Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure

by K. M. Weiland

  So Hitch had gotten into that plane and scrammed.

  And now he was back, like an idiot. He’d never dreamed Campbell would still be in office.

  “All right.” He forced the words. Going to jail wasn’t any better an option right now than it had been before. And this time he wasn’t going to run. “I’ll pay off. After I win the show.”

  First prize was only $500, which left a big fat nothing over to pay off the crew. But if he won the show, he won the bet. Once he was managing Livingstone’s circus, the money would start rolling in. Earl and Lilla would understand the stakes here.

  Rick wouldn’t. But Rick didn’t understand much.

  “You always were a cocky son of a gun.” Campbell dropped the smile and watched Hitch. “I’ll tell you what. I like you, I’ve always liked you. So I’ll make this easy for both of us. I don’t need your winnings.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got a little job. Nothing tough.” He smiled. “Nothing stolen. Just moving a little booze across the state line. It’s a special gift for the governor in Cheyenne.”

  “So you can add bootlegging to the charges?”

  This crazy new Prohibition thing was a roaring mess all through the country. Why not here too? Campbell had always had an eye for a good on-the-side opportunity.

  “Not if you do it right,” Campbell said. “In fact, you do it right, and I’ll not only cancel the debt and drop all charges, I’ll even give you something extra. Say a hundred dollars.”

  A hundred dollars would come in handy like a new engine would come in handy. But that’s exactly what Hitch had thought the first time he’d talked himself into working for Campbell.

  “You’ll get your money,” he said. “After I win the show.”

  Campbell pursed his lips. “It’s a limited-time offer. You think about it. You got until the end of tomorrow to make up your mind.”

  Hitch’s mind was already made up, but he left it at that. If Campbell wasn’t going to arrest him on the spot, the best thing he could do was keep his mouth buttoned up. He managed a tight nod.

  Campbell took one step toward the cornfield, then stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Suppose you been out Carpenters’ way? Seen the kiddies?”

  “Not planning to.” Hitch flexed his hands to keep from fisting them. “Nan made it pretty clear I’m not wanted.”

  “Did she now?” The almost-smile flickered across Campbell’s face. “I’ll be seeing you. Tomorrow, I hope.” He lumbered over to the cornfield’s fence and stopped to shake Livingstone’s hand.

  Livingstone immediately started talking and gesturing toward the corpse with his walking stick. That was one handy thing about having Livingstone around. He was always more than happy to take all the attention onto himself.

  Hitch breathed out. That could have gone better. Could have gone worse too. But getting himself mixed up in this murder wasn’t good. Campbell could use it in any number of ways to twist Hitch’s arm up behind his back. He wasn’t likely to find any legitimate suspects now that he’d just dismissed out of hand the fact Hitch had seen this guy fall out of the sky.

  He looked up at the stars. The big cloud no longer obstructed their glittering.

  Speaking of people who thought they had seen things in the sky... He looked back down to find Jael lurking in the shadows at the edge of the crowd. She deserved to know what Zlo had said about her.

  He strode over to her and beckoned her to follow. “C’mere.”

  Once he had her off a ways, where she didn’t have to see the dead guy and the others couldn’t hear her, he ducked his head down to her level. “The guy I fought with, that was Zlo, wasn’t it?”

  Her mouth was tight. “How you describe him is sounding like Zlo.”

  “You were right about him being dangerous. He tried to shoot me.”

  Her eyes got big. “Shoot you? Gospodi pomiluy. That is very, very bad. Only the Brigada Nabludenia have shooters. Zlo is Forager, not... Enforcer.”

  This morning, she’d said the Foragers spoke English. That explained Zlo’s handle on the language.

  “Well, it wasn’t a regular gun. It was that same flare gun he was using on you the other night. He’s after that pendant of yours, you know that, right?”

  Her hand darted up to touch the bulge of the pendant beneath her blouse. She looked toward the east, and the breeze floated tendrils of hair around her face. “Then they are coming.”

  “I don’t suppose you could just give him the pendant? Save yourself the trouble? He said he wouldn’t hurt you if you gave it to him.”

  “No. I cannot be doing that. The danger is too much.”

  “Why? What’s it for?”

  She shook her head. “It is control for all of Schturming, because of dawsedometer.”

  “Because of what?”

  “It is not mattering.”

  “Please don’t tell me it’s not Groundsmen’s business.”

  She shrugged. “Taking it back to home is what I must be doing before Zlo can go there before I am.”

  “Home to the sky. Right.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Well, I don’t see how he’s going to manage that, so I think you’re safe on that score for now.

  Across the field, Campbell straightened up from his preliminary investigation of the corpse. Several more cars arrived in the road, and deputies got out. Campbell gestured them all forward. He caught Hitch’s gaze just once, and that almost-smile pulled at his mouth.

  Hitch breathed out, slowly. The way things were going, keeping Zlo out of the sky might be the only thing they were safe on.

  Twelve

  HITCH WAS DEARLY hoping to wake up to some sunshine. Aside from the fact that clouds were turning out to be bad luck around here, he could just plain do with a little cheer after last night’s goings-on.

  But, nope. Even before he stuck his head out from under his canvas bedroll, the light was all wrong. So he kept his head right where it was for another forty minutes or so—until Earl’s clattering about with the engine finally destroyed his ability to even pretend he was sleeping.

  He reared up on one elbow and squinted out from under the edge of the Jenny’s lower wing.

  Heavy gray filled the sky. Yesterday, there hadn’t been a cloud in sight—except for that big thunderhead in the middle of the night. Now it was almost starting to look like rain, and lots of it—which was surprising. To hear folks around here tell it, they hadn’t been in a drought this bad for ten years.

  The air didn’t smell like rain though, and the wind wasn’t ruffling so much as a leaf on the cornstalks.

  He flung back the bedroll and reached for his boots.

  The whole field was pretty quiet. Barnstormers only rose with the sun when they had rides to hop or places to go. Earl was the exception. He’d always been an infuriatingly early riser. Right now, he was banging on something overhead.

  Rick and Lilla weren’t to be seen. Hitch looked around. Jael either, for that matter.

  He knotted his boot laces midway up his shins and rolled out from under the wing to gain his feet.

  Earl was standing on the Jenny’s rear seat, checking a wing strut. If the racket Hitch had been hearing meant anything, Earl had to be almost finished with the repairs.

  Earl acknowledged Hitch with a glance from under his cap brim.

  “Well?” Hitch asked. “Good as new?”

  “Good as next to new, I reckon.” Earl swiped his hands across the front of his white coveralls, then gave Hitch a longer inspection. “You look about as fresh and happy as a funeral bouquet. Not so good with the sheriff last night?”

  “Could be worse.”

  “What’d he want?”

  Hitch ducked under the wing to take a look at the engine repairs. “Nothing much. Just five hundred dollars.”

  “What for?”

  Hitch grunted. “Doesn’t matter. Not right now anyway. This thing ready to fly?”

  Earl swung out of the cockpit and onto the grou
nd. He faced Hitch, eyes narrowed. “Don’t change the subject. What about you and this country copper? You know him from back when?”

  “Yeah, I know him.”

  “And you owe him five hundred smackers?”

  “Not exactly, but that’s what it’s going to cost me to get out of town. But never mind. We’ll worry about that later.”

  Right now, Hitch’s main concern was more immediate problems: like making sure the plane could still handle the altitude they’d need for Rick’s special drop. Qualifying rounds were tomorrow, and he desperately needed to get Rick into the air for a little practice.

  If they bailed on the first day, they could say goodbye to the prize money and goodbye to Hitch’s Jenny. Of course, losing the Jenny might not matter so much by then, since Campbell would heave Hitch into jail and toss the key into the North Platte River. That probably wouldn’t go very far in helping Griff and Nan forgive him for past wrongs—such as they were.

  “Just tell me about the plane,” he said. “Is she ready to go?”

  “Yeah, she’s ready. But maybe not in this weather. If that wind kicks up like it looks like it wants to, we’re going to have to tie everything down.”

  Hitch squinted at the sky. It didn’t look so bad. The clouds seemed socked in, and the wind wasn’t going more than maybe ten miles an hour. “I only want to take her up for a quick one, make sure she’s purring, so you can tweak any last problems.” He turned back. “Where’s Rick?”

  “Said something about going to town for supplies.”

  Hitch raised an eyebrow. “Where’s he getting dough for that?”

  Earl shrugged. “Looking for credit, I suppose.”

  “Hah. Like every pilot here isn’t trying that. These storekeepers aren’t going to give us credit for just the week. And Rick knows it. More likely he’s after gin. Didn’t he say something yesterday about finding a speakeasy?” Hitch pulled on his flying jacket and swiveled to look around the field. “For the love of Pete, he knows I can’t take him up if he gets gassed.”

  Earl peered at him. “Why am I getting the sense that if we lose this one, we’re in deeper trouble than usual?”

  “’Cause that’s exactly the sense of it.” He dug his leather helmet out of the front cockpit. There was an apple in there too. Leftover from Earl’s breakfast probably. “But don’t tell Rick and Lilla just yet.”

  “If the weather goes bad on you and you crack up this ship again, I won’t have to tell them.”

  “I’ll have her back in one piece in less than twenty minutes.” He took a bite out of the apple and looked around again. “Where’s Jael?”

  “Dunno. Saw her headed out across the field. She looked like she knew where she wanted to go.”

  Maybe Hitch should have gotten up earlier and checked on her. But she’d seemed all right last night when they’d returned to camp. Honestly, for all that she was obviously—and rightly—scared of this Zlo guy, she didn’t seem like the type to rattle easily.

  Hitch frowned. “I thought she agreed to stay here.” But then who knew what went on in that head of hers? Her English wasn’t that bad, but it left more than a few holes to be tripped into.

  “Which way did she go?” he asked.

  Earl pointed southward, toward town.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  Earl raised both eyebrows. “Didn’t exactly ask my permission, did she now?”

  No, she wouldn’t. And last night she had said she needed to go someplace where Zlo wouldn’t find her. Hitch made himself breathe out. She wasn’t his responsibility—just like he’d told Matthew and J.W. yesterday morning. But having her wandering around in the open wasn’t something he’d choose for anybody in her circumstances.

  ’Cept Rick maybe.

  He huffed. “Well. If she starts knifing people again, there’s going to be trouble.” He squashed down the impulse to go after her. He’d told her she could stay. What more could he do? “If she doesn’t want to stay, that’s her business I reckon.”

  The corner of Earl’s mouth twitched, and a twinkle surfaced in his eyes. “Yeah, good riddance to her.”

  “Well, she was a nuisance.”

  “Oh yeah, I know how you’re always glad to see nuisances go. Especially when they’re as cute as that.”

  Hitch scowled. “I mean it. She’s done nothing but cause trouble.”

  “Yup.”

  “She tried to stab me.”

  “Yup.”

  “Never mind.” He buckled his helmet under his chin and hauled himself into the rear cockpit. Maybe he’d fly south just to keep an eye out for her. “If you see Rick, give him black coffee and tell him to stay put. Assuming your repairs get me off the ground, I’ll be back before it starts raining.”

  ***

  The weather held up only until Hitch reached the edge of town.

  Out of nowhere, a blast of wind smacked into the Jenny’s nose. Raindrops spattered the windshield and peppered his face, dry like rice kernels. The already low cloud ceiling dropped rapidly, and, just like that, visibility went to zero.

  What in tarnation? He pushed the plane into a dive to get beneath the cloud and back into sight of the ground. Where were these clouds coming from? This storm cycle was like nothing he’d ever run afoul of. Clouds could roll in fast enough, sure, but they always rolled. You saw them coming, a mobile barricade scudding across the sky.

  Fortunately, Earl’s repairs worked fine. The Jenny refrained from even her normal grumbling as Hitch pushed her down. The Hisso snarled steadily, and the reverberation thrummed up the stick into his hand and all through his chest.

  The haze parted around the forward windshield, and the wide stretch of a shorn hayfield flashed below him, only a couple hundred yards away. He dropped another twenty feet, then leveled out. He was just beyond the outskirts of town, where the crop fields were bordered by a scattering of houses.

  He looked over his shoulder. Toward the center of town, the overcast was even lower. No blue streaks to indicate rain, but thunder rumbled darkly from the cloud’s interior.

  Time to get back to the field before he broke the plane, his promise to Earl, or both. He started to swing around.

  To either side, movement flashed—on the ground to the left and in the air to the right. He looked up first.

  Through the haze, something rose. It was too small and the wrong shape to be a plane, and if another motor was running nearby, it wasn’t loud enough to hear over the Hisso. Whatever it was, it sure as shoeshine didn’t move like a plane. It was going straight up, almost like one of those elevators they had in some of the big city hotels. Color flashed within it and—maybe—a face?

  He blinked hard.

  The ground movement to the left caught his eye again, and he spared it a glance.

  Someone was running full-tilt across the stubble in the hayfield, headed toward where the elevator hung suspended. Someone small and lithe. Someone wearing a red kerchief on her head.

  Earl was right: Jael looked like she knew exactly where she wanted to go.

  That was more than he knew at the moment. He hesitated between destinations. Jael couldn’t outrun the Jenny, and, in the wide-open of a hayfield, she’d be easy to find if he came back to her in a bit. Whatever was up there in the clouds wouldn’t necessarily give him the same consideration.

  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.