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She gazed up directly at the Free Crow, waved her arms over her head, and pointed west with all her might.
“I don’t get it,” Hainey said. “What’s she trying to say?”
“That she wants a ride,” the first mate guessed.
“No, no. She’s saying…”
She held her hands over her mouth and shouted something, over and over, and then she resumed pointing west.
Hainey followed her gesture with his eyes. He said, “Well I’ll be damned. ”
“Again?” asked Lamar.
“Yes, again. Look at that—look at what that crazy bastard is trying to do!”
West of the outbuilding, and west of the woods where Belle Boyd was about to meet some unpleasant fate, the Valkyrie was inching its way off the hill.
Simeon said, “Brink?” as if he could scarcely believe it. “He can’t fly that devil all by himself! He’s good, but he’s not that good. ”
“Maybe not, but he’s trying,” the captain observed. “Boyd must’ve heard him start the engines. She’s closer to him than we are. ” And then he said, “Aw, hell. ”
Lamar said, “Sir?”
“I mean, aw hell—there she goes again, making herself useful. I guess we’d better swing down and pick her up. ”
Simeon swelled up in his seat, inflating and simmering with things he knew better than to say out loud to his captain, so he said, “Yes sir,” through tight lips. “You steer us down. I’ll hold us level. ”
“Let’s hope she has the good sense to get on board,” Hainey said. “I’m going to take us back a few feet, and we can come up behind her. Position, set?”
“Position set,” Simeon confirmed. “Thrusters primed. You’d better run down to the bay and help her up, because Christ knows I’m not going to do it. ”
“Nobody asked you to, Sim,” Hainey said, and he unbuckled himself from the seat. “Take us down, and drag us low and slow,” he ordered as he left the bridge.
By the time Hainey reached the open bay, it was gathering leaves off trees as if it were harvesting them as the craft’s belly was dragged down, low and slow, just like he’d ordered. The whipping breaks and whistles of the incoming shrubbery snapped against the bay edges and flipped into the captain’s face, but he brushed them away and hollered down, “Belle Boyd? You hear me?”
He received no answer so he dropped to the floor and hung his head down, narrowly missing a pine branch to the teeth; but the glimpse told him her position—twenty yards ahead. The captain stood up and flung himself back to the bridge door, where he said, “There’s a clearing up ahead. She’ll breach it first. Drop us there, I’ll grab her,” and then he bolted back to the bay.
The ship dipped abruptly, and the bay was clear—no more trees accidentally sending their detritus aboard—but beneath it there was a woman running only a few feet ahead.
Hainey called out to her, “Belle Boyd!”
And she looked up, saw him, and replied, “Captain!”
He braced himself, locking his feet together around a support beam and letting his torso swing free. His arms extended down to reach her, but she didn’t take them.
She threw him her carpetbag, and he caught it.
He set it inside with a hearty sigh of exasperation and then reached down once more. “Take my hands!” he commanded.
“You’re going too fast!” she said, but she put her hands up anyway, and although she couldn’t nab his hands, his enormous grip clapped around her nearest wrist.
When he was certain that his hold was secure, he said as loudly as he could to the men in the bridge, “I’ve got her! Take us up!”
Up went the ship in a sweeping lift, pulling Maria off her feet and into the air. Beneath her the ground grew smaller, and her feet swung in circles.
She said, “Captain, we’ve got to quit meeting like this! Tongues will begin to wag!” But she was smiling when she said it, and he didn’t scowl back.
He heaved her onboard and deposited her beside her luggage.
