Rhett Butler's people (77 page)

As late-afternoon shadows passed through the room and wind rustled the elm tree outside the window, Scarlett woke in Rhett's arms.

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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.

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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

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Acknowledgments

This unusual collaboration was driven by two very different storytellers' imaginations and the history of that thrilling and terrible period that made the United States what it is today. Like Margaret Mitchell, I have taken some liberties with history. Civil War historians will notice that I've attributed some of Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan's exploits to Colonel Andrew Ravanel. General Morgan was not Andrew Ravanel and did not survive the war. Likewise, Cuban historians will set the date of General Narciso López's assault several years earlier than I have here. Like the Bay of Pigs and the Iraq invasion, López's invasion used good motives to conceal venial ones and, like them, failed. López was garotted in Havana and his American freebooters -- excepting one man -- shot. That exception asked the Spanish commander to post a letter to the still powerful Senator Daniel Webster, which he signed "Your affectionate nephew." His successful ruse sounded like Rhett Butler to me.

I am grateful to those who helped

Rhett Butler's People:

In Georgia:

Mr. Paul Anderson

Mr. Hal Clarke

The Special Collections at Emory and Henry University

The Atlanta History Center

Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation State Historic Site

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In New Orleans

:

Ms. Penny Tose

Mr. Henri Schindler

Mr. Arthur Carpenter, Loyola University Special Collections and Archives

Louisiana State Museum and Historical Center

Howard Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University

Historic New Orleans Collection, Williams Research Center

In Charleston:

Mr. Nick Butler

Dana and Peggy McBean

Dr. J. Tracy Power

Captain Randy Smith

Mr. Peter Wilkerson

Dr. Stephen Wise

The Charleston Museum

Charleston Library Society

South Carolina Historical Society

Charleston Preservation Foundation and the staffs of the Nathaniel Russell, Aiken-Rhett, and Edmondston-Alston houses

Elsewhere:

Mr. Thomas Cartwright and The Carter House Museum, Franklin, Tennessee

The International Museum of the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park

The Alderman Library at the University of Virginia

The Leybum Library at Washington and Lee University

Ms. Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin's Press

And especially my beloved Anne, whose courage never flagged.

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