Griff inhaled. “I’m not saying what we decided was right. I’m just saying…” He watched the floor.
Then he clanked the door shut. “What you said back there about Campbell being the one we should arrest… That true?” His mouth stayed hard, but something in his face was vulnerable, searching.
Hitch looked him in the eye. “What do you think?”
Griff opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded. “You’re stuck here for now—probably until a hearing. But I’ll see what I can do.” He left. His footsteps thudded down the corridor.
Hitch backed up, one step after the other, until the low bunk hit his legs. He sank down on it. His hands bumped into the thin mattress beside his thighs, and he left them there, limp. He leaned back until his head hit the wall. Overhead, rain hammered against the ceiling. Shadows shifted in the corners.
Walter was out there somewhere, either up with Zlo or dead on the ground.
Please let it be Zlo. His throat cramped, and he closed his eyes. Never thought he’d pray for that. But please let it be.
Because, God help him, he didn’t know what he’d do if it was otherwise.
He had a son, and hadn’t something in him known it all along? He loved the kid already. He’d loved him from the first time he’d met him. Taos had known. Somehow the dog had seemed to see it all before Hitch had even gotten a clue.
If things had gone the way he—and Griff and Nan—had wanted them to, he’d be on his way out of the state right now. He’d have left without even knowing.
That wasn’t even close to being all his fault. They’d had no right to keep this from him. They’d misjudged him every step of the way, never even tried to understand where he’d been coming from, what kind of wrath he’d been trying to stay clear of.
But they were right about one thing: he had been that close to leaving his family one more time. Dear God. Just like he’d done before. He’d given it all up without a second thought, because it was hard, because he was afraid, selfish, too downright blind stupid to see.
He raised his head and let it fall back against the wall. Pain splashed through his skull.
And now it was too late.
He thumped his head against the wall again—and again.
*
Hitch must have slept, because after what seemed an ageless wandering through gray and frantic dreams, he woke up and peeled open his sticky eyelids. He was still hunched against the wall. Cramped muscles held his spine in a curve. He raised an arm, and pain jagged through his shoulders. He let the arm fall.
The rain still pounded on the roof; it had pounded all the way through his nightmares. A trickle of light spilled down the corridor and cast a man’s shadow slantways across the cell’s floor.
Hitch looked up and up, until he found the craggy face, shadowed under a fedora, a toothpick in the corner of the mouth.
Campbell. Come to twist the knife, no doubt.
Anger heated Hitch’s stomach. He let the heat growl up into his throat. But he stayed slouched against the wall. No more games. Campbell always won those.
This wasn’t a game anymore anyway. Somewhere along the line—maybe as long ago as the beginning—this had become a war.
Campbell pulled the toothpick from his mouth. He looked old, the lines around his eyes strained, as if he hadn’t slept all night. But his jaw was granite.
“I reckon you know why you’re here,” he said.
“Because you let Zlo take your town right back from you. Can’t hardly lock yourself up, can you?”
If possible, the set of Campbell’s jaw got harder. “You’d best not climb on a high horse. There ain’t a sheriff in this country’d say you’re a model citizen.”
“What do you call a model citizen?”
“A man who abides by the rules.”
“You mean your rules.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Hitch shoved himself away from the wall. Pain slashed through his cramped back, and he stifled a wince. “What do you want?”
Campbell tapped the toothpick against the crossbar. He rasped a whisper, even though few of the men in the surrounding cells spoke English. “I want you to know that if you finish telling your brother what you started to last night, it makes no matter to me.”
“What?”
“Who do you think the judges around here are going to believe?” But a flicker in his eye said he wasn’t as sure as all that. Maybe.
Hitch stood up from the bunk and took a couple steps toward the bars. “You don’t really think I’m going to sit in here and take the rap?”
“I don’t see that you have a choice.” Campbell investigated the chewed tip of his toothpick. “But you could earn one.”
“How’s that?”
“I still got a job opening for an enterprising flyer. I’ll get you out of jail. Give you back your wings.”
“You don’t say?” Hitch took another step toward the bars. Less than a foot separated him from Campbell. “From threats to bribes. Seems like maybe you haven’t got this town as sewn up as you’d like me to think. If that’s the case, I don’t need your help to get out of here, do I?”
“Either you stay locked up in jail for the rest of your life—or you get one chance to go back out there.” Campbell pointed down the corridor, toward the door. “Under the sky and in the wind, with your plane in one hand and your life in the other. Leave town, fly anywhere in this country. That’s what you want. We both know it. Locked up here in a jail cell, sitting in one place every day for the rest of your life, that ain’t your style.”
Freedom. Sweat itched in Hitch’s palms. He could be back in the air and out of this mess in the space of one word. That’s what Campbell was offering.
No. That’s what Campbell wanted him to think he was offering. That road was a whole lot of familiar by this point. That road had led him here.
“You think I’d leave?” His throat tightened around the words. “Now that I know about Walter?”
“The boy’s dead. It’s a shame, but there it is.”
“No.” He rubbed his hands against his pants. “They haven’t found him yet, and until they do, he’s not dead and I’m not leaving.”
Campbell narrowed his eyes. “You make the call to stay in here, and I guarantee you’re going to stay for the rest of your sorry life.”
Hitch let out another laugh, just to taunt him. It was about the only weapon he had right now. “If I get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is find my son. The second thing I’m going to do—the second thing is to come back here and find you.”
The crags of Campbell’s face went rock hard. He lowered the toothpick. “Now, that’d be a mistake.”
“I didn’t do it a long time ago. That was the mistake.”
Campbell’s mouth worked. Finally, he drew in a deep breath and bellowed over his shoulder, “Milton, bring the keys!”
A young deputy hurried down the corridor.
Campbell stepped back. “Let him out.”
Hitch frowned. “What?”
“They’re burying your sister-in-law today—before the rain turns the ground too soft.” Campbell glowered. “Reckon you ought to be there, see a little of your handiwork, don’t you think? And maybe the citizens ought to see what I do to folks who don’t play by the rules.”
Aurelia. His stomach panged. He’d almost forgotten she was gone. All the words drained out of him.
Deputy Milton opened the door and cuffed his wrists.
At the door, Campbell stopped Hitch, one broad hand against his chest. “Enjoy your outing.” His whisper sounded like gravel underfoot. “And you be thinking about all this. Else it’ll be the last time you’ll see the sky for a long, long while.”