Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure (62 page)

And he knew just the place.

He muscled the wheel around, hand over hand, and managed to turn the prow a couple degrees. That’d be enough. They were almost there.

Schturming
whisked over housetops, maybe only twenty feet above the chimneys.

Through the windshield, a two-story frame house with a dormer roof loomed on the edge of town. Campbell’s house.

But not for long. Hitch spared a tight grin.

He hauled the wheel back to center. The bowsprit lined up with the dormer window like the sight on a .22.

Only thirty feet to go.

Didn’t matter how hard that wheel spun now.
Schturming
couldn’t help but hit Campbell’s house. That was Hitch’s cue to leave if he wanted any chance of surviving the crash.

He let go of the wheel and backed away two steps. Then he turned and ran.

He blasted across the wheelhouse, hurdled the stairway railing, and landed halfway down the circular steps. He ran back down the length of the ship to the engine room in the stern and Jael’s hidden closet next to the entrance. He yanked the door shut, dragged her thin mattress over him, and dropped to the floor in a fetal ball.

The whole ship shuddered. Then, almost as if the momentum had to catch up with the feeling, she slammed hard. That’d be her prow ripping through Campbell’s roof.

His good shoulder thudded into the closet door. Hammers and wrenches from Jael’s hanging bag clattered down on him.

The ship kept skidding. A sensation like fingernails against slate grated up the floorboards all through his body. And then she was pitching forward. He went weightless for a moment.

The prow battered into the ground and hurled him against the door. The latch gave way, and he hurtled down the floor’s steep incline. Halfway across the room, he thumped into the
dawsedometer
where it was bolted to the floor.

The ship skidded even farther: another weightless sensation, followed by another tremendous thud. She toppled onto her port side.

Hitch caught hold of the
dawsedometer
and kept himself from toppling with her.

Any second now, she was going to burst into flames and burn like the devil’s bacon.

He looked around. With the floor slanted like this, he’d never be able to climb back up to the door in time.

Thick smoke wafted in from the cargo bay and grated in his lungs. He coughed.

Out of the corner of his eye, gray daylight flashed. Only a few yards back from the
dawsedometer
was Jael’s “door in floor.” Without the pendant, he could hardly have unlocked it, but the crash had already done the work for him: the trapdoor hung open, its hinges completely busted.

That’d do—and how.

He scrambled around to the topside of the
dawsedometer
and barely managed to catch a handhold on the nearest of the engine’s pistons. Every muscle in his body screaming, and his right arm refusing to hold his weight half the time, he dragged himself up. His hand found the edge of the trapdoor, and cool air wicked against the sweat on his skin.

He heaved himself over the ledge. This end of the ship had run aground in Campbell’s yard, but the front end was still wedged in the roof. From the porthole, it was only a ten-foot drop. He hit the ground, lost all his breath, and got up dizzy.

Run
. That was the only thought in his head. He sure as gravy hadn’t made it this far to blow up with his feet on firm ground.

He spared one glance at the wilting envelope. Both arms pumping, lungs heaving, he ran across Campbell’s yard, turned the corner around the picket fence, and sprinted down the road.

From behind, a sound whuffed, like a thousand birthday candles blowing out. Heat engulfed his back, the hairs on his neck singeing. Light like high noon splashed shadows everywhere. A great crackling blotted out every other noise, even the slap of his feet against the road.

In front of him, people packed the street. Half of them stopped and stared, shouting and screaming. Some turned and ran. They were probably out of range back there, but better safe than sorry at this point. A handful of men with sloshing buckets broke through the crowd, headed toward the wreck.

Earl, a bucket in his unbroken arm, led the charge. From across the road, he caught sight of Hitch and stopped to hang his head back in relief.

Hitch’s lungs burned hotter than the fire behind him. He slowed up and looked back.

Sure enough,
Schturming
had plowed through Campbell’s dormer roof. Three times as big as the house, she leaned upended in the yard. Fifty-foot flames chewed through the skeleton of the envelope. Right in front of his eyes, the whole structure crumbled into ash.

Without the gas to consume, the flames subsided. But they’d already crawled across the yard and up the side of Campbell’s house.

Hitch crouched, hands on his knees, and rasped in breath after breath. Every single one made him want to cough, but he kept pulling them in.

“Hitch!” That was Jael’s voice.

He jerked his head around, back toward the crowd.

Campbell had Jael by the arm and was stalking toward him.

Jael grinned. Walter ran beside her, lugging a bucket in both hands. She grabbed his shoulder and pointed at Hitch.

A smile split the boy’s face. He jumped up and down, bucket and all, water splashing all over the dark front of his party suit.

Thank God. They’d made it. Hitch dropped to both knees. Thank God, thank God, thank God. And bless that crazy, cranky Jenny. Somehow, impossibly, she’d gotten them both back to the ground in one piece.

Campbell let go of Jael. “Hitchcock!” He looked like he wanted to barrel across the road and pummel Hitch. But every few steps, he had to stop and gape at his house.

Finally, he turned to Hitch and jabbed a finger at him. A pulse beat in his temple, and his jowls quivered. “I’ll bury you for this!”

Hitch stood up. Blood from his shoulder wet the crevices of his fingers, but he left the arm straight at his side. The time for showing weaknesses was over.

Campbell grabbed his arm—the good one, thankfully—and leaned into his face. “You’re going to wish you’d died in that crash, you hear me?”

“Stand down, Sheriff. I just did you the biggest favor of your life in saving
your
people from that thing.”

“You arrogant flyboy! You think you can return here a hero? After what you pulled last night!”

“I think if you try even one single thing, I will bring this whole town down on your scurvy head.”

“You try it, son.”

Hitch shrugged out from under Campbell’s grip. He turned and he walked away. Campbell’d never stand for that, especially not now. But let him make the first move. Better that way this time. The whole town would see their sheriff, and the whole town could draw their own conclusions about him.

Hitch made it two steps before Campbell’s paw slammed down, this time right on his wounded shoulder.

Pain sliced through his vision. He staggered sideways and fell to his hands and knees. He tried once to get up, then caught himself on his good hand and shook his head woozily.

Around the corners of his blurred vision, he could see the crowd shifting. Their attention moved from the fire, toward him. Some of them muttered protests.

“Stay down,” Campbell said.

Hitch raised himself onto his knees and faced the crowd. “He’s going to arrest me. But before he does, you all need to know this man’s got no business being your sheriff. He’s been crooked for years!”

They started murmuring amongst themselves.

“Don’t go there,” Campbell growled, low and deep. “You can’t win.” He grabbed Hitch’s good arm and twisted it up behind his back.

New pain exploded in his arm socket, and he groaned.

“That’s enough!” a woman shouted.

The crowd closed in around them, some of them just curious, some of them repeating the dissent.

“How do you know this?” a man yelled at Hitch.

He raised his chin. “I know this because I’ve let him make me a part of it.”

Jael clasped her hands and shook her head.

Hitch kept on going. “I’ve smuggled stolen goods and bootleg liquor for him, and when we downed
Schturming
the other day, I turned control of it over to him. I shouldn’t have. But I did it because he’s threatened my family time and again.”

Brows started to lower. Mouths started to frown. At least they weren’t dismissing him out of hand.

Campbell hauled him to his feet. “Not true, and you all know it. This here boy ain’t the hero you want to make him out.” But his hand on Hitch’s wrist was starting to sweat a little.

The crowd’s murmurs grew into an outright hubbub. A ripple moved up through the people, and they parted to let three men through: Griff, Matthew, and J.W.

Griff’s nose was swollen, and dark bruises welled under each eye. He looked tousled and exhausted, but at least he wasn’t in jail. Judging from the shotguns propped on the Berringers’ hips and the smug determination on their faces, they had to be the reason.

Griff gripped a revolver as he crossed the distance. “What my brother says is true. William Campbell, you are under arrest for malfeasance.”

“Call it skullduggery and be done,” J.W. said.

Campbell’s jowls quivered. “Escaping after a lawful arrest, you think that’s going to get you anywhere, Deputy?” He glowered at the Berringers. “Or your friends?”

“You can say what you want.” Griff walked up to Campbell, handcuffs in hand. “We both know where this is going to end.”

“You make any kind of case that I’m guilty, then your brother has to be complicit. You don’t want that.” With surprising speed, he snatched Griff’s revolver away from him. His voice went deadly calm. “You don’t run this town, boys. I do. And that isn’t changin’.”

Behind them, a second explosion erupted.

Hitch ducked. Specks of hot debris spattered against his back, and he twisted a look over his shoulder.

Campbell’s green sedan had flipped all the way over and flattened the picket fence. The fire must have gotten to it. Campbell’s big house and Campbell’s big car—all in one fell swoop. Not bad for a day’s work. But it wouldn’t mean a thing if they couldn’t get Campbell himself.

Hitch gathered his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to hurl himself against Campbell—and probably break his other arm in the process.

Like the rest of them, Campbell had jerked around at the sound of the explosion. Already, he was turning back. His eyes found Griff. The revolver rose.

From behind Campbell, a board from his own house smacked him right in the back of the head. A look of utter surprise dropped his mouth. Then his eyes rolled up, and he thudded to his knees. He stayed upright for one second longer, then toppled sideways into the mud.

Behind him, Jael held the board cocked over one shoulder, ready for another go. Right in front of all the town’s ladies, she spat at Campbell’s body. “
Eto pravosudie
.” Then she raised her fierce gaze to Hitch. The set of her mouth looked extremely satisfied.

Hitch’s breath fizzled from his body, and he gave her a grateful nod.

Griff turned to the crowd. “C’mon, let’s have four men to carry him to a car!” He turned his head, not quite looking at Hitch. “Campbell’s right. I’m going to have to put you under arrest too. If I ask you to come along, will you do it?”

The adrenaline filtered out of Hitch. Everything started to hurt. He cradled his bad arm against his stomach. “Yeah, I’ll come.”

Jael frowned. “What is this? Wait—” She clenched the board harder.

Hitch touched her arm. “It’s all right. Take care of Walter. Make sure he gets back to Nan.”

She knit her eyebrows hard. “Hitch—”

He found he could smile, in spite of everything—or maybe because of everything. “It’s all right, kiddo.”

He turned to follow Griff.

Townspeople rushed on every side. The thirty-member volunteer fire department had arrived. People with buckets started to form lines, all the way down the street to Campbell’s home. Maybe they’d even put out the fire before it could spread to any other houses.

He squinted upward. The clouds were drawing up higher into the sky. Here and there, a rim of gold edged a crack, and, on the brink of the horizon, the warm, red line of the summer sunrise reached out for him.

Fifty

AFTER TWO WEEKS cooped up in that dad-blasted cell, waiting on a hearing, the sun felt mighty good. Hitch stepped out of the courthouse into the late August heat. Under a sky of perfect blue, the waning morning stretched as far as he could see, golden and dusty. Two weeks was plenty of time for Nebraska soil to suck up even a cataclysmic storm’s moisture.

He paused on the steps to roll his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. Then he slung his jacket over his stitched-up shoulder. It was still stiff, but the doc said it’d mend fine in another couple of weeks.