Free Rhett Butler's people by Donald McCaig Page A

"Please
    ..."

    "You must excuse us, General," I said.

    Didi was rigid on my arm. The St. Louis's doorman summoned our cab.

    A filthy woman beggar limped toward us, mumbling her feeble entreaty.

    López
    followed us onto the sidewalk, apologizing "Senor Butler, I did not intend to insult you, nor your lovely companion.

    "Madre de Dios!" The beggar had come close enough to offend his nos
    trils.

    58
    She was one of those desperate creatures that service Irish stevedores behind the levees. Her hand trembled with entreaty.
    "Leave us!" The General raised his cane.

    "Don't, General. "As I went into my pocket for a dime, I recognized a familiar face beneath her grime. "Dear God
    , are you ... are you Belle Watling?"

    It was she, Dear Sister, a woman I had never thought to see again. John Haynes had financed Belle's escape from the Low Country. I hadn't known she'd come to New Orleans.
    Some weeks later Belle told me, "I always loved the sea. I thought things would be different here." Apparently, Belle fell in with a cardsharp who used her as collateral when the pasteboards failed him. Belle's son is in the Asylum for Orphan Boys.

    I will try to improve her circumstances before General
    López and I embark for Cuba.

    Belle begs you not say anything to her father, Isaiah. She is as thoroughly disowned as I am.
    All my love, Rhett
    July 1853 Cuba
    Beloved Sister Rosemary,

    The beach at Bahia Hondo is the most beautiful I have ever seen. Silver sand and cerulean sea seem as endless as eternity
    --
    a destination certain Spanish officers are hastening me toward.

    The Spanish forces were not defeated. The Cubans did not welcome us as liberators. Ah well.
    Fleeing Didi's arms into a Spanish firing squad was not my cleverest maneuver.
    I've set a gamble into motion and may yet escape my fate, but the odds are long and time is short.
    A corporal promises to post this letter. As with the bottle the marooned sailor tosses into the sea, I pray it will find some reader.
    59
    How dear is soft, warm sand. How tender the sandpipers wading in the shallows. Though their lives are only a few seasons, they are no less God's creatures than we.
    Sister, if I leave you with one piece of advice, it is: Live your life. Let no other live it for you.

    The Spaniards ordered us to dig our graves for the afternoon entertainment. As American gentlemen, naturally we refused. Ha, ha. Let the peasants dirty
    their
    hands!

    Rosemary, of all those I have known on this gracious earth, 1regret only leaving you....
    Think of me sometimes,
    Rhett
    60
    Chapter

    Chapter Six
    A Negro
    Sale

    Rosemary's head was spinning. "My father burned my brother's letters? My letters, too?"
    "I sees Solomon in the fish market one day -- your houseman Solomon -- and we gets to talkin'. OF Solomon, he hates to hand over them letters to Master Langston, but he got to do what he been told."
    Rosemary felt sick. She asked the question that, as Langston's dutiful daughter, she had never dared. "Tunis, why does my father hate his son?
    Tunis Bonneau was a free colored -- free to walk the streets without a pass; free to gather for worship services at the First African Baptist (provided one white man was present at the service); free to marry another free colored or a slave he bought out of servitude. He could not vote nor hold office, but he could keep his own money and own property. He could legally learn to read.
    Because they were neither property nor white men, free coloreds made the Masters nervous.
    Hence, Tunis Bonneau didn't see what he saw, didn't speak of what he knew, and pretended an ignorance so profound that it defied penetration. When white men questioned him, Tunis would reply, "Mr. Haynes, he tells me to do it." Or "You have to ask Mr. Haynes 'bout that."
    Although she knew this perfectly well, Rosemary was too upset to think clearly, and she grasped Tunis's sleeve as if to shake the answers out of him. "Why does Langston hate Rhett?"
    61
    Tunis sighed and told