Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 116 of 150

Ben pulled another nail. The two hunters walked the sedge line and stopped ten paces from the wreck. One tapped a bolt against his boot. The other watched Adam's hands. Then Ben heard it. A thin note leaking up through the sand under his bucket. The winged creature below had shifted. The hum was climbing the seam where the hull met the water side of the flat. Not loud yet. But a boat coming down the channel at dusk would catch it before it passed. "Water side," Ben said under his breath. Adam grunted. He kept pulling nails. "I hear it." "How long till a hull passes." "Fisher comes down before dark. Every day." Ben worked out the shape of it fast. Cedar killed the sound going up. It did nothing for the sound going sideways into wet planks and out into open water. He needed a second wall between the sack and the channel. He needed it before the hunters left, because he could not move while they watched. The hunters turned and walked the length of the wreck. One kicked a rotten board. It broke. He moved on. Ben leaned toward Adam. "You have another box. Something heavy. Something I can pack against the water wall." Adam's eyes went to the leaning tower of broken boards. Behind it, half sunk in the sand, sat a chest. Warped planks. Rusted bands. The lock had rotted through. It looked like it had washed up a decade ago and been left. "Full of chain," Adam said. "Anchor chain. Two hundred pounds of it." "Help me move it." "Not while they're looking." Ben pulled three more nails. The hunters reached the far end of the wreck, turned, and started back. One said something. The other laughed. They walked up the sedge and were gone over the rise. Ben dropped the plank. "Now." Adam hauled the canvas off the hatch. Ben went down the ladder. He dragged the sand box away from the water wall and shoved it against the inland wall instead. Then he climbed up. He and Adam took an end each of the sunken chest and walked it inside. The chain shifted and knocked. They lowered it through the hatch. Ben set it flush against the cedar on the channel side and packed the gaps with the winged creature's straw. He climbed up and listened. Nothing came through the floor. Nothing came through the wall. He walked out onto the sand and stood on the water side. He put his ear to the planks. Silence. Adam closed the hatch and slid the bench back over it. "Fisher's due in an hour." "Let him come," Ben said. He sat down on the bucket. His hands shook. The hum was buried. But the hunters had walked the wreck once, which meant they would walk it again by morning, and next time they would look at the boards, not the boy pulling nails.