Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure (27 page)

As it was, with all the pilots hopping every bit as fast as he was, the crowd finally petered out around one o’clock—judging from the ball of fire overhead. His backside had gone numb a long time ago, and his elbow was starting to ache from the thrum of the engine up through the stick in his hand. As he put the plane down for the last time, his empty stomach churned.

No more customers in sight, although Walter still held the sign. Taos sat at his side. Jael had disappeared a couple hours ago.

Hitch cut the engine. “Where’s Jael?”

Earl helped down the customer—a fat man in a black tie and a fedora—and guided him on his way. “Got tired of standing around, I guess. Went over to watch one of Livingstone’s pilots fixing up his engine.”

Hitch frowned. The barnstorming life wasn’t
just
about flying and fixing engines. There
was
the business side to think about. Maybe she wasn’t quite as cut out for this as he was hoping.

He raised his goggles and looked over at Walter.

Bareheaded in the sun, the kid stood tall, a hand on either side of the sign. Every time somebody walked by, he smiled and tilted the sign toward them.

“How much you think we made?” Hitch asked.

Earl jingled his jumpsuit pocket. “Oh, twenty bucks maybe.”

“That ain’t bad.” Hitch dumped his helmet in the seat and swung out of the cockpit. “Give me one of those quarters, and then you can go rustle up some lunch. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Sounds good.” Earl handed over the quarter and ambled back toward camp.

Walter turned around to face the plane.

Hitch walked over and ruffled his hair. “You did a good job today. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Walter beamed.

“You better get on back now, before your mama figures out what’s going on. Here.” He handed over the quarter. “Next time you’re in town, you can buy yourself some licorice or something.”

Walter took the quarter into his hot palm. He stared at it for a moment, then looked up at Hitch. Slowly, he held the quarter back out.

“No, it’s for you. You earned it.”

Walter pointed at the sign—25¢ for a Thrilling Ride in the Sky—then held the quarter back out.

“It’s been a long morning, and I’m pretty tired and hungry. I’ll give you a ride later, if Nan says you can have one.”

Walter’s face fell. He looked at the ground. Then he flashed his glance back up. Quarter still fisted in his hand, he reached into his overalls pocket and came out with a knotted sock. He set the sign down on the ground and worked the knot loose. He upended a tarnished penny in his hand. It clinked against the quarter. He held them both out.

Now what were you supposed to do in the face of something like that? Hitch stared down at him. The boy couldn’t be more than eight years old. He was skinny as a rail, knobby around the elbows, black hair falling into big brown eyes that were as hopeful as all get out. And he wanted to ride in that plane so bad his insides were twisting. Hitch knew the feeling.

Surely, even if Nan didn’t exactly know about Walter being out here, she wouldn’t grudge the boy one quick ride. Walter would remember it all his life. Telling him
no
right now would be about like boxing his ears. Hitch’s stomach hollowed out. If Nan wanted to do that, that was her business. But he couldn’t.

“Alrighty,” he said. “But you keep your money. This one’s on the house.”

Walter’s eyes got even bigger. Then his smile faded, and his face stilled into a serious expression. He licked his lips and took a breath, like a parachutist nerving himself for the jump.

“C’mon.” Hitch slapped his leg to Taos and bundled the dog into the front cockpit. “You want to ride in front with Taos, or you want to ride in back with me and learn how to fly?”

It was no contest, of course. Walter’s serious look slipped into delight. He pointed at Hitch.

Hitch swung the boy in first. He settled the helmet on Walter’s head, the too-big goggles bumping into the boy’s freckled nose. Hitch took his time pointing out the various instruments and explaining what they did. From the look in his eye, Walter actually seemed to understand most of it.

“You sit there while I start it up.”

Hitch hand-propped the Jenny himself. When the engine caught and the plane started to ease forward, he ran back.

Walter’s eyes had gone wide, probably thinking the plane was going to take off with just him and Taos.

Hitch laughed and hauled himself in. He set Walter’s hands on the stick and covered them with his own.

The boy sat on his lap, shoulders tensed.

They gained speed down the field, the dust clouding up from under the wheels. Hitch eased back on the stick, pulling it almost to Walter’s chest. The Jenny’s nose left the ground, and his stomach turned over for that split moment, like always.

All the tension melted out of Walter. He opened his mouth, and he laughed, just loud enough for Hitch to catch the edge of the sound. Then he seemed almost abashed, and when Hitch looked around to see his face, he grinned a tiny grin that took only a second to engulf his face.

Yup, he’d never forget this moment as long as he lived.

Walter got the longest ride of the day. Hitch stayed up, doing all the tricks he could manage: wingovers, Immelmann turns, spins, and even a heart-stopping deep stall that had the Jenny falling like an autumn leaf. Walter hung onto the stick the whole way. He kept his head up and watched the windshield for all he was worth—assuming he could see anything out of those goggles.

Finally, they landed. Hitch waited for the engine to sputter into silence, then leaned around to look at the boy. “Next time you can solo, right?”

Walter nodded. He sat for a moment, still perched on the edge of the seat, hands one atop the other on the stick. Then he breathed out a sigh.

Hitch patted the boy’s back and climbed out. He swung Walter to the ground, and the boy immediately took off running. He ran all the way around the plane twice, then stopped and turned half a dozen somersaults. Taos, barking hard, wriggled in Hitch’s arms and hit the ground running to follow Walter for another lap.

Hands on his hips, Hitch watched them run.

Nan could beef about this all she wanted, and, granted, it was her right. But he’d do it again if he had the choice. He couldn’t give folks much. He couldn’t even pay his own people what they were due half the time. But
this
he could give Walter.

It made him feel like his insides had fallen down a hole. After Celia died, he’d just wanted to stay free. But you lost a little something along that way. You lost this feeling.

Jael was right about that. Didn’t make any kind of sense for an orphan—an outcast—to know so much about what it was like to have people in your life. But durned if she didn’t.

The boy stopped, panting, in front of Hitch. Sweat trickled out from under the helmet. Above his grin, his cheeks were flushed with the heat.

“All right, Captain,” Hitch said. “How about some lunch?”

They walked over to the pile of bedrolls and knapsacks. Earl and Jael were nowhere to be seen, but Earl had left them half a loaf of bread, a chunk of white cheese, and a slightly unripe apple.

Hitch split the food between them, and they sat on the bedrolls while they ate.

Taos lay beside Walter, his head on the boy’s leg. His eyes followed the food back and forth from Walter’s hand to his mouth.

Walter fed him a crust. Then he looked up and gave the field a long, searching glance that finally ended on Hitch. He tipped his head and shrugged, asking a question.

Hitch bit a bruise out of the apple and spat it to the side. “You looking for Jael?”

Walter nodded.

“Like her, don’t you?”

Another nod.

“You do know she’s not staying, right? None of us are.”

Walter nodded again, but his mouth bunched to the side in what was either a grimace or a thoughtful expression. He put his hands behind his neck, as if he were fastening a chain, then he pointed to the sky.

“Jael’s pendant?” Hitch made a stack out of a slice of bread, a piece of cheese, and a wedge of apple. He chewed slowly. “What did she tell you about that?”

Walter shrugged, still pointing up. Then he made a blowing sound through his lips and gestured with his hands in what might have been supposed to indicate clouds rolling in.

Hitch shook his head, not following.

Frustrated, Walter sat back on his heels for a minute. Then he leaned forward and drew painstaking letters in the dust with his finger.

key to her home.

Hitch frowned. What was it Zlo had said about the pendant? That he couldn’t leave without it?

What did that mean? The pendant was some necessary piece of machinery to get
Schturming
working?

The way Jael had handled that pendant during the lightning strike had been... strange. It
had
almost seemed like she’d been pulling the lightning toward her—and then deflecting it. If the pendant could do that, maybe it was somehow connected to
Schturming
. It might not be able to bring
Schturming
back, but it might be able to do
something
.

And if that were true, then that pendant around that girl’s neck might be the last thing he’d want to be toting around the country with him.

“All right, let’s finish up,” Hitch told Walter. “We’ll go see what she can tell us about this.”

Twenty

WHEN HITCH AND Walter finally found Jael at the far end of the field, she wasn’t alone. She stood near the road in the shade of Livingstone’s rough-hewn bleachers. Across from her, Griff had one hand hooked over the bleacher above his head. With his fedora in hand, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, and his deputy’s badge glinting against his shoulder, he looked mighty clean-cut.

He had that expression on his face—wrinkled forehead, unblinking eyes—that said he was dead serious about something.

“—not trying to butt in where it’s none of my business, ma’am.”

Instinctively, Hitch drew up and held out a hand to stop Walter.

The boy looked up at him, curious.

“I don’t want to see you get into any kind of trouble,” Griff said. “Not after having to bring you into the hospital after that lightning strike. My brother—he never was the kind who takes advantage. But this isn’t a good business for a lady.”

Jael murmured something.

“I don’t know how close you are to my brother. If you’re maybe... together?”

That got Jael to look up. She blushed up to the top of her ears and shook her head hard.

Hitch stepped forward. “Griff. Didn’t expect to see you out here.”

Griff looked back, first at Hitch, then at Walter. A strange expression—guilt almost—passed across his face. Then his mouth firmed, back to the same old resolute, righteous anger.

He put his hat back on and pulled the front brim down. “You mind what I said, miss. You decide you need help going home—or maybe just finding a decent job around here—you let me know.”

She nodded, but kept her gaze resolutely forward and refused to look Hitch in the eye.

Griff passed her and walked over to Hitch and Walter.

Hitch’s tongue itched with a demand to know what exactly Griff thought he was up to—riding in here on his white horse and acting like Jael needed saving. But he swallowed it back.

“Come for a ride?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what? Trying to lure away my wing walker?”

Griff was breathing a little harder than he needed to be. Every muscle in his body was tight. “You think she’s like you, but she’s not. She doesn’t belong out here, and you know it.”

That depended on what Griff meant by “out here.” She
had
seemed a lot more comfortable at Nan’s farm, with all the kids around, then she did here at camp, hawking rides. But Griff hadn’t seen her in the air. Hitch had.

“She can make her own decisions, I reckon,” he said.

A muscle in Griff’s jaw hopped. He held Hitch’s gaze for so long it started to feel like one of the staring contests they’d had as boys to decide who got the apple with fewer worms.

All right, so Griff was still mad. More than that, he was
determined
to be mad, as if that was going to finally teach Hitch some important lesson. He looked about ready to pop, like if he didn’t say what he really had to say—if he didn’t just take an honest swing at Hitch and get it over with—he might explode right here and now.

But he didn’t say and he didn’t swing.

What he did do was finally look at Walter. “Does Nan know you’re out here?” His voice softened a bit.

Walter froze. He darted a glance between Hitch and Griff, then gave his head a tiny shake.

“Didn’t think so. Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”