Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 102 of 150

Ben came down out of the pines an hour after dawn. The wolf had run ahead. It came back stiff-legged, hackles up, and stopped in the middle of the road. Ben stopped with it. The wolf turned its head uphill, behind them. Ben heard nothing. He trusted the wolf. Someone was on the pass road, closing the gap he had opened during the night. He stepped off the road into wet fern. The small box-headed creature from Anna Conda's crate went with him, quiet on its short legs. Ben crouched behind a fallen trunk and listened. He heard boots after a minute. One set, moving fast. A tracker, not a scout party. Cage would send a fast man first to fix his position, then bring the others. He could not outrun a tracker down the pass. His legs were done. He needed cover before the man cleared the bend. A roof showed through the trees below the road. A sagging house, shutters hanging, moss on the shakes. Smoke thin from the chimney. Someone lived there. Ben went down the slope on his heels, the wolf ahead, the small creature behind. He knocked once and opened the door before an answer came. A boy sat at the table with his head on his arms. Dark hair, gray hoodie, sandals wet through. A pack by his foot. He lifted his face and looked at Ben without surprise. "You're the man from the gate," Picabo said. "You went back up." "I did." "There's a man on the road behind you." "I know." Picabo nodded once, the way someone points out that a pot is boiling. He put his head back down. Ben stepped past him into the back room. A shape stood in the corner where a stove should have been. Tall, square-shouldered, a cardboard box for a head with two black dots for eyes. It did not move when Ben entered. Ben had seen stranger things in a year of running. He kept his hand on the door. "I need to be somewhere else," Ben said. "A man is coming." "Cellar," the box-headed one said. It tipped its head toward a plank in the floor. "Trap under the rug. Not comfortable." "Will he search it?" "People search rooms." A pause. "Not floors." Ben pulled the rug back and lifted the plank. Cold air came up, and the smell of old potatoes. He whistled the wolf in and lowered himself down after it. The small creature dropped in on its own. The box-headed one slid the plank back and dragged the rug over. Ben heard the chair scrape as it sat down at the table with Picabo. Boots hit the porch a moment later. The door banged open. A voice asked a question. Picabo answered in one word. The boots went through the front room, the back room, and out again. Ben sat in the dark with the wolf's ribs against his knee and waited to be told he could come up.