Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 117 of 150

The fisher boat passed at dusk and went by without slowing. Ben let out a breath he had been holding for an hour. Then the sack under the floor twitched. The winged creature had been quiet while the boat was near. Now it started to move again, and the straw around it made a dry scraping sound Ben could feel through his boots. He lifted the bench and opened the hatch. The creature was pushing at the straw with its fox head and one scaled foreleg. Its eyes were open. It was hungry, and it was trying to climb out of the packing that muffled its hum. "It's tearing the straw," Ben said. "By dawn there won't be enough left to kill the sound." Adam looked down through the hatch. "Then feed it." "I don't know what it eats." "Try what's here." Ben went through the boathouse. He found a strip of dried fish on a shelf and a heel of bread in Adam's coat pocket. He dropped the fish through the hatch. The creature sniffed it and turned away. It kept scratching. A thin note started to climb out of the sack. Adam watched from the ladder. "Not fish." "No." Ben thought back to the tower loft. The creature had come out of straw damp with something sweet. He remembered the smell. Not hay. Fruit gone soft. "You have anything sweet," Ben said. "Old apples. Honey. Anything." Adam went to a low crate near the door and pulled out a clay pot. "Pear mash. For the traps." Ben took the pot down the ladder. He scooped a handful of the mash and held it flat under the creature's nose. It stopped scratching. It leaned in and ate from his palm. Its throat worked. The hum dropped to nothing. Ben sat on the sand floor and let it eat. The scaled hindquarters settled. The feathered wings folded. When the pot was half empty the creature curled against his wrist and closed its eyes. He climbed up. "It sleeps on a full stomach." "Good," Adam said. "Then pack it and go." "Go where." "Anywhere but here. They walk the wreck at first light. I told you." Ben looked at the hatch. The creature was calm now, but the straw was thin and the pear mash would not last a day. He had bought one night, not more. He would need somewhere he could feed it out of sight, and he would need it before the hunters came back over the rise. He wrapped the creature in the last of the dry straw and set it in the empty half of the anchor chain chest. The lid closed on rust. Adam handed him the clay pot without a word. Ben carried the chest up the ladder and out onto the sand. The tide was low. He had four hours until light.