Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (138 page)

Mitch had the good grace to look abashed. "Yeah. Well. What about Dora? Gonna take her with us?"

Alma put her head to the side. "You know," she said. "I don't know why not."

I
t was nearly nine o'clock, and Lewis looked out the window frowning. Dora had been fed and washed and put to bed hours earlier. Stasi was pacing around the living room smoking, the radio tuned to something random instead of any of the programs she liked while the meatloaf sat in the oven staying warm.

"Where in the hell are they?" Lewis asked, looking out the front window again. The Torpedo sat under the trees, but Alma's truck was nowhere in sight. He and Stasi had brought Dora home while Mitch and Alma swung by to see what had happened to Joey Patterson. Mitch had been sure that something was wrong that he hadn't showed up to work in three days. Lewis hadn't had a bad feeling at all, but now….

"Do you think I know, darling?" Stasi snapped. Which was kind of a measure that she was getting worried too. How could it take four hours to run by a house two miles away?

"Maybe I should go over there," Lewis said.

"Oh, and leave me here?"

"Someone has to stay with Dora," Lewis said.

"Well, she's your child. Maybe you should stay with her and I should go rescue Mitch and Alma," Stasi replied.

"We don't know that they need to be rescued," Lewis said. "What could happen to them in town?"

"A car accident?"

"In the truck? On city streets? Ok, maybe a fender bender, but it's not like they're stock car racing or running off a mountainside." He didn't think it was anything like that. Surely he'd know. Of course he'd know. And Alma was a very careful driver, not like Mitch. But she was driving because it was her truck.

Stasi blew out a puff of smoke and ground out the butt in the ashtray. "I'll go find them."

"No, I will."

"Mitch didn't say you could drive the Torpedo," Stasi said. Mitch's car was a Hudson Torpedo, a sporty two-seater that had cost a year's pay back in the twenties. It was a beautiful car, and he waxed it and babied it constantly.

There was the sound of gravel crunching and Lewis swung around. There were headlights on the road, and then the familiar rumble of the Ford's engines coming up the grade. "They're back," he said.

Stasi muttered something under her breath that might have been either imprecation or prayer. "And of course dinner is stone cold," she said. "And of course they didn’t call."

The truck pulled in by the Torpedo under the trees, but even in the dim light there was something strange. Mitch was around the back, helping a man out of the open bed.. No, a boy, two boys. The taller's head only came up to his shoulder. The smaller one needed help climbing over the tailgate. And Alma was getting out with a baby in her arms, another toddler about the size of Dora.

Lewis opened the front door. "What's going on, Al?"

"…we'll have dinner in just a few minutes," Mitch was saying to the older boy. "I'm sure there's plenty." He looked up and grinned. "Right, Stasi?"

She put her hand on her hip and stared.

Alma climbed up the porch steps, and Lewis' heart gave a little leap. The little girl on her shoulder was about the same size as Dora, but where Dora had a heart shaped face, dark curls and big blue eyes that laughed all the time, this little girl was thin and silent. Her brown hair was lank and dirty, just like the boys that came up the steps with Mitch. The little boy was six or so, round face and dirty dungarees, while the older was thin as a rail, the age when a boy starts lengthening and seems all knees and elbows, brown eyes and a wary expression.

"These are Joey Patterson's kids," Mitch said as the light hit them. "He's been gone for three days and they don't know where he is. Just the three of them, left by themselves."

"Come on, sweetheart," Alma said, her arms around the little girl. "Let's have a little bit of dinner and then you can go to bed."

Stasi seemed momentarily rooted to the floor as though all the wind had been taken out of her sails. "Dinner," she said. "Yes, there's dinner in the oven."

Mitch very carefully didn't touch the boys as he herded them in ahead of him. "This is Jimmy and Douglas. Boys, this is Mrs. Sorley and Mr. Segura."

"Hi," Lewis said. He looked at Alma over their heads. "Sure, I can put out more plates."

"And this is Merilee," Alma said. "Jimmy's been doing a good job taking care of her." And that expression spoke volumes, a two year old with nobody but a kid who must be about eleven to take care of her for days. "She can sleep in Dora's room tonight. There's room in her bed for two and it's nice and safe and quiet in there."

"The boys can sleep on the couch," Mitch said. "But you guys should wash your hands and get ready for dinner first."

Stasi had found her feet and hurried into the kitchen babbling ten miles a minute about this and that and the other.

Lewis caught Alma in the doorway. "What happened?"

She took a deep breath, a streak of dirt across her cheek. "Joey Patterson bugged out. He left the kids twenty bucks and a note saying he was sorry. They thought he went to work but it was really clear he didn't. Mikey at the station said he took the local to Denver on Tuesday. The oldest — that's Jimmy — has been watching the two little ones but they're out of food at the house and anyway we can't just leave them alone. We called Sheriff Donnelly, which is how we found out about Mikey. Donnelly asked around. Anyhow, he said that he couldn't leave the kids by themselves in the house but he reckoned they could sleep in the jail." She looked down at the little girl in her arms. "But you know we couldn't do that, Lewis!"

"Of course not," Lewis said. Merilee regarded him with big, sleepy eyes.

"So Mitch asked if the sheriff would let us take them home with us and he allowed as how we could have temporary custody on the grounds it was better for them than the jail."

"My father will be back tomorrow," Jimmy said loudly from the kitchen.

Stasi hovered with a pan of macaroni and cheese. Douglas was already tucking into it like it was the best thing ever.

"He can come pick you up as soon as he does," Mitch said. "So have some dinner and get a good night's sleep."

"He's gone to Denver to get some money," Jimmy said.

"Of course he has, darling," Stasi said. "But pip-pip cheerio and all that!"

Jimmy stared at her. "What does that mean?"

"I have no idea," Stasi said airily. "It's just a thing you say."

"Is he?" Lewis asked quietly.

Alma shook her head. "I seriously doubt it. And if he does turn up, I expect the sheriff is going to have some things to say about child desertion. Merilee's not but two! She can't be left on her own like this, with no responsible adult!"

"Well," Lewis said, looking down at her cuddled against Alma, so like Dora and so unlike. "Of course they can stay as long as they need to."

"I knew you'd say that," Alma said, and her smile was tired and glorious.

I
n his cabin aboard the Matston Line’s
Malolo
, Jerry shuffled the cards in the circle of light from his desk lamp, the worn pasteboard sliding comfortably through his fingers, the colors still bright after all these years. The porthole glowed hot gold as they ran on toward the sunset, but the desk was in shadow. He could — should — have asked Lewis or Stasi to read for him before he’d left Colorado, but at the time he hadn’t been sure he really wanted to know. This job was a gamble: a summer in Hawaii, supervising a dig that was so far outside his own specialty to be almost ridiculous, with only the unofficial promise that if it went well he would be considered for the position he really wanted, supervising the proposed dig in Alexandria to search for the Pylon of Isis. If anyone else had wanted this job, he knew, they would have been chosen in his place. But the project itself was intrinsically ridiculous, an attempt to prove that the Chinese had visited Hawaii before white men, all on the basis of some fragments of Ming dynasty pottery found in a pineapple field, and there weren’t many professionals who’d be willing to be involved with that at all. When you factored in that this was the height of dig season, the Bishop Museum was in fact lucky to have him supervising, even with one leg and a gap of nearly twenty years since he’d been in the field. Of course, he was desperate for any job that would let him prove that he could in fact manage in the field in spite of his wooden leg, and this was the only one that was available. It was also the only one where his failure wouldn’t hurt serious scholarship, and he knew perfectly well that had been in the back of Hutcheson’s mind when he recommended him for the position. There was no risk involved for anyone but him — well, and for the Bishop Museum and its directors, who were paying his way — and now that he was committed, he felt he could bear to know what the outcome might be.

This was not his primary talent, not by a long shot, but he could catch a thread here and there, warp and weft of things to come. He took a deep breath, centering, tasted salt air and felt the gentle roll of the ship beneath him as she cut through the long swells. This was his element, and he found it invigorating, let it envelop him as he took another breath and drew the familiar sign across his body.

“
Ateh malkuth ve-gevurah ve-gedulah le-olaham
, amen.”

He cut the cards left-handed, moving to the left, three times, then tidied the deck, the cards warm in his hand. He turned the first card: the Six of Swords, a hooded woman and child in a boat, swords planted before them like trees in a forest. A journey by water, no surprise there, but also a promise of a better future after difficulties. Crossing it — his breath caught. Crossing it, the Devil, torch and pentacle inverted, its hand lifted in a parody of blessing, a man and a woman chained to its altar. A part of him wanted to sweep up the cards, shuffle and deal again, but he knew better. And besides, he could guess who that referred to, how it fit with this: not an immediate obstacle, but the enemy he had made three years ago when he had begun to pick up his academic career again. A threat and an obstacle, yes, but not here and now.

He turned the next card, set it below the crossed cards: the Ten of Swords, ten swords piercing a dead man beneath a sullen midnight sky. Loss, defeat, disruption, the grief that was Gil’s death, old and familiar enough that he set down the fourth card with a steady hand. It was the Hanged Man, of course. He had known he would see it somewhere; it had appeared in every reading he had done for the last three years, counseling patience, holding him suspended until — finally — it was time to act. And now it sat in the recent past, an influence passing away, but not yet to be entirely ignored.

He dealt the last two cards quickly, the Magician crowning the reading and the King of Wands in the near future. The King of Wands seemed clear enough: a hot-tempered, passionate, fair-haired man, an expert in his field — someone on the dig, most likely, perhaps Dr. Buck or the German Professor Radke who’d been hired as the Oriental expert, but someone in his future, for good or for ill. And the Magician, mastery of vocation, in the possible future: that was what he hoped to gain, in taking this job. Or even… Three years ago, he had discovered a Ptolemaic medallion that could hold the key to finding the long-long tomb of Alexander the Great. Last year, the Met had provisionally agreed to undertake the first step, finding the Pylon of Isis. Hutcheson, the man in charge, knew it was Jerry’s find, and had promised to do everything he could to get him the dig. At least the cards maintained it was possible.

He bent his head for a moment in silent thanks, then swept the cards together, tapping them back into a neat stack. He wrapped them in the silk handkerchief that he used to protect them, and returned them to their box, which fit neatly into his small suitcase. It was an unsurprising reading, even taking into account the appearance of the Devil, the sort of reading that could be as much a reflection of his own subconscious as of the future. Either way, though, it was fair warning, and he would not forget. He knew he ought to turn in early — it would be a busy day tomorrow — but he was still wide awake. A last cigarette, he thought, and shrugged on his jacket before he could change his mind.

It was three decks up to the promenade, a struggle with his cane against the movement of the ship, but at last he’d reached the stern and paused in the shelter of the last row of first class cabins to light his cigarette. Beyond the railing, the
Malolo’s
wake stretched white toward the darkening east, the sky purple above the darker sea. He wasn’t the only person too excited to be sensible, he saw without surprise. The two Stanford boys who’d shared his dinner table swung around the corner, walking off their dinner and probably a drink or two. One was the son of a plantation engineer, the other the son of a Chinese doctor who hoped to be a doctor himself someday. He nodded a greeting as they passed, got a nod and a smile in return.

He braced himself against the rail, wedging shoulder and wooden leg against a stanchion, and took a long drag of his cigarette.
Malolo
was scheduled to dock mid-morning; Dr. Buck had promised that a graduate student would collect him and his luggage, so presumably they would take him to wherever he was staying and then on to the Museum to meet Buck and Radke and find out the rest of the details of the job.

“Good evening, Dr. Ballard.”

He turned, tipped his hat to the Misses Carmichael, aunt and niece rather than sisters, both members of a Methodist missionary society that ran a school on Maui. They, too, had shared his table at dinner, and had been pleasant, if sober, company. “Miss Carmichael, Miss Maude.”

“Apparently we can see Hawaii on the horizon,” the older woman said, with a tolerant smile. “Maude wanted a look, or we’d have turned in by now.”