K. Weiland - Storming

He stepped on the rudder pedal and moved the stick to turn the plane.

A flash of brown darted alongside him.

It was a big, brown eagle, like the one Zlo had called Maksim last night. The bird flew level with his cockpit for a moment, easily keeping up with the Jenny’s fifty or so miles per hour. Then, with a scream, it tilted its wings and dove toward Jael.

Great. Rabid birds on top of everything else.

Holding the plane steady, he leaned over the cockpit’s edge and scanned the ground.

Jael was all alone in the middle of the field, running hard in long-legged strides, fast and surefooted. If she heard the eagle’s screech or the plane’s engine, she didn’t so much as tilt her head.

Then from the edge of the field, a man in a bowler hat and a long coat jumped the narrow irrigation ditch and gave chase.

Oh, gravy.

Hitch swung the plane around and dove low. Precious little he could do to help her from up here, save maybe whack Zlo in the head with the landing gear. With luck, the roar of the engine would distract the man from his pursuit.

Or not.

Zlo didn’t even look back. He caught Jael’s waist with one hand and spun her around to the ground.

Hitch swooped on by, then hauled the plane around for another pass, even lower this time.

On the ground, Jael and Zlo struggled. He clawed at the collar of her blouse, going for the pendant no doubt. Flat on her back, under the man’s bulk, she was at a major disadvantage. Still, she punched him in the eye, then managed to squirm free, crawling backwards on her elbows.

Hitch zoomed past once more and craned his head to watch behind him.

She got a leg up and kicked Zlo square in the jaw. Then she was on her feet and running again, one hand clutching at the pendant under her blouse. She looked up at the Jenny, tracking it through the sky. She waved at Hitch with her free arm.

He dove as low and slow as he could, leveling out only a couple yards off the ground. He could hardly escort her to safety in the plane. But if he could get a sense of the field’s condition, he might be able to set the Jenny down right here.

The ground looked smooth enough, so he lined up and set the wheels down. He rolled up beside Jael just as the tailskid touched the ground.

“Fly!” she shouted. “Go back to fly!” As soon as the wing reached her, she grabbed hold of a strut. The whole plane rocked with her weight. The hoop-shaped skid on the wing’s underside nearly bumped the ground.

He scrambled to right the plane before she pulled the whole thing over. “Get off! What are you doing?”

She kept right on coming. Her momentum had given her enough of a start to grab hold of a wing strut and haul her legs up. As soon as the plane was more or less level, she squeezed through the first X of guy wires that stretched between the two wings.

If she put all her weight on the wing’s unsupported canvas, her foot would go right through, and then the jig would be up for all of them.

“Step on the ribs!” he hollered into the wind.

She walked the wing like she’d been doing it all her life. Her face was tight, her eyes huge. But her movements were sure and steady—no shaking as she switched handholds from wire to strut to wire. She’d scaled J.W.’s house without a second thought, so this was probably nothing.

She motioned forward and looked him straight in the eye. “Keep going!” The heavy pendant swung free from her blouse.

The plane still had momentum enough so that it needed hardly any coaxing to pull it back up into the air.

Jael scanned the ground, peering back at Zlo, then looking ahead.

Hitch craned his head around to see what had happened to Zlo.

Either Jael hadn’t kicked him all that hard after all—or Zlo had an iron chin. He was up and running, his ragged coat spread out behind him. He didn’t run like a man panicked—more like one who was determined to get someplace and get there in time.

Hitch scanned ahead. Nothing. He leaned sideways to see around the front cockpit.

Ahead, the cloud had dropped almost to the ground. Wind rolled off it and plastered another round of rain against his goggles.

Not good. A fog like that meant zero-zero: no visibility, no ceiling. Wind and rain only made it worse. He had to get the Jenny back on the ground and fast. He threw the stick hard to the right and pulled the plane around to head in the opposite direction. For that one moment when his momentum and direction were matched up just right with the wind, he heard Jael’s cry.

Halfway up the wing, where her weight was a little easier for him to balance, she had stopped and braced her back against the crossed guy wires. She stared toward Zlo, and once again she curled her hand around the pendant.

Hitch shot a look over his shoulder.

At the bottom of the cloud, the elevator car had emerged. It was a square metal basket, the sides open except for a cross-hatch of iron. A man, wearing a red coat and dark goggles, stood inside. The basket dropped the last few feet to the ground, then bumped back up, and dropped again. The oscillation of a cable cut swathes through the haze above it. The man in the red coat swung open one of the basket’s sides and beckoned with both hands.

Zlo had said he was going home. This must be his ride. But how had he signaled for it? Radio or something?

And what was up there to go home to ? Hitch stared up at the cloud. What did that cable have at its other end?

A flash of lightning lit up the inside of the cloud. Thunder clapped immediately, loud enough to block the noise of the motor. Hitch flinched in spite of himself.

Zlo reached the basket, slammed the door behind him, and started waving his arms. The cable jerked tight, and the basket jumped off the ground so fast it nearly capsized the red-coated guy.

The eagle flew over their heads, spiraling around the cable.

Zlo peered up at the bird, then past it, to the Jenny. He tilted his head to his companion, speaking to him, then looked straight up and circled his finger in the air.

Jael’s weight on the wing shifted fast, shaking the plane.

Hitch muscled the Jenny back under control and shot Jael a glare.

She leaned toward him, over the last X of wires and shouted. Judging from the way the cords in her neck were standing out, she was bellowing with all she had. But the wind still whipped away everything but the ghost of a sound.

He rapped a fist against his helmet-covered ear. “I don’t know what you’re saying! What do you want?”

She pointed at the cloud in front of them, which either meant go there! or _don’t go there!_—one or the other.

And he’d thought they had a communication barrier before.

He shook his head.

She stopped hollering and bared her teeth, obviously frustrated. The wind howled past her, whipping her loose blouse and ripping through her short hair. The red kerchief had come off somewhere along the way. She stared at the cloud, and her eyes streamed tears into the wind.

Then suddenly, she was turning again. She swung herself under the wires, so they were at her back. Nothing lay between her and the front edge of the wing except air.

She didn’t yell this time. She just jabbed her finger at the ground.

Now she wanted him to put it down? He looked. Too many hayricks. He couldn’t land without running into one of them.

She pointed again, more insistently.

Maybe the hayrick was what she wanted . She was poised, like a diver, knees bent, shoulders forward. If he flew close enough to one of those piles of hay, she was going to jump straight into it. The trick wasn’t unheard of. He and Rick had pulled it a couple times, when they’d wanted to thrill an audience with the old “scorning a parachute” gag. But except for that plunge into the lake the other night, Jael had no experience with either jumping or planes. If she missed, he’d have another busted-up body to take to the sheriff.