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Chapter 12
Soldier of Fortune
And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
...
Despite my determination, I didn't know yet how I was going to take Melly downstairs only with Prissy's help, but of course, first I had to figure out how to get a horse. I knew the army had taken all the horses, even Rhett's, so I would have to go where they kept them and stole one.
I put on my black coat and hat; I had seen enough movies to know that if I moved stealthily wearing black, I could camouflage myself with the shadows in the night, so there was a minor chance of them catching me. But truly I was scared to death, I knew if the soldiers discovered me they will kill me, and then Melanie would die as well, when the Yankees will arrive.
I came downstairs looking for Prissy, I needed her to take care of Melly and this time I was able to tie her to bed so she wouldn't leave her alone, but stopped death in my tracks in the middle of the stairs when I heard hooves and the sound of some wheels outside in the street and thought the worst. My heart started pounding with fear and I rushed upstairs, taking Charles' sword from the wall. Well, I wouldn't be a damsel in distress; I would fight until I couldn't do anything else to protect us. I ran to the hall quietly and, swung open the front door. Immediately I froze and dropped the sword.
Impossibly dapper as always, all in white, topped with a matching Habana hat and wearing duel pistols on his sides, was Rhett driving a cart down the street. He tipped his hat, smiling at me and jumped out of the cart once he stopped the horse in front of the house.
I walked to him, with wide eyes, my voice stuck in some part of my throat. My brain had stopped working for a moment, I was completely in shock, and briefly I thought that Rhett always appeared when everything seemed lost. He always appeared and fixed it.
"Rhett... you came," I managed to say, still not believing at all he was there.
"Of course I came. You didn't think I was going to leave you alone, did you?" He responded sarcastically but his eyes gleaming warmly.
"But you didn't tell Prissy... I thought—"
"Well, I didn't want to give you false hopes if I couldn't steal a horse, besides I know that I just couldn't come to this house without a present for you, my dear," his mocking voice reminded me of our two last conversations and my blood boiled with rage. I glared at him, closing my hands in fists.
"Well, I don't need you anymore! You can leave the horse here and return from you came!" I snapped at him but he didn't lose his hateful smirk.
"Give you the horse? I stole it, Scarlett," he responded gleefully, placing his large hands in his waist. "Besides, can you explain me how you're going to leave Atlanta without my help?"
"I'm not some stupid helpless girl; I can manage by myself quite all right, thank you very much!" I practically yelled at him.
"So you don't need me?" he asked calmly without losing his smile as if were joking. That made me even angrier.
"No, I don't!"
"How are you going to bring Miss Melly down to the cart? According to Prissy she couldn't leave bed," Rhett asked me.
"I'm strong, I can carry her," I lied to him, huffing and turned around to leave him there but he followed me, crossing the little garden as well.
"Really? Down the stairs too?" he asked me and I turned to snap:
"Yes!" he cocked his eyebrows, suppressing his laugh.
"Well, in that case I will have to stay to protect miss Melly or you will kill her, my dear," when he told me that I stopped abruptly and turned in my heels to face him. I was glowering at him and wanted to shred his mocking smile in pieces.
"Don't! Just go away! I don't need you! Neither of us! You can come back to your whore now!" I shouted at him, angrier with him than ever. The humiliation he had caused me that day, still burning inside me.
"Oh, so this is about Belle now? Tell me, are you jealous?"
When he mentioned her name I lost it. I was practically seeing red and I wanted to strangle him.
"I don't give a damn about her or you!" I yelled, shoving him. "So why don't you come back to her to get drunk and sleep with her, and leave me alone?!" I tried to push him again but he held my wrists stopping me.
"You need help, Scarlett!" he told me seriously and I snatched my hands from his grasp. My nerves now were really on the edge, my breath was each time more and more shaken and I started to feel tears prickling my eyes. Tears of fear, tears of rage, tears of pain...
"No I don't! Stop telling me what I have to do! I don't need you, you ungrateful bastard, jerk... ass!"
"Come here" he said, ignoring my insults walking to me trying to hold my arms but I stepped back.
"Get away from me! I don't need you, I don't... I don't! I'm going home!"
"To Tara? Are you crazy?" he frowned, now concern clearly visible in his face. "Do you think you can parade through the Yankee army with a sick woman, a baby and a simple-minded darky...? Or do you intend to let them behind?"
"I don't care! I don't freaking care! I'm tired, I'm so tired and sick of all this! I want to go home; I want to be with my mother and my Dad... I want my Dad—!"
"But you can't—"
"I will! I will even if I have to walk all the way home carrying Melly and the baby, and kill anyone who'll try to stop me...," and I broke. I hated to be the one taking decisions and taking care of the others, I was tired and sick. I just wanted to go home; I needed my mother, my real mother. I wanted to be Blair; I was so tired to be Scarlett. I started to sob for everything, everything bad that had happened the last year and for what was happening now, and before I could react, Rhett had pulled me into his smooth and comforting arms. My face rested in his chest, wetting his shirt with my tears, and my hands clutching to his jacket for dear life. He wrapped one hand around my shoulders pulling m tightly to him and the other stated to caressing my hair. I felt his lips brushing my temples, my forehead and hair and suddenly, almost magically my breathing started to calm down.
"Shh... shh... It's fine, I'm here, I'm here" he repeated and I believed him. He was there, he had to care... maybe he didn't love me as I loved him, but he cared, and he wanted to help me. I was still shaking sobbing a little and he rocked lightly my body.
"All right, darling, all right. Now you shall go home. I guess anybody who did what you've done today can take care of Sherman," he kissed my forehead once more before pulling back and took a handkerchief from his pocket and handled it to me. "Here, now. Stop crying. Now blow your nose like a good little girl...," but I didn't blow my nose, I took the handkerchief and wiped my tears away, before throwing my arms around his neck again and pressing myself against him. I knew the world was falling down and the Yankees were coming but I just needed this. I breathed deeply into his aroma, brandy and cigars and horses, and he held me too, and that was all I needed to collected myself, to be strong again.
"Thank you," I whispered to him and holding his hand I pulled him inside the house. I heard a loud crash that startled both of us and followed the noise until the living room where was Prissy with the trunk open.
"What are you doing, Prissy?" I asked her exasperated.
"Ah'm packin', Miz Scarlett," she responded. Actually she had let fall inside the trunk a pile of china dishes, now all broken.
"Stop that and go for Melly's baby," I ordered her and she hurried upstairs. I huffed closing the trunk, without bother of taking out the pieces of china and Rhett helped me to take it out, tucking it behind the sit in the cart. Then we ran to Melly's room.
Prissy was there holding little Beau but Melly was tossing in bed.
"Melly, Melly," I called her softly and she opened lightly her eyes.
Rhett surrounded the bed quickly and leaned to her.
"Mrs. Wilkes we're taking you to Tara," he told her in a soft, kind voice.
"Scarlett...," Melly's weak voice managed to say and turned to me as asking for an explanation.
"We cannot wait Melly, we have to leave. The Yankees are coming," I explained to her quickly.
"If you have the strength to pull your arms around my neck," Rhett asked to Melly and she tried to lift her arms but they fell back, without strength.
"Never mind," he responded and lifted her, as soft as he can in his arms.
"Ashley, Ashley... Charles... sword," Melly started to whimper and Rhett frowning confused and worried, turned to me.
"What is it? What does she want?"
"Charles' sword and Ashley's picture" I replied taking the lamp beside Melly's bed and lightening it.
"Bring them," Rhett told me but I was already tucking a small daguerrotype with Ashley's photo into my pocket. Charles' sword was downstairs on the floor so I lifted the lamp and followed Prissy out of the room.
Everything was dark now but when we came out, an orange light was burning at the distance and my heart clenched... fire.
I stopped death and saw the fire with horror.
"They're burning down the city!" I exclaimed frightened.
"Almost but not, that is the depot. The Yankees must be burning down the munitions, we must hurry, we have to cross the railway," he said apparently calm as I fetched the sword.
"There is fire over thee, Rhett, we can't go," I told him as he approached the cart and placed softly Melly in the little space that wasn't occupied by the trunk, Prissy would have to go over it.
"We have to," Rhett answered matter-of-factly, his firm voice made me trust him. "That's the only way the Yankees hadn't cut yet," he took the sword from my hands and placed it next to Melly.
I took Beau from Prissy and gave it to Melly carefully, as Rhett helped Prissy to climb onto the trunk.
I surrounded the cart and stopped when I saw the 'horse', or what was left of it. It was a poor animal more death than alive.
"Not much of an animal, is it?" Rhett asked me and I turned to see him. Despite everything, he was grinning. "Looks like he'll die in the shafts. But he's the best I could do. Someday I'll tell you with embellishments just where and how I stole him and how narrowly I missed getting shot. Nothing but my devotion to you would make me, at this stage of my career; turn horse thief... and thief of such a horse. Let me help you in," and before I could reply or process his comment, he lifted me by the waist and sat me gently on the narrow bench of the cart for the climbed himself and urged the animal to move.
For a few moments I just looked at him, wondering, thinking about his words... His devotion to me? He had meant that or had been just a joke? It could be a truth hidden behind mockery?
But I couldn't think more about his feelings or mine because we reached the city square and I would never forget that. Half of the building we're failing in pieces, the soldiers broken in spirit and body were marching out and the dust seemed to stay still mid-air, making a suffocating fog, besides the scorching warm of the fire was crept on us.
"Oh God," I just said almost in a whisper and wanted to hold onto Rhett's arm but I knew I shouldn't hinder him in that moment. The soldiers didn't let us continue and we have to stop, while the city looked to falling around us.
"Oh, just move!" I shouted at the men, desperately but they didn't even turn to me.
"I wouldn't hurry them, darling. With them it goes the last resemblance of law and order."
After we passed them we reached the parts of the city were the stores were. The people were crashing the windows and taking furniture and goods from inside with them.
Suddenly a man closed to us spotted us and yelled at the others that we had a horse, and the horde turned to us.
"Give me that horse!" The man yelled, pulling out a knife and running to us. I just leaned back in shock but Rhett reacted, leaning over the horse and punching down the man. Then he took the reins and turned the cart to an alley but the others had seen us and we were chased by desperate men.
In that moment with the heat, the dark, the falling buildings and the men running to us, I really thought we wouldn't make it. I was holding myself so hard to not cry as a frightened child.
But other men were in our way and they surround us. They scared the horse and this whinnied, jumping as Rhett punched men trying to get rid of them but there were too many. Rhett pushed some man who tried to grab me and then kicked another, but they were coming more.
"No! No!" I heard Prissy cried as if they were whipping her, and then the scared baby's cries.
A man next to me took me by the skirts of my dress and pulled, and I cried trying to get away but there wasn't enough space. Rhett turned to me with a frightened expression and then got hit by another man—that made me snap. I could be a frightened child but I will fight until death. The man pulling me was half climbing almost on me.
"Get the hell off me!" I yelled punching his nose, and then pushed him off of the cart with both of my legs.
I turned to Rhett who was trying to push away three men at the same time and took the reins urging the horse, who pushed past them, rolling over one. I turned to Rhett who was looking at me with a mixed expression—a frigtened, impressed and amused expression.
But I had to stop the horse a little after because the railway was covered with wagons on fire. And just a few feet away of the fire were boxes and barrels of gunpowder.
"We will have to cross before the fire reach the ammunition!" Rhett yelled to me above Prissy's cries. I gave him the reins and he made the horse run between falling rubble.
In that moment, a building on fire collapsed before us, blocking out the way. The horse got scared again, prancing and whinnying, refusing to move.
Rhett jumped to the ground, taking the horse by the muzzle and tried to drag him but the animal whinnied again.
"Come on!" Rhett urged him, watching nervously the boxes of gunpowder closer and closer to the fire. I wanted to push the animal myself but I got an idea. I took the black coat that was suffocating me anyway and yelled at Rhett.
"Here!" I cried and when he looked up I threw him the coat. He caught up it in the air and covered the animal's head with it. Then the horse started to move again.
"Good thinking, my dear!," he yelled at me urging more and more the horse. We advanced quickly between flames that were growing faster, hearing and watching pieces of wood on fire falling around us.
Then an explosion rumbled and shook us to the core but we didn't stop not even with the second explosion, or when the building on our left flank collapsed to the ground and we had barely the time to leave it behind before being buried alive on fire.
We were leaving the city along with the soldiers. They didn't try to steal our horse; they didn't talk to us or ask for help... I even saw two or three fell death on the road. It was a heart-breaking and hopeless sight.
Rhett stopped the horse a moment and turned to me.
"Take a look around, my dear. You can tell to your grandchildren that you saw the old South disappear one night," he was being kind of sarcastic, more melancholic actually. After all, he was a southerner as well, even if he hadn't lost the war or his home. I think he was more human than he liked to be, and he felt the pain of the soldiers as me.
I just stared at them and looked back at the soldiers walking. A boy, not older than sixteen just slumped to the ground and an old man, or at least with a long, dirty gray beard, left his rifle to another man to lift the boy and carry him.
"They were going to lick the Yankees in a month," Rhett commented watching the old man and the boy as well, but his voice was anything but mocking. "Poor gallant fools."
"You must feel proud you weren't in the army," I just said, my mind not wanting to work at all, it was more like an automatic response. So much death and so much destruction, filling my ears and eyes.
"Not so proud," Rhett said looking away, his shoulders hunching as if he had been carried a heavy weight over them. His empty response made me turn to him and woke from the death spell. I saw the strong, invincible and proud man regretting his decisions; a reflection of his people.
"Maybe not—but I'm glad you aren't. I wouldn't have survived without you," Rhett looked up to me. There weren't smiles, or hugs, not kisses, he didn't even hold my hand, but despite the guilt and melancholic in his eyes, I saw a tiny spark of thankfulness.
Everything was orange and red and I felt odd; I was extremely tired, so tired I felt I would fall asleep in any moment and slip out of the cart but I was too scared to actually sleep. I was afraid to close my eyes, so I didn't. I stayed awake with Rhett, seeing deserting fields passing next to us.
It seemed an endless road. I couldn't wait to reach Tara and suddenly Rhett stopped the cart. The move startled me and I looked at him surprised.
"Why did you stop?" I asked him.
"Let the horse breath," he answered sharply and turned to Prissy. I frowned looking at him. At which point he had taken off his coat and ascot and rolled up his sleeves? I couldn't remember.
The man turned into the sit and looked down at Prissy who had found a place next to Melly.
"How is Mrs. Wilkes?," he asked the girl.
"She'z sleepin', C'ptn Butler," Prissy responded.
"Probably she just fell unconscious from the pain," he responded and then turned to me again.
"Scarlett, are you still determined to do this crazy thing?"
"We can do it, Rhett. I know how we can avoid the Yankee army."
"Not we, Scarlett; you," he responded jumping out of the cart in front of me. "I'm leaving you here."
I stared at him as he just had talked to me in Chinese, because I just couldn't or didn't want to process his words. When we were leaving with the soldiers I was sure he would leave, but he didn't and that gave me hope. I knew he would stay with me all the way, that he cared and loved me enough to take me home but instead he was leaving me.
"You what?"
"You heard me," he responded without looking at me, checking on the horses reins. "I'm going to join the army."
"You can't!" I just didn't think it, just said it and watched how he leaned over me to take his coat and hat from the seat.
"Yes, I can, my dear, and I will," finally he looked up to me and smiled. "They were going to do a last stand and when they'll do, I'll be with them. I'm a little late but better late than never, right?"
"You're leaving us here? Defenseless?! Why?!" I asked him, my voice still stuck.
"You? Defenseless?" His coarse laugh rang around the lonely place. "Heaven helps the Yankee who caught you, my dear. And I'm not doing it just to molest you, although I know you're too selfish to care, thinking only of your own precious hide and not of the glorious cause."
I was looking away, feeling hopeless with each second passing and then turned to him, and despite I was feeling insulted with his words, I tried to convince him again.
"But Rhett, I need you. I need you so much—"
"Don't do this to me, darling. You know I can't bear that face," Rhett scolded me as if I were a child, smiling sadly.
"But why you have to leave me now? You said it, the war it's already lost!"
"Why? Hmmm, maybe it's because I have a weakness for lost causes when they're really lost," he told me looking into my eyes and I swallowed, but then his face fell and looked at the floor. "Or maybe—maybe I'm ashamed or myself—who knows?"
I didn't answer, just looked away. I didn't want to understand him even if I did. He was leaving me...
"Now, climb down. I want to say goodbye," Rhett told me but I didn't say anything, nor move. My brain had stopped and my heart, well, it hurt again, it hurt more than ever. He was leaving; he was leaving me, to fight, to die—
Suddenly I was being lifted off the cart and dragged away from it to the fence along the way. I looked up at Rhett whose skin looked red with the sun setting.
"You can't leave... you can't leave me here! I will never forgive you!" I cried at him but he just wrapped me with his arms pulling me closer.
"Darling, I will never going to understand or forgive myself," he responded ironically and then his voice faded away. I looked at his eyes, black as coal and full of regret, at his mouth moving sometimes grimacing, sometimes grinning, and his big hand, cupping my cheek, caressing my skin under it.
"Scarlett, look at me. I love you more than I've ever loved any woman. And I've waited longer for you than I've ever waited for any woman...," I heard just parts of what he was saying but my mind was numb and blank, frozen with fear and didn't understand anything. I was scared to death, scared to die, scared to be left alone, scared to lose him... And before I knew it he was kissing me- and dear God, I had only been kissed like that once; in Christmas when I was leaving his hotel room and he grabbed me and we lost on each other, both fears and facades falling as we tangled on each other's arms. His lips were rough and sweet at the same time, demanding and loving and they erased all the bad thought of my mind, about war and be abandoned, about broken hearts and broken souls, we were the only ones existing, the only one shining in that horrible twilight. And it was decadently beautiful.
But then the rage came, like a powerful inexplicable wave that washed everything else. He was leaving me! He was leaving me, abandoned at my luck with a baby, a sick woman, and a crazy girl! He was leaving me for a cause he didn't even believe in!
I shoved him and slapped him so hard that my own hand stung, however not as hard as my heart did.
"Get away! I hate you!" And I was shouting at him, I didn't even know what I was shouting at him, I just was letting go all the pain and frustration I felt. "I hate you! I will ever hate you! I hope you get killed in the war! I hope a cannon blow you up or a horse stomp on you, or—!"
"Never mind the rest, I follow your general idea. And when I'm dead on the altar of my country, I hope your conscience hurts you," he responded easily, smirking down at me, as if my words were too unimportant to affect him—but they did. This was the first time Rhett Butler did let me saw him, no contained feelings not masks and what I saw leave me breathless. There was a broken man, with a guilt so big he couldn't live with it. And then I understand him, he wasn't leaving me because he didn't want me,—hell, that face was breaking down for my rejection—, but he was leaving because despite his jeers and mocks, and even knowing he had been right all the time, he just couldn't leave his people alone. Not even when the battle was lost. The courage to make that it was greater than I couldn't imagine. Sure, one thing was running to war, sure you were going to fight and probably not even going to die, thinking your cause was going to win—and the other was to throw yourself at a war when it was the end, when it was the last battle but everything was already lost...
Suddenly he took my hand and placed a heavy gun on it.
"Here, shoot anyone who dare to lay a hand on that horse," he told me and I looked at him confused. Then he placed his hat on his head and tipped it. "Good bye, Scarlett."
I watched him going away and my heart burst in pieces. He was leaving to do the right thing, the honorable thing and I just had sent him to a battle with a slap on the face and hateful words... What I had done?
I dropped the gun and I just ran at him, calling before he were too far:
"Rhett! RHETT! RHEEETT!" I didn't know if he didn't hear me the first time or he was just ignoring me but then he stopped and turned with a confused look. I didn't stop when I reached him, I threw myself to his arms and held him tight, sobbing harder and louder than before, burying my face in his shoulder.
I felt him stiffening but then, in a sudden move, he wrapped his arms tightly around me.
"Rhett, Rhett, I don't hate you," I sobbed in his chest, holding him for dear life and I felt one of his hands on my head, pressing me closer to him.
"I know, darling, I know," he responded softly. Under my ear I heard or rather felt, his heart racing and more tears came out from my eyes. I loved him so much...
I pulled back and kissed his face softly, every inch of it, lingering on his red cheek that I had slapped.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I repeated, resting my cheek against his. "I don't hate you, Rhett, I don't—"
"Stop crying, Scarlett, I believe you," he told me softly, pulling back, and wiping off the tears from my cheeks but it was useless because there were more falling.
"I don't hate you—but I will—I swear to God I'll do, Rhett, if you don't promise me—, you have to promise me—"
He stared at me with a mix of emotions that I couldn't identify at that moment, God I could barely think. I grabbed his shirt with my fists almost wanting to shake him.
"You have to promise that you will survive. You have to live and return to me, you heard me! You have to or I will never forgive you, I'll never forgive you, Rhett, if you don't come back! I'll hate you forever!"
He cupped softly my face in his hands.
"I promise, darling. I promise. Don't cry."
I sobbed again and then crashed my lips fiercely against his, digging my fingers in his hair, letting my emotions go. I couldn't say I love you, even when every inch of my body, every thought, every feeling was screaming out loud, but I could make him feel it. I would show him that I was crazy in love with him and that he'd better return. He kissed me back, as passionate and hungrily as me, his arms slipping down to my waist caressing my body covered by the stained and dirty cotton, but I didn't care and I knew he didn't either.
He only pulled back when both needed air desperately and I saw the doubt on his eyes, hunting him. He pulled me closer and his eyes lingered barely some inches away:
"Say you'll wait for me!" He demanded, roughly. "Say it!"
"Darling, I'll be praying every damn night so your ungodly luck will save your butt over and over again until you'll return to me!" I choked.
His eyes lightened in the most beautiful way I've ever seen and he laughed happily, long and hard, as if he were going to go on some vacations and not to war. His hand crept to my cheek and caressed it softly and then he leaned and kissed my breath away a third time. This time was as good, beautiful and amazing as the other two, but I felt the tears coming down again, knowing this was the last kiss, or a farewell kiss.
Rhett pulled away kissing softly my forehead, my cheeks and my hands before turning away.
"Wait!" I grabbed his arm and he turned to me, his eyes pleading me to not make harder this.
"Scarlett, I must go—"
"I know but—here," I unclasped my dad's necklace. He looked at me surprised and confused and then I placed it around his neck. I clasped it on the last link so the necklace would be hidden on his shirt.
Rhett looked at it, completely shocked.
"But it's—"
"It's the most valuable thing I have," I explained to him, hoping he didn't find it my gesture too corny or didn't want to take the necklace with him. "It's a long story, but it would protect you as it had protected me all this time."
"I can't—"
"Yes, you can," I looked at him with leading eyes, resting my hands over his shoulders. "And for the record, I'm not giving it to you, it's a lending. I want it back so you must have to survive. Heaven help you if don't bring it back to me." He stared at the necklace and then at my face. Suddenly he pulled me back in his arms and kissed every inch of my face. My fingernails buried in his shoulders, never wanting to let him go.
I heard him saying it again, burying his face in my hair and breathing into it. He said:
"I love you, Scarlett. I love you so much."
I closed my eyes, never feeling happier and sadder in my life, and the tears streamed down.
"Me too, Rhett, me too," he looked at me as if here thinking twice his decision and then he pinched lovingly my chin.
"I'll see you later, Scarlett," he wasn't really saying goodbye, and I understood and smiled at him.
"See you later, Rhett."
So, I hope you have liked it, and that you don't find the end too corny or something. Thank you again, guys let me know what do you think!
