K. Weiland - Storming

The ship was snuggled against the Bluff, where it’d be hard to see from any angle but this one. The pirates had brought it in low to the ground, only a couple dozen feet up. Men were running all around it, and their shouts drifted out to him. The words were hard and growly-sounding and sure not English.

His heart beat faster. He’d found it. He , him, he! Nobody else, just him. He could take the news back to town, tell Hitch, and Hitch would fly out here and beat them all up. Maybe that’d make folks stop thinking things were Hitch’s fault when they weren’t. Maybe that’d make them both heroes.

Little carts were being hoisted up and down between the ground and the ship, carrying men and boxes and burlap sacks of what might be supplies. Some other men were gutting a couple of mule deer. The cannon rested on the ground, half-hidden in the tall grass, while up on the balloon, men with ropes tied around their waists scurried around the cannon’s track, making repairs. Men with revolvers stood guard in the gaping doorway at the front end of the ship.

Toward the back, some of the other men hammered away at a big hole. More of them worked on the propellers, which seemed different looking—wrong somehow. He squinted. Yessiree, the tip of one of the blades was missing.

It was broken! It couldn’t move. Hitch could hunt it down right here.

Walter would just have to get up and run back down the trail. It would be easy.

He inched his legs up under him and crouched. His heart hammered. He looked over at Taos and patted his leg, but not loud enough to make a slapping sound.

Taos kept right on staring at the airship. He stood on all four feet, leaning forward, ready to run right at them.

Walter patted his leg again, a little harder.

Maybe Taos thought the slap was permission to go. He leapt the ridge of the gully, and he ran across the flatland, barking all the way.

Terror swallowed Walter up. He jumped to his feet.

Men started to turn and look at Taos. Some of them pointed; some of them hollered. Some of them got real still, and some of them started moving faster. Maybe they couldn’t decide if the dog was just a dog, or if somebody big was coming for them.

One man, in a funny round hat like the one Papa Byron wore in his and Mama Nan’s wedding photograph, stepped out from the shadow of the airship. It was Zlo, the lead pirate.

Zlo glanced at Taos, then raised his face, looking out across the prairie. He looked straight at Walter.

A chill hit Walter, and his skin shriveled up. He dove back behind the yucca. They were going to kill him now! They’d catch him and take him up in their ship and throw him off the very top.

“Boy!” The shout carried across to the trail.

He peeked through the long, sharp yucca leaves.

Zlo had caught Taos. He held the dog in both arms, trapped against his chest. Taos kept barking, both whining and snarling, but he was stuck fast.

“I know this dog! I know who has sent you. You must come out and talk to me. I will kill this dog!”

If they’d kill the dog, they’d kill him too. Walter didn’t even have to think about moving his feet. They just ran. They carried him up the other side of the gully and fifty feet across the prairie. When he looked over his shoulder, the corner of the Bluff hid Schturming .

Taos! His feet stopped on their own.

He was no hero. He was a dope. He’d brought Hitch’s dog out here without asking. And now he just ran away? His throat thickened, and tears pinched the corner of his eyes.

No crying! No running. What he should do was punch himself in his own face.

Pretend to be brave. Pretend, pretend, pretend.

He gritted his teeth. His feet didn’t do anything on their own this time. He had to make them turn his body around, step by step, and creep back through the grassland to the gully. He clambered up through the dust and peered over the ridge.

The cannon dangled from a harness of ropes, slowly inching upwards. Three men straddled it like it was a horse and dangled the hollow deer carcasses off the sides by their hind legs. The rest of the men crowded into the elevator cars. Zlo stood at the front of one, empty-handed.

What did that mean? Walter’s insides clenched up. Had Zlo let Taos go? Had he killed him already?

Walter scrabbled the binoculars up from where he’d dropped them under the yucca and raised them to his eyes. His hands shook, and he pressed the lens hard against his eye socket to hold it still.

Some of the men in Zlo’s car shifted. Two of them held Taos upside down by his legs. A third man wrapped a handkerchief around his muzzle.

They were taking Hitch’s dog. And it was all his fault.

THE TOP OF Hitch’s head felt about like a hard-boiled egg someone had smashed in with a spoon. That didn’t do much to make him hungry for the two sunny-side-ups staring at him from his plate. He hunched over the counter at Dan and Rosie’s Cafe on Main Street and cradled his mug of lukewarm coffee.

What he needed at the moment was a plan. Any plan. Even a stupid one would do—so long as it didn’t involve Jael finding that consarned pendant and turning herself over to Zlo. He growled.

Dan stood in front of him, rubbing silverware on an already damp towel. “Too runny?” he asked.

Hitch glanced up. “They’re fine. Just fine.” They weren’t really fine; they were just cheap. What he truly wanted this morning was a steak—rare and bloody. Something he could stab with a knife and then chomp with his teeth and rip into pieces.

Stabbing, chomping, and ripping. Those were about the only things that’d make him feel better right now. If he could stab, chomp, and rip that dirty no-account Rawliv Zlo, why, that’d be even peachier.

He tilted back the rest of his coffee, ignoring the pain in his head, then thunked the empty mug back onto the counter. Some little part of him wanted it to crack. Mug or countertop, didn’t much matter which.

Dan grabbed the mug. “Now, what was that for?”

A spark of penitence bounced through him. He reached to run a hand through his hair, then caught himself before he could make his headache worse. “Nothing. Sorry.”

Dan eyed him. “Where’re your friends?” He put the mug out of reach on the sill of the window that offered a peek into the back kitchen. Judging by the sizzle, his wife was frying hash browns.

“Out guarding the plane.” And each other, with any luck. “I had to come in for a couple jugs of gas.”

Behind Hitch, a chair squeaked. “We heard there was some trouble out there last night,” said old Lou Parker. He and Scottie Shepherd had been sitting at their table by the boarded-up broken window when Hitch came in.

“You heard right,” Hitch said.

“Well, what’re you going to do about it?” Scottie asked.

“What makes you think I’m going to be able to do anything about it?”

“You seem to always be right there in the thick of it, don’t you? Don’t tell me you’re giving up.”

Why not? He’d sure like to about now. He picked up his fork. At the moment, plans seemed to be in short supply around here. So what did that leave? He stabbed the congealed yolk, and the soft yellow bled all over the whites.

After last night, what was there left to plan with ? Zlo had left them with only one or two airworthy planes and maybe half a dozen salvageable ones. Hitch could take the Jenny out and fly around for days without coming anywhere near Schturming , even with Jael’s pains acting as a divining rod.

A fists-in-the-face fight he could deal with. That’s what he had stayed for. But slow and strategic wasn’t his strength. Right now, the only thing he was good for around here was a whole lot of nothing. The wanderlust in the soles of his feet was starting to itch like crazy.