Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure (5 page)

She stared.

Not only had his plane nearly been hit by a human being out of nowhere, she was a human being whose nowhere sure as gravy wasn’t from around here. The gibberish she was yabbering wasn’t anything he’d run across in his travels around the country. That ruled out Spanish, French, and probably Chinese.

If he went back to camp with this story, Earl would tie him up in the front cockpit and fly him straight out of here. There had to be a sensible explanation to it. Sensible-ish, anyway.

He opened his mouth. How did you ask someone who didn’t speak English if she’d done something that wasn’t possible?

The fluttering dress caught his eye. He pointed at it. “That. Where’d you get that?”

She shook her head, vehemently.

“Is it yours? Did you find it someplace, same as you did the overalls?” He wiggled his own shirt collar.

She sidestepped, past the wash line, into J.W.’s yard.

“Just tell me if you’re from around here. Maybe I could help you get back to your family.”

She almost seemed to get that one. Her eyes narrowed, as if thinking hard. She gave her head half a shake.

Finally, he just bit the bullet. “Where—do—you—
come
—from? Savvy?”

She straightened, and her hold on the knife eased. With her free hand, she pointed one finger straight up.

Oh,
that
answer was sure going to make Earl think he was sane. “You’re saying you, what, live in the sky?”

She dipped her chin, once, and then her whole body froze. She whipped her head around, eyes scanning overhead, as if she heard something.

Like enough, it was a diversion. Get him to look too and then find a good hunk of muscle to sink the knife into.

But two could play that game. He lunged at her, caught her knife hand by the wrist, and forced it clear of his own body.

She screamed and struck out at his head with her free hand. She didn’t have much meat on her bones, but she was tall and surprisingly strong. He caught that wrist too, and she started kicking at his shins.

“Ow! Just quit, will you? Drop the knife, and you can go. I’ll even pay Matthew for the clothes. You don’t have to stay to talk to him.”

She shouted words at him, and they didn’t sound too much like endearments. Up close, she smelled like engine grease, lye soap, and lake moss. Her eyes locked on his, and in back of all that fury, he saw fear. She was just a lost girl in a strange place, trying to keep her head above water.

Either that, or she was a foreign spy trained to kill people by kicking them to death.

The ball of her bare foot landed another thwack on his shin, just above his boot.

And then he heard what she’d heard: the buzz of plane engines, lots of them, maybe about five miles out. Had her people come back to pick her up? He risked a glance away from her, toward the sky.

That was when the shooting started.

The first shot smacked into Matthew’s water barrel, and the report of a .22 rifle echoed. “Goldurn it, Matthew Berringer! Didn’t I tell you to stay out of my tomatoes?”

Hitch ducked and yanked the girl down with him, barely keeping the knife away from his ribs. All around them, the red gleam of tomatoes peeked from behind brown-edged leaves. He pushed her backwards, tumbling them both behind a steel water tank.

Still hanging onto her knife-holding hand, he cocked his head back against the tank. “J.W., this is Hitch Hitchcock! It ain’t Matthew, so for the love of Pete, stop your shooting!”

Another shot plinked into the tank and sprinkled water over their heads.

The girl tried to pull her hand away.

Hitch caught it fast in both of his. “Stop it, I tell you!”

“Eh?” J.W. said.

Matthew’s back door slammed, and he came tromping out, shotgun under one arm, pulling up his overalls strap as he came. “Why do you have to go shooting everything up this time of the morning? I told you I locked my chickens in!”

“Maybe not chickens, but there’s sure something in my tomato patch! If them tomatoes are ruined, you’re accountable.”

Overhead, the plane engines thrummed louder.

Hitch leaned sideways, trying to stick his head out enough for Matthew to see him around the wash on the line—but not so far that J.W. could shoot it off. “Matthew—”

The girl released the knife and yanked her wrist free. She jumped to her feet and bolted.

Instinctively, he dove after her. “Wait, you idiot. You want to get shot?” He caught her rolled-up pants cuff and brought her down.

She scrambled back to her feet, and he barely managed to snag her waist. With another one of those non-endearments, she turned on him, both kicking and clawing this time.

He caught first one hand, then the other. “Just wait a minute!”

To either side of him, running footsteps tromped through the tomato patch. Next thing he knew, two gun barrels were pointed at him. Not at
them
. Just at him.

“Now hold up, sonny,” Matthew said.

J.W. prodded Hitch with the .22. “Let her go. Don’t know what Matthew’s got to say about this, but I won’t have no manhandling of ladies on
my
property.”

Hitch’s chuckle sounded forced even to him. “Let’s all calm down here, shall we? You remember me? I used to work for you when I was a kid.”

Matthew leaned his head back and surveyed Hitch through the round specs perched low on his nose. He was closing in on seventy, but his face was still smooth and hardly jowly at all.

“Well, bless my suspenders, so you did.” He, at least, lowered his shotgun. “Hitch Hitchcock. Never thought we’d be seeing you again. How long has it been?”

Hitch huffed a sigh. “About nine years, I reckon.”

Matthew glanced at the girl. “And who are you?”

She wasn’t fighting anymore. She stared, first at the guns, then at the sky. The planes were almost overhead now.

“Don’t know who she is,” Hitch said. “But she’s crazy. And she doesn’t speak English.”

J.W. gave him another poke in the ribs. “Let her go anyway.”

The years hadn’t been quite so kind to J.W. The top of his head was almost completely bald and peeling with an old sunburn. He still had his mustache, but it was stone gray now and in need of a trim.

“You heard me right enough,” J.W. said. “I won’t have no manhandling around here.” The way he had of jutting his grizzled chin made him look like a badger on the prod.

“I don’t think letting her go is such a great idea,” Hitch said. “She already tried to stab me.”

“Might be she had good reason, eh?”

Hitch glared. “I didn’t do anything.
She
came in here, stole Matthew’s clothes, and about scalped me.”

“You’re bigger’n her. Seems to me that evens the odds.”

“Let her go,” Matthew said. He looked at her. “You won’t run, will you, miss?” He reached to tip a hat brim that wasn’t there.

She stared at him, then at J.W., then finally at Hitch. She licked her lips and nodded.

“Fine, but you boys are asking for it.” Hitch released her wrists.

She took off like a whitetail deer—but not toward the knife. In long-legged strides, she hurdled the water tank and bounded into J.W.’s yard.

“Watch the tomatoes!” J.W. shouted.

She reached the house and jumped to catch hold of the ornate porch railing that ran all the way around. Like some kind of squirrel, she hauled herself onto the railing, then shimmied up the support post to the porch roof.

J.W. started running. “What do you think you’re doing? Get off my house, woman!”

Hitch and Matthew followed. By the time they reached the yard, she’d already clambered past the second-story balcony’s roof and was half-running, half-climbing up the steep roof to where the third-story gable joined with the jutting tower.

Hitch stopped beside the house and shaded his eyes. “Get down! You want to kill yourself?”

The planes were shrieking into view now—Jennies most of them, all painted red, white, and blue. Little stars-and-stripes banners flew from their wingtips.

Col. Bonney Livingstone and His Extravagant Flying Circus had arrived—just as audaciously as they had all those years ago in Tennessee when Hitch had first worked for him.

His heart gave an extra pump.

“We have to do something,” Matthew said. “She’ll get hurt up there.”

She didn’t seem to share their concern. Wedging herself between the tower and the chimney, she practically bounced up to the tower window. Another second more and she was on the tower roof. She hung off the lightning rod, one foot braced at its bottom, the other dangling into nothing.

The planes buzzed past—over her head, on either side of her. The pilots waggled their wings and waved. Their turbulence whipped her oversized clothes and her chopped hair. She flung her free hand out to them and laughed. It was a crazy thing to do, but she actually didn’t sound that crazy. More like delighted.

Which made no sense at all if somebody in an airplane had tossed her out last night. If it hadn’t been a plane she’d been tossed out of, then... what did that leave?

Five

THE BUZZ OF the engines began to fade back out. The girl dropped her waving arm to her side and watched the planes until they were specks on the blue horizon.

“Now get back down here,” J.W. said. “Before you fall off and break your durn neck.”

Whether she understood or not, she lifted her shoulders in a sigh, then swung around the lightning rod to face them.

“Careful!” Matthew said. He looked at Hitch. “Maybe one of us should go up and help her.”

Hitch gave a little groan, but took a step anyway.

If the girl was aware of their gallantry, she didn’t seem too flattered. She dropped to the seat of her pants and slid down the steep roof as unconcernedly as she’d gone up.

Hitch lunged to the porch railing. “Hold on!”

She caught herself on the eaves and swung around until her bare toes found the tower windowsill. Half a minute later, she’d scrambled back down to the porch railing. She stood on the balustrade and looked them all over, eyebrows knit. She was probably wishing she’d kept the knife. But a little of the wild look from before had faded. Her eyes shone, as if the sight of the circus had filled her up with both adrenaline and joy all at once.

She definitely wasn’t scared of the planes.

“Well,” Matthew said. “Since we’re all still in one piece, how about some breakfast?”

“Good luck getting her to stay,” Hitch said.

She cocked her head. “Brakk fast?”

J.W. looked at Hitch. “Thought you said she didn’t speak English.”

“I think she understands more than she can say.” Hitch imitated forking food into his mouth and chewing. “
Breakfast
. You know, food you eat in the morning.” He offered her a hand down.

She contemplated his hand for a moment, then gave him a good hard look. Considering she’d only just gotten over thinking he was a threat worth knifing, her distrust made a fair amount of sense.

“I don’t bite,” he promised. “And I’m sorry about the scuffle.”

She grunted. Then, ignoring his hand, she hopped the remaining five feet to the ground as if it was nothing.

He took a step back to get out of her way.

At first glance, she hadn’t seemed like much to look at. Pale, almost transparent. But up close, she was pretty enough. She had high cheekbones, a sloping jaw, and a straight nose that might have looked harsh on someone else. But on her, it was tempered with an overall softness—a buoyant sweetness.

Of course, that sweetness was less than convincing in light of his throbbing shins.

She raised an eyebrow at his scrutiny, practically daring him to go on looking.

He gave her a wink and stepped out of the way.

Matthew turned back to his house. “C’mon.”

“Hold onto yourself,” J.W. said. “What gives you the right to go hogging the company?”