Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (104 page)

"I'll probably stay here a while longer. We should get a set at the house, too."

When there was money to spare. Lewis held her a little tighter. "We'll be careful."

"You'd better," she said, and gave him what should have been a jaunty smile.

They took off into the very last of the light, stars showing in the east, the waning moon not quite risen. Lewis swung the Frontiersman onto the heading he'd been given, laying out the first leg of the grid, while Mitch rummaged among the gear behind him.

"Sandwich?"

Lewis shook his head. "I'm not hungry yet. You go ahead."

"I will," Mitch said, his mouth already full.

They wouldn't see anything yet, Lewis thought, his eyes roving from the fading horizon to the dimly lit instruments to the snow-capped trees below the Frontiersman's wings. If a plane had gone down here, someone would have seen it; they were still close enough to town that it wouldn't have been missed, and there were a few homesteads clinging to the higher slopes where even if they didn't have a telephone somebody could have ridden into town by now. No, if the mail was down, it would be further up in the mountains, on the direct line to Denver. This was one of those times when his talent would have come in handy, but it was stubbornly silent, not a hint of uncanny influence. Below, the trees were heavy with snow, pale and untouched in the dark.

By the time they reached the end of their first leg, the moon was well up behind them. It was just past the last quarter, but there was enough light to cast shadows on the snow, enough to see that the ground below was undisturbed. They were well up in the mountains now, where the only roads were miners' tracks, but it was on the air line from Phoenix to Denver. He brought the Frontiersman around in a long turn, scanning the snow, and Mitch grabbed his shoulder.

"There!" He pointed past Lewis's shoulder, to his left and further up the steep slope.

"Shit." A thread of smoke curled up between the trees, pale against the night. There wasn't much to burn up here, not with the snow cover; wood and fabric would burn, but the trees wouldn't catch. Mitch was already fumbling with his seatbelts, climbed awkwardly into the rear of the cabin with the rescue gear. Lewis put the Frontiersman into a shallow dive, dropping to a hundred feet above the treetops, and swore again as he saw the jagged break in the canopy. Something had broken through the trees, something was on the ground, and maybe something was moving, but they were passed before he could be sure of what he'd seen.

"Flares," he said, over his shoulder, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Mitch nod.

He brought the Frontiersman over in a tight bank, setting up to give Mitch the best shot he could. He heard a flare fizzle to life, looked away to try to preserve his night vision. A blast of cold air filled the cabin as Mitch rolled down the cabin window and dropped first one flare and then another. Then he was cranking the window back into place, rubbing his hands together in their gloves.

"Bring her around again."

"Roger." Lewis swung the Frontiersman again, wider and slower this time. The flares were falling steadily, hot points of light under their little parachutes, and he circled carefully, trying to give Mitch a good view. "Anything?"

"Not yet — I'm not sure." Mitch's voice broke. "Oh, damn."

Lewis risked a look himself, and winced. The flares had fallen below the level of the trees, and in their harsh light, there was no mistaking the crumpled shape on the rocky ground. The mail plane had gone in nose-first, as though it had narrowed straight in, and it was obvious it had burned. The fire was out now, except for a few pieces that still smoldered, but the plane had been reduced to little more than its frame. He crossed himself, whispering a prayer, and saw Mitch shake his head.

"I'm calling it in."

"Go ahead," Lewis answered. He kept circling as Mitch worked the radio, listening with half an ear as the other man reported what they'd found and gave their coordinates. Denver's answer, when it came, was split by static, unexpected on a clear night.

"Roger… Gilchrist… sure… no survivors?"

"Looks like they burned on impact." Mitch's voice was tight. "No sign of life."

"Roger," Denver said again. "See… spot road… out."

"What?" Lewis asked.

"I think they want us to look for the nearest road," Mitch said. He spoke into the radio again. "Will do, Denver. Gilchrist out."

"Right." Lewis brought the Frontiersman around in a final circle. "I didn't see anything —"

"We crossed a mine road a few miles back on the earlier heading," Mitch answered. "If you start back on the reciprocal heading, we should cross it again."

"Ok." Lewis checked his compass, turned the Frontiersman for home, not sorry to leave the wreck behind them. If there had been the slightest chance anyone was alive down there, it would be different, but that — no one lived through a crash like that.

"Yeah, there it is," Mitch said, shifting to peer through the big windows on the other side of the cabin. He fumbled with the map, flicked on his flashlight to try and match the lines to the ground below. "Yeah, ok, I think — I think it's the road that goes up to the old Silver Bullet mine."

"The Silver Bullet." Lewis resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. "What the hell?"

Mitch struggled with the map again, folding and refolding it. "I don't know. But it looks like — we're not real far from where Rayburn crashed."

"Twice in two weeks," Lewis said. "In almost the same place."

"And it surely isn't the weather," Mitch said. The sky was utterly clear, strewn with stars, the quarter moon not enough to drown their light.

"Something's not right," Lewis said, and felt a familiar certainty prickle along his spine.

Chapter Five

December 2, 1932

A
few stray flakes of snow whirled round and round on the cold wind as Alma pulled her Ford up at the edge of the airfield, sucking on a peppermint. It was nearly ten o'clock. Her stomach had been a mess all morning, so she'd sent Lewis on ahead to work with Mitch and Stasi, telling him she must have eaten something that disagreed with her.

Of course it wasn't that. It had been eleven weeks since she last bled. Before long she was going to have to say something. If only it didn't feel so much like jinxing it. But it did feel like jinxing it. If she told Lewis and he got his hopes up…. And then it would all go wrong. It probably would, at her age. It had ten years ago. It was best not to think about it too much, not to get too attached or excited. Best to think about it as one of those things. Any day now it would be over, a heavy period and a day in bed, and that's all. Best to not start thinking of it as a baby, to start imagining a person who would probably never be real, to start imagining next summer and a baby in her arms. They had a lot of winter to get through yet.

Alma got out of the truck and closed the door. The Terrier was pulled out on the tarmac in front of the hangar, a board truck next to it, and she frowned. The only flight today was supposed to be Lewis going to Amarillo in the Dude. What was the Terrier doing out?

But there was Mitch, walking around it in his leather flight jacket doing a visual pre-flight. Two guys were opening the tail gate on the board truck while Stasi stood watching them, her long black wool coat worn over black slacks. Lewis had seen Alma pull in and was walking toward her.

She met him halfway. "What's up?" she asked. "Did we get a cargo run?" She'd been sure there was nothing on the books. And then she saw what the men on the truck were unloading -- two wooden coffins.

Lewis looked somber. "Mitch told the coroner he'd take the mail plane guys back to Cheyenne. He said it wasn't a company expense and you could pull the fuel out of his next check."

"The hell it isn't a company expense," Alma said, falling into step beside him and crossing the field toward the plane. "We're not going to charge anybody for getting those guys back to their families." What's left of them, she thought. The results of that kind of crash couldn't be pretty. She hoped the undertaker in Cheyenne knew that, and knew better than to let family open the coffins.

"Stasi said she'd ride shotgun to keep him company, and I'm going to pull the Frontiersman around as soon as Mitch is done," Lewis said. "I'm running late, but there was a weird short in the ignition system this morning. I couldn't get her to start until I pulled the spark plugs and replaced some wiring. But it's ok now, and it's only three hours down. I don't mind getting back late."

"We'll have the field lit for you," Alma said. At this time of year sunset was at five o'clock. Lewis would be around seven getting in with the late start. "And that's a weird problem to have on a brand new plane."

Lewis shrugged. "Yeah, but I didn't find anything else. Maybe it was just a bad plug. That happens sometimes." Lewis put his arm around her waist for a second, a quick squeeze. He knew she didn't like big demonstrations of affection at work. It made her look like she shouldn't be taken seriously. "I think I've got the easy ride today."

He wasn't talking about the weather, but Alma went there anyway. "How's the report for Amarillo?"

"High of fifty, clear and dry for the morning," Lewis said. "Clouding up late in the day, but no precip. Should be fine. Mitch will have these flurries all the way to Cheyenne. Stasi said she wanted to ride shotgun, which is probably ok since you'll be in the office."

"Yeah," Alma said. Nobody wants to deliver coffins by themselves. "I'll catch up on the paperwork."

Stasi's breath clouded in the frozen air, watching Mitch getting the hatch open for the three men with the coffins, helping them maneuver them in. He must have taken out the cabin furniture for them to fit. In profile her long black coat looked something like a cassock, as though she were the only mourner at the funeral, or the priest.

"Psychopomp," Alma said.

Lewis looked at her sideways. "What?"

"Mitch is a psychopomp," Alma said. "To take home the dead, found and returned, and to guide the living away from the underworld. That's what search and rescue is, isn't it? And he loves that more than anything." Lewis looked a little abashed, and Alma leaned on him. "And you don't. I know that. You miss combat."

Lewis sighed. "I do. I'm not proud of that, Al."

"You are what you are," she said. "Diana's priest. The Hunter. And the end of the hunt is the kill. There's a place for that in the world. You are the thing you're supposed to be." She watched the tension ease from his face. "And Mitch is the thing he's supposed to be. The guide. The one who comes and goes like Death's familiar."

"Death's minion?" Lewis said as Mitch offered an arm to help Stasi up the steps, courtly as she took it straight backed, following the coffins in.

"I'm not sure I'd go all the way to minion," Alma laughed. "But maybe so."

I
t wasn't a bad day for flying. It could have been worse. The flurries ended around Denver, the usual inaccuracies in the forecast for once working in their favor, high clouds a ceiling five thousand feet above them, straight north along the edge of the Rockies with the mountains off their left wing. Stasi was quiet in the copilot's seat, the coffins behind, and Mitch was glad of the company even if she didn't have much to say. He wondered if she were talking to the dead.

He had to ask. "Do they have anything to say?" he said, jerking his head toward the passenger compartment.

"No." She looked straight ahead out the window at the mountains ahead. "They're not here." Her eyes were fixed on the far horizon, the collar of her coat buttoned up to her neck. "Contrary to popular belief, most dead people don't sit around with their bodies. They prefer to be with their families and friends." The corner of her mouth twitched. "Also they find it creepy."

"I would," Mitch allowed. He didn't really think he'd want to spend much time with what was left of him after he'd augured into a mountainside and burned. He glanced sideways at her again. Asking Stasi a question was a gamble. "Have you always been able to talk to the dead?"

"Always, darling." She stretched out her gloved hands in front of her, stretching without touching any of the instruments. "I was six and a bit when my grandmother died. My parents, all of my relatives, everyone she knew -- they were all sitting -- well, staying with the body for the night, like a wake. Children didn't have to, of course, and I'd gone to bed. But I couldn't figure out why everyone was crying and saying prayers for my grandmother when she was right here." Stasi gave him a little shrug. "She was perfectly fine. I could see her clear as day, and she came in the room and kissed me goodnight and sat on the end of my bed and told me a story. I couldn't imagine why everyone was so sad. She seemed happy and calm and well and she told me that she loved me and that I was her darling girl." Stasi glanced out the window with a little smile. "She said she had to go away for a while, but that she wanted me to know how much joy I had brought her and that she would always love me. So you see I wasn't scared at all. I never was. Why would I be scared of that?"

"You wouldn't be," Mitch said. "It must be kind of nice."

"It would be if all the Dead were nice," Stasi said. "But they're just people. Some of them are nice and some aren't, just like when they're alive. It was no fun during the war."

"I expect not." He could only imagine that. And he didn't particularly want to.

Stasi leaned back in the seat. "Most people think talking with the Dead is hard, darling. But it's not. It's no harder than talking to you. All the mumbo jumbo is just so people will take it seriously. If it seems too easy people think you're faking." She smiled. "The fakes are the ones who need all those things."