There are so many works of art on this particular fansite, I am hesitant to submit my own attempt. Please enjoy and review, if you would be so kind.
Homeward Way
1.
Rhett Butler's anger was unstoppable. He hardly saw the passing scenery from the train window. Images clouded his mind like a moving picture show. Unarmed, barefooted boys being shot down in front of him on a Tennessee farm. Shooting a man at point-blank range in the California goldfields. A tiny, petite woman battered to the ground with a smash of his father's powerful fist. His brother sniggering while he was tossed out on his ear. Rhett's knuckles were white on the armrest of his seat.
He had been bound for Jekyll Island, Georgia, having been on one of what had been many voyages around the country and beyond in search of something lost, forgotten, or otherwise misplaced: himself. At the very time he had reached the National Hotel in Atlanta for a brief respite, he had received the news of his brother's illness and imminent demise. Ross had planned to meet Rhett and his companions for a week long endeavor of hiking, fishing and other enjoyable pastimes befitting the pair, close friends that they had become, if only in the last few years.
Born in 1830, two years after Rhett, Ross had grown up in the shadow of the elder, who had become by the age of seventeen as great of a gambler, carouser, and scourge to the staid Charleston gentility that his name appeared regularly in the state papers - often heralding his triumphant victory in a dual concerning a quarrel of little import, but in all likelihood, it had involved a woman. "There has never been such a notorious boy in all the city, state, and country," railed their father, the Butler patriarch of good standing although he himself had been the product of a misalliance between a pirate lord and a French-Creole aristocrat. Again, he addressed the boys' mother, a petite, genteel aristocrat born and bred on the sweet sands of the Savannah shore, "he has impudently passed the part of gentleman and has become a great spoiler and leader of the most degenerate of boys in all the Academy, shaming your name and mine and blasting his way down a path of egregious perdition!" And then, just like that, the elder Butler dismissed his son Rhett from his presence for good, waiting another two years only before declaring that his name be blotted from the family Bible.
"Lest the Butler blood be tainted," the now senior man wheezed, his lungs filled with the humid summer air as his body was wracked with a coughing fit.
The train stopped.
He disembarked and hastily gave his instructions to the porter to direct his luggage to the nearest hotel. The spring rains had rendered the roads into Charleston nearly impassable – and he made the decision at the train station to take advantage of the better roads north of the city, then the ferry crossing to the south end of Dunmore Landing, his family's home.
Avoiding the nosy prattle of the citizenry on Broad Street during the day, he had returned to the city under the cover of darkness via a neglected byway, then angled his way through the Battery undetected, as very few lights shone down to illuminate passersby on the road. Local youngsters still lingered past midnight at Menell's place. The woman had been in business since he was in the first throes of manhood – and despite her reputation amongst the staid gentry of Charleston, Menell was a very gentle sort of madam. Her girls were clean and discreet, more suited for the tastes of young boys and very old men. There was an aura of respectability in her place – she banned the fiddle and cards and would dismiss any scoundrel who thought her establishment "that sort". The more seasoned guests might discover their mistake and leave, hoping for better things closer to port. Menell would just smile.
Rhett needed no signpost to point him toward Menell's unmarked, unassuming two-story house. By the time he turned the corner leading away from the Battery, the stars were disappearing and dawn was breaking.
Everything looks the same, he thought to himself, feeling keenly the knots in the pit of his stomach. It always looked the same.
The next day, Rhett found himself in the stern of the Mermaid, a small tug ferrying himself and four other passengers across the Ashley River to dockside of the west side of Dunmore Landing.
The inner reaches of the Ashley were riddled with hidden rocks, dotted with old smallish islands which could be exposed briefly and then submerged during a mighty hurricane from the Atlantic, and depending upon the wily river's current, so fierce that any skilled riverboat captain or sailor would think twice before attempting to tame it - but Rhett Butler knew it like the back of his hand. He and his brother both had grown up on this very river and for years had made the area his base for blockade running along the Southern coast. His fleet schooners and the Yankee frigates that pursued them were long gone, but ferries made the river crossing once a day from the city downriver. It was a briskly cold but sunny day, and the light of the midday sun was reflected in the choppy waves like tiny mirrors - and Rhett's eyes flashed as he looked down into the depths, thinking that that current was reflective of the very state of his wearied soul.
The boat's captain, an elderly Irish gentleman wearing a tweed-cap leaned over the rail next to Butler and heaved a sigh. "Hold your teeth now, son. T'won't be long now."
"It's not the water that ails me," Rhett retorted, although his delivery was polite. He then decided to confide in the man, whom he would most likely never see again after the ferry landed. "It's the fact that my nephew, a boy full of charm and promise and only seventeen has been dead and buried since this Christmas past and now my brother, who is not yet fifty, is about to do the same. My father cursed his own blood - now look where it's gotten him. The Butler line is spent."
The Irishman nodded in his direction. "Aye. It's understandin' I am. But have ye no children to your name?"
Rhett shook his head. "Not my blood."
The Irishman sighed. "A wife, then?"
Rhett rolled his eyes. "One I avoid whenever possible."
The Irishman smirked at that. "Aye. I do the same, son. But if it 'tis blood that you're frettin' o'er, perhaps you'd best make the time to see the old lady, eh?"
Butler stared out into the horizon. "I see the dock. Not long now."
Built in the final year of the eighteenth century, the great house of the Landing had been altered repeatedly by the successive generations of Butlers. Three full stories bracketed by great stone chimneys.
When he finally disembarked, his legs had stiffened, and pain shot up his spine as he stood straight up. Long strides carried him to the long avenue, framed by young trees planted in postbellum years by his brother, to replace those which had been destroyed by the warfare which had raged for four bloody years.
He entered through the side door to the kitchen and raced toward the parlor. His mother was standing in the doorway, looking haggard and ill and all of her seventy years.
"Thank God you're here, Rhett."
His voice was hoarse as he addressed her. "Is he?"
She shook her head.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "I was too late. I should have come straightaway."
She put out a hand. "No. He was gone yesterday morning. He never awoke from his slumber. I was with him in the end. Rosemary, too."
He closed his eyes for a moment, and grasped the back of the divan for balance. When he opened them again, he glimpsed his younger sister, huddled in an armchair at the opposite end of the room. Thirty-four years old an unmarried.
"Bless his poor heart," rasped Rosemary. "He was crying for Hughie and Barbara at his last."
He could feel his heart start to thud in his chest. Ross had felt his own losses keenly, understanding Rhett's misery and pain better than anyone else. When influenza had claimed the lives of Barbara and her unborn child the summer previous, Ross had depended utterly on Rhett for guidance and strength – and Rhett had been only too happy to come to his brother's aid. The hatchet between them had been long buried. When Rhett's own breaking point had been reached several years before, he had fled to Charleston, and Ross and his sweet young second wife and son had saved him in every way that a person could be saved.
"Remember when Barbara and Ross were married? What a splendid day that was." Rhett's mother was speaking aloud, perhaps to herself. " A spring wedding. March twenty-third. The whole world seemed to be mended anew. Even with Bonnie gone. And Scarlett was there, and the dear children. The black clouds had lifted, and anything seemed possible."
"You were wrong, weren't you, Mother?" Rosemary spat out.
Rhett drew a sharp breath.
"What are you going to do now, Rhett?" his mother asked.
Years of practice had taught him to keep a tight rein on his emotions, no matter how extreme.
"Bury Ross. Then I'm off."
"To Atlanta? Yes, Scarlett must be comforted by her husband – it is fitting that you-"
"Not Atlanta. New Orleans."
His mother's lips formed a thin red line.
"I see. I really would feel better if you remained here in Charleston for a time. For Rose and my protection, if nothing else. I am unused to being here alone without so much as one Butler man in the house."
He looked down at his tiny, thin mother. "I know of one you can have, aside from me."
"No." she said firmly. "No. Not in Charleston. Not now, not ever."
"Dillon is nearly seventeen. It's time that he be given some sort of place here. The last of the Butler blood is spent, Mama, and you know it. I will have no other children and Rosemary..."
His sister glared at him with her fierce golden eyes.
"Rosemary may yet prove me wrong. But not yet."
His mother shook her head again, not believing the insubordination could come from her eldest son at such a time, when his brother's body lay cold in the bed above them. "Wash your face first. Ask one of the servants to give you a proper shave, you look a fright. And have a cup of tea. Something to eat."
He nodded in mute acquiescence. "I'll leave the day after the funeral."
His mother enjoyed her brief victory, however small it was, but was forced to resign herself to the fact that Rhett intended to bring the boy – did he say that his name was Dillon – up to the Landing whether she was prepared to accept him or not.
"At the least," she said with great hesitation, "you should write to Scarlett. Send for Wade Hampton. At least your nominal stepson could appear at your side as well as your...foundling."
A muscle twitched in Rhett's jaw. He looked as if he'd like to retort something very rude, but thought better of it due to the gravity of the occasion. He settled for, "Yes, Mama. Yes, I'll send for Wade Hampton."