The four trains of motorcars lined up, six to each end of the ropes, and pointed themselves in opposite directions. They revved in reverse, tires throwing up mud, swerving a little—but hauling away nonetheless.
Schturming started to droop. Inch by inch, minute by minute, then foot by foot, she sank.
At last, the earth rushed up to meet her. With a solid crunch audible even over the Jenny’s engine, she met the ground.
Hitch whooped and turned the Jenny around.
Now for the other tricky part. Zlo and his men were about as likely to give up the ship as Campbell was to play Santa Claus next Christmas.
Hitch put the plane down on the flat prairie—avoiding a few badger holes by the skin of his nose—then jumped out.
He jabbed a finger at Jael. “Stay there.”
She wouldn’t, of course, but he had to at least try. She wasn’t likely to cotton to whatever ended up happening with Zlo, Campbell, and the pendant.
He didn’t much cotton to it himself, but there it was anyway.
He firmed his mouth and ran through the tall, sparse grass to where Schturming lay hogtied, like a roped heifer. But she wasn’t wallowing or bellering. She lay still—even her props were still—save for the creak of her buoyancy straining against her anchors.
The men who had been manning the cannon and sawing away at the ropes had disappeared. Matter of fact, the whole thing looked mighty deserted all of a sudden.
Except for the drivers of the cars—and Earl and Livingstone—the rest of Campbell’s men had already piled out. Rifles and pistols in hand, they surrounded the downed ship and crept up to her.
Campbell looked over his shoulder at Hitch—then past Hitch for a second, which probably meant Jael was following after all. “Let’s go,” he said. “You got a gun?”
Hitch pulled his knife from the back of his boot. “This’ll do.”
They crept up to the main hangar doors, at the bow-end of the ship’s bottom level. At a nod from Campbell, a business-faced Griff—who seemed to not even notice Hitch’s presence—and three other men holstered their pistols and moved forward to haul the doors open.
The doors gave without a catch and rumbled open to reveal the dark cavern into which Hitch had crashed the Jenny during the first big storm. It was packed with supplies, but they had all been lashed to the walls and ceiling. Only a box or barrel here and there had fallen and spilled open during the tussle. Nobody showed his face.
Hitch’s back crawled. He flexed his grip on the knife.
Campbell nodded again to Griff.
“Wait,” Hitch said. “I’ll go.”
Griff stepped back and let him, without so much as a glance.
So that’s how it was going to be.
But not for long. Soon as Zlo was under lock and key, Hitch was gone. If Griff wanted to forget about him then, so be it. Hitch could do his own share of forgetting.
He inched up to the corner of the door and looked inside. The whole thing settled a little farther, listing to starboard, so the door hole was a good four feet off the ground. Timbers groaned. But still nothing man-sized appeared inside.
He hoisted himself up through the hole—and about got whacked in the face.
Thirty-Seven
A TWO-BY-four whistled past Hitch’s head, and he barely ducked in time. He got his feet moving even before he had time to straighten up and catch a full glimpse of what he was facing. He churned forward, arms wide, knife in front of him.
His arms closed around a body. He thudded to the ground with his shoulder in the guy’s gut, and together they skidded down the slope of the floor. He kept his knife hand wide to prevent it getting pinned. From out of the shadows, footsteps thundered all around him. Outside, Campbell’s posse hollered and charged.
Hitch squirmed on top of his victim. With his free hand, he pinned down the wrist holding the two-by-four. He used it to brace himself and jumped a knee up to land in the guy’s stomach. The whoofed exhale sounded mighty familiar.
He pushed the knife against the man’s throat.
Sure enough, Zlo glared right back at him, his mouth drawn in a snarl.
“You lowdown snake,” Hitch said. “Where’s my dog?”
“Your dog is gone. I have dropped him out of Schturming.”
“I don’t believe you. Why would you bother?”
Zlo managed a shrug. His throat bobbed against Hitch’s blade. “What you call… practical? I will strike my enemies any way I can.”
A growl built in Hitch’s chest. He tightened his hand on the knife. “Believe me, you’re not the only one.”
Zlo jutted his chin.
Footsteps clomped up from behind. “That’ll do,” Campbell said.
Hitch blinked hard. He looked back. The sounds of the skirmish had already died down. “What happened?”
Campbell pulled him up and snapped handcuffs onto Zlo. “Seems these boys don’t put up much of a fight after all. We had ’em outnumbered right from the start.”
It was over? His brain struggled to catch up to speed. How could that be? He looked around. Nestled in the corners, between barrels and boxes, white faces with whiter eyes stared out at him. Dozens of them at least. Strips of ripped cloth covered their mouths.
Looked like Scottsbluff wasn’t the only thing Zlo was holding hostage.
Hitch skidded down the slant of the floor to the first of the victims, a middle-aged woman with a purple kerchief knotted over her hair. Everyone’s clothing was strange—foreign but also old-fashioned. The women wore wide skirts down to the ground, like Jael had been wearing when she’d jumped out over the lake.
The woman’s eyes got even wider as he approached. She started fighting the rope that tied her hands behind her back. A nearby man, about her age, made a lunge at Hitch.
Apparently evil Groundsmen were still worse poison than Zlo.
Hitch stopped and raised both hands, the knife still in one of them. “Whoa. I’m not going to hurt her. Just going to cut her loose.”
Campbell clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Leave ’em be. Save us from cuffing them again until we can get this all sorted.”
“You’re going to leave them tied up? They’re sure not on Zlo’s side.”
“I don’t know that yet, and neither do you.” Campbell gestured for the posse to come forward. “Get these folks out of here. We’ll take ’em all to the jail.”
“You better have a mighty big jail.”
Campbell stopped one of the approaching deputies. “Start searching the upper levels. And watch yourself. Chances are Zlo’s got more men waiting up there.”
It took them another couple of hours to completely clear the ship. A few of Zlo’s men popped out of corridors, but Campbell’s posse managed to overpower them with only a few busted knuckles and noses. No sign of Taos—or the revolvers Jael seemed to think Zlo’s men would have.
It was almost like Zlo had wanted to be caught. Or maybe not wanted exactly. But at any rate he’d resigned himself to the situation. He knew Walter had seen them out here, so he knew trouble was probably coming. If he couldn’t get out of here with that busted prop, then he might have figured out something else. Like give up quick and easy and make some other play. But what?
Hitch proceeded down the slanted floor of the second level. The corridors on this level were tight and dark, despite the round-windowed doors every twenty feet or so, which led to little observation decks. It was a homey, lived-in space. Big, if ugly, portraits hung on the walls between doors. Long rugs stretched down the hallway, tacked down so the wrong angle of the floor hadn’t budged them. They’d been thick once; now they were threadbare, patched with bright reds, greens, and yellows.