But still, maybe Mama Nan could give him one to borrow, until the lady could find her real clothes.
He set his pole down on the rock and stood. He repeated her gesture of putting on new clothes, then pointed to the road. If she could walk over there, she could climb onto the bridge without having to wade through the stream. Her dress was so long she’d get it all wet if she tried to cross here.
She turned her head to follow his pointing finger, then pushed to her feet. “Umm… tonk yuu.” She bowed her head to him and disappeared into the brush.
So she spoke real words after all! He gathered up his pole and worm can and ran back through the trees to the road.
But when he got to the bridge, she wasn’t there.
He climbed up to stand on the railing. From that height, he could see down the creek on one side, and on the other across Mr. Matthew’s hayfield to the top of the fourth-story tower on Mr. J.W.’s house.
She was nowhere.
For five minutes, he waited. Then he climbed down and scouted back up the creek on her side of the bank. Still no lady.
But maybe she wasn’t a lady. Maybe she was one of the sky people. He leaned his head back to look past the tree branches at the blue glitter of the sky. She looked too nice to murder anybody. So maybe… maybe she was one of Mama Nan’s sweet angels come down for real.
Four
THE WOMAN’S FOOTPRINTS led Hitch right up to the two mismatched mailboxes. On the smaller one, Mr. Matthew G. Berringer was painted in square black letters. On the larger one, nail heads formed the words JOHN WILFORD BERRINGER, ESQUIRE.
So those two old buzzards were still at it, tooth and claw, determined to outdo one another or die trying. Some things around here hadn’t changed, at any rate.
He shook his head and knelt to look at the woman’s footprints in the thick dust on the side of the road. A set of much smaller footprints had joined them, then veered off down the road behind Hitch. A child’s?
He looked over his shoulder, squinting against the early morning sunlight.
Sure enough, a kid in overalls—cane pole over one shoulder—was tearing off down the road. Late for his chores, no doubt.
Hitch remembered the feeling well.
He stood up and surveyed the lay of the land.
The Berringer brothers lived only a mile or so away from that big lake, and there wasn’t much in between, so it made sense that one or both of the jumpers would have ended up here. From the looks of the footprints traveling on into the green sway of the hayfield, it seemed the woman was now alone.
After some cajoling, he had talked Rick into dropping him by the lake before Rick and Lilla drove on into town to see the sights. Unless Scottsbluff had changed a whole bunch since Hitch had left, they wouldn’t likely find much to see. But he hadn’t told them that. He needed the ride, and no matter what they saw, Rick would be dissatisfied and Lilla was almost sure to be pleased.
Hitch had located the woman’s footprints from the night before and followed them back to the road. In the daylight, he found his bearings right away. This was where he fished trout and hunted coyotes as a boy. The Berringers had always been willing to let him fish their creek as a bonus for his work. They would hire him for odd jobs whenever his old man gave him time off from the farm work. They paid good—outbidding one another to see who would hire him. And if he said so himself, he was pretty skilled at getting them to keep the bidding going.
Of course, looking back, the question was whether they had known all the time what he was up to.
And now here he was again. The rail fence surrounding Matthew’s hayfield looked different somehow, smaller, even though Hitch had been more than full grown by the time he left home. A wave of something—not exactly homesickness, but a kind of sad queasiness—washed through his stomach. He’d left because he had to, as much as because he’d wanted to, and there wasn’t anything for him here now. He’d known that after Celia had died.
He gripped the dry, splintery wood of the top rail. “Home again.” But not for long. Home, with his feet in the cornfields, was a prison. Flying—that’s where his happiness was.
He climbed the fence and crossed the field.
While he was here, he might as well stop in and say hello. The Berringers had always liked him. In contrast to some other folks in the valley, they might be willing to give him a quick job so he could afford those parts for Earl. And maybe they might have noticed a strange woman wandering through their yards.
On the far side of the field, he climbed another fence and started up Matthew’s drive. J.W.’s drive was right next to it, ten feet away. Their houses sat side by side, across the property line from each other. Matthew’s was a modest clapboard, whitewashed, single-storied, with a roofed-in porch across the front.
J.W.’s was a monstrosity, and he’d built it smack-dab between Matthew and the view of the Wildcat Hills to the south. It looked like something some maharajah had rejected: three stories with two jutting towers and four chimneys. It was close to being the biggest house in the county, even though J.W. lived in it alone. Definitely, it was the most outlandish.
Hitch squinted at the sun. Probably only 7:30 or so, but both Matthew and J.W. might already have left for their respective fields by now. Crazy farmers and their early-bird ways.
Hitch took the three steps to Matthew’s porch in one stride and thumped on the screen door. Nobody answered, so he crossed to the other side of the porch and jumped down. The ground was so dry, the dirt puffed up around his feet. He’d almost forgotten how bad the droughts could be here. Without the irrigation, nothing much would grow in these parts—and even then, it was a struggle whenever the weather refused to cooperate.
Around the back corner of the house, the wash on the line flapped into view. Faded long johns, dungarees, and a voluminous blue gown wafted in the breeze.
He stopped short.
The dress was shiny, sateen or something, with black lace up the front. One side of the skirt hung in charred shreds, and the whole thing was about as rumpled and dirty as you’d expect after having been dragged through a lake.
He scanned the yard.
And just like that: there she was.
She wore a white shirt and a pair of overalls, which she must have pulled off the line before putting the gown in their place. They were Matthew’s, of course, so they were about ten sizes too big for her slim frame. She had rolled the sleeves up past her elbows and the pant cuffs above her bare ankles. She stood at the water barrel beside the house, with her back to him. She had a big knife in one hand and was systematically hacking off her tawny hair.
“Hey,” he said.
She spun around, going into a half crouch, the knife out in front of her. “Zhdi zdes.” A charred wisp of hair floated from the blade to the ground.
“Err… what?”
She shook the knife at him. “I…” Her face wasn’t streaked with grease anymore, and her skin was pale, almost transparent under the morning sun. Her eyes were big and wild—with fear or maybe anger. Either way, she appeared more than ready to use the knife.
He raised his hands, trying to appear peaceable. “Look, it’s okay. No speakum English, I get it.”
“I…” she said, “am… having sorrow.” She tapped the coveralls on her chest. “But… need.”
“Okay, do speakum English.” Or something like it.
She sure didn’t seem likely to be part of a flying crew. So what did that leave? That she’d maybe been thrown out of that plane or whatever it was? That maybe that guy from last night had been shooting his flares at her on purpose—and not at Hitch?