Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 103 of 150

The cellar was cold and close. Ben sat with his back against the earth wall. The wolf lay against his knee. The small box-headed creature stood in the dark beside him, quiet as a stone. Above, chair legs shifted. Picabo answered another question. Boots crossed the plank floor again. The tracker had not left. He was working the house a second time. The wolf's flank rose and fell too fast. Ben set a hand on its ribs. The animal was spent. Three days ago it had come limping out of the pines to find him. Now its breath came shallow and its eyes half-closed. If it whined once, the tracker would hear. If the small creature made any sound, the tracker would tear up the rug. Ben had nothing to gag them with. He had no rope, no cloth, no way to signal them to hold still. The wolf did not know the danger. It only knew it was tired. Ben looked at what he had. A worn crate sat against the far wall, lid gone, one side split. Old potatoes inside, some sprouted. A traveler's box beside it, small and clean, brass latch shut. Someone had put it there and forgotten it. He reached for the traveler's box first and eased the latch. Wool inside. A folded shirt. Nothing that would help. He went to the worn crate. He tipped the potatoes out onto the dirt floor without a sound. The crate was big enough for the wolf if the wolf would fold. It smelled of dirt and cellar, not of Ben. That was the point. He knelt and put his forehead against the wolf's forehead. The wolf's eye rolled up to look at him. Ben lifted the animal under the chest and the hips. It did not fight him. He set it into the crate on its side. The wolf's ribs pressed the split wood. It let out a breath through its nose. Then it closed its eyes. Ben took the traveler's box and set it in front of the small creature. He opened the lid. He pointed inside. The creature looked at the box. It looked at Ben. It stepped in and sat down and pulled its own legs under itself. Ben lowered the lid until the latch caught with a small click. Upstairs the boots stopped over the rug. Ben did not breathe. He heard the tracker turn a slow circle. He heard the chair scrape as the box-headed one stood. He heard a low word he did not catch. Then the boots went to the door and out. Ben sat in the dark and listened to the wolf breathing inside the worn crate. Small and even. The small creature did not stir inside the traveler's box. He had bought silence. He had used up his last two containers to do it.