K. Weiland - Storming

“Good as next to new, I reckon.” Earl swiped his hands across the front of his white coveralls, then gave Hitch a longer inspection. “You look about as fresh and happy as a funeral bouquet. Not so good with the sheriff last night?”

“Could be worse.”

“What’d he want?”

Hitch ducked under the wing to take a look at the engine repairs. “Nothing much. Just five hundred dollars.”

“What for?”

Hitch grunted. “Doesn’t matter. Not right now anyway. This thing ready to fly?”

Earl swung out of the cockpit and onto the ground. He faced Hitch, eyes narrowed. “Don’t change the subject. What about you and this country copper? You know him from back when?”

“Yeah, I know him.”

“And you owe him five hundred smackers?”

“Not exactly, but that’s what it’s going to cost me to get out of town. But never mind. We’ll worry about that later.”

Right now, Hitch’s main concern was more immediate problems: like making sure the plane could still handle the altitude they’d need for Rick’s special drop. Qualifying rounds were tomorrow, and he desperately needed to get Rick into the air for a little practice.

If they bailed on the first day, they could say goodbye to the prize money and goodbye to Hitch’s Jenny. Of course, losing the Jenny might not matter so much by then, since Campbell would heave Hitch into jail and toss the key into the North Platte River. That probably wouldn’t go very far in helping Griff and Nan forgive him for past wrongs—such as they were.

“Just tell me about the plane,” he said. “Is she ready to go?”

“Yeah, she’s ready. But maybe not in this weather. If that wind kicks up like it looks like it wants to, we’re going to have to tie everything down.”

Hitch squinted at the sky. It didn’t look so bad. The clouds seemed socked in, and the wind wasn’t going more than maybe ten miles an hour. “I only want to take her up for a quick one, make sure she’s purring, so you can tweak any last problems.” He turned back. “Where’s Rick?”

“Said something about going to town for supplies.”

Hitch raised an eyebrow. “Where’s he getting dough for that?”

Earl shrugged. “Looking for credit, I suppose.”

“Hah. Like every pilot here isn’t trying that. These storekeepers aren’t going to give us credit for just the week. And Rick knows it. More likely he’s after gin. Didn’t he say something yesterday about finding a speakeasy?” Hitch pulled on his flying jacket and swiveled to look around the field. “For the love of Pete, he knows I can’t take him up if he gets gassed.”

Earl peered at him. “Why am I getting the sense that if we lose this one, we’re in deeper trouble than usual?”

“’Cause that’s exactly the sense of it.” He dug his leather helmet out of the front cockpit. There was an apple in there too. Leftover from Earl’s breakfast probably. “But don’t tell Rick and Lilla just yet.”

“If the weather goes bad on you and you crack up this ship again, I won’t have to tell them.”

“I’ll have her back in one piece in less than twenty minutes.” He took a bite out of the apple and looked around again. “Where’s Jael?”

“Dunno. Saw her headed out across the field. She looked like she knew where she wanted to go.”

Maybe Hitch should have gotten up earlier and checked on her. But she’d seemed all right last night when they’d returned to camp. Honestly, for all that she was obviously—and rightly—scared of this Zlo guy, she didn’t seem like the type to rattle easily.

Hitch frowned. “I thought she agreed to stay here.” But then who knew what went on in that head of hers? Her English wasn’t that bad, but it left more than a few holes to be tripped into.

“Which way did she go?” he asked.

Earl pointed southward, toward town.

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

Earl raised both eyebrows. “Didn’t exactly ask my permission, did she now?”

No, she wouldn’t. And last night she had said she needed to go someplace where Zlo wouldn’t find her. Hitch made himself breathe out. She wasn’t his responsibility—just like he’d told Matthew and J.W. yesterday morning. But having her wandering around in the open wasn’t something he’d choose for anybody in her circumstances.

’Cept Rick maybe.

He huffed. “Well. If she starts knifing people again, there’s going to be trouble.” He squashed down the impulse to go after her. He’d told her she could stay. What more could he do? “If she doesn’t want to stay, that’s her business I reckon.”

The corner of Earl’s mouth twitched, and a twinkle surfaced in his eyes. “Yeah, good riddance to her.”

“Well, she was a nuisance.”

“Oh yeah, I know how you’re always glad to see nuisances go. Especially when they’re as cute as that.”

Hitch scowled. “I mean it. She’s done nothing but cause trouble.”

“Yup.”

“She tried to stab me.”

“Yup.”

“Never mind.” He buckled his helmet under his chin and hauled himself into the rear cockpit. Maybe he’d fly south just to keep an eye out for her. “If you see Rick, give him black coffee and tell him to stay put. Assuming your repairs get me off the ground, I’ll be back before it starts raining.”

*

The weather held up only until Hitch reached the edge of town.

Out of nowhere, a blast of wind smacked into the Jenny’s nose. Raindrops spattered the windshield and peppered his face, dry like rice kernels. The already low cloud ceiling dropped rapidly, and, just like that, visibility went to zero.

What in tarnation? He pushed the plane into a dive to get beneath the cloud and back into sight of the ground. Where were these clouds coming from? This storm cycle was like nothing he’d ever run afoul of. Clouds could roll in fast enough, sure, but they always rolled . You saw them coming, a mobile barricade scudding across the sky.

Fortunately, Earl’s repairs worked fine. The Jenny refrained from even her normal grumbling as Hitch pushed her down. The Hisso snarled steadily, and the reverberation thrummed up the stick into his hand and all through his chest.

The haze parted around the forward windshield, and the wide stretch of a shorn hayfield flashed below him, only a couple hundred yards away. He dropped another twenty feet, then leveled out. He was just beyond the outskirts of town, where the crop fields were bordered by a scattering of houses.

He looked over his shoulder. Toward the center of town, the overcast was even lower. No blue streaks to indicate rain, but thunder rumbled darkly from the cloud’s interior.

Time to get back to the field before he broke the plane, his promise to Earl, or both. He started to swing around.

To either side, movement flashed—on the ground to the left and in the air to the right. He looked up first.

Through the haze, something rose. It was too small and the wrong shape to be a plane, and if another motor was running nearby, it wasn’t loud enough to hear over the Hisso. Whatever it was, it sure as shoeshine didn’t move like a plane. It was going straight up, almost like one of those elevators they had in some of the big city hotels. Color flashed within it and—maybe—a face?

He blinked hard.

The ground movement to the left caught his eye again, and he spared it a glance.

Someone was running full-tilt across the stubble in the hayfield, headed toward where the elevator hung suspended. Someone small and lithe. Someone wearing a red kerchief on her head.

Earl was right: Jael looked like she knew exactly where she wanted to go.

That was more than he knew at the moment. He hesitated between destinations. Jael couldn’t outrun the Jenny, and, in the wide-open of a hayfield, she’d be easy to find if he came back to her in a bit. Whatever was up there in the clouds wouldn’t necessarily give him the same consideration.