K. Weiland - Storming

His heart beat so hard it drowned out everything else.

How did you know when it was time to touch the ground? What did you do then? Sweat slipped over his eyebrows and stung his eyes. He blinked fiercely.

Then, just like that, a wheel hit the ground. They smacked so hard his neck about snapped. The whole world went fuzzy. But then, almost as quick, the Jenny hopped right back up—and down again. Something that looked a whole lot like a wheel bounced away to the side.

They were so close to the ground. They couldn’t crash now.

Jael wrapped both her hands around his, and together they hauled back.

He yanked one of his hands loose long enough to cut the throttle.

Life crept by, one long breath after another. With every second, the Jenny’s high tail end rose a little higher. She was going to flip right over.

But she didn’t. Just when it seemed she couldn’t get any higher, the tail fell. It whomped back into the ground. Mud showered everywhere. Walter was jerked back and his head walloped Jael’s chin. Then he pitched forward and hit his forehead against the stick.

Lights speckled behind his eyelids for a second. Or more likely five seconds.

He opened first one eye, then another. His head throbbed on both sides, but that was about all that hurt. He craned a look back to Jael.

She clamped one hand over her bloody chin and stared at him, eyes wide.

She was alive. So was he. He looked over the edge of the cockpit. The plane had settled onto one wing, but she was settled. Taos scrambled out of the front cockpit and ran around the plane, barking.

They’d done it! Walter clawed the safety belt loose and piled out of the plane. His legs quivered like a still-wet calf’s.

People ran up the street, shouting. Sheriff Campbell, a storm lantern in one hand, ran at their front. Earl ran behind him.

Walter looked back to where Jael was standing up in the cockpit. “I did it!”

She grinned. “You did it!”

“I did it!”

He jumped up and down once, then threw himself forward into the dirt to turn a somersault. The pain in his head banged away louder than Evvy and Annie playing with Mama Nan’s pots and pans. But that didn’t matter right now.

“I did it!” He opened his mouth, and, for the first time ever, yelled as loud as he could: “_I DID IT!_”

Hitch had been right about him.

Hitch… He craned his head back to see the sky. Where was Hitch? Clouds filled up every cranny of the sky. But no Schturming . He spun all the way around, head back as far as it would go.

The rumble of running feet drowned out any chance of sound.

People shouted and shrieked.

“The boy, he’s safe!”

“Would you look at that?”

“Where’s Hitch?” That was Earl.

“Everybody stand back!” Campbell shouted. He wore a bandage over his forehead, and the corners of his lips were pulled back, like a bear on the prod.

He stalked right up to Jael, still standing in the plane. He grabbed her arm and hauled her down. “This woman is under arrest!”

Earl looked about ready to spit. “Oh, for cryin’ out—”

Walter ducked through the swarm of people and latched both hands onto Campbell’s arm. “Let her go!”

Campbell stared, probably a little shocked Walter was talking. But he dropped the lantern instead of Jael and used his freed hand to grab Walter’s shirtfront. “Where’s your rescuer now?” He turned back to Jael. “He gets you both stuck up there and then abandons you to your own devices, is that it?”

Walter clenched both hands around Campbell’s fingers in his shirt and tried to pry them loose.

Jael stood up straight, like the storybook queens, and stared down her nose at Campbell. “You know that is not true.” She faced the crowd. “Hitch stayed in Schturming to save us—to save all of you! So it would not crash and kill you!”

With a fluttery whistle—kind of like a tremendous kite— Schturming broke out of the clouds and passed over their heads. For an instant, its shadow blocked out the gray trickle of new morning light. Black smoke gushed from the cargo bay’s open doors. The fire must have spread.

Earl spun to face the crowd. “Buckets? Hoses? You got a fire brigade in this town?” He turned around and jogged past Jael. His eyes found hers. “He ain’t dead yet. If there’s any chance at all, that ol’ bushwhacker spirit of his’ll get him out of this alive.”

She started after him.

Campbell snarled and snatched her back. “ If he’s unlucky enough to survive this, he’s going to be in more trouble than even he knows what to do with.”

Walter finally yanked free. He glanced at Jael. He should stop and help her.

She caught his eye and shook her head. “Go!”

That was all he needed. He took off running. His feet, in his pinched party shoes, slapped through the sloppy mud of the road. He’d help carry buckets—or bandages—or anything, if it’d help Hitch stay alive.

SCHTURMING WAS HOLDING altitude about as well as a lump of lead. Faint wisps of smoke trickled into the wheelhouse. Fire was gnawing at her from somewhere below decks. All it’d take would be one spark on one hiss of gas, and the whole thing would go up in flames.

Hitch ignored the blood trickling from under his shoulder bandage. No chance at all of getting completely clear of the city. Pretty near the only thing he could do now was find a crash site where she’d cause the least amount of damage.

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.