Rhett Butler's People

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE Will Benteen

Then Miss Scarlett moved back to Tara and Uncle Henry Hamilton put her fancy Atlanta house up for sale, Will Benteen smelled trouble.

Miss Scarlett and Captain Butler were split; everybody knew that.

When Captain Butler galloped off after Mrs. Wilkes's burying, Will had been glad to see him go. As Will told Boo, his farm dog, "Sometimes critters got to lick their wounds.”

Tara's overseer was a mild-eyed Georgia Cracker with receding sunbleached hair, wrists and neck red as fresh-cut beets. He was mostly head and chest, his real leg almost as spindly as the wooden leg he'd earned at Gettysburg. His fingers were as big around as his daughter Susie's wrists.

Once, in the hard years after the War, when Scarlett was sending every profit from her Atlanta sawmills to Tara, she'd complained, "Will, before the War Tara provided for the O'Haras, not the other way around.”

Will had removed his shapeless hat and scratched his forehead. "Well, Miss Scarlett, I spect you might lease Tara to some Yankee.”

That was the last time she complained.

Nowadays, Tara had to support everybody again. There were the negroes — Dilcey, Prissy, Pork, Big Sam, and Mammy — as well as Miss Scarlett, her children, and the Benteens.

Not long after the city folks came, seven-year-old Ella had a fit. At the supper table, she gave this unearthly cry and fell out of her chair. Although she was unconscious, her eyes were rolling, her legs were kicking, and Will Benteen couldn't hold her still. Directly she came out of it, white-faced and a little shaky, but she'd scared the daylights out of Will.

Beau Wilkes was at Tara, too. Mr. Wilkes wasn't in any shape to care for his son. And after the funeral, Miss Scarlett had asked Miss Rosemary and her boy to stay.

Will had a notion why Miss Scarlett had invited Captain Butler's sister and son. It was one of those things Miss Scarlett did without thinking.

Miss Scarlett took advantage before anyone else saw there was advantage to be had. It was her nature.

When Suellen figured it out, she told her husband, "It's a dirty trick, Will Benteen, using Rhett's sister as bait.”

Will had shushed her with a kiss. Will could shush Suellen when nobody else could.

Suellen O'Hara hadn't been Will Benteen's first choice. Will had courted Carreen, the youngest O'Hara daughter, but Carreen made up her mind to join a Charleston convent.

By then, Tara had become Will's home, but despite the relaxed attitudes after the War, he couldn't share a house with the unmarried Suellen.

And proud Suellen had no other suitors and nowhere else to go.

Despite its unsentimental start, Suellen and Will's marriage had been happy. Their six-year-old, Susie, was willful, but her parents loved her all the more for it. As Suellen liked to say (remembering how Scarlett had stolen her beau Frank Kennedy), "Nobody will ever pull the wool over Susie's eyes!" Robert Lee, the Benteen boy, was so shy and sweet, sometimes his father couldn't bear to look at him.

Will had come to Tara a wounded veteran. As Tara had healed him, Will'd healed Tara. With Miss Scarlett's money, Will had rebuilt Tara's cotton press, bought Cyrus McCormick's newfangled mowing machine, and replaced the dozens of small tools: the four- and six-tooth crosscut saws, the saddle clamps, the augers and awls Sherman's soldiers had stolen or ruined. Will's gangs had uprooted cedars and blackberry brambles, replaced split-rail fences, reroofed the icehouse and meat house, cleaned and pruned the orchard, doubled the kitchen garden, built a twelve-stall horse barn, fenced a hog lot, and erected a whitewashed board and batten cotton shed on the foundations of the old one.

To make room for Scarlett, the Benteens evacuated Gerald and Ellen's front bedroom. "There can only be one Mistress at Tara," Will had told his angry wife, "I reckon she'll be Miss Scarlett.”

But Scarlett hadn't wanted her parents' bedroom with Gerald's balcony and the canopied bed where O'Haras had been begot, born, and died. Instead, Scarlett took her old room at the head of the stairs, beside the nursery.

After the War, Tara's field workers had left for the city they'd heard so much about. After several hungry years, most returned to Clayton County, living in the run-down Jonesboro neighborhood everybody called "Darktown.”

Scarlett asked Will Benteen, "Why don't they live on Tara like Big Sam and the house negroes?”

"Miss Scarlett, they'd rather live in the worst broken-down shanty than back in Tara's 'Slave Quarters.' B'sides, what would we do with 'em in the wintertime?”

"Tara always found work for its people.”

"Miss Scarlett," Will explained. "They ain't Tara's 'people' no more. I need field hands from March to September and I pay a fair wage. Full-task hands get fifty cents a day.”

"The rest of the year, what do they live on?”

"They're free labor now, Miss Scarlett." Will had sighed. "Wasn't us set 'em free.”

Miss Scarlett had rushed the cash from this year's cotton crop into the Atlanta bank — had taken it into town personally. When Will had told her they'd want new work harnesses for the spring planting, she'd replied, "Will, we'll have to make do with the old ones.”

Love trouble and money trouble: Will didn't know which was worse.

Captain Butler was in Europe with Mr. Watling.

Evenings in the parlor, Miss Rosemary read her brother's letters aloud.

Mr. Rhett described Paris racetracks and cathedrals and artists and joked about the cardinals' hats hanging high in the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

"The French believe that when the hats fall down, the cardinal enters heaven. Some of those hats have been hanging for centuries!”

Will marveled with the children. He felt sorry for Miss Scarlett. She seemed so neglected.

Miss Rosemary was modest and helpful, and Tara accepted her and Louis Valentine without a ripple.

Miss Rosemary became the schoolmarm and the nursery was her schoolroom.

Suellen managed the house negroes, except Mammy, who managed herself.

Sundays, Big Sam drove the buggy into Jonesboro, where Rosemary and the children worshiped with the Methodists. The negroes walked across the tracks to Reverend Maxwell's First African Baptist.

Money or no money, they wouldn't go hungry. The summer's produce had been put up and stored in Tara's root cellar, where glistening rows of Mr. Mason's patented canning jars were filled with peaches, berries, tomatoes, and beans.

A three-year-old ox had been butchered and packed in brine. Fifteen hogs had been slaughtered, butchered, salted down, and hung in the meat house to take the cure. Will Benteen's hams were locally famous, and every Christmas, he hand-delivered a ham to favored neighbors as "a little something from Tara.”

Although Will was a crop farmer, his first love was animals. Like Mrs. Tarleton, Will Benteen was mad about horses. He liked Tara's cattle and mules and he befriended his hogs: Tusker, Runt, Big Girl. He admired their pure piggishness. When Big Girl got sick, Will sat up half the night dosing her with turpentine.

The hog killing on the first chilly day in November was bittersweet.

Yes, Will'd filled Tara's meat house, but tomorrow morning he'd not go to the hog lot. Big Girl wouldn't be there to grunt her greeting and snuffle his pant legs.

Saturday mornings, Ashley came out from Atlanta. He'd thank Scarlett for keeping Beau and often brought her a small gift: an embroidered lawn handkerchief or a tin of English toffees.

Ashley said nobody was building. His saws were idle and his lumber turned blue in the stacks. The Kimball House had closed its doors. "It's this depression," Ashley said, as if it didn't really concern him.

"Goodness, Ashley." Scarlett frowned. "Don't you care?”

"I care that Monday morning, I will be deciding which worker I will let go and how he'll feed his family.”

Ashley took coffee with Scarlett, Beau, and Rosemary and he'd quiz his son about Beau's progress with McGuffey Readers, but Ashley never drank a second cup before he left for Twelve Oaks, where he'd climb to the hilltop graveyard and talk to Melanie.

Gentle Melanie didn't share Ashley's regrets. She assured her grieving husband they would be reunited one day. As they talked, Ashley cleaned the graveyard, tossing dead limbs and brush over the wall. On his third visit, he brought a poleax to open up the vista. Melanie had always loved the view from here.

He spent the night in Twelve Oaks' negro driver's house. As at Tara, Sherman's men had spared the negro quarters. This was the one night in the week when Ashley Wilkes's sleep was dreamless and untroubled.

Before Ashley left for Atlanta, he'd dally at Tara and reminisce about times gone by. Sometimes, Scarlett was bemused by Ashley's sonorous, gentle voice. When she was irritable, she'd remind him he had a train to catch.

One Saturday morning when Ashley arrived, his cheeks were ruddy and his eyes sparkled. Scarlett had been doing accounts at the table. Rosemary set aside her mending. "I've sold the sawmills," Ashley announced. "A Yankee from Rhode Island. Goodness! The man has no end of money.”

Scarlett's mouth tightened. "Atlanta's most modern sawmills. Ashley, how much did he pay?”

His happiness deserted his eyes. "I won't need much," he said. "I'm coming home to Twelve Oaks. I'll live in the driver's house.”

Rosemary took his hand. "I'm delighted you'll be our neighbor. But what will you do with yourself out there?”

"I won't be alone!" Ashley's words tumbled out. "I'm hiring Old Mose — you'll remember Mose — and Aunt Betsy to help me. It'll be good to have them back on the place. The formal gardens. Scarlett remembers them, don't you, Scarlett? Wilson, the Jonesboro liveryman — every summer, Yankee tourists hire Wilson to drive past our 'picturesque ruins.' I'm going to restore the gardens. We'll clear the brambles and wild grapes and get that old fountain flowing again. Do you remember the fountain, Scarlett? How beautiful it was? The gardens will be Melanie's memorial. Twelve Oaks — as it was, as it is supposed to be. Melanie loved it so.”

"Mr. Wilkes," Rosemary smiled, "you have a gentle heart.”

Scarlett frowned. "You'll charge the Yankee tourists to tour your gardens?”

"Why, I hadn't thought about charging. I suppose ... I suppose I could.”

Abruptly, it turned colder. The Flint River froze solid and Taras stoves glowed red. Rosemary moved the schoolroom downstairs into the parlor. Fog hung above the horse troughs, where warmer springwater flowed.

Four days before Christmas, Tara's people were at the breakfast table when Mammy marched in from the meat house so angry, she could hardly speak. "They's ruint! They's sp'iled! Been some deviltry here!" Mammy propped her bulk against the dry sink and took deep breaths. "Ain't no colored folks done this, neither.”

Scarlett was on her feet. "What is it, Mammy?”

Mammy pointed with a quivering arm.

When the children made to follow, Scarlett snapped, "Ella, Wade, Beau — all of you, stay in the house. Rosemary, Suellen, tend them, please!”

The meat house door had been crowbarred off its top hinge and hung slantwise across the opening. Will Benteen dragged the door aside and cautiously stepped into the building. "Lord have mercy!" he groaned.

Scarlett cried, "Oh Will!”

Every one of their cured, wrapped hams had been cut down. They lay on the dirt floor like so many slain babies. The casks of brined beef had been overturned and manure strewn over everything.

Mammy was behind them in the doorway. "Weren't no coloreds!”

"Mammy," Scarlett snapped, "I can see that!”

Tail between his legs, Boo poked his head inside the forbidden sanctuary and sniffed.

Meat and manure sloshed beneath their feet. The stink was overpowering.

"Can't we just wash them?”

Will picked up a ham, dropped it, and wiped his hands on his pant legs.

"No, ma'am. See how somebody cut 'em open? That meat's tainted, Miss Scarlett. Pure poison.”

Will stepped out of the meat house, walked around the corner, and threw up.

The wide-eyed Mammy trembled. "Them bummers, they come back,”

she whispered. "I knew they comin' back one day.”

"The War is over, Mammy," Scarlett snapped. "Sherman's bummers can't hurt us anymore!”

Although Boo had barked during the night, Will hadn't left his bed to see what the dog was bothering about. Now, growling importantly, Boo led Will and Scarlett to the spot outside the garden fence where horses had been tethered. Will knelt to inspect the tracks. "I reckon there was three of 'em." Will shook his head. "What crazy bastards would — Scuse my language, Miss Scarlett.”

"Goddamn the bastards!" she said.

Will followed the tracks to the Jonesboro road, where they disappeared.

None of the negroes would set foot in the violated meat house — not even Big Sam, who'd been Taras Driver under Will Benteen and Gerald O'Hara before. "I never thought you'd turn coward, Sam," Scarlett hissed, "Not Big Sam.”

Her harsh words washed over Sam's bowed head. "Some things it don't do for coloreds to fool with," he said.

So Will, Scarlett, and Rosemary loaded the defiled meat into a wagon and drove it to the boneyard — that upland gully where Tara's dead animals were left to rot.

As the hams rolled and bounced down the slope, Will whispered, "Good-bye, Big Girl. I'm truly sorry what they done to you.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO Warming Soil

Their money might have become worthless overnight and their elected government might have fallen, but their cool, dark, solid meat houses reminded country people that true prosperity came from the work of one's hands, and God's providence.

Neighbors came to view the sacrilege. "What kind of minds would think to do this?"M.en muttered threats and prowled the farmstead as if the violators might still lurk nearby. Will guided parties to where they'd tied their horses and men knelt to trace the tracks with their fingertips. Tony Fontaine and his brother Alex argued over the size of one horse's shoes.

Mrs. Tarleton slipped around to the paddock, where Will kept his new foals. Normally, she would have asked Will to join her so she could remark — for the umpteenth time — how her stallion's qualities were appearing in his foals. Not today.

As if at a funeral, women brought bread and casseroles; Mrs. Tarleton gave Suellen two hams. "So you'll have something for Christmas.”

Suellen said they'd keep them indoors in the pantry, where they'd be safe.

Safe. How could they be safe? Eventually, the neighbors went home. The house negroes were frightened, and by 5:30 winter dark, excepting Mammy who slept behind the kitchen, the negroes were in their cabins behind latched doors.

Boo was excited and too aware of his responsibilities, and that night he barked whenever a fox or polecat slipped through the farmstead. Will Benteen would wake up, pull overalls over his nightshirt, and shove his bare feet into cold leather brogans. He clumped down the back stairs and slipped outside with his shotgun.

When he came back to bed, Suellen grumbled sleepily and pulled away from his cold embrace.

In the late afternoon, Christmas Eve, a Railway Express wagon delivered a large wooden crate emblazoned with shipping labels. Will and Big Sam helped the driver unload the heavy crate and gave him a mug of Christmas cheer, which he downed with one eye cocked at the lowering clouds.

Will agreed yes, it did feel like snow.

Big Sam said, "Won't nobody be on the roads tonight.”

"I won't be, that's certain." The driver left for Jonesboro at a brisk clip.

After supper, everyone gathered in the parlor to decorate the Christmas tree Big Sam had erected that afternoon. With whispered speculations and many side glances at the mysterious crate, the children hung the tree with apples, walnuts, and paper cutouts. Will stood on a kitchen chair to place Rosemary's newly sewn pink-and-white silk angel at the top. The grownups hung the candleholders higher than little hands could reach.

Boot scraping on the porch signaled Ashley Wilkes's arrival. His hat and coat were dusted with snowflakes, "I'm sorry I'm late. I was pruning crab apples and lost track of time. Happy Christmas, Beau!" He hugged his son. "Happy Christmas, everyone!”

As Rosemary poured Ashley Christmas punch, Will took a nail puller to the wooden crate. When the nails screeched, the children put their hands over their ears.

Rhett had sent Ella an exquisite French porcelain doll, Beau and Louis Valentine got ice skates and, to his delight and the younger boys' envy, Wade received a single-shot .22 rolling-block rifle with a note in the trigger guard. "Wade, I'm trusting Will to show you how to shoot this. If you are sensible and become a good shot, when I come home we'll go hunting together.”

There was a gold locket for Rosemary, and for Scarlett a green velvet hat that matched her eyes. Although there was no note for her, Scarlett's heart leapt for joy. Even when Ella knocked over her punch glass, Scarlett didn't stop smiling.

More snow fell and Louis Valentine and Beau went onto the front porch to slide noisily from one end to the other. Ashley had brought small gifts for the children, and Will gave his Suellen a red wool nightcap. It was nearly midnight before Rosemary ushered protesting children upstairs to bed. Yawning, Will and his nightcapped wife retired.

Ashley sat by the fire. "What a wonderful evening." After a long silence, he said, "Scarlett, do you ever miss the old times, the warmth, the gaiety?”

Scarlett teased, "Like the Twelve Oaks barbecue when I confessed my love for you and you turned me down flat?”

Ashley took a poker, knelt, and stirred the fire. "I was promised to Melanie...”

"Oh Ashley, fiddle-dee-dee," Scarlett said, not unkindly.

When Ashley raised his eyes to hers, they had a new light — a light Scarlett understood all too well. She sat bolt upright. "Goodness," Scarlett said.

"I hadn't realized the time!”

Dear God, what was Ashley taking out of his pocket? Was it a ring box? Scarlett sprang from her chair. "Oh Ashley, I'm simply exhausted. All this excitement! Please see yourself out!”

"But Scarlett!”

Scarlett ran up the stairs and locked her door behind her.

Dear Lord, if Rhett got wind of this, if he thought she and Ashley ...

He'd never come home!

Although Wade had his new rifle, his mother had kept Rhett's note to the boy, and as she undressed, Mrs. Rhett Butler read it again. Her husband had written, "when I come home." Those were Rhett's exact words. As she let her hair down, Scarlett was a happy woman.

Brilliant stars illuminated snow as glossy as unskimmed cream. Ashley's horse trudged homeward. Deep in the woods, a frozen tree cracked like a rifle shot. Ashley snuggled into his buffalo coat.

He whispered to his Melanie, "Dear Heart, I told you it wouldn't work. You think I need someone to look after me, but Scarlett isn't the type to look after grown men. The look on her face when she realized I was going to propose ... Oh Melly!" His laugh rang out. His horse's hooves crunched through frozen snow. "Our first Christmas apart, dear Melly.

Ashley and Melanie Wilkes. Weren't we the luckiest couple on earth?”

The driver's log house fronted Twelve Oaks' neglected garden. Ashley had scrubbed the heart-pine floor with sand, whitewashed the logs, and hung Uncle Hamilton's Mexican War sword over the fireplace.

He knelt to light a blaze. He would sit up until the fire got going. He had so much to tell Melanie.

Boo didn't bark that night and Will Benteen slept spoon-fashion behind his wife. The tassel of Suellen's new nightcap tickled his nose.

It warmed in January and the snow retreated to the shade. The Flint River ran brown and so loud, they could hear it from the house. When it froze again, the snowmelt became a bright, hazardous glaze, which kept those without outdoor chores indoors next the fire. Every morning, Big Sam split the firewood young Wade carried in.

Will Benteen visited every farmhouse and poor-white shanty for twenty miles around. Who had a grievance against Tara? Had anybody boasted about vandalizing a meat house? Somebody at the Jonesboro market told Tony Fontaine the Klan was involved, but Will thought that unlikely. "The Klan's finished, Tony. Anyways, the KKK never pestered Democrats.”

The hayloft of the horse barn was the highest vantage point in the steading, and when the ice melted and riders were traveling the road again, Will toted quilts and an old straw tick up the ladder to the loft.

Suellen told Will he was wasting his time, that whoever had wrecked their meat house had "had their fun.”

"Honeypie," Will said, "when Boo barks at night, I plumb hate to keep wakin' you.”

Suellen said if anything happened to Will, she'd never forgive him.

That evening, Big Sam stared up at the loft door and called, "I'm sorrowed 'bout this, Mr. Will. But this ain't no business for colored folks.”

"See you in the mornin', Sam.”

Uncertain about the change in routine, Boo lay in front of the horse barn for an hour before he got to his feet, stretched, and resumed his nocturnal patrol.

The moon illumined frozen earth. It was a windless night. Wrapped in quilts, Will slept deeply all night long.

The next night was as uneventful as the first.

His third night in the loft, Will starded awake to scuffling sounds.

Somebody was climbing the ladder. Will's hand crept from the warm quilts to his shotgun's icy steel barrels. His finger found the triggers.

When Will felt a tremor in the loft floor, he cocked the hammers: clack, clack.

"It's me, Will," Wade Hamilton whispered.

Will let the hammers down. "Son," he said as the boy's head cleared the hatch, "you skeered the bejesus out of me.”

"I came to help." Wade slid his new rifle into the loft. "It isn't right, you bein' out here by yourself.”

A grin crossed Will's big face. "Is that gun loaded?”

"No, sir. I thought maybe you could show me.”

"In the morning, Wade. I thank you for comin', but I reckon I'll handle this business my own self.”

Will was still grinning when he dropped off to sleep.

In the morning, when Will came into the house for breakfast, Suellen pouted. "Oh, here's my husband now. I was wondering if I still had one.”

Though she tried to pull away, Will kissed her. "Mornin', Sweet Pea. I got to tell you that sleepin' with a shotgun is a darn sight colder than sleepin' with you." He swatted her behind.

"Please, leave off, Will. The children ...”

Yes m.

Will and Big Sam got ready for planting. They checked and trimmed the workhorses' hooves, polished and oiled the plow soles, and inventoried hames and work harnesses.

"Mr. Will," Big Sam complained. "We got to buy some new harness.

These lines dried out and cracked.”

"Put together harness from what's sound.”

Big Sam cocked his head, "Mr. Will, is Tara broke?”

Will didn't answer.

On the second of February, a full moon sailed across a cloudless sky and Will slept restlessly in the too-bright night. He woke to Boo's furious barking, followed by shots that came so fast, Will didn't know how many had been fired. He backed so quickly down the ladder, he missed a rung and almost fell. In stocking feet, he jogged toward the barking.

That low dark shape speeding toward him was Boo. The dog's ears were flattened against his head.

"S'all right, Boo," Will said thickly.

At the paddock gate in the bright moonlight, Will saw it all. "Christ Jesus,”

he said. "Christ Jesus.”

One foal was blindly racing the fence in a panic. The other stood trembling over her dead dam. The two mares seemed smaller than they'd been when they were alive. The second foal lowered her long neck to bump at her dead mother's flanks. Like all frightened babies, she wanted to nurse.

Tara's neighbors came. Men stood in groups in the paddock, speaking in low tones. The women stayed in the kitchen and said how frightened they were. They asked who would do such a wicked thing. Mammy insisted, "This ain't colored folks' work." Tony Fontaine hunted for tracks, but the ground was too hard.

Mrs. Tarleton took the foals to rear on goat's milk. She said there was a special place in hell for anybody who'd shoot a horse.

When they could stomach it, Sam and Will wrapped chains around the mares' hind legs and dragged them to the boneyard.

The weather warmed, the ground thawed, and though Will still slept in the hayloft, like other Clayton County planters he spent his days plowing and ridging the cotton fields.

Before daylight, Big Sam put hames and harnesses on the big, stolid workhorses. Sam might say, "Right nippy this mornin'," or "Look here, Dolly's got a gall.”

Will might say, "Feels like weather coming in.”

The two men rarely said much more. Big Sam always fitted the hames.

Will always lit the tack room lantern and snuffed it when they went out.

As soon as it was light enough to keep to their furrows, they lowered their plowshares and plowed until noon, when they rested the horses and ate the dinner Suellen brought them. Will never tired of hearing about Tara before the War, and Sam obliged by describing Tara's barbecues and the time Gerald O'Hara organized a horse race down the Jonesboro road. "All the young bloods was bettin' and drinkin' and it's a wonder none of 'em fell off and got kilt.

"Miss Ellen, she was a good Christian woman. 'Deed she was. But sometimes her bein' so good made everybody else feel bad. Master Gerald, oh he had a temper." Sam shook his head. "Master Gerald jest like a summer rain — get you wet 'n' gone. Wet 'n' gone.”

While Will smoked his pipe, Sam'd talked about Darktown doings. Sam didn't approve of Reverend Maxwell, the First African Baptist's new young preacher. "That boy don't know his place," Sam said. "He born up north.

He never been bought nor sold.”

After dinner, they'd hitch up and plow until dusk, when they returned to the barn, rubbed down and fed their horses. Will never went into the paddock where his mares had been killed.

One Sunday after church, Rosemary and Beau Wilkes rode to Twelve Oaks. It was a crisp February day and every branch tip glowed pink with new life.

Ashley's grandfather, Virginian Robert Wilkes, had built his plantation in a wilderness. His negroes felled the timber and burned or uprooted stubborn stumps from what became Twelve Oaks' cotton fields. As his plantation prospered, Robert Wilkes added outbuildings, servants' quarters, and, ultimately, his Georgian manor house. The gardens at Twelve Oaks were a project of Robert's old age and his lifelong urge to civilize wilderness.

Huge magnolias had marked the garden corners. Dogwood, redbud, sparkleberry, and crab apple were the backdrop for flowering perennials.

Spirea bushes shaded garden paths and the formal rose garden — fragrant with Bourbon roses — had been framed with boxwood. An arched Chinese footbridge had crossed a tiny stream banked with camellias, and an iron trellis, covered with abelia, opened on a tiny park where a fountain splashed.

That was before Sherman came.

The carriage turnaround was black where Ashley had burned brush.

More brush, piled higher than Rosemary's horse, awaited the match. She and Beau dismounted and Beau ran down a stubbly path toward the sound of singing.

They emerged into a clearing where a dry fountain was overseen by a rearing, life-size bronze horse. Ashley was stabbing a sword into the earth beside the fountain. Unaware of his audience, he sang, "De Master run, ha, ha." Ashley stabbed a new spot. "And de darkies stay, ho, ho." Ashley dropped to hands and knees and wiggled the sword. "Must be the Kingdom comin' and de day of Jubilo!”

"Daddy," Beau cried, "that's Grandpa's sword!”

Ashley looked up and grinned, "Hullo, Beau. I didn't hear you. Mrs. Ravanel, welcome to Twelve Oaks." Wiping red clay onto his trousers, he rose and gestured at the sword. "I'm probing for its valve box. I never thought to become a plumber.”

When Rosemary eyed the rearing horse, Ashley said, "I bought it in Italy years and years ago. They said'ix. was Etruscan." He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Beau freed the sword and wiped it with dead grass.

"Beau, the saber is an excellent tool for splitting kindling or finding buried water valves.”

" 'Ye shall beat your swords into plowshares?' " Rosemary suggested.

"Something like that. Here, Beau, try it on these blackberries. Keep the handle free at the base of your palm. Good." The father adjusted the son's stance.

Beau slashed a blackberry cane at the height of a man's heart.

"Excellent, Beau. My saber teacher would have approved. Mrs. Ravanel, how good of you to bring my son. Won't you come to the house? Beau, I'll carry the sword.”

Smoke wisped a second, smaller cabin. "Mose is a better Christian than I.

Won't find Mose workin' on the Lord's Day, no sir." Lithe as a boy, Ashley sprang onto his porch. "Won't you come in, Mrs. Ravanel? I can offer tea.”

"If you'll call me Rosemary.”

"Rosemary it is.”

Ashley's cabin was a one-room log hut with a stone fireplace. Its windows sparkled, and the bed was neatly made. Horticultural books lined the table. Cattails stood in a jar on the dry sink.

Ashley said, "Typba domingensis. Our red-winged blackbirds nest among them.”

Beau stirred the fire, took the wood basket, and went for firewood.

"He's a good boy," Rosemary said.

"Thankfully, Beau favors his mother." Ashley hung a kettle on the pot hook and swiveled it over the fire. "This'll only take a minute." With no special inflection, he said, "I found some letters in Melanie's desk. I didn't know my wife had a faithful correspondent. I'll return them if you wish.”

"I think ... at the time ... Melanie's letters saved my sanity. My husband Andrew ... It was ... it was all so tawdry." Rosemary clasped her arms around herself. "Those awful memories. No, I shan't want my letters; please burn them.”

Ashley stared into the fire. "I loved her so much. Melly ... is with me always." He grinned suddenly. "She approves of all this, you know — selling the sawmills, becoming a gardener.”

"Why, of course she does!”

Beau set the wood basket on the hearth. "Father, could I call on Uncle Mose and Aunt Betsy?”

"I'm sure they'd love a visit." When Beau was gone, Ashley explained, "Aunt Betsy is a prodigious baker of oatmeal cookies.”

When the kettle was hissing, Ashley filled a stained Blue Willow teapot.

"I found this half-buried beneath a garden bench. I suppose some Yankee looter set it down and forgot where. It was my mother's.”

As she measured tea, Ashley said offhandedly, "Did Scarlett tell you I tried to propose to her?”

"Why, no, Ashley. She didn't.”

Ashley's laugh was self-mockery, relief, and joy. "I'd half-persuaded myself Melanie would have wanted us married. I thank a watchful Providence and Scarlett's inherent good sense; she scorned my proposal." Ashley retrieved two mismatched cups.

"Ashley," Rosemary said softly, "why are you telling me this?”

"Because I am done with deception. I shan't conceal my true feelings ever again.”

By the first week in March, Will Benteen and Big Sam had finished plowing the river fields and moved onto the uplands. Like most countrymen, they rarely remarked the beauty about them, but each savored the expansive vista, with Tara stretching at their feet.

At noon every day, Will visited the river fields to crumble soil in his hands and test its temperature.

When the rains came, they quit and put up the horses. The wet clay soil was too heavy to plow.

"We'll fix harness until this lets up," Will said. "We're ahead of ourselves anyways.”

Rain turned the Jonesboro road into gumbo, and since they couldn't get to church that Sunday, Rosemary read psalms in the parlor, Big Sam and Dilcey adding vigorous Baptist aniens. The children recited the prayers they offered every night at their bedsides, and Scarlett shut her eyes when Ella begged God to bring Daddy Rhett home.

Lord, how she missed him. Not his wit, nor his power, nor his physicality — she missed Him!

Sometimes in her lonely bed, Scarlett startled awake, listening for her husband's breathing. She'd reach across the quilt to pat where Rhett should be.

Her skin was too sensitive, her hearing painfully acute. She flinched at sudden noises and heard visitors in the lane long before anyone else. She would stand for long minutes staring out the window at nothing at all.

"Dear God," she prayed, "please give me one more chance...”

Uncle Henry Hamilton arrived after the dinner dishes had been washed and put away. The bad road had turned the hour's ride from Jonesboro into four. Uncle Henry was wet and cold and his rented horse was knackered. He couldn't possibly return to the depot for the last train.

"Sit by the fire and we'll find you something to eat, Uncle Henry,”

Scarlett said. "Prissy, please make up the front bedroom.”

Mammy had an apple pie in the pie safe, corn bread and brown beans in the warming oven. Pork carried Uncle Henry's saddlebags upstairs.

Happy to do work he'd been trained to do, Pork laid out Uncle Henry's shaving things on the nightstand and fetched a pitcher of water.

Will came in blowing on his hands. The cold was stiffening the road, and if Uncle Henry left early tomorrow morning, he'd make a quick journey.

Mollified by a full belly and warm fire, Uncle Henry folded his napkin in precise folds. "Scarlett, if we could have a moment — privately?”

Suellen had been hoping for some Atlanta gossip and abandoned the dining room with ill grace.

Scarlett's heart sank. Oh my God, something's happened to Rhett!

Henry has some awful news about Rhett! But he was saying something about a fire. "A what?" she asked. "What fire?”

Uncle Henry gave her a strange look. "Your Atlanta home, dear Scarlett,”

he explained a second time. "I'm terribly sorry. They couldn't save it.

Captain Mulvaney arrived ten minutes after the alarm, but his men couldn't even get the furniture out.”

"My house ... burned?" Scarlett's mind raced ahead.

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news," Uncle Henry said. "I fear, I very much fear it will be a long time before Atlanta sees so grand a home again.”

"Gone?”

"Mulvaney's men saved the carriage house." Uncle Henry leaned forward confidentially. "Dear Scarlett, I don't wish to alarm you, but Captain Mulvaney believes ... " Uncle Henry cleared his throat.

"Believes what?”

"There'll be nothing in the papers, my dear. I saw to that!”

"Uncle Henry! What are you trying to say?”

"Scarlett, the fire was set.”

Bored housebound children were playing noisily on the front stairs.

Scarlett thought, Some child's going to fall and there'll be wailing.

Scarlett let her annoyance smother the elation she felt. "The carved staircase, the Oriental rugs, the bureaus, Rhett's books — everything gone?" Despite her intentions, the corners of Scarlett's mouth twitched upward in a smile.

Uncle Henry frowned. "I'm sorry, Scarlett, I cannot share your amusement.”

"Forgive me, Uncle Henry. But I owe so much money, and Tara sucks up every penny, and that house was fully insured.”

Uncle Henry put on his glasses, removed papers from his jacket pocket, and unfolded them as one who already knew what they contained. "You were insured with the Southern Benefit Insurance Company? Edgar Puryear's firm? Were you insured with anyone else?”

"No. Southern Benefit covered everything.”

Uncle Henry sighed, refolded, and pocketed her policies. "Then, my dear, I'm afraid there is no insurance. Edgar and the Southern Benefit Insurance Company are bankrupt. In this depression, your house wasn't Atlanta's first arson.”

Scarlett frowned. She said, "Someone is trying to destroy me.”

"What are you saying? Who ...”

"I don't know who." Scarlett shook her head, clearing cobwebs. "Never mind. Henry, there's nothing you can do. Sell the lot. A double lot on Peachtree should be worth something!”

"I'll do what I can," Uncle Henry said.

It didn't rain the morning Uncle Henry left for Atlanta and didn't rain thereafter. The soil warmed to Will's satisfaction. Tara's horses were fit and eager to work.

The third Saturday in March, Will Benteen rode into Darktown to let Tara's field workers know there'd be work Monday. "Usual rate for full-task hands. Twenty plowmen, twenty sowers. Start at daybreak in our river fields.”

Before daylight on Monday, Will and Sam loaded seed, shovel plows, and spare traces into the wagon. It was still dark when they led the workhorses down the winding path they knew by heart. It was chilly in the bottoms, Sam dozing while Will smoked his pipe.

The sky lightened, but fog clung to the lowlands. Songbirds woke and started chirruping. Will tapped dottle out of his pipe, got down from the wagon, stretched, and yawned. He'd eaten a big breakfast to prepare for this day's work.

At ten o'clock, when Will Benteen galloped into Darktown, he found only women and children. The wives told Will his field hands were sick in bed or working in Atlanta or off visiting kin. One wife looked him straight in the eye. "You know how it is, Mr. Will," she said.

"No, Sadie, I don't know," Will said. "I'm ready to plant cotton and I've got no workers. I know I pay good wages and I believe I've treated you fair. No, I don't know how it is.”

Gently but firmly, she closed the door in Will's face.

The negroes wouldn't come to Tara and Tara's neighbors had their own cotton to plant. Ashley came, but Mose refused. "I'ze a Twelve Oaks nigger. I don't work nowheres but Twelve Oaks.”

Ashley Wilkes had never steered a shovel plow, so Will walked alongside until Ashley got the hang of it. Dilcey had sown cotton, and though she claimed she'd never done "such a thing," so had Prissy. Although Pork complained, he hung the canvas seed bag around his neck and walked behind, sprinkling seed in the shallow trench the plowmen opened in the cotton ridges. Scarlett, Rosemary, and Suellen rode behind the sowers, their workhorses pulling drag boards to cover the seed.

It didn't rain.

Will quit sleeping in the hayloft. At day's end, Will was too weary to hear Boos bark.

Mammy rose at four A.M. to light the stoves and cook breakfast. After they ate, they gathered at the horse barn. Pork muttered, "Praise the Lord old Master Gerald ain't alive to see what we has come to." Suellen reminded Will they'd never had trouble getting workers until "certain parties”

returned to Tara. As their wagon rolled to the field, Rosemary sat bolt upright with her eyes closed, trying to snatch a few more minutes of sleep.

At noon, young Wade brought their dinner and stayed to fetch water for workers and horses. Mammy milked, gathered eggs, slopped the hogs, and tended the younger children. At dusk, when Tara's weary workers trudged back to the house, Mammy had supper waiting.

When Rosemary read her brother's letters, the children could hardly keep their eyes open. Rhett joked he'd almost been buried in the hold of a Scottish herring schooner under a ton of wriggling fish.

Louis Valentine made a face.

Ella asked, "Mama, when is Daddy coming home?”

The last Sunday in April dawned a warm, sweet morning. Honeysuckle and spicebush scented the air. Little Ella accompanied Mammy to the milk house. The child liked it when Mammy squirted milk into the mouths of the barn cats, who waited beside the milking stool in a comical expectant row.

"What's that, Mammy? Beside the gate?”

Mammy snatched Ella's hand. "Honey, you come away with me now.

Don't get no nearer to that.”

Ella fell to the ground, convulsing.

Long tongue covered with flies, white teeth bared in a defiant snarl, Boo's bloody head was perched on the gatepost.

At dusk, Will found Sam beside the river, where suckers were spawning.

Although a shadowy flotilla of the big bony creatures darkened the pools, Sam's fishing pole lay beside him on the bank. Will's knees cracked as he sat. "Gettin' old," Will said.

An osprey hit the water and rose with a wriggling fish in his talons.

"Sorry about Boo," Sam said. "I thought high of that dog.”

"Uh-huh." Will fumbled when he lit his pipe.

After awhile, Sam said, "I'm deacon there at the First African.”

"Big job," Will said.

"You think lyin' is when you don't say what you know or just when you outright tell a lie?”

Will was saved from answering when his pipe went out. After a time, Big Sam added, "Niggers skeered. That's why they ain't comin'.”

Will relit his pipe, made a face, and tapped the soggy dottle onto a rock.

"Figured it was something like that. Who scared 'em?”

"Look at that scamp! I bet that fish three feet if he a inch.”

"He's big all right.”

The two men recalled the biggest suckers caught in the Flint River and agreed that Tarletons' Jim's forty-pounder, as weighed on Beatrice Tarleton's hog scales, was the "biggest hereabouts.”

Sam said, "I knowed it all along, Mr. Will. You think it's a sin, my not tellin'?”

Will ran a twig through his pipe stem. "I reckon, you bein' a deacon and all.”

"I knowed it was," Sam said unhappily. "Darned if I didn't.”

Quietly, Will asked, "The same boys that spoiled our meat, killed our mares, and" — Will coughed — "Boo?”

Sam sighed. "I reckon. Little Willy what works at the Jonesboro market heard them jokin'.”

"Who was joking?”

"That horse breaker fella. Willy heard him say, 'I like my hog meat without the horse shit.' Horse breaker's uncle — name of Isaiah, same as the prophet — no, sir, Isaiah didn't care for sech rough talk. Course, little Willy pretended he hadn't heard. They's three of 'em: the horse breaker 'n' Isaiah 'n' that Archie Flytte from up Mundy Hollow.”

Will Benteen asked Sam what was the best bait for suckers or if it was true they'd bite on most anything. Then Will recalled how Mrs. Tarleton had admired Sam's favorite workhorse, Dolly, when Dolly was a foal.

In his own good time, Sam said, "The horse breaker and Archie Flytte was Kluxers. They got all 'round Clayton County after the War." Sam shivered.

"I reckon Archie'd kill a colored man soon as look at him. Twas Archie kilt that negro Senator down by Macon. Strung him up like man weren't no account at all!”

Will rode to the Tarletons'.

Mrs. Tarleton snorted. "Horse breaker! Josie Watling claims to be a horse breaker! Says he's been out west where the tough horses are. Arrogant pip-squeak. You know Jim Boatwright, owns the cotton warehouses? Jim hasn't got the sense God gave a goose. Jim had a Thoroughbred filly that was a little wild, a spirited filly, just the kind of horse anybody'd want to have. When the filly bucked Josie Watling off, Watling took a barrel stave to her. Damn fool took out her eye.”

Just past ten o'clock the following morning, Big Sam tied Scarlett's buggy to a hitching post outside the courthouse. Scarlett wore a high-waisted, severe dress and the hat Rhett had sent her for Christmas. Big Sam hurried to help her down.

"Sam, wait here for me.”

"I be at the hardware, Miss Scarlett. Mr. Will need'n' plow points.”

The sheriff's office was in the courthouse basement, and the air cooled as Scarlett went down the steps. Inside, the wall behind the sheriff's desk bore a Clayton County map, yellowed wanted posters, and the obligatory lithograph of Robert E. Lee on Traveller. Sheriff Oliver Talbot stood to greet her, and when Scarlett introduced herself, Talbot said he was so pleased, so pleased. He knew Mrs. Butler's husband.

"You served with Rhett?”

"No, ma'am." He pivoted to show her his withered arm. "Born that way, ma'am. Ugly, ain't it." Sheriff Talbot chuckled, "My wife says, 'Praise God, Oily. Your poor arm kept you from bein' kilt in the War.' “

Scarlett said, "My plantation has been vandalized and the negroes are too frightened to work for me.”

"I knew your father, too. Gerald O'Hara was a grand gentleman. Mrs. Butler, who do you suspect?”

Scarlett described ruined hams rolling down the slope into the boneyard and a foal trying to nurse its dead mother.

"Twenty-eight hams, you say. Two mares. A dog?" Sheriff Talbot frowned. "Tell me what niggers done it and I'll show them the error of their ways.”

"This wasn't negro work, Sheriff. Only white men could be so malicious — the same white men who set fire to my Atlanta home. The finest home in Atlanta, burned to the ground.”

Sheriff Talbot's smile shrank. "Mrs. Butler, I can't do nothin' 'bout 'Lanta. J. P. Robertson, he's 'Lanta sheriff. Vandalizing isn't white man's work.”

She named Isaiah and Josie Watling and Archie Flytte. "Flytte hates me. He was a convict, you know. Archie murdered his wife.”

Talbot nodded. "Poor Hattie Flytte was kin to me, Mrs. Butler. I knowed Archie before he was sent up and I know him now. Ol' Archie's a rough customer. But wreckin' your meat house? That ain't like Archie.

These other fellows? Isaiah Watling is a pious, hardworkin' man. When he still had his farm in Mundy Hollow — oh, must have been 1840 or '41 ...”

"Sheriff, please spare me your affecting reminiscences. My family is of some consequence in this county.”

Sheriff Talbot's smile vanished as if it had never been. "Mrs. Butler, every white citizen is of consequence in Clayton County. I know those boys you're namin'. And they ain't no angels. But they wouldn't do somethin' like what you're sayin' they done. You got you some impudent niggers out your way and I certainly mean to look into it.”

When Scarlett came into the bright sunshine, a leathery oldster was leaning against her buggy. He tapped his hat brim. "Mornin', Miz Butler. I'm Isaiah Watling and I knew your husband when he was Young Master at Broughton Plantation. I hear Butler's in Europe." He tut-tutted.

"It's a caution how some people get around. When you write your husband, you'll tell him Isaiah Watling was asking after him.”

"Mr. Watling, what are you doing? Why are you tormenting us?”

He cackled. "There's torments and torments, Miz Butler, but the worst is the torments of hell." He pointed a bony forefinger at her. "Archie says you are Jezebel, but you don't look like I imagine Jezebel to be.”

"If I catch you sneaking around my property, I'll have you horsewhipped.”

"Whipped, Miz Butler?" He considered. "Miz Butler, as much whipping as I've seen and done in my long, long life, I can't say it ever did a lick of good." Isaiah Watling's eyes crinkled with amusement, "I b'lieve I made a joke. 'A lick of good,' my, my.”

When Scarlett looked around the empty square, she felt a chill.

"Where's Sam? He was supposed to wait for me.”

"Was that big nigger yours, Miz Butler? I believe he has done run off.”

"Sam's a good negro. He wouldn't leave me.”

"Well then, I'm right sorry he's run off, ma'am. But might be that boy won't quit runnin' until he's far away.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE A Telegram

The Georgia Railroad telegrapher reckoned he could send a telegram care of Rob Campbell in London, England — they had the transatlantic cable — yes ma'am. But it might take some time, account of he'd never sent a telegram to London, England, before. He checked his book and whistled. "Ma'am, it's gonna be a dollar a word.”

Scarlett's pencil pressed deep into the message pad where she wrote.

"Rosemary needs you." She handed the pad to the clerk but snatched it back to add, "I need you. Darling come home.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR Glasgow

Tazewell Watling wanted to tear the damn thing up, but he returned it to its envelope and gave the boy sixpence.

Who touched his cap anxiously. "Sir, you will deliver this to Mr. Butler?”

"When I find him.”

Six months before, when Rhett Butler had walked into Nicolet and Watling's office, Tazewell had scarcely recognized him. Once-elegant clothes hung on his gaunt frame. He had the face of an old man.

Rhett rolled his hat in his hands. "I'm going abroad, Taz." His weary smile was sadder than no smile would have been. "The grand tour. Museums.

Historic places. Fine art." He paused. "I wondered if you might join me.

It was on Taz's tongue to say October was the firm's busiest month.

Ships were backed up at Nicolet's wharf and so much cotton was coming in, they'd rented a second warehouse. Taz looked into his guardian's blasted eyes and said, "Of course I'll come.”

They caught the mail steamer that same day.

Belle had written Taz about Rhett. "Honey, I never seen him so bad.

First Bonnie Blue and then Miss Melly. It'd be hard enough if Rhett and Miss Scarlett could console one another, but they can't. I'm fearing Rhett ain't got much to live for.”

Rhett didn't speak about this, and they were in England's Bristol Channel before Rhett mentioned Melanie Wilkes. Seabirds whirled and dipped over white chalk cliffs. "Miss Melly couldn't be deceived," Rhett said.

"Melanie Wilkes never doubted her heart.”

Tazewell Watling looked away so he couldn't see the tears streaming down his guardian's face.

Taz didn't ask about Rhett's wife. That Scarlett's name never crossed Rhett's lips told Taz everything he needed to know.

The bellman at their London hotel unpacked their luggage while Rhett sat, hands between his knees. Taz wanted to call on the Campbells, but Rhett said he was too tired.

Taz spent a pleasant afternoon renewing his acquaintance with the Campbell family, but when he returned to the hotel, Rhett was gone. The doorman said Rhett hadn't taken a cab; he'd walked into Mayfair. "The gentleman seemed distracted like," the doorman said. "Like the gentleman had something on his mind.”

Rhett's tailor hadn't seen him and he hadn't been to the gambling clubs. Of course they knew Mr. Butler. Was Mr. Butler back in London? Three days later, wearing the clothes he'd worn when he disappeared, Rhett came back to the hotel. He was filthy and unshaven. Perhaps he'd slept in his clothes. "It's no use, Taz. I can't forget. Drink, laudanum, women — I never thought I'd curse my memory." He looked at his hands.

"You may as well go back to New Orleans. I am grateful you interrupted your work to come, b u t ...”

Taz said, "I'll draw your bath.”

Rob Campbell provided the necessary letters of credit and would forward their mail. Taz bought tickets for the Dieppe steamer. Taz made sure Rhett had fresh shirts and tempted him to eat.

In December, Paris was bitter cold and its famous light was unforgiving.

Rhett couldn't keep warm. Sometimes when they went outdoors, he wore two overcoats.

Like a dutiful son with his frail parent, Taz escorted Rhett to the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Op?ra Gamier. Taz chattered through the long silences. When Taz did ask a direct question, Taz's companion replied courteously, but Rhett made few observations and no suggestions. He initiated nothing.

One afternoon on the rue de la Paix, they strolled past excited young ballet dancers entering a maison de couture. Taz tipped his hat to the girls and observed, "There are other women, you know.”

"How dare you say that to me!" Rhett's eyes flared so hot, Taz took a step backward.

Taz would wake in the middle of the night, to find Rhett sitting at the window. Winter moonlight bleached his face.

Every week, dutifully, Rhett wrote the children. He asked Taz to read his letters before he mailed them. "Just the musings of an utterly ordinary tourist," Rhett said. "I mustn't frighten them.”

In his letters, Paris sights Rhett had apparently passed without noticing were described in engaging detail. All their days were sunny. Rhett was amused by Paris's famously truculent cabmen and waiters, who pretended they couldn't understand Creole French.

Taz's letters to Belle were cheerful, too.

Rosemary wrote, care of Rob Campbell, that she was staying at Tara "until I decide what to do with my life.”

Belle wrote Taz, "Your Grandpa Watling's come by twice. Might be one day I can get him to take a cup of coffee.”

Buying Christmas presents was an agony. Though the temperature was below freezing, Rhett sweated through a Harris tweed coat. After he bought the children's gifts, he bolted from the cab into a milliner's shop on the Place de la Concorde. He wasn't inside five minutes.

With a groan, Rhett collapsed in the seat. "There. That's done. Taz, I don't think I can do more. Would you see everything is shipped?”

That night, Rhett vanished from the hotel. He was gone a full week, and a gendarme and his captain brought him back. "No, monsieur," the captain told Taz, "Monsieur Butler has committed no outrages. But the gentleman takes his life in his hands..." He paused. "In Montfaucon, where we found your friend, gendarmes travel in fours.”

"Rhett?”

He coughed. He couldn't stop coughing, but he waved away Taz's help.

"Perhaps Monsieur is ill?" The captain of gendarmes wondered.

"He is," Taz said, and gave the man twenty francs.

Xf Paris was cold, Glasgow was colder. Taz and Rhett spent their first night at the Great Western Hotel opposite Gallowgate railway station.

There weren't many people in the enormous dining room: a handful of commercial travelers reading as they ate alone, an elderly couple with their grandchild enjoying a celebratory evening out. The old couple consulted carefully before ordering a bottle of the cheapest champagne.

Rhett picked at his food and drank nothing. In the morning, he was gone.

Taz visited Glasgow's hospitals and the central jail, where he was directed to the Gartnavel Lunatic Asylum.

After Scarlett's telegram came, Taz placed an ad in the Glasgow Herald: ANYONE KNOWING THE WHEREABOUTS OF MR. RHETT BUTLER — A MIDDLE-AGED AMERICAN GENTLEMAN, TALL, WELL-DRESSED, APPARENTLY MENTALLY DISTURBED CAN CLAIM A SUBSTANTIAL REWARD FROM MR. TAZEWELL WATLING AT THE GREAT WESTERN HOTEL.

Four days later, a nervous cabman drove Taz to an alehouse in the slums of Glasgow's East End. "It's a wee bit risk, man," he'd advised. "It'd be a wise man who took precautions.”

Coal smoke was so thick it was dusk at 4:30. Tenements loomed over a narrow street lit on one corner by a gaslight's dirty circle of light. Taz said, "I'll pay after I see Mr. Butler.”

The cabman snarled, "I'll have my dosh now. I'll not set foot in yon place.”

"If you want your money, you'll wait.”

The cabbie stood in his box to peer up and down the street. A cat squalled in an alleyway.

"I'll double your money if you wait.”

The cabman subsided, "I canna say I will and I canna say I willnay. For God's sake, man, be quick.”

The moment he passed through the unmarked front door, Taz's eyes watered. The low room was blue with smoke and reeked of unwashed bodies.

Old stinks had varnished the tin ceiling brown. Thick stools lined the bar; there were benches at the tables. The furniture was too heavy to use as weapons.

In the back of the dim room, wearing a mink-lined cape, gold nugget shirt studs, and thick gold watch chain, Rhett Butler was at a table with five of the worst ruffians Taz had ever seen.

"Hello, Taz. Come here and I'll introduce you. Remember my grandfather, Louis Valentine? Broughton Plantation was purchased by worthies just like these.”

"God, don't he go on?" one worthy chuckled.

Rhett's clothes were rumpled and he hadn't shaved, but he was cold sober and the glass before him was untouched.

"I've a cab, Rhett.”

"The night is young, Tazewell Watling, and I'm discussing love with Scottish philosophers. Mr. Smith, at my left, claims regular thrashings warm the marital bed. Mr. Jones — this sturdy, sandy-haired fellow — holds similar opinions.”

"Can't have 'em puttin' on airs," Jones affirmed.

"Certainly not," Rhett agreed.

"Rhett, I've been looking everywhere for you." Taz handed the telegram to Rhett.

Kill or cure: Those were the words Tazewell Watling thought while his friend read Scarlett's brief message.

Staring at the missive, sweat beaded Rhett's forehead.

Then with his old litheness, he rose to his feet. "Well, gentlemen, regrettably, all good things must come to an end.”

Smith objected: "Here, now; where're you going?”

Jones got up and tugged his cap over his eyes, "We was goin' to have us a rare old time.”

"Somehow" — Rhett chuckled — "I suspected that was your intent.”

Jones dropped his hand and came up with a thick wooden truncheon.

Something sharp gleamed in Smith's hand. The bartender dropped his rag, hurried out the back, and let the door clunk shut behind him.

"You'll stay wi' us, sir. Just for a wee while.”

Tazewell drew his revolver from his jacket pocket and pointed it casually at the ceiling. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, gentleman, but our cabman won't wait.”

"Good Lord," Rhett mocked him, "we might have to walk back to our hotel? Good night, friends. Perhaps we'll meet again.”

Jones's truncheon dangled in his hand. He grinned. "Aye, sir. Come back anytime, sir. We'll be lookin' for yer.”

Outside, their cabman was signaling urgently, but Rhett patted his pockets and frowned. "I left my gloves.”

"For God sakes, Rhett, are you mad?”

Rhett puzzled for a moment before smiling his once-familiar smile.

"Loving is a chancy thing, Taz. You risk your immortal soul.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE Drought

Clayton County was dry. Bindweed was strangling the tender cotton plants. With Big Sam gone and Ashley back at Twelve Oaks, Will Benteen started cultivating before light, trusting his horse to stay in the furrows.

Instead of resting at noon, Will hitched a fresh horse and kept working, eating cheese and bread as he walked behind the plow.

But Will's plow couldn't weed the ridges and couldn't thin the cotton plants to eight inches apart. Hoeing wants human hands. Only Mammy, who was too old, and three-year-old Robert Benteen, who was too young, were spared stoop labor.

For the hundredth time that morning, Scarlett shook weeds off her hoe. "Wade Hampton Hamilton! Hoe the weeds, not the cotton.”

"Yes, Mother." Though he'd severed the plant's roots, Wade heeled it carefully back into place.

Scarlett closed her eyes, seeking patience. Dilcey called, "You doin' all right, Miss Scarlett?”

Scarlett snapped, "If you'd spend less time gabbing and more time hoeing, we'd get through this field.”

Wade muttered under his breath, "How can we do that?”

Which was, Scarlett thought but didn't say, a good question.

Spindly cotton plants languished behind the little band of cultivators.

Ahead, there were so many weeds, it was hard to spot the cotton.

Yesterday, Will had told Scarlett they must abandon the upper tract.

"We won't get there before the cotton is strangled, Miss Scarlett. No sense me tillin' it. I can do more, hoein' alongside you all.”

Louis Valentine Ravanel and Beau Wilkes shared a row. Like the grown-ups, Wade had a row to himself. Will Benteen worked two.

Clouds drifting lazily across the sky chased shadows across their tiny patch of the world.

Although they no longer went into Jonesboro for church, they quit work at noon on Sunday, and weary, silent children climbed into the wagon. In the heat haze, traces jingled. Will murmured, "Get up now, Molly," and the horse's big hooves clopped the dry ground.

At the horse barn, the children scrambled down, while Pork, Dilcey, and Prissy headed toward the quarters.

"Suellen, please get the children washed. I'll help Will with the horses.”

"Don't reckon I need help, Miss Scarlett," Will said.

"I reckon you do," Scarlett said.

Rosemary was briefly puzzled by the black carriage in front of the house.

Surely she knew it? "Why, Belle Watling. What a surprise.”

In her modest brown check dress, Belle might have been any country woman come to call. "I'm sorry to be a bother, Miss Rosemary, but I just had to come.”

"I'm always glad to see a friend of Rhett's, Belle. Is it dry in Atlanta? I swear we're burning up. Please, won't you come in the house?”

Belle hesitated at the threshold.

"Please, come in." Rosemary led Belle into the cool parlor. Dried sweat coated Rosemary's skin and made her sticky. "Won't you sit? Can I fetch some refreshment? We've fresh buttermilk...”

"Oh, no. I don't need nothin'. I just come to ... tell you, you and Miss Scarlett..." Belle laid her gloves across an arm of the love seat, then picked them up and fiddled with them. Belle took a breath. "Miss Rosemary, you and me, we've been friendly, but I believe Miss Scarlett hates me. What I got to say is important, and I'd 'predate your fetchin' her.”

Rosemary stepped into the hall to call upstairs. "Wade! Please fetch your mother. Tell her it's important.”

Belle amended: "Say it's life or death.”

The boy clattered down the back stairs. Rosemary asked Mammy to bring water to the parlor.

When Rosemary came back into the room, Belle was examining the portrait over the mantelpiece. Startled from her reverie, Belle said, "I guess she was a real lady.”

"I believe Mrs. Butler's grandmother was married three times.”

"I'm sorry to show up without no invitation." Belle bent to the roses Pork still picked every day. Belle said, "I got to water my roses with well water.

Roses don't care for well water.”

When Mammy brought the pitcher and glasses, her mouth was set in a tight line. Rosemary forestalled her vocal disapproval, "Thank you, Mammy. The children can take dinner in the kitchen.”

Mammy mumbled, "Poor Miss Ellen be rollin' in her grave...”

A dirty, sweat-streaked Scarlett untied her sunbonnet as she came into the parlor, " 'Life or death,' Rosemary? Ah, Miss Watling ...”

"Missus Butler, I wouldn't have troubled you, but...”

"You certainly needn't trouble us anymore." Pointedly, Scarlett stood aside so Belle could leave.

"Scarlett..." Rosemary protested.

Scarlett's smile was steely. "Dear Rosemary, Louis Valentine is filthy as a chimney sweep. Shouldn't you see to his bath?”

"Scarlett, I don't imagine Belle drove out from Atlanta unless it was important.”

Scarlett brushed dirty hair off her forehead, went to the hunt board, uncorked the decanter, and poured a brandy. She tossed it back and made a face. "Miss Watling, excuse my manners. You are ... unexpected.”

"This ain't easy for me," Belle began. She sipped from her glass. "You've got better water than in town.”

"Belle," Rosemary said, "what...”

Belle rolled the cool glass on her forehead. "Miss Rosemary, I wouldn't be alive today hadn't been for Rhett Butler. Likely my boy, Tazewell, would be dead, too.”

"Miss Watling," Scarlett interrupted. "I've been in the field since daybreak.

I am filthy and irritable.”

Belle Watling rested her head on the back of the love seat and shut her eyes. In a dull voice, she said, "Poppa blames Rhett for all his sorrows.

Poppa says Rhett lured my brother, Shadrach Watling, into a duel and shot him dead, account of Shad killed that trunk master, Will.”

"What on earth are you talking about?" Scarlett demanded.

"Poppa's been comin' by," Belle kept her eyes shut. "Every Sunday, ten o'clock sharp, Poppa comes by.”

Isaiah Watling would come up Belle's walk without noticing how nice she'd kept the lawn, nor her roses, nor the cheery petunias in her window boxes. Belle always had a coffeepot and sweet rolls on the porch in case he'd take something, but he never did. "Mornin, Poppa. “

He always came by himself. He left Archie and josie back in Mundy Hollow.

He'd sit on the glider, feet flat on the floor so the glider wouldn't glide. He kept his hat on. "Daughter. " He said the word as if he wasn 't sure she was.

Isaiah never asked about his grandson, but he didn't seem to mind when Belle read Tazewell's letters; his descriptions of the Severn Bore, Notre Dame, and Longchamps Racecourse, where Taz and Rhett met Mr. Degas, a painter.

"I think a painting should look like what is painted, don 'tyou?" (Belle agreed with his commonsensical view.) "Think of that, Poppa," she said. "They got racetracks in France just like we got here. “

As Belle folded each precious letter, her father always asked, "Does the boy say when they're comin'home?”

"No, Poppa. “

"Butler can't hide behind Miss Elizabeth no more. “

They sat on that porch like any father and daughter on the porch of any house on a perfectly ordinary Sunday morning. Belle picked at a sweet roll.

Sometimes, Isaiah didn't say one word. Other times, he recalled the Watling farm in Mundy Hollow, naming every horse and even that old hound dog her brother, Shad, had loved. "Everybody said your mother's elderberry jam was the best they ever ate, " Isaiah said. "I never cared for elderberry myself. “

He, Josie, and Archie were living just down the road. "The home place is nothin ' now, "Isaiah said. "House n ' barn's fallen in — like we was never there. “

Isaiah had tried to beat the wickedness out of his son.

"Shad was hard-hearted, " Belle said.

"That don't mean Rhett Butler should have shot him. “

"I'm your daughter, Poppa. “

"I been ponderin ' on that. " The glider squeaked. "You ever consider repenting”

"Miss Watling," Scarlett interrupted. "Your father and his gang have terrorized us and frightened our field hands away. I don't know what grievance he imagines he has with me.”

"Oh, he doesn't! Archie Flytte hates you, but Poppa don't think nothin' about you.”

"Miss Watling," Scarlett said, "you said you had a 'life or death' matter ...”

Belle set her water glass down. She picked up her gloves and folded them. Softly, she said, "I never thought this'd be so damned hard.”

"Belle ..." Rosemary prompted gently.

"Miss Rosemary, you know how Poppa felt about your mother. He thought she was a saint on earth. You know Poppa — once he gets an idea in his head, there's no shakin' it. Miss Scarlett, Poppa ain't worried 'bout you, but he's wanted to kill Rhett for the longest time, and now Miss Elizabeth is passed away and Poppa's joined up with that Flytte fella and Cousin Josie ... it's bad.”

"But..." Scarlett said.

"So long's Rhett's across the sea, they can't do nothin', so they been botherin' you so you'll beg him back." Belle was anguished. "Whatever you do, Miss Scarlett, please don't ask Rhett to come home.”

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX Three Widows

Although the Jonesboro telegraph office was closed Sundays, Scarlett interrupted the telegrapher's supper and cajoled him until he agreed to accompany her to the railway station, where the telegrapher topped his instrument's batteries, rolled up his sleeves, tested his signal strength, and sent Scarlett's frantic warning rattling across the Atlantic.

Scarlett paced until the key clattered Rob Campbell's reply; "Rhett and Tazewell sailed for New York Thursday.”

"Are you all right, ma'am?" the telegrapher asked. "Won't you sit down?”

"Send my message to the St. Nicholas, the Astor House, the Metropolitan, the Fifth Avenue ... for God's sake, send it to all the New York hotels!”

"Ma'am," the telegrapher said. "I don't know the New York hotels. I never been to New York.”

Scarlett wanted to slap the man into usefulness. She wanted to weep in frustration. "Send it to the hotels I named," Scarlett said through clenched teeth.

Riding back to Tara, Scarlett's mind whirled. What could she do? What could any woman do? On the road between somewhere and somewhere else, she reined in her horse. The sky was blue. She could hear a warbler in the brush beside the road. As coldly and clearly as she'd ever known anything, Scarlett knew that if Rhett Butler were murdered, she'd want to die, too.

Curiously, her harsh self-sentence eased her soul. Her mind stopped spinning and she understood what she'd need to do.

As Scarlett dismounted, Rosemary ran to her. "Did you warn Rhett?”

Scarlett took off her bonnet and shook her hair loose. "They've already sailed. When Rhett comes to Tara, the Watlings will ambush him.”

Rosemary clamped her eyes shut for a moment. "Damn them!”

"Yes, goddamn them all! Where are our preening male champions when we really need them?”

In the parlor, a subdued Mammy brought the two women hot tea. The house was quiet; the children were outside playing in the long twilight.

"Rosemary," Scarlett began, "we are unalike in many respects, but we love your brother.”

Rosemary nodded.

"And we would do anything we had to do — anything necessary — to keep him from harm.”

"Scarlett, what are you thinking of?”

"Two times, I've worn black for husbands who died protecting Southern womanhood. I loathe mourning. I will not wear black for Rhett Butler.”

Scarlett poured their tea, added Rosemary's cream and her sugar. When she gave Rosemary her cup, it chattered against its saucer. "Rosemary Butler Haynes Ravanel, like myself, you are twice widowed. When your husbands went off to fight, were you glad to see them go?”

"What? Are you mad?”

"On the contrary. I may be, after many years, putting men's madness aside." Scarlett went to the decanter and poured a healthy tot of brandy into her tea. "Oh, I know, I know. Ladies don't drink brandy in their tea.

Frankly, Rosemary, I no longer care what ladies do or don't do.”

"Scarlett, I feel like a horse is running away with me. Tell me what you're planning. Please! I beg you!”

So Scarlett told her.

First thing Monday morning, Dilcey heated water and they bathed in the kitchen — Scarlett first, then Rosemary while Scarlett toweled herself and dried her hair. Field-work grime turned their bathwater gray.

Mammy ironed petticoats as they sat side by side, wrapped in towels, while Dilcey braided and coiled their hair.

Mammy was torn between dismay at what Scarlett might be up to and delight in their transformation.

The men had been exiled from the house, and after their hair was done, in their shifts, the ladies searched Scarlett's trunks for clothing. When Scarlett unfolded a pink watered-silk dress, a receipt fluttered to the floor: "Mme. Frère, Bourbon Street.”

"Dear me," Scarlett said. "Rhett bought this in New Orleans." She held the dress up to Rosemary. "It flatters your complexion.”

"The bodice? Scarlett, I am not so well endowed...”

"Dilcey will take a tuck in it." Scarlett chuckled. "Did Rhett ever tell you how he and I attended the notorious Quadroon Ball?”

As the ladies prepared, Pork bridled Taras handsomest saddle horses. He rubbed them down, picked loose hair, and clipped their manes and tails before tying them to the hitch rack for Prissy's attentions. In the tack room, he found two dusty sidesaddles and patted the smaller one reverently. "Miz Ellen," Pork said. "Everything's changed at Tara. Not for the better, neither.”

As she plaited manes and tails, Prissy chattered. "They sure gonna look nice, ain't they? Is Miss Scarlett 'n' Miss Rosemary goin' to a barbecue? Way they fixed up, I bet that's where they goin'. Reckon we goin', too?”

She took a step back to admire her work. "I puttin' ribbons in the manes and tails. Pork, what color do you reckon?”

"Miss Scarlett's be green," Pork pronounced authoritatively.

The Jonesboro market shared its siding with the slaughterhouse and Maclver's cotton warehouse. During the harvest, cotton was auctioned here, and throughout the year, Clayton County farmers came to buy and sell livestock. The market's pens and rough shelters butted against the tracks. At the south end of the market, sale animals were delivered, weighed, numbered, and penned until they were driven down the market's wide aisles, gates slamming behind them, into a hundred-foot sale ring enclosed by a horse-high, bull-stout oak fence. On market days, negroes perched on this fence, while whites enjoyed the relative comfort of an open wooden grandstand. Under the grandstand, two dour women in the sales office accepted payments, deducted the market commission, and issued the ticket that let the successful bidder claim his beast. Beside the sales office, a colored woman had a wooden booth where she sold ham slices and corn bread. Out of respect for the Baptists, she kept her demijohn of white liquor beneath the counter.

The market was loud with the bawling, squealing, baaing, whinnying, clucking, and hee-hawing of mules, horses, hogs, geese, ducks, and chickens.

That particular Monday morning, parched grass crunched underfoot and red dust filmed cattle, corrals, and the grandstand. Men's hat brims were tinged red. The dust smelled of dried manure.

Order buyers making up consignments for Atlanta butchers wore linen suits and affixed their ties with gold stickpins. But most here today were poor men who'd brought in a hog or sought a milk cow with a few more seasons left in her. Some men were shoeless.

By one o'clock, the market was humming. Livestock came into the auction ring, the auctioneer cried his singsong, and the dust hung in the air like red fog.

When the two ladies appeared, startled farmers nudged one another.

One simpleton rubbed his eyes and whistled. "Gol-ly!”

Fringed silk parasols protected the ladies' delicate complexions; elbow length gloves protected their delicate hands.

Rosemary smiled graciously. "Why, thank you, sir." The young farmer who opened the gate had never heard a sweeter voice.

They were the perfection of Southern womanhood — the ladies their own wives, worn by toil and childbirth, could never be. Of course they weren't dusty — no fleck of dust would dare light on them. Their eyes passed over the man beating a sick cow to its feet, three-day-old veal calves bleating for their mothers, and a market worker lashing a reluctant bull into a pen. Ladies never noticed such things. They were too fine to notice such things. Men took off their hats and smiled as they passed.

A man who had been the Tarletons' overseer in happier days sang out, "Mornin', Miss Scarlett," and accepted her nod as from a monarch.

News of the ladies' arrival sped through the sprawling market and men started toward the auction ring as if some unusually valuable horse or bull was to be sold. Drovers who'd been inspecting a jenny's hooves turned her loose, and negroes slopping market hogs put their buckets down.

In the grandstand, the Atlanta buyers sat on cushions, at eye level with the auctioneer on the far side of the ring.

High above, in the top row, Isaiah Watling dozed in the sun while his nephew Josie read Ned Buntline's dime novel The Scouts of the Plains and thought the Plains were exactly where Josie Watling ought to be. In Buntline's book, Buffalo Bill dropped a hostile redskin a mile away with a single shot. Josie Watling scratched his head. He'd never shot anybody so far off.

Jesse and Frank James were robbing trains. Josie'd never robbed a train.

Josie Watling worried he'd been Back East too long and maybe when he got West again, he wouldn't be able to kill a man a mile away, and maybe he'd be no account at train robbing. How did a man rob a train anyway? How did you get it to stop to be robbed? His snoring uncle Isaiah had a spit bubble at the corner of his mouth.

Most of the time, Isaiah was just another old coot. Only thing kept Isaiah going was Rhett Butler. Josie reckoned that after they planted Butler, Isaiah Watling could die in peace.

It had been Archie Flytte's notion to hound Mrs. Butler until she brought her husband home. Archie hated the Butlers like poison. Uncle Isaiah had been too damn holy for the meat house, too holy to scare niggers, and too holy for the damn yappy dog, but when they torched that big house in Atlanta, Josie'd had to drag the old fool away. He'd been staring into the flames like they was his destination.

Josie went back to his book. Buffalo Bill was strolling into the Comanche Saloon, where bad nombres were dividing loot from a holdup.

"There was gunplay in the air," Ned Buntline wrote.

In the dusty sale ring, Archie Flytte was chivvying cattle while the auctioneer cried, "Hundred, hundred, one bid takes all. Mr. Benson's steers. Put a little fat on these boys and they'll make you money. Do I hear a hundred?”

Nervous steers swirled through the dust while Archie kept them moving, turning them this way and that for prospective buyers.

Dust hung in the air. Steers bawled. Their hooves thumped the dirt, Archie cried, "Soo cow! Soo cow! Huh! Huh!" and the auctioneer chanted his chant. Two ladies trotted their beribboned horses right into the sale ring.

"Archie Flytte," Scarlett sang out. "We would speak to you and your ... accomplices.”

Archie frowned, mistepped on his wooden leg, and just caught his balance.

Absent Archie's attentions, the steers retreated to the far end of the ring.

"Ladies!" the auctioneer called. "Please, ladies. You're interrupting our sale.”

Amused by the man's effrontery, Scarlett replied, "Don't distress yourself, sir. We shan't keep you long. Terrible wrongs have been done us, and I'm sure that you, as a Christian gentleman, would wish to see matters put right.”

She searched the grandstand and ventured a wave to men she recognized.

"Many of you know me by my maiden name, Scarlett O'Hara, others as Mrs. Rhett Butler. My sister-in-law" — her gloved hand indicated Rosemary — "Mrs. Ravanel, is the widow of Colonel Andrew Ravanel, whose name is familiar to every Southern patriot.

"Isaiah Watling, is that you lurking up there? And you, sir, you must be Josie Watling. I've heard rather too much about you.”

Stepping from seat to seat, the Watlings descended the grandstand and climbed over the barrier into the ring. The auctioneer wanted to protest but held his tongue when an Atlanta buyer shook his head.

"Archie Flytte. I am glad you've finally found suitable employment.

You were miscast as Melanie Wilkes's baby-sitter. I shudder to think of someone like you alone with innocent children. Isaiah Watling, how ever did you drive Big Sam off? What threats did you employ?”

"Isaiah!" Rosemary nudged her horse forward. "Shooting horses? Frightening negroes? Murdering a poor dog? You? What would ... what would my mother, Elizabeth, have thought of this ... this wretchedness?”

When the old man straightened, the years dropped away and his eyes flashed like a goshawk's. "Your brother murdered my only son. Rhett Butler condemned Shadrach Watling to eternal hellfire.”

"You're a liar, Isaiah Watling," Rosemary declared. "Your son fought Rhett Butler on the field of honor. How does that justify tormenting innocent widows and children?”

Scarlett appealed to the crowd. "Sirs, these sorry creatures shot two nursing mares, drove off our field hands, vandalized our property, and — for a joke — murdered our faithful watchdog." Scarlett pointed a finger. "Tell us a lie, Watling. Before man and God, claim you are innocent!”

"Give 'em hell, Miss Scarlett," a man in the grandstand cried. When Josie turned to identify the speaker, many men met his eye. Some stood.

Their muttering was a gathering storm.

Rosemary paced her horse in front of the grandstand, "Gentlemen, while I have been in Mrs. Butler's home, we have been besieged and terrified by night riders. What cowards stoop to frightening women, children, and negroes? What will they do next? Will they murder my child — Colonel Andrew Ravanel's son?”

Two young farmers dropped from the grandstand into the auction ring.

"My son, Shadrach, he — “

"Overseer Watling," Rosemary snapped, "you forget yourself! Shadrach Watling was a bully and a brute.”

"Tell 'em, Mrs. Ravanel. Don't let 'em get away with nothin'!" A strongly built farmer clambered into the arena. Men reached for stock whips and stockmans' canes. Josie Watling fingered his holster.

"Oh!" Isaiah cried out. "Oh! You are so high-and-mighty! You Butlers stand so much prouder than anybody else! You bankrupt who you wish, shoot who you want, insult who you feel like insulting, and ride away without a care! You own everything." He aimed an accusing finger. "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth!”

In that frozen moment, with spittle glistening on Isaiah Watling's lips, Ashley Wilkes and Will Benteen strode into the auction ring.

Rosemary gasped.

Scarlett cried, "Go away! Please! We're managing! We are taking care of this!”

Ashley Wilkes marched across the hard red clay like the Confederate Major he'd been. His riding whip dangled from his right hand. "It's all right now, Scarlett," Ashley said. "We'll straighten things out!”

"Oh no, Ashley, we — “

Ashley slashed his whip across Flytte's face. "Scoundrel, you will stay away from Tara! You will! Or by God, I'll ...”

Archie barely had time to raise his arm before the whip landed again.

"You damn rogue! You will keep away from us!”

The lash coiled around Archie's upraised arm. He clamped his arm to his chest, and when Ashley jerked to free the whip, Archie came with it, crashing into his assailant. "You will never trouble decent folks again!" Ashley gasped.

"Oh, trouble you!" Archie stomped his wooden peg on the arch of Ashley Wilkes's foot, and when Ashley tripped, the old rooster rode him down into the dirt.

The ladies' horses tried to not step on the men rolling under their hooves, but Rosemary's wheeling horse landed a hind hoof on Ashley's ankle.

Panicked steers stampeded and farmers jumped for their lives.

Archie clenched his fingers around Ashley's throat.

Although Ashley pummeled Flytte's back, Archie's hard hands were tightening. When Ashley tried to buck, attempted to roll to his knees, the older man stayed with him. As Ashley pried at Archie's hard fingers, Will Benteen circled, shouting, "I'm gonna put a bullet in you, Fiytte. Let go of him or, by God, I'll shoot you!”

At Will's pistol shot, Scarlett's horse reared and her hat flew off. She dragged the reins with both hands. Her horse backed frantically until its hindquarters crashed into the oak fence. Men were yelling; steers were bawling.

Josie drawled, "Well, I'll be a son of a bitch if you ain't kilt Archie Fiytte. I swear to Christ, I never thought Archie could be kilt!”

Scarlett was looking down at Will, at Will's sweat-stained hat. Over the bellowing steers, she heard Will's voice clear as day, "For God's sake, don't!

I've got two children.”

"Well, don't you think of Archie mighta had some children? You ever think to ask him that?”

The second shot was louder than the first had been, and Scarlett's ears rang. Will groaned, but it wasn't a groan living men make.

Rosemary was steadying Scarlett's horse as Josie said, "Uncle Isaiah, I got to skedaddle. I ain't gettin' nowhere in this line of work. Leastways with Jesse and Frank, when you shoot somebody, you get paid for it.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN Rain

Calloused hands tenderly laid Will and Ashley on feed sacks in the wagon bed. They covered Will's still form with a horse blanket. Rosemary knelt in the wagon, bathing the unconscious Ashley's face.

Some who escorted Scarlett and Rosemary home were farmers who had known Will Benteen or the O'Haras for years, but most were loafers with nothing better to do.

"After he kilt Will, that Josie came toward me with his gun still smokin'. You bet I got out of his way. Spect I'd have give him my horse if he'd asked.”

"They had horses, Charlie. A roan gelding and a bay mare.”

"Hank, I know they had horses. Weren't I there when Josie Watling bought the mare from Mr. Petersen? Weren't I?”

"Well, they wouldn't have wanted your horse, would they?”

Their inanities fell like dull blows on Scarlett's febrile mind. Why had Will and Ashley come? Scarlett hadn't told them about her plan; she'd claimed she and Rosemary were going into Atlanta. "Bankers," she'd lied.

God knows how the men had discovered her true intention and come to their rescue.

When the entourage reached Tara's lane, Suellen and Dilcey came running, and Suellen screamed when she saw Will's riderless horse. "Will! Oh no! Not my Darling Will!" She dashed to the wagon, lifted the blanket from her husband's face, and fainted. If Dilcey hadn't caught her, Mrs. Benteen would have fallen to the ground.

Men quit jabbering to help the new widow into the house. Children and servants gathered helplessly on the porch. Prissy wailed.

A farrier — he'd shod Gerald's horses in the old days — advised Scarlett, "They ought to pay for this. Miss Scarlett, you just say the word!”

A rage at male idiocy blinded Scarlett for a moment. Tight-lipped, she managed, "Thank you. Thank you for your kindness. Mammy, take the children into the house. Prissy, stop your nonsense! Prissy!”

Mammy gathered the children like a mother hen gathers chicks.

"Gentlemen, if you'll take our horses to the barn, and could you four please ... carry this gentleman — Mr. Wilkes — into the parlor.”

"His ankle's smashed, Miss Scarlett," the farrier observed. "Reckon it hurts like the devil.”

"I reckon," she snapped.

They carried Will to the springhouse and laid him out on the cool stones beside the milk cans. "No, gentlemen, no. We'll not be needing more help, thank you. You've done too much already.”

Unwilling to see their adventure ended, they milled about for another twenty minutes before they departed.

Scarlett and Rosemary made up a bed for Ashley on the parlor floor.

Rosemary said, "Prissy! Find an old sheet and tear it into strips, about" — Rosemary held her hands four inches apart — "so wide. Dilcey, fetch warm water and soap.”

When she and Rosemary were alone, Scarlett said, "What did they think they were doing?”

Rosemary said, "Some of Ashley's ribs are cracked and his throat is swelled nearly closed. I believe his ankle is broken.”

After Mammy got Suellen to take a dose of laudanum and put the widow to bed, she and Prissy washed Will's body and dressed him in his Sunday suit.

Young Dr. Bryan was establishing his practice, and he made a point of noting that, although a native Georgian, he'd studied medicine in Richmond. He set Ashley's ankle and made a wintergreen poultice for his throat.

Diffident while doctoring, he was assertive with his reckoning.

"Ten dollars? My goodness, Doctor. Where did you serve in the War?”

"Mrs. Butler," the doctor replied, "I was thirteen when the War ended.”

At twilight in Tara's little graveyard, Pork dug Will Benteen's grave.

Scarlett said, "It isn't deep enough. Pork, you're the only man left. Dig deeper.”

When Scarlett returned to the house, Suellen Benteen was waiting for her. Scarlett's sister's face was raw from crying. "When my Will told me you were coming home to Tara, I told Will we should go away. 'Tara will be Scarlett's,' I said. 'It won't be our home anymore.' I begged my Will to leave. I told him, 'My sister Scarlett has never been anything but trouble.' You stole Frank Kennedy from me and you got Frank killed. Now you got my Will killed, too." She burst into anguished sobs. "What am I going to do without Will? Dear God, what will I do?”

Scarlett went upstairs, where, still dressed in rumpled finery, she fell on her bed and slept dreamlessly until her eyes snapped open in the stark light of morning and everything came flooding back.

In later years, Scarlett remembered only fragments of the next days: the coffin maker rattling up the drive with his toe pincher bouncing in the wagon; the children whispering past Suellen's closed bedroom door. Neighbor women brought food nobody wanted to eat and neighbor men did Will's chores.

Rosemary tended Ashley behind the parlor's closed door while mourners trooped through the dining room, where Will Benteen was laid out.

An expressionless Suellen O'Hara Benteen received those who would have consoled her. At her side, Scarlett understood vital bonds had been severed; henceforth, she and Suellen would be sisters in name only.

It was hot. The roses heaped on Will's coffin in such profusion didn't entirely disguise the smell.

Will Benteen had been a lapsed Baptist, but since Jonesboro's only Baptist church was the African Baptist, he was buried by the Methodist preacher, who afterward invited Scarlett to next Sunday's service.

"I'm a Catholic," Scarlett replied.

"That's all right," the preacher said cheerfully. "We welcome every sinner!”

After the burying, Suellen Benteen and her children left for Charleston, where'd they'd bide with Aunt Eulalie. As their wagon rattled down the lane, Scarlett went to the horse barn to feed the horses.

With the leather feed bucket Will and Sam had used for so many years, she poured feed into the long trough.

Sleek dark heads bent and chewed as if nothing at all had happened.

Scarlett whispered, "How can Tara live without Will?" One horse lifted its head, as if trying to understand. He twitched his tail and went back to eating.

Silent, hot tears streamed down Scarlett's face until she could see nothing — nothing at all.

After Ashley's fever broke, he was too weak to go home. He spoke quietly when spoken to, volunteered nothing, and never asked about Will. Rosemary sat with him in the dim, quiet parlor and fed him broth and weak tea. For reasons Rosemary never fathomed, she told Ashley things. In her quiet, calm voice, meticulously identifying the year, month, and circumstances, Rosemary Butler Haynes Ravanel told Ashley Wilkes about walking out the back door of the little house in Franklin, Tennessee, knowing the body lying in the frozen garden was her husband John. "I only loved him after it was too late," Rosemary said. She spoke about her darling Meg; how Meg had loved horses and been betrayed by a horse. "Tecumseh was afraid. How can you blame a horse for being afraid?" Rosemary told Ashley about finding Andrew's bloody boots. They were English boots and Andrew had once been proud of them. She told the silent Ashley things she had never told anyone — not Melanie, not even her brother Rhett. She told him how lonely she'd been growing up at Broughton. She told him how much she'd missed her brother Rhett. She told Ashley about her pony, Jack.

Sheriff's Talbot's office was a cool underground den.

Scarlett demanded, "Why haven't you arrested them?”

"Who should I arrest, Mrs. Butler?”

Scarlett wanted to shake the blandness off the sheriff's face. She pushed words past her teeth. "The Watlings! Isaiah and Josie Watling murdered Will Benteen!”

The sheriff rolled his chair against the wall and leaned back to examine the fly-specked ceiling. He grunted, bent, and spat into the spittoon.

"Well?" Scarlett demanded. "When are you going to arrest them?”

"I reckon, Mrs. Butler, I reckon there's two ways of lookin' at this. You got your 'pinion and some folks got 'nother 'pinion.”

Scarlett blinked. "Whatever are you talking about?”

"Some folks say Mr. Wilkes started that fight.”

"They'd shot my horses, burned my Atlanta home, and frightened off my field workers. Sheriff, they intended to murder my husband!”

"Did they? I always figured Mr. Butler could take care of hisself.

Didn't I hear your husband was in Europe somewheres? I don't know that the Watlings ever been to Europe — leastways they never said they had.”

Sheriff Talbot went in his drawer for a leather sap. He got up, plucked his hat from the hat rack, and rolled it in his hands. "Mrs. Butler, some folks b'lieve — and I ain't sayin' I disagree — that Ashley Wilkes started that fight and Will Benteen murdered Archie Flytte once Flytte was getting the better of Wilkes.”

"Ashley was defending Tara. Those Watlings — “

"B'lieve you mentioned that, Mrs. Butler. B'lieve you mentioned that several times. But you never showed me no proof." He set his hat on the back of his head so it framed his face like a picture frame. "Mrs. Butler, I don't mean to hurt your feelin's, but I am inclined to b'lieve that Mr. Wilkes attacked Archie Flytte unprovoked and when Archie resisted, Will Benteen shot Archie. Josie Watling killed Benteen trying to save Archie's life. Least that's how I see it. You might see things different." He slipped the sap into his trouser pocket "Now, ma'am, I got to get to Darktown. Another cuttin'. Ain't it peculiar? Niggers cut each other, where a white man'd use a gun. You reckon that's because they're more primitive?”

"The Watlings — “

"Won't bother you no more, Mrs. Butler. The Watlings done left Clayton County. Josie and old Isaiah lit out after the fight and nobody's seen 'em since. Weren't no Flyttes willin' to bury Archie, so the County buried him.”

He shrugged. "Far as this sheriff's office is concerned, everything's square.

Archie's dead, Will Benteen's dead, and the Watlings are gone. Josie Watling was always kiddin' about Jesse James. Said he rode with the James brothers during the War." Sheriff Talbot opened the door to show Scarlett out. "You reckon next time we hear about the Watlings, they'll be robbin' trains?" The sheriff locked the door behind them and peered at the cloudless sky. "Darned if it ain't dry." He added, "Watlings was a good family.

Hard workers. I swear Isaiah Watling near worked himself half to death tryin' to make a go of that hardscrabble farm. Sorrowful, ain't it — how things turn out?”

When she got back to Tara, Scarlett rode into the river fields. Will's furrows between the cotton ridges had been smooth red clay. Now they were greened with weeds. Oat sedge tangled the ridges where her cotton plants, each set eight inches from its neighbor, turned hopefully toward the beckoning sun.

Before daybreak next morning, Scarlett was in the horse barn. The work harness was so heavy, she dragged it over the horse's rump, and the names were an awkward nightmare. She guessed which straps to buckle and rebuckled what seemed too loose or tight.

When she came into the house, Taras people were in the kitchen, the children poking sleepily at their breakfast. Scarlett took fried side meat off the counter and ate without sitting down. She said, "Now Will is gone, we'll have to do without him. Lord knows, there's enough work to go around.

Mammy, you'll tend Ashley. Ella, honey, stay here and help Mammy. I don't want you taking one of your fits. Everyone else into the fields. Yes, Pork, I know what you're going to say: 'But Miss Scarlett, I'ze been a valet all my life!' " Scarlett's mimicry was so accurate, even Pork cracked a smile.

It was cool at first. Rosemary and the youngest children worked a row.

Dilcey, Wade, Pork, and Prissy each had a row. Scarlett took Will's job: plowing up one long row, down another, steering a plow whose tall wooden handles were whitened from strong men's sweat. The horse knew its job and marched forward phlegmatically, but the plow handles jerked and bucked and whenever the plow hit a rock, the handles kicked against Scarlett's small hands until her palms ached.

Sun was the enemy.

Leather traces lay across Scarlett's shoulders as if she were in harness with the horse. She stumbled and turned her ankles on the rough ground.

Sweat stung her eyes and half-blinded her. The dust the horse raised mixed with her sweat and caked her face.

At noon, they stopped under the shade trees beside the river. When Scarlett knelt and splashed cool water on her cheeks and neck, it ran over her breasts. Rosemary knelt beside her. "Vail Georgia planters surely do live a life of ease.”

In the long afternoon, Dilcey began a chant Scarlett had heard all her life.

"It's a long John," Dilcey sang. Prissy answered, "It's a long John.”

"He's long gone.”

"He's long gone.”

"Mister John John.”

"Mister John John.”

"Old big-eyed John. Oh, John John ...”

Stumbling behind the horse, fighting the plow handles, Scarlett breathed in time with that ancient African measure.

They placed Ashley on folded blankets, with his plastered ankle propped on the tailboard of Twelve Oaks' wagon.

Ashley's fine gray eyes looked into Rosemary's. "Thank you for...

talking to me.”

"That day at the market," Rosemary said, "you did the best you could.”

Ashley Wilkes closed up. "I got Will killed.”

It clouded over the afternoon they finished hoeing. Big-bellied rain clouds rolled over the horizon.

Taras dusty, sweaty field hands were on the porch drinking cool water when two riders appeared at the bottom of the lane.

Scarlett leapt to her feet as if she'd been stung, ran into the house, and pounded up the stairs like a schoolgirl.

In her bedroom, she kicked off her brogans, dropped her sweat-stained dress in a heap, dipped a washcloth into the water pitcher, and attended to her arms, face, and breasts. She snatched a fine green silk gown from the chifforobe, snapped and tied it. She hadn't time for corset or shoes.

Downstairs again, Scarlett emerged barefoot as a grinning Pork took her husband's reins.

There were new deep lines at the corners of his mouth and under his eyes. Scarlett yearned to hurl herself into his arms, but she wasn't that easy.

"Pork, it isn't the Second Coming. It's only Mr. Butler come home.”

Rhett's hungry eyes devoured her. "I thought you might need a Savior.”

"You look like you've been through hell.”

"There were one or two bad days." His smile was so warm, so knowing.

He swung down, scooped Ella up and set her on his hip. Scarlett took an involuntary step toward him but dug in her heels. How dare he be so confident, so sure of her. Scarlett tossed her head. "And how was Paris?”

Rhett's warm smile became his too-familiar infuriating grin and he laughed. The children — it had been so long since she'd heard the children laugh — the children laughed with him.

A raindrop. Another. Raindrops puffed the dry lane.

"This gent is Tazewell Watling. You might remember him.”

"My escort at the Quadroon Ball," Scarlett said, even though her heart was rebelling: No. No! What's wrong with me? I should be in Rhett's arms!

Rain splashed her cheeks.

Tazewell Watling turned beet red. "I was a fool, Mrs. Butler. I pray you'll forgive me.”

Fool, no fool — what did Scarlett care? "You've been in the sun," Rhett noted.

Anxiously, Scarlett touched her tanned cheeks. "My complexion ...”

"Dear brother ..." Rosemary kissed her brother on both cheeks. "You are here and everything will be all right. I know it will." Rosemary turned to Rhett's companion, "Mr. Watling, I am Rosemary, Rhett's sister. I'm so glad ... so very, very glad. Come with me and I'll show you where to unsaddle your horses.”

Scarlett said, "Dilcey, tell Mammy the prodigal has returned. Take the children and give them a bath. They're filthy.”

Louis Valentine was catching raindrops on his outstretched tongue.

Wade was grinning like an idiot. When Rhett set Ella down, she clung to his legs until he said, "Go get cleaned up, sweetheart. Your mother and I want to talk.”

Rain washed Scarlett's forehead and hair.

Rhett said, "Scarlett, honey, show me your hands.”

Scarlett tucked them in her armpits.

"By God, Mrs. Butler. It's good to see you.”

The earth was warm and wet under Scarlett's feet. Soaked through, her gown clung to her body like a nightdress. Scarlett was so happy, she thought she might faint. So she lifted her chin defiantly. "Is it now, Mr. Butler? Weren't you in such a tearing hurry to leave me?"

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT The Glorious Fourth

The next morning, Scarlett stepped onto Tara's veranda and shaded her eyes against the sunrise. Was that a horse in the river fields? Rhett was hunkered over a cotton ridge, examining plants. After some time, he remounted and proceeded up the rise to the steading, touching the broad brim of his planter's hat as he rode by. "Good morning, Mrs. Butler," he said. "I believe we can expect another fine day.”

"I expect we can, Mr. Butler." Scarlett's smile was lazy and sly.

Later, with Wade Hampton's enthusiastic help, Rhett visited Tara's hog pens, the meat house, the cotton press, and the weedy upland fields. He checked every harness in the tack room. Wade showed Rhett the post by the milking barn where Ella had found Boo's head and they visited Will Benteen's grave.

After supper, Rhett perched on the top rail of the corral while Rosemary and Taz brought Tara's horses out of the barn one by one.

That evening, Rhett invited Wade Hamilton to join the grown-ups at dinner, which the beaming Pork served in the dining room. Wade was tongue-tied with good behavior. Tazewell Watling proved to be a funny, self-deprecating raconteur. His deadpan descriptions of how sophisticated Parisians reacted to "l'Americain's" Creole French had everyone laughing.

Over coffee and Mammy's pecan pie, Scarlett asked Taz what cotton would fetch in the fall.

"Sea Island middling: thirty cents. Piedmont: thirteen to eighteen.”

"As little as that?" Rhett rose. "Scarlett, honey, perhaps you'll show me Tara's books.”

The light glowed in Scarlett's office until very late.

Scarlett woke from a dreamless sleep when Rhett's footsteps hesitated at her bedroom door. His name swam toward the surface of her sleepy mind and she would have called him, but he passed on.

Next morning at breakfast, Rhett asked what everybody wanted from Atlanta.

"I'll accompany you," Tazewell said. "I've gifts for my mother.”

Scarlett took a breath. "Mr. Watling, please convey my best regards to your mother. Without Belle's warning, my husband might have ridden into a fatal ambush.”

Rhett chuckled. "My, my, Mrs. Butler. How very... predictable my life would have been without you.”

When Wade wanted to go, too, Rhett said, "Be ready at the horse barn in ten minutes. We won't wait.”

Wade clattered up the stairs.

Rhett turned to Scarlett. "Rosemary says the Watlings have fled the county.”

"So Sheriff Talbot says. Rhett, Talbot said he knew you?”

When Bonnie Blue died and when Melanie died, Rhett had hugged his sorrow to himself, as if sorrow were all he had left. Now he said softly, "One day, I'll tell you about Tunis Bonneau.”

Scarlett and Rosemary waved them off and Scarlett turned to her friend.

"My God, has Rhett been here only two days?”

Rosemary said, "My brother can be rather ... daunting.”

"He's changed, Rosemary. He's the same Rhett he was, but he's different, too. I ... I feel like a maiden again." She paused and in a soft voice added, "I pray life will be good to me!”

"Of course it will, dear.”

"Do you really believe so? Oh, please say you do!”

Only Louis Valentine, who had mastered six of McGuffey's seven readers was disappointed when Rosemary canceled school that day. Beau asked to accompany Rosemary to Twelve Oaks, but she said no, he could go after his father was feeling better.

Rosemary packed a hamper with corn bread, Mammy's greens and side meat, and the remnants of last night's pecan pie.

The rain had refreshed the red dirt countryside and birds were twittering.

Rosemary smiled when she thought about her brother and Scarlett. As if by mutual consent, they played the long and happily married man and wife, toying with each other, building tension until the air between them crackled. Last night when Rhett escorted Scarlett into the dining room, the rustle of her crisp petticoats had been electric.

Ashley's modest home was disagreeable.

Unwashed clothing heaped a corner and dirty dishes cluttered the dry sink. Ashley's precious books were strewn here and there and his bedclothes were ropes of discontent.

Rosemary threw the door and windows open and hummed as she cleaned. When the room was to her satisfaction, she picked lilac-pink roses for a jar beside her picnic hamper.

She brought The Gardens of England onto the porch and sat listening to a newsbee, a swallow's chirrup, the distant tap of a woodpecker.

The sun warmed her face, and Rosemary turned pages slowly, pausing at each hand-tinted daguerreotype. Gardeners impose human values on disorderly nature, knowing full well that nature must win in the end. Gardening is gentle gallantry.

When Ashley arrived he flipped his reins over his horse's head, loosed the crutch tied behind his saddle, pulled his sound foot out of the stirrup, swung it over the horse's neck, and slid down the horse's flank onto his crutch and uninjured foot. "As you see," he said, "I'm not completely helpless." On foot and crutch, crabwise, he clumped up the steps into the cabin.

He hadn't shaved. His trousers were smeared with red clay.

He glanced at the roses, "Old Pink Daily makes a poor cut flower. The petals fall off.”

Rosemary said, "Should I regret picking them?”

Ashley slumped in a chair and leaned his crutch against the dry sink.

"I'm sorry, Rosemary. You don't find me at my best. Mose says Rhett is back. That must be a relief.”

Rosemary retied her bonnet. "You'll find a pecan pie in the hamper.

Perhaps it will sweeten your disposition.”

"Oh Rosemary, please don't leave. I'm sorry. I don't mean to drive you away.”

She hesitated, "There are greens, and Mammy's corn bread, too.”

Ashley said, "I am partial to greens and corn bread. Thank you, Rosemary.

Won't you bide for a while?" He massaged his underarm, which was sore from the crutch. "I never knew how ... convenient two legs are.”

"Ashley, you tried to help, and I am grateful. You risked your life...”

"I got Will Benteen killed.”

"Shut your mouth, Major Wilkes. You will not blame yourself.”

Ashley grimaced. "Rosemary... dear, kind Rosemary, you've never been sick of yourself. You've never prayed for the courage to end — “

"Ashley Wilkes! Need I remind you my husband took his own life?”

He dropped his head in his hands and groaned.

Rosemary rapped a spoon against a bowl and said, more tenderly, "Eat, Ashley. It'll put iron in your blood.”

He did and muttered, "It tastes like a rusty barrel hoop.”

Rosemary smiled at Ashley's tiny joke and thought, It's a start anyway.

Thank you, dear Lord.

Ashley wouldn't murder himself. Ashley Wilkes had no dreadful secrets to rise up and swallow him.

When Rhett and Wade returned from Atlanta, Wade was wearing his new hat at the same jaunty angle Rhett wore his.

Taz had stayed in town. "Belle and Taz have some catching up to do,”

Rhett told Scarlett, adding, "Belle hasn't seen hide nor hair of the Watlings.

She thinks they've gone west. 'Poor Poppa ain't got no home.' “

"I hate that old fool," Scarlett said.

"A lifetime of disappointments can make a dangerous man.”

That afternoon, after the children finished their lessons, Rhett asked, "Who wants to learn how to ride?”

The smaller children tried to outshriek each other. Rhett held up a hand and said, "We'll go to the horse barn and I'll teach you, provided you do exactly as I say.”

Scarlett blanched.

Rhett touched her cheek. "Sweetheart, remember how much Bonnie Blue loved her pony? Bonnie would have wanted us to remember that.”

Rhett set each child on a tame workhorse and led it around the corral on a longe line. "Ella, hang on to the horse's mane.

"Beau, you must look where you want your horse to go!”

Scarlett went into the house to her office. On the desktop, tied with the black silk ribbon befitting important documents, were the deeds to Tara and her Atlanta property. In appropriate places, her loans were declared "satisfied.”

Scarlett dropped her head into her hands and cried.

In the morning, Rhett rode into Jonesboro, where he crossed the tracks into Darktown. He reined up at Reverend J. Robert Maxwell's modest home next to the First African Baptist Church. Rhett tied his horse to the picket fence and waited until a plump young man came onto the front porch. "Good morning, Reverend Maxwell," Rhett said. "Do you suppose we'll get rain today?”

The young man assessed the sky. "I don't believe we will. I believe it will be hot.”

"It might at that. I'm Rhett Butler.”

"Yes, sir. I heard you were at Tara Plantation. Won't you come in? My wife is just making coffee.”

The Reverend's parlor boasted one reading chair, three straight chairs, and a New Haven clock on the mantel. The bare oak floor and front windows gleamed. The men took chairs facing each other and discussed weather and crops until Mrs. Maxwell (who seemed young to be married) set a tin tray on a third chair between them.

When Rhett thanked her, Mrs. Maxwell blushed and withdrew.

The men busied themselves with cream and sugar. "Mr. Benteen was a fair employer," the preacher said. "I wish there were more like him.”

"Most planters don't understand free labor any better than free laborers do," Rhett said.

"That's true, sir. That's true." The young man nodded. "It's a new world for us all.”

"A better one, I hope.”

The young man cocked his head, listening for overtones. "Some white men don't hope so." He eyed Rhett over the rim of his coffee cup. "I've heard about you, Mr. Butler. The Reverend William Prescott preached in my church.”

"Reverend Prescott is a powerful preacher.”

"Praise the Lord. William told me you shot his son-in-law.”

"Tunis Bonneau was my friend.”

The young preacher set his cup down. "That's what William said." He ran his hand over his face as if brushing away cobwebs. "I pray those terrible days are over.”

The mantel clock ticked.

Maxwell continued: "Reverend Prescott related a curious story. He said you bought a ship from his daughter — a sunken ship.”

"The Merry Widow sank in my service." Rhett leaned forward. "What did William Prescott say about his daughter?”

"Mrs. Bonneau has moved to Philadelphia. She has her son, Nat, to think about." Maxwell put down his coffee cup and went to the window.

When he turned, sunlight haloed his head and Rhett squinted to make out his expression. "Mr. Butler, you may know we are asking the legislature for negro normal schools so our children can be educated by negro teachers.”

Rhett set his cup on the tray.

Maxwell continued. "You have many powerful friends. I'd take it kindly if you spoke to them.”

After a moment, Rhett said, "I will.”

The young minister steepled his fingers. "Just how can I help you, Mr. Butler?”

At daybreak Scarlett woke to chanting: "Long John. Long John. Be a long time gone." Tara's workers were filing across the sunrise. As they had done so many times before, in good years and bad, they went down into the bottoms, spread out, and started to work.

Scarlett hurried downstairs into the kitchen, where Rhett and Rosemary faced an enormous breakfast and the beaming Mammy. "Rhett,”

Scarlett cried, "they're back. Tara's people are back.”

"Why, yes, my dear, they are.”

"But how?”

Her husband shrugged. "We've work to be done and they have families to feed. They've no reason to be afraid anymore. I said we'd pay a little more.”

Scarlett's stood up. "More? More? Why, they hardly earn what we're paying them now!" But even as she was speaking, her sore back reminded her of hoeing and plowing and stooping. She laughed at herself and said, "I suppose Tara can afford to pay a little more.”

After Taz returned from Atlanta, he and Rhett called a meeting of cotton planters. Tony Fontaine and his brother Alex came, and Beatrice Tarleton arrived on the stallion that had sired Will's orphan foals. Mr. MacKenzie, a dour Yankee who'd bought ruined plantations for a dime on the dollar and suspected he'd paid five cents too much, was accompanied by the shy Mr. Schmidt, who asked Mrs. Tarleton if she knew who'd lost a roan gelding he'd seen running loose.

Scarlett and Rhett greeted them at the door, and when everyone was settled in the parlor, Rhett introduced Taz. "Mr. Watling is a partner in a New Orleans cotton-factoring firm.”

"Well, I'll be dam — darned," Beatrice Tarleton said, "At long last, I get to meet Rhett's bastard. I've must say, young man, you don't favor your father!”

Accustomed to Beatrice's bluntness, her neighbors chuckled. The Yankee planters kept their expressions blank.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, madam," Taz said pleasantly. "In fact, my father was Colonel Andrew Ravanel. You may know of him?”

"I'll be damned." Beatrice settled back in her chair.

"Only if the Lord dislikes rude old women," Rhett sang from the back of the room. Taz explained their crops fetched poor prices because the British market was depressed and New England mills wanted well-packed, graded, carefully ginned cotton.

A planter's association was formed on the spot, with Rhett as president and Tony Fontaine as vice president. Tazewell Watling was asked to contract for ginning and warehousing in the association's name.

The field hands hoed the cotton bottoms and sowed the uplands in oats. Tara began to look like Tara again.

Rosemary spent most afternoons at Twelve Oaks.

Sunday, Belle Watling came to visit her son. After dinner, Taz drove Belle to the railroad station, leaving Rosemary and her brother on the porch. The children were playing at red indians on the lawn while fireflies blinked cryptic messages.

"It is so peaceful here," Rosemary said.

"On a summer evening, the countryside seems eternal.”

The children's play dissolved into giggles.

"You're thinking about Bonnie Blue?”

Rhett was quiet for a time. "I just wish I knew who Bonnie would have become.”

"Yes," his sister said. "My Meg would be a young woman today, worrying if she were pretty enough to catch a beau. Brother, life is too cruel.”

Rhett took a cigar from his case. "I sometimes think if there's any purpose for our being on earth, it's to testify about those we've lost." He nipped the end of his cigar. "You're seeing Ashley?”

"Ashley is a good, gentle man.”

When Rhett struck his match, his cheekbones were dramatic. "I suppose he is. But is the world good enough for Ashley Wilkes?”

Rosemary rested her chin on her hand. "Ashley is the man he is — as you are, Rhett.”

"I suppose so." Rhett leaned over the railing to call, "Children, time to come in. Time for prayers and bed.”

When she woke next morning, Scarlett stretched luxuriously. The linen sheets caressed her like a lover. Waiting for Rhett to come to her was excruciating but so delicious. One day, one day soon ...

After breakfast, Scarlett carried her coffee onto the front porch, where Rhett was on the porch swing. "Your dahlias are lovely.”

"My mother disliked them. Ellen said dahlias were 'all show.' “

He laughed, "Isn't 'show' a flower's duty?”

"Perhaps. Rhett... I...”

When he touched his finger to her lips, shivers ran down her spine.

"Hush now. Don't spoil it.”

In the river fields, the cotton blooms peeked like snowflakes amid the green.

Rhett said, "I want to host a barbecue. Just like old times. We'll invite everybody. Do you remember the barbecue where we met?”

"I am hardly likely to forget.”

"There I was, innocently napping, and when I sat up, my eyes lit on the loveliest girl I'd ever seen. And she hurled crockery at me!”

Scarlett slipped her hand into his. "I've always been sorry I missed," she whispered. And they laughed at their silly joke.

Preparations began.

"But the Fourth of July is a Union holiday," Scarlett objected.

Rhett said. "Dear, we are the Union now." Rhett made plans as if no Southerner could possibly object to celebrating the anniversary of the day Vicksburg fell and Gettysburg was lost.

Apparently, Rhett had gauged sentiment correctly, because no one refused Tara's invitations, and Beatrice Tarleton asked if she could bring her visiting grand-niece with her.

Mammy and Dilcey went through the poultry yard like Grim Reapers.

Rhett bought hams. Early tomatoes were commandeered from gardens near and far; lettuce and pole beans were picked, new potatoes dug.

Ashley asked the fiddler who had been Twelve Oaks' principal musical ornament to lead their orchestra. "Yes, sir, Mr. Wilkes. Be like it used to be.”

Tara's stove roared until Mammy complained that the kitchen was "hotter than Tophet." She and Dilcey baked apple, chess, pecan, and rhubarb pies.

Rhett set the children to churning ice cream they stored in tall tin canisters in the icehouse.

Since they hadn't played together in years, Ashley's musicians practiced at Tara and barbecue preparations were accompanied by fiddle, two banjos, and a mandolin.

The Fourth of July dawned cool, with no rain clouds on the horizon.

Pork had the buggy at the Jonesboro station for the noon train. Listening to Pork and Peter argue over who should drive her, Miss Pittypat beamed. "My," Pitty said, "isn't this just like old times!”

Although the invitations stated 2:00 P.M., some guests arrived before noon. Of course they asked to help. Of course they got in the way.

Neighbors rolled up Tara's lane in battered farm wagons. Atlanta gentry rented every rig in the Jonesboro Livery.

Aunt Pittypat fretted, "Dear Rhett, do you think ... well, do you think it's entirely proper? It is July Fourth and so many of us recall this date unhappily...”

When Rhett kissed her cheek, Miss Pittypat forgot what else she meant to say.

If any Southerner objected to the Fourth, they didn't say so, and the Yankee planters Rhett had invited were too courteous to recall the past.

At a country barbecue on a hot afternoon in Clayton County, Georgia, the War finally and entirely ended.

At two on the dot, Reverend Maxwell and his wife drove up in their plain Baptist buggy. Rhett greeted them in the turnaround, tipping his hat to Mrs. Maxwell. "So glad you could join us today, Reverend. We are honored.”

The Reverend said, "Thank you. I have heard so much about your beautiful plantation.”

"You know Dilcey, of course. She'll show you around.”

The Fourth of July and a little too much brandy tipped the balance for Tony Fontaine, who marched to Rhett with fire in his eyes. "Damn it, Rhett!”

Rhett clasped Tony's shoulder and said. "Tony, everybody's here for a good time. I'd take it unkindly if you spoiled our fun.”

Tony looked past Rhett's smile to his cold, intelligent eyes. "Rhett!

Damn it! I just can't...”

"You'll be leaving, then. So sorry. It was good of you to come.”

Tony Fontaine said, "But damn it, Rhett!”

"So good of you to come.”

So Tony Fontaine and his protesting wife departed. Although everyone knew what had happened, nobody remarked about it. Polite Southerners don't notice what they oughtn't.

To his dismay, MacBeth was in livery, and when Pork said, " 'Bout time niggers dressin' like they should," MacBeth cursed him blue. Belle Watling's loose gown flattered her figure.

Ashley Wilkes and Rosemary described Twelve Oaks' gardens in more detail than Uncle Henry wanted to hear.

Hickory smoke from barbecue pits curled through the boxwoods and a breeze off the river kept mosquitoes at bay. Guests lined up at buffet tables.

"Won't you take a little ham, Reverend? An end piece?”

"Thank you, Dilcey.”

These pleasures were enhanced by memories of prior occasions oh so long ago.

As dusk thickened, the men were drinking harder, so Rhett had Reverend Maxwell's buggy brought around.

"Mr. Butler," Maxwell said, "thank you for a memorable afternoon.”

As the sun dipped behind the hills, women put on shawls and the orchestra tuned instruments. Rhett and Taz brought exotically labeled boxes onto the side lawn. "You stay on the porch," Rhett admonished the children. "Ella, Beau, Louis Valentine: If you step onto the lawn, you'll have to watch from indoors.”

"Can I help?" Wade asked.

"If you do exactly as Taz and I say.”

Chinese rockets soared into the night sky over Tara, streaking and exploding and showering streamers. At each explosion, the children cried, "Ohhhh." Ella covered her ears and adults applauded.

After the last rocket was fired, the children rushed onto the lawn to investigate their burned shells and marvel that anything so homely could have contained such beautiful stars.

The parlor, center hall, and dining room became the ballroom Ellen O'Hara had asked Gerald for. The orchestra set up on the stairs. Although Rosemary put the younger children in bed, within minutes they were peeking down through the balustrades.

In his Sunday suit and stiff celluloid collar, Wade dogged Tazewell Watling and hoped no grown-up would ruffle his hair. His great-aunt Pittypat said, "Wade, you are the very image of dear Charles!" A tear tracked down her old wrinkled cheek.

Beneath the portrait of Scarlett's grandmother, Beatrice Tarleton and Alex Fontaine were discussing a loose horse several men had seen. Mrs. Tarleton disbelieved. "I know every roan between here and Jonesboro.”

Beatrice's daughters were somewhere about. Her sons, Brent and Stuart and Tom — Scarlett's ardent suitors before the War — were now just sad memories.

Scarlett sighed.

As if he'd read her thoughts, Rhett took her hand. "Darling, if there are ghosts here tonight, they want us to be happy.”

The little orchestra interspersed waltzes with reels. To the older guests' dismay, the musicians refused to play "them old-timey" quadrilles.

After Taz danced with his mother, he partnered Beatrice's grand-niece Polly — a brown-haired, shy slip of a thing.

Belle Watling glowed with pleasure. "Look at my boy," she whispered to no one in particular. "Lord, will you just look at him.”

Beatrice Tarleton inclined her head to the woman beside her, "Miss Watling," she said, hoarsely, "things are not as they were.”

" I ...”

"I believe it's for the best. I don't know what got into people. All that needless straitlaced respectability. Did we actually think God cared if a man got a peek at our legs? Tell me, Miss Watling" — Beatrice looked Belle square in the eye — "are all men the same?”

Belle coughed and patted her throat. "Gracious," she said. Then she leaned in confidentially, "There's men and men, don't you know.”

Ashley and Rosemary sat on the porch swing, discussing nothing really — but enjoying their conversation immensely.

Desserts were served on tables on the lawn, but once the breeze died, the mosquito hordes descended and everyone carried their plates indoors.

In her high-backed wing chair, Miss Pittypat reflected happily and sadly how much dear Melanie would have enjoyed this evening.

When the fiddler struck up "Soldier's Joy," Rhett offered Scarlett his hand.

"Rhett, I've been so foolish.”

"Yes, we both have been." Mr. Butler led Mrs. Butler onto the dance floor.

When we met, Scarlett thought, I was a child. Rhett helped me become who I am.

"My dear," Rhett murmured politely, "it's a reel, not a two-step.”

Scarlett O'Hara Butler whirled. Whirled like the girl she had been, like the girl who dwelled in the depths of her heart. She whirled as a child whirls, as a young girl whirls, as a woman whirls, and her man was beside her, his hand quick to capture hers. So much love sparkled in her husband's eyes that for the first time in her life, Scarlett Butler wasn't afraid of growing old.

At midnight, despite many protests, the band put their instruments away.

Rhett had a special train waiting in Jonesboro for their Atlanta guests.

Nearer neighbors lingered in the turnaround.

"Thank you so much for coming," Scarlett repeated. "Certainly we'll do it again.”

As the last buggy lamp dwindled down the lane, Rhett closed up the house.

Scarlett found Belle Watling in the upstairs hall. She wore an astonishingly pink dressing gown.

"I don't think I've ever had a lovelier day," Belle said. "Thank you, Miss Scarlett, for having me to stay.”

Scarlett kissed the pink creature on the cheek. "Good night, Belle.”

In her bedroom, Scarlett luxuriated in her undressing. Rhett would come to her tonight — her tingling skin assured her he would. Humming, she dabbed cologne behind each ear and beneath the soft curves of her breasts.

Rhett had never seen the sheer nightgown she put on. Scarlett felt like a precious gift.

When she opened the curtains, cool blue moonlight flooded the room.

Scarlett knelt beside her bed and crossed herself. She thanked God for Tara and Ella and Wade and everybody who loved her. She thanked God for bringing Rhett home.

Then she smelled smoke.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE My Day Is Come

Scarlett coughed and coughed. Shadows gathered at the base of her bedroom door and oily black smoke trickled, then surged inside and up the wainscoting.

Rosemary cried, "Fire! My God! Fire!”

When Scarlett touched the doorknob, she jerked back with a gasp. It was hot as a stovetop!

Shirtless and barefoot, Rhett burst in from the nursery. "The fire's in the stairwell," he said matter-of-factly. "Help me get the children out.”

Everything was happening so quickly! When Rhett took her hand, Scarlett protested, "But I'm not dressed!”

In the nursery, smoke drifted lazily through the moonlight. Among scattered toys and books, the children sat around Rosemary, who held Louis Valentine in her lap. As icy calm as her brother, Rosemary said, "Tazewell's gone for his mother.”

"Good man." Rhett knelt at child's eye level. "Ella, it's past your bedtime.

What are you doing up so late?”

Ella put her hand over her mouth; her fear transmuted into giggles.

"Beau, are you my brave boy? I need you to be brave tonight.”

Beau blew his nose hard.

Rhett said, "We're counting on you, Wade Hampton Hamilton.”

Outside the nursery door, the fire sounded like a great beast crackling through the undergrowth. Hurry! Scarlett thought. We must hurry!

Rhett turned to the shivering Louis Valentine, "How old are you, Louis?”

"Seven, Uncle Rhett.”

"You were named for a pirate. Did you know that?”

"Yes, sir.”

"Rhett!" Scarlett protested.

Rhett squeezed Scarlett's hand but kept his eyes fixed on the child.

"Then you'll have to be brave as a pirate. Right, Louis Valentine?”

Louis Valentine squeaked, "Yes, Uncle Rhett.”

"Good. Because when we go through that door, it's going to be hot and black and frightening. We will hold hands so nobody gets lost or left behind.

Scarlett will lead us, then Wade, then Louis Valentine, then Rosemary, then Ella. Beau, you'll take Ella's other hand — you mustn't let go of it — and I'll hold your hand and come last. Join hands now. Good. Hang on tighter than you've ever hung on to anything. Hang on hard!”

As Rhett was talking, the room filled with smoke and Ella started coughing. Scarlett prayed Ella wouldn't take one of her fits.

"We're going to crawl down the hall underneath the smoke to the servants' stairs and down those stairs to the kitchen and outside," Rhett continued.

"You mustn't tarry and, even if you are scared, you must pretend you're brave. You cannot turn loose of the hands you are holding. Do you understand?”

A ragged chorus of yeses. Ella muffled a sob.

In the same even tone, Rhett said, "Scarlett, honey, take Wade's hand.

Off we go.”

Though her teeth were chattering, Scarlett said, "Mr. Butler, are you sure this is the way to the Honeysuckle Ballroom?”

Rhett snorted. Scarlett hitched her nightgown above her knees and knelt.

Rhett threw the hall door open on suffocating black smoke tongued by sullen yellow flames. Scarlett crawled into it. Each wooden floorboard was outlined by light from below; the ceiling had disappeared in swirling blackness.

Scarlett's neck was so hot. What if her hair burst into flames? It was farther to the servants' stairs than Scarlett remembered. She crawled, with Wade's hand clamped behind her, and when her fine new nightgown slipped under her knees and hampered her crawl, she ripped it.

The fire roared like an angry bear. The floor scorched Scarlett's hands and knees and she gasped for air. Wade's hand in hers was slippery with sweat. Rhett's bellow cut through the roar: "Children. You must not let go.

Hang on with all your might!”

Ella shrieked, "I want my mother!”

"I'm here, honey. Keep crawling." Scarlett hacked a painful cough.

Ahead in the smoke, a darker rectangle became the stairwell. With her free hand, Scarlett groped for the top stair, crying, "I'm at the stairs. I'm starting down." She coughed until it felt as if she were coughing up lung tissue. Clinging to Wade's sweat-slippery hand, Scarlett backed down — two, three steps. Cool air rushed up the stairs, lifting the smoke above her.

Feeling with toes for each invisible riser, Scarlett backed down the narrow pitch-black stairs.

Far behind, Rhett shouted, "Hands tight! Hold tight!" When Wade misstepped, his hand was snatched from hers and she blocked his body so he wouldn't tumble down. Wade said, "Sorry, Mother," sounding just like Charles Hamilton.

In the tiny vestibule outside the kitchen, Scarlett tried to remember whether the latch was on the left or right. Somewhere above, Rhett cried, "We are nearly there! Louis Valentine! Pirates never snivel!”

The narrow door swung open on Mammy in nightdress and calico nightcap. The old negress said helplessly, "Scarlett, honey. We is on fire.”

Scarlett pulled Wade into the cool kitchen.

"Yes, Mammy, we're on fire. Ring the farm bell and rouse everybody.”

Scarlett handed Louis Valentine into the kitchen, then Rosemary and Ella, then Beau, and finally Rhett Butler, who was tucking his scorched hands into his armpits.

"But it was such a fine barbecue," a dazed Mammy said. "We ain't had such a time in years!”

Scarlett cried, "Oh Rhett! Your hands, your poor, poor hands!”

"Left my gloves in Glasgow," he replied lightly.

Rosemary shepherded the children into the yard as Mammy's bell clamored the alarm. The steading was dark and quiet. When Ella collapsed, Rhett caught and carried her. Ella's chubby bare feet dangled from his arms. Rhett laid Ella in some grass beside the springhouse and said, "Poor child. She was as brave as she needed to be.”

"I'll stay with Ella," Rosemary said. "Wade Hamilton, please heed the younger boys.”

Taz leaned a ladder against Gerald O'Hara's balcony, where his unflustered mother was waiting. Flames flickered behind Tara's upstairs windows.

Ellen O'Hara's fanlight and side lights glowed white. An empty fuel can lay next to the front door. Scarlett could smell kerosene in the wood smoke.

Tara's front stairs, where the orchestra had played Strauss waltzes just hours before, were burning.

Rhett braced the ladder as Taz climbed.

Grass beside the house was scorched. The boxwoods were burned sticks.

As if ghosts were sitting in it, Tara's porch swing creaked back and forth.

Her pink dressing gown as intact as her dignity, Belle Watling backed down the ladder rung by cautious rung.

Negroes ran to the house. Dilcey shouted, "Tara! We got to save Tara!”

Scarlett woke from her stupor. "Rhett!" she cried. "My God! It's Tara.”

She darted for the door as the fanlight popped and flame blossomed on the underside of the porch roof.

Rhett caught her around the waist and lifted her off her feet. "No!" he said. "It's too far gone." She kicked at his shins. "Not Tara. I won't lose Tara.”

"By God! I won't lose you! Not ever again!" Rhett bore Scarlett away as flames burst through the soffits and over the roof peak.

The heat was blistering. Rhett, Scarlett, Tazewell, and Belle retreated to the turnaround.

Scarlett wept angrily. "We should have tried!" She flailed at Rhett's chest. "We should have done something?' The fire roared and Tara's windows glowed like Satan's eyes. Hoofbeats in the lane: the neighbors. Too late. Altogether too late.

"Oh Rhett," Scarlett moaned, "it's Tara. It's Tara." She buried her face in his shoulder.

"Yes, honey. It was.”

The voice wasn't as loud as the fire. "My day is come.”

The ragged old man had twigs in his beard. His greasy hair was knotted into tangles. He'd got too near the fire and his shirtfront and sleeves were scorched here and there. He held a rusty single-shot dueling pistol.

"Rhett Butler," Isaiah Watling repeated dully, "my day is come.”

Rhett pushed Scarlett aside. "Good evening, Watling. You didn't need to burn my wife's house. I'd have come out if you'd asked.”

"Cleansing fire ..." Isaiah mumbled.

"I don't recall needing a cleansing fire," Rhett said. "But I'm not particularly religious. Doubtless, you know a good deal more about cleansing fires than I do.”

The old man found a residue of energy and straightened. "You murdered my son, Shadrach. Because of Rhett Butler, the Young Master of Broughton Plantation, my boy burns in hell.”

Through chattering teeth, Scarlett yelled, "You! Leave Tara! Depart from us, you miserable creature!”

Rhett said, "Isaiah, if I hadn't killed your son, somebody else would have. You know that. Shad Watling wasn't going to die in bed.”

"Nor will you, sinner!" With trembling hands, old Isaiah raised his pistol.

Rhett took a step toward him. "Give me the pistol, Isaiah.”

Belle ran to her father, crying, "Poppa! Poppa! Please! You mustn't!”

The report wasn't loud: a crack, not much louder than a stick breaking.

Belle Watling shuddered. Tucking her pink dressing gown neatly so no one could see her bare legs, Belle sat down on the mounting block.

Belle said, "Poor, poor Poppa," and died.

CHAPTER SIXTY Tomorrow Is Another Day

After years of wondering about the place, Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Elsing visited the Chapeau Rouge. It was their patriotic duty.

Nine years after the War, the Confederate story had flowered into a flamboyant, romantic myth. Certain lurid events that had once embarrassed these ladies had become prominent in their family legends. As Mrs. Elsing told her grandchildren, "When Georgia's Yankee occupiers were hanging brave men right and left, Belle Watling's ruse saved your father from the gallows. You simply cannot imagine!" Mrs. Elsing's astonishment at Yankee gullibility was renewed every time she repeated the familiar tale. "The Yankees actually believed Hugh Elsing would brawl in a sporting house! Imagine that!”

But a legend is one thing, a sporting house another, and when the ladies' coach stopped before the notorious place, the ladies almost told their coachman to drive on. They were greatly relieved to see others they knew, respectable citizens come to pay their respects to Atlanta's most notorious fallen woman.

Tell the truth, they were disappointed. Afterward, Mrs. Meade told her friends, "Why, Miss Watling's parlor seemed very nearly respectable!”

Mrs. Elsing, who detested French decor, disagreed. "Too ar-tis-tic, my dear. Far too ar-tis-tic.”

The Chapeau Rouge hadn't changed since the days when Confederate officers rollicked there and veterans returned to honor the young men they had been. In uneasy association, reputable and disreputable Atlantans waited on a walk bordered by Belle's fragrant roses.

MacBeth greeted those he knew and those he didn't with the same impersonal "Mornin', sir, mornin', ma'am. Glad you could come out on such a sorrowful day.”

Inside, curiosity seekers who expected gay cockatiels and exotic flamingos found wrens: Belle's black-clad Cyprians.

Several presently respectable matrons had worked here during the War.

Mrs. Gerald D. had been the vivacious "Miss Susanna" and "L'il Flirt" was now Mrs. William P. By neither word nor gesture did the Cyprians recognize their former comrades.

The mortician's men had delivered fifty straight-backed chairs and shifted Belle's parlor furniture upstairs. They'd set the coffin on sawhorses and draped the bier in black crepe. They'd placed scores of wreaths and floral arrangements to best advantage.

Belle was laid out in a gray silk dress of distinctly old-fashioned cut.

Her hair was loose on the white satin pillow and her hands were crossed devoutly.

She looked like a child wearing her mother's ball gown. A broad red ribbon with Beloved in black letters was draped across her coffin.

An ashen-faced Rhett Butler accepted condolences. "Yes, she was a fine woman. Belle had a trusting heart. Yes, Belle meant a great deal to me.

Thank you, Henry, for coming.”

Mrs. Butler stood beside her husband. "So glad you could come, Grandfather Merriwether. I hope you'll partake of our refreshments. Kitchen's through that door.”

Scarlett introduced the young man: "Belle's son, Tazewell Watling. Mr. Watling is a cotton factor from New Orleans. A Confederate veteran, yes.”

Stunned by grief, Tazewell Watling accepted well-meant condolences from strangers. Though he thanked each politely, their kind words meant nothing. Tazewell's mind was regretting what so easily might have been: his mother in the sunshine in his little Vieux Carr? garden, happy at last. How he wished he'd kept one, just one, of his mother's silly, precious letters!

Although respectable Atlantans eschewed Belle's lavish funeral feast, rougher citizens and their womenfolk gathered in the kitchen for roast beef, ham, and whiskey. They complained about the national depression and wondered when Atlanta would get up and get going again. They toasted Belle's memory. They recounted Belle's kindnesses when they'd been down on their luck.

The Atlanta Journal reporter wrote,

Wearing clanking leg irons, his wrists cuffed with bracelets of iron, the murdered woman's father was escorted to the wake by Clayton County sheriff Oliver Talbot. As mourners recoiled in horror, the bearded patriarch who had taken his daughter's life approached her bier. No fatherly tenderness softened his stony features; he uttered no grief-stricken cry. His finger had pressed the fatal trigger. His daughter had fallen at his feet, crying piteously. But if Isaiah Witling felt remorse, he showed none.

What thoughts must have tormented his obstinate mind; what fevered emotions must have been quenched by his obdurate will. He bent for a moment over his daughter's coffin and was seen to place something therein.

But his grandson, Mr. T. Watling of New Orleans, detected this movement, retrieved the old man's offering, and, as Watling was led away, the young man returned it to him...

"I believe sir, you forgot this." Taz placed the New Testament into his grandfather's shackled hands.

"I weren't..." With rheumy old eyes, Isaiah searched his grandson's face.

He licked his lips. "I weren't never my own man ... " He dropped his gaze, and when Sheriff Talbot tugged, the old man followed, obedient as a dog.

Rhett had persuaded a reluctant St. Philip's rector that Belle Watling should rest in the city's oldest churchyard. The rector picked a site against the back wall, where Belle's presence wouldn't offend. Rhett tapped a bishop's prominent stone. "Belle never fancied old Charley anyway.”

And so, on a beautiful Sunday morning, Ruth Belle Watling was laid to rest. Dew sparkled the grass. Churches tolled Christians to worship. Its bell chiming prettily, one of Atlanta's new streetcars rolled past.

Wade Hamilton and Ella Kennedy flanked Scarlett. Beau Wilkes and Louis Valentine Ravanel stood with Ashley and Rosemary. The rector read from the Book of Common Prayer. The children were awed. Louis Valentine shuffled his feet.

Tazewell Watling wept.

The rector got away as soon as he decently could. Negroes with shovels waited at a respectful distance.

Ashley Wilkes offered Rhett his hand. "I am sorry, Rhett. Belle was a fine woman. She saved my life.”

Rhett took the slighter man's hand. "How many years have we known each other?”

Ashley considered, "We met in '61.”

"Thirteen years. Strange, it's seems so much longer. How's your garden coming along?”

Ashley brightened. "Wonderfully well. I've got the fountain flowing.

You must stop by some time and see it." Ashley took Rosemary's arm. "Your sister is becoming a horticulturalist.”

Rosemary asked, "Have you ever wondered why it is, brother, that men pretend to take care of women, when it's generally t'other way 'round?”

Rhett kissed Rosemary's forehead.

Tazewell had been away from his business too long and he left for the railroad station.

When the Butlers reached Aunt Pittypat's, Rhett's strength abandoned him and he stumbled on the stairs. In what had been Melanie Wilkes's bedroom, Scarlett helped her husband undress. When she put Rhett into bed, his teeth chattered and he shivered so violently, Scarlett undressed, slipped under the covers, and held him until he slept.

As late-afternoon shadows passed through the room and wind rustled the elm tree outside the window, Scarlett woke in Rhett's arms.

Tara, Scarlett thought. She would have wept, but she'd wept herself dry.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes so hard, she saw stars. "Fiddle-dee-dee!”

Scarlett O'Hara Butler informed the world.

Rhett muttered sleepily and she smoothed the hair off his forehead and kissed his lips. "I'd better see to the children," Scarlett said. "There'll be coffee when you come down.”

Mammy and Ella were on the back stoop stringing beans. Pitty, Wade, and Uncle Peter were in the garden.

"We pickin' 'em 'fore they're by," Mammy said. Her old fingers flew.

"Mr. Rhett all right?”

"I believe he is. I was trying to remember, Mammy; when did you come to Tara?”

"Goodness, child. I come with your Momma when she was married.”

"Did you know Philippe Robillard?”

Mammy's lips set themselves in a familiar stubborn line.

"Mammy, they're all dead. The truth can't hurt anyone now.”

"Honey, you ain't lived so long as I have. Truth can hurt whenever it's told." Grudgingly, Mammy admitted, "I never cared for Master Philippe.

He was a reckless man.”

"Like Rhett?”

"Mr. Rhett? Reckless?" Mammy's ample flesh shook with laughter.

"Mr. Rhett never reckless with people he loves.”

Everything had changed. Everything Scarlett had willed, everything she had once wished for — utterly changed.

Could she, like Ashley, re-create a version of what life had been before the War? Bountiful azaleas and wisteria artfully draped over ruins? Scarlett snorted.

She and Rhett might rebuild Tara. Or maybe they'd just travel for a time. There were a world of places Scarlett had never seen. Maybe she and Rhett would go to Yellowstone and see those Natural Wonders: hot water spouting out of the ground, regular as clockwork. Mercy!

In that mood, she greeted Rhett when he came down. "Good afternoon, darling!" she said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Am I your darling, then?”

"You know you are. Rhett, please don't mock me anymore.”

His infuriating grin vanished. "Honey, never again. I promise.”

Each looked into the other's soul. Her eyes were green; his were dark.

He said, "Life has hurt us again.”

"A worse hurt than those hurts we have already endured?”

"No," he said. "I suppose not.”

Then Rhett Butler laughed, laughed out loud, and he scooped Scarlett up and waltzed her around the kitchen, smothering her with kisses, to Ella's delight and Mammy's consternation. "Mr. Rhett! Mr. Rhett, you gettin' everything upset!”

Rhett Butler smiled that smile of his and said, "Wife, you are the most captivating woman in the world.”

Scarlett said, "Mercy, Mr. Butler. Isn't life surprising?”

WHICH WASN'T NEARLY THE END