Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Melissa Scott

  “That’s him,” Jerry said, leaning forward.

  We were in time, Alma thought. We did it — Lewis did it, at a cost I don’t want to think about. But — we did what we came to do.

  “He’ll go to Nemi,” Jerry said, softly, as though he’d read her thought, and the same tired wonder was in his voice. “He’ll look at the finds, and he’ll make a speech, and he’ll go back to Rome none the wiser.”

  A third car roared past, and a fourth, smaller: a press car, Alma guessed, and shook her head. Dust hung in the air behind it, hazy in the morning light. The policeman checked the road, then motioned them impatiently across. Mitch put the car into gear, and eased forward.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The warm morning sunlight danced on the cobblestones of the terrace of the Hotel St. Charles in Paris. Alma sipped her café au lait, sweet and rich with cream, her forearms resting on the edge of the white clothed table. Hotel St. Charles had been built in the 18th century as a private house, and no doubt in that day this had been the stable yard, but now it had been converted into a lovely outdoor dining area surrounded on three sides by the hotel. An ancient elm tree made up the fourth side, spreading its limbs over the courtyard, while palms in pots created secluded seating areas. It was late morning, but she and Lewis were nearly the only patrons.

  Lewis took his coffee black. Freshly shaved and washed, his hair combed like Valentino, he looked quite handsome. If there was a shadow in his eyes, it was less than it had been. The awesome weight seemed to sit on him less heavily every day. Perhaps he was just growing used to it, or perhaps Diana had nothing she demanded of him at present, and so her power and her favor rested lightly upon him, an ordinary seeming man of thirty nine, good looking and a little shy.

  “It was nice of Henry to spring for the hotel,” Lewis said. “I mean, under the circumstances.”

  “Under the circumstances that we saved his life, prevented the complete ruination of his business, and haven’t gotten him indicted for murder?” Alma asked. “Yes, under the circumstances paying for the hotel was nice of him.”

  “It wasn’t Henry’s fault,” Lewis said fairly. “It could have happened to anybody. It didn’t seem right to rat him out when he couldn’t prevent what was happening.”

  “I know.” Alma took another sip of her coffee. “Henry’s not guilty of anything except the unwise decision to go after Davenport alone, and he feels responsible for everything that happened anyway.” She put the cup down with a sigh. “Sûreté seems to have decided that it was an anarchist plot against capitalists. Which I suppose makes as much sense as anything else. Jerry and Mitch are having one more meeting with Inspector Colbert, and then perhaps they’ll be satisfied.”

  Lewis shook his head, looking around the pretty dining area. “It seems so unreal.”

  “Everything that happened?”

  “No, this.” Lewis gave her a rueful smile. “That seems like the realest thing in the world.” He reached across the table to take her hand, his eyes on her fingers as though he dreaded to look at her face. “Alma. I can’t ask you to go through this again, through losing someone like that. I’m a marked man, and….”

  “Let me be the judge of what I can take,” Alma said tartly. She closed her eyes, closed her fingers in his, searching for the words. “I know you’re hers. I know She can take you at any time, call for the sacrifice to be made. But it’s no difference, do you see?” She opened her eyes. “You and Mitch are in the Reserves. You could be called out any time for mountain search and rescue or for a disaster. Or God help us if there’s ever another war, though maybe we’re done with that for our lifetimes! You’re already on call, and I already accept that, just as you accept my oaths. I know Diana will take you, sooner or later when the time comes. But I can’t think about that and worry about that, not anymore than I can about the other. There’s plenty of time to mourn when the time comes.”

  Lewis closed his eyes, his fingers tightening around hers. “I love you so much. You know that.”

  “I was beginning to guess,” Alma said. Unexpectedly, tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. “I love you too.”

  “Well,” Lewis said. He swallowed. “I suppose the lodge isn’t so hard to accept next to that.” He looked up at her. “You make a great Magister.”

  Alma smiled. “Thank you,” she said, oddly touched. “So you’ll stick around then?”

  Lewis squeezed her fingers. “I think I’ll stick around.”

  Mitch made his way down the stone steps outside the Sûreté, pausing on the sidewalk to wait for Jerry and Henry. They were still arguing over something, Jerry with his cane in his hand, the mended leg braced against the marble, Henry with his hat pushed back on his head and both hands in his pockets. With his neatly trimmed beard and curling hair, he looked a bit like a bull at bay, and Mitch looked away to hide his grin. Henry’d been through hell, it wasn’t fair to laugh at him. And his story of saboteurs, farfetched as it must have sounded, at least offered something like an explanation for the crash. It had also made the aviateurs américains who’d kept Independence from a worse wreck into heroes for a day, and incidentally offered an explanation for their disappearance from the crash scene. He wasn’t sure Inspector Colbert really believed the story, but it was a better set of headlines for Sûreté than anything else that was likely to come out of that mess.

  He arched his back slightly, feeling the scars pull: painful, but not nearly as bad as they had been. Alma’d been right, a few days of actual rest had stopped the bleeding entirely, and allowed new scars to form. And, all right, there had been a consultation with a first-class medical man, who’d examined him to be sure none of the fragments still in him were working their way toward anything life-threatening, and then shrugged and said that monsieur knew perfectly well what to do to take care of himself, and perhaps should try those things instead of racing about the countryside chasing anarchists. He wasn’t in perfect shape yet, but by the time they got home, he’d be perfectly capable of flying. They’d collect the Terrier at Flushing, head back to Colorado Springs by easy stages….

  Jerry was working his way cautiously down the stairs, and Mitch straightened. “Everything settled?”

  “It seems to be,” Jerry answered. “I’m not sure Inspector Colbert fully believed us, but there won’t be any repercussions.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t believe us,” Henry said. “I don’t believe it, and I — came up with it.”

  Mitch glanced over his shoulder, but there was no one in earshot, and Henry had spoken English anyway. “Well, I can’t see the inspector going for the real story.”

  Jerry grinned. “No, ‘possessed by a demon’ isn’t going to look good on his books. Anarchists are much better.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Mitch saw a grimace cross Henry’s face. It wasn’t fair to make light of what he’d been through: half his crew dead at his own hand, his airship wrecked, his company damaged God only knew how badly, most of all the guilt of knowing it was all his fault, one bad choice.

  “Will you be all right?” he asked, and Henry gave a flickering smile.

  “I have reparations to make, that’s for sure. And a lot of work to do — and undo, for that matter. But I’ll be fine.” He paused, and lifted his hand for a passing taxi. “And speaking of which, if you’ll excuse me….”

  “Of course,” Mitch said, and watched him drive away.

  Jerry shook his head. “I have no idea how he manages —”

  “He’s paid for what he did,” Mitch said, shortly, and Jerry gave him a look.

  “And he’ll keep on paying, I know.” He sighed. “Back to the hotel?”

  It wasn’t a long walk, the sun warming the air, releasing the fragrance of the flowers in every windowbox and front-door urn. Alma and Lewis were still in the courtyard, finishing a last cup of coffee, and Mitch was glad to see the look of peace on Lewis’s face. And Alma — there was an ease there he hadn
’t seen since Gil died.

  “How did it go?” she asked, and Lewis waved the waiter over.

  They all ordered more coffee, and Mitch leaned back in his chair, feeling the new scars stretch and pull. “Well. The Sûreté has pretty much decided that it was anarchists, and will pursue that line if possible. And we are free to go home whenever we like.”

  “Yes, but how?” Lewis asked. “I mean, none of this is coming cheap —”

  Jerry reached into his pocket and tossed a thick envelope onto the table. “We have tickets on the Bremen. Courtesy of Henry.”

  Alma opened the envelope and looked up sharply. “First class?”

  “That’s pushing it,” Mitch said.

  Jerry shoved his glasses up further onto his nose. “Henry tried to throw me out of the window of his airship,” he said. “I think first class passage, and on a first class ship, is only fair.”

  “Bremen,” Lewis said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the one with the mail plane on board?”

  “Henry did suggest we might take a look at it for him,” Jerry admitted.

  “Oh, Jerry.” Alma looked down at the tickets and slid them back into their envelope.

  Something rustled in the branches above their head. Mitch squinted up into the sun-sparked leaves, but couldn’t find the source. He looked at the others, Lewis watching Alma with the faintest of smiles on his face, Alma frowning at the envelope, obviously calculating the best way to meet the boat, Jerry lighting a cigarette, long face at last relaxed. “It’ll be good to get home,” he said.

  For our families of choice

  STEEL BLUES

  Chapter One

  Colorado Springs, December, 1931

  Lewis Segura looked out the kitchen window in the gathering dark. No new snow was falling, but five inches of powder littered the yard with only the path between back door and driveway dug out neatly. There was nothing really to see except the garage and the slope that backed it rising steeply, covered in aspen trees long since shorn of their leaves. In the fall they made a glorious display, but in winter the bare branches wrote dark shapes against the snow.

  From the front windows he could look toward town, down the two lane graveled road that rose from flatter land in the valley toward the old farmhouse. Looking east the view was breathtaking, possibly one of the reasons Gil had picked this house for his bride. Of course Gil had been dead nearly six years, and Alma was Lewis' bride now — his wife — strange as it felt to say those words.

  From the living room came the first strains of music, a jazz band beginning their set and getting louder as Jerry Ballard tuned the radio. It had a good beat to it, real pure New Orleans jazz, and Lewis wondered what station Jerry was picking up. Jerry had been doing some work today, unlike the rest of them. He'd spent most of the morning with his books and papers spread out all over the living room, working on a peer review of an article about the defeat of an Assyrian king by a pharaoh of Egypt whose name Lewis couldn't remember, though Jerry had told him twice. Better still, Jerry was getting paid for it, though the fee was modest.

  They could use it. Two years had passed since the stock market crash had plunged the nation into the worst economic crisis anyone could have imagined, and it just kept getting worse. Unemployment had now reached twenty-five percent, one out of every four men, and President Hoover seemed to be doing nothing to stop it. In fact, it felt like he was making it worse. A few months ago he'd decided to pull all the contracts for carrying mail from the small carriers and consolidate them among the four biggest air companies — nice for their stockholders, but death for small businesses like Gilchrist Aviation. They'd lost their mail contract, a good half of their business.

  With the Depression, passengers weren't paying good money to travel by air. Maybe Hollywood millionaires could still afford it, but precious few people in Colorado could. And January was not a spectacular month for crop dusting.

  Come April or May they'd probably have to head for California and do some itinerant work, spraying crops wherever the jobs were available. Worst of all, they'd probably have to split up, as nobody needed three pilots. Either that, or they'd have to start selling off planes, beginning with Alma's beloved Jenny.

  As it was, they were lucky to get one job a week, and the long months until April or May stretched out cold and bleak. There had to be coal for the furnace and fuel for the planes, food for four people. None of those things could be compromised on.

  Lewis turned his attention back to the pot bubbling away on top of the stove. It wasn't much, just some cheap ground beef and kidney beans, a can of tomatoes and a couple of onions, dressed up with some spices out of the cabinet. Just chili con carne, but on a cold Friday night in December it hit the spot. The cornbread was already out of the oven and cooling on the butcher's board.

  "They're back," Jerry called from the living room. He could see down the road as Lewis couldn't, and it was a moment before Lewis heard the sound of the engine, Alma's Ford Runabout truck chugging up the grade in the snow. She and Mitch had taken the truck down to the airfield. It was much too cold and wet for Mitch's Torpedo. His sporty convertible was under a tarpaulin in the garage.

  "I hear them," Lewis called back, turning to get bowls out of the china cabinet. Bowls, spoons.... He poured the hot water through the top of the coffee pot and set it on the back eye of the stove, listening to it drip through cheerfully. The Dixieland Jazz dipped and swayed on the radio.

  Jerry appeared in the doorway leaning heavily on his cane. His thick brown hair was touched with gray at the temples, and with his gold rimmed glasses and moleskin sport coat he looked every inch the distinguished professor he should have been. "That smells good."

  "Thanks," Lewis said.

  The back door jangled as Alma and Mitch stomped in, Mitch stamping his boots on the mat outside rather than just tracking snow the way Alma did. Her knit hat had a bobble on it that bounced as she shook the snow off. "Oh that smells good." She took the hat off her bobbed blond hair.

  "Just like your mama made?" Mitch asked cheerfully, stripping his gloves off. He looked like the high school football star he had been, just gone to seed a bit – thirty-nine and a touch more rugged, though his Southern accent was still thick enough to spread on bread.

  Lewis frowned. "I think I picked this up wildcatting in Texas." He didn't remember his mother making anything of the kind. This was Tex Mex, not Californian, not the roasted meats and ristas of peppers he remembered from his childhood.

  Alma had gone over and taken the lid off the pot. "Oh yes," she said with a blissful smile as she smelled the steam. "I'm half frozen."

  "Any charters?" Lewis asked.

  "Dr. Hambly says he might need to go to San Francisco at the end of the month," Mitch said. "But he's not sure yet."

  "That's a nice job if it happens," Lewis said optimistically.

  "If it happens." Alma divested herself of her coat and draped it over the back of her ladder back chair before dropping into it. "And I don't see anything else."

  Uncharacteristically, it was Jerry who stopped the slide into gloom. "Come on, Al," he said. "It's Friday night. No more work." He brandished one of the bowls at Lewis. "Have some dinner and let's enjoy the music."

  Mitch glanced toward the living room door. "That's real New Orleans jazz. Who've you got there?"

  Jerry shrugged, still holding the bowl for Lewis to fill it. "Band out of Chicago, Louis Armstrong and the Stompers, I think the announcer said."

  "Real nice," Mitch said appreciatively. "Nothing like New Orleans jazz."

  Jerry tilted his head. "And when were you ever in New Orleans, Mitch?"

  Mitch shrugged, not looking at Jerry as he got the coffee cups and poured carefully, putting them each on the table, then going to the icebox to snag Alma's sweetened condensed milk. "I don't know."

  "Thank you," she said.

  Mitch smiled. "We know you can't do without it."

  Lewis neatly flipped the cornbread out of the cast iron frying pa
n upside down on a plate and put it on the table before he sank into his chair.

  He barely got his eyes closed before Mitch said, "For what we are about to receive, may we be truly grateful."

  "Amen," Alma said quietly.

  Jerry looked vaguely miffed. "That was perfunctory."

  "Oh come on, Jer," Mitch said, cutting into the cornbread. "If you'd said grace it would have been nine psalms long and taken half an hour."

  Alma laughed, and after a second Jerry cracked a smile. "I suppose it's the thought that counts."

  "So what's up with the magneto on the Terrier?" Lewis asked, referring to the mechanical problem that Alma and Mitch had gone down to the field to fix. The Terrier was their largest plane, a trimotor that was Mitch's beloved, and recounting its woes took most of dinner. Full dark had come and there was the faint ticking of freezing rain falling against the window.

  Mitch lifted his head and looked out, though there was nothing to see. "Rotten night."

  "We're nice and warm," Lewis said, and Alma smiled back at him, nudging him under the table with her knee.

  "That we are," Jerry said. "Though the way this country is going...."

  "Jerry...." Alma said.

  Lewis frowned. "If we don't get some business soon," he began. He wasn't an owner of Gilchrist Aviation — Alma and Mitch owned it jointly — and he was acutely aware that if he hadn't married the boss, if he were still a hired pilot, he'd be out looking for work. They didn't have work for one pilot full time, much less three. Not anymore.