Gone with the Wind

“We’re out of town now,” said Rhett briefly, drawing rein, “and on the main road to Rough and Ready.”

“Hurry. Don’t stop!”

“Let the animal breathe a bit.” Then turning to her, he asked slowly: “Scarlett, are you still determined to do this crazy thing?”

“Do what?”

“Do you still want to try to get through to Tara? It’s suicidal. Steve Lee’s cavalry and the Yankee Army are between you and Tara.”

Oh, Dear God! Was he going to refuse to take her home, after all she’d gone through this terrible day?

“Oh, yes! Yes! Please, Rhett, let’s hurry. The horse isn’t tired.”

“Just a minute. You can’t go down to Jonesboro on this road. You can’t follow the train tracks. They’ve been fighting up and down there all day from Rough and Ready on south. Do you know any other roads, small wagon roads or lanes that don’t go through Rough and Ready or Jonesboro?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Scarlett in relief. “If we can just get near to Rough and Ready, I know a wagon trace that winds off from the main Jonesboro road and wanders around for miles. Pa and I used to ride it. It comes out right near the MacIntosh place and that’s only a mile from Tara.”

“Good. Maybe you can get past Rough and Ready all right. General Steve Lee was there during the afternoon covering the retreat. Maybe the Yankees aren’t there yet. Maybe you can get through there, if Steve Lee’s men don’t pick up your horse.”

“I can get through?”

“Yes, YOU.” His voice was rough.

“But Rhett-You-Aren’t going to take us?”

“No. I’m leaving you here.”

She looked around wildly, at the livid sky behind them, at the dark trees on either hand hemming them in like a prison wall, at the frightened figures in the back of the wagon-and finally at him. Had she gone crazy? Was she not hearing right?

He was grinning now. She could just see his white teeth in the faint light and the old mockery was back in his eyes.

“Leaving us? Where-where are you going?”

“I am going, dear girl, with the army.”

She sighed with relief and irritation. Why did he joke at this time of all times? Rhett in the army! After all he’d said about stupid fools who were enticed into losing their lives by a roll of drums and brave words from orators-fools who killed themselves that wise men might make money!

“Oh, I could choke you for scaring me so! Let’s get on.”

“I’m not joking, my dear. And I am hurt, Scarlett, that you do not take my gallant sacrifice with better spirit. Where is your patriotism, your love for Our Glorious Cause? Now is your chance to tell me to return with my shield or on it. But, talk fast, for I want time to make a brave speech before departing for the wars.”

His drawling voice gibed in her ears. He was jeering at her and, somehow, she knew he was jeering at himself too. What was he talking about? Patriotism, shields, brave speeches? It wasn’t possible that he meant what he was saying. It just wasn’t believable that he could talk so blithely of leaving her here on this dark road with a woman who might be dying, a new-born infant, a foolish black wench and a frightened child, leaving her to pilot them through miles of battle fields and stragglers and Yankees and fire and God knows what.

Once, when she was six years old, she had fallen from a tree, flat on her stomach. She could still recall that sickening interval before breath came back into her body. Now, as she looked at Rhett, she felt the same way she had felt then, breathless, stunned, nauseated.

“Rhett, you are joking!”

She grabbed his arm and felt her tears of fright splash down her wrist. He raised her hand and kissed it arily.

“Selfish to the end, aren’t you, my dear? Thinking only of your own precious hide and not of the gallant Confederacy. Think how our troops will be heartened by my eleventh-hour appearance.” There was a malicious tenderness in his voice.

“Oh, Rhett,” she wailed, “how can you do this to me? Why are you leaving me?”

“Why?” he laughed jauntily. “Because, perhaps, of the betraying sentimentality that lurks in all of us Southerners. Perhaps-perhaps because I am ashamed. Who knows?”

“Ashamed? You should die of shame. To desert us here, alone, helpless-”

“Dear Scarlett! You aren’t helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you.”

He stepped abruptly down from the wagon and, as she watched him, stunned with bewilderment, he came around to her side of the wagon.

“Get out,” he ordered.

She stared at him. He reached up roughly, caught her under the arms and swung her to the ground beside him. With a tight grip on her he dragged her several paces away from the wagon. She felt the dust and gravel in her slippers hurting her feet. The still hot darkness wrapped her like a dream.