Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure (15 page)

Campbell, of all people, wasn’t likely to believe the truth. But it
was
the truth. If this murder was going to get solved, that truth would have to be told by somebody.

“I think he fell.”

“From where? A tree? In the middle of the cornfield?”

“I know you’ve heard about Scottie Shepherd saying he saw a body fall out of the sky.”

“Scottie Shepherd’s an old man. He don’t see good and he likes attention.”

“But do you believe him?” The answer could either make things easier for Hitch, or a whole lot harder.

“I believe
something
’s going on.” Campbell studied him. “And I believe
you
know more’n what you just told me. You think Scottie’s right? Something’s up there, in the clouds, killing folks?”

“That just sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

Campbell regarded him for a moment, then leaned in. “I heard about the stunt you pulled this morning, stealing that plane right out from under Livingstone’s nose.
That’s
crazy. Only you—that’s what I said when I heard about it. Only you.”

Hitch tried not to tense up. “That’s got nothing to do with anything. I’m not lying about this. If it’s a murder, then I take it as serious as anybody.”

“Of course you do. You’re not the type to take the law lightly. You’re just the type to go hightailing when a job don’t go right and you lose a man’s money.”

And there it was. Campbell liked to dance around the truth, but it never took him long to stick in the first jab.

Hitch looked him right back in the eye. “I’m not the type to take the heat for smuggling stolen goods when the man who hired me didn’t tell me what they were.”

“What they were was none of your business. Still isn’t. You should have trusted your sheriff a little more, son.”

“What I’ve learned over the years is that the folks telling you to trust them are usually the last people who deserve it.”

Campbell shrugged. “Glad to hear you learned something along the way. Learn your lessons and pay your dues, I always say. That shipment you lost cost me a cool five hundred dollars. When I heard you were home, naturally I figured you’d finally decided to do the right thing and pay me back.”

“I don’t owe you anything—even if I had that kind of money.”

“The way
I
see it, either you owe me five hundred dollars, or I should be investigating those stolen goods you got caught with nine years ago.”

If Campbell wanted to put Hitch away for a crime he was guilty of himself—a nine-year-old crime, at that—he’d do it.

Even still, paying Campbell off wasn’t going to be more than a short-term solution, at best. If that’s all it would have taken, Hitch wouldn’t have had to scram out of the state.

Back when he’d taken Campbell up on his job offer—hauling goods over the state line—he had still bought into the whole idea that Campbell was an upstanding public servant. It was only after the cops in Cheyenne figured out the goods were stolen, and Campbell tried to pin the whole thing on Hitch, that he figured it all out.

Campbell had promised he’d clean up the whole mess
if
Hitch paid for the lost goods. Hitch hadn’t had that kind of money, even back then. When he’d tried to tell the mayor what Campbell was pulling under his nose, Campbell had threatened Hitch’s family—Celia, Griff, and his pop.

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 ground. 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?”