Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure (8 page)

He hadn’t left her out of irresponsibility. He’d left her because staying only would have hurt her—would have hurt all of them. Then, after she’d died, he’d stayed out there with the planes, because... it was the only place in the world that had ever felt
right
.

Nan shook her head, hard.

Fine. He’d give her the space she wanted. But he was here for a week. Before he had to leave again, he’d make things right—or right
er
at any rate. If he could fly a Jenny upside-down and only a foot off the ground, then surely he could do this one thing and make this better for her before he left for good.

Nan took Molly’s elbow and drew her back a step. She raised her voice. “Aurelia, come along. The sooner Mr. Hitchcock returns to his red flying machine, the better.”

Jael had wandered over, near enough to hear that last part. Her mouth came open, and she jerked forward half a step.

Nan caught Hitch’s eye as she turned away. “We’ll leave you and your charming
companion
to finish up on your own.”

“Give me a break. You’ve got a right to take your spleen out on me. But don’t go chucking mud on her.”

“Oh, certainly, because any woman in your presence is instantly above reproach.”

He held the silence for a second. “That’s way below you, Nan.”

She had the grace to blush, a hard line of red along either cheekbone. “Then who is she?”

“Don’t know. Found her out at the Berringers’ this morning.” He gestured for Jael to come forward.

She eased away from the print dress Aurelia had followed her with, but she barely looked at Nan. “Red—flying? That is you? Like—” She made engine noises and gestured as if her hands were planes. “Out at two men’s who try to kill each other?”

Then she hadn’t connected him with the plane she’d about smacked into last night?

“Yeah, I fly a plane—a red one.”

“
Fly
? But you are”—she looked at the women, then back at Hitch—“you are Groundsman. You are not having fear for this?”

“Well, I admit I ain’t so keen on heights, but that don’t matter so much when you’re in a plane.” He caught Nan’s suspicious expression and cleared his throat. “Look—”

Jael came near enough to touch his sleeve with her fingertips. She lowered her voice. “
You
could take me home!”

Her home in the sky wasn’t anything he wanted brought up in front of Nan. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, we’ll talk about that later.” He looked at Nan. “Her English isn’t all that great. She needs a place to stay. Don’t suppose you’d have one for her?”

“What she
needs
are some decent clothes.”

“Don’t think she’s got any money.”

Nan glanced at the counter. “You do.”

Fallon, standing back a few discreet steps, had laid a handful of bills beside the .45. He stepped forward. “The piece is a bit banged up. Afraid I can only give you fifteen dollars for it.” He nodded toward Jael. “Ten if you want the dress and fixings while you’re here.”

Fifteen was a few bucks more than Hitch had hoped to get for that old piece, and he wouldn’t need quite all of it to buy Earl’s parts. He looked back at Jael. She
did
appear more than a mite disreputable. Likely, she’d have a better chance of finding some place to stay if she got some clothes that were the correct size.

“All right. Let her pick out what she wants.” He glanced at her and gave his own shirt a tug. “Clothes. Find yourself some clothes that fit.”

Aurelia clapped her hands and turned to sort through the dress rack once again.

Nan pulled Molly toward the door. “Aurelia, we’re leaving.”

Molly cast Hitch a half-embarrassed look. “Awfully nice to have met you.”

“Aurelia,” Nan called.

Aurelia growled, then thrust the dress into Jael’s arms and turned to skip back across the room to the door. She patted Hitch’s shoulder as she passed. “Goodbye, dear man.” She reached Nan and looped her arm through her sister’s. “Isn’t that girl the charmingest thing? Violet is her color, I am sure.”

“Mmm.” Nan pushed the door open, letting in another gust of heat. She paused. “Miss—” She waited until Jael met her gaze. “Be careful.”

Jael had draped Aurelia’s dress back over the rack. She raised her eyebrows, not understanding, then looked from Nan to Hitch and back again. “I have knowledge of how Groundsmen are.” But the expression she turned on Hitch was more puzzled than anything. “Maybe I have knowledge.”

Hitch watched Nan and the others go. Jael’s knowledge sure seemed to be doing her more good than everything he’d
thought
he knew about his folks back home.

He never would have realized Nan would still be hurting so badly over this. Even if she blamed him for all of it, it had been
nine years
.

Didn’t seem to be much she wanted to let him even try to do to make it right. But he’d have to do something. Last time, he’d left without being able to say goodbye to anybody but Celia. Maybe landing back here at home meant this time he could put it all to rights before moving on again.

The first thing he had to do here was figure out how to remedy his other little problem.

He looked over at Jael. “Find some clothes. Then we’ve got some ground to cover if we’re going to get you back to
your
home.”

Seven

OUT ON THE street, Hitch studied Jael’s new outfit. “I think maybe you’d have been better off staying in the overalls.”

Back in Fallon Bros., she’d emerged from behind the dressing stall’s curtain in breeches, knee-high boots, and a loose cream blouse that hugged her hips. With her hair tied back in a turkey-red handkerchief, she looked like some kind of pirate queen. He’d sputtered a protest or two, but paid up, even when Fallon tacked on an extra dollar for the boots.

He stepped around in front of her so he could give her another once over. At least the clothes fit—and her chopped hair and bare feet were covered. Still, she didn’t look normal. And around here, folks who were good enough to take in strangers liked those strangers to at least have the decency of looking like everybody else.

“Why didn’t you take the dress Aurelia gave you?”

She firmed her mouth in a prim line. “Was being too short for... properness.”

“Properness?” What she was wearing now would probably give the local ladies heart failure. Nice country girls didn’t wear breeches. If they were being extra practical, they wore overalls in the fields, but that was about it.

“And what is it you wear normally?” he asked.

The corner of her mouth lifted just a bit. “I am not being proper mostly.” A twinkle lit the back of her eyes. “I wear... like this.” She gestured at her new outfit. “Only all one.”

“A jumpsuit? And what about that great big ball gown thing you had on last night?”

“That was for special day. Like, everybody come together and have fun.”

“Celebration?”

The twinkle died. “Only was not for me. The—what you call ball gown—had no belonging to me. I was taking it for... so people would not be knowing me at
celebration
.” She pulled in a big breath, as if dispersing the memory. “Red plane you are flying?
Oplata
—um, payment—I will be finding. Groundsmen, they are doing anything to get payment. I have knowledge for this.”

“You might want to consider you don’t know as much about Groundsmen as you think you do.”

He started down the raised sidewalk. He needed to be getting the money for the parts back to Earl pronto. And then there was Jael’s buddy from last night. He cast a glance up and down both sides of the street. Could be the guy had his plane—or whatever—stowed someplace near town. He wasn’t likely to be anybody Hitch had already seen at the pilots’ camp.

“I have knowledge enough about your Groundsworld,” Jael said. “Going home is what I
must
do.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Home’s a place where people want what you don’t have it in you to give them. And then they blame you for not having it to give to them in the first place.”

“Yes.” She trudged along behind him. “This I am having knowledge about Groundsmen too.”

“What’s that?”

“Your families you are not liking. You take no care for them.”

He stopped short, just outside of Dan and Rosie’s Cafe. “There, right there. That’s one of your snarled-up facts. First of all, I’m not exactly typical of Groundsmen.” Not that she had been near enough to hear most of his conversation with Nan about Celia. “Second, I didn’t say anything about not loving my family. I’m just not good at pretending I belong someplace I don’t.”

“This pretend—this means what?”

“Means acting like something’s real when it’s not.”

She fiddled with her cuff. “This pretending, it is not better than never to be belonging?”

He shrugged. “Everything comes with a price.”

The greasy smell of fried chicken wafted out of the cafe’s open door.

Jael’s stomach rumbled audibly.

He looked through the open door.

From inside the cafe, Lilla leaned back on a red counter stool and waved at him. “Hitch! Come inside! They have the most fabulous orange phosphate.”

He felt the remaining dollars in his pocket. His own middle felt pretty pinched at that. It had been hours since Matthew fed them breakfast.

He gestured Jael to walk in front of him. “C’mon.”

The cafe was just one small front room, filled with square tables. A counter with swiveling stools separated the dining area from the cash register and the shelves of dishes. Beyond that, the kitchen was visible through the serving window in the wall.

Behind the counter, a short, balding man in a stained apron stopped polishing a mug and squinted. “I’ll be dogged. Hitch Hitchcock, is that you?”

Jael shot Hitch a narrow look, both eyebrows going up.

He tapped her arm to guide her forward. “It’s all right, I knew him back when.”

Still, she walked slowly, her weight on the balls of her feet, her hands loose at her sides, like she was ready to run—or more likely fight—if one of the old codgers inside decided to wave a fork at her.

He took her elbow, as much to keep her from doing anything stupid as to reassure her.

Dan Holloway raised the empty mug he’d been polishing and grinned. “Well, so it is. The prodigal back after all these years.” He looked at the room at large. “Didn’t I tell you he’d be back?”

Hitch glanced around. He recognized most of the folks dining at the checked-cloth tables. Two oldsters by the door—Scottie Shepherd and Lou Parker—didn’t look a bit different from how they had when he’d left. According to Matthew, Scottie was the one who’d seen one of those bodies fall out of the sky.

Lou dabbed his mustache with the end of the napkin stuck in his collar. “And aren’t you the spitting image of your daddy?” He gave Hitch’s arm a slap as he passed. “Bless his soul.”

Hitch’s insides twitched. His dad’s was another funeral he should have come back for. But he and his old man hadn’t parted on good terms. For that matter, they hadn’t been on good terms since Hitch’s mother died when he was eleven. His dad never quite understood how flying could be so much better than farming.

Hitch managed a grin. “But handsomer, right?”

Scottie turned in his seat to watch Hitch cross the room. A day’s whiskers covered his cheeks and ketchup stained his overalls’ bib. “Well, you surprised me, son. We heard all kinds of rumors about you running off with some kind of shipment you were flying out for Sheriff Campbell. If that’s the truth, then I’m surprised you’re back at all.”

That
would
be what Campbell would have them all believing.

“Calling me a thief, old-timer?” He managed to keep his tone light—barely.

Scottie shrugged. “Eh. Rumors is rumors.”

“And you believe them?”

Scottie grinned. “Might’ve—if you hadn’t ever come back.”

Lou didn’t look quite so convinced. “I expect the sheriff generally knows what he’s talking about, don’t you?”

At the counter, Hitch stopped and looked back. “Campbell’s not still sheriff, is he?”

Scottie’s eyes twinkled. “Ain’t he though? Why’d we kick the best sheriff we ever had out of office? Older they get, the better they get. Ain’t that right, Lou?”

Oh, gravy. That was bad. Hitch’s smile grew more and more wooden. He turned to take a seat next to Lilla, with Jael on his other side.

“You look poorly,” Lilla observed. “Have an orange phosphate.” She stuck another straw in hers and passed it over.

How stupid could he be? Nan’s anger—that he could deal with. But Bill Campbell was another matter altogether.

There were lots of reasons he hadn’t come home when Celia died, but if you rooted around to the very bottom of it, what you’d find was Bill Campbell. Folks must still have no idea what Campbell was capable of pulling behind their backs.