Storming

Thirty-One

RAIN LASHED THE airfield as Hitch flew in. The wind was considerably slacker here. Even still, half the planes were skidding out in the crosswind, striking the ground with their propellers or flipping over. From the looks of it, at least one had busted its landing gear. Maybe only half the planes had made it back to camp at all. The rest were scattered in the fields between here and the lake.

Even without that cotton-picking cannon, Zlo and his storm had managed to wipe out half of Livingstone’s impromptu air force. That might not bode too well for the future of the Extravagant Flying Circus—or Hitch’s shot at a partnership.

Rick’s blue Jenny streaked in front of Hitch, engine snorting black smoke. He flared for a hard landing. Parts splintered into the air. The wings caved in at the center, both ends shooting up like a broken teeter-totter.

To compensate for the wind, Hitch banked his Jenny a little and set his right wheel down first. The friction against the ground helped slow her some, and only then did he kick in opposite rudder to center her on both wheels. Her tailskid thumped down and dragged, acting as a brake. The wind caught her anyway, and she came that close to ground-looping and maybe even flipping over. Only the wooden hoop under the bottom wing, acting as another skid, kept the wing from tipping into the ground.

When she finally rolled to a stop, he sat there for a second. His ears were still buzzing, and his heart and his lungs pulled in opposite directions. That had been about as close as any bit of flying he’d ever had to do. He’d had his share of crashes, and had the scars to prove it, but not like that. Not with Death cackling in the front cockpit all the way.

People raced across the field, on foot and in automobiles, headed for the wrecks.

A man with a white scarf fluttering out of his leather jacket slowed as he passed. “You all right?”

Hitch raised a reassuring hand.

The man kept going. “They’re saying the colonel is down!”

Bad weather could bring down anyone, didn’t matter how good a pilot you were. But Livingstone was one of the best. It’d take a lot to bring him down. Hitch unfastened his safety belt. Served Livingstone right, of course—charging out there like some dumb media-hound palooka. But none of these pilots here today, including Livingstone, deserved to crack up like this.

He looked over at Rick’s blue plane. Speaking of dumb palookas.

Hitch hauled himself out of his cockpit and crossed the field. The rain hadn’t reached them in full force yet, which maybe indicated the limit of _Schturming_’s weather powers. But as soon as they finished rounding up the surviving pilots, they’d have to tie down and cover up what was left of the planes.

Rick hoisted himself up in his cockpit and fell out of it, landing on his backside. He clambered to his feet and started kicking at the wing and the fuselage. The wing spar bent, and a spider-webbed dent appeared beneath the back cockpit.

Hitch ran faster. “Hey, you idiot! Don’t bust her up worse!”

Rick kept kicking. “I’ll bust her if I please!” A line of blood trickled from beneath his goggles, but his face was already so red, the blood practically blended in. “Stupid plane! Stupid plan! What kind of a plan was this?”

“I’m wondering the same thing myself.”

Rick wheeled on him, panting. “You smug ignoramus. This was your idea and your doing. Don’t think I don’t know it! And don’t think I don’t know this is all because of that girl you dragged in last week!”

Hitch stiffened. “Back off on her.”

“Hah. Not likely. Not this time, boss.” Rick jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t fool yourself into believing I kept quiet about her this long because I was afraid of you. The only reason I haven’t informed on your little skirt is because I was interested in the reward, not the ransom. And now I’m out of the running for that, aren’t I?”

Most of the time, Hitch’s rage was hot. But right now, it burned cold. All the adrenaline still running through his body razored his senses into focus.

Rick turned around and gave the wing another kick. “It’s time for good citizen Richard Holmes to do his civic duty.” He started to walk past Hitch.

Hitch caught his arm and hauled him back. “Don’t.”

Rick tried to pull Hitch’s fingers free. “Get off me.”

Hitch tightened his grip. “Listen to me. I know what you are—right down to your yellow backbone. You’re an arrogant fool, you always have been, and you always will be. You don’t deserve a girl like Lilla, you don’t deserve that Jenny you just stomped, and you don’t deserve any kind of reward.”

Rick tried to sneer. “I deserve better than what I’ve gotten from you for the last year!”

“You squeal on Jael, and I’ll give you more broken bones than if your ’chute failed on you.”

Rick snorted in derision, but behind his goggles, his pupils shrank to pinpricks. Maybe he had never seen Hitch this way before, and maybe he didn’t quite believe Hitch’d actually be dumb enough to kill him. But Hitch could beat his ugly mug into corn hash without trying—and Rick’s belief of that was written all over his face.

Behind Hitch, footsteps pounded through the grass.

He held Rick’s eyes for one more long second, then shoved him away.

Rick backed up, rubbing his arm. His lip was curled, but he didn’t say anything, just turned and slunk off.

Filthy little skunk. He would be the one to walk away today when so many good pilots hadn’t.

The footsteps stopped behind him. “There you are, you bushwhacker.”

Hitch looked over his shoulder.

Earl hung his head in a relieved pant. “I was beginning to think you’d bought it like the rest of them. Look, I’ll tie down the plane. That kid Walter came running in to get Jael and the Berringers. He’s got some crazy aunt or something—she went missing as soon as the weather kicked up. He was pretty upset.”

Aurelia again. Worry spurted in Hitch’s chest. Back when he knew her, she’d been as docile as an old hound dog. Maybe she’d been getting worse with time. He cast a look around the chaos of the field. An ambulance—just a big truck with a canvas rigged over the bed—trundled in, bell clanging.

He should stay here, help with the downed pilots. But there were plenty of folks already doing that. Right now, Aurelia—and Walter—struck closer to home for him. He glanced at Rick’s demolished plane. Besides, somebody needed to stick close to Jael right now. Rick was scared, sure enough, but he was still sulky enough to cause more trouble than not.

*

Hitch found Jael in the Carpenters’ apple orchard. The rain poured down steadily, not quite in sheets, but more than enough to soak everything. He was wet clear through his leather jacket. Somehow the water had even gotten past the tight laces of his boots; his socks squished.

Jael made her way over to him—hobbling again, although not too bad. “Hitch.” Her wet hair clung to her face, so dark with the rainwater that the silver streaks from the lightning practically glowed.

She reached him, slipped a little in the mud, and gripped his arm. She closed her eyes and breathed what sounded like a thankful prayer: “O Bozhe. I worried you would crash.”

“Don’t have much faith in my flying, do you?” But a lonely spot inside of him warmed, and he squeezed her hand on his arm. It’d been a long time since anybody cared what happened to him—except maybe Earl, and only then when he was in a good mood.

He looked around. “What’s going on?”

Before she could answer, Walter appeared in a gap between the tree rows and beckoned them. His black hair was plastered around the edges of his white face, making him look as pale as a ghoul. He didn’t wait for them to follow, just turned and ran.

Hitch followed, keeping Jael’s arm in the crook of his elbow—mostly to steady her through the mud puddles. “What’s this about Aurelia running off?”

“I do not have entire knowledge. Walter came for help to find her. Everyone is looking—his family, your brother. She has been gone since last night.”

“In this weather? That ain’t good.”

“She is thinking we are all doomed.”

“Maybe we are.” He glanced down at her knit forehead. “Though I did take out their cannon.”

She looked up at him. “That is not nothing.”

“Yeah, but this weather’s going to make it awful tough to get a plane anywhere close to it again, even without the cannon.”

The lines reappeared between her eyebrows.

So much for polishing up the silver lining. He should probably tell her about Rick. But that’d keep for a bit. No sense dumping all the bad news at once.

Somewhere up ahead, through the iron gray of the driving rain, a dog barked. Taos probably, since he’d been nowhere to be seen back at camp. He must have run off with Walter when the boy came for help. Taos only barked when he was excited—which right now, probably meant he’d found himself an unidentified person.

Hitch pulled Jael forward. “C’mon.”

They ran, slipping in the mud, until they reached the edge of the orchard. Half hidden under the branches of the outermost trees, an old pent shed had almost disappeared in the overgrowth of wood vines. The boards had weathered to a splintery gray, and on either side of the empty doorframe, the windows were all smashed in.

Outside the door, Walter hung onto Taos’s scruff while the dog kept barking. Walter cast a wild look back at Hitch, probably scared to go into the dark.

“It’s all right.” Hitch let go of Jael and snapped his fingers at the dog. “Taos. Quiet.” He patted Walter’s shoulder as he passed.

The boy reached out and caught his hand, following him.

Hitch gripped Walter’s clammy palm and ducked his head under the sagging lintel. “Aurelia?”

Despite the broken windows, the inside of the shed was dark. It smelled damp and rich with the earth and the rain, and a little sour with old cow droppings. Something shifted in the corner; someone whimpered.

He took one more step inside, then moved to the left, so he wouldn’t block the light. “Aurelia? It’s just me. It’s Hitch Hitchcock—and Walter. And Jael’s outside.”

Another whimper. Definitely Aurelia.

He took one more step and tried to pull free of Walter, so he’d have both hands. But the boy hung on fast and followed him.

More straw rustled as he got closer. His shadow shifted, and the scant light fell across Aurelia’s face. Even paler than Walter and a little blue around the lips, she stared right through him, like a blind woman. Damp glistened against her face. Dead leaves and old straw matted her hair. She lifted a hand, unseeing, and whimpered through her chattering teeth.

“It’s okay.” He crouched in front of her and reached for her with his free hand. “It’s okay, darlin’. It’s just me. I’ve come to take you home.” He pulled her nearer, tentatively, then slipped a hand around her shoulders.

Her backbone was so sharp it practically poked through her dress. She remained stiff for a second. Then, with a stuttering exhale, she sagged against his chest. “I caused this—this storm. Did I cause this?”

He held her and patted her back. “Not a chance. You had absolutely nothing to do with this. The only thing you did was call it exactly like it was—which was a heap more’n most of us had the guts to do yesterday.”

“But I knew. That man told me. I tried to tell… somebody. But they didn’t believe me.”

“That’s not your fault, Aurelia. You tried, you did your best. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I don’t know that anybody could have stopped this from happening.”

She reared her head back and looked up at him. Her bloodshot eyes were red almost clear through. They charted his face. “I remember you. You’re Hitch Hitchcock.”

He smiled at her. “Yeah.”

“You were… you were Celia’s husband. Weren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

In the straw beside him, Walter shifted. He looked back and forth between Hitch and Aurelia, wide-eyed and interested. So he hadn’t known. He was probably too young to have met Celia, much less remembered her, so why would he know Hitch was his uncle? Nan had no doubt avoided talking about Hitch for all these years.

A shadow blocked the light, and Hitch looked back.

Jael stood there, cocking her head slightly like she did whenever she was caught off guard and trying to figure something out. The lines between her eyebrows deepened a little. Women never were very understanding about a man who would leave a woman—for whatever reason.

His throat tightened and he turned back.

Aurelia’s bloodshot eyes looked up at him without anger, without blame. “I remember you,” she said again. “You gave me a violet handkerchief.”

“Yes, I did.” Celia had washed it with his dungarees and it had come out purple.

Her lip trembled. “It caught on fire and burned up.”

“Oh, well. I’ll get you another one, how about that?” He tried to ease her up. “But first we have to get you home, all right? Nan and everybody’s worried about you.”

She darted out a hand and gripped his coat. “Wait.” Her lip trembled still more. “Do you think it is true? Will the air beast kill us all?”

Walter watched him, as intent on the answer as his aunt was.

“Aurelia, listen to me.” Hitch looked her in the eye. “You’re scared, that’s all this is. And that’s okay.” He put a hand on Walter’s shoulder and glanced at him too. “We all are, I reckon. This is something nobody could have planned on happening. But the world keeps on spinning and people keep on living—through worse things than this. This is just a couple guys in an airship. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“Promise?” Aurelia asked.

“Reckon I can’t quite promise. But I will tell you this. I’m sure. And I will bring it down.”

“Even if it shoots at you?” Aurelia whispered.

“Reckon so.” He shucked out of his sopping coat, draped it around her shoulders, and eased her to her feet. “Now, come on.”