Sheriff's Talbot's office was a cool underground den.
Scarlett demanded, "Why haven't you arrested them?”
"Who should I arrest, Mrs. Butler?”
Scarlett wanted to shake the blandness off the sheriff's face. She pushed words past her teeth. "The Watlings! Isaiah and Josie Watling murdered Will Benteen!”
The sheriff rolled his chair against the wall and leaned back to examine the fly-specked ceiling. He grunted, bent, and spat into the spittoon.
"Well?" Scarlett demanded. "When are you going to arrest them?”
"I reckon, Mrs. Butler, I reckon there's two ways of lookin' at this. You got your 'pinion and some folks got 'nother 'pinion.”
Scarlett blinked. "Whatever are you talking about?”
"Some folks say Mr. Wilkes started that fight.”
"They'd shot my horses, burned my Atlanta home, and frightened off my field workers. Sheriff, they intended to murder my husband!”
"Did they? I always figured Mr. Butler could take care of hisself.
Didn't I hear your husband was in Europe somewheres? I don't know that the Watlings ever been to Europe — leastways they never said they had.”
Sheriff Talbot went in his drawer for a leather sap. He got up, plucked his hat from the hat rack, and rolled it in his hands. "Mrs. Butler, some folks b'lieve — and I ain't sayin' I disagree — that Ashley Wilkes started that fight and Will Benteen murdered Archie Flytte once Flytte was getting the better of Wilkes.”
"Ashley was defending Tara. Those Watlings — “
"B'lieve you mentioned that, Mrs. Butler. B'lieve you mentioned that several times. But you never showed me no proof." He set his hat on the back of his head so it framed his face like a picture frame. "Mrs. Butler, I don't mean to hurt your feelin's, but I am inclined to b'lieve that Mr. Wilkes attacked Archie Flytte unprovoked and when Archie resisted, Will Benteen shot Archie. Josie Watling killed Benteen trying to save Archie's life. Least that's how I see it. You might see things different." He slipped the sap into his trouser pocket "Now, ma'am, I got to get to Darktown. Another cuttin'. Ain't it peculiar? Niggers cut each other, where a white man'd use a gun. You reckon that's because they're more primitive?”
"The Watlings — “
"Won't bother you no more, Mrs. Butler. The Watlings done left Clayton County. Josie and old Isaiah lit out after the fight and nobody's seen 'em since. Weren't no Flyttes willin' to bury Archie, so the County buried him.”
He shrugged. "Far as this sheriff's office is concerned, everything's square.
Archie's dead, Will Benteen's dead, and the Watlings are gone. Josie Watling was always kiddin' about Jesse James. Said he rode with the James brothers during the War." Sheriff Talbot opened the door to show Scarlett out. "You reckon next time we hear about the Watlings, they'll be robbin' trains?" The sheriff locked the door behind them and peered at the cloudless sky. "Darned if it ain't dry." He added, "Watlings was a good family.
Hard workers. I swear Isaiah Watling near worked himself half to death tryin' to make a go of that hardscrabble farm. Sorrowful, ain't it — how things turn out?”
When she got back to Tara, Scarlett rode into the river fields. Will's furrows between the cotton ridges had been smooth red clay. Now they were greened with weeds. Oat sedge tangled the ridges where her cotton plants, each set eight inches from its neighbor, turned hopefully toward the beckoning sun.
Before daybreak next morning, Scarlett was in the horse barn. The work harness was so heavy, she dragged it over the horse's rump, and the names were an awkward nightmare. She guessed which straps to buckle and rebuckled what seemed too loose or tight.
When she came into the house, Taras people were in the kitchen, the children poking sleepily at their breakfast. Scarlett took fried side meat off the counter and ate without sitting down. She said, "Now Will is gone, we'll have to do without him. Lord knows, there's enough work to go around.
Mammy, you'll tend Ashley. Ella, honey, stay here and help Mammy. I don't want you taking one of your fits. Everyone else into the fields. Yes, Pork, I know what you're going to say: 'But Miss Scarlett, I'ze been a valet all my life!' " Scarlett's mimicry was so accurate, even Pork cracked a smile.
It was cool at first. Rosemary and the youngest children worked a row.
Dilcey, Wade, Pork, and Prissy each had a row. Scarlett took Will's job: plowing up one long row, down another, steering a plow whose tall wooden handles were whitened from strong men's sweat. The horse knew its job and marched forward phlegmatically, but the plow handles jerked and bucked and whenever the plow hit a rock, the handles kicked against Scarlett's small hands until her palms ached.
Sun was the enemy.
Leather traces lay across Scarlett's shoulders as if she were in harness with the horse. She stumbled and turned her ankles on the rough ground.
Sweat stung her eyes and half-blinded her. The dust the horse raised mixed with her sweat and caked her face.
At noon, they stopped under the shade trees beside the river. When Scarlett knelt and splashed cool water on her cheeks and neck, it ran over her breasts. Rosemary knelt beside her. "Vail Georgia planters surely do live a life of ease.”
In the long afternoon, Dilcey began a chant Scarlett had heard all her life.
"It's a long John," Dilcey sang. Prissy answered, "It's a long John.”
"He's long gone.”
"He's long gone.”
"Mister John John.”
"Mister John John.”
"Old big-eyed John. Oh, John John ...”
Stumbling behind the horse, fighting the plow handles, Scarlett breathed in time with that ancient African measure.
They placed Ashley on folded blankets, with his plastered ankle propped on the tailboard of Twelve Oaks' wagon.
Ashley's fine gray eyes looked into Rosemary's. "Thank you for...
talking to me.”
"That day at the market," Rosemary said, "you did the best you could.”
Ashley Wilkes closed up. "I got Will killed.”
It clouded over the afternoon they finished hoeing. Big-bellied rain clouds rolled over the horizon.
Taras dusty, sweaty field hands were on the porch drinking cool water when two riders appeared at the bottom of the lane.
Scarlett leapt to her feet as if she'd been stung, ran into the house, and pounded up the stairs like a schoolgirl.
In her bedroom, she kicked off her brogans, dropped her sweat-stained dress in a heap, dipped a washcloth into the water pitcher, and attended to her arms, face, and breasts. She snatched a fine green silk gown from the chifforobe, snapped and tied it. She hadn't time for corset or shoes.
Downstairs again, Scarlett emerged barefoot as a grinning Pork took her husband's reins.
There were new deep lines at the corners of his mouth and under his eyes. Scarlett yearned to hurl herself into his arms, but she wasn't that easy.
"Pork, it isn't the Second Coming. It's only Mr. Butler come home.”
Rhett's hungry eyes devoured her. "I thought you might need a Savior.”