K. Weiland - Storming

“So I’ve heard.” He turned to go, then glanced back at Jael. “Well, what do you say about the job?”

She looked straight at him. “I say I will have thoughts about it.”

TAOS DIDN’T QUITE seem to understand how the game of fetch was supposed to work. He’d bring sticks back all right. But every time Walter threw a small stick, Taos would come trotting back with a big one. This latest one was almost as long as he was. He bit it on the skinny end and dragged the rest behind him.

Walter huffed and shook his head. Of course, a dog couldn’t be good at everything, just like a person couldn’t be. Taos seemed good enough at the rest of being a boy’s dog.

Walter leaned down to try to pull the stick away. Taos pulled right back, tail wagging.

Footsteps approached through the apple trees. “Taos!”

The dog dropped the stick and whirled around. He bounded up to his owner—the man called Hitch—and reared onto his hind legs, barking.

Hitch snapped his fingers. “Get down.” He crouched to fondle the dog’s ears, but he looked at Walter the whole time. “Ran away with my dog, did you?” His voice was serious. But his eyes twinkled just a bit. Maybe.

Without saying anything, it’d be kind of hard to make somebody understand the dog had run away with Walter more than the other way around. So Walter just pushed his hands into his overalls pockets and shrugged.

“Weeelll.” Hitch drew out the word. “Taos must like you. He always did have good taste in people. Picked me out right away.” He winked.

Walter grinned. If he was a dog, he’d have picked Hitch too.

People had been talking all over town today. Most of it was about the big storm, but Mama Nan and Aunt Aurelia had been whispering with Mr. Matthew and Mr. J.W. about what Jael and Hitch had done. Flown right into the storm, dodging lightning and everything. Like real heroes.

And Walter was going to get to go flying with them. Hitch had said Walter could go flying, more or less, and Jael had promised.

Walter pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest, feet wide, the way Hitch had been standing beside his plane yesterday. He pointed at the sky and raised his eyebrows. With any luck, Hitch’d understand.

Hitch stood. “You really like planes, don’t you, son?”

He nodded, enthusiastically.

“Well, I’d sure be happy to take you up. But to be honest with you”—he scratched the back of his head—“your mama doesn’t much like me.”

Walter frowned his best confused face.

“Doesn’t matter why,” Hitch said. “Not to a sprig like you anyhow. But maybe you better figure on going up with another pilot.”

That wasn’t what he’d had in mind at all . Yesterday, it might have seemed one pilot was as good as another. But that was before he’d met Hitch and his plane and his dog. He let his shoulders sag.

Hitch reached out to ruffle his hair. “Never mind. There’s plenty of good pilots around. You’ll find somebody. Thanks for taking care of my dog.” He turned to leave.

Taos hesitated, panting, then bounded after his master.

Walter watched them go, until they disappeared behind the apple trees and even their footfalls were gone. Then he turned and ran back to the house as fast as he could.

He’d have to make Mama Nan understand somehow. Didn’t make any kind of sense why she wouldn’t like Hitch. He was just the kind of person a pilot should be. He had to be ten kinds of brave to fly around in that storm today. And hadn’t he rescued Jael from the lightning? Plus, he hadn’t been upset even a smidge about Taos running off.

Walter swung himself around the pasture fence post, ran through the dusty yard, and leapt over all three porch steps at once. He’d been trying to do that all summer, but no time to celebrate right now. He banged through the screen door into the kitchen.

Mama Nan stood over the cast-iron stove with a wooden spoon in one hand. “Walter, where have you been? Didn’t you hear me call?”

The family was all gathered at the long table—Papa Byron at the near end, Molly and the twins on one bench, and Aunt Aurelia and Jael on the other.

He stopped short. Jael. She was here? She was staying with them? His insides flipped, and he gave her his full-face grin.

She smiled back. She wasn’t as sparkly now as she had been before. Seemed like maybe getting hit by lightning—if you survived—should give you more sparkles, but she only looked tired. She leaned both elbows on the table and supported her chin against her locked fingers. Her hair had gone silvery in places, so it almost matched her eyes. But that was about the only other thing different about her.

“Sit down,” Mama Nan said.

He rounded the table to sit between Aunt Aurelia and Jael.

Papa Byron—his dark hair still damp from the sweat of the day and his sleeves rolled up above his beefy arms—said grace, and then Mama Nan dished up the meatloaf and green beans.

Walter peeked at Jael.

She gave him the tiniest of nudges with her knee, and her smile turned up on the side of her face.

He looked at Mama Nan. Getting her to let him fly with Hitch wasn’t just a matter of timing. There was also the matter of figuring out how to get her to understand she was wrong about Hitch.

Her face was flushed, her mouth tight. But it wasn’t the angry kind of tight. It was the about-to-cry kind of tight. Not that she actually would cry in front of them, of course.

She finished dishing out the supper, then eased down in her seat at the far end of the table around the corner from Jael. “Byron,” she said.

Papa Byron glanced up at her, chewing slowly. He never had too much to say. “Slow, steady, and silent,” he’d told Walter once. “Live that way, and you won’t never have much to regret.”

“Byron.” Mama Nan always said his name twice, once to get his attention and once afterwards. “I don’t want these children down with those gypsy barnstormers. Will you tell them that?”

Panic welled up hot and fast. Walter clutched the table.

Molly gasped. “You can’t mean it!”

“Don’t think I don’t, young lady. And don’t think I don’t see you making sheep’s eyes at Hitch. That’ll be enough of that.”

“Oh, Mama. He’s a nice man!” She sighed. “That curly hair. He looks positively like Douglas Fairbanks.”

Walter wrinkled his nose. Molly had taken him to see a Douglas Fairbanks picture once. He wasn’t a speck like Hitch.

Jael looked back and forth between Molly and Mama Nan. “Who is this Douglas Fairbanks?” Her voice was quiet, sweet. It sounded kind of like how honey and butter tasted.

Molly blinked her eyes wide. “You don’t know? He’s a star in the moving pictures.”

“And he is like Hitch?”

“He’s dashing and exciting and has all sorts of adventures.”

“Ah.”

“And he’s only quite the handsomest man ever.”

This time Jael blushed bright pink. “Ah.”

“Molly,” Mama Nan said, “that’s quite enough of this foolishness.”

Molly hunched over her plate. “Well, Hitch is nice anyway.”

Aunt Aurelia poured out her milk straight onto her beans. “Very nice. Do you remember, Nan, when he ate that grasshopper down whole?”

Evvy and Annie both giggled. Their red-gold curls were plastered to their faces with the heat. They were only six, so they didn’t yet know Aunt Aurelia sometimes said the wrong thing. Walter didn’t play with the twins much anymore—not since that day when he’d nearly let them die down by the creek.

Still, a whole grasshopper. Maybe he should try that later and show it to them.

Mama Nan carefully cut her food into little bits. She didn’t take a bite. “Hitch Hitchcock is not the kind of man you want to ever go running after, you hear me? He’s as heedless and irresponsible as the Lord knows how to make them. He brought nothing but grief to your Aunt Celia.”