Rhett Butler's people (9 page)

Even rich argonauts must eat, and their picks and shovels have a way of wearing out, and common decency (and below-zero nights) demand trousers and shoes.

Sister, I have become a merchant

--

one of those tedious fellows whose

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ef

forts underpin every aristocracy. With my grubstake, I purchased a heavy freight wagon and four sturdy mules. I paid twice as much as I would have in Carolina for brined beef whiskey, flour, shovels, picks, and rolls of canvas.

I loaded my rig and goods on a steamship, which puffed up the river to Sacramento, where I chaffed until the trails into the high gold country were almost passable. Sister, your merchant brother shoveled through three-foot snowdrifts to deliver his goods to Goodyear's Bar.

I have never had such a glorious welcome. No provisions had reached the camp since October; the miners were famished and fell on your brother with hosannas.

They had gold but nothing to spend it on! Within an hour of my arrival, I sold everything except my revolvers and a mule.

I returned through the snowbanks, keeping a wary eye on my back trail. I had much to protect.

When I delivered this booty to Lucas and Turners bank vault, even the impassive Mr. Sherman, the managing partner, raised his eyebrows.

I've had no reply to my letters. I pray you are well and yearn to hear your news.

Now it is time for a warm bath and bed.

Your Loving Brother, Rhett

September 17, 1850

St. Francis Hotel

San Francisco, California

Dear Little Sister,

Don't tell Father that I've become respectable. Butler General Merchandise has a second-floor office on Union Square and warehouses in Stockton and Sacramento.

Would you recognize your brother in his dark business suit, neat gaiters, and inoffensive foulard? I feel like an actor in a very strange play.

I do have a knack for it

--

making and getting money. Perhaps because I see money as a commodity with no religious significance.

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I

no longer play cards. Getting wagons to gold camps like Goodyear's Bar, Bogus Thunder, and

Mugfuzzle (though no metropolis, Mugfuzzle exists) makes poker seem a puny gamble. Why should I sit, midnight after midnight, in a room rank with tobacco smoke just to separate drunken fools from their money?

The argonauts are crazed with greed. No insurance company will insure their lives. Cholera kills them, drink kills them, and accidents kill them. Since there is no law in the camps, disputes are routinely settled with pickaxes, fists, or guns. If all else fails, often they kill themselves.

The argonauts are as ready to fight as our Low Country aristocrats, but their reasons are more transparent. There is no prattle about "honor" here.

We Californians say "back in America" to refer to our former home. Mr. Clay's clever compromise and Mr. Calhoun's death were hardly noticed here.

Men move faster out here, but are no wiser.

I have not received one letter from you and no longer expect one. You cannot be deceased

--

I would feel it if you were. I assume Father has forbidden you to write.

Things may improve, even at Broughton, and writing to you refreshes you in my mind and heart. I feel your love as I write and return it to you tenfold.

Your faithful correspondent,

Rhett

June 19, 1851

St. Francis Hotel

San Francisco, California

Dearest Rosemary,

"The Sydney Ducks are cackling tonight." That's what this city's wits say when some honest man is robbed, beaten, or shot. While San Francisco has always had rough elements, a recent immigration of freed Australian convicts has made it far more dangerous.

I am not worried for myself, my business, or my drivers. I have a (entirely undeserved) reputation for ferocity.

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As Mr. Newton taught us, for every reaction, there's an equal and opposite reaction, and when I was invited to dine with three upstanding citizens, I suspected their motives.

The banker W T. Sherman is older than I, with the triangular face of a praying mantis, a short beard and phenomenally large eyes. Brown eyes are supposed to be soft and revealing of character. Shermans are as revealing as two lumps of coal. He is asthmatic, one of the palest men I've ever seen. Neither he nor anyone else anticipates a long life for him.

He is a practical man, one who does not flinch at necessity.

Collis Huntington is one of those men who believe their own rectitude gives them the right to make other men cower. He is a competitor of Butler General Merchandise and we've crossed swords a time or two.

Dr. Wright, the least of this triumvirate, is nervous, dressed like Beau Brummell, and claims to have invented the phrase "the Paris of the Pacific" to describe this city. He has, so far as I can make out, no other accomplishments of which to boast.

We dined in a private dining room at the St. Francis, where, after the usual hemming and hawing, they proposed I join their nucleus of a vigilante society, which would, as Huntington elegantly put it, "hang every thief and miscreant on this shore of the Bay."

Mr. Sherman said civic disorder threatened business interests. He spoke of the "necessity" of action.

I reminded Sherman that necessity is not always just or worthy.

Huntington and Wright were genuinely offended

--

they'd assumed I was their natural ally: a man who could kill with clean hands.

I told them neither yea nor nay.

Sister, I am not a reflective man, but that night I wondered who I had become. What distinguishes the merchant who hangs a thief to preserve his fortune from the planter who whips a negro to death for insolence?

I determined I would not be that man. As I would not be hanged, I would not be a hangman.

I have determined to try my fortunes elsewhere. Volunteers are combining to overthrow Cuba's Spanish overlords, and perhaps I'll lend them a

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hand. If you can write, I will pick up my mail do General Delivery, New Orleans.

Your puzzled brother, Rhett

March 14, 1853

Hotel St. Louis

New Orleans

Dear Little Sister,

Proper Charlestonians would be shocked by this city. It is so French. New Orleans' citizens

--

all good Catholics

--

are preoccupied with food, drink, and love

--

though not necessarily in that order. In the old quarter, the Vieux Carre, the fragrance of sin drifts through the orange and lemon blossoms. I can attend a ball every night: formal, informal, masked, or the sort of affair I attend with a pistol in my pocket. I play cards at Mcgarth's, Perritts, or the Boston Club. I enjoy four racetracks, three theaters, and the French Opera House.

The city is the freebooters' home port. These young Americans have taken Manifest Destiny as a personal creed. Their destiny, manifestly, is to conquer and loot any Caribbean or South American nation too weak to defend itself. Most believe Cuba would make a first-class American state once we run off the Spanish.

I have invested in several

freebooting expeditions --

if demand increases profits, patriotism swells the trickle into a flood. Until now, I haven't been tempted to enlist myself.

New Orleans is a city of beautiful women and its Creole ladies are cultured, cosmopolitan, and wise. They have taught me much about love

--

a pursuit which is second only to the longing for God.

Doubtless my Creole mistress, Didi Gayerre, loves me. She loves me to distraction. After six months together, she is eager to marry, bear my children, and share my uncertain fortunes. She is everything a man could want.

I do not want her.

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My initial fascination has turned to boredom and a mild contempt for myself and Didi for pretending to believe what we know is not so.

Love, Dear Sister, can be terribly cruel.

I will not stay with her from pity. Pity is even crueler than love.

The less I love her, the more desperate Didi becomes, and only physical separation will cure our problem.

We were supping with Narciso

López, a Cuban General who is organizing an expedition. He already has three or four hundred volunteers --

enough, he assured me, to defeat any Spanish army. Once we land Cuban patriots will swell our ranks. He told me with a wink that there is conquistador gold in the Spanish treasury. Havana, he added is a beautiful city.

Didi ignored his barrage of reasons. She was wearing a high-bodiced brocade gown and an astonishingly red hat. She ate nothing. She was pouting. Our omelettes were perfectly prepared and our champagne chilled, but Didi was grumpy and objected to everything the General said. No, the Cubans wouldn't rise up. The Spanish army was more formidable than a few hundred American adventurers.

López

, who is a pompous man, explained how conquering Cuba would make us rich. "Lt's the white man's duty, Butler," he advised.

"To become rich?" I teased him.

"Our duty to transform a primitive, superstitious, authoritarian country into a modern democracy."

That theory prompted a torrent of

Didi's angry French, whose precise meaning López may not have understood, but he certainly got the gist.

He leaned forward and with a condescending smile said, "Butler, are you one of those fellows whose wench tells him what to do?"

Didi stood so abruptly she knocked over the champagne bucket. She stabbed pins into her bright red hat. "Rhett?" she insisted. "Please

..."

"You must excuse us, General," I said.

Didi was rigid on my arm. The St. Louis's doorman summoned our cab.

A filthy woman beggar limped toward us, mumbling her feeble entreaty.

López

followed us onto the sidewalk, apologizing "Senor Butler, I did not intend to insult you, nor your lovely companion.

"Madre de Dios!" The beggar had come close enough to offend his nos

trils.

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She was one of those desperate creatures that service Irish stevedores behind the levees. Her hand trembled with entreaty.

"Leave us!" The General raised his cane.

"Don't, General. "As I went into my pocket for a dime, I recognized a familiar face beneath her grime. "Dear God

, are you ... are you Belle Watling?"

It was she, Dear Sister, a woman I had never thought to see again. John Haynes had financed Belle's escape from the Low Country. I hadn't known she'd come to New Orleans.

Some weeks later Belle told me, "I always loved the sea. I thought things would be different here." Apparently, Belle fell in with a cardsharp who used her as collateral when the pasteboards failed him. Belle's son is in the Asylum for Orphan Boys.

I will try to improve her circumstances before General

López and I embark for Cuba.

Belle begs you not say anything to her father, Isaiah. She is as thoroughly disowned as I am.

All my love, Rhett

July 1853 Cuba

Beloved Sister Rosemary,

The beach at Bahia Hondo is the most beautiful I have ever seen. Silver sand and cerulean sea seem as endless as eternity