By Air Mail Ch.06

Molly and I were just playing that old game, since she's stuck in her bed here and all."

Molly smiled, "Ruthie was playing too, but ..." she held out her hand toward where six year-old Ruthie was curled up in the bed next to Molly asleep.

Terry never forgot the way that Eunice smiled then, "And the hardest thing for me this past while has been to pretend that I DON"T know who she favors. I just keep playing dumb to let her think of something else to tell me about as hints."

"Well who is this guy?" Terry growled as meanly as he could - at eleven years of age.

It set them both off laughing to each other for a minute.

"There's no guy - as you called him, for you to want to have to pummel," his grandmother smiled, "Molly's only got eyes for you.

No matter what I say about you being as good as blood kin - since that's how you've both been raised here - Molly's just as firmly adamant that she wants to marry you, though I keep telling her that you're both only young yet and that kind of thing can change by the time you're both grown."

Molly and Terry were closer than most brothers and sisters as well as being Confederate pirates and world-traveling adventurers together with Judith and Isaiah back then and Ruthie always found a place for herself in whatever they did. But though the other trappings of their young lives had fallen by the wayside over the years, there had always been their knowledge that they planned - with no conscious thought whatsoever - to remain together. Molly never spoke of it other than to Ruthie in a quiet moment, but she promised the youngest member of the group and she'd sneak her away with them if she really did have to stuff her into a suitcase.

Terry held Molly while she hugged him almost desperately - all while fighting off the want in her to burst into happy tears that he really was in her arms at last. "I'd tell you how good it is to see you again, she whispered with the slightest sniffle, "but that would be the end of me and I'd just weep over how good it feels to hold you again."

The whole time, Judith and Isaiah tried not to stare at Hunter until Terry apologized for his lapse and introduced him.

"We've heard so much about you," Isaiah smiled a little shyly as he shook Hunter's hand, "It's good to put a face to the man."

Judith nodded, though she was taken with the way that Hunter kept his hair in two long braids, "I've never been away from home before - not since Isaiah and I came here when we were very small, and we can't even remember that now, but I find that you look to me to be exactly the way that Molly told me that you must be like, from her talking to Terry and you on the telephone."

Hunter just shrugged self-consciously, "I hope that none of it was bad, what you heard - at least not any more than was necessary."

"No," Judith said shaking her head with a smile, "none of it was. Why?"

"Because he's not always this polite and civilized-looking," Terry grinned, "He does know how to cuss me out every once in a while - probably when I need it badly."

"Oh, I don't think so," Molly laughed, "You've always been so proper and polite the few times that we've spoken, Hunter."

Hunter looked down, a little more self-consciously than the first time, "I wanted to be careful," he admitted, "Terry told me how special you all are to him. That made it important to me to start off on the right foot. I'm sure that you'll all change your opinion soon enough."

"Just don't ever touch his catch when he's been fishing," Terry smiled, "That's how I found out that he can curse me out better than anybody, and all just because I dropped his two trout in the dirt."

"The only things that we'd caught all day," Hunter reminded him, "and that was just as they were cooked up right. Some things go beyond friendship."

Molly and the others laughed as she said, "Like trout!

Oh, I'm so happy to be here at last."

Terry looked around and noticed someone missing. "Where's Ruthie?" he'd asked, "Didn't she come, or did you lock her into her suitcase?"

"It almost came to that," Molly smiled, "You know how she can get sometimes."

Judith looked up at the sky wearily, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Well shouldn't we be there by now? Are we there yet? Are we gonna be there soon, and what's the matter with this old train? Can't it go any faster? We ought to be there by now. Do you think we'll be there soon?"

Molly laughed, "And that was about the way the song went, too. But I think she's maybe having a little trouble -"

"HEY!" a voice called out from the steps of the coach, "I can't get my suitcase out of the rack!"

As soon as she'd said it, Ruthie saw Terry and she groaned out of wanting to run to him, but she didn't dare leave her grip out of her sight.

"Who's that?" Hunter asked and Terry smiled, "That's Ruthie. Can you give her a hand with her bag?

Be a little careful though, she can bite unless she knows you. Though she's eighteen now so you can have her charged if she does."

He turned to Molly and asked as Hunter began to walk over, "Did you make sure to get her a rabies shot before you left?"

It caused Molly and the others to chuckle, but Hunter turned and walked backwards for a moment looking as though he wondered if there was any truth to it. As he turned around to step onto the coach, Ruthie came barreling out, her suitcase in hand and almost flying behind her and the she ended up crashing into Hunter.

Hunter didn't move much as a result, but Ruthie sure did. She was knocked backward to land on her little ass half on top of her suitcase.

Hunter reached and picked her up so quickly that Ruthie still hadn't quite finished choosing suitable words as her reaction to the collision.

"Why don'tcha watch where yer go -whOA!" was as far as she got before she found herself in Hunter's arms.

He did his best to look nonchalant as he turned just a little, still holding Ruthie with one arm, "Are you alright, Miss?"

"I ... I ... uh, ... think .. .so," she said as though in a daze, her eyes taking in Hunter's face under the worn, white Stetson.

Her eyes flicked down to catch the long braids and she smiled, "In fact, I think I'm even better than I was before, thank you very much for asking, Sir. I'm very sorry that I didn't look where I was going," she said as she tore her gaze from his face to look over her shoulder.

And then she gasped, "M-My suitcase!"

"Right here," Hunter said with a smile as he held it up to let her take it, "I think your family's waiting for you."

Ruthie was looking at him again, trying to take in what she could in case she never saw anyone this incredible to her again. A little hidden in the collar of his shirt, she just caught sight of the leather thong low down around his neck and the bear claw with carved wooden emblems on either side of it.

And as she stepped away a pace, she saw a very lean man who looked amazing to her in slim blue jeans over honest-to-God snakeskin cowboy boots.

"Ruthie!" Molly called out and Ruthie turned her head a little, "Coming,"

"I have to go," she said regretfully.

"I know," Hunter smiled with a nod, sure that he'd never liked freckles on a girl until just that moment, "You'd best head on over, Miss. They're waiting on you."

She nodded, "Forgive my asking, but ... are you ... a real -"

"Cowboy?" he asked, his smile growing, "Nope. I just dress this way for the tourists."

She smiled shyly, "That wasn't what I was ..."

"I know," he chuckled.

"RUTHIE!" Molly yelled and Ruthie said goodbye just before she turned and ran off like a shot, her suitcase flying once more, never even slowing down until she collided with Terry and hugged him so that the joints in her shoulders and armed almost popped.

Molly was a little pleased that Ruthie was wearing dungarees, for the completely unladylike way that she jumped up and hugged Terry.

"I was so afraid that I'd never see you again," she croaked as she fought back her sob.

"It's alright Ruthie," Terry whispered as he kissed her cheek, "I was out here all the time, just like my letters said. I was here teaching people."

Ruthie felt his chest expand as he drew a deep breath and let it out, "It's so good to see you all again. And I missed you so much too, Ruthie. I used to worry for you an awful lot."

He looked past Ruthie at the others and he saw Hunter standing there with a look on his face that he'd never quite seen the like of before.

"That man," she whispered, "the one that I crashed into because I was rushing, he's really good-looking and he's an ..."

"I know," Terry whispered back, "but you know back home there were-"

He felt her shake her head and it felt so good to him to be whispering with her like this again. It was one of the things that he'd missed the most and it had begun back when she was just a little girl and he was a boy who was like her older brother to her. They'd always shared this, even when she didn't need it anymore, once she'd found her self-confidence.

Right then though, she'd needed it again and so did he. The others just knew that and waited for them.

"No," she whispered, "I mean yes, but not like that man. I really liked him right off, like I could trust him. I wish I could have met him properly."

"Well I'm glad that you find him that trustworthy," Terry chuckled, "because he's my friend and business partner. And he's waiting for us to finish hugging Ruthie, because I can see that he'd like to meet you properly too."

Ruthie froze against him; her cheek-rubbing stopped instantly as she gulped, "He is? Oh my goodness."

She eased herself down and turned around with her cheeks and ears blazing while Terry tried to give her some cover by making the introductions.

She couldn't explain it, but Ruthie stood listening as it went on and from that, she learned that his name was Hunter Youngblood and to her - on him - it seemed to be about the most perfect name that she could imagine. Ruthie gave up whatever pretense she tried to hide behind eventually and just stared.

"I'm sorry for the way that I acted earlier," she said still somewhat abashed to the well-hidden mirth of the rest of her family, "I'm not usually half as silly as that."

"No," Molly grinned over at Hunter, "most of the time, she's a lot closer to deadly.

This past year, I've come close to having to go to the sheriff's office for the way that a man expresses perhaps a desire to make her acquaintance and she almost always flies at him like a hellcat as though he was questioning her heritage or upbringing."

"Those boys were making rude remarks Molly," she protested quietly, "It's not like it was for you when you were younger. Everybody there knows who I am - but they also knew that Terry wasn't at home anymore, since he'd gone to the army.

And anyway," she said, a little imperiously, "I was only doing the same things that you and Terry taught me to."

"That was for when you were little," Molly said dryly, "It's not the same thing. You're grown up now, Ruthie. You did the things that we taught you and I had to stand at the door listening to a deputy tell me that you loosened a man's teeth for him and broke his nose - even though I thought you must have done well, myself."

Ruthie looked up, "Wasn't hard. I hit him where Terry told me to a long time ago."

"How did that hurt his mouth?" Judith asked with a curious smile.

"It didn't," Ruthie said, "He bent over sudden-like and I'd already grabbed a stool to hit him across the knees with. He smacked his face against the stool."

She smiled a little, "Cracked the stool too."

Hunter began to chuckle as he held out his hand, "I'm happy to meet you Ruthie," he grinned, "I think I can admire a girl with that kind of spirit. You don't take crap from anybody, I'd guess. I like that a lot."

Ruthie was still willing her blush away, but she did smile, "I'm sorry if I was going to ask you something impolite. I didn't mean anything by it, Hunter."

He just laughed as he asked to carry her bag and maybe one of Judith's or Molly's too, "I knew that, and I didn't take it as impolite. And if it helps you to know or anything, I'm Comanche. You'll see and get to meet a few more where we're headed."

As they walked to where Hunter's truck was waiting, Ruthie looked around at some of the other people, "So, is this the Wild West or something like that? I see a few men -"

She looked a little harder in one direction, " - there's a lady over there wearing a hat like yours."

"I don't know about wild," Hunter smiled as he shifted her suitcase up to take the one of Molly's that he had in his other hand over to take off his Stetson, "but it's where we live."

He set his hat on Ruthie's head and she looked up with a sudden grin, pleased as anything at the gesture.

Hunter found himself looking into eyes as startlingly green as spring grassland and it stopped his breath for an instant. "You know what? I have a feeling that you're gonna fit right in."

As Terry drove on, looking carefully as he went in case some nocturnal animal chose this moment to dash out in front of him, he was careful not to think of how he'd been blessed, since now wasn't the time.

His family now consisted of one girl who'd been adamant that she'd be his woman from almost the time that she knew that she could one day, and as she'd prepared to leave to join him, she'd been faced with the other two who loved her and the girl that Eunice had also raised. They had two different shades of skin between them all, but they were his family and they all loved each other fiercely.

As they drove off to get to Lawton, Molly explained how she'd made use of Tom Wingham's help and together, they'd liquidated as much of Hatchett Harrow as they could. Tom took a bit as reimbursement for helping Eunice through a bad crop the year before, and Terry agreed that it was fair.

He suggested to Hunter that they stop off for dinner someplace, since the travelers had been on a train, and not an especially fast one, for almost a day. Hunter nodded and they went off to have a meal.

Isaiah and Judith got a few looks, but for the most part, they were a little surprised that the color of their skin wasn't the issue that it could have been back in Renfroe. Ruthie sat quietly trying not to appear foolish as she tried to observe Hunter covertly. After dropping them off and getting the luggage out and inside of the door, Hunter said goodnight and drove home.

With everyone tired from the trip and but not wanting to sleep just yet in the furnished house that Terry had rented for the five of them to stay in as he and Hunter set about engineering the move to wherever Hunter said that the place was, Molly presented her brother with everything that she'd been able to cobble together from the dissolution and sell-off of their old home; land, equipment, mansion and all, right down to the rich curtains from Eunice's bedroom.

On the table, she set down a bank draft drawn from the estate account in the amount of forty-eight thousand, four hundred, ninety-eight 1946 dollars.

And seventy-three cents.

Considering that you could fill a grocery cart so that you had to hold the things on top of the pile as you went for ten or eleven dollars, it was a sum of money.

Molly then set the letter from Tom as the executor down next to it and Terry saw that it was a statement of what had been sold, who to, and for how much. All that it required from Terry was his signature, accepting receipt of it.

As Terry stared at it all and then at the others, Ruthie stood up and pulled the curtains closed as Isaiah went to make sure that the doors were locked.

"The way that Eunice thought of it," Molly said as Terry noticed the four of them begin to get undressed a little slowly, "this was what you'd get one day as the last, true Hatchett when she passed on and you settled everything up.

I know that she spoke to you about seeing that I was given something and that you disagreed on the amount. I also know that she didn't leave the rest of us much at all because she hoped that the lion's share would be kept to keep the place going.

And I know that she left Ruthie nothing."

She sat down on another chair and Terry had a perfect view right up her skirt as she lifted it up at each side to unfasten the toggles holding her stockings before she rolled them off her long legs as she looked at him.

"And lastly, I know something that the rest of us don't, Terry.

I know that you lied to her.

You lied to her so that she'd agree to leave everything to you, since you promised her that you'd keep Hatchett Harrow going for as long as you could while giving us: Judith, Isaiah and I some small money."

She turned to look at the shocked faces of the rest, "I think that a lot of people something like us - who aren't related to each other by blood - who find themselves in a struggle to challenge the will and probably never would speak civilly to one another ever again.

But I knew the plan that Terry was working to. Because we planned it together back when that will was made out, when I was sixteen and Terry was nineteen."

She sighed as she stepped out of her skirt, "Terry, Tom told me how you argued that it didn't matter, that if it happened, then you'd deal it equally between us four because you said that it didn't matter to you that Judith and Isaiah weren't blood kin, that I wasn't blood kin either, but that you'd never leave any of us with less than the others."

Terry nodded, "I remember. It was maybe the only time that Grandmother and I fought over anything once I'd grown up. I could see that she thought that I was being a little idealistic and she took it as maybe an aspect left over from childhood."

He sighed, "I can understand her point of view better now.

Though it still doesn't make what she wanted right to me.

But I know that she was stuck on the notion that I'd keep Hatchett Harrow and try to go on. Even then, I disagreed with her - at first. I just wasn't loud about it.

It doesn't take a genius to see that there's no way anymore. The way that I saw it, she was fixed on the same old notion which didn't and couldn't ever work.

What I can't understand even now is how she raised us all to love each other and take care of each other always - and yet I was supposed to forget all of that and keep an old ruin going until we all walked away in poverty.

Tom and I spoke of it and you know how he loved her. He told me in a private moment that the best thing that I could ever do was to sell out for as much as I could get and then take us -"

He looked directly at Isaiah and Judith and then over at Ruthie, "all of us, and go west to try to make lives of our own instead of working ourselves to death trying to keep something alive which should have died over fifty years ago with my great-grandfather. My grandmother saw herself as someone who was still a little respected because of the family name.

I saw us as five young people trapped in an old mansion that we hardly ever got to leave and I didn't want to watch while it ate our souls as it did hers and Uncle Todd's and everyone else's. Even Tom said that it had trapped him because he loved her so much.

Like the rest of you, I didn't grow up in a huge rich mansion with paid servants seeing to my needs.

Like all of you, I grew up in a leaky old run-down plantation house that kept going out of it's own inertia and by sucking the lives out of the people trapped inside of it."

He pointed at the bank draft on the table, "That's ours, the way that I see it. It belongs to us all and if y'all don't mind too much, I'd much rather share it equally between us. I'll split it up right now if y'all want. It works out to ... twelve thousand, one hundred and twenty-four dollars and sixty-eight and one quarter cents each. You can have my quarter of a penny, if you want it.