Disclaimer: I do not own Gone with the Wind.
Chapter 4
They'd only been traveling a short time when Rhett spoke again.
"Why in the gut?"
"Pardon?"
"You said you'd hate to shoot me in the gut. Why that particular location?"
"The doctors said gut wounds were the worst when I worked in the hospital. I understood them to be quite painful from the soldiers as well." She shrugged. "Also it would be easier for me to stretch my arm out and aim straight ahead."
"Ah." He searched in his jacket pocket for his cigar case; came up empty and frowned. "Yet you aimed for the face when you shot the—"
"Hush," she cut him off, gesturing with her head toward the back of the wagon. She'd never be able to even consider shooting Rhett in the face, for reasons she didn't quite comprehend.
She decided against telling him about the box of cigars in the valise just yet. That's what he gets for being a perverse wretch all the time, she thought with no little malice. And for speaking of the Yankee soldier with the children so close.
Silence ensued for a few minutes.
"Was it bad down there?" she ventured, wincing a little.
"Well, it looked like your typical railroad disaster, I suspect. They'd pulled the bodies from the creek that they could. The conductor, and the employees who were in the locomotive."
He paused and his voice took on a more somber note when he began again. "A few passengers, mainly people who were in the first car when it happened."
"Were you able to help anyone?"
"I stopped some idiots from starting fires too close to the oil spills." He glanced at her from the side of his eyes. "I might have done more, but I was on a tight schedule imposed by a pretty little someone who had simultaneously threatened me with my own pistol, all the while professing a need for my body," he gave her his signature leer, " which was quite compelling."
"Hush," she said again, her cheeks brightening with color despite the frosty air. "You'd let us freeze, would you?"
"Scarlett," he returned in that condescending tone she despised, and she could hear the laughter beneath it, which only riled her more. "It's not that cold."
"Why yes, it is!"
"You're acting like Prissy," he commented in the most casual of manners as if it wasn't both an insult and a bald-faced lie.
"Prissy!" she shouted, and the sound nearly reverberated off the forest. He shushed her, gesturing back toward the sleeping children, which only made her angrier.
"Prissy," she continued in a lower, yet still furious tone, "is in Atlanta, warm in her bed with a full belly. So say what you want, but she certainly seems wiser than the two of us at the moment."
"If you're so cold why don't you scoot closer? I can hardly provide heat from over here." His voice held a daring, almost belligerent tone.
"Unless you're scared," he offered again, the challenge too evident to be ignored.
They'd scarcely touched since that terrible day he moved out of their bedroom, and had even danced as strangers during the odd evening out in Atlanta, but that had changed on the dance floors of the city of New York. Not to mention how tightly they'd held onto each other during the skating; out of necessity, she told herself, so she wouldn't fall and break her ankle, or worse.
She huffed but obligingly moved the scarce five inches closer and was immediately rewarded by the heat radiating off him.
"How do you run so hot all the time? You're a furnace," she said grumpily, but in secret, she felt thankful. He gave her that flashing grin again but did not reply.
The snow-filled sky, backlit by the moon, coupled with the white-covered landscape illuminated the wagon and its surroundings as if it were daylight. She'd never seen snow like this in her life, copious and falling and piled up all in the dead of night, and couldn't help but think about what the boys in the county would have done with such a phenomenon.
Why, it's light enough to play outside until morning, and that's exactly what the Calvert boys and all the Tarletons and Fontaines would have done, she thought to herself before feeling a twinge of sadness.
Perhaps those boys had seen such during the war. It would not have been a time for rejoicing in nature, then. An image of something Will had mentioned once when he first arrived at Tara—rows and rows of frozen, bloody marching footprints in the Pennsylvania snow—came unbidden to her mind. She hurriedly searched for a distraction.
"What are the survivors going to do tonight?"
"Most were headed to a large old barn close to the station. It will house the majority of them, but it will be crowded. A rescue train will come once they get the wreckage cleared but that will take a while, at least a day, probably more.
"I figure we'll spend the night in the cabin, perhaps two depending on the conditions, then make our way back down to catch a train home when they've cleaned up the mess. I didn't think you'd want to stay with the others."
She considered it for a moment. A large, drafty barn, full of primarily lower-class Northerners sleeping piled together. Surrounded by dirty children and women too poor for household help, overworked and worn down by domestic drudgery and back-to-back childbirth, and their snuff-dipping husbands, husbands who spit and—more than likely—scratched.
Not to mention the odors. There would have doubtlessly been odors.
"Thank you." She meant it.
He smiled in that self-satisfied manner of his but said nothing.
Her feathers slightly ruffled by his demeanor, she studied him out of the corner of her eye. Somehow, despite all he'd been through he still managed to look as composed as he would on a Sunday drive. On second glance, he looked more than composed; content, even.
"If I didn't know better I'd say you're happy we're not going back to Atlanta just yet," she blurted out before considering the implications.
"Imagine that."
The drawling sarcasm only irritated her further.
"So you might want to know," she gave him a little insincere smile. "Your daughter is completely tone-deaf."
"Bonnie? Surely not."
"Surely so. We sang Christmas carols for a while after you abandoned us and trust me, it's the God's truth."
"I heard you as I was making my way down the mountain." He clicked at the horse, who all but stopped when confronted with a large rock in the road. "It was beautiful."
Didn't stop you from continuing on your path away from us, did it?
"Mostly it was beautiful," she agreed. "But that child is going to need lessons and plenty of them. Don't say I didn't warn you."
"She's still a baby, Scarlett." She shrugged but did not reply. He gave a light snort.
"On further consideration, she looks just like you, so it follows logic that she would sing like you, too."
Now he'd done it.
"I am not tone-deaf."
"You are mostly not tone-deaf. A little faulty, however. A few lessons would do you a world of good. No worries." He let go of the reins for a beat to wave his hand airily. "I will be more than willing to finance tutoring for you as well as Bonnie. A worthy investment, indeed."
Oh! This man! Can we never have a simple conversation without him deviling me to death!
She made to scoot away from him. "Keep on and I'll jump out of this wagon."
He grabbed her waist with his right arm and hauled her back up against him, tighter than before. A frisson of awareness shot up her spine at the additional warmth.
"And where will you go? There's nowhere to huff off to, my dear."
Shocked at the possessive gesture and closeness, she fell speechless while he continued.
"The last time you jumped out of a wagon with me you showed everyone at Five Points your undergarments, which is why Alston Brooks was hanging about at the resort, by the way."
"I beg your pardon?" Truly exasperated now. "Why are you on about him again of all people?"
"Surely an accomplished coquette such as yourself is not unaware that the men loitering about that ice pond were looking for glimpses of ankles and more," he replied.
Her mouth dropped slightly open in response.
"Perhaps you are unaware. Astoundingly so, as usual," he sighed.
"Of course, I knew they were there for the—the interaction with young women," she defended herself hastily. "And of course, I noticed that they appreciated the, um, design of the skating costumes, who do you think you're talking to? But I only fell once, and you picked me up before anyone else could."
"Yes, but you started to fall several other times and he caught you, and you let him teach you the turns and twirls."
"I skated with you almost exclusively, Rhett." She felt truly bewildered by his reaction.
"Again, after he taught you."
"Well, you were busy with Bonnie." Always Bonnie. "And I wanted to learn."
"Oh, you learned, and so did he." A nearly sullen expression flickered across his face before he smoothed it out again. "Perhaps I'd planned to instruct you myself, but on further consideration, I should be thankful that I didn't have to suffer through your initial graceless endeavors."
Graceless! She'd never been graceless a day in her life!
Scarlett felt soured on the skating and something about the conversation sank her spirits. She crossed her arms and glanced up at him again, fixing her face in a full-on glower when she caught the side smirk and amusement in his eyes.
"That's it. I've had enough of you." She considered pinching his arm but instead leaned forward as if she was going to rise and then threw her feet out from under her, purposefully slamming all her weight back against him, hard.
He grunted, to her satisfaction; however, being a mountain of a man, he did not move an inch.
"Just look at that," she fake-pouted, which was completely belied by the gleam in her eyes. "I tried to stand up but my foot slipped on the icy boards. Pardon my lack of grace but at least there's no need for you to fret anymore now you know just how Alston felt."
He tried to frown at her, but she caught the twitch of lips as he did so.
Touching Rhett after all this time was intoxicating. It made her feel—she didn't quite understand how it made her feel. She only knew it was wonderful to talk and laugh like before they were married, and to show affection as they had before they fell out.
And he wasn't acting adverse to it or making any snide comments about Ashley, either. She'd better watch herself, though. She never knew when he would turn.
They were quiet after that. The temperature began to drop at a more rapid pace and the downfall increased with it.
A wailing wind whipped through the trees. Rhett carried on as if unaffected, even when it blew the hat back from his head. The snow in his hair and mustache gave Scarlett an idea of how he would look when he was older, and it wasn't bad. Naturally.
But the wind cut and she bent over, checking the blankets in the bed of the wagon again, relieved that the children were somewhat protected by the deep sides of the bed as long as they stayed laid down.
The wind became a full-on gale and visibility diminished by the minute.
"We're not far now," Rhett shouted above the noise.
The road came to an end and then there was only a bare trail that seemed to go on forever. The journey moved at a snail's pace and as if in a dream; the horse piled with three inches of snow along the ridge of its back and mane, and the animal could hardly keep up with blinking it out of his eyelashes, the wagon and everyone in it covered as well.
"Not much longer," Rhett shouted through the wind again, and then, when she thought they would all surely blow away, the cabin came into view.
OOOOoooooOOOO
A/N Scarlett's 'faulty soprano' is mentioned in canon when she sings Old Kentucky home with Rhett at Aunt Pitty's during the war. Rhett, of course, has a 'rich baritone.'
If you have any 1870s cabin survivalist info that you think might be helpful to this story, please share. I hike every day with my dog because we both need it, but I go home every night. Not an outdoors-camper-type person, so I would love to hear about your experiences and/or knowledge.
I split this chapter and another will be ready within the week. I will be working on my other story for the next little while after that but will update you when a new chapter is in sight for this one. I usually leave notes at the top of the first chapter of a story after a couple of weeks so people can see when to expect something.
Also, if Rhett's jealousy is striking you as off-character, you're right. I have my reasons. All will be revealed ... .
Thank you all for your readership. It means the world to me. Peace, misscyn