Part 7: Frank’s Plane
The morning arrived with silver skies and a low hum on the wind.
Walter stood on the porch, one hand resting on the rail, the other cradling a tin mug of lukewarm coffee. The trees were still. The river, just out of sight beyond the ridge, lay beneath its blanket of ice and time.
In the distance, the unmistakable buzz of Frank’s bush plane threaded through the silence.
Ruby joined him, her coat zipped to the chin, hair tucked neatly beneath her hat. She held nothing in her hands—just stood beside him, calm and unreadable.
“You sure you’re ready?” she asked.
Walter exhaled through his nose. “No. But we’re never ready, are we?”
“Sometimes we’re not supposed to be.”
Frank’s plane touched down with a stuttering bounce on the icy strip below the ridge. It taxied slowly, snow dust rising in its wake, then came to rest near the old supply shed Arthur kept by the edge of the clearing.
Frank stepped out, waved, and began his walk up the path.
Arthur came out of the cabin, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Looks like your ride’s here,” he said.
Walter nodded. “Looks like it.”
He turned to Ruby, expecting her to begin gathering the bags.
But she didn’t move.
Instead, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small envelope. “I wrote you a letter,” she said, holding it out to Arthur.
He blinked, surprised. “A letter?”
“Something to remember us by,” she smiled. “And something I didn’t know I needed to write until I sat by the river.”
Arthur took the envelope with both hands. “Thank you.”
Then Ruby turned to Walter, her face soft but resolute. “I’m not going back. Not yet.”
Walter blinked. “You’re what?”
“I’m staying a little longer.”
His brow furrowed. “Rubes…”
“I need more time. Time to feel him near. To let it all settle. Huck, your father, this place. It’s all still too loud inside me.”
Walter stood frozen.
“You should go,” she said. “Get back home. I’ll follow in a few days. Maybe a week. I’ll call.”
He stared at her. And in that moment, something old in him wanted to argue—to resist.
But he didn’t.
Because deep down, he understood.
She wasn’t running.
She was finishing something of her own.
He took her hands. “Promise me you won’t stay too long.”
“I won’t,” she whispered. “Just long enough to listen.”
Arthur nodded, approving silently.
Frank reached them, brushing snow from his sleeves.
“We’ve got a good window,” the pilot said. “Fog’s gone. Sky’s steady.”
Walter turned to Ruby again. She reached up, adjusted his collar like she always did before every trip they ever took.
Then she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek.
“Tell Kentucky I’ll be home soon,” she said.
He didn’t trust himself to speak. Just nodded.
Arthur helped him carry the satchel to the plane.
Before stepping in, Walter paused. The harmonica was still in his coat pocket. So was the photo. And the notebook. The box, though—he’d left that with Ruby.
Some things needed to stay behind.
Frank fired up the engine. Walter buckled in. The plane rumbled, turned, and began its run down the makeshift runway.
Ruby stood beside Arthur, her gloved hand raised in farewell.
As the wheels lifted, and the trees dropped away beneath them, Walter looked down at the clearing—at the cabin, the river’s edge, the woman he loved standing small in a vast, white world.
And he smiled.
Not because he was leaving something behind—
—but because something had been returned.