Zlo glanced at Taos, then raised his face, looking out across the prairie. He looked straight at Walter.
A chill hit Walter, and his skin shriveled up. He dove back behind the yucca. They were going to kill him now! They’d catch him and take him up in their ship and throw him off the very top.
“Boy!” The shout carried across to the trail.
He peeked through the long, sharp yucca leaves.
Zlo had caught Taos. He held the dog in both arms, trapped against his chest. Taos kept barking, both whining and snarling, but he was stuck fast.
“I know this dog! I know who has sent you. You must come out and talk to me. I will kill this dog!”
If they’d kill the dog, they’d kill him too. Walter didn’t even have to think about moving his feet. They just ran. They carried him up the other side of the gully and fifty feet across the prairie. When he looked over his shoulder, the corner of the Bluff hid Schturming.
Taos! His feet stopped on their own.
He was no hero. He was a dope. He’d brought Hitch’s dog out here without asking. And now he just ran away? His throat thickened, and tears pinched the corner of his eyes.
No crying! No running. What he should do was punch himself in his own face.
Pretend to be brave. Pretend, pretend, pretend.
He gritted his teeth. His feet didn’t do anything on their own this time. He had to make them turn his body around, step by step, and creep back through the grassland to the gully. He clambered up through the dust and peered over the ridge.
The cannon dangled from a harness of ropes, slowly inching upwards. Three men straddled it like it was a horse and dangled the hollow deer carcasses off the sides by their hind legs. The rest of the men crowded into the elevator cars. Zlo stood at the front of one, empty-handed.
What did that mean? Walter’s insides clenched up. Had Zlo let Taos go? Had he killed him already?
Walter scrabbled the binoculars up from where he’d dropped them under the yucca and raised them to his eyes. His hands shook, and he pressed the lens hard against his eye socket to hold it still.
Some of the men in Zlo’s car shifted. Two of them held Taos upside down by his legs. A third man wrapped a handkerchief around his muzzle.
They were taking Hitch’s dog. And it was all his fault.
Thirty-Five
THE TOP OF Hitch’s head felt about like a hard-boiled egg someone had smashed in with a spoon. That didn’t do much to make him hungry for the two sunny-side-ups staring at him from his plate. He hunched over the counter at Dan and Rosie’s Cafe on Main Street and cradled his mug of lukewarm coffee.
What he needed at the moment was a plan. Any plan. Even a stupid one would do—so long as it didn’t involve Jael finding that consarned pendant and turning herself over to Zlo. He growled.
Dan stood in front of him, rubbing silverware on an already damp towel. “Too runny?” he asked.
Hitch glanced up. “They’re fine. Just fine.” They weren’t really fine; they were just cheap. What he truly wanted this morning was a steak—rare and bloody. Something he could stab with a knife and then chomp with his teeth and rip into pieces.
Stabbing, chomping, and ripping. Those were about the only things that’d make him feel better right now. If he could stab, chomp, and rip that dirty no-account Rawliv Zlo, why, that’d be even peachier.
He tilted back the rest of his coffee, ignoring the pain in his head, then thunked the empty mug back onto the counter. Some little part of him wanted it to crack. Mug or countertop, didn’t much matter which.
Dan grabbed the mug. “Now, what was that for?”
A spark of penitence bounced through him. He reached to run a hand through his hair, then caught himself before he could make his headache worse. “Nothing. Sorry.”
Dan eyed him. “Where’re your friends?” He put the mug out of reach on the sill of the window that offered a peek into the back kitchen. Judging by the sizzle, his wife was frying hash browns.
“Out guarding the plane.” And each other, with any luck. “I had to come in for a couple jugs of gas.”
Behind Hitch, a chair squeaked. “We heard there was some trouble out there last night,” said old Lou Parker. He and Scottie Shepherd had been sitting at their table by the boarded-up broken window when Hitch came in.
“You heard right,” Hitch said.
“Well, what’re you going to do about it?” Scottie asked.
“What makes you think I’m going to be able to do anything about it?”
“You seem to always be right there in the thick of it, don’t you? Don’t tell me you’re giving up.”
Why not? He’d sure like to about now. He picked up his fork. At the moment, plans seemed to be in short supply around here. So what did that leave? He stabbed the congealed yolk, and the soft yellow bled all over the whites.
After last night, what was there left to plan with? Zlo had left them with only one or two airworthy planes and maybe half a dozen salvageable ones. Hitch could take the Jenny out and fly around for days without coming anywhere near Schturming, even with Jael’s pains acting as a divining rod.
A fists-in-the-face fight he could deal with. That’s what he had stayed for. But slow and strategic wasn’t his strength. Right now, the only thing he was good for around here was a whole lot of nothing. The wanderlust in the soles of his feet was starting to itch like crazy.
Maybe he should get out after all. Pack up Earl, Jael, and Taos and fly right through that storm and out of the valley. The storm couldn’t be more than a couple miles wide at the very most. He could fly through that. Then they’d be out. The town wouldn’t be a speck worse off than it was right now—and then maybe this crushing weight would lift from his chest. Free again.
Or not.
If he left his family right now, he’d never be free. He thumped the fork onto the countertop so hard his plate rattled. An answering thump of pain echoed through his head.
Dan gave him a narrow look.
“Well?” Scottie prompted from behind.
He swiveled on his stool and glared at the skinny old man. “Well, what? You got an idea, spit it out. Because right now I’d do about anything to end this.”
Bill Campbell’s broad shoulders filled the open doorway. “Is that so?”
Save for Rosie scraping a spatula through her hash browns in back, the cafe went still.
Campbell pulled out the toothpick he was sucking and entered. He looked at Lou and Scottie. “You’ll pardon me, boys, for turning you out into the damp air, but I’d like a word with our prodigal pilot here.”
Ah, gravy. Hitch resisted hurling his fork—or, shoot, the whole plate of eggs—straight at Campbell’s head. Of all the things he did not need this morning, Campbell was way up there at the top of the list.
He glowered. “What do you want?”
While Lou and Scottie grabbed their hats and filtered out, muttering to each other, Campbell took a stool next to Hitch’s.
He looked at Dan. “You too, if you don’t mind, Holloway. Go on in the back there and give Rosie a hand with them dishes.” He dropped a nickel onto the counter and turned the pewter coffee pot so he could grip the handle. “I’ll help myself.”
Dan gave a reluctant nod, flipped his towel over his shoulder, and pushed through the swinging door into the back.
“Well, son.” Campbell righted one of the upside-down mugs from the back edge of the counter and filled it. “Hear we had some trouble last night.”
“Seems everybody’s heard.”
“Well, here’s the thing.” He took two long swallows. Then he set the mug on the counter and leaned back on his elbow. “You and me, Hitch, we haven’t always seen eye to eye. But I’m not about to let that jumped-up mercenary, or whatever he thinks he is, come in here and hold this town for ransom.”