Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure (13 page)

A flicker of something kind of like hope passed across her face and almost—but not quite—dispelled the doubt.

He took a breath. “I’ll ask Griff about it.” He started walking before he could let himself change his mind.

***

Hitch wandered up the familiar dirt road, listening to the tree-lined creek that bordered it on the one side. He came around the bend into view of the single-story farmhouse he’d grown up in. Hardly anything had changed. Same white curtains, gone yellow after his mother’s death. Same willow rocking chairs on either side of the door. Same sag in the bottommost porch step.

Lights shone from the kitchen window, so somebody was home. When he reached the black Chevrolet Baby Grand roadster parked in front of the porch, dogs started barking. He stopped at the base of the steps and waited, Taos alert at his side. His heart was thumping harder than it had any right to. He hooked his hands into his suspenders, then put them in his pants pockets instead.

Inside the kitchen, a shadow moved against the curtains, and a voice quieted the dogs. A man’s silhouette darkened the screen door, his face hidden in the shadows.

Hitch’s mouth went dry.

The screen door creaked open, and there was Griff.

“So,” his brother said. The dim light shone against the side of his face. “I’d heard you were back.”

“Hullo, Griff.”

Griff came forward and let the door bang behind him. The skinny kid was indeed gone. His shoulders had broadened, his voice had gotten a little deeper, and, beneath his rolled-up sleeves, his forearms were hard with muscle. Hitch had always favored their father, with his dark curly hair; Griff had gotten their mother’s tawny coloring and that sideways slip of the mouth that could telegraph either happiness or anger.

Right now, it looked like anger.

Quite a few words started running through Hitch’s head. Words like:
I’m sorry. I missed you. I should have come back
. But none of them quite wanted to surface.

Better to start with business, feel out the water, then see what happened.

He cleared his throat. “Got a problem I thought you could help me with—”

“Nan came by,” Griff said. “Told me you’d flown in for this big air circus.” His tone was tight.

Great. Hitch might not have any of the right words for this. But anything he could say right now would have been a better way to start this reunion than whatever Nan’d had to say. She
was
scared of something having to do with Hitch, and folks who were scared didn’t always say the most helpful things.

Nothing for it now. He took a breath. Should have started with this anyway.

“I got your letter.” He left his hands anchored in his pockets to keep from uselessly moving them. “It’s been awhile back.”

Griff looked him in the eye. He had always been mild-mannered enough, gentle even. He was the one who took care of the orphaned kittens and calves. He was the follower; Hitch was the leader.

But right now, every muscle in Griff’s body was cinched tight. His cheek churned. “Apparently, it was far enough back for you to forget what it said.” He looked ready to pop Hitch one if he came a few steps closer.

Hitch kept his ground. “I know what it said. I thought maybe it was time to come back anyway.”

“You’re really going to stand there and tell me that? After nine years?”

Hitch dropped his hands from his pockets. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Was a time when people around here needed you.” Griff came forward, the porch creaking under him. “But you weren’t here, and it was pretty clear you had no intention of being here any time soon. So guess what? People moved on. I’ve no doubt that’s hard for you to believe, seeing as you always thought life revolved around you, but that’s what happened. Life moved on.”

A bitter taste rose in the back of Hitch’s throat. He’d been prepared for the anger. He could overcome anger, given enough time. But this was something else again. This was a door, barring him from his own past, from childhood memories, from the only true family he had left.

And like enough, it
was
his own fault. He’d let people down, no question about that.

“I didn’t know,” he said. “If I could have, I
would
have come back.”

Griff huffed and shook his head.

“I figured you and Pop had each other. Then when I got word he’d died, so much time had passed. And then... I got your letter.”

“You don’t see it, do you, Hitch? You never have.” Griff turned to the house. “You can’t just dance back in here and expect everything to be how it was. There’s penance to be paid, I reckon.”

If Griff thought staying away from home for nine years had been nothing but larks and laughter, then he didn’t understand penance. Hitch might not have wanted to
stay
in Scottsbluff. But it didn’t mean he’d never wanted to come back. Likely, he would have come back, if it hadn’t been for the sheriff.

His stomach cramped up. “So I hear you’re working for Campbell now?”

Griff looked back. His frown tilted sideways. “Is that what this visit’s for? I heard about the disturbances at Dan’s cafe and the pilots’ camp. If people want to press charges, don’t expect me to interfere on your account. There’s more important things going on in this town—”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why?”

Hitch cleared his throat. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured out what Campbell is by now—behind all that strength and benevolence and ‘what’s right for the town’ talk? Once he gets his hooks in you, it’s not so easy getting them out.”

Griff held Hitch’s gaze for a moment, then leaned back. “Bill Campbell hasn’t got his hooks in me. And I know exactly what he is.”

“Then why work for him?”

“Maybe
because
I know what he is. You can’t solve a problem by walking away from it, can you?”

Then Griff wasn’t an idiot or a dupe. Hitch should have known better on that one.

Even still, the one thing Griff didn’t understand here was that there
were
some problems that could only be solved by walking away. Griff wouldn’t be standing on that porch if Hitch hadn’t done as Campbell dictated and walked away. Their daddy wouldn’t be buried on his own farm if Hitch had stayed.

The explanation for that stuck in his throat. Whether or not he’d left because he had to didn’t change any of the accusations Griff was leveling at him. He could have snuck back for the funerals. He could have written. He could have explained.

But he hadn’t. Because there had been that part of him—under the surface, where he didn’t look at it—that had been plenty happy to go. He’d left the earth and entered the sky. In so many ways, he had gotten exactly what he wanted. And he’d never looked back.

Too late for explanations now.

He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “what I’m here for right now is a good lawman. Guess we both know that isn’t Campbell.”

For just one second, Griff looked like the earnest kid he used to be—eager to help, eager to impress his big brother. Then his face hardened again. “Is it trouble you found waiting for you here, or did you bring it with you?”

“Not my trouble at all. There’s a girl I ran into last night. She’s... not from around here. Doesn’t hardly speak English. But she thinks some mug is after her. She’s pretty worked up over it. Says his name’s Zlo. She thought she saw him in town this afternoon.”

Griff frowned. “Not much I can do unless he actually attempts a crime.”

“I’ve been hearing about these bodies you’ve found around town. This guy Zlo might be tied up with them.”

Griff’s stance stiffened. “And what makes you think that?”

“Just a hunch, let’s say.”

They stood in silence. From somewhere under the porch, crickets sang. The breeze, still hot, carried the sweet smell of tall alfalfa.

“So was that it?” Griff asked.

No, not by a long shot.
It
was supposed to be reconciliation, maybe even forgiveness. Out of all the people he’d left, his brother was the one he loved the most. More than Celia, more than his father. Hitch had never really believed Griff’s letter. No matter how stupid the scrapes Hitch had gotten the two of them into while they were growing up, Griff had always forgiven him. Could Griff really have learned to hate him somewhere in that long stretch of time?

“It doesn’t have to be it,” Hitch said. “I’m here now, and I’m sorry for messing things up. We could let the past stay in the past.”

“It’s not the past I’m worried about.” Griff’s tone was cool. “It’s the fact it’ll happen again if I give you half a chance. If I could, I’d throw you right out of the county.”

“Right.” That was all Hitch could manage to say.

Griff retreated to the screen door and screeched it open. “This isn’t your home anymore, Hitch. You lost the right to call it that when you left us.”

That truth was a fist in Hitch’s gut. Because the truth was: Griff was right.

Eleven

HITCH WAS ALMOST back to camp when a huge cloud unexpectedly shadowed the moon. He stopped his amble down the dirt road and looked up, hands in his pockets. Tall fields of corn framed either side of the road. Somewhere far off, a cow lowed. He stared up at the cloud.

He was ten kinds of fool. Luck and charm had gotten him through most of his scrapes, so he’d more or less figured on them getting him past Griff’s anger. Maybe nine years of silence was too much to overcome. He huffed wearily.

Beside him, Taos sat down, tongue lolling.

It was a crying shame people weren’t more like planes. You loved a plane while you were with her, and all was right with the world. Then you left her to do what you needed to do to stay alive and sane, and she never held it against you. Fill her with gasoline and point her in the right direction—that was all she needed from you. But people... God help him if people weren’t more complicated than any number of gears and pistons.

Especially the people that mattered. If he got right down to it, it sure seemed like he’d done a good job cracking up every relationship that had ever mattered. What did people expect? His foot had itched for as long as he could remember. He’d never lied about that, never pretended he was anything but what he was.

If Griff wanted it all to end, there wasn’t much Hitch could do about it. But he could hardly let it lie either. He’d only be here for the week. If things didn’t get put to rights now, they never would. He wasn’t about to come begging—especially since he
had
left, in the beginning anyhow, to keep his family clear of his own troubles. There had to be some other way to get it all sorted out.

“Durn your stubborn hide anyway, Griffith Hitchcock.”

He stared up at the gray-black underside of the cloud. It drifted on past the moon and released the light once more. Maybe it meant rain. From the looks of things, the valley sure needed it.

Taos gave a yip, as if reminding him they were getting nowhere fast.

He looked down. “Well, why not. Sometimes nowhere’s the best place to be.”

A smaller shadow zipped across the ground.

He looked back up.

A big bird, its wingspan easily a couple of yards wide, circled twice just above the low cloud. Then with a shriek, it soared up into the haze.

Another shriek echoed down: and this time it sounded suspiciously human.

Something—or some
one
—fell from the cloud and hit with a thump in the cornfield next to the road.

What in the sam hill—? Hitch blinked.

Taos gave a bark, and they both started running. Hitch clambered over the fence and elbowed through the heat-stunted corn. The body had fallen only a couple dozen yards away. He kept his face pointed in the general direction, pretty sure of being able to find it.

He cast a glance skyward. That cloud was wafting on by, faster than it had any business doing in a breeze this faint. And where had it come from anyway? Thunderclouds like that built up throughout the day. They didn’t sprout out of nowhere, particularly in a place with so little humidity as western Nebraska.

He reached the spot roundabout where the body had fallen and peered into the night, listening. No moans. No sounds of life at all.

And then a head in an old-fashioned bowler hat appeared above the corn. The man turned, and his face flashed white in the moonlight. Beneath a broad forehead and an aquiline nose, a beard outlined his jaw. Nobody could be standing after a fall like that—thirty feet at least—but nobody else was crunching about in the field.

“Hey.” Hitch swam toward him through the corn. “You all right?”

The man stared at him. He looked to be in his early thirties. His eyes were hooded and wary, lips pushed out in a thoughtful scowl. As the big cloud sailed on by, the flicker of the moon revealed that, even in the heat, he wore a brown coat down to his knees and a red scarf.

He shifted and gave Hitch a glimpse of the smashed corn at his feet—and the lifeless body of a burly man.