Time to get out of here and right now. His breathing came almost too hard to give him any oxygen. Push his luck any further, and he’d be a goner for sure. He turned the Jenny all the way around and zoomed over the top of Schturming for a look.
The cannon still sat on its track, solid as could be. Maybe that fool trick of his hadn’t done a lick of good, except to give him a few gray hairs.
But the cannon wasn’t moving. Beneath it, something dangled.
The pulley system.
He’d completely unthreaded it. For the time being at least, Zlo’s men couldn’t move the cannon. That was something anyway.
As he whipped on past, something else caught his eye: the orange glare of a spark at the cannon’s breech.
It was loaded, and it was lit, and without the pulley, they’d lost their ability to readjust its aim.
A heartbeat later, he was over the top of the envelope and out of sight of the cannon. An explosion tore through the storm.
He looked back.
Splinters and chunks of wood splattered up from Schturming. Her cannon had punched a hole down into her own hull. And straight through the _dawsedometer_’s heart with any luck.
He allowed himself a tight grin, then faced forward and opened the throttle, headed back across the lake.
Thirty-One
RAIN LASHED THE airfield as Hitch flew in. The wind was considerably slacker here. Even still, half the planes were skidding out in the crosswind, striking the ground with their propellers or flipping over. From the looks of it, at least one had busted its landing gear. Maybe only half the planes had made it back to camp at all. The rest were scattered in the fields between here and the lake.
Even without that cotton-picking cannon, Zlo and his storm had managed to wipe out half of Livingstone’s impromptu air force. That might not bode too well for the future of the Extravagant Flying Circus—or Hitch’s shot at a partnership.
Rick’s blue Jenny streaked in front of Hitch, engine snorting black smoke. He flared for a hard landing. Parts splintered into the air. The wings caved in at the center, both ends shooting up like a broken teeter-totter.
To compensate for the wind, Hitch banked his Jenny a little and set his right wheel down first. The friction against the ground helped slow her some, and only then did he kick in opposite rudder to center her on both wheels. Her tailskid thumped down and dragged, acting as a brake. The wind caught her anyway, and she came that close to ground-looping and maybe even flipping over. Only the wooden hoop under the bottom wing, acting as another skid, kept the wing from tipping into the ground.
When she finally rolled to a stop, he sat there for a second. His ears were still buzzing, and his heart and his lungs pulled in opposite directions. That had been about as close as any bit of flying he’d ever had to do. He’d had his share of crashes, and had the scars to prove it, but not like that. Not with Death cackling in the front cockpit all the way.
People raced across the field, on foot and in automobiles, headed for the wrecks.
A man with a white scarf fluttering out of his leather jacket slowed as he passed. “You all right?”
Hitch raised a reassuring hand.
The man kept going. “They’re saying the colonel is down!”
Bad weather could bring down anyone, didn’t matter how good a pilot you were. But Livingstone was one of the best. It’d take a lot to bring him down. Hitch unfastened his safety belt. Served Livingstone right, of course—charging out there like some dumb media-hound palooka. But none of these pilots here today, including Livingstone, deserved to crack up like this.
He looked over at Rick’s blue plane. Speaking of dumb palookas.
Hitch hauled himself out of his cockpit and crossed the field. The rain hadn’t reached them in full force yet, which maybe indicated the limit of _Schturming_’s weather powers. But as soon as they finished rounding up the surviving pilots, they’d have to tie down and cover up what was left of the planes.
Rick hoisted himself up in his cockpit and fell out of it, landing on his backside. He clambered to his feet and started kicking at the wing and the fuselage. The wing spar bent, and a spider-webbed dent appeared beneath the back cockpit.
Hitch ran faster. “Hey, you idiot! Don’t bust her up worse!”
Rick kept kicking. “I’ll bust her if I please!” A line of blood trickled from beneath his goggles, but his face was already so red, the blood practically blended in. “Stupid plane! Stupid plan! What kind of a plan was this?”
“I’m wondering the same thing myself.”
Rick wheeled on him, panting. “You smug ignoramus. This was your idea and your doing. Don’t think I don’t know it! And don’t think I don’t know this is all because of that girl you dragged in last week!”
Hitch stiffened. “Back off on her.”
“Hah. Not likely. Not this time, boss.” Rick jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t fool yourself into believing I kept quiet about her this long because I was afraid of you. The only reason I haven’t informed on your little skirt is because I was interested in the reward, not the ransom. And now I’m out of the running for that, aren’t I?”
Most of the time, Hitch’s rage was hot. But right now, it burned cold. All the adrenaline still running through his body razored his senses into focus.
Rick turned around and gave the wing another kick. “It’s time for good citizen Richard Holmes to do his civic duty.” He started to walk past Hitch.
Hitch caught his arm and hauled him back. “Don’t.”
Rick tried to pull Hitch’s fingers free. “Get off me.”
Hitch tightened his grip. “Listen to me. I know what you are—right down to your yellow backbone. You’re an arrogant fool, you always have been, and you always will be. You don’t deserve a girl like Lilla, you don’t deserve that Jenny you just stomped, and you don’t deserve any kind of reward.”
Rick tried to sneer. “I deserve better than what I’ve gotten from you for the last year!”
“You squeal on Jael, and I’ll give you more broken bones than if your ’chute failed on you.”
Rick snorted in derision, but behind his goggles, his pupils shrank to pinpricks. Maybe he had never seen Hitch this way before, and maybe he didn’t quite believe Hitch’d actually be dumb enough to kill him. But Hitch could beat his ugly mug into corn hash without trying—and Rick’s belief of that was written all over his face.
Behind Hitch, footsteps pounded through the grass.
He held Rick’s eyes for one more long second, then shoved him away.
Rick backed up, rubbing his arm. His lip was curled, but he didn’t say anything, just turned and slunk off.
Filthy little skunk. He would be the one to walk away today when so many good pilots hadn’t.
The footsteps stopped behind him. “There you are, you bushwhacker.”
Hitch looked over his shoulder.
Earl hung his head in a relieved pant. “I was beginning to think you’d bought it like the rest of them. Look, I’ll tie down the plane. That kid Walter came running in to get Jael and the Berringers. He’s got some crazy aunt or something—she went missing as soon as the weather kicked up. He was pretty upset.”
Aurelia again. Worry spurted in Hitch’s chest. Back when he knew her, she’d been as docile as an old hound dog. Maybe she’d been getting worse with time. He cast a look around the chaos of the field. An ambulance—just a big truck with a canvas rigged over the bed—trundled in, bell clanging.