Chapter 21: Self Reliance

Before they drove away Rhett couldn't help but take one last look at the first place he'd been able to call a home since his childhood. He'd bought it knowing that it would most likely not survive the siege, but it still made him pause. Although they'd lived there just over a month it had been some of the happiest weeks of his life. Living with Scarlett breathed new life into him and waking up next to her everyday he had risen with a little less cynicism and a little more hope.

Scarlett leaned into Rhett and looked up at him for words of comfort. He hoped the tears in her eyes were simply due to the sting of smoke in the air, but he put arm around her waist regardless.

"Here," he said, laying a hand on one of the long-barreled pistols in his belt. "If anyone, black or white, comes up on your side of the wagon and tries to lay hand on the horse, shoot him and we'll ask questions later. But for God's sake, don't shoot the horse in your excitement."

She took the gun from him and laid it in her lap, clutching it tightly until her knuckles became as white as the ivory handle.

They reached Marietta Street and could not move beyond a detachment that came down between the burning buildings, walking at route step, tiredly, rifles held any way, heads down, too weary to hurry, too weary to care if timbers were crashing to right and left and smoke billowing about them. They were all ragged, so ragged that between officers and men there were no distinguishing insignia except here and there a torn hat brim pinned up with a wreathed "C.S.A." Many were barefooted and here and there a dirty bandage wrapped a head or arm. They went past, looking neither to left nor right, so silent that had it not been for the steady tramp of feet they might all have been ghosts.

Rhett watched them with hollow eyes and suddenly he felt every inch the scoundrel everyone thought him to be. He had made money off these defeated men. Had manipulated government contracts and taken advantage of a passionate, but naive army. He would emerge from this war better off than when it had started, be these men… These men would return to burned homes, with worthless money in their pockets and no shoes on their feet.

"Take a good look at them my dear," Rhett said in a gibing voice, "so you can tell our grandchildren you saw the rear guard of the Glorious Cause in retreat."

Suddenly she hated him, hated him with a strength that momentarily overpowered her fear, made it seem petty and small. She knew her safety and that of the others in the back of the carriage depended on him and him alone, but she hated him for his sneering at those ragged ranks. She thought of Ashley who might be dead and all the gay and gallant young men who were rotting in shallow graves and she forgot that she, too, had once thought them fools. She could not speak, but hatred and disgust burned in her eyes as she stared at him fiercely.

Rhett recognized the disgust because he felt it too. He wondered if he'd ever be able to face a veteran and not see the same look in their eyes. If he would never be able to step back into respectability because he hadn't trudged through this night half dead. Instead he'd sat in his comfortable home with his beautiful wife smoking expensive cigars and profiting off his fellow southerners and neighbors. Men he'd grown up with and shared a common heritage with.

It wasn't just him that would be looked down on by the Old Guard. He had pulled Scarlett down with him as well. For the first time he felt guilty for not listening to Mr. O'Hara and Major O'Hara when they had told him to stay away from Scarlett, that he would only taint her with his blackguard reputation. He didn't care what people thought of him, but he couldn't cause Scarlet to be thrown out of the world she lived in. She chose to live within the bounds of respectability and he could tare that all away from her.

One day Scarlett would give him children. He had never thought about it before, and a year ago he would have laughed at the idea, but at the rate he and Scarlett were going it was inevitable that one day Rhett Butler would be a father. When he was, even his children would be soiled by his choices. He couldn't do that to them. He would not have his future children ashamed of their father. He would not have them humiliated for things that weren't their fault, but his.

It wouldn't matter that he had outsmarted them all, or seen this defeat coming miles down the road. He was an able bodied man between the age of sixteen and sixty and he wasn't serving in the Confederate army.

He'd gone through life like a bat out of hell, never caring what he did, because nothing ever mattered to him. But Scarlett mattered.

"God, what a fool I've been!" he thought as they dashed down the street and bumped over the railroad tracks.

Their children wouldn't be received in Charleston, no matter what his mother or Scarlett's Aunt Eulalie or Aunt Pauline did. They wouldn't even be received in Atlanta unless he did something quickly…

"Oh, Rhett," she whispered clasping his arm, "What would I ever have done without you? I'm so glad you aren't in the army! You can be proud! Proud that you were smarter than all of them."

"I'm not so proud." He said as much to himself as her.

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"I'm leaving you here," he said in a rough voice at Rough and Ready.

Scarlett 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 carriage - and finally at him. Had she gone crazy? Was she not hearing right?

"Leaving us? Where - where are you going?"

"I am going, my dear, 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." She said irritated, turning to walk back to the carriage.

"I'm not joking, my dear." He said wrapping his fingers gently, but firmly around her arm to turn her towards him. "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."

She felt a twist of dread and fear in her stomach and suddenly she felt ill. She had no idea where this ridicules idea had come from, but she saw in his eyes that his barbs were only meant to comfort her so she would mad at him instead of afraid.

But she was afraid! He was leaving her to manage on her own back to Tara. He had saved her so many times that day she did not think she could manage on her own after leaning on Rhett and relying on him for so long. She grabbed his arm and felt 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?" she cried grabbing hold of his shirt sleeve.

"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."

"I'm not asking you to understand or forgive. I don't give a damn whether you do either, for I shall never understand or forgive myself for this idiocy. I am annoyed at myself to find that so much quixoticism still lingers in me. But our fair Southland needs every man. Didn't our brave Governor Brown say just that? Not matter. I'm off to the wars." He laughed suddenly, a ringing, free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods. 'I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not Honour more.' That's a pat speech, isn't it? Certainly better than anything I can think up myself, at the present moment. For I do love you, Scarlett, in spite of the whole crazy world going to hell around us. I love you."

His drawl was caressing and his hands slid up her bare arms, warm strong hands. "I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals. Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe and comfortable."

His voice went on in the darkness and she heard words, but they made no sense to her. Her mind was tiredly trying to take in the harsh truth that he was leaving her here to face the Yankees alone. Her mind said: "He's leaving me. He's leaving me." Rhett had never left her alone before. He'd always been there standing right behind her, providing for her in every way. How could he leave her now when she needed him so desperately?

Then his arms went around her waist and shoulders and she felt the hard muscles of his thighs against her body and the buttons of his shirt pressing into her breast. A warm, familiar tide of feeling swept over her, carrying out of her mind the time and place and circumstances. She felt as limp as a rag doll, warm, weak and helpless, and his supporting arms were so pleasant.

"Know that there's a soldier out there who loves you and he's marching into battle with beautiful memories of you in his mind."

He kissed her then and his mustache tickled her mouth, kissing her with slow, hot lips that were so leisurely as though he had the whole night before him. She go hot and cold and shaky when he bent her body backward and his lips traveled down her throat to where the cameo fastened her basque.

"Sweet," he whispered. "Sweet."

Into her swaying, darkened mind, cold sanity came back with a rush and she remembered what she had forgotten for the moment - that she was frightened, and Rhett was leaving her, leaving her, the damned cad. Rage and hate flowed into her and stiffened her spine and with one wrench she tore herself loose from his arms.

"Oh, you cad!" she cried and her mind leaped about, trying to think of worse things to call him, things she had heard Gerald call Mr. Lincoln, the MacIntoshes and balky mules, but the words would not come. "You low-down, cowardly, nasty, stinking thing!" And because she could not think of anything crushing enough, she drew back her arm and slapped him across the mouth with all the force she had left. He took a step backward, his hand going to his face. Scarlett could hear his heavy breathing, and her own breath came in gasps as if she had been running hard.

"Go on! Go on now! I want you to hurry. I don't want to ever see you again. I hope a cannon ball lands right on you. I hope it blows you to a million pieces. I -"

"Never mind the rest. I follow your general idea. When I'm dead on the altar of my country, I hope your conscience hurts you."

She heard him laugh as he turned away and walked back toward the wagon. She saw him stand beside it, heard him speak and his voice was changed, courteous and respectful as it always was when he spoke to Melanie.

"Good-by, Scarlett," he said looking at her from where he stood next to the carriage, but she refused to turn toward him.

She heard his steps for a while before they finally died away and she held back a sob. He'd left her to face the Yankees all alone. She clenched her jaw and squared her shoulders forgetting how desperately she loved him. She was alone and she hated him for doing that to her. He had promised to take care of her and always protect her, but he had just walked away from her!

How dare he! How dare Rhett Butler think she was of no significance, that he could just throw her away when he saw fit! Anger filled every inch of her being and she forgot all about his handsome smile or his gallant efforts saving her time and again that day. All she knew was that he had failed her and left her to her own devices. The only person she could rely on was herself and Scarlett O'Hara swore to herself that she would never rely on Rhett Butler again.