Free Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure by K.M. Weiland

“Hi, there. I’m Lilla Malone.”
    On the other stool, Jael sat about as easy as a broncbuster on a confirmed outlaw. She gripped the edge of the counter and kept looking over her shoulder. She eyed Lilla, then glanced at Hitch.
    He nodded. “It’s all right. Lilla works for me. This is Jael.”
    Lilla reached past Hitch to offer her hand. “How do?”
    Jael looked at it.
    “She’s not from around here,” Hitch said.
    “Oh, well, that’s all right.” Lilla pulled her hand back. “I’m new here too, come to that. Your kerchief is lovely.”
    Jael touched her head, then smiled. Her whole face changed when she smiled. The hard angles faded, and the silver specks in her eyes sparkled.
    “Tonk you.”
    “So you’re a friend of Hitch’s? From when he lived here?”
    “Not exactly,” Hitch said. “I kind of found her this morning. I’m trying to get her a place to stay.”
    “Oh, that’s no problem. She can stay with us.”
    “No, she’s got to be here—in town—so that when her friends come looking for her, they’ll know where to find her.”
    Jael snorted. “Friend? No. If someone come, he is not friend.” Then she actually turned her head to the side and spat on the floor.
    “Hey!” Dan dumped the two sandwich plates onto the counter. “What kind of establishment do you think this is?” He flipped his towel into her lap. “Get right down and clean that up.”
    Her eyes got dark. She stood up from the stool and tensed the arm holding the towel, that close to snapping it back in Dan’s face.
    Hitch caught her arm. “Now just you wait.”
    She tried to jerk away.
    “Hold up a minute. The man’s not asking you to do anything unreasonable. You got to understand that around here, spitting inside—especially ladies spitting inside—ain’t exactly the thing.”
    Behind him, Scottie scoffed. “ Lady ?”
    Lilla twirled her stool around. “Hey!”
    Jael tried to twist free again, but uncertainty edged her face.
    Hitch lowered his voice. “Trust me.”
    She hesitated. Then she dropped to her knees and swiped the towel across the planks.
    Before she could come back up, a familiar roar howled down the street outside.
    Hitch’s heart revved like it always did at the sound of a plane engine. He joined the general movement to the windows.
    A star-spangled Jenny buzzed the street, so low her landing gear cleared the lampposts by only a yard. People outside ducked as the winged shadow sliced overhead. They came back up, hollering and waving. In the rear cockpit, the pilot held out his own hat—a white Stetson.
    Col. Livingstone himself had come to promote his circus.
    The man was a heckuva showman. That was why he owned one of the biggest airshows in the country. But he wasn’t half the pilot Hitch was. And that was why, before many years more, Hitch would end up owning an even bigger airshow.
    Winning this weekend’s competition would be a start. What he really needed was to get Livingstone to strike a deal, hiring Hitch’s crew to do their act as part of his circus for a while. Although it wasn’t a long-term strategy, that kind of regular work would give them the start they needed. But first he had to figure out the right kind of stunt to get Livingstone to notice him to begin with.
    The plane whipped on by. Then the engine cut out. No doubt Livingstone was putting her down in an empty street so the folks could come out and see the plane for themselves. Nothing was so sure for luring customers to a show—and nothing mattered more to Livingstone than the luring of them.
    “Whooee!” Lou said. “I wouldn’t ride in one of them contraptions if you paid me.” He cast a sideways glance at Scottie. “A feller might fall out.”
    “You wait,” Hitch said. “Before the week’s out, you’ll be paying me to take you up.”
    “I’d go up there with you,” Scottie said. “People been fallin’ straight out of the sky lately, haven’t you heard? Somebody needs to go up there and see to