K. Weiland - Storming

With a gentle hand, Jael guided him away.

He started to turn with her and, from the very corner of his eye, saw Walter standing alone, off to the side. The boy stared with big eyes. This was probably exactly what Nan wanted to protect him from. Hitch couldn’t blame her. But it was as it was at this point.

He didn’t look the boy in the eye. Instead, he looked down at Jael.

She raised her face, briefly. Her eyebrows were creased, partly with pain probably, but also with concern, chagrin even. She had no family—and she wanted one. Seemed like she shouldn’t be too understanding of what had just happened here.

“Come.” That was all she said. “I will be helping you.”

He could only nod.

Together, they turned around, both of them hobbling. He left without looking back. Why not? Leaving was what he was so good at.

IN THE GLIMMER of a lantern, Hitch sat beneath the canvas tarp they’d stretched between the Jenny’s upper wing and two poles driven into the ground. The rain had slacked off considerably, but every few seconds, a raindrop still plunked against the tarp. Beyond, the encroaching darkness of night billowed with incoming fog. Nobody’d be flying tonight.

He felt the raw corner of his lip with his tongue and stared into nothing.

“Stop.” Jael tapped his chin, barely avoiding the bruised spot where Griff’s fist had slammed him twice. She scooted in closer, on her knees, and raised a damp cloth to the cut.

The warm wetness stung. He flinched away, then exhaled. He dragged his gaze over to meet hers. She’d seen him down to his core now—for real this time, and not just with that wondering stare she sometimes aimed in his direction.

But all she did was keep dabbing at his mouth. She looked at his face critically, then turned to re-dunk the cloth in the skillet full of water.

“C’mon,” he grumbled, “just say what you’re thinking.”

Maybe she’d say it was all okay. That he wasn’t such a jerk after all—which would be nice to hear even if it wasn’t true. Or maybe she’d tell him to his face he was a no-account fool, and at least then he could lean into the pain.

She furrowed her brow and cocked her mouth to the side, as if cleaning up his face required a lot of thought. She didn’t meet his eye.

“Reckon that all looked pretty horrible this afternoon, didn’t it?” he ventured.

“All people are horrible some of times. Now, hold still.” She finished off with a last dab, then wrung the cloth into the skillet. She turned back with a tin cup of hand-hot coffee. “Drink this.”

He sighed again and took the cup without drinking. “It’s over between me and Griff.” He looked back out into the darkness.

Here and there, a blob of light marked other lanterns, and even a few campfires sheltered under tarps. Earl was out there somewhere, bumming gossip. Word was Livingstone had busted both legs in his crackup—and he was one of the lucky ones.

“When I came back here…” Hitch hesitated. He didn’t talk about these things, not with anyone. But why not? Didn’t make a lick of difference now. “When I came back, I kept telling myself I was only doing it because this was where Livingstone was hosting the contest. But I guess, deep down, I knew. It was time. Been time for a long while. I needed to know if they’d forgive me—or if I’d messed it up too bad.” He snorted and raised the coffee. “Guess I know now.”

The coffee—Jael’s concoction—was darker than the night and swimming with grounds. He downed it anyway. When he came back for air, he swallowed with a cough and looked sideways at her.

She sat on her feet, knees bent, hands folded in her lap. She watched him steadily. Maybe she hadn’t seen all there was to see after all.

“Why did you not come back sooner?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Scared, I reckon.”

“That they would not give you forgiveness?”

“That, and…” Hard to put it into words. “Scared I’d get tied down again, I guess. I’m exactly where I want to be. I’m exactly who I want to be.”

Except, of course, for those times when he hated it. When he couldn’t believe that’s all there was to life. He skimmed his gaze over the Jenny’s ruddy skin.

The tarp over their heads flapped in the wind. A few raindrops blew in and spattered his face.

Jael pulled her legs out from under her and sat on the ground. As she draped her arms around one bent knee, her face tightened in a wince. Then she laid her cheek against her kneecap and looked up at him. “I did not have knowledge you were married.” She didn’t sound reproachful, like most women did when they found out.

Should have known he wouldn’t get out of that one. He flung the remaining coffee grounds into the grass outside. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t if you hadn’t lived around here ten years ago.”

“Why do they say it is your fault she died?” Now she sounded more careful, like maybe his answer mattered.

He looked over. “Celia died because she got sick. Pneumonia, they said. She was always kind of fussy about her health. Mostly, I think it was a way to get people to pay attention, which mostly made ’em not pay attention. If I’d known she was sick, I would have come back. Do you believe that?” He tossed the words out casually, but something deep inside tensed. He needed her to believe him even if no one else did.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“I left because I got mixed up with one of Campbell’s less-than-legal sidelines. Smuggling stolen goods—though I didn’t know they were stolen at the time. If I hadn’t scrammed, he’d have sent me to prison to cover up for himself.”

“You could not have told anyone who would have believed you?”

“Tried to tell the mayor. Turned out he was under Campbell’s thumb. After that, Campbell threatened my dad’s farm if I tried to open my mouth again.”

“And people did not understand this?”

He shrugged. “Celia’s the only one I actually told, and she probably put her own spin on it when folks asked her about it. And then I didn’t come back for her funeral—or my father’s. That’s what really did it.”

“How much time were you married?”

“About a year. It should never have happened. But we were young and stupid—and I guess I was bored. I’d known her all my life. And that’s just what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? Get married and do the same as your folks before you? I didn’t know back then that something can be the right thing to do and still be a mistake.” He rubbed his forehead. “I think maybe that’s why Nan’s really upset—I didn’t love Celia enough, even before I left.”

His stomach churned around the sludgy coffee. His head pounded from Griff’s thrashing, and his ribs didn’t feel none too great either. Dear God in heaven, what had he been thinking? He’d been nuts to believe any good could come of returning home. All he’d done was dredge up the dreary past and its regrets.

He ducked out from under the tarp and stood, hands on his hips. “If I had any brains in my head, I’d get out of town right now.” Even trying to fight Schturming was turning out worse for his help than not. “This town feels like a cage.”

Behind him, she shifted, getting up, slowly and a little awkwardly. Her hobbling footsteps brought her out from under the tarp to stand beside him. She held her hair out of her face with both hands and looked at the night. “I think…”

He looked down at her. “What?”

“I think… running away is also kind of cage, yes? How can we ever run far enough to run away from running away?”

All his running sure hadn’t set him free. Nine years of fleeing this place—and here he was, right back at the beginning.