He stuck close to Big Amos, who had also been bought by Massa Coop. But Amos’ steps slowed when he saw that they were headed down to the docks at Rockett’s Wharf. “This ain’t good,” he mumbled. “This ain’t good at all.”
Grady’s stomach clenched in fear. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s gonna put us on a ship. That means we going a long ways away, not some plantation close by. If we was being sold around here, they’d make us walk.”
The slave who was chained to Amos gave a tug to make him keep up. “I heard the guards talking yesterday,” he said. “Massa Coop ain’t buying us for hisself. He’s a slave trader. Gonna sell us off in every port along the way, all down the coast, far as Florida and maybe New Orleans.”
Amos swore. “Farther south we’re sold, the harder it’s gonna be to escape. Gotta go through too many slave states to get north again.”
Grady didn’t care about escaping to freedom, only about going home. But the farther they sailed from Richmond, the smaller the likelihood that he would ever see his home or his family again.
They turned a corner and Grady smelled the raw, fishy odor of the river. Sunlight reflected off the water, making him squint in the sudden brightness. Dozens of ships crowded the piers at Rockett’s Wharf: steamboats with tall, black smokestacks, sailing vessels with masts and rigging, barges and keelboats and paddleboats. Well-dressed passengers ambled around the docks, preparing to board, saying good-bye to their loved ones: men in dark suits and hats, children dancing with excitement, women in brightlycolored dresses, their stiff skirts flaring like bells. Families stood near their carriages and drays, waiting as house slaves shouldered trunks and carried satchels onboard. As Massa Coop herded Grady and the other slaves past, chains jangling and scraping, the white passengers took no more notice of them than they did of the sacks of grain and other cargo being loaded into the hold.
Panic swelled inside Grady at the thought of sailing far from home. He turned to look back at the city of Richmond, searching for St. John’s steeple on Church Hill near his house, desperate for one last glimpse of the only home he’d ever known. But William gripped his arm and turned him around, marching him up the gangway onto the steamship. Grady tried to look over his shoulder, but before he could spot the familiar landmark nestled among the trees, he tripped over a coil of rope and fell facedown on the deck. William grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him upright again, shoving him toward an open hatch with a steep set of stairs leading down into the bowels of the ship. Grady peered into the dark hole and felt as though they were shoving him into his grave.
Suddenly, the urge to fight back, to save himself, welled up inside him, out of control.
“No!”
he screamed. “No, help me! Somebody help me!” He ran to the ship’s railing and clung to it, fighting with all his strength to keep from being sent below with the others. “Help me, Massa Jesus! Please help me!”
“Stop it, you little fool!” William hissed as he pried Grady’s hands loose. “Don’t make no trouble for me—or for yourself.” He clamped his hand over Grady’s mouth and carried him back to the hatch and down the stairs. Grady kicked and struggled all the way as William dragged him into a room in the hold with all the other slaves, men and women alike. He heard the door being bolted shut from the outside.
“Shut up!” William said as he dropped Grady to the floor.
He could feel the ship rocking gently. The room was dark and stuffy, the stench and despair even worse than it had been in the slave pen. Grady and the others were no longer human beings but trade goods being shipped to market like the bales of cotton, barrels of salted fish, and sacks of grain that had been loaded into the hold with them. His stomach ached with the injustice of it. Rage at his helplessness burned inside him until he thought it would consume him. When he looked around he saw the same anger mirrored on every man’s face and heard the anguish he felt in the women’s quiet, mournful weeping. Unable to stop himself, Grady closed his eyes and clenched his fists and roared with despair.
Without warning, William dealt Grady a blow to his stomach that knocked the wind out of him and sent him sprawling backward. Then William crouched over him as he gasped for breath and shook him like a rag doll.
“Now, you listen here, boy! If one of them white passengers upstairs hears you carrying on this way, then both of us gonna get a whipping! You quit that hollering, you hear? If you don’t, I’ll tie you up and stick a rag in your mouth. That what you want? Huh? Is it?”
Grady managed to shake his head, battling panic at not being able to draw a full breath. The room whirled dizzily as William continued to shake him. Seconds before Grady thought he would pass out, Big Amos pried William’s hands off.
“Okay, he’s quiet now! Leave him alone!” Amos said. He’d had to drag the slave he was still shackled to across the room in order to defend Grady, and the man was not very happy about it.
“I gotta keep this boy quiet,” William told Amos. “You mind your own business.”
“If you kill him he’ll be real quiet, won’t he,” Amos said with a growl. “Then Massa have your hide, too.”
“Think you can make him mind any better?” William asked. He backed away a step, dusting off his hands.
“He won’t make any more noise,” Amos promised. He bent down to prop up Grady in a sitting position so he could breathe, then sank down beside him with a sigh, leaning his back against the hull. The slave he was shackled to had no choice but to sit down beside them.
“Leave us,” Amos told William. The servant glared at them for a long moment, then shuffled away to begin unchaining the slaves.
At first Amos sat silently beside Grady, staring blindly ahead. But as Grady’s breath returned to him and his gasps gradually gave way to quiet sobs, the big slave began to speak. His voice was so soft Grady had to strain to hear him.
“Every one of us knows exactly how you feel, boy. We’d like to start howling just like you done. But we already learned that it don’t do no good. Ain’t nobody taking pity on us, least of all them white folks upstairs. I been keeping all my anger inside for a long, long time now, storing it up for a better time. One of these days, soon as I get the chance, they gonna be real sorry they done this to me. Real sorry they sold me away from my wife and kids, because as soon as I escape, I’m gonna kill as many white men as I can get my hands on. Gonna kill their white women and children, too.”
Grady heard the deadly rage in Amos’ quiet voice and never doubted that he meant every word.
“You keep storing up that anger, boy. Let it burn inside you. Because there’s gonna be some nights that are so dark and cold, you’ll need that fire to stay alive.”
As Amos recited his plans for revenge, the helplessness Grady felt slowly began to ease. He would get even, too. Someday he would make white people suffer the way he was suffering.
Soon they heard the rumbling, hissing sound of the steam boilers firing up, then the clamor of the anchor chain being raised. Grady wouldn’t have known what those fearful sounds were if Amos hadn’t explained each one to him in the same somber voice.
“They firing the boilers now—working up steam so we can shove off soon.”
The whistle blasted and the ship began to move. Grady felt the motion like a vague dizziness until the rocking and swaying became more apparent. Water slapped against the hull behind him and vibrations from the screw propeller rumbled through the deck beneath him. He closed his eyes, fighting a new wave of panic as he pictured his mama and all the people he loved slipping farther and farther away. Amos said he would never see them again.
Who would he be without his family? How would he survive without his mama to hold him and tell him she loved him? Who would spend time with him the way Eli had, telling him stories and teaching him things, or give him special treats like Esther always did? Back home Grady had been surrounded by people who loved him, and their love told him who he was. Now they were gone. He was sailing far from home, and he felt as though he was losing himself as much as his family. But he wouldn’t cry—and he wouldn’t pray. He would let his unshed tears and his unanswered prayers turn to gall in his belly, fueling his rage.
By afternoon the sea had grown rough, the air in the hold stifling. Some of the others started to vomit. Grady might have, too, if there had been any food in his stomach to lose. Massa Coop had loaded plenty of smoked meat and cornmeal in the hold for them to eat. They would be well fed. But Grady shook his head when Amos offered him some.
“Won’t do you no good to starve yourself, boy,” he said.
Grady shrugged. “I ain’t hungry.” He swallowed painfully, his throat still sore from screaming earlier that morning. The slave who had been chained to Amos leaned toward Grady and spoke for the first time since they’d boarded.
“You’re right, boy. May as well die now than die slowly down there.”
A shiver passed through Grady. “Down where?” He hoped they weren’t going to send him deeper into the bowels of this awful ship.
“Down south. They’re taking us to the Deep South. Know what that means?”
Grady shook his head.
“Heat and fever and swamps and snakes. Hard, hard work chopping cotton, planting rice, or working in the sugar cane and hemp fields. Barely giving us enough food to stay alive. Whips flying across our backs all day long.”
Grady looked up at Amos. “That true?”
He nodded silently, his face like stone.
Grady drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t. Snatches of scriptures that Eli had once taught him tried to float through his mind, but Grady angrily pushed them away. None of them were true. Massa Jesus didn’t have His eye on Grady. He didn’t love him. And for sure He wasn’t here with him on this ship. Maybe Jesus wasn’t strong enough to help him, or maybe He just didn’t care. Either way, Grady was all finished with Massa Jesus. All the things Eli had taught him were a bunch of lies.
By evening the motion of the ship and the terrible smells in the airless hold had made Grady so nauseated that he began to vomit, too. There was nothing in his stomach to lose but he heaved over a bucket just the same, then lay curled up on the deck in misery between bouts of dizziness and vomiting. Amos tried to make him drink some water, but it wouldn’t stay down. Grady couldn’t remember ever feeling so sick. His head pounded and his insides ached until he felt so wretched he wanted to die.
He had no idea how many days and nights he spent that way. He was too sick to care. But eventually the ship docked in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Massa Coop came for his slaves. William, who had been locked in the hold with them all that time, fastened the shackles and chains onto everyone’s wrists and ankles again before Coop finally opened the door to the hold.
As Grady went out the door, William grabbed his arm, squeezing it until it ached. “I ain’t letting go of you,” he said. “You open that big mouth of yours and I’ll knock your teeth down your throat. Understand?”
Grady nodded. He was much too sick to holler, let alone try to run away. Coop led them ashore, marched them to a slave pen similar to the one in Richmond, and locked them inside. But at least there was fresh air and sunshine in this one. At least the terrible motion sickness would end.
It took two days on dry land for Grady to feel well enough to eat. His strength slowly returned. Massa Coop had added a few more slaves to the group and had sold several others to the white men who crowded around the gate of the slave pen every day, looking them over. Then they boarded another ship. Coop repeated this routine as they traveled down the coast, stopping in port cities like Charleston and Beaufort and Savannah, spending a few days in each one. Wealthy planters who were in the market for slaves would call on Coop, and he and William would escort them to the slave pen to make their selections.
On their last day in Savannah, Massa Coop sold Big Amos. It happened so quickly that Grady didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye to his friend. One minute Amos stood near Grady in the yard, the next minute Massa Coop handed over the big slave to a new owner. Grady felt the loss like a blow to the stomach. But he held back his tears as he remembered Amos’ words on the first day they’d met:
“Don’t you let them white folks hear you cry! Don’t you ever give them that power over you.”
As he watched Amos’ new owner lead him and four other slaves away, Grady slowly became aware of Massa Coop and William eyeing him from the other side of the gate. “Come over here, boy,” Coop finally said. Grady approached warily.
“Is he still sick?” Coop asked William.
“No, Massa. He’s much better now. Back on his feed again.”
“Good. Bring him inside.”
Grady’s heart pounded wildly against his ribs as he battled a new surge of fear. The guard unlocked the gate, and as soon as Grady walked through it, William planted his hand on his shoulder. The gate banged shut behind them. Grady gritted his teeth, determined not to let anyone know how terrified he felt. William never let go of him as they followed Massa Coop down the street to his hotel. A Negro porter held the lobby door open for Coop, but William steered Grady around the building to the servants’ entrance in the rear, then up the back stairs.
Grady had no idea what was going to happen to him or why Massa Coop wanted him. Facing the unknown filled him with such dread that he could scarcely breathe. William must have noticed his distress as they labored up the steps because he stopped and turned to him when they reached the door to Coop’s hotel room.
“Ain’t nothing to be afraid of,” he said gruffly. “Long as you pay attention and do what you’re told, ain’t nothing bad gonna happen.”
“I ain’t afraid,” Grady lied.
“Good.” William knocked lightly on the door, then led the way inside. Massa Coop hadn’t arrived yet.
Grady took a few steps into the room, then halted. He had never been in a place like this before, had never seen a canopied bed or curtained windows or a red plush armchair or a beautifully patterned carpet like the one on this floor. He’d lived in the loft above the kitchen with five other slaves all his life and had never been allowed inside the Big House where Caroline and her father lived. He wondered if those rooms had been as fine as this one.