Free Rhett Butler's people by Donald McCaig

a man who could kill with clean hands.

    I told them neither yea nor nay.
    Sister, I am not a reflective man, but that night I wondered who I had become. What distinguishes the merchant who hangs a thief to preserve his fortune from the planter who whips a negro to death for insolence?
    I determined I would not be that man. As I would not be hanged, I would not be a hangman.
    I have determined to try my fortunes elsewhere. Volunteers are combining to overthrow Cuba's Spanish overlords, and perhaps I'll lend them a
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    hand. If you can write, I will pick up my mail do General Delivery, New Orleans.

    Your puzzled brother, Rhett

    March 14, 1853

    Hotel St. Louis

    New Orleans

    Dear Little Sister,

    Proper Charlestonians would be shocked by this city. It is so French. New Orleans' citizens
    --
    all good Catholics
    --
    are preoccupied with food, drink, and love
    --
    though not necessarily in that order. In the old quarter, the Vieux Carre, the fragrance of sin drifts through the orange and lemon blossoms. I can attend a ball every night: formal, informal, masked, or the sort of affair I attend with a pistol in my pocket. I play cards at Mcgarth's, Perritts, or the Boston Club. I enjoy four racetracks, three theaters, and the French Opera House.

    The city is the freebooters' home port. These young Americans have taken Manifest Destiny as a personal creed. Their destiny, manifestly, is to conquer and loot any Caribbean or South American nation too weak to defend itself. Most believe Cuba would make a first-class American state once we run off the Spanish.

    I have invested in several
    freebooting expeditions --
    if demand increases profits, patriotism swells the trickle into a flood. Until now, I haven't been tempted to enlist myself.

    New Orleans is a city of beautiful women and its Creole ladies are cultured, cosmopolitan, and wise. They have taught me much about love
    --
    a pursuit which is second only to the longing for God.

    Doubtless my Creole mistress, Didi Gayerre, loves me. She loves me to distraction. After six months together, she is eager to marry, bear my children, and share my uncertain fortunes. She is everything a man could want.

    I do not want her.

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    My initial fascination has turned to boredom and a mild contempt for myself and Didi for pretending to believe what we know is not so.

    Love, Dear Sister, can be terribly cruel.

    I will not stay with her from pity. Pity is even crueler than love.

    The less I love her, the more desperate Didi becomes, and only physical separation will cure our problem.

    We were supping with Narciso
    López, a Cuban General who is organizing an expedition. He already has three or four hundred volunteers --
    enough, he assured me, to defeat any Spanish army. Once we land Cuban patriots will swell our ranks. He told me with a wink that there is conquistador gold in the Spanish treasury. Havana, he added is a beautiful city.

    Didi ignored his barrage of reasons. She was wearing a high-bodiced brocade gown and an astonishingly red hat. She ate nothing. She was pouting. Our omelettes were perfectly prepared and our champagne chilled, but Didi was grumpy and objected to everything the General said. No, the Cubans wouldn't rise up. The Spanish army was more formidable than a few hundred American adventurers.

    López
    , who is a pompous man, explained how conquering Cuba would make us rich. "Lt's the white man's duty, Butler," he advised.

    "To become rich?" I teased him.

    "Our duty to transform a primitive, superstitious, authoritarian country into a modern democracy."

    That theory prompted a torrent of
    Didi's angry French, whose precise meaning López may not have understood, but he certainly got the gist.

    He leaned forward and with a condescending smile said, "Butler, are you one of those fellows whose wench tells him what to do?"

    Didi stood so abruptly she knocked over the champagne bucket. She stabbed pins into her bright red hat. "Rhett?" she insisted.