He cast her a sidelong glance. “You do know you shouldn’t count on me too much, right?”
“This ‘count on’—what is that?”
“It means… depend on, to be sure of something.”
“You are not sure of yourself?”
“Oh, I’m sure. It’s just that what I’m sure of isn’t always what other people want me to be sure of.”
“You are very worried about disappointing people.”
Most of the time, there weren’t any people in his life to disappoint. It was only since coming home that the Groundsworld—as she called it—had started reaching out for him with its expectations and responsibilities.
He guided the car around a puddle. The left front tire hit the rut anyway and bounced hard.
“I’m not worried,” he said. “There’s things I’ve done—mostly long ago, before I left home—that I’m not proud of. I wish they could’ve turned out different. But the truth is, even if I had ’em to do again, they’d happen the same way. I am what I am, and I can’t help it when people expect me to be something else.”
She chewed on that for a minute. “You think you are still same person you were—before you left all this time ago?”
“Sure. People don’t change.” He gave her half a grin, trying to make it a joke. “It’s a common myth.”
She ate her biscuit slowly, watching him. Then she licked the crumbs off her fingers and shook her head. “People change. But it is slow. It is not that they decide tomorrow they will have differences. It is that they decide every day, for many days. Or maybe they do not decide—and it happens anyway, without them even having knowledge of it.” She spread her hands. “It is not change. It is what you call… um…”
“Evolution?”
“Maybe. I do not know this word.”
He steadied the steering wheel over a series of ruts. Maybe she was right. Maybe not. He wasn’t entirely the person he had been nine years ago. Back then, he’d been as sure as shoeshine that running away was the only right choice. But now, a niggle of doubt surfaced.
What would have happened had he stayed? Maybe Campbell would have backed down sooner than risk his crooked dealings being revealed in open court. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone after the Hitchcock farm like he’d threatened. Even if Campbell had held fast, maybe Hitch spending a few years in prison would have done less to hurt the people he cared about. Maybe Celia wouldn’t have gotten sick and died.
He might have a family now. A little stability. A few bucks in his pockets. Would that have been such a bad thing?
His chest tightened. And leave the air? Let gravity chain him to the ground?
He shook his head. “People don’t change. They want to, but they can’t.”
Jael drew in a pained little gasp.
He looked over at her. “Nothing personal.”
“No…” She sucked in another breath, past her teeth. She sat up, rigid in her bouncing seat, both fists clenched in her lap. Her skin had gone tight over her face. Her eyes were wide, her forehead lined. “I am having pain again.”
“What?” He hit the brakes hard, and the jalopy nearly swerved off the road. He leaned his head back and scanned the sky.
Nothing but clouds.
She leaned forward, wincing. “Move slowly.”
He let up on the brake. “If you’re right about this, you’ll deserve Livingstone’s prize all to yourself.”
They crept down the road—four hundred yards, five hundred, then a mile. He alternated his gaze between the road ahead and the hazy sky that stretched out across the lake on one side and the unplanted fields of gray-green sagebrush on the other.
When you came right down to it, this was ridiculous. It was like looking for a mosquito smashed onto the Jenny’s top wing. Maybe you’d find it if you looked long enough, but, even then, it’d be nothing but a fluke.
Jael snatched at his sleeve and pulled his arm, nearly turning the car into the barrow pit. “Wait!”
“Hey! Let up. You want to wreck us?”
Still hanging onto his arm, she dragged herself across the seat toward him. Her eyes strained for the sky. “Ssh! Engine—turn it off!”
He killed the engine and followed her gaze.
Even without sunlight, he still had to squint against the gray of the sky. “I don’t see anything.”
She leaned halfway over the top of him and pointed. “There.”
He followed her finger.
High above, skating along the bottom of the clouds, something flickered. Halfway across the field, a speck about the size of his thumbnail blinked against the clouds. He squinted harder. He should never have given Walter his field glasses.
“It’s probably a buzzard.”
She gave her head a sharp shake. “No.”
It flashed red and swung around. It didn’t look like a bird circling. More like something swinging.
It was the wing.
He thumped the steering wheel. “Hot dog, girl! I do believe you’re right. Let’s get you out of here and find me a plane!”
They careened back into camp to find Earl overseeing as Matthew and J.W. screwed the new propeller into place. Hitch skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust. In Nebraska, it somehow managed to be dusty even after it rained. He shut off the engine and started to climb out.
Jael grabbed his sleeve and leaned across the seat. “Hitch. I think Zlo would be having desire for airplane. He would want it for protection and attack, yes?”
Hitch didn’t have to think about that for more than a second. “Of course, he would. Who’s gonna be satisfied with a dirigible when you can have a plane too?”
“He would chase after you, I think.” Her eyes sparked with the same excitement that was running all through his body. “If you were only plane he is having sight of—you could lead him to . . .” She gestured with both hands, trying to find the word.
He didn’t need her to say it. “Ambush.”
She grinned and nodded. “I would make you take me, but I can hardly walk when I am in nearness to it.”
He winked at her and squeezed her shoulder. “You’re already a genius. No need to be a hero too.” He slid all the way out and slammed the door. Then he gave caution a good heave into the wind and leaned back over the door, trying to keep a straight face and failing. “You deserve a kiss, but I have to tell you, I don’t want to get myself smacked again.”
Her eyes flashed wide for a second. Then something that might have been a smile tugged at the edges of her mouth.
He turned away before she could respond—either way—and jogged off.
Livingstone had wandered over to observe the Berringers’ work.
Hitch hesitated. If he told Livingstone about this, the man would want in on the hunt. But if every plane in his troupe went roaring out there right now, they’d lose any chance of surprise. Zlo would just rev those big engines—and that big cannon—and disappear again.
Better to leave now without saying anything, and let Earl fill Livingstone in after, so he could get the rest of the pilots ready when Hitch brought Schturming to them.
Hitch angled around to stay out of Livingstone’s line of sight and stopped beside Earl, his back to the plane.
“Finally decided to get up, did you?” Earl said.
“I apologize right now for all the times I groused about you being an early riser.”
Earl looked at him suspiciously. “How’s that?”
“We found Schturming.”
Earl’s eyebrows sprang upwards. “That crazy wing idea worked?”
“Sure did. The plane ready to go?”