Storming

Thirty-Three

IN THE GLIMMER of a lantern, Hitch sat beneath the canvas tarp they’d stretched between the Jenny’s upper wing and two poles driven into the ground. The rain had slacked off considerably, but every few seconds, a raindrop still plunked against the tarp. Beyond, the encroaching darkness of night billowed with incoming fog. Nobody’d be flying tonight.

He felt the raw corner of his lip with his tongue and stared into nothing.

“Stop.” Jael tapped his chin, barely avoiding the bruised spot where Griff’s fist had slammed him twice. She scooted in closer, on her knees, and raised a damp cloth to the cut.

The warm wetness stung. He flinched away, then exhaled. He dragged his gaze over to meet hers. She’d seen him down to his core now—for real this time, and not just with that wondering stare she sometimes aimed in his direction.

But all she did was keep dabbing at his mouth. She looked at his face critically, then turned to re-dunk the cloth in the skillet full of water.

“C’mon,” he grumbled, “just say what you’re thinking.”

Maybe she’d say it was all okay. That he wasn’t such a jerk after all—which would be nice to hear even if it wasn’t true. Or maybe she’d tell him to his face he was a no-account fool, and at least then he could lean into the pain.

She furrowed her brow and cocked her mouth to the side, as if cleaning up his face required a lot of thought. She didn’t meet his eye.

“Reckon that all looked pretty horrible this afternoon, didn’t it?” he ventured.

“All people are horrible some of times. Now, hold still.” She finished off with a last dab, then wrung the cloth into the skillet. She turned back with a tin cup of hand-hot coffee. “Drink this.”

He sighed again and took the cup without drinking. “It’s over between me and Griff.” He looked back out into the darkness.

Here and there, a blob of light marked other lanterns, and even a few campfires sheltered under tarps. Earl was out there somewhere, bumming gossip. Word was Livingstone had busted both legs in his crackup—and he was one of the lucky ones.

“When I came back here…” Hitch hesitated. He didn’t talk about these things, not with anyone. But why not? Didn’t make a lick of difference now. “When I came back, I kept telling myself I was only doing it because this was where Livingstone was hosting the contest. But I guess, deep down, I knew. It was time. Been time for a long while. I needed to know if they’d forgive me—or if I’d messed it up too bad.” He snorted and raised the coffee. “Guess I know now.”

The coffee—Jael’s concoction—was darker than the night and swimming with grounds. He downed it anyway. When he came back for air, he swallowed with a cough and looked sideways at her.

She sat on her feet, knees bent, hands folded in her lap. She watched him steadily. Maybe she hadn’t seen all there was to see after all.

“Why did you not come back sooner?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Scared, I reckon.”

“That they would not give you forgiveness?”

“That, and…” Hard to put it into words. “Scared I’d get tied down again, I guess. I’m exactly where I want to be. I’m exactly who I want to be.”

Except, of course, for those times when he hated it. When he couldn’t believe that’s all there was to life. He skimmed his gaze over the Jenny’s ruddy skin.

The tarp over their heads flapped in the wind. A few raindrops blew in and spattered his face.

Jael pulled her legs out from under her and sat on the ground. As she draped her arms around one bent knee, her face tightened in a wince. Then she laid her cheek against her kneecap and looked up at him. “I did not have knowledge you were married.” She didn’t sound reproachful, like most women did when they found out.

Should have known he wouldn’t get out of that one. He flung the remaining coffee grounds into the grass outside. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t if you hadn’t lived around here ten years ago.”

“Why do they say it is your fault she died?” Now she sounded more careful, like maybe his answer mattered.

He looked over. “Celia died because she got sick. Pneumonia, they said. She was always kind of fussy about her health. Mostly, I think it was a way to get people to pay attention, which mostly made ’em not pay attention. If I’d known she was sick, I would have come back. Do you believe that?” He tossed the words out casually, but something deep inside tensed. He needed her to believe him even if no one else did.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“I left because I got mixed up with one of Campbell’s less-than-legal sidelines. Smuggling stolen goods—though I didn’t know they were stolen at the time. If I hadn’t scrammed, he’d have sent me to prison to cover up for himself.”

“You could not have told anyone who would have believed you?”

“Tried to tell the mayor. Turned out he was under Campbell’s thumb. After that, Campbell threatened my dad’s farm if I tried to open my mouth again.”

“And people did not understand this?”

He shrugged. “Celia’s the only one I actually told, and she probably put her own spin on it when folks asked her about it. And then I didn’t come back for her funeral—or my father’s. That’s what really did it.”

“How much time were you married?”

“About a year. It should never have happened. But we were young and stupid—and I guess I was bored. I’d known her all my life. And that’s just what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? Get married and do the same as your folks before you? I didn’t know back then that something can be the right thing to do and still be a mistake.” He rubbed his forehead. “I think maybe that’s why Nan’s really upset—I didn’t love Celia enough, even before I left.”

His stomach churned around the sludgy coffee. His head pounded from Griff’s thrashing, and his ribs didn’t feel none too great either. Dear God in heaven, what had he been thinking? He’d been nuts to believe any good could come of returning home. All he’d done was dredge up the dreary past and its regrets.

He ducked out from under the tarp and stood, hands on his hips. “If I had any brains in my head, I’d get out of town right now.” Even trying to fight Schturming was turning out worse for his help than not. “This town feels like a cage.”

Behind him, she shifted, getting up, slowly and a little awkwardly. Her hobbling footsteps brought her out from under the tarp to stand beside him. She held her hair out of her face with both hands and looked at the night. “I think…”

He looked down at her. “What?”

“I think… running away is also kind of cage, yes? How can we ever run far enough to run away from running away?”

All his running sure hadn’t set him free. Nine years of fleeing this place—and here he was, right back at the beginning.

But staying put wouldn’t be any better.

“When I stop moving,” he said, “that’s when I start feeling trapped. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I can’t live that way. I don’t understand how anybody stays put without feeling trapped.”

She shrugged, almost apologetically. “That I do not have knowledge of.”

She might not know. But somebody had to. People stayed put all the time. Folks might envy a gypsy pilot like him, but most of them would never want freedom bad enough to chase after it every single day. Somehow, most of them kept finding their freedom in the same place, day in and day out.

That was what he had to do. Somehow, some way, before he was too old and beat up, before he’d hurt every last person he knew, he had to figure out the secret. Otherwise, what else was he running away from but his own life?

Jael’s teeth chattered. “It is good you have family. I think they love you, even though they are angry with you. They will always love you. I think it is better to have someone to love you and be angry with you, than to have no one at all. Maybe I would not have fallen from Schturming if there had been family for me there. In Schturming, if you are nikto, you have not even any quarters to live in. You must go from cabin to cabin to get your food.”

“That’s… harsh.”

“Family, it is all there is, yes? That is worth this staying put for, I think.”

“Surely there can’t be many people up there without families.”

“No, and most of those who do not”—she raised both shoulders—“well, they are often taking their final fall on purpose. I was having much fortune, because Nestor gave me hidden space.” She crossed her arms over her chest and winced.

“Hurting again?” He tossed a glance at the low sky. No way to tell if Schturming was near right now. He looked back down. “Probably you’re stiff from being out in the rain all day.”

“M-mayb-be.”

He ducked back under the canvas, snagged the lantern and a green wool coat borrowed from Lilla. “Here.” He helped her put it on. “The rain’s mostly stopped for now. Let’s take a walk, loosen up those joints.”

She slipped her arm through his, shoulder pressed against his side. “I do not know about these things you are telling me—if your family is right that you did what you should not have. I think if you had to go, you had to go.”

“Sometimes you make choices and there isn’t a good answer either way.”

She hesitated. “When first I was knowing you, my thoughts said you were like I always was believing Groundsmen to be—what everyone else was saying you were. But that was before I had knowledge.” For an instant, her head leaned sideways, against his arm, the touch of it almost an absolution in itself. “I said before that you are man who is causing trouble. But you are also liking to be stopping it. You act like you do not like people to need you. But you like to help them. You have helped me. If I can, I would like to help you.”

The pit of his stomach warmed. She was just a tumbleweed who’d blown in. She didn’t owe him any loyalty. If anything, she’d be completely justified in kicking free of him for any number of reasons. For once in his life, his pride had been squashed enough he could admit that, at least to himself.

He tightened his elbow, squeezing her arm against his side. “Thanks.”

She stopped short, nearly yanking free.

He almost braced himself to be kicked again. “What?”

At their feet lay a severed wing—a red one with a rope looped through the canvas at one end.

Oh, gravy.

“Is that the marker you and Walter tied onto Schturming?” he asked.

“Look!” she hissed.

He lofted the lantern.

Ahead, almost lost in the shadow of a wrecked plane, a bit of material fluttered.

“It is one of Zlo’s men!” Jael said.

The red flutter separated itself from the plane. The guy with the mop of hair and the dark goggles looked in their direction. Then he took off running.

Ground attack? That’s what this was? Hitch snatched his arm from Jael’s. Zlo had come back down to finish the job?

Hitch whipped his gaze skyward. “It is here. That’s why you’re hurting.” He swiveled. The lantern bobbled in his upraised hand, pushing light only a few yards into the fog.

On the ground, Zlo could have only two goals: kill people or destroy planes. Since there were far fewer planes than people—and because most people would cease to be a threat without the planes—it was a good bet which he had chosen.

Jael gasped. “Your Jenny.”

“You go back and make sure it’s all right. Find Earl and whoever else you can. Tell them to do whatever they have to do to protect any planes that still work.”

She nodded, then took off in a loping, limping run.

Somewhere in the darkness to the south, an eagle screamed.

Where the eagle was, Zlo would be. Hitch’s blood fired and he started running.

Sounds of cracking wood and ripping fabric reached his ears before his light showed a plane—or what was left of it. It was pitched forward on its nose. The tail hung free, like a broken bone. The wing fabric flapped in the wind. Zlo’s eagle perched on the upended fuselage.

Zlo kicked at the lower wing, once, twice, until it snapped. Then the bird squawked, and Zlo spun around to face Hitch.

Hitch slowed and immediately cussed himself for it. Keep going, use his speed and surprise to bowl Zlo over, that’s what he should do. Too late now. He approached slowly, lantern high, and circled around to get a clear angle at the guy.

Zlo bared his teeth, and the silver-capped ones in front glinted. “And so. The man who was so brave this morning.” He spread his arms and sidestepped out from the corner of the wing. “I thought maybe you were not so stupid as you look.” His tone was light, but his jaw tightened and something hot sparked in his eyes.

He was good and steamed, no question about it.

Hitch flashed a grin. “Liked my little trick with the cannon, did you?”

Zlo’s eyes looked about ready to pop from his head. Veins stood out in his temples. Then he smiled—which somehow only made him look more dangerous. “You think you are smart man, yes? You think you are brave. You are hero!”

“If you want to start handing out medals, I’ll be happy to accept ’em.” Hitch sidestepped some more, going as much forward as he did sideways. With any luck, Zlo wouldn’t notice. One more step, and then he’d charge—and pray God Zlo wasn’t packing anything.

Zlo clucked. “No medals for you. That would be mistake. Your town does not give medals to fools who endanger them, do they? Your _glavni_—your Sheriff Campbell—he will see to that I think.”

Hitch dropped the lantern and charged. His lowered shoulder caught Zlo beneath the breastbone, and they both went staggering. Zlo skidded underneath the plane’s wing, while Hitch plowed right into it. The weakened wing frame cracked beneath his weight and gave way.

Behind him, the lantern must have been rolling, because the light spun around in crazy circles. Tough to tell whether he was dizzy or the world was. He blinked hard and turned around.

Zlo loomed in front of him, a wing strut raised in both hands. His silver teeth flashed, this time in a snarl, and he swung the strut at Hitch’s head.

Hitch backpedaled, arms windmilling. His heel caught and he tripped. The end of the strut barely caught the top of his head. But it was enough.

He hit the ground. The back part of his brain was still running, mostly just with the general shock of being consciously unconscious, but his body refused to move. He was going to get whacked again, his brain knew that much.

Footsteps crunched nearer. Then more footsteps, running in from far away. Voices shouted, hazy and wordless. Something that sounded a whole lot like a gunshot crashed through his head, and the pain pounded its way back through the darkness.

Warm, callused hands cradled his face. Jael’s voice—muttering about cheloveks again—drifted in.

His body remained unresponsive, but he managed to crack open an eyelid.

She huffed and closed her eyes. “_O Bozhe._”

“What happened?” His arm was working again now, so he pushed himself up. Instantly, pain spun around in his head. He flopped back down, head on her knees. That was much better anyway.

“We chased them all away,” she said.

“Damage?”

She hesitated. “Earl and I—we saved your Jenny.”

“And?”

Another hesitation. “That is all.” She lowered her face a little closer to his. “Hitch, listen. If we give him yakor_—if _I give him _yakor_—he will go away from here.”

Since when had she started caring more about saving the town than stopping Zlo?

“I am knowing he will,” she said. “We have to find it. It is only way left.”

Hitch might be dizzy and hurting, but he wasn’t that far out of it. Throwing Jael at Zlo’s mercy and then turning Zlo loose sounded like the worst idea yet.

He found her hand and gripped it. “Not happening.” The words croaked a little.

He closed his eyes again and blocked out the murmuring and shouting of the gathering crowd. For just the moment, he let himself wish he and Jael were far away, some place where no one knew where they were—not Griff or Nan or Campbell, and definitely not Zlo.

It was a fruitless wish and he knew it. No way he was letting her sacrifice herself, no matter how stubborn she decided to be. But there was also no way, this time, that he could run away—which meant he could hardly take her away either, even if she’d go.