K. Weiland - Storming

Jael flung herself at his cockpit again. “No! He will do it!”

Frustration cramped his throat. He hesitated, fist still tight on the stick. Schturming was in reach right now . If it disappeared again, Zlo could unleash all the storms he wanted from his invisible perch in the sky.

Jael shook her head hard.

But if she was right and going up only brought the storms that much faster, that’d hardly do anybody any good. He loosened his grip and reached for the switch to kill the engine.

Jael whipped her head around to look at the western sky.

Hitch followed her gaze, his hand hovering over the switch. He heard the rumble over his own engine’s before he saw them.

The rest of the competitors were finally roaring in.

“That’ll work!” He caught Jael’s arm and pulled her in close enough to shout in her ear. “I can take off under the cover of their engine noise. Zlo’ll never hear me.”

She still shook her head, but the crease in her forehead eased a bit.

“Once I get up there and distract them, you and Earl see if you can’t figure some way to mark that undercarriage! I’ll try to force it lower!” So long as Schturming couldn’t blend into the sky, they might have a chance of finding it again if it ended up getting away.

Overhead, the plane engines screamed in louder. The pilots would be wondering what was happening. Half of them would probably think the dirigible was some stunt of Livingstone’s. They’d close in right over its top just to get a look. With any luck, they’d spot Hitch, realize what he was doing, and follow his lead.

Jael nodded and stepped back, out of the prop wash.

He exhaled, faced forward, and opened the throttle.

“Hitch!” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Be careful of cannon!”

Cannon—? Even as the plane taxied past, he jerked a look back at her.

She was kidding. Surely, she was kidding.

Except Jael never kidded.

He faced into the wind again and tried to pretend his gut hadn’t just done a snap roll.

WALTER’S STOMACH TWISTED in pain. He was that scared.

Now Mama Nan really would be sorry she’d let him stay.

He clenched both fists over his middle. He should be praying—like Mama Nan was praying, out loud. But his mind couldn’t seem to find any words. All he could do was stare and try not to huddle on the ground with his hands over his head as if he was a little baby like Evvy and Annie.

After she’d yelled at Hitch, they’d walked almost all the way back to the automobile before she looked at Walter with a sad face and sighed. “All right, Walter. We’ll stay and watch, but only for a little while, hear?”

He gave her the hardest hug he could manage, then ran back to stand next to the Berringer brothers in the shade of the grandstand, where he could watch Hitch’s red plane. And then, during the race, that thing smashed one of the planes out of the sky and stopped everybody cold.

It could kill them. It could kill them all right here and now. Inside his ears, his blood pounded.

Out of the corner of his vision, a red plane streaked from behind the grandstand.

Hitch’s plane! It had to be. The knot in his stomach convulsed. That hurt too, but it was a better kind of pain. He pressed his fists together.

Of course Hitch would do something. He was brave. He was the only one here brave enough to do something. Even Sheriff Campbell might be giving in to the pirates up there. But Hitch—he was like the pilots in the storybooks.

The plane darted around the field, like a red wasp, and circled to join the oncoming swarm of racers. Hitch shot over the other pilots’ heads and took the lead. He swooped so low over the white balloon that his landing wheel seemed like it might have skimmed the surface of the monster’s skin.

That’d teach those pirates! Walter jumped and shook a fist. A whoop stuck hard in his throat, and that kind of hurt too. Death to pirates! They didn’t stand even a little chance.

The air exploded. The balloon quavered, and near Hitch’s tail, a black blast of smoke puffed.

Walter froze.

Everybody started screaming and ducking all over again.

Another blast pounded, and another, one after the other. Puffs of smoke chased behind Hitch’s tail, like huge smoke rings from one of Mr. J.W.’s cigars. The red plane ducked and dived. It rolled all the way over, as it screamed down and then back up again.

Next to Walter, Mr. J.W. clenched his fists at his sides. “Durn furriners! They’re shooting at him!”

Nan gripped Walter’s shoulders with both hands and stared upwards. “Hitch, you crazy fool. You always did have more backbone than brains.”

The crowd swarmed all around. Half the people ran to their automobiles to try to get away. The other half stayed, hunching over and wailing, probably scared too much to move. Deputy Griff and Col. Livingstone were shouting and trying to direct everybody. Nobody listened.

Clouds swirled out of the clear sky, and thunder blasted over their heads. Far behind, the twin propellers began blatting against the air.

From behind, Jael and Earl shoved through the throng. They’d know what to do.

Walter caught at Jael’s hand.

She glanced down long enough to see him and stop. Her eyes sparked, afraid one minute, just plain angry the next. “Hitch cannot fly away from cannon and lightning forever!”

“He’s doing a pretty good job so far,” Mr. Matthew said.

Earl stopped in front of the Berringers and hollered to be heard, “He’s going to see if he can force it a little lower. We have to find a way to mark that undercarriage, so we can find it again if it gets away.”

“Mark it how?” Mr. J.W. asked. “Paint?”

Mr. Matthew shook his head. “Take too long to put enough paint on that to make it visible from far away.”

Jael stared up, her whole body fidgeting. “If we could maybe be tying something to it…”

“Have to be something awful big,” Earl said. “But not too heavy for us to lift.”

Walter swung his head around to look. About twenty yards off, just shy of the grandstand, the scattered remains of the first lightning-struck plane still smoldered. One of its wings, almost as red as Hitch’s Jenny, flashed in the fading sunlight.

His heart skipped and his stomach went all hollow for a second. He yanked on Jael’s arm.

She turned her head—slowly, slowly, like the drip of sap in the crook of a tree—and finally looked at him.

Still hanging onto her, he pointed.

She followed his gaze, and then her face lit up. “Wing. He is right. If it is not burned, it is good color and not too heavy.” She started running, but she was slow again, wincing with every step.

Earl and the Berringers took off after her.

Overhead, the plane engines howled. More explosions slapped the sky, each one like a punch in the chest.

The noise thrummed all through Walter’s body. His palms tingled, and he clenched them. He should go with Jael and the Berringers. It was his idea. He should help them. But he couldn’t make his feet move. Just like everybody else was screaming and carrying on from the outside, he was screaming on the inside.

Schturming_’s shadow shifted, and the sun poured its heat down on Walter through the only big crack left in the clouds. Sweat dripped off the ends of his hair and plopped against his face. He sucked in one deep breath and then another. If he didn’t move right now, if he didn’t _do something, then he was nothing but a scared chicken.

One of the planes winked out of the glare of blue sky in front of Schturming . It snarled through the air, the sound of its engine louder and deeper than the others. Hitch’s plane.