Subject: The Crimson and the Blue
From: awright@falcon.cc.ukans.edu (Ashley Wright)
Date: 4 Nov 94 19:30:35 CDT

This story is yet another in the Wright/Dalton series, but takes place some time after Ever'buddy Loves Saturday Night. All the Wright/Dalton kids have gotten older, if not wiser, and when this story takes place, Ashley is a senior in highschool and Junior is in his freshman year at college.

The Crimson and the Blue

Ashley, still mischievous and deliciously childlike at age 17, was running across the meadow to the ramshackle Victorian era manse that she called home. The trees surrounding the road and house were ablaze in various hues of red, orange and yellow, and the dried leaves crackled and crunched under her Converse high top sneakers as she breathed deeply, savoring the delicious smoky air that spoke of bonfires and warm, crackling hearths and was, for her, the essence of fall.

Her backpack was slung over one narrow shoulder and her arms pumped energenically as the girl ran at a rabbit's pace through the trees and jumped the little creek back of the house, clearing it in a single bound. Ashley was especially eager to get home today, not only because it was the start of a three day weekend, but because today her beloved cousin Junior was coming home from college.

Why Junior ever decided to go to the University of Kansas, Ashley would never know, she was determined to go to a real school-- Ole Miss, Alabama State, or maybe even UT, but KU?? She had tried all last year to talk Junior out of what was surely the biggest mistake of his life, but he was adamant that he wanted to go be a Jayhawk. When Ash came up to visit him the second weekend of school, she finally realized what had clinched his decision. Junior, ever the party boy, loved the carefree, wild and crazy atmosphere that the midwestern school provided. Living in the Kappa Sig house, KU's official "Animal House", Junior had even more opportunities to cut loose and cause trouble.

Ashley was amazed that guys in professional schools- pre-law, pre-med, even pre-pharmacy would be so wild. Sure, she'd known plenty of wild boys back home, but they were all rednecks and most never got beyond high school. Some of these boys were from really high-class families- she actually met one fella at her first ever frat party named Preston! Since that first weekend, when Ash had gotten her first taste of college life, she had stayed in touch with Junior through letters and his regular Sunday night collect phone call, and she'd been able to get up to the school on three home football game weekends to visit, so she was pretty much attuned to what was going on in her cousin's new life. She suspected, however, that her folks might be in for a surprise, particularly Junior's straightlaced and no-nonsense Daddy, her Uncle Luke.

She raced up the back porch steps and threw open the screen door, rushed into the warmth and coziness of the kitchen where her Mama was putting in the celebratory welcome home meat loaf, and gave her a big bear hug.

"Oh!" Lisbeth gasped, as her daughter's wory arms encircled her from behind, "Good Lord, Ashley Elizabeth, what're you tryin' to do, squeeze the life outta me?! You're home early for a change," her mother observed, giving her daughter an affectionate swat on the seat of her faded Levi's. Ashley opened the refrigerator, covered with family photos, school papers and her little nieces and nephews' crayon drawings, and took out a Coke. "Is Junior here, yet??" Ash asked eagerly, twisting off the cap and slurping down a few thirsty swallows before drawing the back of her hand across her lips. Lisbeth shook her head no, and when her daughter stamped her foot impatiently, she admonished her, "Now, settle down, Ashley. He called at noon to say he was leaving school, and he'll be here before supper. Now, why don't you go upstairs and get started on your homework?"

Ashley pouted, but decided that she might as well, she had nothing better to do and at least her mother wasn't making her help with the chores. She clattered up the back stairs like a steam engine, raced past the room her sisters, Madeline and Rose Marie, the 15 year old twins shared, and dashed up to the third floor which served as a tv room and had doubled as playroom and secret clubhouse for her unruly siblings and herself when they were younger. Ashley's little brother Jack, who was 13, was sitting on the floor playing Turbo Streetfighter II on NES. Her absolutely adorable little sister, Ruth Anne, who had just turned 9, was practicing the latest routine she'd learned in tap class, her shiny black tap shoes clattering away on the wood floor. The racket was deafening.

"Ruth Anne, would you kindly jump clod hopperin' around like a dang cow so that I can concentrate," Jack demanded after he'd been killed for the fourth time in a row. His little sister pursed her perfect Cupid's bow lips and stuck out her little pink tongue at him. Jack was about ready to jump up and pound his annoying sibling, but Ashley caught the smaller girl around the waist and swept her off her feet, shrieking.

"Hey, Jackie, hey, Ruthie, I'm home! I don't hafta go to school for three whole days," Ashley bragged, tickling her helplessly giggling baby sister with one hand as she held the girl in the crook of her arm.

"Put me down, put me down, I'm gonna pee!!" Shirley Temple probably never uttered these words, but Ruth Anne was desparate. Jack offered Ashley a braces-studded grin and complained, "That little brat has like t'drove me crazy for the last hour and a half. Throw her out the window!" Ashley finally relented and let her baby sister down, the girl retaliated by throwing a tap shoe at her head- it missed and bounced off a tattered poster of the KC Chiefs instead. Ashley made a threatening lunge for the bratty younger girl, who shrieked and escaped downstairs, yelping, "Mama! Mama!! Ashley an' Jack're tryin' ta hurt me!!!"

Ashley and her brother exchanged weary glances and he offered her the other controller. She threw her bookbag, crammed with textbooks, papers, assignments and notes from friends, down on the battered sofa and sat on the floor beside her brother. For some reason, maybe because she was the baby, or maybe because she had a lot of older siblings who were even ornerier than she was, or maybe because she was sneaky as hell, Ruth Anne always seemed to get away with murder. Oh, she got the occaisional spanking when she was unlucky enough to smart off and Mama was in a bad mood, but it was nothing like the strict disciplinary regimine her siblings had endured. Ashley longed to put the little snot over her knee for a few good whacks to the seat of her ruffled panties, but knew if she dared, she'd be in for a serious whipping. This seemed unfair to Ash, who remembered her older sister Jaime and cousin Nathan had both been given permission carte blanche to spank her and her siblings growing up, but Mama and Daddy held the opinion that Nathan and Jaime had been a lot more responsible when they were Ashley's age.

"You never saw them gettin' their butts blistered when they were seniors in high school," Mama would say, with flashing eyes, and Ashley would have the sense to shut up. She was not proud of the fact that at age 17, she was probably the only member of her senior class who still got over the knee spankings from both parents and her uncle on a regular, almost weekly, basis. Ashley had gained 2 inches in height and 5 pounds in weight over the last 5 years, but she still looked to be about 14, and she had never made the transition to grownup, ladylike behavior. Little Ash was still a wild and crazy tomboy, and she now got spanked more than her 15 year old younger sisters. She didn't mind the spankings so much, but if her classmates were to fight out that the most entertaining, fun loving and fearless memeber of the Senior class still had to take down her britches or pull up her skirt and get her little 27" bottom warmed for bad behavior, it would have been hard to explain. She already had 3 members of the football team, a math teacher and the girls' volleyball captain teasing her that they'd like to spank her cute little butt; she could just imagine what it'd be like if the whole school knew.

Ashley got along with her youngest brother well, but they still didn't have the special friendship she'd shared with Junior. A lot of boys in Jack's class were in love with her- something about the mischievous girl was just irresistable to the local seventh graders. Ashley and Jack played several rounds of Streetfighter, and were so engrossed in the action that she was taken by surprise when she heard the familiar voice shout, "Aunt Lisbeth! Ashley! Everybody, I'm ho-ome!!" A glance at the Elvis clock on the wall revealed, to Ashley's utter amazement, that it was already 5:30! Junior was home!!

Ashley and Jack left the tv on and ran downstairs, shoving past each other playfully and burst into the small, crowded kitchen to see their beloved cousin, beaming and downing a Dr.Pepper as he balanced Ruth Anne on his shoulders. As soon as Ashley came in the room, Junior immeadiately let his youngest cousin down and ran to pick up his old partner in crime for a rib crushing bear hug. Ashley giggled in delight and kissed her cousin's chilly, wind reddened cheek as he twirled her around twice before putting her down.

Talk about a sight for sore eyes! Junior, at age 19, was a tall, thin 6'4 and the very spit'n'image of his Daddy. His reddish-blonde hair was long and shaggy, his square jaw was blue with five o'clock shadow, and he sported an earring, but the deep blue eyes, sparkling with wit and mischief, and the scattering of golden freckles across the nose and the widely smiling mouth with the straight white teeth were all the same as they'd always been. Junior was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned across the front with "Frank Zappa for President" and had a grimy red and white flannel shirt draped over his broad shoulders. He wore dirty blue jeans and black boots, and a baseball cap with what looked suspiciously like a marijuana leaf stitched across it completed the ensemble.

"Well, Junior, we're certainly glad you made it home alright, Ashley's been about to bust, she's been so excited," Lisbeth remarked, slapping the boy's hand as he reached for a brownie, "uh-uh, buster, those are for after dinner!" Still attractive and often mistaken for younger than her 37 years, Lisbeth was beautiful when she smiled. "You haven't changed a bit, have you?"

Junior smiled and caught Ashley's eye with a mischievous wink. He really hadn't changed much, except to become even wilder. Last time she'd visited him, they'd gone to 5 parties in 2 days, and Junior confessed he hadn't been to classes in 2 1/2 weeks. Jack had climbed up on the table and tugged his older cousin's cap off his head, and he was asking questions a mile a minute, to which the older boy was responding as fast as he could.

"What're those guys in your frat house like, Junie? Are they all Yankees?? Any basketball players in your frat? Have you got yourself a tattoo, yet? Or any of them nose rings or nipple rings?? How're the girls? Do ya have a bunch o' girlfriends??" the skinny pubescent boy rattled off the queries like he was participating in a police interrogation. Junior at last gave up on trying to keep up and just laughed, and caught his wiry younger cousin under his arm in a headlock, and began playfully giving him a dutch rub. Jack's Mama swatted his backside and ordered him to get off the table, then said to Junior, "Why don't you go out back to the shop and surprise your Daddy. He still thinks you won't get here 'til 8:00, and he's sure anxious to see you!" Junior smiled at his aunt, she'd been a surrogate mother to him growing up, and he knew how she cared for her widowed older brother. He released Jack's head and hoisted Ash on his back , preparrying to carry her horsie-style out to the shop. She'd always gotten a lot of spankings from Uncle Luke growing up, but she was still always his special pet. Ash had been hanging back, watching her family's antics as an amused spectator. She knew she'd have plenty of time to spend with Junior, just the two of them, later- and talk about the freedom of college life and whether or not those fraternities paddled their pledges like everyone said.

Junior was stopped in his tracks halfway out the kitchen door, however, by his Daddy and older brother Nathan entering the kitchen from the front. Luke Dalton was a rough, grizzled man who was still in his physical prime at age 41, and whose own sandy hair had just started to grey a little at the sideburns, no doubt due to the antics of his ornery young'uns. Nathan, at 22, was a shorter, slighter version of his Daddy, who only came up to his little brother's chin, but was nonetheless no shrimp himself. Days spent working out in Luke's auto body shop had left both men with strong, calloused (and at the moment, filthy) hands, bulging biceps, and a no-nonsense outlook on life. These were not men for whom higher philosophical thought was an issue. Their lives were spent dealing with the little details of life- and they had neither the interest nor the energy to pursue the problems of mankind's existance.

"Daddy!" Junior exclaimed happily, and his father cracked a John Wayne-esqe grin and pounded his youngest son heartily on the shoulder.

"You're early," he exclaimed, pleased, "I thought yore last class wasn't over until 3:30." suddenly, the older man's brow knit, and his pleased countenance clouded, "You didn't skip class, did you, boy?"

"Well, I figured you wouldn't want me driving here in the dark," Junior began, immeadiately he knew by the look on his Pa's face that this was the wrong answer. Luke put his greasy hands on his Levi's clad hips, and Junior hurriedly continued, "Anyway, Pa, it's okay, it was only Biology- it's a big ole lecture class with like a hundrid people, they don't even take attendance--"

"I don't give a damn if there're 300 kids in the class, Junior, you need t'be there every day! How the hell d'ya expect t'learn what they cover in the class, if'n' you don't-"

"Dad," Junior broke in with a slight hint of amused exhasperation, "It's okay. There's other fellas in my pledge class that're in the same class as me, and I can always git the notes from one o' them." Luke still looked displeased, but since this was the first time in over 10 weeks he'd seen his youngest son, he couldn't stay mad for long.

"What the hell have you done t'yourself, Junior," Nathan exclaimed, "do they all look like that up there at ole KU??"

"Some of 'em are even funnier looking," Ash piped up, intending to defend her cousin, but it came off as a backhanded compliment that served to get her swatted, her little rear being an easy target for Mama's wooden spoon- elevated as she was, hanging on Junie's broad back.

"You've even got yourself a damn earring," Nathan exclaimed, "next I suppose you'll dye your hair purple and get yoreself a Mohawk or soemthin'."

"Yeah, well girls go for an earring and long hair a lot quicker up to my school than they do for that Forrest Gump haircut you got there, buddy," Junior retorted, "and it's good t'see you can still wear them ole bib style overalls you've been wearing since high school- reckon that saves ya money." Nathan and Junior were staring each other down, Junior was smiling, but his eyes glinted cold steel. Nathan'smuscular fists were balled at his sides. "Lissen you smart-ass, you may think you're a big man, but to me you're still just a little pain in the-"

"Boys!" Luke admonished, "Kee-rist, can't the two of you even be in the same room for 5 minutes without gittin' on each other?? Now, settle down and behave yourselves, or I'll take you both out t'the shed."

The logistics of Luke's ability to force his fully grown sons over his lanky leg for a whipping may have been unrealistic, but from the tone of his voice, nobody dared test him. Junior went to the refrigerator instead, and fetched his Pa a beer, which he cracked open while still maintaining a look that bespoke disaster if he was pushed too far.

"Now, we haven't gotten to see Junior in a long time, and I'd hate to spoil this weekend by having to whip both your asses, but you keep testin' my patience and I'll have yore britches down so fast it'll make your heads spin! Do I make myself clear??" Luke threatened. Junior and Nathan shuffled their feet, exchanged reproachful looks and answered with sullen, "Yessir"s.

"That goes for everyone," Lisbeth added, looking Ashley directly in the eye, "don't you go thinkin' the rules are any different just 'cause Junior's home for a while. Now, ya'll go wash up, Cody'll be home in a few minutes and we'll have dinner. Junie, I made your favorite."

The kids started to hustle to the washroom adjacent the kitchen, but Luke put out a massive hand and stopped Ashley short. He stood before her and her favorite cousin and warned them, "That goes especially for you two. Don't think I'm so old I don't recollect the devilment you two used to get up to when you put your cussed ornery heads together. Junior, you might be a big man up at that school of yours, but when you're in this house you just remember to do as I say less'n you wanna get your skinny butt blistered. I still have your old paddle, and don't think you're too big for me t'use it."

Junior swallowed hard, and it was clear he was making an effort not to grin. He met his Daddy's stern gaze earnestly, and promised, "Yessir, I'll remember that." Luke pointed one grimy finger at Ashley's nose to make his point, "And as for you, Missy, if you give us the least bit of trouble this weekend, I promise you I'll take your little britches down and spank your bare bottom, and I don;t give a damn where we are. I've had just about enough of you actin' wilder'n' a March hare in public lately."

The warning issued, the two mischievous cousins were allowed to go wash up. Junior lathered up his hands copiously, while Ash merely rinsed hers with a teeny bit of water and wiped the dirt off on her jeans.

"You think he means it?" she asked cautiously, when she was sure her grumpy uncle was out of earshot. "You think he'd really whip us?? He's never whipped Nathan, since he graduated high school, not even when he's a real pain in the ass."

Junior was carefully arranging his tousled coppery locks, and muttered, "I dunno, but I sure as hell am not gonna test him and find out! So, where's the party tonight??"

"Boone's farm," Ashley replied, surprised that her cousin could say in one breath how he intended to behave, then turn around and start making obvious plans to sneak out and go carrousing. Before she could voice these opinions, however, she heard her Daddy, Cody's, jovial shout of, "Howdy, everybody! Where's my darlin's to gimme me some sugar??" and the sound of her sisters and brother running to hug him and kiss his cheek.

to be continued...

Jackrabbit