Purgatory
He had visited this region as a younger man, and remembered it as the scene of pastoral idylls, of hunting and picnics and rolling verdant fields. Now he sat against a crooked fencepost and surveyed the countryside as he ate a stale biscuit. What was once presumably a cow pasture was now only half-fenced, with many boards missing and broken, and what would have once been lush acres was now only a dusty, debris and weed littered field.
The first hints of warm weather taunted him as the breeze blew away crumbling bits of biscuit. With a weary sigh and a bit of pain in his knees, Rhett stood and for the first time regretted the loss of his fine linen suit. It had been most inappropriate to wear off to war, and he'd soon abandoned it for more practical attire. Had he planned ahead, he would not have simply grabbed money and run from Atlanta; he would have taken the time to change clothes as well.
Not that he regretted his choice in footwear. While most of the Confederate army had been lacking shoes when he met up with them, he was afraid that the fine French leather of his shoes would soon put him in company with them. But they had proved sturdier than they appeared, so while looking much the worse for mud and miles, he had soles between his feet and the dusty road.
If only he knew which road to follow. Eventually, he knew he would have to return to London to lay claim to the wealth he'd deposited in the banks there. The same quixotic desire that sent him off to war left him desiring to return to Charleston, to see his family and make sure they were taken care of, whether his father wished to see him or not. Strongly suppressed was a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him to go profit from the inevitable rebuilding of Atlanta. The sensible thing, of course, would be for him to head north, away from the ruins of the Confederacy and towards the friends and politicians he knew there.
Picking up the frayed, dingy gray sack carrying a few essential possessions, Rhett surveyed the available routes, then looked heavenward to gauge the position of the sun. After a moment's hesitation, he pulled a shining, ticking watch out from the breast pocket of his jacket, now with three fewer buttons than when he'd acquired it seven months ago. He carefully tucked the watch away again, tracing his grandfather's initials with a dirty thumb as it slipped through his fingers.
This was not the first time he'd walked into an uncertain future with only what he carried. Even given the ravaged state of the nation, his journey now would be less difficult than his progress after being ousted from Charleston as a young man. Then, with no money, family, or friends to fall back on, he'd been given a horse and sent out of town, to make of himself what he would.
His father had wanted to be rid of the horse nearly as much as he'd wanted to be rid of Rhett, but boy and beast suited one another well in their role as outsiders. Rhett won enough money racing the horse to buy a train ticket west, and sold the horse for enough profit to provide some financing for whatever he chose to do whenever he decided to step off the train.
He'd known how to play cards, as all young men did. But on that train ride west, he'd learned how to be a gambler. The small savings he'd put aside had slowly grown. By the time the train reached the end of the line in California, he'd amassed enough money that he felt safe trying his hand at prospecting.
The small fortune he'd made then had mostly been reinvested, but some portion of it was still locked away in a British bank vault. One day, if he lived to old age, he wanted to be able to pull out a piece of the gold that had made him. Mostly, though, it had simply served to make him more gold. The rough and tumble life of a prospector had been fun for a few years, but he'd grown restless and bored, and realized that a small fortune could be transformed into a much larger one with a little savvy.
As he walked through ravaged Virginia, all Rhett had was savvy. A few coins still clinked in his pocket and deep in his bag, enough to buy him food during his travel, unless the opportunity presented itself to chance it into something larger.
Chance, he knew, worked in mysterious ways. As dusk fell, he thought of the risk he'd taken in bringing Scarlett out of Atlanta. He'd been reasonably certain of their physical safety, but had not been prepared for the emotional factors such an endeavor would encounter. Part of him still wondered what might have happened if he hadn't left her there, if he had simply let the horse breathe before driving her on home. Did her home still stand? Would he have been welcome in it? He didn't know if he could have stayed under the same roof with her and remember his manners. There had been something so primal that night, something that had appealed to his deeper nature and made him realize that it was no mere infatuation he felt for this young lady, who often acted so much the child.
He'd gone to war to forget her. But she'd haunted him these months, her eyes glowing in his dreams as they had that night in Atlanta's flames. Rhett Butler never forgot anything., least of all Scarlett O'Hara.
Not for the first time in these many months, he wondered how she was faring as he made his way towards Washington.