K. Weiland - Storming

The knot in Hitch’s stomach tightened. “And if I win?”

Livingstone settled his hat onto his head. “If you win, you get to be a partner in my circus.”

A partnership in one of the biggest flying circuses in the country. Hitch near choked.

He looked over to where his Jenny’s red paint gleamed in the heavy afternoon sunlight. That ship was his life. He’d picked it up for a bare two hundred bucks, still in the crate, when so many of them had been available for the taking after the war. She was a common little hussy, with more attitude than any woman had a right to. But she’d won his heart fair enough with her guts and her wild, willing spirit.

Lose her, and he’d be grounded for who knew how long. But if he won… he wouldn’t have to scrape up the money to buy a circus, and he wouldn’t have to tag along as a mere sideshow to Livingstone’s act. He’d have a ready-made circus handed right to him.

He glanced at Earl.

The man was almost as wide-eyed as he was—except his expression looked a lot like panic. Earl gave his head an insistent shake.

True enough the Jenny’s engine needed some repairs, and true also that they barely had enough money to cover those repairs. But it was a better start than Hitch’d had on other bets he’d won.

He turned back to Livingstone.

That wolf-like look had spread from the man’s mouth all the way up to his eyes. This had to be about more than Livingstone just saving face. This was about him trying to keep Hitch in his place. The only thing Livingstone liked about competition was squashing it. But if he was going out of his way to try to squash Hitch, then that seemed mighty indicative that some small part of him thought Hitch might just be able to be that competition for him.

Whether Livingstone intended it to be or not, that was a vastly encouraging thought.

“All right.” Hitch let go of Jael and stepped forward to offer his hand. “You got yourself a bet. By the end of the week, you’re going to have a new partner.”

“By the end of the week, I’m going to have a new plane.” Livingstone crunched Hitch’s hand in his and grinned. “Seems to me I win either way.”

A FEW MISTY clouds gathered against the high blue of the afternoon sky as Walter ran barefoot through the cornfields, toward where the airplanes sat in an empty field. He reached the field and lay down flat to roll under the barbed-wire fence.

There they were, maybe twenty biplanes, all in four colorful rows. He drew in a deep breath. If anything was worth whooping over, this surely was, but the pilots might not like it if they noticed him here. And he needed them to like him, because more than anything in this wide world, he needed to sit in one of those planes. It could stay on the ground, and that would be enough. But he needed to sit in one once.

Not more than an hour ago, one of the red-white-and-blue ones had flown right over his head. A pilot had leaned out of the front driver’s seat and waved at him. The engine thrum had rumbled all through his chest. It was like it had filled him up inside with floating air and near taken him off the ground.

Then it had flown on by, and he’d felt the warm dirt under his feet once more. If just seeing one could make you tingle all over like that, then sitting in one had to be ten times better.

The pilots were up and moving, some of them leaning over fires, getting ready to cook their suppers, some of them rubbing down their windshields and tinkering with their engines.

The question was, which plane to choose? He chewed his lip and scanned down the rows. It was important to pick the right one, and he might only get one shot.

A dog barked, and he turned to look.

A long-haired brown-and-white dog with one floppy ear trotted over and sniffed his bare feet. Walter waited until he was done sniffing. When the dog looked up, Walter scratched his ears. The dog panted and wagged his tail.

Papa Byron had a dog to watch the chickens, but Walter and the girls weren’t allowed to play with him. He was a working dog, not a boy’s dog. That made a sort of sense, but, still, it’d be nice to have a boy’s dog. A dog just like this one, as a matter of fact.

He patted the dog again, then looked back to the planes. The nearest one was as red as the barn after he’d helped Papa Byron paint it last summer. Nobody was near it, so he padded over. The dog trotted at his side.

The plane was just pretty all over, from its square metal nose to its wooden wing struts, all the way back to its tail. He stopped beside the wing and reached out to touch it. It was made of cloth, stiffened with some kind of varnish. He poked it once, experimentally, then gave it a gentle thump. A hollow strum resounded.

The tingly feeling in his chest wasn’t quite as strong as when the engine had been roaring overhead, but it was close. He traced his hand up the wing and stopped next to the drivers’ seats. They were too high up to see into, and he didn’t dare climb onto the wing. He stood on tiptoe. Still nothing. Then he dropped onto all fours and peered underneath.

Two pairs of legs—one in laced-up boots and the other in grease-stained white pants—walked over.

“How long will repairs take?”

“That’s all you’re going to say to me? How long will repairs take ?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, something about how you’ve got some grand secret plan that’s going to make winning this competition a cinch—seeing as how everything we’ve got is now riding on it.”

“Not exactly a cinch . But we’ll make it happen.”

“Right. Just like that. Because beating Bonney Livingstone is always so easy.”

“Can we go back to talking about how long you’re going to take with those repairs?”

The other man harrumphed. “An hour or two, I reckon. But I gotta go to town and dig up parts before any of that. You want to see if you can talk Rick into driving me?”

“You’re better off asking him yourself, don’t you think?”

The dog yipped and scooted under the plane.

The legs with the boots bent and their owner knelt to fondle the dog’s ears. Then the man ducked his head and looked straight at Walter. “Well, now, seems Taos went and had a puppy. Where’d you come from, son?”

The man was long and lanky, his face square and freckled, and his eyes so pale a blue you almost missed them altogether. He looked older than Molly and younger than Mama Nan. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and goggles or a leather jacket, like the pictures on the posters in town, but he was a pilot. He had to be. A real, honest-to-goodness pilot.

Walter’s face went hot. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to meet a pilot, not hunched over on the ground, as if he was spying.

“Come on out,” the pilot said. He seemed happy to talk to Walter instead of the other man.

Walter clambered on through and stood up, hands in his overalls pockets.

“What are you doing under there?”

He shrugged.

“Cat got your tongue?”

The heat on his cheeks flared hotter. He watched the ground.

“Ah, leave him be, Hitch,” the other man said. “He’s just shy, I reckon.”

“Come to see the planes?” the pilot asked.

Walter nodded. His fingers seized the wadded-up sock in his pocket. He’d brought Mr. J.W.’s penny. He wouldn’t spend it if he didn’t have to, but surely they wouldn’t let people sit in a plane for free. He pointed at the plane behind him.

Hitch looked up at his plane. “I’m afraid this one isn’t going anywhere right now.”

The other man, the one in oily white coveralls, grunted. He scratched the days-old black whiskers on his cheek. “Let’s just you and me hope it ain’t a permanent condition. She may be ugly and cranky, but I’d hate to see her grounded for good.” He ambled off, toward the nose of the plane.