He decided to write an overlay, a re-imagining that would patch up some of the holes. "I thought: I could do that."
He met with the lawyers who oversee the Mitchell estate. "The only thing they said was that they were concerned about how I would handle slavery in the book," McCaig says. "Some people have problems with Margaret Mitchell's racial attitude."
McCaig told them: "She was a Southern writer of her time. I am a Southern writer of my time."
St. Martin's offered him enough money, he says, to pay off his mortgage.
Rather than read the book again, McCaig worked from an outline. "Anne did a CliffsNotes synopsis of each chapter of the book," he says.
He extrapolated from Mitchell's text what Rhett Butler might have done or said. Mitchell may have had more of Butler's back story in her unedited manuscript, he says. "She cut a quarter of her original novel."
When asked if this will be the last official sequel, Paul Anderson Sr., an attorney for Mitchell's estate, says, "I really think it is . . . but don't hold me to that."
There could well be a movie of "Rhett Butler's People," though McCaig says he has no interest in writing the screenplay.
Publishing success or no, McCaig plans on sticking with his dogs and working on the farm.
He points to a dry stone wall, which he calls his home-improvement "poverty project."
"When I don't have two dimes to rub together," he says, "I can still work on that wall."
He plans to keep flying under the radar. He has no Wikipedia page.
And he plans on staying in Highland County. He really likes the people.
Ethel Frampton, for instance, who helps around the house some. "She's famous for her canned squirrel," he says.
On the morning that he takes his car to the shop, he pulls over on the side of Highway 250. From a scenic overlook, Highland County is a country quilt of autumnal tones -- sycamore golds, oak browns, maple reds. McCaig says he knows he is home when he sees the landscape: "It brings a tear to my eye."
