Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 112 of 150

Ben watched the field brighten through a crack in the plank door. The wolf had not moved in an hour. Its ribs still worked, but the swollen joint had gone tight as a stone. He pressed a palm to it and the animal flinched without a sound. He knew the joint would fail on the next run. If he left at dusk with the wolf on three legs, they would both be found in the grass before the moon cleared the ridge. Ella stopped counting. "You're thinking loud." "The leg won't carry it. Not tonight." "Then leave it." "They'll follow a live wolf faster than a dead man." He looked at Tim by the arch. "Can you keep it? Past dusk. Past me." Tim set his sack down. He pulled out the iron ring, the boot, and last a small charred bucket, its staves blackened, its bands glowing along the cracks like a banked fire. He put the bucket beside the straw. Heat came off it in a slow breath. "Coals stay live in that," Tim said. "I keep the tower warm without smoke. Joint like that wants heat, not running. Give me a week, I give you back a wolf that walks." "A week I don't have." "Then give me the wolf and go." Ella uncurled her hand. A small bright creature stepped out onto the stone, ember-bodied, flame at the edges of its coat. It padded to the wolf and lay against the swollen joint. The wolf sighed. The heat sank in. "He'll keep it warm," Ella said. "Better than the bucket. Better than you." Ben sat with that. To leave the wolf was to leave the last thing that had run with him from the pass. It was also the only way either of them lived past tomorrow. "What do you want for it," he said to Tim. Tim toed a shape under a tarp in the corner. He pulled the cloth back. A chest sat under it, iron-banded, wood split down the middle, two painted eyes staring out from the front panel. A find, not a make. The kind of thing a scavenger drags home and cannot sell. "Take this off my hands when you go," Tim said. "I can't move it. Buyers see the eyes and walk. You've moved worse." "What's in it?" "Empty. I checked." He shrugged. "It's the box that's the trouble." Ben lifted the lid an inch. Nothing inside but dust and a dry smell. He shut it. An empty chest with a face was still a chest. He could sell it down the line, or fill it, or burn it. "Deal." He knelt by the wolf. The ember creature did not move. The wolf's eye opened, found him, closed again. Ben stood. "Dusk," Tim said. "Take the chest. Leave the wolf. Don't come back for either." Ben nodded. Outside, the field had gone full pale, and no boots had come.