Inspirations:

The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, to attract and please others.

—bell hooks, in memoriam

You have to pick the places you don't walk away from.

― Joan Didion, in memoriam

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Chapter 35

Last chapter, AKA Mrs. Butler's wild ride:

… (Scarlett) disembarked inside the stable and led Ace to a stall. Buried her face in his mane. "Good boy," she murmured. "You're a fine specimen, indeed."

A sound from the doorway made her look up. She turned to see none other than her business partner leading another dark horse into the stable.

"Leif?" She asked stupidly. "Is that you?"

"In the flesh," he replied as he led his horse into the stall. "I just met your sister, who directed me here."

She regarded him, mouth still slightly agape, noting his travel attire, brown pants and wide-brimmed hat, and a cream-colored shirt and jacket, casual but most properly appointed, especially compared to herself at the moment.

"You're quite flushed," he observed as he exited the stall, his shirtsleeves rolled up past the tanned skin of his forearms, and the first button of his shirt undone, revealing the golden hair at his neck. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine."

He examined her more closely; the raven hair down and all around her shoulders, the pink cheeks, the reddened, full lips, the sheen of her skin; and her eyes, emerald and wide and sparkling. He looked over her shoulder at the huge horse, still saddled behind her. She wasn't sure—she would never be sure—but for a moment she thought she might have caught the ghost of a smirk curving his lips.

"What have you been doing?" He leaned forward just a bit and looked directly into her large and luminous eyes. " Exactly?"

Scarlett stepped back as she made a slightly indignant sound. "I just rode rather hard over from visiting with my neighbors."

Openly smiling now, his eyes drifted down her form and widened. "Wha—what are you wearing?" His Adam's apple bobbed up and down underneath his lightly bearded chin, which mesmerized Scarlett for a second before she realized he was waiting for an answer.

'Oh," she repeated, looking down. Without thinking, she spread the skirt out with her hands, which only revealed more of her form, just as it had with Beatrice Tarleton, and she quickly let go.

"As luck would have it, my side saddle is broken and I had to ride astride so my neighbor loaned me a horse and saddle and gave me this," she said, feeling her cheeks redden further, if possible, as she gestured toward her lower half. Quickly she attempted to change the subject. "What are you doing here?"

He seemed to be as fascinated with the movement of her hands as she was with the movement of his throat, which he cleared before speaking.

"I had a few hours, as management and front of the house training ended today. Babette's working with the kitchen staff, and I was in the way. Tate had everything else covered." He managed to tear his gaze away from the rest of her to look Scarlett again in the eyes.

"So I thought I'd come and see your Tara and perhaps discuss the food sourcing with you while I could see where it originated." He recovered himself and gave her an easy grin. "And I wanted to get out of Atlanta for the afternoon."

"Oh," she said again, stupidly. "Well, welcome to Tara. Come up to the house and we'll get you introduced all around as soon as I get changed."

A faint barking sound that did not come from a horse drifted out from his saddlebag. "Wait just a moment, I almost forgot."

Leif reached inside the leather bag and brought out the smallest (and perhaps the homeliest) puppy Scarlett had ever seen, reddish and white in color, with huge sticking-out ears.

"It's a dwarf spaniel. Two boys were at the train station selling a litter when I was renting the horse, but this one didn't sell because she's the runt and her ears are so large. Not desirable characteristics by their father's estimation. They mentioned drowning her, so I took her."

He glanced up at her doubt-filled face and raised eyebrows.

"I thought Ella might like her, or someone here. A little girl. She's so small, and she'll only weigh about four or five pounds fully grown. She barely weighs a pound now."

She automatically started to say no, but something about the way he held the tiny furry creature, almost bat-like with those huge ears, reverently cradled in his huge, strong hand, as delicately as he might hold a flower so as not to bruise its petals; took her back to her Pa, and how gentle he became when his adored hunting dogs whelped their much-anticipated puppies.

And also made her mouth run dry.

'I know Ella doesn't like big animals but perhaps this one—" his voice drifted off when she didn't immediately respond. "I can find another home."

Scarlett thought for a moment, inwardly sighing. Like she needed something else living to worry about. But one look at the earnestness in his face, and the fact that he'd thought of Ella, softened her further and past the point of no return.

"No, no, you can give it to her. She's never had a pet of her own. It will be good for her to care for it from such a young age, and it will occupy her and the other children. If she doesn't like it—well, we'll see."

They strolled up to the house, Leif still carrying the puppy, where Scarlett left him in the foyer while she high-tailed it upstairs before Suellen could see her in the split skirt.

After she freshened up and changed back into a day dress she made her way down to find Wade, Beau and Ella making over Leif as if they'd been gone a month instead of less than two days. They then proceeded to the parlor, where the rest of the family awaited the call for dinner. Everyone's eyes got big when they viewed the huge Norwegian fellow, appropriately thunderstruck by his sheer presence, as could be expected.

Suellen eyed Leif up and down, barely suppressing a Cheshire cat grin as Scarlett introduced him all around.

"Scarlett, you should have stayed downstairs to properly introduce your friend here," she admonished. "Although I understand why you wanted to change out of your," a significant pause here, "riding attire."

Guess she did see that skirt. Will's expression confirmed it. Scarlett frowned at her and turned to Leif.

"I brought a gift for Ella," he fixed Suellen with his best smile. "I hope you don't mind." He got down on one knee and produced the puppy, which he held out to a wide-eyed Ella.

"For me?" she whispered. He nodded solemnly. "Do you like her?"

Ella hesitantly reached out with one finger and stroked the red and white back, and then the ears. The other children jostled closer.

"She looks like a fox cub," Ella said shyly. "Like Mammy's vixen."

"Her ears will stand up straighter the older she gets, like butterfly wings," Leif said. "These spaniels are quite popular in Europe, especially the ones with the big ears, though I don't think the boys who sold her to me had a clue."

Ella continued to gaze solemnly. "Would you like to hold her?"

Taking the puppy awkwardly in her arms. Ella smiled, then frowned, and whirled on her mother in a wink of a moment. "I will take care of her mother, I will clean all the messes. Please can we keep her?"

"I'll help her, Mother," Wade said. "If I can train Bernie I can help take care of— " he looked at the puppy again. "Shrimp."

"Her name's not Shrimp. I will name her—Clarice," Ella bristled. "And you can't play with her if you call her Shrimp," this imparted somewhat imperiously.

"Fine." Wade rolled his eyes while Beau laughed.

"Clarice is a fine name." Leif patted the puppy again before standing up.

"Time for dinner," Scarlett instructed the children.'"Give the puppy some water and food and put her in a basket in the kitchen while we eat." She turned to Leif.

"I planned to have dinner and then ride out to Mimosa to call on the Fontaines. Would you care to join us?"

"I don't want to impose," he said smoothly, glancing at her and then locking those intense blue eyes with Suellen's hazel ones.

"Nonsense," Suellen said, albeit a little breathlessly. "This is a working farm and we always put out a big spread."

That's a first, Scarlett mused, Suellen not being known for hospitality.

He gifted her sister with a most charismatic grin, and Scarlett watched with pleasure as her sibling became visibly flustered before excusing herself to set another place at the table.

"A little young, aren't they?" Leif murmured to Scarlett midway through the meal.

She looked puzzled as he nodded toward the other side of the table, where Susie and Cara both busied themselves making eyes in his direction while Reenie and Ella giggled behind their hands.

Leif raised an eyebrow, then winked back, which only started the giggles in earnest.

"Girls," Will admonished in a semi-stern manner. They immediately straightened their faces and went back to dinner.

"Pardon the children. It's Scarlett's fault," Suellen wiped her mouth daintily.

"Oh but I think it's your influence, sister dear. You created a game with me as the namesake, after all."

"What game would that be?" Leif asked with interest.

Suellen opened her mouth but Scarlett shook her head.

"I'll explain later,'' she muttered, and after giving her a bemused look, Leif commenced conversing with their hosts for much of the remainder of the meal.

Afterward, Scarlett and Leif decided to let their riding horses rest and took the buggy to the Fontaines'. As they traveled Scarlett marveled again at the comfort she felt in his presence. She started telling him county stories, and then the last time she remembered making this ride, that time on horseback. Well, she hadn't had a proper ladies' saddle that day either, she recalled, and fashioned a makeshift one with her leg hooked around the pommel.

The Yankees hadn't seen Mimosa from the road, and Old Miss gave her half their food that day. Half. More generous than she would have been if the roles were reversed. She grew quiet and he shot her a searching glance.

"These are good people,'' she said suddenly. She'd been thinking more about the war lately, she who never looked back. "I came back here during the war after the Yankees took everything, and as soon as we got a horse," that would be the horse of the Yankee she shot, "I rode out and they split all their provisions with me. I'll never forget it."

Leif nodded. "It's hard to look at all the devastation, even coming from another country. Of course, it was worse when I arrived in New Orleans several years ago. The progress is steady but agonizingly slow." He gathered the reins in one hand and reached over with the other, giving hers a slight squeeze.

They were silent the rest of the way, but it was a pleasant silence. As Mimosa came into view she spotted Alex Fontaine standing to the side of the house, his hat pushing back his dark hair as he spoke with a farmhand. She had a fleeting moment of recollection and nostalgia as she viewed what was left of the house and property. Even though it hadn't been burned or looted, time and reduced circumstances had taken their toll.

No time for that. She lifted her chin and smiled saucily at Alex, who laughed as he helped her out of the buggy.

"Scarlett O'Hara, you are looking mighty well. I haven't seen you since Gerald's funeral." Her smile faded somewhat but she recovered as he turned to Leif. "I'm Alex Fontaine."

Alex's face was still as swarthy as ever but had lost some of its bitterness, she gladly noted as she made further introductions. After exchanging the expected pleasantries, she launched directly into her plan, with Leif only interjecting occasionally to express his ideas.

"How did you come up with this idea, Scarlett? Most restaurants in Atlanta shop at the markets there."

"I thought I could help the county while I help myself. I can always shop at the Atlanta markets, it's what we'll have to do until this is organized. But by doing away with the middle man we'll clear at least five percent more profit. I'll split it with the folks who do the procuring, the hunters and the gatherers, the fishermen and planters."

Scarlett went further into food costs, profitable items, purchases, and inventory. She pulled out notes from her reticule, though she really didn't need them.

"Five percent is all the profit most restaurants see. If I can boost that by 2-3 percent with this system, I can then kick back a smaller percentage to you for managing it all. Will can help as well, but he says you're the one with the most knowledge of local talent, labor, and connections.

'It all came to me when Leif brought in the New Orleans menus. We could substitute much fresher local fish for the seafood, and we have all the wild game. The river was overfished during and right after the war, but so many people," she looked to the side, askance. "Well, so many people died, and so many others left. The wildlife has come back, ripe for the picking.

"Many of the fields are overgrown, and much land has gone back to woods and swamps. Which is good for this business. The crayfish, the frogs, the ducks, and other fish. Even the wild pecan groves have spread.

"Then again, we have the Flint River wrapping its arm around Tara and neighboring properties, as well as the woods and swamps," she gestured in the direction of the muddy Flint. "It all makes perfect sense."

Alex listened intently to her spiel, nodding and giving his input. After she breathlessly finished her conceptions and goals he advised on what could be done profitably and how he could organize it.

"Will had mentioned what you were doing but I didn't comprehend the scope. It's quite a challenge you've made for yourself. Are you sure it will pay off?"

She nodded vigorously. "I can control it this way, working with people who have an investment of their time. You know how the markets are, you never know how fresh food is. It will help me and the county folk at the same time.

Scarlett ran the numbers back by men, trying to slow her voice in her excitement.

"Game will be trapped or hunted in the morning, on the train by the early afternoon, and in the restaurant's kitchen by four p.m. Sure, they could do it without us, but with the combination of effort and all these resources, the success will compound."

"No one's going to get rich doing this, mind you. It's a side business, for sure, but everyone needs a side business in my opinion," Leif added.

Alex agreed. "You give the men around here a way to make cash, especially in the off-season, and women and children can pick pecans and harvest vegetables to contribute as well; it will improve the local economy. What sharecroppers there are need cash, well, everyone needs cash."

Alex said he would start talking to the locals immediately and getting a plan together, and Scarlett felt a load leave her shoulders. She hadn't realized how much she wanted this to work.

That part of the meeting finished for now, Alex and Scarlett caught up on farming news and discussed the latest department of agriculture publications. Leif seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about that subject. "We have such a short growing season where I grew up, it was important to keep up with the latest inventions."

Alex agreed. "Inventions are important. That sulky plow your husband bought Will is something else."

"It is better, isn't it?" It had been kind of Rhett, after all, to provide such a modern amenity.

Alex addressed Leif. "Will says that not long after their wedding he told Mr. Butler about Scarlett here hooking herself up to the plow in an old patched calico dress and working harder than any fieldhand from daylight to dusk during and right after the war. And how Prissy found her asleep in the road by the fields a couple of times at the end of the day when she didn't show up for supper."

Scarlett blinked. So Rhett knew she'd pulled a plow like a mule and passed out in weeds from exhaustion. Funny he didn't tease and belittle her about it, he did everything else.

Alex hadn't stopped talking during her inner musings. "According to Will, Mr. Butler ordered that fancy riding plow the next day."

Scarlett stared blankly at Alex, too shocked to be embarrassed by the tale. "He told me he bought the plow because Will is missing a leg."

"Could be," Alex shrugged. "But Will swears he did it because of that story."

She'd tried to block out the time of all that physical suffering in her mind, all the days of pushing and starving, of moving on with so little hope. But she could still feel the ground beneath her when she'd slept on it, smell the dirt pillow under her head.

And now, for the first time, she thought of how poor little Wade probably worried himself sick on those days when she didn't show up for supper, though you could hardly call it that when there was never anything much on the plates. Well, he had Melly then, she told herself. He'd always had Melly.

Leif regarded her, a light in his eyes. "Too bad you didn't have your new riding skirt back then."

Scarlett shot him a look and Alex appeared mighty interested. She shrugged. "Beatrice Tarleton lent me a saddle and I didn't bring a riding habit from Atlanta."

Alex laughed. "Beatrice? Wouldn't be a split skirt, would it?"

Scarlett slapped him on the arm. "You know about that?"

"Everybody knows about Beatrice and those skirts, and how she wears them while riding and when she throws hatchets in her backyard. "

"Well, yes, I did that too," she admitted.

"I bet you did!" Alex snickered. "Our Scarlett used to be quite the ruffian when she was a girl. Imagine how shocked all the boys were when she left for finishing school a wild-eyed scamp with scraped-up knees and returned," he gestured up and down at her perfectly appointed coral day dress and smartly-styled bonnet, "looking like that."

They all laughed.

Alex's eyes lit up further as he addressed Leif. "'The menfolk throw bigger axes here behind our barn, and play cards on Wednesday nights after supper if you'd like to come back by later."

"I haven't thrown an ax in a while," Leif smiled at Scarlett. "Or played cards. So I might just take you up on that."

They made their goodbyes and loaded up. It was quiet on the ride back, both digesting all the information obtained.

"A good meeting," Leif commented as Tara loomed ahead. "Was Alex one of your suitors before the war?"

"No. I think he didn't want to be part of the—" she searched for the appropriate term "crowd. His brother Tony called on me," she swallowed around the words. Tony.

"Probably better then," Leif jostled the reins. "For business purposes."

She took him in, all glorious six feet plus of him, head to toe before she realized what she was doing. "Probably."

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

Fun Facts:

Abraham Lincoln established the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) in 1862, during the Civil War.

Innovation was key to recovery during Reconstruction. Although my research can only determine that sulky plows were invented sometime in the 1870s, we know they were in existence by 1872, because they were in a contest sponsored by the Missouri College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts. The then-new College conducted a national contest to determine the best of the new plows for various soil, crops and climate conditions. No less than fifty entries were received.

Personal notes: I grew up on a dairy farm in Mississippi. There were enough wild pecan trees on the woodsy edges of our property that my brother and I picked bags of them off the ground and sold them for Christmas and spending money every year. Just an FYI.

My husband and I owned four English bulldogs over the years. He was obsessed with the breed, and though I appreciated their, um, quirky, beauty, I had heard French bulldogs were smarter, and dreamed of having one for myself. After seeing Silence of the Lambs I imagined I would name my little girl French bulldog Clarice, so every morning I could lean over her bed basket and intone in my best Anthony Hopkins imitation "Hello, Clarice." Sigh. It never happened, and I can't in good conscience give a brachy dog to a little girl who lives in Hot 'Lanta, even in a story. But I do finally have my Clarice because of this tale, and I thank you for her :)

A/N Had to split the chapters up, too bulky again. Another one will be posted in the morning before 10 am EST, a third is planned before 11:59 pm tomorrow. And the fourth sometime Monday or Tuesday. These are not idle promises, it's gonna happen. I'm burning the midnight oil, folks. Thank you so much for all the support and words of encouragement. I am determined to get on with this tale. See you soon, misscyn