Wind Raker - Book IV of The Order of the Air Read Free Page A

looked up at him. "You think there's work put before us?"
    "I wouldn't bet against it," Mitch said. He glanced back toward the hangar. "How much is he paying?"
    "Two hundred per pilot per week," Alma said, “and he wants all of us. You, Lewis, and me.”
    Mitch let out a whistle. "That's some serious lettuce."
    "You could hit every dance club in the islands on that," Alma said with a smile. "There might be some people who've never heard of you, Astaire."
    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