Storming

Forty-Five

THE WIND TOSSED the Jenny around like she was a handful of dice in an all-in craps game. Which she was, actually. Hitch braced his hands against the heaving stick. His fingers had gone numb after the first fifteen minutes. He was only hanging on now because his fingers were too cold to unfurl.

Rain, hard as gravel, peppered him from all directions. The wind snarled and cursed in his ears, drowning out even the roar of the engine. The only thing letting him know the Hisso was still running was the thrum rattling up through the stick and the seat of his pants. That was pretty numb too, come to think of it.

The Jenny was trying her heart out, no question. But she couldn’t take much more of this, even if he could keep his fingers curled around the stick. Sooner or later, the turbulence would break the airplane—or he’d just plumb lose track of which dark blot was the sky and which was the ground.

Every now and then, Jael would raise her arm and wave the white scarf Earl had given her. She’d motion him one way or the other. But everywhere they turned, darkness surrounded them. Felt a whole lot like flying in big goldurn circles.

His heart beat so fast it was one great lump of pressure in his throat. C’mon, c’mon, he prayed. This couldn’t all have been for nothing. When a man made up his mind to risk his life in a one-chance-in-a-million venture, he was resigned to dying. But seemed like he was at least owed one chance.

Up ahead, Jael’s scarf flashed, a tiny blur of not-quite-black in the darkness.

Which way this time? He leaned forward and squinted.

The Jenny rocked, but not from the wind. Jael must be wiggling around.

He fought the stick. “Hold still, durn it.”

More wiggling. The scarf flashed again, followed by three more pinpoints of pale—her face and her waving hands.

Oh, for crying out loud… Was she really standing up again, in the middle of this?

She waved wildly. The faintest buzz of her screamed words wafted back to him.

“_What?_” he shouted.

And then he saw it too: a flash of light, almost like a star. Except there were no stars tonight. Just the infernal darkness of this hammering wind.

Schturming. It had to be. Nothing else would have a light.

He eased back on the stick and lifted the Jenny’s nose. “Come on, sweetheart. Just do this one last thing for me.”

She did it, and she didn’t even so much as balk. With a mighty roar of that blessed Hispano-Suiza, she lifted her snub nose into the storm and chewed right on through the wind. She might be a saucy little tramp most of the time. But tonight she was a warrioress, a Valkyrie.

The light flickered. For an instant, he half thought both he and Jael had only imagined it.

Then it shone out once more, hard and dazzling. It grew brighter and bigger. And then—the great bulk of _Schturming_’s white envelope loomed from out of the clouds.

He squeezed the stick until red-hot pinpricks pierced the cold in his finger bones. He nudged the Jenny down, below the envelope, toward the cargo bay in the bow end.

Just please let the doors be open.

He’d landed there once before. He could do it again. The glimpse he’d gotten inside the ship had showed a long corridor that seemed to stretch all the way through the entirety of the bottom level. It was wide enough—barely—for the Jenny, and it just might be long enough to get her stopped without crashing back out through the other end.

More light—a great square hole of it—flashed, not so bright as the smaller one. He almost forgot to breathe.

The doors were open. And… full of men. White faces turned up in their direction. Half a dozen lined the opening, watching the storm, no doubt.

So be it. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. He lined the Jenny up with the doors and killed the engine. Too much momentum and he wouldn’t be able to hold her steady enough to thread the needle down the length of the bay.

The men in the doorway scattered.

Just as well, since hitting them would have ripped up the wings and the landing gear good and plenty.

The wind clobbered the plane from above, and she plunged straight down, losing altitude. Without the thrust to keep her speed up, she would pitch into a dive any second now.

Just a few more feet. That’s all they needed. “C’mon!”

Her windmilling propeller entered the bay, and for four long seconds, she floated inside the dirigible. Along the ship’s walls, its supplies—boxes, barrels, crates—protruded from the fastenings that kept them from rolling about in the wind and the turbulence. The Jenny’s wingtips had no more than two feet of clearance on either side.

The wheels bumped the floor, and her tail started to sag. Her wheels bounced up, then came back down to skid. A few inches, just a few inches more—and then, bwack! The tail thumped down.

He dared a look over his shoulder.

The howling black hole of the storm engulfed his vision, only fifty or sixty feet back. By the time he looked back around, the rest of his body was already telling him the Jenny had come to a complete stop. A bare thirty feet separated the propeller from the dividing wall in front of them.

All the air left his body in a great whoosh. A wing and a prayer. That’s what that had been. Literally.

Adrenaline and cold shook through his hands, but he made himself yank his safety belt loose and find the revolver in his pocket. Zlo’s men had all either fled for their lives or thrown themselves face down on the floor. Judging from the blood on one’s face and the way his mouth was hanging open, he’d clunked his head on something.

The others started looking up and shouting.

“Oni zdes!”

Somebody ran to a speaking tube on the back wall and started hollering into it. “Eto pilot!”

This was where he and Jael advanced from dying in the storm to dying at the hands of indignant pirates. Great.

Hitch stood in the cockpit, braced the revolver in both hands, and cracked off two shots.

The baddies hit the deck again.

“Jael!” he shouted. “Can you move?”

She wallowed around in the front cockpit. This close to the dawsedometer, her pain level had to be near crippling.

He took another shot and maybe winged a guy, judging from the pained cry. He swung out of his cockpit on the far side of the plane and reached for Jael with both hands. “C’mon!”

Her pinched face appeared over the edge, and she let him half-drag, half-swing her over. She landed hard on her knees, and barely managed to claw herself to her feet, using the fuselage on one side and his hand on the other.

Keeping the Jenny between them and Zlo’s men, he backed toward the engine room door in the far corner. “We’ll shut the dawsedometer off. It’s just around the corner. It’ll be all right.”

She managed a nod and staggered after him.

Except it wasn’t all right.

The door to the engine room swung open, and half a dozen men burst out, all of them packing Webley revolvers. One look at the plane in their cargo bay and their eyes got big and their mouths fell open.

Hitch faced them and fired another shot.

The bullet caught one of the men in the side, and he spun around in a spray of blood. The others started shooting back. Fortunately, none of them were very good at it. Bullets splatted and zinged against the ceiling and the walls. A rope holding a wooden crate near the ceiling snapped and spilled its load of potatoes all over the floor.

Jael tugged his hand, pulling him in the opposite direction. “This way!”

They ran to the back of the plane. Lashed by wind from the gaping bay doors, he vaulted over the fuselage behind the rear cockpit. He popped a warning shot at the thugs in the corner, then reached back to haul Jael after him.

She landed in a heap on the floor but started crawling even before he pulled her back to her feet.

She crashed into a door in the wall, fumbled with the latch a second, then shoved it open. “Hurry!”

The men rushed across the room, all of them shouting.

Hitch backed through the doorway and blasted off his last shot. Then he grabbed for the edge of the door and hurled it shut. “Please tell me this thing’s got a lock?”

She struggled to lift a wooden crossbar. “Here!”

Footsteps pounded outside the door. The men roared garbled words. Several shots smacked into the heavy wood, then the doorknob started to turn.

Hitch grabbed the crossbar and slammed it into place. The door opened just enough to bang into the bar before his own momentum knocked it shut again.

Panting, he surveyed the crossbar, then turned back to Jael. “Now where?”

She headed down the corridor, pulling herself along with one hand on the wall. Lamps, fixed at intervals in brackets near the ceiling, offered a dim, flickering light. The place smelled of ozone, mixed with dust and grease and some kind of spicy incense.

He jogged after her, reloading out of his pocket as he went. “You all right?”

“I will be.” The way she gasped her words didn’t offer much conviction. “As soon as we turn off dawsedometer.”

Which, at the moment, they were running away from.

He clenched his teeth. “Right.”

Halfway down the corridor, she reeled to a stop and raised her head.

He clicked the revolver’s cylinder back into place and looked around. “What?”

“I hear…” She drew in a sharp breath. “They’re coming. Through other door!” She pointed to the far end of the corridor.

“Oh, great.” They would be like tin ducks in a shooting gallery. He looked around. “Get behind me.” He’d have to get on his knees, try to pick off Zlo’s men as they came through the door. At least there’d be a bottleneck.

She caught his hand and pulled him forward. “No, wait! We can get out here!” She slid her hand against the wall, and suddenly there was no wall. Just that same howling darkness. “It is observatory deck!” She ducked outside.

He followed before he had time to think about it. They banged the door shut, just as the other door burst open.

Darkness engulfed his vision. Icy wind shrilled all around him. He leaned back and bumped into a waist-high iron railing. “Now what?”

Her teeth chattered. “Wa-a-a-it?”

“Yeah, until they realize where we are—and then we’re really stuck.” He looked around. “I don’t suppose there’s any other way out of here?”

Through the storm, something whispered.

He cocked his head and concentrated. There it was again. “Do you hear that? It sounds like…”

Her hand slapped out through the darkness and caught his sleeve. “Dog! It is dog!”

“What?”

“Maybe it is Taos!” She jerked his arm. “Look!”

He looked up.

About ten feet overhead, a light shone against the darkness.

Their guiding star. It had to be.

The light blinked out for a second, and then something hit him in the face. He slammed back into the railing once more. The thing hit him again, soft and tickly and snake-like.

He reached for it. “A rope.”

“It is Walter!”

He jerked another look up.

The silhouette of a small, dark head gleamed against the backdrop of the light. Then a dog’s head appeared beside it—a dog with one floppy ear.

A wave of dizziness washed over him. “Walter. Are you hurt?”

The boy shook his head.

In the corridor, footsteps stomped.

Wouldn’t take more than a minute for those mugs to check this door.

“Okay.” He tried to make his brain work again. He tied the rope around Jael’s waist. “I’ll climb up, then pull you up after me.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Please tell me you think you can hang on.”

She didn’t respond.

“Where’s your scarf?” He found it in her pocket and looped it under her arms, then used it to tie the rope snugly against her chest. “That’ll help, but you’ve got to hang on, you hear me?”

“I am hearing you.”

“Good.”

He took hold of the rope, climbed atop the railing, and started over-handing himself up the thing. The wind tore at him, and his numb fingers burned like match-struck gasoline all the way up.

He’d tell himself not to look down, but there was nothing to see down there anyway. It was not thinking about what was down there that was the trick. His dislike of heights swarmed him, rolling his stomach over and over. Funny that it would bother him out here, but not in a plane. Pretend he was in a plane, that’s all he had to do. He gritted his teeth. Easy as pie.

Finally, he reached the light, framed in a porthole. Walter caught his elbow and helped him over the top. The room was tiny, a storage closet from the looks of the tarp-covered boxes and bits of machinery stacked all around. A lantern sat near the windowsill.

Somehow he couldn’t quite make himself look at the boy. Like if he looked too hard, it’d all turn out to be a dream.

“We’ve got to pull Jael up,” he managed.

Together, they hauled her up and over.

She landed on the floor with a thump and lay there for a second, gasping.

Then she looked up at Walter, and a grin broke through the pain on her face. “Walter.” She pried her fingers from the rope and, still lying on her side, held out an arm for him. “You are in safety. I am so happy you are in safety.”

Walter dropped to his knees and folded himself into her arm. With both hands, he helped her sit up, and the two of them clung to each other for a second. He snuck a look, out of the corner of his eye, at Hitch.

Hitch stood back. His hands seemed to be entirely in the way. They didn’t want to hang at his sides, fit in his pockets, or wedge under his elbows. His jaw cramped, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

He needed to say something. Anything. Tell the boy he’d never been gladder to see anyone in his entire life. Tell him he was sorry. Tell him he was never going to let him out of his sight again.

His heart pounded, and the words all crammed in his throat, too big to get out.

Taos frisked around his feet and let out an excited little yip.

Hitch dropped to a crouch and pulled the dog up, so Taos’s front paws rested against his knee. He fondled his dog’s ears and watched his son.

Jael opened her eyes and looked, first at Hitch, then at Walter. She sat back and pushed Walter away. With a little nod, she directed his attention to Hitch.

Walter turned, slowly. He still wore his party suit: a dark blue jacket and shorts and a string tie. Both socks were ripped, and his dark mop of hair fell in his eyes. He tucked his chin and peered up at Hitch, like he still wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

Hitch cleared his throat. “I’m real glad you’re all right. You saved us just now, you know.”

Walter scuffed his toe, then shot a glance at Taos.

Still about the dog then. Hitch’s heart just about split clean in two.

He dropped to his knees and pulled Walter to him. “He’s just a dog. He doesn’t matter a lick compared to you. You hear me?”

Two skinny little arms wriggled up around his neck.

“I’m sorry.” He tightened his hold around this boy—this incredible, brave, loyal, determined little boy who was his own flesh and his own bone. His son. He wanted to press him right into himself, until they were bonded, until Walter could never leave him again.

He could barely get the words past his cramped throat. “Do you hear me? What I said was wrong, and I didn’t mean it. Taos getting caught wasn’t your fault. You’re a hero, Walter. You found Schturming. We’d never have captured it without you.” He eased back a little, so he could see the boy’s face.

Tears streaked Walter’s cheeks, but his chin was firm. He nodded.

Hitch opened his mouth to tell him the truth, all of it: you’re my son, I love you, I’ll be the father you need me to be, I promise.

But now wasn’t the time. The first thing they had to do was escape. If they lived to touch ground again, then he’d tell him.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I’m going to get you out of here, and it’s going to be okay. You got that?”

Walter nodded. Then he swallowed, and the corner of his mouth tilted up.

Hitch looked over the top of Walter’s head.

Propped up on one hand, Jael stared back at him. Her eyes shone in the flickering lamplight. She smiled and gave him a nod.

She knew what he’d just promised, even if Walter didn’t yet.

“All right, then.” Hitch breathed deep. “Let’s bring this bird down and go home.”