A Light to My Path by Lynn Austin Read Free Book Online Page B

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