Shad Watling was the best shot in the Low Country.
They turned into a brushy lane so infrequently traveled that Spanish moss whisked the carriage roof. Sometimes, Hercules lifted low-hanging branches so the rig could pass beneath.
With a start, John Haynes recalled the story of Shad Watling and a whippoorwill.
"Ah," Rhett mused. "Can you smell it? Marsh perfume: cattails, myrtle, sea aster, marsh gas, mud. When I was a boy, I'd get in my skiff and disappear for days, living like a red indian." Rhett's smile faded with his reverie.
"Let me beg one last favor. You know Tunis Bonneau?”
"The free colored seaman?”
"If you see him, ask him if he remembers the day we sailed to Beaufort.
Ask him to pray for my soul.”
"A free colored?”
"We were boys on the river together.”
Indeterminate gray light was filtering into the carriage. Rhett looked out. "Ah, we have arrived.”
John consulted his pocket hunter. "Sunrise in twenty minutes.”
The field of honor was a three-acre pasture edged with gloomy cypresses and moss-bedecked live oaks. The pasture vanished in the fog, inside which a voice was crying hoarsely, "Sooey! Soo cow! Soo cow!”
Rhett stepped down from the carriage, chafing his hands. "So. This is my destination. When I was a boy dreaming of glories awaiting me, I never dreamed of this.”
Cattle bawled inside the fog. "We wouldn't want to shoot a cow." Rhett stretched. "My father would be furious if we shot one of his cows.”
"Rhett...”
Rhett Butler laid a hand on John Haynes's shoulder. "I need you this morning, John, and I trust you to arrange matters properly. Please spare me your sound, kindly meant advice.”
John swallowed his advice, wishing he hadn't remembered about Shad Watling and the whippoorwilclass="underline" After Langston Butler built Broughton's grand manor house, his overseer, Isaiah Watling, moved his family into the original Butler home, which was convenient to the rice fields and negro quarters. Huge live oaks, which had been saplings when the Butlers first arrived in the Low Country, shaded the small, plain farmhouse.
Nesting in a live oak, that whippoorwill welcomed them from twilight until dawn.
Apparently, Belle, the Watling girl, thought the bird was seeking a mate. Her mother, Sarah, said the bird was grieving.
The question of whether the bird was flirting or weeping was mooted at daybreak, not long after they moved in, when a shot blasted through the house. When his mother rushed into his bedroom, Shad Watling's smoking pistol lay on the windowsill. "Fool bird won't rise me up no more," Shad Watling grunted.
In poor light at sixty paces, Shad Watling had shot the tiny whippoorwill's head off its body.
John Haynes asked Rhett, "You've heard about that whippoorwill?”
"Just a yarn, John." Rhett scratched a match on his boot sole.
"Shad Watling has killed before, Rhett.”
The match sputtered and flared as Rhett lit his cigar. "But only negroes and men of his class.”
"Do you believe your gentle birth will turn a bullet?”
"Why, yes," Rhett said solemnly. "Hell yes! Gentle birth's got to be good for something!”
"Comes somebody," Hercules spoke from his elevated seat.
Breathing hard, a young man emerged from the fog. His frock coat was folded over his arm and his trouser knees were wet where he'd stumbled.
"Darn cows," he confided. He shifted his jacket and offered his hand to John Haynes, then thought better of it and made an awkward bow instead.
"Tom Jaffery. Amity, Massachusetts. At your service, gentlemen.”
"Well, Tom." Rhett smiled. "It seems your Charleston visit will be a memorable one.”
Jaffery was two or three years younger than Rhett and John. "They'll never believe this in Amity.”
"Lurid tales, Tom. Lurid tales are the South's principal export. When you describe us to your friends, remark the devilishly handsome, gallant Rhett Butler." Rhett's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "If I were telling the tale, I wouldn't mention the cows.”
"Has your principal arrived?" John asked the young Yankee.
Tom Jaffery gestured at the fog bank. "Watling and that Dr. Ward, too.
They don't care for each other.”
John Haynes took the younger man's arm, walking him out of Rhett's earshot. "Mr. Jaffery, have you seconded these affairs before?”
"No, sir. We don't hardly do this kind of thing in Amity. I mean, my grandfather might have done it, but nowadays we don't. I'm a novice, so to speak. My aunt Patience passed to her Heavenly Reward and she bequeathed me a sum, so I set out to see the country. Tom, I says to myself, if not now, for goodness' sake, when? So there I was, admiring your Charleston harbor, which is, if I might say so, every bit the equal of our famous Boston harbor.
Anyway, there I was when Mr. Watling approached me and asked was I a gentleman, and I said I certainly hoped so. When Mr. Watling asked if I would second him, I thought, Tom, you've come to see the country, and see the country you shall. I'll never get a chance like this in Amity.”
John Haynes didn't tell the younger man that Shad Watling's choosing a Yankee stranger to second him was a calculated insult.
"Are you familiar with your duties?”
"We seconds make sure everything happens regular.”
John Haynes eyed the young Yankee thoughtfully. "Seeking reconciliation between the principals is our primary duty," he said with the regret of the man who has failed that duty.
"Oh, my principal isn't contemplatin' reconciliation. My principal says he anticipates shootin' Mr. Butler in the heart. He and Mr. Butler are old acquaintances.”
"It will be light soon. We generally let sunrise be our signal.”
"Sunrise suits you, suits us.”
"When the sun comes over the horizon, the gentlemen choose their pistols.
As the challenged party, your man chooses first. Shall we load now?”
John Haynes braced the mahogany box on the carriage fender, unlatched it, and removed a pistol. The sleek knurled butt felt alive in his hand, as if he'd clutched a water moccasin. "As you see, the pistols are identical.
While you observe, I'll charge one pistol. You will charge the second.”
John poured powder, set a round lead ball into an oiled cloth patch, and rammed it home. He placed a cap under the hammer and eased the hammer to half cock.
"They'll never believe this back home," Thomas Jaffery said.
The morning gathered light, the fog tore into streamers, and two ghostly vehicles swam into sight across the meadow: a one-horse chaise and a mule-drawn farm wagon.
Rhett Butler untied his horse from behind the carriage and pressed his face against the beast's powerful neck. "You're not frightened, are you, Tecumseh? Don't be. Nothing's going to hurt you.”
"This meadow, John — they grew indigo here in my grandfather's day.
There's a pond in the woods where pintails hatch their young. Muskrats are fond of young pintails, and sometimes a brood will be paddling along, until one is pulled under — so swiftly, they don't make a flurry. Our trunk master, Will, trapped muskrats here.”
"Rhett, we seconds will speak with Watling. What apology will you accept?”
Rhett squeezed his eyes shut obstinately. "Shad Watling claims I am father of his sister's child. I have said Watling is a liar. If Watling admits his lie, I will withdraw my challenge.”
"Will you offer compensation? Money so the girl can go somewhere to have her baby?”
"If Belle needs money, I will give her money. Money has nothing to do with this.”