Storming

Seventeen

“DON’T YOU DARE!” Hitch shouted.

But just like he’d promised her, Jael couldn’t hear a thing. She hauled herself up and over the top wing’s edge and crouched there, hanging onto the strut wires that looped up from beneath.

The pounding of his heart filled his whole chest. Walking on the bottom wing was one thing. Down there, you had all kinds of stuff to hang onto and brace yourself against. But the top wing was a whole ’nother horserace. You wouldn’t find anything but a wall of wind and a few small wires in which to wedge either your hands or your feet.

His stomach flipped. The cockpit was safe; it was solid ground. But up on top, there was nothing but a long, long fall.

He held the plane steady. He needed to turn around, get this heap back to level ground before Jael lost her balance. But he couldn’t turn without the wind shifting around her and maybe pulling her over anyway.

“Get back in the cockpit!” he hollered so loud the words scraped his throat.

Maybe she heard him. She shifted one of her legs. But she didn’t extend it back toward the cockpit. She raised it, bending the knee, until her foot was flat against the wing. She wiggled, squeezing her foot into the wire.

“No! Don’t stand up!”

Slowly, slowly, hand still flat on the wing, she brought her other foot up and wedged it too. Then she started to straighten.

His lungs stopped inflating. Over the years, he’d worked with dozens of wing walkers. He’d seen more than a few of them break too many bones to survive. And none of them had about got hit by lightning the day before.

He braced the stick in both hands, feet against the rudder pedals.

She made it all the way up, body tilted forward, leaning into a fifty-mile-an-hour wind. And then, just like a pro, she raised her face to the sun and spread her arms.

She was doing it. She was really doing it. Of course, she could stop doing it any second. But for now, she was as good as any of the best of them. Her head started to move. She tilted it around, inch by inch, until he could see the corner of her eye. And then she grinned: a wide, exultant grin. The kind you grinned when you were as happy as you’d ever been in your life, and you knew you weren’t likely to be that happy ever again.

Durned girl. He grinned back.

He dropped the right wing the barest of smidges and started a big circle. If she wouldn’t get back into the cockpit, then he’d have to land sooner or later. Might as well do it under Livingstone’s nose.

The other contestant’s plane was in the air now, headed in their direction. Hitch gave it a wide berth to avoid the turbulence. As they passed each other, he offered the pilot and his staring parachutist a jaunty salute. Then he pitched down, still going slow to minimize the pressure on Jael as much as possible. By the time they reached the field, the Jenny was a bare twenty feet off the ground.

He gave her the gun and buzzed the field. Hats and scarves blasted away in every direction. White faces turned sunward to stare.

Let the Jenny crash and burn right now. It’d still be a heck of a way to go out. He laughed aloud.

Jael lowered herself to one knee and inched back until her hands could anchor themselves in the wires. He swung the plane around and came in low for a landing. Even above the engine, the sound of the whooping and clapping was colossal.

This girl was born to be an aerialist.

The wheels bounced. Jael bobbled and nearly fell over sideways.

His heart jumped into his throat.

But she righted herself and straightened up on her knees to wave one hand at the crowd. She was a natural, no question.

The crowd ducked through the fence or clambered over. They swarmed the field, despite Livingstone’s megaphoned entreaties.

Wasn’t everyday you worked a crowd into this kind of frenzy, especially with a relatively simple stunt. Still, crowds on the field were never a good thing. Even if they managed not to mangle their faces in a propeller, some of them had the not-so-charming tendency to grab souvenirs off the plane.

He tugged at his helmet and goggles and jumped out.

“Stay there,” he told Jael.

Still kneeling, she braced her hands against the wing, looking like she’d topple if she didn’t. But beneath her goggles, her grin sparkled.

Earl ran up. “I don’t believe it!” He looked from Hitch to Jael and back again, then got a knowing gleam in his eye. He threw his head back and laughed.

Hitch slapped his shoulder. “Help me move the plane. Stand back, folks! Wouldn’t want you to get bumped over.”

Somewhere toward the back of the bustle, Rick stared. Even if he’d stuck around to do the parachute drop, they wouldn’t have gotten a reception like this. And Rick knew it.

Livingstone jostled through to stand at Hitch’s elbow. “Well.” He looked abashed. But his mustache was trying to twitch away the fact that what he really wanted to do was grin. Hitch had just given the show another big fat plug.

Livingstone squinted at Jael from beneath his hat brim, then looked Hitch up and down. “You cannot follow rules to save your life, now can you?”

Hitch shrugged. “I try. The rules just don’t follow back.”

“Hmp.”

“But we qualified, right?”

This time, the mustache twitch hid a scowl. “I could well disqualify you on any number of technicalities. But far be it from Bonney Livingstone to disappoint the expectant public.” He raised his megaphone and turned to the crowd. “I am pleased to announce Captain Hitchcock and his team have qualified—with much aplomb, I might add—for this weekend’s competition. I am certain you all will return to watch him and his fearless flying companion tempt death once more!”

Hitch motioned to Earl, and they eased the plane through the crowd and back to camp. Behind, Livingstone’s megaphone droned on, and another plane engine chattered to life.

As soon as they were parked, Earl ducked under the engine and clapped Hitch on both shoulders. “You sly son of a gun! You had even me fooled. I bet you knew this whole time Rick was going to up and quit. That’s showmanship for you, boy!” He made the OK sign with one hand. “Those folks don’t even know what hit them.” He gestured up at Jael. “They think they just watched a cripple wing walk!” He turned back to Hitch. “Why didn’t we think of this before? You’re a genius, you know that?”

“Yep, a genius.” He was a lucky idiot, but why mince words? He walked around to the back of the wing and waited for Jael to shimmy down into the front cockpit.

She caught his eye as she ducked her head under the top wing and swung first one leg, then the other over the edge of the cockpit. She moved slow and careful, but her whole face beamed.

He grinned back.

Earl smacked his fist into his palm. “I mean, this is great. Forget Livingstone’s competition. This’ll rake in the dough at every hop between here and San Francisco. What an act, brother!”

Hitch helped Jael step from the bottom wing to the ground. “Except it ain’t an act.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t an act. I didn’t plan any of it. All I did was hang on. She did it all.” He raised her hand, as if introducing her to an audience.

She bit her lip, shyly, her eyes still dancing.

Earl chuckled once. Then his grin faded. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

He looked at Jael. “Is he kidding me?”

She shook her head.

“Well… dadgum.” Earl started laughing again and reached to engulf her hand in both of his. “Dadgum it is, sweetheart. You’re a crazier fool than Hitch is, you know that?”

She inclined her head in a small bow. “Thank you.”

“Well, come on, this is worth celebrating.” He released her and turned to rummage through the camp supplies.

Hitch led her, limping only slightly now, to a rolled-up bedroll she could use as a seat. “We got anything worth celebrating with?”

“Not much. I think Lilla left behind some orange sodey pop. Yep.” He stood up with three of the ribbed glass bottles. With his sleeve over the heel of his hand, he snapped off the tops, then passed them around. Still standing, he raised his bottle. “Here’s to our girl, who we may or may not let go back up again, but who definitely saved our grease-stained hides today.”

Hitch tilted the spicy citrus bubbles into the back of his throat and took a long chug.

Jael sipped hers, licked her lips thoughtfully, then tipped her head back for a deep swallow.

He watched her until she came back up for air. “What made you do that?”

“You were needing help.” She licked her lips again and raised a shoulder. “And I am needing to go home.”

Yeah, right. Go home where nobody seemed to care what happened to her—except Zlo, who definitely cared that she ended up as a blob on the ground somewhere.

Finding Schturming and using the discovery to impress Livingstone was one thing. But it sure was seeming like Jael would be better off moving on from that place. She could stay here with his crew. With Rick and Lilla gone, she wouldn’t even be an extra mouth to feed.

He watched her, trying to read her. “You have any idea how lucky you are not to have fallen off?”

“What is this lucky?”

“It’s like when everything’s going right, and you just know it’s going to keep on going. Nothing can touch you.”

“I like that. You have this lucky?”

“Luck. Yeah, sometimes.” He smiled at her. “But listen, no more of this. If you’re going to work on my crew, then you have to understand I’m the boss. If I tell you not to do something, you don’t do it.”

“If you are boss, I understand this. But there is something you do not understand. If I have this feeling, inside me”—she laid her hand over her stomach—“that I must be doing something, like today, then I must be doing it.”

“Why?”

“If I do not, if I think about it, that is when luck goes away. I maybe start believing I cannot be doing it, then I have fear. And then I cannot do it.” She gave him a long look. “You understand this?”

What airman didn’t understand that? “Even so, I don’t want any more climbing out on the wing without you at least giving me a warning. Okay?”

She nodded once.

“I don’t need you falling off just yet. We’ve got a competition to win and this Schturming thing of yours to find.” Finding it would work out well for both of them. When it came time for her to think about actually going back to it, that’d have to be another discussion.

Earl clinked his bottle against Hitch’s. “Hear, hear!”

The sparkle in her eyes faded. That wrinkle surfaced in her forehead again. “About finding Schturming. Last night, there is something I was not telling you.” She traced her forefinger back and forth in the soft dirt beside her foot. “I cannot find it.”

“What do you mean?” Earl asked.

“I cannot find it. It does not stay in one spot always.”

Hitch lowered his bottle to his bent knee. “So it could be headed to Calgary now for all we know?”

She looked up. “Schturming will not be leaving far. It will be coming again.” She fingered her pendant’s chain. “But I cannot be telling you to what time or place.”

He chewed his lip. “You know that means Zlo’s coming back too? You just want to sit here and wait for him?”

“I must get back—to stop him. And how can I be going up without—?” She pointed to the Jenny.

“Look, I never said anything about helping you stop Zlo. If he comes down and we can get him arrested, great. But all I’m wanting is to get a good look at this _Schturming_—enough to give Livingstone something to make him happy.” And satisfy his own curiosity. “I’ll take you home like I said I would, but you’re better off forgetting Zlo and moving on to where people aren’t going to go around chucking you overboard.”

The shy smile was gone from her face. She looked wan and haggard—a bit desperate maybe. “Yes,” she said. “I am having understanding.” She set her drink on the ground and stood. She walked, mostly steady on her feet, and disappeared around the far side of the plane.

Aw, shoot. He kicked himself for being an oaf. So her home was a touchy subject. He “had understanding” for that. He thumped his drink down on the ground and pushed to his feet.

Earl tugged his ear. “Where you going?”

“Where do you think?”

He eased around the nose of the plane, moving slow in case she was doing something dangerous—like crying.

But she was only leaning against the fuselage, fiddling with a sore spot on her finger. She looked at him. “Will you still give to me job?”

He huffed out a breath. As long as she stayed here, she’d be mostly out of harm’s way. It’d give him a few extra days to maybe talk her down to a more sensible plan.

“’Course I will,” he said. “Wing walkers like you don’t drop in front of my plane every day.”

That earned a grin. “I would be hoping not.”

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about all this before. And I’m sorry I didn’t take you home when we still had the chance.” That was only half a lie. “You really think we won’t see them again?”

She snorted. “Oh, we will be seeing them again. But only when it is right for Zlo and wrong for us.”

“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “You help me win this competition, and I’ll help you get home—or wherever else you may decide you want to go.” Whatever he thought, it was her choice. She’d undoubtedly get where she wanted to go one way or another anyhow. “I promise.”

She studied him. Something in her eyes said that, this time, she saw something different. She smiled. “Thank you.”

He smiled back, then found himself strangely at a loss for something else to say. He looked at her hand. The left forefinger bore a long raw spot along its side. “What happened there?”

“It is from when there was fire—when I was falling.”

From when Zlo had lit her dress on fire. “Should have told me about that before. We’ve got some salve for stuff like that.” He went back to search through the supplies for the jar, then returned.

She bit her lip, but proffered her hand without protest.

It wasn’t the hand of a lady of leisure. It wasn’t even the hand of a farmwife, like Celia’s. More like Earl’s hand. Black oil lined the short nails, and heavy calluses edged her fingertips and the pad of her palm. It was a strong hand—a proficient hand, the fingers long and nimble.

“So,” he said. “You mentioned you didn’t have any family up there?”

She watched him smooth grease down the length of the burn. “Yes. I am nikto.”

“That means what? Orphan?”

“Yes, but more.”

He thought about that. “Outcast? Like other people don’t want you around them?”

“Yes, that is it.”

“Doesn’t seem like this home of yours has much earned its way to being so important.”

She looked up at him, surprised. “Where else do any people have to go except home?”

He finished with the grease, tucked the jar in his jacket pocket, and snapped out a narrow length of linen. “Whole big world out there, kiddo.”

She scrutinized him. “That is why you did not go back to your home before now?”

“Something like that. Long story.”

“But you have family. Nan Carpenter and—Griff. They seem very angry with you always. I wonder about Nan Carpenter.” She knit her eyebrows above those silver eyes of hers. “Before you were leaving, was she… belonging to you?”

He darted up a look and laughed. “You mean, my girl? No, never. No, she’s mad because of”—he concentrated on snugging the bandage around her finger—“well, because of Celia. That’s her sister. She was my girl. They don’t quite understand why it was I had to leave her.”

“Why had you to leave?”

“The sheriff—I told you he wasn’t a custodian—he was threatening them to try to get me to do something.”

She gave him a small, encouraging smile. “You should be telling them this. That is not a wrong reason, Hitch Hitchcock.”

“No, it’s not.” He knotted off the bandage, held her hand for one more second, then gave it back to her.

He thought about Griff and Nan—and the passel of kids Nan had gone and had for herself in the past few years. That boy of hers, the silent one, seemed a good kid. He played with Taos and looked at the sky like everything was a new adventure to be discovered. It was a pleasure to see that in somebody else’s face for a change.

In some ways, it might have been nice to have someone like that through whose eyes he could have seen the world afresh. But a family would have staked him to the ground, and he wasn’t fool enough to believe that being the stake was any better a life than being the one who was staked.

He looked at Jael and put on a rueful smile. “It could be I did it for the right and the wrong reason all at once. That’s the problem.”