Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure (21 page)

Like tarnation she did. “And who am I?”

“You are man who gets into trouble. Maybe you do not mean to be causing harm, but you cause it anyway.”

“Look, you do not know me. It’s only been two days. You don’t know anything about me.”

“And you have no knowledge about me either.” She tossed her hair. “But here is something both of us are knowing. I can do something for you that you want, and maybe I am only person who can do it for you. But what I want is something any pilot can do.” She raised her chin. “And they will have happiness to do it for me, after what Livingstone is saying to them about finding
Schturming
.”

He stared at her. She might have seen right through him from the beginning, but it seemed like he had barely scratched her surface.

She was right, more or less, about almost all of it. He
was
always getting himself into trouble—he could hardly deny that right now—and save for the fact that he sort of had dibs on her, he’d given her no absolute reason to help him.

“I don’t think you’re stupid. I never did.” He looked her in the eye. “I think Matthew was right—you’re heaped with brains.”

She widened her eyes. Then she looked away, anywhere but at him, before finally settling her gaze on the ground between them. Carefully, she pushed her hair behind her ear again and peeked up at him.

Did that mean maybe she didn’t think he was so bad after all?

He took a step. “Listen, I deserved some of what you said. I admit I don’t have a
right
to your help. But I sure could use it. And you’ve only met the one pilot—and that’s me—and he’s downright likable once you get to know him. So why not at least think about this job? Until we find
Schturming
, you’ve got nothing to do in the meantime.”

She slanted a glance at him, another one of those studying looks. But the furrow in her forehead was gone, and the corner of her mouth
almost
hinted at a smile.

Doggoned if she wasn’t human after all. Except for the lightning and the dead bodies and the bruised shins, he might even be more than a little sorry when the time came to hold up his end of the deal and send her on her way.

He smiled back.

From the direction of the house, footsteps crunched through the grass.

A slender redhead—Molly—ducked a tree branch and stopped at the sight of them. “Oh. I was coming to say it was suppertime.” She looked back and forth between them. “I’m sure you could stay for dinner, Mr. Hitchcock.” She did that slow blink again. She’d probably modeled it after moving-picture stars like Clara Bow and Mary Pickford, but it was so obvious, it would have been worth laughing at—if it wouldn’t have hurt the kid’s feelings.

“You could regale us with your stories of the sky,” she said.

“You can call me Hitch. Nobody I like calls me Mr. Hitchcock. And thanks, but I seriously doubt your mama would appreciate—”

“Molly, did you find them?” Nan ducked around the tree behind her daughter. She caught sight of Hitch and froze.

“I’m just leaving,” he said. “Thought my dog might be out this way. He was with your son last I saw. Walter, I think his name is?”

Nan wrung her hands in the pink floral print of her pinafore apron. She came forward to stand beside Jael. “If your dog’s a brown collie type, he’s around someplace. Call him and I expect he’ll come. You’d best chain him after this.” She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, closed it, then opened it again. “I allowed as Jael could stay with us now.”

“If it makes any difference, you should know I’m giving her a job. If she wants it.”

“That’s her choice, I’m sure.” Nan drew a breath. Her voice was grim, but her eyes weren’t—quite. “I don’t want to have to be hard about this, Hitch. But you’re not welcome on this farm. It just... isn’t the best thing.”

“So I’ve heard.” He turned to go, then glanced back at Jael. “Well, what do you say about the job?”

She looked straight at him. “I say I will have thoughts about it.”

Fifteen

TAOS DIDN’T QUITE seem to understand how the game of fetch was supposed to work. He’d bring sticks back all right. But every time Walter threw a small stick, Taos would come trotting back with a big one. This latest one was almost as long as he was. He bit it on the skinny end and dragged the rest behind him.

Walter huffed and shook his head. Of course, a dog couldn’t be good at everything, just like a person couldn’t be. Taos seemed good enough at the rest of being a boy’s dog.

Walter leaned down to try to pull the stick away. Taos pulled right back, tail wagging.

Footsteps approached through the apple trees. “Taos!”

The dog dropped the stick and whirled around. He bounded up to his owner—the man called Hitch—and reared onto his hind legs, barking.

Hitch snapped his fingers. “Get down.” He crouched to fondle the dog’s ears, but he looked at Walter the whole time. “Ran away with my dog, did you?” His voice was serious. But his eyes twinkled just a bit. Maybe.

Without saying anything, it’d be kind of hard to make somebody understand the dog had run away with Walter more than the other way around. So Walter just pushed his hands into his overalls pockets and shrugged.

“Weeelll.” Hitch drew out the word. “Taos must like you. He always did have good taste in people. Picked me out right away.” He winked.

Walter grinned. If he was a dog, he’d have picked Hitch too.

People had been talking all over town today. Most of it was about the big storm, but Mama Nan and Aunt Aurelia had been whispering with Mr. Matthew and Mr. J.W. about what Jael and Hitch had done. Flown right into the storm, dodging lightning and everything. Like real heroes.

And Walter was going to get to go flying with them. Hitch had said Walter could go flying, more or less, and Jael had promised.

Walter pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest, feet wide, the way Hitch had been standing beside his plane yesterday. He pointed at the sky and raised his eyebrows. With any luck, Hitch’d understand.

Hitch stood. “You really like planes, don’t you, son?”

He nodded, enthusiastically.

“Well, I’d sure be happy to take you up. But to be honest with you”—he scratched the back of his head—“your mama doesn’t much like me.”

Walter frowned his best confused face.

“Doesn’t matter why,” Hitch said. “Not to a sprig like you anyhow. But maybe you better figure on going up with another pilot.”

That wasn’t what he’d had in mind
at all
. Yesterday, it might have seemed one pilot was as good as another. But that was before he’d met Hitch and his plane and his dog. He let his shoulders sag.

Hitch reached out to ruffle his hair. “Never mind. There’s plenty of good pilots around. You’ll find somebody. Thanks for taking care of my dog.” He turned to leave.

Taos hesitated, panting, then bounded after his master.

Walter watched them go, until they disappeared behind the apple trees and even their footfalls were gone. Then he turned and ran back to the house as fast as he could.

He’d have to make Mama Nan understand somehow. Didn’t make any kind of sense why she wouldn’t like Hitch. He was just the kind of person a pilot should be. He had to be ten kinds of brave to fly around in that storm today. And hadn’t he rescued Jael from the lightning? Plus, he hadn’t been upset even a smidge about Taos running off.

Walter swung himself around the pasture fence post, ran through the dusty yard, and leapt over all three porch steps at once. He’d been trying to do that all summer, but no time to celebrate right now. He banged through the screen door into the kitchen.

Mama Nan stood over the cast-iron stove with a wooden spoon in one hand. “Walter, where have you been? Didn’t you hear me call?”

The family was all gathered at the long table—Papa Byron at the near end, Molly and the twins on one bench, and Aunt Aurelia and Jael on the other.

He stopped short.
Jael.
She was here? She was staying with them? His insides flipped, and he gave her his full-face grin.

She smiled back. She wasn’t as sparkly now as she had been before. Seemed like maybe getting hit by lightning—if you survived—should give you more sparkles, but she only looked tired. She leaned both elbows on the table and supported her chin against her locked fingers. Her hair had gone silvery in places, so it almost matched her eyes. But that was about the only other thing different about her.

“Sit down,” Mama Nan said.

He rounded the table to sit between Aunt Aurelia and Jael.

Papa Byron—his dark hair still damp from the sweat of the day and his sleeves rolled up above his beefy arms—said grace, and then Mama Nan dished up the meatloaf and green beans.

Walter peeked at Jael.

She gave him the tiniest of nudges with her knee, and her smile turned up on the side of her face.

He looked at Mama Nan. Getting her to let him fly with Hitch wasn’t just a matter of timing. There was also the matter of figuring out
how
to get her to understand she was wrong about Hitch.

Her face was flushed, her mouth tight. But it wasn’t the angry kind of tight. It was the about-to-cry kind of tight. Not that she actually would cry in front of them, of course.

She finished dishing out the supper, then eased down in her seat at the far end of the table around the corner from Jael. “Byron,” she said.

Papa Byron glanced up at her, chewing slowly. He never had too much to say. “Slow, steady, and silent,” he’d told Walter once. “Live that way, and you won’t never have much to regret.”

“Byron.” Mama Nan always said his name twice, once to get his attention and once afterwards. “I don’t want these children down with those gypsy barnstormers. Will you tell them that?”

Panic welled up hot and fast. Walter clutched the table.

Molly gasped. “You can’t mean it!”

“Don’t think I don’t, young lady. And don’t think I don’t see you making sheep’s eyes at Hitch. That’ll be enough of that.”

“Oh, Mama. He’s a nice man!” She sighed. “That curly hair. He looks positively like Douglas Fairbanks.”

Walter wrinkled his nose. Molly had taken him to see a Douglas Fairbanks picture once. He wasn’t a speck like Hitch.

Jael looked back and forth between Molly and Mama Nan. “Who is this Douglas Fairbanks?” Her voice was quiet, sweet. It sounded kind of like how honey and butter tasted.

Molly blinked her eyes wide. “You don’t know? He’s a star in the moving pictures.”

“And he is like Hitch?”

“He’s dashing and exciting and has all sorts of adventures.”

“Ah.”

“And he’s only quite the handsomest man ever.”

This time Jael blushed bright pink. “Ah.”

“Molly,” Mama Nan said, “that’s quite enough of this foolishness.”

Molly hunched over her plate. “Well, Hitch
is
nice anyway.”

Aunt Aurelia poured out her milk straight onto her beans. “Very nice. Do you remember, Nan, when he ate that grasshopper down whole?”

Evvy and Annie both giggled. Their red-gold curls were plastered to their faces with the heat. They were only six, so they didn’t yet know Aunt Aurelia sometimes said the wrong thing. Walter didn’t play with the twins much anymore—not since that day when he’d nearly let them die down by the creek.

Still, a whole grasshopper. Maybe he should try that later and show it to them.

Mama Nan carefully cut her food into little bits. She didn’t take a bite. “Hitch Hitchcock is not the kind of man you want to ever go running after, you hear me? He’s as heedless and irresponsible as the Lord knows how to make them. He brought nothing but grief to your Aunt Celia.”

Walter didn’t remember Aunt Celia. But if Mama Nan and Aunt Aurelia knew Hitch, it made sense Aunt Celia would have known him too.

“Celia, Celia.” Aunt Aurelia picked up a string bean with her fingers, dabbled it in the milk, then popped it into her mouth. “She always looked so beautiful in violet.”

“Now, Nan,” Papa Byron said, “what need is there to dredge that up? You ever think maybe he didn’t know she was sick?”

“That’s what he told you, Mama,” Molly put in.

“Never you mind,” Mama Nan said. “You just stop this nonsense and act like a proper young girl should.”

Molly sulked.

“This is not where Hitch is living?” Jael asked.

“No. He doesn’t live anywhere, far as I know.” Mama Nan stared at the mess she’d made on her plate. Then she looked up at Jael. She had that pinched-up expression like she did when she wanted to know something but didn’t think she would like the answer. “You’re going to take this job with him?”

“Maybe. I must have thoughts about it.”

Molly cast Jael half a glance. She looked jealous.

But then, good sweet angels! Who wouldn’t be jealous? Walter couldn’t help grinning. If he was a little bit older—and if Mama Nan wouldn’t forbid it for sure—maybe he could have gotten a job too. He gave a bounce against the hard bench, then bent his head to his plate and started shoveling in meatloaf, so’s nobody would notice his excitement. He kept watching Jael out of the corner of his eye.