Storming

Forty-Two

ALL AROUND WALTER, cold wind wailed. He lay as still as he could on the wooden shelf that had stopped his fall. He kept his eyes shut. If he didn’t move, he couldn’t fall. And he didn’t want to fall. Never, never again. A sob clogged his throat, but he forced it back.

How long had he been lying here? He eased his eyelids open. Darkness pressed in all around—except up top, where the white of the balloon loomed. Surely it had to be about time for the night to be over. He slanted his gaze to the side, trying to see the horizon. But, no, it was still dark.

He clamped his eyes closed again and strained his ears for the thousandth time. But no putter of the Jenny’s engine broke through the wind and the thunder of _Schturming_’s propellers. It was too dark. It had been too long. Hitch wouldn’t be able to find him, not now. Maybe he and Jael had crashed too. The whimper worked its way up.

Nobody was going to save him. It didn’t make any kind of sense that they would. He had to be smart now. And brave.

So the first sensible question was: How far was he from the edge? He spread his fingers against the wood on which he lay. Inch by inch, he crawled his fingers away from his body.

After only about seven inches, they dropped right over the edge.

All the air left his lungs. He yanked his hand back. That’s how close he’d been. All this time! Seven inches more and he’d have fallen straight to the ground, instead of catching himself here.

After Aunt Aurelia fell and Jael and Hitch had dived after her, Walter had kept clinging to the rope. But it slipped and slipped—until it wasn’t just slipping, it was plunging. He’d skidded down the side of the balloon, clawing at the taut fabric. There had to be something, anything, to grab onto. But there was nothing… until the balloon disappeared and both his outstretched hands slapped into something hard.

He’d jammed to a stop. Everything hurt. For a second, he’d just hung there. Maybe Hitch would come back. Maybe he’d catch him, like they were catching Aunt Aurelia.

But, no, that was stupid. His arms trembled. He’d fall before they could make it back. He’d have to save himself. So he’d hauled himself over the edge and rolled to a stop. He lay there in the space between the balloon and the ship. The darkness was too thick to see what was on the inside edge of the ledge. Maybe another drop. He’d just have to wait for Hitch to come back.

But it was getting about as clear as Molly’s looking glass that Hitch wasn’t going to be able to come back anytime soon.

Walter spread the fingers on his other hand and inched them out—and out and out, until he stretched his arm all the way away from his body. The wooden ledge on that side extended as far as he could reach. At least he wasn’t going to roll over in that direction and fall clean off the face of the ship.

He eased himself over onto his shoulder, then his stomach. Pains shot through his arms and legs—especially his arms—but he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees anyway. Then he started crawling.

After a few minutes, lights shone up ahead. To his right, a square hole—dark, but a lighter shade of dark—appeared. Voices echoed out of it.

If people were in there, then it’d have to lead to a safe place where nobody could fall. But if the people in there saw him, they’d probably throw him right back out. His arms trembled, and he bit his lip. Maybe just a look. He could always crawl back out.

He reached the few feet up to the hole and touched a strip of cold metal on its floor. He moved his hand to the other side of the hole and found another strip just like it. The strips were both wider on the top and grooved in the middle, kind of like railroad tracks.

The cannon! This was how they got the cannon in and out of the ship.

He stood up all the way and reached above his head until his hand bumped the top of the tunnel. It was maybe only four feet high. Not hardly big enough for anybody but him to fit in.

Once inside, he slid down the tunnel on his belly—as slow as a snake, and hopefully as silent.

Ahead, the orange light flickered, like it was off to the side of the tunnel somehow, maybe not inside of it at all. Around a slight bend, the light glared, full-strength. It lit up a huge, dark shape smack in the middle of the tunnel.

His heart jumped, and he stopped short.

The cannon. It was only the cannon. Good sweet angels.

For a second, he closed his eyes. Then he made his arms drag his body forward a little more.

The big ol’ metal tube, on its wooden wheels, loomed over his head. It filled up almost all of the tunnel, facing away from him. But maybe he could crawl over the wheels first, then duck down under the cannon to get past.

In the tunnel’s right wall, a trap door hung open from the hinges at its bottom. That was where the light was coming from. Shadows moved across the opening.

He leaned against the wall and peeked an eye around the corner.

Inside a huge room, giant pistons pumped up and down. The wind blew the sweet smell of warm grease and the sharp smell of cold rain against his face. In the middle of the room stood a big tarp-covered something, about the size of Mama Nan’s bureau—the one she never let him and the twins climb on.

The shadows blocked the light for an instant. The voices moved nearer, loud and growly. They said words like Jael sometimes said.

A man in a round hat, with a big bird on his shoulder, strode toward the tarp.

Zlo.

Walter ducked back and nearly banged his head against the trapdoor’s sill.

Another shadow crossed the room. A man with a youngish voice muttered, “_Pozhaluista, otpustite nas._” He sounded like he was begging.

“Zatknis’!” Zlo’s bellow rumbled all through the room. “_Mi podozhdem poka svershitsya moi plan._”

The floor of the tunnel shifted underneath Walter’s hands and knees. What was happening? Had Hitch come back? Was he fighting Schturming? Maybe he was knocking it out of the air? Walter tensed his arms and legs.

The slant of the floor held steady.

No, what was happening was they were turning. They were going back. To Scottsbluff. His heart leapt. But… why? Zlo had said everybody in town had two days to pay the ransom.

Walter peeked around the corner once more.

The younger man, in a red coat, stood back from Zlo and fidgeted one leg. He kept looking around the room, like maybe he wanted a magic door to appear and take him away.

Zlo reached up and swirled the tarp to the floor. A machine almost as tall as Zlo himself, made of brass and tin and polished wood, sat underneath. It hummed through the dozen or so brass pipes sticking up from its backside.

This was the weather-maker. It had to be.

Zlo started poking at the round buttons set flat beneath three shiny panels that tilted upwards. The machine whirred harder.

The red-coated man clasped his hands and threw his head back, a little like he was praying. “Pozhaluista, mi dolzhni idti!”

Zlo stopped poking buttons and reached into his coat pocket. He came out with Jael’s pendant, turned its little crank with the leaf-shaped handle, and fit it into a slot beside the panel of buttons.

“_Pozhaluista_—” the other man said again.

Without looking at him, Zlo grabbed a brass lever—about the size of a baseball bat—and shoved it forward.

The machine’s hum became a quiet roar. It vibrated all through the tunnel’s floorboards and buzzed in Walter’s sore shoulder joints. The hair on his head stood straight on end. He touched it, and it crackled.

Outside, thunder rumbled.

Zlo turned away from the machine and looked at his friend. The bird on his shoulder cawed and ruffled its feathers. Zlo parted his lips, and the silver caps on his teeth glinted in the lantern’s light. He didn’t say a word. He looked mad, but not one bit afraid.

If Zlo wanted to, he could kill everybody. Walter’s teeth started to chatter. After he got the ransom, Zlo could flood the whole valley to get back at Hitch and Sheriff Campbell for capturing him. And nobody would be able to stop him. Walter’s stomach seemed to fall clean out of his body.

Zlo turned around. A long brass pipe had been secured lengthwise to the wall. It ended in a funnel, kind of like a megaphone. Zlo spoke into it. “_Derzhi kurs._”

After a second, a tinny voice answered. “Tak tochno!”

Zlo strode to his friend and clapped his shoulder, then pushed him around. They headed back across the room, leaving the lantern behind.

Right as they passed his trap door, Walter pulled back. He dropped onto his elbows and smashed his hands against the top of his head, trying to squash down his static hair.

Think. C’mon, think! Nobody down below—not even Hitch—could be sure what Zlo was planning. Only Walter. He was the only one who knew. And he was stuck up here, well and truly.

If Hitch hadn’t crashed—and, of course, he hadn’t—then he’d come back and look for Walter. But without the wing to mark _Schturming_’s hull, he wouldn’t be able to find the ship. Unless… maybe Walter could mark it somehow.

But with what? Nobody’d be able to see anything in the dark.

Except light, of course. He looked up.

The lantern sat on the floor in the big room, beside the door Zlo and his friend had left through.

Time to pretend. Walter clambered out of the trap door and ran on tiptoe to grab the lantern. He glanced through the door.

Darkness filled the room beyond. Wind gusted through it and spattered raindrops against his face.

He looked up toward God. Please don’t let anybody be in there. ’Cause if they were, they’d sure as spitting see him move the lantern.

He snagged the lantern’s thin metal handle and darted back across the room. He shoved the lantern in first, then clambered after. His heart hammered all the way through his body.

The cannon filled up almost the whole tunnel, so he had to lift the lantern over its wheel, then slither over it himself. He pushed the lantern ahead of him, on the floor, and scootched under the barrel. Good thing he was so scrawny. Any bigger, and he’d’ve been stuck right there. A line of sweat trickled heat down his forehead. He swiped it aside with the back of his arm.

The black tunnel stretched out in front of him. Somewhere down there, maybe he’d find a window. If he could put the lantern in the window, maybe just maybe Hitch’d be able to see it.

He started crawling, and he kept right on crawling—until he heard a dog’s muffled whine. Goosebumps scattered his skin, and he stopped short.

Taos. Could that be Taos?

Walter’s heart jumped with the first happy thought since Zlo had taken Aunt Aurelia.

Maybe, just maybe everything could still be all right. If Taos was here and if Hitch could somehow come save them both, maybe everything could be all right after all.