His stomach flipped. The cockpit was safe; it was solid ground. But up on top, there was nothing but a long, long fall.
He held the plane steady. He needed to turn around, get this heap back to level ground before Jael lost her balance. But he couldn’t turn without the wind shifting around her and maybe pulling her over anyway.
“Get back in the cockpit!” he hollered so loud the words scraped his throat.
Maybe she heard him. She shifted one of her legs. But she didn’t extend it back toward the cockpit. She raised it, bending the knee, until her foot was flat against the wing. She wiggled, squeezing her foot into the wire.
“No! Don’t stand up!”
Slowly, slowly, hand still flat on the wing, she brought her other foot up and wedged it too. Then she started to straighten.
His lungs stopped inflating. Over the years, he’d worked with dozens of wing walkers. He’d seen more than a few of them break too many bones to survive. And none of them had about got hit by lightning the day before.
He braced the stick in both hands, feet against the rudder pedals.
She made it all the way up, body tilted forward, leaning into a fifty-mile-an-hour wind. And then, just like a pro, she raised her face to the sun and spread her arms.
She was doing it. She was really doing it. Of course, she could stop doing it any second. But for now, she was as good as any of the best of them. Her head started to move. She tilted it around, inch by inch, until he could see the corner of her eye. And then she grinned: a wide, exultant grin. The kind you grinned when you were as happy as you’d ever been in your life, and you knew you weren’t likely to be that happy ever again.
Durned girl. He grinned back.
He dropped the right wing the barest of smidges and started a big circle. If she wouldn’t get back into the cockpit, then he’d have to land sooner or later. Might as well do it under Livingstone’s nose.
The other contestant’s plane was in the air now, headed in their direction. Hitch gave it a wide berth to avoid the turbulence. As they passed each other, he offered the pilot and his staring parachutist a jaunty salute. Then he pitched down, still going slow to minimize the pressure on Jael as much as possible. By the time they reached the field, the Jenny was a bare twenty feet off the ground.
He gave her the gun and buzzed the field. Hats and scarves blasted away in every direction. White faces turned sunward to stare.
Let the Jenny crash and burn right now. It’d still be a heck of a way to go out. He laughed aloud.
Jael lowered herself to one knee and inched back until her hands could anchor themselves in the wires. He swung the plane around and came in low for a landing. Even above the engine, the sound of the whooping and clapping was colossal.
This girl was born to be an aerialist.
The wheels bounced. Jael bobbled and nearly fell over sideways.
His heart jumped into his throat.
But she righted herself and straightened up on her knees to wave one hand at the crowd. She was a natural, no question.
The crowd ducked through the fence or clambered over. They swarmed the field, despite Livingstone’s megaphoned entreaties.
Wasn’t everyday you worked a crowd into this kind of frenzy, especially with a relatively simple stunt. Still, crowds on the field were never a good thing. Even if they managed not to mangle their faces in a propeller, some of them had the not-so-charming tendency to grab souvenirs off the plane.
He tugged at his helmet and goggles and jumped out.
“Stay there,” he told Jael.
Still kneeling, she braced her hands against the wing, looking like she’d topple if she didn’t. But beneath her goggles, her grin sparkled.
Earl ran up. “I don’t believe it!” He looked from Hitch to Jael and back again, then got a knowing gleam in his eye. He threw his head back and laughed.
Hitch slapped his shoulder. “Help me move the plane. Stand back, folks! Wouldn’t want you to get bumped over.”
Somewhere toward the back of the bustle, Rick stared. Even if he’d stuck around to do the parachute drop, they wouldn’t have gotten a reception like this. And Rick knew it.
Livingstone jostled through to stand at Hitch’s elbow. “Well.” He looked abashed. But his mustache was trying to twitch away the fact that what he really wanted to do was grin. Hitch had just given the show another big fat plug.
Livingstone squinted at Jael from beneath his hat brim, then looked Hitch up and down. “You cannot follow rules to save your life, now can you?”
Hitch shrugged. “I try. The rules just don’t follow back.”
“Hmp.”
“But we qualified, right?”
This time, the mustache twitch hid a scowl. “I could well disqualify you on any number of technicalities. But far be it from Bonney Livingstone to disappoint the expectant public.” He raised his megaphone and turned to the crowd. “I am pleased to announce Captain Hitchcock and his team have qualified—with much aplomb, I might add—for this weekend’s competition. I am certain you all will return to watch him and his fearless flying companion tempt death once more!”
Hitch motioned to Earl, and they eased the plane through the crowd and back to camp. Behind, Livingstone’s megaphone droned on, and another plane engine chattered to life.
As soon as they were parked, Earl ducked under the engine and clapped Hitch on both shoulders. “You sly son of a gun! You had even me fooled. I bet you knew this whole time Rick was going to up and quit. That’s showmanship for you, boy!” He made the OK sign with one hand. “Those folks don’t even know what hit them.” He gestured up at Jael. “They think they just watched a cripple wing walk!” He turned back to Hitch. “Why didn’t we think of this before? You’re a genius, you know that?”
“Yep, a genius.” He was a lucky idiot, but why mince words? He walked around to the back of the wing and waited for Jael to shimmy down into the front cockpit.
She caught his eye as she ducked her head under the top wing and swung first one leg, then the other over the edge of the cockpit. She moved slow and careful, but her whole face beamed.
He grinned back.
Earl smacked his fist into his palm. “I mean, this is great. Forget Livingstone’s competition. This’ll rake in the dough at every hop between here and San Francisco. What an act, brother!”
Hitch helped Jael step from the bottom wing to the ground. “Except it ain’t an act.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t an act. I didn’t plan any of it. All I did was hang on. She did it all.” He raised her hand, as if introducing her to an audience.
She bit her lip, shyly, her eyes still dancing.
Earl chuckled once. Then his grin faded. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.”
He looked at Jael. “Is he kidding me?”
She shook her head.
“Well… dadgum.” Earl started laughing again and reached to engulf her hand in both of his. “Dadgum it is, sweetheart. You’re a crazier fool than Hitch is, you know that?”
She inclined her head in a small bow. “Thank you.”
“Well, come on, this is worth celebrating.” He released her and turned to rummage through the camp supplies.
Hitch led her, limping only slightly now, to a rolled-up bedroll she could use as a seat. “We got anything worth celebrating with?”
“Not much. I think Lilla left behind some orange sodey pop. Yep.” He stood up with three of the ribbed glass bottles. With his sleeve over the heel of his hand, he snapped off the tops, then passed them around. Still standing, he raised his bottle. “Here’s to our girl, who we may or may not let go back up again, but who definitely saved our grease-stained hides today.”