The pit of his stomach warmed. She was just a tumbleweed who’d blown in. She didn’t owe him any loyalty. If anything, she’d be completely justified in kicking free of him for any number of reasons. For once in his life, his pride had been squashed enough he could admit that, at least to himself.
He tightened his elbow, squeezing her arm against his side. “Thanks.”
She stopped short, nearly yanking free.
He almost braced himself to be kicked again. “What?”
At their feet lay a severed wing—a red one with a rope looped through the canvas at one end.
Oh, gravy.
“Is that the marker you and Walter tied onto Schturming?” he asked.
“Look!” she hissed.
He lofted the lantern.
Ahead, almost lost in the shadow of a wrecked plane, a bit of material fluttered.
“It is one of Zlo’s men!” Jael said.
The red flutter separated itself from the plane. The guy with the mop of hair and the dark goggles looked in their direction. Then he took off running.
Ground attack? That’s what this was? Hitch snatched his arm from Jael’s. Zlo had come back down to finish the job?
Hitch whipped his gaze skyward. “It is here. That’s why you’re hurting.” He swiveled. The lantern bobbled in his upraised hand, pushing light only a few yards into the fog.
On the ground, Zlo could have only two goals: kill people or destroy planes. Since there were far fewer planes than people—and because most people would cease to be a threat without the planes—it was a good bet which he had chosen.
Jael gasped. “Your Jenny.”
“You go back and make sure it’s all right. Find Earl and whoever else you can. Tell them to do whatever they have to do to protect any planes that still work.”
She nodded, then took off in a loping, limping run.
Somewhere in the darkness to the south, an eagle screamed.
Where the eagle was, Zlo would be. Hitch’s blood fired and he started running.
Sounds of cracking wood and ripping fabric reached his ears before his light showed a plane—or what was left of it. It was pitched forward on its nose. The tail hung free, like a broken bone. The wing fabric flapped in the wind. Zlo’s eagle perched on the upended fuselage.
Zlo kicked at the lower wing, once, twice, until it snapped. Then the bird squawked, and Zlo spun around to face Hitch.
Hitch slowed and immediately cussed himself for it. Keep going, use his speed and surprise to bowl Zlo over, that’s what he should do. Too late now. He approached slowly, lantern high, and circled around to get a clear angle at the guy.
Zlo bared his teeth, and the silver-capped ones in front glinted. “And so. The man who was so brave this morning.” He spread his arms and sidestepped out from the corner of the wing. “I thought maybe you were not so stupid as you look.” His tone was light, but his jaw tightened and something hot sparked in his eyes.
He was good and steamed, no question about it.
Hitch flashed a grin. “Liked my little trick with the cannon, did you?”
Zlo’s eyes looked about ready to pop from his head. Veins stood out in his temples. Then he smiled—which somehow only made him look more dangerous. “You think you are smart man, yes? You think you are brave. You are hero!”
“If you want to start handing out medals, I’ll be happy to accept ’em.” Hitch sidestepped some more, going as much forward as he did sideways. With any luck, Zlo wouldn’t notice. One more step, and then he’d charge—and pray God Zlo wasn’t packing anything.
Zlo clucked. “No medals for you. That would be mistake. Your town does not give medals to fools who endanger them, do they? Your _glavni_—your Sheriff Campbell—he will see to that I think.”
Hitch dropped the lantern and charged. His lowered shoulder caught Zlo beneath the breastbone, and they both went staggering. Zlo skidded underneath the plane’s wing, while Hitch plowed right into it. The weakened wing frame cracked beneath his weight and gave way.
Behind him, the lantern must have been rolling, because the light spun around in crazy circles. Tough to tell whether he was dizzy or the world was. He blinked hard and turned around.
Zlo loomed in front of him, a wing strut raised in both hands. His silver teeth flashed, this time in a snarl, and he swung the strut at Hitch’s head.
Hitch backpedaled, arms windmilling. His heel caught and he tripped. The end of the strut barely caught the top of his head. But it was enough.
He hit the ground. The back part of his brain was still running, mostly just with the general shock of being consciously unconscious, but his body refused to move. He was going to get whacked again, his brain knew that much.
Footsteps crunched nearer. Then more footsteps, running in from far away. Voices shouted, hazy and wordless. Something that sounded a whole lot like a gunshot crashed through his head, and the pain pounded its way back through the darkness.
Warm, callused hands cradled his face. Jael’s voice—muttering about cheloveks again—drifted in.
His body remained unresponsive, but he managed to crack open an eyelid.
She huffed and closed her eyes. “_O Bozhe._”
“What happened?” His arm was working again now, so he pushed himself up. Instantly, pain spun around in his head. He flopped back down, head on her knees. That was much better anyway.
“We chased them all away,” she said.
“Damage?”
She hesitated. “Earl and I—we saved your Jenny.”
“And?”
Another hesitation. “That is all.” She lowered her face a little closer to his. “Hitch, listen. If we give him yakor_—if _I give him _yakor_—he will go away from here.”
Since when had she started caring more about saving the town than stopping Zlo?
“I am knowing he will,” she said. “We have to find it. It is only way left.”
Hitch might be dizzy and hurting, but he wasn’t that far out of it. Throwing Jael at Zlo’s mercy and then turning Zlo loose sounded like the worst idea yet.
He found her hand and gripped it. “Not happening.” The words croaked a little.
He closed his eyes again and blocked out the murmuring and shouting of the gathering crowd. For just the moment, he let himself wish he and Jael were far away, some place where no one knew where they were—not Griff or Nan or Campbell, and definitely not Zlo.
It was a fruitless wish and he knew it. No way he was letting her sacrifice herself, no matter how stubborn she decided to be. But there was also no way, this time, that he could run away—which meant he could hardly take her away either, even if she’d go.
Thirty-Four
WALTER WAS AS far from home as he’d ever been by himself. At least, not without somebody knowing where he was.
He stood in the prairie meadow between town and the Bluff. The tall grass tussocks had turned golden brown at the top with their prickly loads of seeds. They swayed and swirled in the wind, like a sea of green soda pop with golden fizz on top.
Somebody had to find Schturming before anybody else got hurt, and it didn’t appear anybody besides him had thought to look out here. He clenched the binoculars Hitch had given him and looked ahead at the tan-colored spine of five dusty bluffs jutting maybe a thousand feet out of the flat ground.