Yes, thought Scarlett, sitting on the side porch in the pale November sunshine with the baby on her lap, he is one of Melanie's lame dogs. And he's really lame, at that!
The man who was making his way across the back yard stumped, like Will Benteen, on a wooden leg. He was a tall, thin old man with a bald head, which shone pinkishly dirty, and a grizzled beard so long he could tuck it in his belt. He was over sixty, to judge by his hard, seamed face, but there was no sag of age to his body. He was lank and ungainly but, even with his wooden peg, he moved as swiftly as a snake.
He mounted the steps and came toward her and, even before he spoke, revealing in his tones a twang and a burring of "r s" unusual in the lowlands, Scarlett knew that he was mountain born. For all his dirty, ragged clothes there was about him, as about most mountaineers, an air of fierce silent pride that permitted no liberties and tolerated no foolishness. His beard was stained with tobacco juice and a large wad in his jaw made his face look deformed. His nose was thin and craggy, his eyebrows bushy and twisted, into witches' locks and a lush growth of hair sprang from his ears, giving them the tufted look of a lynx's ears. Beneath his brow was one hollow socket from which a scar ran down his cheek, carving a diagonal line through his beard. The other eye was small, pale and cold, an unwinking and remorseless eye. There was a heavy pistol openly in his trouser band and from the top of his tattered boot protruded the hilt of a bowie knife.
He returned Scarlett's stare coldly and spat across the rail of the banister before he spoke. There was contempt in his one eye, not a personal contempt for her, but for her whole sex.
"Miz Wilkes sont me to work for you," he said shortly. He spoke rustily, as one unaccustomed to speaking, the words coming slowly and almost with difficulty. "M' name's Archie."
"I'm sorry but I have no work for you, Mr. Archie."
"Archie's m'fuss name."
"I beg your pardon. What is your last name?"
He spat again. "I reckon that's my bizness," he said. "Archie'll do."
"I don't care what your last name is! I have nothing for you to do."
"I reckon you have. Miz Wilkes was upsot about yore wantin' to run aroun' like a fool by yoreself and she sont me over here to drive aroun' with you."
"Indeed?" cried Scarlett, indignant both at the man's rudeness and Melly's meddling.
His one eye met hers with an impersonal animosity. "Yes. A woman's got no bizness botherin' her men folks when they're tryin' to take keer of her. If you're bound to gad about, I'll drive you. I hates niggers -- Yankees too."
He shifted his wad of tobacco to the other cheek and, without waiting for an invitation, sat down on the top step. "I ain't sayin' I like drivin' women aroun', but Miz Wilkes been good to me, lettin' me sleep in her cellar, and she sont me to drive you."
"But --" began Scarlett helplessly and then she stopped and looked at him. After a moment she began to smile. She didn't like the looks of this elderly desperado but his presence would simplify matters. With him beside her, she could go to town, drive to the mills, call on customers. No one could doubt her safety with him and his very appearance was enough to keep from giving rise to scandal.
"It's a bargain," she said. "That is, if my husband agrees."
After a private conversation with Archie, Frank gave his reluctant approval and sent word to the livery stable to release the horse and buggy. He was hurt and disappointed that motherhood had not changed Scarlett as he had hoped it would but, if she was determined to go back to her damnable mills, then Archie was a godsend.
So began the relationship that at first startled Atlanta. Archie and Scarlett were a queerly assorted pair, the truculent dirty old man with his wooden peg sticking stiffly out over the dashboard and the pretty, neatly dressed young woman with forehead puckered in an abstracted frown. They could be seen at all hours and at all places in and near Atlanta, seldom speaking to each other, obviously disliking each other, but bound together by mutual need, he of money, she of protection. At least, said the ladies of the town, it's better than riding around so brazenly with that Butler man. They wondered curiously where Rhett was these days, for he had abruptly left town three months before and no one, not even Scarlett, knew where he was.
Archie was a silent man, never speaking unless spoken to and usually answering with grunts. Every morning he came from Melanie's cellar and sat on the front steps of Pitty's house, chewing and spitting until Scarlett came out and Peter brought the buggy from the stable. Uncle Peter feared him only a little less than the devil or the Ku Klux and even Mammy walked silently and timorously around him. He hated negroes and they knew it and feared him. He reinforced his pistol and knife with another pistol, and his fame spread far among the black population. He never once had to draw a pistol or even lay his hand on his belt. The moral effect was sufficient. No negro dared even laugh while Archie was in hearing.
Once Scarlett asked him curiously why he hated negroes and was surprised when he answered, for generally all questions were answered by "I reckon that's my bizness."
"I hates them, like all mountain folks hates them. We never liked them and we never owned none. It was them niggers that started the war. I hates them for that, too."
"But you fought in the war."
"I reckon that's a man's privilege. I hates Yankees too, more'n I hates niggers. Most as much as I hates talkative women."
It was such outspoken rudeness as this that threw Scarlett into silent furies and made her long to be rid of him. But how could she do without him? In what other way could she obtain such freedom? He was rude and dirty and, occasionally, very odorous but he served his purpose. He drove her to and from the mills and on her round of customers, spitting and staring off into space while she talked and gave orders. If she climbed down from the buggy, he climbed after her and dogged her footsteps. When she was among rough laborers, negroes or Yankee soldiers, he was seldom more than a pace from her elbow.
Soon Atlanta became accustomed to seeing Scarlett and her bodyguard and, from being accustomed, the ladies grew to envy her her freedom of movement. Since the Ku Klux lynching, the ladies had been practically immured, not even going to town to shop unless there were half a dozen in their group. Naturally social minded, they became restless and, putting their pride in their pockets, they began to beg the loan of Archie from Scarlett. And whenever she did not need him, she was gracious enough to spare him for the use of other ladies.
Soon Archie became an Atlanta institution and the ladies competed for his free time. There was seldom a morning when a child or a negro servant did not arrive at breakfast time with a note saying: "If you aren't using Archie this afternoon, do let me have him. I want to drive to the cemetery with flowers." "I must go to the milliners." "I should like Archie to drive Aunt Nelly for an airing." "I must go calling on Peters Street and Grandpa is not feeling well enough to take me. Could Archie --"
He drove them all, maids, matrons and widows, and toward all he evidenced the same uncompromising contempt. It was obvious that he did not like women, Melanie excepted, any better than he liked negroes and Yankees. Shocked at first by his rudeness, the ladies finally became accustomed to him and, as he was so silent, except for intermittent explosions of tobacco juice, they took him as much for granted as the horses he drove and forgot his very existence. In fact, Mrs. Merriwether related to Mrs. Meade the complete details of her niece's confinement before she even remembered Archie's presence on the front seat of the carriage.
At no other time than this could such a situation have been possible. Before the war, he would not have been permitted even in the ladies' kitchens. They would have handed him food through the back door and sent him about his business. But now they welcomed his reassuring presence. Rude, illiterate, dirty, he was a bulwark between the ladies and the terrors of Reconstruction. He was neither friend nor servant. He was a hired bodyguard, protecting the women while their men worked by day or were absent from home at night.
It seemed to Scarlett that after Arch
ie came to work for her Frank was away at night very frequently. He said the books at the store had to be balanced and business was brisk enough now to give him little time to attend to this in working hours. And there were sick friends with whom he had to sit. Then there was the organization of Democrats who forgathered every Wednesday night to devise ways of regaining the ballot and Frank never missed a meeting. Scarlett thought this organization did little else except argue the merits of General John B. Gordon over every otter general, except General Lee, and refight the war. Certainly she could observe no progress in the direction of the recovery of the ballot. But Frank evidently enjoyed the meetings for he stayed out until all hours on those nights.