第249章
“You can have my horse,” said Frank calmly. “I’ve only ten dollars with me but if you can wait till morning—”
“Hell’s afire, I can’t wait!” said Tony, emphatically but jovially. “They’re probably right behind me. I didn’t get much of a start. If it hadn’t been for Ashley dragging me out of there and making me get on my horse, I’d have stayed there like a fool and probably had my neck stretched by now. Good fellow, Ashley.”
So Ashley was mixed up in this frightening puzzle. Scarlett went cold, her hand at her throat. Did the Yankees have Ashley now? Why, why didn’t Frank ask what it was all about? Why did he take it all so coolly, so much as a matter of course? She struggled to get the question to her lips.
“What—” she began. “Who—”
“Your father’s old overseer—that damned—Jonas Wilkerson.”
“Did you—is he dead?”
“My God, Scarlett O’Hara!” said Tony peevishly. “When I start out to cut somebody up, you don’t think I’d be satisfied with scratching him with the blunt side of my knife, do you? No, by God, I cut him to ribbons.”
“Good,” said Frank casually. “I never liked the fellow.”
Scarlett looked at him. This was not the meek Frank she knew, the nervous beard clawer who she had learned could be bullied with such ease. There was an air about him that was crisp and cool and he was meeting the emergency with no unnecessary words. He was a man and Tony was a man and this situation of violence was men’s business in which a woman had no part.
“But Ashley— Did he—”
“No. He wanted to kill him but I told him it was my right, because Sally is my sister-in-law, and he saw reason finally. He went into Jonesboro with me, in case Wilkerson got me first. But I don’t think old Ash will get in any trouble about it. I hope not. Got any jam for this corn pone? And can you wrap me up something to take with me?”
“I shall scream if you don’t tell me everything.”
“Wait till I’ve gone and then scream if you’ve got to. I’ll tell you about it while Frank saddles the horse. That damned—Wilkerson has caused enough trouble already, know how he did you about your taxes. That’s just one of his meannesses. But the worst thing was the way he kept the darkies stirred up. If anybody had told me I’d ever live to see the day when I’d hate darkies! Damn their black souls, they believe anything those scoundrels tell them and forget every living thing we’ve done for them. Now the Yankees are talking about letting the darkies vote. And they won’t let us vote. Why, there’s hardly a handful of Democrats in the whole County who aren’t barred from voting, now that they’ve ruled out every man who fought in the Confederate Army. And if they give the negroes the vote, it’s the end of us. Damn it, it’s our state! It doesn’t belong to the Yankees! By God, Scarlett, it isn’t to be borne! And it won’t be borne! We’ll do something about it if it means another war. Soon we’ll be having nigger judges, nigger legislators—black apes out of the jungle—”
“Please—hurry, tell me! What did you do?”
“Give me another mite of that pone before you wrap it up. Well, the word got around that Wilkerson had gone a bit too far with his nigger-equality business. Oh, yes, he talks it to those black fools by the hour. He had the gall—the—” Tony spluttered helplessly, “to say niggers had a right to—to—white women.”
“Oh, Tony, no!”
“By God, yes! I don’t wonder you look sick. But hell’s afire, Scarlett, it can’t be news to you. They’ve been telling it to them here in Atlanta.”
“I—I didn’t know.”
“Well, Frank would have kept it from you. Anyway, after that, we all sort of thought we’d call on Mr. Wilkerson privately by night and tend to him, but before we could— You remember that black buck, Eustis, who used to be our foreman?”
“Yes.”
“Came to the kitchen door today while Sally was fixing dinner and—I don’t know what he said to her. I guess I’ll never know now. But he said something and I heard her scream and I ran into the kitchen and there he was, drunk as a fiddler’s bitch—I beg your pardon, Scarlett, it just slipped out.”
“Go on.”
“I shot him and when Mother ran in to take care of Sally, I got my horse and started to Jonesboro for Wilkerson. He was the one to blame. The damned black fool would never have thought of it but for him. And on the way past Tara, I met Ashley and, of course, he went with me. He said to let him do it because of the way Wilkerson acted about Tara and I said No, it was my place because Sally was my own dead brother’s wife, and he went with me arguing the whole way. And when we got to town, by God, Scarlett, do you know I hadn’t even brought my pistol, I’d left it in the stable. So mad I forgot—”
He paused and gnawed the tough pone and Scarlett shivered. The murderous rages of the Fontaines had made County history long before this chapter had opened.
“So I had to take my knife to him. I found him in the barroom. I got him in a corner with Ashley holding back the others and I told him why before I lit into him. Why, it was over before I knew it,” said Tony reflecting. “First thing I knew, Ashley had me on my horse and told me to come to you folks. Ashley’s a good man in a pinch. He keeps his head.”
Frank came in, his greatcoat over his arm, and handed it to Tony. It was his only heavy coat but Scarlett made no protest. She seemed so much on the outside of this affair, this purely masculine affair.
“But Tony—they need you at home. Surely, if you went back and explained—”
“Frank, you’ve married a fool,” said Tony with a grin, struggling into the coat. “She thinks the Yankees will reward a man for keeping niggers off his women folks. So they will, with a drumhead court and a rope. Give me a kiss, Scarlett. Frank won’t mind and I may never see you again. Texas is a long way off. I won’t dare write, so let the home folks know I got this far in safety.”
She let him kiss her and the two men went out into the driving rain and stood for a moment, talking on the back porch. Then she heard a sudden splashing of hooves and Tony was gone. She opened the door a crack and saw Frank leading a heaving, stumbling horse into the carriage house. She shut the door again and sat down, her knees trembling.