“Nobody knows. Perhaps till they hang him, but maybe they won’t be able to prove the killingon him, after all. However, it doesn’t seem to bother the Yankees whether folks are guilty or not, solong as they can hang somebody. They are so upset”—Pitty dropped her voice mysteriously—“about the Ku Klux Klan. Do you have the Klan down in the Countya police shieldcould hold me upside down and drainmy gutschange your mind ? My dear, I’m sure youmust and Ashley just doesn’t tell you girls anything about it Klansmen aren’t supposed to tell.
They ride around at night dressed up like ghosts and call on Carpetbaggers who steal money andnegroes who are uppity. Sometimes they just scare them and warn them to leave Atlanta, but whenthey don’t behave they whip them and,” Pitty whispered, “sometimes they kill them and leavethem where they’ll be easily found with the Ku Klux card on them. ... And the Yankees are veryangry about it and want to make an example of someone. ... But Hugh Elsing told me he didn’tthink they’d hang Captain Butler because the Yankees think he won’t tell. They are trying to make him tell.”
“The money?”
“Didn’t you know? Didn’t I write you? My dear, you have been buried at Tara, haven’t you? Thetown simply buzzed when Captain Butler came back here with a fine horse and carriage and hispockets full of money, when all the rest of us didn’t know where our next meal was coming from.
It simply made everybody furious that an old speculator who always said nasty things about theConfederacy should have so much money when we were all so poor. Everybody was bursting toknow how he managed to save his money but no one had the courage to ask him—except me andhe just laughed and said: ‘In no honest way, you may be sure.’ You know how hard it is to getanything sensible out of him.”
“But of course, he made his money out of the blockade—”
“Of course, he did, honey, some of it. But that’s not a drop in the bucket to what that man hasreally got. Everybody, including the Yankees, believes he’s got millions of dollars in goldbelonging to the Confederate government hid out somewhere.”
“Millions—in gold?”
“Well, honey, where did all our Confederate gold go to? Somebo