Rhett Butler's people (40 page)

"This was our dairy. See! That's the spring box beside that collapsed wall.

"As you see, they didn't burn the negro cabins."

The Colonel kicked a charred board. "You'll need them when the niggers

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come to their senses. Thousands and thousands are sleeping in the streets of Atlanta. If the Yanks didn't feed them, they'd starve."

What did Scarlett care about negro refugees? "With a thousand dollars, Tara could get back on its feet. Just a thousand. There's nothing wrong with the land; they can burn our buildings and kill our livestock, but, by God, they can't kill our land!"

"Aren't you the pretty Amazon." When Andrew Ravanel took Scarlett's hand, his convict's hand felt unpleasantly soft. "I dislike traveling alone," he said. "Can I convince you to accompany me to Charleston?"

Though Scarlett had expected an invitation, she'd not expected such a bold one. "An unmarried man and woman traveling together? Sir, what will people think?"

Ravanel's contemptuous laughter shocked her. "My dear Scarlett, they're dead. Everyone whose opinion mattered is dead. Only cowards, traitors, and ... convicts survived the war. Jeb Stuart -- the lilies of the field bowed in homage when General Stuart rode by. Pious General Polk has taken his sermons to heaven, where he and Stonewall Jackson can preach to each other. Cleburne, Turner Ashby, brave little Pegram -- my friend Henry Kershaw -- that brave, dumb bastard -- even Rhett Butler is dead."

Scarlett felt as if she'd been shot through the heart. She whispered, "Who?"

Colonel Ravanel picked up a crockery shard and flipped it into the ruined springhouse. "Rhett was in Fort Fisher when the Federals assaulted. It was a butcher's shambles." His voice lost its bitter edge. "Rhett and I were friends once. He was the best friend I ever had."

"But Rhett... Rhett never believed in the Great Cause...."

"No, but he loved a gallant gesture." He eyed Scarlett curiously. "I'm surprised you knew him."

Knew him?

Knew

him? Had she known him at all? Rhett Butler dead? He couldn't be dead!

"Now I've distressed you. I am sorry. I didn't know you knew Rhett."

Scarlett's mind whirled. What had she thought? Certainly that she'd see him again, that Rhett's knowing, mocking smile would infuriate her again. She bit the inside of her lip so she wouldn't cry. Gone? Those rare

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moments when she and Rhett had

understood

each other -- gone forever? "Where ... where is Rhett buried?"

"The Federals marked their soldiers' graves. They dumped ours in the ocean."

It was as if she'd lost a part of herself: an arm, her hand, her heart. Rhett Butler dead! Hopelessness washed over her and she sat heavily on the stump of what had been Tara's grandest chestnut tree. How could she go on? Numbly, she repeated, "Rhett Butler ... dead?"

Andrew Ravanel offered useless male consolations: Perhaps Rhett hadn't been killed with the others. Rhett was a cat. Rhett had nine lives....

Scarlett couldn't bear this man one moment longer. "Sir, please recall that I am Mrs. Charles Hamilton, a respectable widow. I decline your improper invitation. I cannot imagine what you were thinking of. Now, sir, you must go. You've made your intentions all too clear. You cannot remain at Tara."

Softly he said, "Years ago, I loved him, too."

"Love Rhett Butler? That arrogant, insulting, self-satisfied ... Why would anyone love Rhett Butler?"

"As you prefer."

The tall man mounted his small mule and rode away.

The sun went behind a cloud.

Scarlett wanted to go upstairs and lie down. She felt so weak and helpless. Lord, how she wanted to lie down.

Instead, she straightened and started for the potato patch. She and Pork would hill the potatoes. Then she would look for more poke greens.

Later, she would tell Melanie about Rhett. Melly had always favored him.

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Chapter

Chapter Twenty-five

A Low Country

Plantation

After the War

Six months later, a horse and rider trotted down the Ashley River Road. The horse was a coal black stallion, eleven hands high, of the breeding for which the Low Country had once been famous. The rider had the careless grace of a grandee. During the War, countless graves had been filled with men like him and the bones of their beautiful horses bleached in cornfields and peach orchards across the reunited nation.

One year ago, General Sherman's army had swarmed down this road. Burned chimneys emerged like cautionary fingers out of the roadside brambles. This toppled gatepost led to the ruin that had been Henry Kershaw's boyhood home. From a swing suspended from that fire-blackened oak, little Charlotte Fisher had kicked her legs, shrieking, "Higher! Higher! Oh, push me higher." This overgrown lane curved up to the burned mansion where Edgar Puryear's mother had died.

As the rider approached, two rail-thin pariah dogs slipped into the brush.

Across the river from Broughton Plantation, Rhett Butler pulled off his riding boots, socks, and trousers. He tied his boots to his saddle and wrapped his trouser legs over his stallion's eyes for a blindfold before he clucked the animal into the muddy river.

The horse forged across and clambered up Broughton's main trunk, where Rhett dressed.

The main trunk was covered with blackberry brambles and the rice fields were shallow tidal pools where squawking mud hens swam away from the intruder.

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Deer and feral hogs had made trails through the untrimmed boxwood hedging Broughton's lane.

The carriage turnaround fronted a fire-streaked brick facade and window holes as empty as a skull's eye sockets. The front door yawned wide. Among the furniture dragged outdoors and burned, Rhett recognized the walnut podium that had held the Butler family Bible.

Hummingbirds buzzed the trumpet vine invading the broken piazza.

Rhett stepped across the thick vines to the overlook where he'd stood twenty-five years ago. Rhett's memory of Broughton's symmetrical, productive rice fields overlay ruptured trunks and shimmering saline pools that no planter could ever crop again. "Yes, it was beautiful," Rhett murmured.

A voice quavered at his elbow. "Yes, sir. It t'were. Master 'n' Mistress Butler ain't receivin' callers no more."

The aged negro supported himself on a gnarled driftwood cane. His eyes were filmed white.

"Good morning, Uncle Solomon," Rhett said.

"Young Master Rhett? That be you?" The old negro's fingers fluttered over Rhett's face. "We heard you was killed. Lord be praised! How do you fare, Young Master? You ain't been home in such a time!"

Rhett wished to see his parents if they still lived.

"Oh, yes. Master and Mistress still livin'." He lowered his voice. "Master Langston, he's got White Plague. He shrunk to a nubbin.

"All our niggers run off 'ceptin' me." Uncle Solomon tut-tutted. "Hercules and Sudie, they gone to town. Hercules say he won't work for no Butlers no more." The old man's lower lip quivered with indignation. "That nigger gettin' above hisself! I born on Broughton, lived all my days on Broughton, and Broughton Plantation be where I lie down."

"Yes, Uncle. Then my parents are in town?"

"Town house blowed to bits! Nicest house on Meeting Street. None nicer! Market niggers used to call me 'Mr. Solomon' account of I come from that house. The Master and Mistress bidin' with Overseer Watling now."

"Watling?"

"You been gone such a time, Master Rhett! Such a time! Master Langston said he wasn't leavin' Broughton no more. Your sister and her husband comes

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out sometimes. Miss Rosemary wants Master Langston and Mistress 'Lizabeth come stay with them. But you know how Master Langston be."

"John Haynes is dead, Uncle. John died in the war."

"Not Mr. Haynes. Colonel Ravanel, your sister's second husband."

"Andrew Ravanel?"

"Yes, sir. Old Jack's boy. They say he was a hero in the War, but I don't know about that."

"Andrew Ravanel? ..."

"All the womens gettin' married. One day they widow, next day they wife, next day they carryin' a child...."

Isaiah Watling's home stood at the tip of a peninsula bounded by shallow tidal flats. Game chickens pecked in the yard. The ribby milk cow had a turpentine-soaked rag wrapped around her head to protect her from mosquitoes.

A young man was whittling, leaning back in a chair beside the front door. When Rhett tied his horse to the fence, the young man let his chair down with a thump. His pale blond hair was balding off his sloping forehead. His nose was sharp and his eyes were so light, the pupils were almost invisible. An oiled revolver was stuck in his belt.

"Nice horse," he observed. The young man cut a long peel from his whittling stick. "Yankees got all the good horses these days." His grin lacked upper teeth and his right cheek was puckered by a scar. He answered Rhett's gaze. "I was yelling to Frank when I got shot. Spect you heard of Frank. Frank James's a heller." He tapped his scar. "Bill Quantrill said a man should keep his mouth shut, but sometimes it pays to have it open, don't it?"

He elaborated. "I mean, if I hadn't had my mouth open, that bullet would have took out my bottom teeth, too. I expect I'll get back with Frank and Jesse one day."

"I am Rhett Butler. Are the Butlers here?"

"I reckon."

"Suppose you could tell them I've come?"

The young man stood. "I'm Isaiah's nephew, Josie. I rode with Bill

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Quantrill until the Federals cut him down. They was figurin' to do me too, so I come east to renew family acquaintances." He winked. "Rhett Butler, Uncle Isaiah hates you like poison. I expect one day he'll take revenge on you. Waitin' on revenge is a hopeful thing, don't you think?"

Josie approached him as a pit dog approaches. "I known better men'n you killed for worse horses than that one."

"Four years of war; aren't you tired of killing?"

Josie shrugged. "I been doin' folks since I was a sprout. Spect I got a taste for it."

"If you're going to use that revolver, do. If not, tell the Butlers I'm here."

"Ain't you the feisty son of a bitch." Without taking his eyes off Rhett, he shouted, "Uncle Isaiah! Feller's come!"

When he opened the door, Isaiah Watling shaded his eyes against the sun. "Young Butler. You are not welcome here."

Josie Watling set a boot on a fence rail, crossed his arms, and grinned like a man who wasn't nearly as bored as he'd thought he'd be.

"Your home, Watling? Isn't this Broughton Plantation? Isn't this the Overseer's house? I'm here to see the Butlers."

"You've no kin here."

"Suppose you let us decide that."

Isaiah Watling's hot eyes bored into Rhett's for a long moment before he wheeled and went inside.

"Nice day," Josie said. "Me, I always did like the fall of the year. You can see folks creepin' up better once the leaves are gone." After a time, he added, "You ain't no talker, are you?" Josie Watling scratched his ear with the front sight of his revolver.

Isaiah Watling reappeared and jerked his head. Rhett followed him up the dimly remembered stairs of the house the Butlers had inhabited until their grand house was built. He entered the modest bedroom his parents had shared when he was a child. The room was neat. The floor had been swept. Medicine vials and a bowl of yellow sputum threaded with blood crowded the table beside the bed where Rhett Butler's father lay.

Langston Butler had been a big man and his bones still were. His skin

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was yellowish except for bright red spots on his cheeks. His curly brown hair was still without a streak of gray.

"You have the consumption," Rhett said.

"Have you come to tell me what I already know?"