“I don’t think letting her go is such a great idea,” Hitch said. “She already tried to stab me.”
“Might be she had good reason, eh?”
Hitch glared. “I didn’t do anything. She came in here, stole Matthew’s clothes, and about scalped me.”
“You’re bigger’n her. Seems to me that evens the odds.”
“Let her go,” Matthew said. He looked at her. “You won’t run, will you, miss?” He reached to tip a hat brim that wasn’t there.
She stared at him, then at J.W., then finally at Hitch. She licked her lips and nodded.
“Fine, but you boys are asking for it.” Hitch released her wrists.
She took off like a whitetail deer—but not toward the knife. In long-legged strides, she hurdled the water tank and bounded into J.W.’s yard.
“Watch the tomatoes!” J.W. shouted.
She reached the house and jumped to catch hold of the ornate porch railing that ran all the way around. Like some kind of squirrel, she hauled herself onto the railing, then shimmied up the support post to the porch roof.
J.W. started running. “What do you think you’re doing? Get off my house, woman!”
Hitch and Matthew followed. By the time they reached the yard, she’d already clambered past the second-story balcony’s roof and was half-running, half-climbing up the steep roof to where the third-story gable joined with the jutting tower.
Hitch stopped beside the house and shaded his eyes. “Get down! You want to kill yourself?”
The planes were shrieking into view now—Jennies most of them, all painted red, white, and blue. Little stars-and-stripes banners flew from their wingtips.
Col. Bonney Livingstone and His Extravagant Flying Circus had arrived—just as audaciously as they had all those years ago in Tennessee when Hitch had first worked for him.
His heart gave an extra pump.
“We have to do something,” Matthew said. “She’ll get hurt up there.”
She didn’t seem to share their concern. Wedging herself between the tower and the chimney, she practically bounced up to the tower window. Another second more and she was on the tower roof. She hung off the lightning rod, one foot braced at its bottom, the other dangling into nothing.
The planes buzzed past—over her head, on either side of her. The pilots waggled their wings and waved. Their turbulence whipped her oversized clothes and her chopped hair. She flung her free hand out to them and laughed. It was a crazy thing to do, but she actually didn’t sound that crazy. More like delighted.
Which made no sense at all if somebody in an airplane had tossed her out last night. If it hadn’t been a plane she’d been tossed out of, then… what did that leave?
Five
THE BUZZ OF the engines began to fade back out. The girl dropped her waving arm to her side and watched the planes until they were specks on the blue horizon.
“Now get back down here,” J.W. said. “Before you fall off and break your durn neck.”
Whether she understood or not, she lifted her shoulders in a sigh, then swung around the lightning rod to face them.
“Careful!” Matthew said. He looked at Hitch. “Maybe one of us should go up and help her.”
Hitch gave a little groan, but took a step anyway.
If the girl was aware of their gallantry, she didn’t seem too flattered. She dropped to the seat of her pants and slid down the steep roof as unconcernedly as she’d gone up.
Hitch lunged to the porch railing. “Hold on!”
She caught herself on the eaves and swung around until her bare toes found the tower windowsill. Half a minute later, she’d scrambled back down to the porch railing. She stood on the balustrade and looked them all over, eyebrows knit. She was probably wishing she’d kept the knife. But a little of the wild look from before had faded. Her eyes shone, as if the sight of the circus had filled her up with both adrenaline and joy all at once.
She definitely wasn’t scared of the planes.
“Well,” Matthew said. “Since we’re all still in one piece, how about some breakfast?”
“Good luck getting her to stay,” Hitch said.
She cocked her head. “Brakk fast?”
J.W. looked at Hitch. “Thought you said she didn’t speak English.”
“I think she understands more than she can say.” Hitch imitated forking food into his mouth and chewing. “Breakfast. You know, food you eat in the morning.” He offered her a hand down.
She contemplated his hand for a moment, then gave him a good hard look. Considering she’d only just gotten over thinking he was a threat worth knifing, her distrust made a fair amount of sense.
“I don’t bite,” he promised. “And I’m sorry about the scuffle.”
She grunted. Then, ignoring his hand, she hopped the remaining five feet to the ground as if it was nothing.
He took a step back to get out of her way.
At first glance, she hadn’t seemed like much to look at. Pale, almost transparent. But up close, she was pretty enough. She had high cheekbones, a sloping jaw, and a straight nose that might have looked harsh on someone else. But on her, it was tempered with an overall softness—a buoyant sweetness.
Of course, that sweetness was less than convincing in light of his throbbing shins.
She raised an eyebrow at his scrutiny, practically daring him to go on looking.
He gave her a wink and stepped out of the way.
Matthew turned back to his house. “C’mon.”
“Hold onto yourself,” J.W. said. “What gives you the right to go hogging the company?”
“The fact that I already have the skillet on. Mind your tomatoes, why don’t you?”
J.W. snorted and stayed where he was.
Inside the sun-washed kitchen, Matthew propped his shotgun against the stove and set about cracking eggs, frying sausages, and flapping jacks. “Have a seat and tell me where this girl comes from. Where you come from, for that matter.”
Hitch let the screen door bang. “Heard this big flying circus was coming to town. Decided it was time for a visit.” He left it at that and held a chair out from the table for the girl. “As for her…”
She settled gingerly onto the edge of the chair and sat with her back straight, her fists knotted in her lap. She darted quick glances around the kitchen. When she caught both Matthew and Hitch watching her, she jerked her gaze down to her hands, then right back up: fear followed by defiance.
“I am having knowledge about you,” she said. “Groundsmen. I am having knowledge how you are treating each other—even your people who are related.” She jerked her head toward J.W.’s place.
Hitch took a chair across from her and turned it around so he could straddle it. “So you do speak English?”
“Ingleesh?” She leaned forward, as if trying to read his lips. Then she touched her mouth. “This?”
“What we’re speaking, yeah.”
“Um, yes. The _Sobirateli_—the… Foragers. They are where I am hearing from.” She knit her eyebrows and stared at him. Maybe trying to ask if he understood her.
“And who are the Foragers? They’re… Groundsmen?”
“Nikogda. Never.”
He tried a different tack. “But they taught you English?”
“No. Teaching they are not.” Her eyes flashed. “Being allowed to be knowing this Ingleesh is not for me. Just hearing them, and reading.”
“You mean you read books in English? Taught yourself to speak it?”
She nodded. “Yes. But—” She tapped her ear. “Different from how—” She pointed to her eye.