Lori woke early the next morning and crept down the ladder. She put more wood on the fire and got a pot of coffee going before she went through her routine of checking the gear and inspecting the saddle. Her father woke and she helped him attach his limbs and dress. They made a breakfast of last night’s leftover stew and biscuits. As he ate, Lori packed a few things for him. Men never knew how to pack for a trip. She found his wallet, a worn strip of tanned leather, and promised herself she would buy him a new one as soon as she could. She put the cash she had into it and slipped it into his satchel. She only kept the bare minimum for herself.

  Ebeneezer awoke and joined her father at the breakfast table as Lori quietly raised the saddle into the air. Jangles still slept, and she wanted him to get as much sleep as he could. Lori cast dirty looks and motions for silence toward her father and Ebeneezer as they ate and drank. They spoke in whispers and cast wary glances at Lori.

  Jangles woke up, gently raising his head, blinking bleary eyes and smacking his jaws as he sleepily glanced around the barn. Lori brought in a goat from outside and Jangles promptly ate it. Her father watched, absently sipping his coffee and thinking about the day ahead. Ebeneezer looked sick at the sight of the dragon crunching the bones and promptly lost his appetite.

  Lori lowered the saddle onto Jangles, who gave a shake to get the saddle to comfortably settle onto his dorsal ridges. Lori tightened the straps on all sides, which took her several laps around the dragon as she readjusted straps she had already tightened.

  She opened the barn doors and Jangles stepped out into the barnyard. The morning light glowed with an eerie, almost sick color of yellow, orange, and brown. The spell her father had cast worked, not as though a dome had been set over the barnyard, but rather as a stone parted a river around it. The air here stirred with a gentle, swirling breeze while the hurricane winds hurled enough dirt and sand through the air that the dawn shone obscured through a blur of brown just a hundred yards beyond the border of the spell’s influence. The winds roared beyond the barrier, but here they sounded like the distant roar of a river somewhere out of sight.

  Lori stepped back from Jangles. The dragon shook himself hard, then stood on his hind legs and shook again, as if he were trying to rid himself of the saddle. He dropped back to the ground and Lori dashed in to check the straps.

  As she tightened the saddle down again, Jangles studied the storm, wondering if he would manage to take off or be tossed along the winds like a cork on the rapids.

  Ford exited the barn with a leather sack which he handed to Lori. “Put this where it won’t get jostled too much.”

  Lori's brow furrowed in curiosity as she took the sack. “Dynamite? Why would we need dynamite?”

  Ford gave a sly smile. “When we know why we need it, we’ll sure wish we had it.”

  Lori chuckled as she stashed the explosives in a saddle bag near Jangles rump.

  Jangles, Lori, and Ford took a moment to gaze toward the summit of the hill beyond the barnyard. Despite the storm impairing their view, they were all aware of what lay there. Ford's expression became somber with sadness in his eyes.

  “I haven’t put flowers on your mother’s grave in a long time,” he said quietly.

  Lori placed a gentle hand on his arm. “We’ll do it when we get back,” she promised.

  Jangles nudged Ford softly with his muzzle, offering silent comfort. Ford patted the dragon’s snout with a grateful smile.

  The dragon crouched to the ground to allow Ford an easier time getting up into the saddle. With Lori’s help, Ford settled into a comfortable spot just behind the pilot’s seat. Lori had made sure he had a good long coat and gloves and had his hat with a drawstring pulled tight. She gave him a spare pair of goggles and strapped him down to the seat. Jangles stood and Lori mounted. She made no effort to help Ebeneezer, who scrambled aboard and made do with sitting behind Ford and tying his own straps down.

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  Lori lowered her goggles over her eyes after strapping herself to the pilot’s seat. She checked the instruments on the pilot’s console set into the saddle’s pommel: the compass, altimeter, air speed indicator, and thermometer. She checked her pocket watch and held it to her ear to be sure it was ticking away. She had wound it earlier but fidgeted nervously with the key before clasping the cover closed and putting it back in her vest pocket. She touched the inside pocket of her flight duster and felt her father’s Ruquanaw Eagle feather that had hung on the post she looked at every night when staying at the barn. The feel of it brought her a touch of courage and confidence, and despite the difficulties of traveling with her father, she felt better having him with her. She tightened the drawstring of her hat and checked that she had tucked her hair safely up inside before pulling on her wool-lined gloves.

  Lori pulled a long whistle from inside her shirt that hung from her neck on a fine chain and blew two short bursts and one long blast of a loud, melodious note. Jangles nodded, and walked with some hesitation around the barnyard, examining the river of sandy dirt flying in streaks across the barrier. He turned and faced another direction, watching and studying. He licked his lips, cleared his throat, took a deep breath and galloped forward. His wings straightened and reached high before powerfully stroking down and heaving him into the air. He turned and followed along the perimeter of the barrier; his neck curved as he studied the currents as closely as he dared. The headwinds rushed at the passengers and Lori leaned forward in the saddle, gripping the handles tightly. She felt her father resting his hand on the back of the pilot seat and she hoped he was leaning forward as she had told him he should on take-off.

  Jangles circled the barn, searching for a good place to enter the storm. Finally, he turned into the hurricane.

  The blast hit Lori hard, and she nearly lost her grip on the handles. The whistle fell from her lips, and she hurriedly pulled up the kerchief to cover her nose and mouth, cursing herself for not doing it already. She spat and worked the sand out of her mouth with her tongue.

  Jangles fumbled in the air, the strength of the current more than he’d bet on, but after a few shaky moments his wings adjusted, and he rode into the wind. He angled his wings and thrust upward. Lori felt her stomach lurch as she bobbed so hard she nearly hit the pommel with her jaw. They rose higher and higher into the air, turning left and right as Jangles kept facing into the wind which changed direction constantly. Lori could see nothing beyond her dragon’s head. The grit pelted her exposed skin and stung. She hoped Jangles could breathe in this mess.

  Lori held on to the handlebars as Jangles constant movements jerked her from side to side, rolling as he sailed the storm. She was accustomed to the sudden shifts, but her father wasn’t. She had explained to him what to expect from take-off, and she reached back to touch his leg just to reassure herself he was still there. He gave her a reassuring pat.

  The air became colder, and less polluted with debris, and soon the travelers soared high above the storm. Blue sky shone above with the rising sun shining over the horizon. Lori looked down on a landscape covered in swirling masses of churning dust clouds of every shade of brown.

  Lori let Jangles level off before she sounded a change of direction with her whistle. Jangles turned to port, slowly and gently, and Lori watched the compass change direction. When they had the right heading, Lori sounded hold fast, and Jangles stopped turning. He had reached an elevation where they could see for hundreds of miles, and the landscape below lay under a boiling disc of windblown debris.

  Yet there was a curve to the stream of dust clouds, as if they were only seeing the bottom half of a wheel. Far to the North, facing their right, there lay a center to the swirling mass. Lori checked the compass, then reached into her gear bag for her spyglass. Indeed, the storm centered there, at the edge of the horizon. It looked as Lori had always imagined a hurricane might look like from above. Lori passed the spyglass to her father over her left shoulder and shouted, “That’s Hakitaw, I’m sure of it.”

  Her father looked through the telescope for a moment, then nodded and handed it back to her.

  The wind made conversation a series of shouts, but they managed.

  “Maybe we should head there? Skip Fort Dane?”

  “No. We’re meeting Redhand at Fort Dane. We’ll need him.”

  Lori nodded and settled in for the long trip to the Fort.