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.
Now she knew what Reconstruction meant, knew as well as if the house were ringed
about by naked savages, squatting in breech clouts. Now there came rushing to her mind many things to which she had given little thought recently, conversations she had heard but to which she had not listened, masculine talk which had been checked half finished when she came into rooms, small incidents in which she had seen no significance at the time, Frank's futile warnings to her against driving out to the mill with only the feeble Uncle Peter to protect her. Now they fitted themselves together into one horrifying picture.
The negroes were on top and behind them were the Yankee bayonets. She could be killed,
she could be raped and, very probably, nothing would ever be done about it. And anyone who avenged her would be hanged by the Yankees, hanged without benefit of trial by judge and jury.
Yankee officers who knew nothing of law and cared less for the circumstances of the crime could go through the motions of holding a trial and put a rope around a Southerner's neck.