Rhett Butler's people (41 page)

"I've come to help. I can provide for you and Mother."

Langston Butler wheezed and choked. His eyes bulged with outrage at his helplessness. He spat into the bowl beside the bed. "You will not disturb Elizabeth. My wife has Jesus Christ and the devoted Isaiah Watling. Why would Elizabeth Butler need you?"

"Sir, you agreed to see me. You must have had some reason."

"You were said to be dead and I am more interested in resurrections than I was." The old man's smile was a ghastly slash. "Julian will inherit. You will not attend my funeral."

"Do you believe you can be Broughton's Master beyond the grave? Father ..."

Langston Butler turned his face to the wall.

"I reckon you oughta git now," Josie Watling leaned against the door frame. "Uncle says I can shoot you if you don't do like the old rooster says. I guess I could shoot you. I admire your horse."

Isaiah Watling was in the yard.

"Watling, your daughter Belle is safe in Atlanta. Your grandson, Tazewell Watling, is in an English school. I have good reports of him."

"Belle may yet repent," Isaiah said. "Thanks to you, my son Shadrach will never repent. Rhett Butler, you consigned Shadrach Watling to eternal damnation."

Josie Watling hid his smile behind his hand. "Ain't he a heller?" he asked. "You ever see such a one?"

When Rhett rode down the lane between the flooded rice fields, he felt a spot burning between his shoulder blades -- the same feeling he'd had when some Federal sharpshooter was drawing a bead.

A meandering path had been cleared down Charleston's Meeting Street, where whites combed through rubble for something to sell and negro gangs under Federal noncoms pulled down ruined walls. When

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Rhett went by, the men stopped working. A young negro called, "Bottom rail on top now, mister."

Here and there, a house had been spared; here and there, an entire block. Forty-six Church Street's window glass was so new, the putty hadn't cured. The raw pine front door swung easily on new hinges when Rhett's sister, Rosemary, answered his knock.

Her face drained of color and she braced herself against the door frame. "Rhett... you, you're not dead.... Oh Rhett! My God, Brother!" Her smile was bright, but she was weeping. Rhett took her in his arms, murmuring into her hair until she pushed him away, dabbing her eyes. Rosemary asked, "Is it ungrateful to be astonished when prayers are answered?"

"I came nearer to shaking hands with Saint Peter than I liked. You didn't get my telegram?"

She shook her head.

"Then," Rhett grinned, "I'll have to be the answer to your prayers."

"Oh Rhett! You haven't changed."

"Little Sister, I understand congratulations are in order."

"Congratulations? ..." When Rosemary put her hand to her mouth, it was her mother's gesture.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Ravanel. May you be as happy as ... as happy can be."

Rosemary led her brother inside. Some of the parlor furniture dated from her first marriage, but the love seat and sofa were new. "Sit, dear Brother, and I'll bring you something. Brandy?"

"Nothing now, thanks."

"Please, Rhett. Don't be angry with me."

"Angry? Why should I be angry?"

"Rhett, I ... I thought you were dead! Not one word!"

"I'm sorry. I telegraphed before I left for London. The Federals are after my money. Thus far, my banker, Rob Campbell, has fended them off, but meantime, Sister, I am in reduced circumstances."

"John left me well provided for. If you need ..."

"I've enough cash for a time. And" -- he fingered his lapels -- "my credit

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is good with my tailor. Money is" -- he shrugged -- "merely money. I am sorry I worried you."

She considered for a time before speaking plainly. "After John was killed, I didn't think I wanted to live. My child, my husband, and -- I thought -- I'd lost you, too." She touched Rhett's cheek. "You are real, aren't you?"

"Too real sometimes."

"Then Andrew came back to Charleston. Two orphans in a storm."

"Andrew always had a curious effect on women." Rhett raised one finger. "Don't mistake me, Sister. Andrew was my friend, and for your sake, we will be friends again." Rhett smiled at the slight swelling of her belly. "I see I am to be an uncle again. I rather like that role. Uncles get to buy toys and accept the child's kisses, but when the child is fractious, uncles can ride away."

"We need a child. Andrew ... Sometimes Andrew gets lost. Our child will bring him home." Rosemary cocked her head, "And you, Rhett? What of Miss Scarlett?"

"Who?"

"Rhett, this is Rosemary you're talking to!"

"That's finished. It ended one evening on the Jonesboro road. Love overwhelms us like a squall on the ocean and departs as swiftly as it came."

"Urn."

"No more remorse or confusion."

"Urn."

He frowned. "Why the smile, Sister? That oh-so-slightly condescending smirk?"

Rosemary laughed. "Because my big brother knows everything about everything but won't confess his own heart."

Beneath his black hood, a Yankee daguerreotypist was immortalizing East Bay's dramatic ruins.

The Federal fleet lay at anchor inside the harbor. Captured blockade runners seemed embarrassed to be flying the Stars and Stripes.

Rhett was heading for the Haynes & Son offices when a shout intercepted him. "Hullo there, Rhett. Aren't you the bad penny?"

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"Jamie Fisher, I'll be damned. The war didn't grow you taller."

" 'Fraid not. Lord, it's good to see you." Jamie shook Rhett's hand. "Come see what we've done to Grandmother's house. I've patched the roof myself. Aren't I the worker bee?"

The Fisher mansion's gray slate roof was spotted with black tarry repairs.

Jamie stuck his head inside the front door. "Juliet, Juliet -- come see who's risen from the dead."

Juliet Ravanel removed a dusty kerchief. "Why, Rhett Butler. Bless your black heart!" Juliet calculated the price of Rhett's suit. "Thank God the War didn't leave everyone a pauper!"

Jamie sighed. "My poor sister, Charlotte, put every penny of our money into Confederate bonds. To show faith in Andrew, I suppose." He paused. "There was so much money. You'd think she'd have overlooked

something?

Jamie spread his arms. "Rhett, standing before you is Charleston's most popular equestrian instructor. I teach the children of Yankee officers how not to fall off their ponies."

"The Confederates' daring scout is in great demand," Juliet observed, smiling.

"I am strict with the parents because they expect strictness from a Daring Confederate Scout, but their children see right through me. They recognize another spoiled child when they see one!" With a flourish, Jamie ushered Rhett into the house. "Mind the top step, Rhett."

They'd papered and painted the front hall and the circular staircase was polished to a soft cherry glow.

Jamie opened the drawing room door on a jumble of broken bricks, laths, and plaster, explaining, "We haven't begun on the downstairs. But three bedrooms are finished and rented to Carpetbaggers."

"Gold," Juliet said with real feeling. "They pay in gold."

"Your new brother-in-law says only traitors rent to Carpetbaggers." Jamie's face hardened, "By God, when Andrew finds solvent Confederates for our rooms, we'll put the Yankees into the street. Rhett, I fought beside Andrew. We shared a cell in that damned penitentiary. Rhett, it is difficult, so

very

difficult, to keep someone alive who does not wish to live."

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"Andrew has always been melancholy."

"Andrew snubs me -- and his sister, Juliet -- in favor of the worst gang of 'patriots' who ever sharpened a bowie knife."

"Ah," Rhett said. " 'Patriots.' I had hoped we were done with patriots."

Juliet interrupted. "Enough about my silly brother. You remember Hercules; he and Sudie live above our kitchen house."

Jamie's habitual cheerfulness returned. "Hercules mounted new wheels on a wrecked ambulance, painted his rig yellow and black, and Juliet stenciled 'For Hire' on the panels."

"An excellent stencil it is, too," Juliet preened.

"In my grandfather's old beaver hat, Hercules is the perfect image of the antebellum Charleston cabbie. The Yankees ask Hercules where we hid our racehorses. When Hercules told one fellow that Chapultapec was last seen pulling a gun carriage, the man burst into tears. Rhett, surely you'll take tea with us?"

"I'd love to, but I'm off to congratulate my new brother-in-law."

Juliet sniffed.

Rhett was mounting his horse when a carriage drove up and Jamie advised, "Here's Hercules now. Rhett, you really must admire his cab."

Hercules helped a heavyset black woman to the sidewalk. "Mr. Rhett, we been searchin' everywhere for you. We heard you was back in the city."

Ruthie Bonneau's dress was buttoned to the neck and her hair was confined by a dark hair net.

"Mr. Rhett," Hercules said. "I spect you know Mrs. Bonneau."

"We are old friends." Rhett doffed his hat.

"Captain Butler," Ruthie Bonneau said, "I need your help. Tunis is in jail. They're going to murder my husband."

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Chapter

Chapter Twenty-six

Bottom Rail on Top

Southerners who had detested and vilified Abraham Lincoln, even those who had greeted Lincoln's first election with secession, were appalled by his assassination. Whatever else Abraham Lincoln might have been, Southerners knew he was a forgiving man. Touring Richmond after the Confederate capital fell, Lincoln was asked what should be done with the defeated rebels. Lincoln had replied, "Let 'em up easy, boys. Let 'em up easy."

Radical Republicans in Congress were not so inclined. Some had lost sons and brothers to rebel bullets; the influential Senator Charles Sumner had been beaten nearly to death by a Secessionist and Confederate raiders had burned Congressman Thaddeus Stevens's iron foundry to the ground. When Lincoln was murdered, these radicals took control of the United States government. They overrode President Andrew Johnson's vetoes, and when Johnson opposed them, they nearly had him impeached. The Congress dismissed elected Southern governors and appointed Republicans. Many of the men thus installed were hacks, zealots, or both.

Congressman Thaddeus Stevens believed the victors should "Strip a proud nobility of their bloated estates, reduce them to a level with plain republicans; send them forth to labor, and teach their children to enter the workshops or handle the plough, and you will thus humble the proud traitors."

Hordes of newly freed slaves flooded Southern cities. Northern missionaries flocked to a South that considered itself sufficiently Christian

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already, thank you. The Freedmen's Bureau fed ex-slaves, began educating them, and oversaw their labor contracts. Blue uniforms were everywhere.

Before the War, many Southern slave owners had honestly believed that their negroes were (never mind they might be sold in lean times) a part of their white Masters' families. Consequently, when negroes located buried family treasures for Sherman's bummers and abandoned their plantations en masse, these whites felt as if their beloved (though devious and slow-witted) children had betrayed them.

Carpetbaggers -- some from Northern cities where hundreds of negroes had been lynched in wartime riots -- rode in on moral high horses to teach Southerners how to treat the negro.

Southern Scalawags with no war record or prewar stature welcomed the Carpetbaggers with open arms.

Anyway, that's how Southern whites saw it.

Southern negroes were more apt to call this turn of events "bottom rail on top."

Tunis Bonneau had stayed in Freeport until the blockade was lifted. Three months after Abraham Lincoln died, the British steamer