Rhett Butler's People

by Donald McCaig

  He’d do anything for her, he’d give her anything. …

  His wife thought she loved another man, but he knew better. Her love was dreaming for a way of life she’d envied and never understood as a child. Daughter of an Irish immigrant who’d married above himself: poor covetous Scarlett.

  She’d burn through Ashley Wilkes in six months. He was far too gentle a flower.

  Rain slid down the windowpane. Rain dripped from the lead mullions.

  Rhett Butler snorted, laughed at himself, and went to the fireplace to stir the fire.

  He heard her carriage on the cobblestones. When she came into the parlor, he lowered his book. “You’re home early.”

  She made a face and went to the cabinet for a brandy. She downed it with a shudder.

  Rhett closed his book and laid it on the end table. “Bulwer-Lytton’s new utopia. He imagines we can all be happy and good.”

  “We can’t?”

  “Perhaps if, like the creatures Bulwer-Lytton imagines, we live in a cave at the center of the earth. On earth’s surface, goodness and happiness are in short supply.”

  “Rhett, why did you make me sell my mills?”

  He got up to pour his own drink. “You know perfectly well why I helped you sell your mills. So you wouldn’t be closeted with the little gentleman every day.”

  “You resent Ashley Wilkes because he is so fine.”

  “I pity Wilkes because he is too fine.” He set down his glass. “Scarlett, need we do this?”

  She searched his face and sighed. “We do have a talent for discord.” Her smile was almost friendly. “You were right, Rhett. As usual. Governor Bullock is finished and his celebratory luncheon was a tedious sham. The Pennsylvania Railroad people were disappointed you didn’t come.”

  “There is a limit even to my hypocrisy.”

  “And that is?”

  Rhett chuckled.

  “Your friend Captain Jaffery has been assigned to Custer’s regiment.”

  “The Seventh’s in Carolina locking up Klansmen.”

  “Jaffery hopes they’ll go back out west. On …” She paused for effect. “The Northern Pacific.”

  “I trust you’ve not put money in that folly.”

  “Jay Cooke is the cleverest man alive and his Northern Pacific will be a bigger success than the Union Pacific. Everybody says so.”

  “Will it?”

  She arched her eyebrows. “I suppose you’ve heard about the Natural Wonders?”

  He stepped nearer and frowned. He asked, “How much have you had to drink?”

  Defiantly, she poured herself another and smiled over the rim of the glass. “Near the Yellowstone River on the Northern Pacific route, there’s an amazing realm of therapeutic hot springs and spectacular geysers.”

  “Geysers? Scarlett…”

  “Geysers spout hot water, a hundred feet high, as regularly as clocks chime the hours. Don’t give me that look, Rhett. Jay Cooke—”

  “Hot water? Spouting? Why do you want to be rich, darling? You already have me.”

  She smiled confidently, “Why yes, I do.”

  When he touched her arm, the warmed silk of her dress thrilled his fingertips. Speaking very quickly, Scarlett added, “Jay Cooke had Congress name this region Yellowstone National Park. The Northern Pacific’s cars will be filled with tourists visiting Yellowstone National Park. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Excuse me. Wouldn’t I what?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to see steaming water erupting as regular as clockwork?”

  Close to her, he inhaled the scent of her hair and murmured, “Doubtless the Sioux will welcome these tourists with open arms.”

  She backed away. Nervously, she patted her hair. “Tourists will take the train to see mineral pools and geysers! They will go to see the Natural Wonders!”

  His grin was amused. “Scarlett, you are a Natural Wonder.”

  Her eyes softened. Her lower lip trembled. Then he saw a flare deep in her eyes. Fear? Was that fear? What was she afraid of? She turned for the door.

  “I never said I loved you, you know,” she said, as if she weren’t quite sure.

  The air in the small space between them hummed.

  More firmly she said, “I don’t, you know.”

  His muscles ached from holding still, from not reaching out and taking her. In a husky voice, he managed to say, “I admire your candor.” Because his hands ached to touch her, to ravish her, to close around her throat and murder her, Rhett Butler bowed stiffly, brushed past his wife, and walked out of the house onto Peachtree Street, hatless in the cold rain.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  A Murderer’s Son

  In November, President Ulysses S. Grant declared South Carolina in rebellion, suspended habeas corpus, and sent the Seventh Cavalry to smash the Klan. Former Confederate generals Gordon and Forrest were summoned before the United States Congress, where they reluctantly admitted they might have known people who might have been associated with the “so-called” Ku Klux Klan, but they personally had had nothing to do with it.

  A fortnight after Andrew Ravanel was arrested, Elizabeth Kershaw Butler sat bolt upright in her bed and emitted a faint unearthly cry, which woke her daughter dozing in the armchair at her side. When Rosemary held a mirror to her mother’s mouth, the glass didn’t fog.

  Rosemary’s son, Louis Valentine, was a sound sleeper and merely murmured when she carried him to her own bedroom and placed him in her bed. Rosemary went to the kitchen and made herself a pot of tea. She didn’t weep for what she had lost. She wept for what her mother had never had.

  It was early—before dawn. Though she had expected this death for some time, it still took her by surprise.

  Later that day, Rosemary wrote her friend.

  Dearest Melanie,

  My mother, Elizabeth Butler, went to her Heavenly Reward early this morning. Mother did not suffer at the end.

  As you must have heard, Andrew Ravanel has been arrested for his Klan activities. Last Saturday, I brought his clothing to a camp outside Columbia. The camp is run by Federal cavalry, and whether for his previous rank or because they secretly share his views, Andrew has his own tent in that overcrowded pigsty. I had not dreamed there were so many Klansmen!

  Andrew says once the special courts are ready, he will be tried for several negro murders.

  There. I have said it. My words change nothing Andrew has done, nor my confusion and heartbreak. Violence and bitterness sully the innocent with the guilty! Will my sweet Louis Valentine grow up as the son of a convicted murderer?

  Rhett warned Andrew things would come to this, but Andrew was too proud to listen.

  Louis Valentine knows something bad has happened to his father. I haven’t found the words to explain.

  My father once said there was bad blood in the Butlers, a Butler curse. I believe the curse was lovelessness.

  I married my husband John to escape my father’s tyranny and I devalued John’s simple goodness until it was too late. Goodness works slowly, dear Melanie, and adds to our store in tiny increments. As a girl, I was enchanted by Andrew—the bravest rider, best dancer, the boldest fighter, the man who could commit himself utterly to whatever he did! Did I hope his desperate courage would rub off on me?

  Whether the penitentiary or defeat destroyed him, I cannot say. But gallant Andrew has transformed himself into a terrifying grotesque.

  What will I do now, dearest Melanie?

  Unlike Scarlett, I have neither the inclination nor ability for business. I was reared to bear babies, love a man, and keep a home. I seem to have inherited my mother’s reclusive nature and don’t leave 46 Church Street for days at a time.

  My brother Julian was ejected from the legislature with the Carpetbaggers he’d attached himself to. He has found work as a clerk.

  Ladies I worked with at the Free Market have started a school for girls: the Charleston Female Seminary. They have invited me to teach. I can speak a little French and am exquisitely sensit
ive to proprieties (if only from flaunting them). I suppose I would be a good-enough teacher.

  I will bury my mother, and when Rhett comes, I will not—I Will Not—ask him what to do!

  I have married one good man and one rakehell. I do not think I will marry again, but if I did, I’d want someone who needed me.

  I thank God for our friendship.

  Always your,

  Rosemary

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The Bottle Trees

  Andrew Ravanel thought he’d seen the bearded nigger before. He’d been sold at John Huger’s sale, the sale where Andrew tried to buy Cassius. Wasn’t he a wheelwright? A carpenter? The bearded nigger said, “Guilty.”

  The tall nigger said, “Guilty.”

  The nigger in the yellow vest said, “Guilty.”

  The bald nigger said, “Guilty.”

  Andrew scratched the back of his neck. It was hot for so early in the year. So many people crammed into the Charleston courtroom, it was bound to be hot.

  The scrawny nigger said, “Guilty.” There wasn’t any meat on that boy. He wouldn’t make a half-task hand.

  The four-eyed nigger said, “Guilty.” What did a nigger need glasses for? They couldn’t read. It was ironic: twelve niggers pronouncing judgment on a Colonel of the Confederate States of America.

  The wizened nigger said, “Guilty.” Why did some of them shrivel up like dried-apple dolls?

  “Guilty.” Lord, that nigger was fat. How could anybody say they hadn’t been treated right? If this nigger’d been a hog, he’d have been ripe for slaughter. Get some real hams off that boy.

  “Guilty.”

  “Guilty.”

  Andrew turned to nod at a couple of good old boys, who pretended they didn’t know him.

  “Guilty.”

  Six months ago, you bet they would have known him. Andrew caught Rosemary’s eye. She looked as fresh as if she’d just stepped out of the bath.

  “Guilty.”

  Guilty of what? Guilty of resisting the oppressor’s government?

  The Federal judge rapped his gavel. “Mr. Ravanel. The jury has found you guilty of four counts of intentional manslaughter. Do you have anything to say to this court?”

  They called Judge Boyd “Pit Bull” Boyd. He surely looked like one.

  “Colonel Ravanel, Your Honor,” Andrew said.

  “Colonel Ravanel. This court is willing to entertain evidence of your repentance, some acknowledgment of your terrible deeds, before passing sentence. As your attorney will warn you, Colonel Ravanel, without repentance, it will go hard on you. Sentencing hearing will be in this courtroom tomorrow, ten o’clock. Do I have your word of honor as a gentleman you won’t run?”

  Andrew smiled, thinking, My word of honor, Pit Bull? But before he could speak, Andrew’s lawyer, William Ellsworth, popped up. “You have my word, Judge Boyd. My client will be here.”

  “Then, Andrew Ravanel, you will remain free on bond to prepare an entreaty that will move our hearts. Tomorrow at ten.” The judge’s gavel fell.

  Being convicted felt no different from unconvicted. He was no better or worse.

  When Ellsworth tried to precede him, Andrew pushed ahead through a throng of glaring negroes, and whites’ sly winks.

  Rosemary was in the lobby, where Custer’s soldiers kept the crowd at bay. “Andrew, I’m sorry.”

  Why was Rosemary sorry? No jury of black apes had convicted her of anything. She hadn’t been insulted by a Yankee judge in front of all Charleston.

  “Can I come home?” Andrew said.

  Rosemary frowned. “No,” she said.

  Before the War, this courthouse lobby would have been scrubbed every day. Before the War, Low Country planters came here to settle boundary disputes and contracts. Andrew’s shoulders drooped. He’d been fighting so long, so very long. There was nothing left. “Give my best to the boy.”

  “To your son.”

  “Yes, to Valentine.”

  Andrew’s lawyer hustled him out a side door into a closed carriage. Ellsworth lit his pipe. It took him three tries to get it going. “You hadn’t a chance,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Andrew said lightly. “I was hoping some jurors remembered me from before the War.” The lawyer puffed furiously. “I did my best. I got the charges reduced from murder. I got you released on bond.”

  Andrew slid his window open.

  Late-morning sun fluttered into the carriage as they turned onto King Street past the post office. They edged around a beer wagon. Two men rolled barrels down a ramp. Behind their iron fences, the city’s gardens flourished. The scents of decay and rebirth made the air shimmer.

  “You must prepare a plea. Convince Judge Boyd you’ve seen the error of your ways.”

  “What does it matter?”

  His lawyer’s face was sour as an unripe pippin. “Judge Boyd has considerable sentencing leeway. He’s gone easy on Klansmen who repented. President Grant doesn’t want martyrs.”

  Andrew’s mind drifted on the lawyer’s sea of ifs, buts, and maybes.

  “We cannot contest what you did ….”

  A Unionist nonentity before the war, Ellsworth had been a reluctant advocate, torn between his desire to be counted among the Old Gentry while never condoning or appearing to condone the Klan. That same gentry had been glad when the Klan frightened Republicans out of the legislature, provided they didn’t have to know how the frightening was done.

  Andrew said, “Can’t make a cake without breaking niggers.”

  “What? What’s that you say?”

  Andrew Ravanel hadn’t been afraid to get his hands dirty. Josie Watling, Archie Flytte—maybe they didn’t scrape off their boots before they walked into the drawing room, maybe they didn’t care where they spat, but they weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Andrew’s palms itched. “What…?” Ellsworth asked.

  “I said,” Andrew repeated, “here we are.”

  Ellsworth’s office was three doors down from the Unionist lawyer Louis Petigru’s. Petigru hadn’t survived the war. While he was alive, everybody had reviled Petigru for his Unionist views. They praised him after the man was safely dead. That’s how things were.

  Andrew stepped down from the carriage.

  “Come into my office. We have work to do.”

  “I thought I might see a minstrel show.”

  “You’d what?” Ellsworth gaped.

  “The Rabbit Foot Minstrels are at Hibernian Hall. A matinee.”

  The lawyer removed his glasses and pinched his nose.

  Andrew asked, “Is Rhett Butler paying you to defend me?”

  “Why shouldn’t I defend you?”

  “You might get your hands dirty.”

  “Colonel Ravanel, I already have!” Ellsworth snapped. “Charleston’s better homes are no longer open to me. I don’t know when we can return to St. Michael’s. My wife and I cannot hold our heads up in decent company.”

  “Sir,” Andrew said, “you’d hold your head higher if you emptied the rocks out of it.”

  “Eh? What did you say?”

  “I said there’s a matinee.”

  “What are you talking about? We’ve got to work on your plea.”

  “What made you think I wanted to plead?” “You’d rather face ten years at hard labor?” Andrew snorted a harsh laugh. “Sir, I have faced worse.”

  “Be here, at the office, tomorrow by eight. We’ll prepare your statement then.” The lawyer spoke to Andrew’s back.

  Andrew rented a bay gelding at the Mills Hotel livery. He’d stayed at the Mills since the trial opened. He hadn’t asked who was paying his bills or who’d put up his bond.

  A decent horse under him, beautiful Charleston at his feet, and a fine day! What more could any man ask?

  Andrew tipped his hat to white and black alike. The negresses turned away; some ducked into doorways. Ladies pretended they didn’t see him. Poor whites and prostitutes waved or blew him a kiss. The comedy amused him.
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br />   Charleston’s rice trade was finished—reduced to fading signs on boarded-up businesses: JAMES MULROONEY,

  RICE FACTOR; JENKINS COOPERAGE, RICE CASKS A SPECIALTY.

  The harbor was full of bustling steamers. Andrew dismounted, tied his horse, and leaned on the rail.

  A negro boy, eight or nine years old, came along, pressed his skinny buttocks against the rail, and rutched. His shirt was out at the armpits, his trousers were belted with rope, and he was barefoot. “Plenty boats,” he ventured.

  When Andrew looked at him, the boy slid away.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Andrew said. “You needn’t be afraid of me.”

  “I ain’t scared of you nohow,” the boy said, but came no nearer.

  “These ships go everywhere in the world.”

  “Naw, not them li’l things!”

  “Some mighty little boats have crossed the ocean.”

  “I know ’bout boats,” the boy said scornfully. “My Daddy works in the fish market.”

  “If we put you niggers in those ships, we could send you back to Africa. Would you like that?”

  The boy shook his head vigorously. “I never been to no Africa.” So not to disappoint the friendly white man, he added, “I been to Savannah onct.”

  As he mounted, Andrew flipped the boy a dime.

  He rode down Anson Street, past Miss Polly’s old sporting house. What a time they had had! Lord, Lord, what a time! Edgar Puryear, Rhett Butler, Henry Kershaw—what a time! And Jack Ravanel. What would his father advise him? Andrew muttered in Old Jack’s tones, “Ride like hell, boy! Don’t waste time lookin’ over your shoulder.”

  Miss Polly’s was roofless and shell-pocked. A yellowed muslin curtain dangled from a second-story window. How eagerly they had sought life. They couldn’t wait for life to come to them; they must meet it halfway.

  Rhett Butler had been his particular friend. Andrew had gambled with Rhett Butler, drunk with him, and they’d galloped breakneck into the sunrise. Dear God, Andrew thought, I’ve lost everyone.

  He drew up before the East Bay Inn and waited until Jamie Fisher came out, a white apron around his waist. “Ah,” Andrew cried, “the boldest scout in the Confederacy.”