Storming

Thirteen

SURVIVAL RIGHT NOW depended on how many feet were between Hitch and the ground. There were a lot of other factors, but that was the only important one. Provided he had enough room to recover from the Jenny’s spin and pull her into a glide, he could land her deadstick. Even that hayfield would look like a good landing strip right now.

He wrestled with the stick and the rudder pedals, fighting the stubborn Jenny—shorn of the Hisso’s power—back to level. The storm had slacked off considerably. The wind was headed in just one direction, the clouds had lightened to gray, and the rain was barely spitting.

He eased the plane into a shallow dive and prayed for the clouds to clear before he reached the ground. God must have been listening, because the clouds broke apart a good two hundred feet above dirt. The hayfield wasn’t anywhere in sight. He’d lost all his bearings up there, and who knew how long he’d been unconscious, although it didn’t feel like it could have been more than a minute.

He swiveled his head all around, leaning over both sides of the cockpit. Without the engine running, all he could hear was the wind whistling past, thrumming the wing wires into that eerie song they sometimes sang. Thunder rumbled, but it was away off in the distance.

The broad swell of Scotts Bluff—the crag that gave the town its name—scored the horizon behind him. Town had to be just a dozen miles or so to the north. If it wasn’t for the lingering clouds, he would have been able to see it.

A road, empty of traffic and wide enough to accommodate the Jenny, appeared to his right. He guided her over and held his breath as she glided lower and lower. He got her lined up just in time, dropped her to the ground, and let her roll to a dusty stop.

Ignoring the drum of pain in his forehead, he hopped out to check the engine over. The fuel line needed fixing. After that whole adventure, he was happy that was all it was. His legs wobbled a bit, and the ground felt funny underfoot—like it always did after a crazy stunt.

Nobody could tell him he wasn’t lucky. He closed his eyes long enough to huff an exhale. Then he shook the jitters from his hands and got the fuel line straightened out. That done, he gave the propeller a couple heaves, and took off once more.

The hayfield was empty, except for the scorched hayrick, so he circled back to town and landed the Jenny on a backstreet. Scattered tree limbs and broken glass lay everywhere. The storm had hit hard, but the damage seemed to be mostly the result of the wind. No hail, at least.

He left the Jenny and started jogging. He’d seen a hospital on Main Street—a smart-looking three-story building that was brand new or close to. If there was any kind of good news about Jael, that’s where they would have taken her. His stomach cramped. He should never have let her climb on his wings. He should never have flown close enough to that hayrick to let her even think about jumping off.

Unless… had she really pulled that lightning bolt toward her?

Why? To protect him?

That definitely made him feel better.

What had happened out there? What had he crashed into up in the storm? For that matter, where had the storm come from? And where had it gone?

As he reached the hospital, he scanned the sky. The clouds were already scattering. Blue peeked around their ragged corners.

Inside the crowded waiting area at the front, people packed the few chairs along the walls. More stood, supporting friends and relatives. There was crying and shouting. A harried nurse in a white cap manned the front desk. She seemed to be spending most of her time scribbling and shaking her head.

The place didn’t look set up to hold more than a couple dozen patients, and judging by the glimpse through the door into the open ward beyond, three times that many already jammed the ground floor. Nebraskans were used to summer storms. But this one had upset everybody more than usual.

He leaned over two people to catch the nurse’s eye. “Jael!” he raised his voice above the hubbub. “I’m looking for a girl named Jael! She was hit by lightning.” Or close to it, at any rate.

The nurse gave him a harassed shake of her head.

He filled his lungs to try again.

To his left, a dog barked.

He turned.

On the far side of the ward, in the open doorway of what looked to be a single-patient room, Taos sat beside the dark-haired kid who’d come by yesterday for a ride. Nan and Aurelia loomed behind him. And behind them, sitting on the edge of a bed, was Jael.

She gave him the tiniest crook of a smile.

Thank the Lord for miracles. The breath he’d gathered left his lungs in a whoof.

He pushed through the crowd and weaved his way through the ward to her room. “You’re alive… Shoot, kiddo, give me a heart attack next time, why don’t you?”

She slumped, both hands braced against the mattress edge. Dark circles deepened her eyes. Her bobbed hair, light brown before, was streaked with silver.

Other than that, she looked downright scenic.

“You all right?” he asked.

She nodded. “Now am fine.” She jutted her chin at something in the big room. “I have acquainted your brother. They are saying he brought me to this place.”

Hitch glanced back.

Griff, his deputy’s badge glinting against his shoulder, was working the crowd, trying to calm the folks down. He caught Hitch’s eye, held it for five full seconds, then turned away. He looked beat. Who could blame him? He’d probably been up all night with the murder. And now here he was again, hard at it.

“And then I once more acquainted your friends from store.” Jael nodded to Nan and Aurelia. She lowered her gaze and smiled. “And Volltair.”

The little boy—he was about eight or so, with wide ears and a nose full of freckles—looked back and forth between Jael and Hitch. His eyes were big and excited. He kept one hand on Taos’s head.

Nan reached for Walter’s shoulder. She stared at Hitch, practically dragging his gaze back up to hers. “This is unbelievable. It’s amazing she survived.”

Hitch shifted his weight and pushed his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, well, thanks for looking out for her.”

“I do what needs doing, Hitch Hitchcock.”

“I know you do,” he said. “You always did.”

Her cheeks flushed, and for that one second, she looked, inexplicably, like she might burst into tears. She pushed Walter forward. “Come along.” She beckoned for Aurelia. “We need to go check what’s happened to the farm.”

Aurelia patted Jael’s cheek. She sighed. “I’m so sorry you don’t have to stay in the hospital. I was going to buy you a violet nightgown.” She looked at Hitch and tilted her head from one side to the other, considering. “I know something. But of course you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I might.”

“Another storm is coming. I know. I was told. And if there is one storm, there will be two.” She inclined her head, like a queen after a pronouncement.

He touched her shoulder. “That’s true as true. I believe you, Aurelia.”

She blinked benevolently, then wafted out after Nan and the boy.

Hitch closed the door and turned back to Jael. “This is nuts. You know that, right?” He felt like he was going to explode right out of his skin. His forehead pounded where he’d hit it against the cockpit rim. The whirl of his thoughts, most of them ending in question marks, didn’t help one bit. “Everything that’s gone on today—everything that’s gone on since you about fell on my plane the other night—that stuff does not happen. All right?”

She pointed to his forehead and opened her mouth in what might have been concern.

“This guy Zlo,” he said. “Who is he? How’s he doing that stuff with the storm and the wind and the lightning? Did he do that? Did he send the lightning deliberately?”

She eased up off the bed and stepped toward him. “Your head. You have blood.”

“What you did with the pendant, you did that on purpose. Didn’t you? You took the hit on purpose?”

“It did not hit me. It just… was surrounding me.”

Which explained why she wasn’t all crispy.

“And how exactly does that work?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Lightning is giving much danger to… Schturming, just as much as Groundsworld. So Nestor is letting me make changes to _yakor_—to direct lightning—and maybe to give protection.” She tilted a sheepish smile. “It is only half working.”

“I noticed.”

Heck, why not? After everything that had happened today, a lightning puller/protector thing seemed almost the most believable.

“Well,” he said, “if it attracts lightning, then do me a favor and don’t take it in a plane ever again.”

She picked up a rolled-up bandage from the table beside the bed and reached to dab it against his forehead. It came away streaked with red, and she dabbed again. She raised her other hand to prod his forehead with a fingertip.

“Ow!” He grabbed her hand reflexively. What she was doing caught up with his brain. “You’re doctoring me? You’re the one who got hit—or surrounded—or whatever by lightning.”

She positively blushed. Embarrassed she’d been caught fussing? Or embarrassed she was still alive when her insides should be scorched?

She pulled free and lowered herself to the bed’s edge once more.

He backed up to lean against the door and watched her, arms crossed. He made himself take in a deep breath.

Okay, so there was something up there that could command lightning. Probably not the best thing to have happening just before an airshow.

He dug around for the right words to frame this crazy question he had to ask. “I went straight up into that storm. Ran smack into something.” He pointed to his head. “That’s when this happened. And then I was in a long room full of supplies, and Zlo and a bunch of other people were there.” He eyed her. “That was Schturming, wasn’t it?”

She gave one tight nod, then busied herself straightening the tray of instruments on the side table.

“Well, what is Schturming?” It sure as Moses wasn’t the big bomber he’d been halfway expecting.

More fiddling. Then she looked him in the eye. Her pupils were tiny, the silver of her irises practically engulfing them. “If Zlo has control, he will use power wrongly—against my people. He will make more days like today. Worse days, even.” She stood back up. “I am going to go home. I must find way home on any plane, and I will give stop to him.”

“Why? From the sounds of it, folks up there haven’t been treating you too good.”

She jutted her chin. “Zlo was killing Nestor. And… someone has to give stop to him.”

Her determination was about as real as it got. But what was one woman—even one as apparently indestructible as she was—going to be able to do?

A thought occurred. “This all isn’t your fault somehow, is it?”

“No.”

But she was still headed back up there, sure as shooting. She’d get herself killed. People who could zap you with lightning weren’t people you wanted to be messing with. She’d be better off staying down here.

“Maybe you should back up a little,” he suggested. “Catch your breath. Most people would say getting hit by lightning is way above and beyond the call of duty.”

“I did not get hit. And this I must do. If Zlo is able to do these things he did today, it has to mean he has at least killed our _glavni_—our leader—and Enforcement _Brigada._” She raised her chin; her nostrils flared. “I will never be free, I will never be happy, if I leave my people in danger.”

He wouldn’t know about that. His people were only in danger so long as he was around.

“Being free is a harder thing to find than you might think.”

“Yes. But I will not ever gain it by running away.”

In his experience, life wasn’t in the habit of making things that clear cut. But he bit his tongue. “Who are your people? What are they flying around in up there?”

The glimpse he’d gotten from his cockpit had been of a legitimate _room_—plank walls and floors. And the people inside of it hadn’t exactly looked like crew. Their clothing hadn’t been familiar, but it hadn’t seemed to be any kind of uniform. That might mean they were closer to being passengers. But since when did passengers have to help with stowing the supplies?

The whole thing had seemed awful permanent. That explained her talk of it being “home” and the fact that people would be up there long enough to need burial rituals. Even still, flight and permanence didn’t exactly belong in the same sentence.

She shook her head, almost apologetically. “I cannot tell you. It is not for Groundsmen to be knowing.”

Right. He’d heard that one before. “Tell me this then—how do you figure on finding Zlo?”

She slipped a hand into her pants pocket and fisted it around something. “He will find me maybe.”

Ah, that wasn’t so good. After the airshow maybe he’d go hunting, just to satisfy his own curiosity. But right now, the last thing he or the airshow needed was a crazy madman in a cloud machine.

Truthfully, Zlo’s coming back to find Jael didn’t seem like the best thing that could happen to her either.

They looked at each other. From beyond the door, the bustle of the hospital filtered in.

His pulse beat a steady rhythm against his bruised forehead. His muscles all felt like they were starting to sag right off his bones. The excitement was almost gone, and all he was left with was a huge desire for his bedroll and someplace dry to unroll it.

She was probably wanting the exact same thing right about now. But she looked a far sight better than he felt.

He clucked. “Anybody ever tell you you’ve got some guts?”

She knit her brows and laid a hand on her stomach. “Guts?”

“Courage. Maybe a little more than your share of insanity too.” He offered a grin. “But then I’m hardly one to call the kettle black.”

The line between her eyebrows deepened.

He stood up from the door. “I’m just saying, you’re a brave and crazy person. Smart too.” Everything she’d done out there today had been calculated. She made her decisions—the right decisions, as things had turned out—and acted on them without a second thought.

For some strange reason, the image that flashed through his mind was of what Celia would have looked like if she’d been the one standing on the wings of his plane today. Part of him almost laughed. Celia had hated planes. Never wanted to go near them. Partly, she’d just been worried about her health—she was always worried about something. And partly, she’d been maybe a little jealous of them.

She’d never have been able even to dream of doing anything like Jael had just done.

He tamped the thought away. Celia’d been her own person, with her own strengths. She’d hardly been alone in not being able to count wing walking and lightning dodging amongst her foremost talents.

But Jael… There was something about her. She surely hadn’t been born for a life with her feet nailed to the ground. True, she didn’t know much of anything about anything. But she could learn. Earl himself had said she’d picked up the workings of the engine fast enough. With a little training, she might really be able to do something in the air that was worth watching.

He hauled himself up short. No, the last thing in the world he needed right now was another mouth to feed—especially a mouth belonging to someone who needed a heap of training.

Jael cocked her head and looked him up and down. “And you,” she said. “You are brave man too.” She pushed up from the bed and limped past him as he opened the door. She tossed him a half-teasing, half-knowing glance. “But not crazy.”

If that was her way of saying everything he’d seen up there in the storm wasn’t a hallucination after all, it was a sight less comforting than she probably meant it to be.

He could always pack up the Jennies and leave. But he didn’t scare that easy. Besides, where something smelled this funny, there was bound to be opportunities on the rise. He’d never been one to pass that up.

*

As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who smelled an opportunity.

Back out on the street, people crowded around a white-suited man standing in the bed of a rusty truck. Livingstone. He was gesticulating—hat in one hand, walking stick in the other—and hollering something.

If anything, the storm would be bad publicity for the airshow, since the pilots could hardly be expected to fly if this weather persisted. As if Hitch’s stomach needed any more encouragement to be queasy.

He took Jael’s elbow and guided her over.

Matthew and J.W. stood behind the crowd.

As Hitch approached, Matthew glanced back. “Well, now, you two look a little worse for the wear.”

J.W. didn’t turn from watching Livingstone. “Don’t we all?”

“What’s the damage?” Hitch asked.

“Pretty much what you see,” Matthew said. “Downed branches, broken windows. Heard a tractor got flipped outside of town. Some woman got hit by lightning.”

Beside Hitch, Jael shifted.

Word was bound to get around, but nobody knew who she was, so if she wanted to keep it mum, she probably could. He nudged the back of her wrist as reassurance.

J.W. glanced over his shoulder and gave Jael a long glance, then he looked Hitch in the eye. “Something’s not right about all this. Storm like that, out of nowhere? And folks are talking. Lots of strange people seen in town today. Fallon Brothers and a couple other shops got robbed.”

“And you think these strangers caused the storm?”

J.W.’s gaze drifted back to Jael. Then he shrugged and faced forward again. “’Course not.”

“Well, something is going on,” Matthew said. “I heard more than one person say they saw these strangers rising into the sky, like angels on Judgment Day. After all these bodies they’ve been finding, it seems a mite too coincidental.”

Hitch cleared his throat. “I’m sure there’s a more practical explanation.”

J.W. pointed at Livingstone. “That’s what your popinjay friend thinks too.”

“Ladies and gen-tle-men!” Livingstone drew out every syllable, like a carnival barker. “I propose this is no ordinary storm! I propose something is up there!”

Hitch frowned. What was Livingstone up to?

“I propose,” Livingstone drawled, “to personally deduce the solution to this mystery. The aeronauts who have come into your midst will search the skies and penetrate the heart of this labyrinthine enigma!”

Publicity indeed. Hitch had to clap along with the others, out of respect for Livingstone’s theatrics if nothing else. No way Livingstone was actually buying into the idea that something was up there. But it was too good a story not to take advantage of.

J.W. grunted. “Hmp. And I just bet he’s behind it all.”

The buzz of conversation rose even higher.

Along the sidewalk, the crowd parted, and Griff strode up to the truck. He gestured for Livingstone to get down. His voice drifted out to where Hitch stood. “This is all nonsense, and there’s no reason to go upsetting people any further.”

Griff faced the crowd. He was hatless, and his dark blond hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked young and earnest and tired, but his voice was weighted with confidence. “It’s just a storm. Lord knows, we’ve had our share of freak storms before. So go on home, clean up the damage. It’ll all be right.”

The crowd responded. Most of them acted like they recognized him. They nodded to him and started to disperse.

Seemed his little brother had grown up just fine without him. Maybe all the better for Hitch’s being gone. The twist in Hitch’s chest was bittersweet.

“Indeed,” Livingstone said. “Heed these good words. And allay your fears. My pioneers of the sky will safeguard your children!”

Speaking of opportunities…

Griff scowled at Livingstone and practically hauled him down.

“Well now, he’s full of the blarney, ain’t he?” J.W. said.

Hitch grunted.

Livingstone could have no idea there was really something to be found up there. But after a public declaration like that, he had just about granted hero status to any pilot who did find something.

Hero pilots got easy jobs and better money—as all the war veterans could tell you.

Had to be a way to use that to his advantage. Maybe Hitch could find the dad-ratted thing. If he could figure out what it was, maybe get it to land… _That_’d be publicity like Livingstone wasn’t even dreaming of.

And if they could get Zlo arrested in the process, that would work out all the better.

As it so happened, Hitch was the only pilot who’d had his plane in the air this afternoon, and surely he was the only one who’d glimpsed _Schturming_—much less crash-landed on it.

That meant he had a head start on every other pilot. And he had Jael.

He turned to look for her. “What do you think?”

The spot by his elbow, where she’d been a second ago, was nothing but empty air.

He looked around, but she’d plumb vanished. She had a knack for that, seemed like.

Across the street, Griff stood speaking to people and guiding them to disperse. Every few seconds, he’d glance over slowly, as if he were just casually scanning the road. But he always scanned right past Hitch.

Might be he’d cooled down a bit after having his say last night. A man had a right to blowing off some temper after holding it for nine years. Hitch couldn’t blame him for that.

But still Hitch hesitated. He needed to march over there and say something. But everything he’d had to say he’d said last night. Didn’t seem it would make much of a difference saying it all over again by the light of day.

The last of the crowd filtered away, and Griff hesitated too. He leaned back on one leg, ready to take a step.

Now or never.

Hitch pocketed his hands and ambled over. “So… I hear you met Jael.”

Griff eyed him, up and down. He looked like a man trying to keep his sternness all closed in around himself. “The girl who about got hit by the lightning?”

Hitch nodded. “She’s the one I came to you about last night. And that guy Zlo I was telling you about? He was out there this afternoon. That’s why she was in that field—she was running from him.”

Griff frowned. “She didn’t say anything about that.”

“Her English isn’t so good.” Hitch weighed his words. Griff just might help with Zlo, since that was about Jael, not Hitch. All they needed to do was keep Zlo out of the picture long enough for Hitch to win the show—and maybe even long enough for Jael to help him make something interesting out of this opportunity with Schturming. But the specifics didn’t matter. Getting Griff to help him with anything might be enough to break down this wall between them.

Hitch looked Griff in the eye. “Zlo’s no joke. He was there last night where the body fell.”

Griff frowned. “You didn’t tell the sheriff that.”

“I don’t tell the sheriff a lot of things.” He had to rein back anger on that one. “But you will keep an eye out for Zlo? If he comes back?”

“That’s my job, isn’t it?”

And Griff always did his job, was that it? While Hitch went gallivanting irresponsibly around the country?

Seemed like they’d covered that ground last night. He was losing the argument again—and they weren’t even arguing.

He took a breath and tried once more. He nodded down the street. “I can see why you like deputying. You got a way with folks.”

“I like people. I’ve always liked people.”

“I know it. I don’t suppose you remember how when you were nine or so we heard that the schoolteacher old Mrs. Bates, from on the other side of the river, was down with the gout again? You decided to make her chicken soup, even though you didn’t know how.”

Took Griff a second. Then he nodded. “Boiled the whole chicken in a couple gallons of water. Didn’t even know enough to drain the blood or take the innards out first. Smelled rank.”

“I should know. I helped you lug it over there. Cured her gout though, I heard.”

The crease in Griff’s forehead eased a bit. The corner of a grin touched his mouth. “I reckon she was too scared to admit she ever suffered it again.”

Hitch laughed, and for just a second Griff laughed with him.

The sound of it warmed Hitch right to the pit of his stomach. He quieted and smiled at Griff. “It is good to be home, little brother.”

As quick as that, Griff’s face closed up. He looked away, and a muscle in his cheek churned. Then he looked back, his eyes thoughtful. “It ain’t that simple, Hitch. I told you that last night.”

“And I reckon I heard you.”

“I’m not the only one who’s upset. Nan’s fit to be tied.” Griff chewed his lower lip. He seemed… conflicted almost. “There’s things you need to know about. About Celia’s dying.”

“Then tell me.”

Griff shook his head. “I don’t know if I can. Not yet.” He stepped backwards, up onto the paved sidewalk. “You decide to stick around long enough, and maybe you’ll prove you deserve to hear it.”

Hands still in his pockets, Hitch watched him go. Sticking around wasn’t exactly in the cards, especially with Campbell huffing down his neck once more. Thing was, Griff probably had no notion of any of that.

Didn’t seem like requesting help with Campbell was exactly the right thing to be asking Griff right now. Even if it was, getting Griff mixed up on the bad side of Campbell wasn’t something Hitch wanted to leave behind him when he had to go.

And he did have to go.

Would Griff think a week long enough for reconciliation? Because if he didn’t, this whole thing might end worse than it’d begun.