“I’m going home,” she said.
“Home?
You mean to Tara?”
“Yes, yes!
To Tara!
Oh, Rhett, we must hurry!”
He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.
“Tara?
God Almighty, Scarlett!
Don’t you know they fought all day at Jonesboro?
Fought for ten miles up and down the road from Rough and Ready even into the streets of Jonesboro?
The Yankees may be all over Tara by now, all over the County.
Nobody knows where they are but they’re in that neighborhood.
You can’t go home!
You can’t go right through the Yankee army!”
“I will go home!” she cried.
“I will!
I will!”
“You little fool,” and his voice was swift and rough.
“You can’t go that way.
Even if you didn’t run into the Yankees, the woods are full of stragglers and deserters from both armies.
And lots of our troops are still retreating from Jonesboro.
They’d take the horse away from you as quickly as the Yankees would.
Your only chance is to follow the troops down the McDonough road and pray that they won’t see you in the dark.
You can’t go to Tara.
Even if you got there, you’d probably find it burned down.
I won’t let you go home.
It’s insanity.”
“I will go home!” she cried and her voice broke and rose to a scream.
“I will go home!
You can’t stop me!
I will go home!
I want my mother!
I’ll kill you if you try to stop me!
I will go home!”
Tears of fright and hysteria streamed down her face as she finally gave way under the long strain.
She beat on his chest with her fists and screamed again:
“I will!
I will!
If I have to walk every step of the way!”
Suddenly she was in his arms, her wet cheek against the starched ruffle of his shirt, her beating hands stilled against him.
His hands caressed her tumbled hair gently, soothingly, and his voice was gentle too.
So gentle, so quiet, so devoid of mockery, it did not seem Rhett Butler’s voice at all but the voice of some kind strong stranger who smelled of brandy and tobacco and horses, comforting smells because they reminded her of Gerald.
“There, there, darling,” he said softly.
“Don’t cry.
You shall go home, my brave little girl.
You shall go home.
Don’t cry.”
She felt something brush her hair and wondered vaguely through her tumult if it were his lips.
He was so tender, so infinitely soothing, she longed to stay in his arms forever.