw why. The second boat was floating back downstream, coming toward them. “Our engine is disabled,” he heard the captain shout to Colonel Higginson. “Our engineer was struck by a shell and killed.”
Colonel Higginson lowered his head and closed his eyes. Grady wondered if he was praying. When he raised it again he nodded solemnly. “It’s getting late. We need to turn back. We’ll have to forget about the bridge.”
The tide was turning, as well. The colonel ordered the crippled ship to float downstream ahead of Grady’s vessel, carried along by the current. In spite of the fact that their mission had been aborted, that they had failed to burn the railroad bridge, Grady was surprised to discover that he didn’t feel his usual anger and frustration. God had a reason for this trip that Grady never could have foreseen.
They continued downstream, mile after mile. Grady was about to return belowdecks to sit with his wife when he heard the deadly boom of a cannon. The shell whistled sickeningly as it arced through the air toward him, and he watched in horror as it struck their sister ship a few dozen yards ahead. A long, straight stretch of water loomed in front of them before the river curved around a spit of land. The Rebels had planted a battery at that point, and their cannons were aimed squarely at the approaching vessels. Grady’s ship was heading into their trap with no way to escape.
“Take cover!” the colonel shouted.
Grady dove for the stairs with all the others, but even belowdecks there was no escape from the deadly bombardment. The vessel shook as her cannons returned fire, but it made a much-too-easy target for the waiting Rebels. Shell after shell struck the ship, exploding in a deadly rain of shrapnel and wood splinters and glass. Grady raced toward the corner where he’d left Anna, nearly tripping over a soldier’s lifeless body, and sloshing through a puddle of river water that was seeping inside. He pulled Anna away from the hull, into the center of the ship where it was safer, then crouched over her and their baby, shielding them with his body.
The deafening sounds of battle heightened the chaos around him—bombs exploding, glass and wood shattering, men screaming. But above it all, Grady could hear his son’s helpless, terrified cries. He had been sleeping so peacefully in Delia’s cabin, until Grady had come along and yanked him awake. Now the baby found himself in this terrible, frightening place and he couldn’t possibly know why. If only Grady could make his son understand that he loved him, that he would rather die himself than watch him suffering such terror. If only he could explain that this incomprehensible horror was, in reality, for his son’s own good. At the end of this perilous journey was something so much better than a safe cabin on Slave Row—there was freedom. But the gulf between Grady and his son was too great. There was no way to help him understand.
“I’m right here,” he murmured. “Please trust me … it’ll be okay …”
After what seemed like hours, the deadly explosions gradually faded into the distance as the ship finished running the gauntlet and steamed out of range. She was badly damaged, but miraculously still afloat. Grady rose slowly to his feet and stretched his cramped body. He felt a burning sensation in his neck and reached to remove a wood splinter. “Are you okay?” he asked Anna. “Is the baby okay?”
“Yes,” she replied. But the baby was still screaming, and she focused all her attention on him as she tried to soothe him.
Grady looked around. Injured men lay everywhere, moaning softly. He could see daylight through a gash in the ship’s hull. And crumpled beneath that hole, lay three bloodied bodies. One of them was Joseph’s.
“No … oh, no …” Grady breathed. He wove his way through the tangle of wreckage to kneel by his friend’s side. “Joe! Joe, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
Joseph turned to Grady, staring at him with dazed eyes. He smiled faintly. “I guess I’m still this side of glory, if you’re here,” he murmured. “But I think I’ve been hit.”
“Where?” Grady saw blood all over the front of Joseph’s jacket, oozing from a jagged tear above his belt. He gently loosened the buttons, then tried to hide his horror when he saw the gaping wound in the middle of Joe’s stomach. “You’re gonna be okay,” he said, willing it to be true. “I’m gonna find you a doctor.”
Joe grabbed his arm to stop him before he could rise. “Are your wife and baby okay?”
Grady bit his lip. “Yeah. Just shook up.”
Joe’s grin broadened. “She’s real pretty, Grady. How come you never told me you was married?”
Grady wondered how Joe could be talking about this now, with a hole blown through his gut. Then he realized that he probably needed a distraction from his pain. Grady took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I never told you … I’m sorry. I guess I just don’t like talking about myself, much.”
“God answered our prayer, Grady. You found your wife.”
Grady didn’t realize that he had reacted until Joe’s smile faded. “What’s wrong?” Joe asked. “Why’re you frowning like that? Don’t you believe that it was God who helped you?”
“Yes, I believe it,” Grady replied. “But you said God answered our prayer. And I didn’t pray, Joe. I was too afraid to pray. He answered you.”
Joe’s grip on his arm tightened. “Don’t you be listening to that old devil when he tells you God can’t forgive you. It’s a lie, Grady. Okay?”
He nodded, unable to speak.
A moment later, Captain Metcalf knelt beside them. “How are you doing, Joe?”
“He needs a doctor,” Grady said before Joe could reply. “Where is he?”
The captain hesitated. “He’s taking care of Colonel Higginson at the moment. The colonel was hit, too.”
Grady felt a surge of nausea. “Is he gonna be okay?”
“Let’s hope so. Listen, I’ll make sure the doctor sees Joe, next.”
Grady returned to Anna’s side when the doctor finally arrived, unable to watch as he probed Joseph’s wound, afraid to ask him if he thought Joe might die.
An hour later, the battered ship finally reached Wiltown Bluff. Grady helped transfer his friend and all of the other wounded men onto the John Adams, since it could make the trip to Beaufort much faster than the other two vessels. Anna and the other refugees moved with them, joining the noisy throng of slaves who had been rescued earlier that morning. Anna looked exhausted as she sat huddled in the hold with their baby, sitting between piles of bedding and other belongings.
“Why don’t you try and rest for a while?” Grady said. But no sooner had he spoken, than he heard the unmistakable sound of artillery exploding. The Rebels were attacking the ship from their shore batteries again, as it continued the journey downriver.
“Is this ever going to end?” Anna wept as missiles whistled through the air above them.
“Yes,” Grady promised, cradling her in his arms. “This ship is stronger and faster than the other one was. We’ll get through this, soon—and you’ll be free.”
She flinched as cannons roared and thundered all around them. “What’s it like, Grady? Being free?”
He leaned his head against hers, kissing her hair. “Imagine you and me together like this … and nobody telling us we can’t be. Imagine working and doing things for each other and for our son, all day long, instead of for somebody else. You can go wherever you want to go, and do whatever you please without nobody ever stopping you. I can buy you the biggest pile of paper you’ve ever seen, and you can draw pictures all day long if you want to—and you won’t even have to squeeze them all together on one page.” He held her tighter as a bomb exploded nearby. “And freedom means that this little boy of ours can grow up into a man without ever knowing what it’s like to be somebody’s slave.”
“I’m so glad you came back for me!” She was silent for a long moment, then said, “Grady … I’m sorry I didn’t go with you, before. I’m so sorry for being scared.”
“That’s all behind us now,” he said, kissing her again. “Let’s not be talking about it no more.”
Once again, the ship steamed past the Rebel battery and moved safely out of range. Grady finished filing off Anna’s shackles, then fixed a bed for her on his army blanket. He stayed with her until she fell asleep with their son beside her. But Grady was too uneasy to sleep. He went out onto the quarterdeck, where all the injured soldiers were, and searched for Joseph.
“How you doing?” he asked when he found him.
“Better,” Joe said weakly. “The morphine helps.”
Grady cleared his throat. “Listen, I never thanked you for helping me rescue my wife today. And I’m real sorry that I made fun, the other day, when you read me that Bible verse about being afraid of what man can do—”
“Hey, forget it, Grady. I meant what I said. I ain’t afraid of dying. I’ll be going home to see my heavenly Father. We’re all free up there, you know.”
Once again, Grady shuddered when he recalled Joseph’s certainty that Coop was in hell. “Just don’t be getting in a hurry to go to heaven, okay?” Grady said. “You’re gonna make it. They’re gonna fix you up good as new when we get to Beaufort.”
Grady looked around at all the other injured men and swallowed. He might easily have been one of them. “You needing anything, Joe? A drink of water or something?”
Joe shook his head.
Grady remembered the day he’d met Joe—his first day of freedom—and how Joe had offered him a drink from his canteen. “Mind if I sit here with you for a while?” Grady asked.
“You might have to listen to me preach, you know.”
“That’s okay. I’m getting used to it.”
Joe closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again he met Grady’s gaze. “Are you gonna stay mad at God forever?” he asked softly. “I know you been through a lot in your lifetime, but God never stopped loving you, Grady. He heard your cries all that time. And He had His own reasons for not answering the way you wanted Him to. He just couldn’t explain it in a way you’d understand.”
Grady remembered the baby’s frightened cries this afternoon, and how he’d pleaded with his son to trust him. Maybe God really hadn’t abandoned Grady years ago in Richmond. Maybe it was just like Delia had said—God wanted to use all the hardships Grady had endured to lead him and so many others to freedom. The generals who were overseeing the war could see the picture so much clearer than the men on the front lines.
“You’re gonna do great things for God, Grady. I know it,” Joseph said. “That’s why the devil’s making you suffer so much—just like Job.”
Grady shook his head, still not ready to believe that he would ever have as much faith as Joseph did. “No, you’re the preacher, Joe. Not me,” he said. “That’s why you have to get better.”
Grady was relieved to learn that his friend was still in stable condition when they docked in Beaufort the next day. Ambulances met the ship at the wharf, and Grady helped carry the wounded men off first. He was dismayed to see Colonel Higginson lying pale and wounded on one of the stretchers. Captain Metcalf crouched down to speak with him, and Grady overheard Higginson say, “When I think of the slaves we rescued, I know that the day was worth all it cost, and more.”
Grady gazed out at the gray-blue water to stop his tears. Higginson—a white man—thought Grady’s wife and son worth dying for.
When he’d pulled himself together again, Grady hurried down belowdecks to fetch Anna. He had been dreading this moment, knowing that he would have to abandon the two of them on the wharf and return to camp with the other soldiers. How could he bear to leave Anna? She had never been on her own before, without Missy Claire telling her what to do.
He was still weighing what to say to her when Captain Metcalf came alongside him and clapped his hand on Grady’s shoulder. “Take two days’ leave, son. Get your family settled.”
Grady closed his eyes. The relief he felt staggered him. But more than that, a white man had shown sympathy for him and his family. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “Thank you so much.”