Storming

Fifteen

TAOS DIDN’T QUITE seem to understand how the game of fetch was supposed to work. He’d bring sticks back all right. But every time Walter threw a small stick, Taos would come trotting back with a big one. This latest one was almost as long as he was. He bit it on the skinny end and dragged the rest behind him.

Walter huffed and shook his head. Of course, a dog couldn’t be good at everything, just like a person couldn’t be. Taos seemed good enough at the rest of being a boy’s dog.

Walter leaned down to try to pull the stick away. Taos pulled right back, tail wagging.

Footsteps approached through the apple trees. “Taos!”

The dog dropped the stick and whirled around. He bounded up to his owner—the man called Hitch—and reared onto his hind legs, barking.

Hitch snapped his fingers. “Get down.” He crouched to fondle the dog’s ears, but he looked at Walter the whole time. “Ran away with my dog, did you?” His voice was serious. But his eyes twinkled just a bit. Maybe.

Without saying anything, it’d be kind of hard to make somebody understand the dog had run away with Walter more than the other way around. So Walter just pushed his hands into his overalls pockets and shrugged.

“Weeelll.” Hitch drew out the word. “Taos must like you. He always did have good taste in people. Picked me out right away.” He winked.

Walter grinned. If he was a dog, he’d have picked Hitch too.

People had been talking all over town today. Most of it was about the big storm, but Mama Nan and Aunt Aurelia had been whispering with Mr. Matthew and Mr. J.W. about what Jael and Hitch had done. Flown right into the storm, dodging lightning and everything. Like real heroes.

And Walter was going to get to go flying with them. Hitch had said Walter could go flying, more or less, and Jael had promised.

Walter pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest, feet wide, the way Hitch had been standing beside his plane yesterday. He pointed at the sky and raised his eyebrows. With any luck, Hitch’d understand.

Hitch stood. “You really like planes, don’t you, son?”

He nodded, enthusiastically.

“Well, I’d sure be happy to take you up. But to be honest with you”—he scratched the back of his head—“your mama doesn’t much like me.”

Walter frowned his best confused face.

“Doesn’t matter why,” Hitch said. “Not to a sprig like you anyhow. But maybe you better figure on going up with another pilot.”

That wasn’t what he’d had in mind at all. Yesterday, it might have seemed one pilot was as good as another. But that was before he’d met Hitch and his plane and his dog. He let his shoulders sag.

Hitch reached out to ruffle his hair. “Never mind. There’s plenty of good pilots around. You’ll find somebody. Thanks for taking care of my dog.” He turned to leave.

Taos hesitated, panting, then bounded after his master.

Walter watched them go, until they disappeared behind the apple trees and even their footfalls were gone. Then he turned and ran back to the house as fast as he could.

He’d have to make Mama Nan understand somehow. Didn’t make any kind of sense why she wouldn’t like Hitch. He was just the kind of person a pilot should be. He had to be ten kinds of brave to fly around in that storm today. And hadn’t he rescued Jael from the lightning? Plus, he hadn’t been upset even a smidge about Taos running off.

Walter swung himself around the pasture fence post, ran through the dusty yard, and leapt over all three porch steps at once. He’d been trying to do that all summer, but no time to celebrate right now. He banged through the screen door into the kitchen.

Mama Nan stood over the cast-iron stove with a wooden spoon in one hand. “Walter, where have you been? Didn’t you hear me call?”

The family was all gathered at the long table—Papa Byron at the near end, Molly and the twins on one bench, and Aunt Aurelia and Jael on the other.

He stopped short. Jael. She was here? She was staying with them? His insides flipped, and he gave her his full-face grin.

She smiled back. She wasn’t as sparkly now as she had been before. Seemed like maybe getting hit by lightning—if you survived—should give you more sparkles, but she only looked tired. She leaned both elbows on the table and supported her chin against her locked fingers. Her hair had gone silvery in places, so it almost matched her eyes. But that was about the only other thing different about her.

“Sit down,” Mama Nan said.

He rounded the table to sit between Aunt Aurelia and Jael.

Papa Byron—his dark hair still damp from the sweat of the day and his sleeves rolled up above his beefy arms—said grace, and then Mama Nan dished up the meatloaf and green beans.

Walter peeked at Jael.

She gave him the tiniest of nudges with her knee, and her smile turned up on the side of her face.

He looked at Mama Nan. Getting her to let him fly with Hitch wasn’t just a matter of timing. There was also the matter of figuring out how to get her to understand she was wrong about Hitch.

Her face was flushed, her mouth tight. But it wasn’t the angry kind of tight. It was the about-to-cry kind of tight. Not that she actually would cry in front of them, of course.

She finished dishing out the supper, then eased down in her seat at the far end of the table around the corner from Jael. “Byron,” she said.

Papa Byron glanced up at her, chewing slowly. He never had too much to say. “Slow, steady, and silent,” he’d told Walter once. “Live that way, and you won’t never have much to regret.”

“Byron.” Mama Nan always said his name twice, once to get his attention and once afterwards. “I don’t want these children down with those gypsy barnstormers. Will you tell them that?”

Panic welled up hot and fast. Walter clutched the table.

Molly gasped. “You can’t mean it!”

“Don’t think I don’t, young lady. And don’t think I don’t see you making sheep’s eyes at Hitch. That’ll be enough of that.”

“Oh, Mama. He’s a nice man!” She sighed. “That curly hair. He looks positively like Douglas Fairbanks.”

Walter wrinkled his nose. Molly had taken him to see a Douglas Fairbanks picture once. He wasn’t a speck like Hitch.

Jael looked back and forth between Molly and Mama Nan. “Who is this Douglas Fairbanks?” Her voice was quiet, sweet. It sounded kind of like how honey and butter tasted.

Molly blinked her eyes wide. “You don’t know? He’s a star in the moving pictures.”

“And he is like Hitch?”

“He’s dashing and exciting and has all sorts of adventures.”

“Ah.”

“And he’s only quite the handsomest man ever.”

This time Jael blushed bright pink. “Ah.”

“Molly,” Mama Nan said, “that’s quite enough of this foolishness.”

Molly hunched over her plate. “Well, Hitch is nice anyway.”

Aunt Aurelia poured out her milk straight onto her beans. “Very nice. Do you remember, Nan, when he ate that grasshopper down whole?”

Evvy and Annie both giggled. Their red-gold curls were plastered to their faces with the heat. They were only six, so they didn’t yet know Aunt Aurelia sometimes said the wrong thing. Walter didn’t play with the twins much anymore—not since that day when he’d nearly let them die down by the creek.

Still, a whole grasshopper. Maybe he should try that later and show it to them.

Mama Nan carefully cut her food into little bits. She didn’t take a bite. “Hitch Hitchcock is not the kind of man you want to ever go running after, you hear me? He’s as heedless and irresponsible as the Lord knows how to make them. He brought nothing but grief to your Aunt Celia.”

Walter didn’t remember Aunt Celia. But if Mama Nan and Aunt Aurelia knew Hitch, it made sense Aunt Celia would have known him too.

“Celia, Celia.” Aunt Aurelia picked up a string bean with her fingers, dabbled it in the milk, then popped it into her mouth. “She always looked so beautiful in violet.”

“Now, Nan,” Papa Byron said, “what need is there to dredge that up? You ever think maybe he didn’t know she was sick?”

“That’s what he told you, Mama,” Molly put in.

“Never you mind,” Mama Nan said. “You just stop this nonsense and act like a proper young girl should.”

Molly sulked.

“This is not where Hitch is living?” Jael asked.

“No. He doesn’t live anywhere, far as I know.” Mama Nan stared at the mess she’d made on her plate. Then she looked up at Jael. She had that pinched-up expression like she did when she wanted to know something but didn’t think she would like the answer. “You’re going to take this job with him?”

“Maybe. I must have thoughts about it.”

Molly cast Jael half a glance. She looked jealous.

But then, good sweet angels! Who wouldn’t be jealous? Walter couldn’t help grinning. If he was a little bit older—and if Mama Nan wouldn’t forbid it for sure—maybe he could have gotten a job too. He gave a bounce against the hard bench, then bent his head to his plate and started shoveling in meatloaf, so’s nobody would notice his excitement. He kept watching Jael out of the corner of his eye.

She ate a dainty bite. “Whyever you are angry with him, I can tell you he is not bad man.”

She had something sort of magic-like about her. It wasn’t just the sparkliness. It wasn’t even that she looked like a storybook lady. Maybe it was partly that she’d understood how to talk to him, from the very first time he saw her. She knew things. Things about people. If anybody could talk Mama Nan into letting him fly with Hitch, she might be the one.

But Mama Nan didn’t seem to believe her. She sighed, slow and weary, then finally bent her head to her own meatloaf and green beans.

That was all anybody said about Hitch for the rest of supper. Afterwards, Walter took Jael by the hand and tugged her along, up the narrow stairs to Aunt Aurelia’s bedroom where the girls had already spread out an extra hay tick on the floor and covered it with Mama Nan’s trunk-creased patchwork quilts. He pointed at it, and Jael nodded.

She looked more tired than ever, but she didn’t shoo him out. Instead, she crossed the room and raised the window. “Come.” She hoisted a hip onto the sill and scrunched her legs around so they were dangling out. Because the roof here slanted down from the dormer windows, it wouldn’t be a straight fall if she lost her balance. In any case, she didn’t seem too worried.

He tiptoed over and stood next to her.

“Come up,” she said.

Mama Nan would have a fit if she saw, but she’d be down washing dishes for a bit yet. He scrambled up and sat beside Jael, feet hanging out. He clutched the windowsill hard.

She laughed and let go with both hands. “Put up your hands. You want to be flying. This is flying.”

He shook his head.

“You will not fall. I will catch you.”

No, she wouldn’t. She’d miss him and fall right down after him, and it’d be his fault again, just like it had been with the twins way back when. But if a girl could be as brave as all that, then he sure could too. He pried his fingers loose and let go. He kept his hands hovering above the sill, in case he needed to grab it again.

She grinned. “See? Flying.” She spread her hands, palms up, and whistled through her teeth, like the wind blowing. Then she glanced at him. “I will tell you secret if you tell me one.”

It wasn’t like he had many secrets—except about Mr. J.W.’s penny and about Molly letting Jimmy Porter steal a kiss down by the creek that time last week. So he nodded.

“Your secret is first.” Her face went still and soft. “Why do you not like to be talking?”

That was hard to explain. Sometimes he thought he might like to say something again. But it had just been the way it was now for so long, it seemed too hard anymore. He shrugged.

“There must be reason.” She nudged him with her leg.

He smiled in spite of himself, but he shrugged again. How could he even explain it? The day he’d let the bad thing happen to the twins and when Mama Nan had been so angry with him… the words just hadn’t been there any longer. Ever since then, he’d always had this feeling of not quite fitting in. His family loved him well enough. But it was just… his world seemed to slant a little different from everybody else’s.

Like hers. Her world definitely slanted a whole lot more than his even.

He eased a hand up from the sill and touched the overalls bib on his chest. Then he pointed at her and back again.

“You mean you are like me?” She still smiled, but her eyes got faraway. “I am nikto. That is meaning having no place to belong.”

Nikto. He rolled the word around inside his head. He felt that way sometimes too.

She looked up at the night sky, where the white dots of stars were starting to appear. “All right. Now I will be telling you my secret. I used to think, when I was at my home, that the world was very small place. I thought I had knowledge all about it. But now I am seeing different. The world is not what we are thinking it is—or what we are thinking we will be in it.” She reached over. Her finger was warm where it touched between his eyes. “Young Walter, I think your world is not what you are thinking it is either.”