Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 119 of 150

Ben watched the door for an hour. The horn did not sound again. Adam sat on an overturned crate by the window, crowbar across his knees. Ima crouched by the chest, feeding the creature crumbs from her pocket. The house held. The walls did their work. Ben started to believe he had bought the morning. Then Adam spoke without turning. "They'll pay for a location. Two of them were asking at the wreck. Coin up front for a pointed finger." "How much," Ben said. "More than you have on you. I watched them count it." Ben felt the cold of it settle in his chest. Adam had hidden the sack in the boathouse bilge. Adam had lied to hunters at the ridge. Adam knew the yellow house. Adam knew the chest inside it. One walk down the slope and Ben was finished. "You brought me here," Ben said to Ima. "He followed us," Ima said. She stood up. Her hand went to her pocket. "I walked here," Adam said. "On my own feet. I could have brought them with me. I didn't." "Not yet," Ben said. Adam looked at him. His face did not move. "Not yet." Ben put his back to the wall. He had no coin left worth naming. He had the creature. He had the battered chest he had carried off the wreck. He had a girl who set fires and an old man with a crowbar. He counted what he could offer and came up short. He opened the lid. The creature blinked up at him, fox ears, scaled flank, one folded wing. It climbed onto his forearm and stayed there. The hum was gone. It only breathed. "That," Adam said. His voice changed. "That is what they want?" "That is what they want." Adam set the crowbar on the floor. He did it slow, so Ben would see him do it. "I have a daughter down the coast. She is sick. The coin they offered would keep her a year." "I can't match that." "I know." Adam stood up. "So I'm walking out the door now. If I turn left at the pines, I go home. If I turn right, I go to the beach. You won't know which until they come or they don't." He walked out. The door swung shut behind him. Ben did not follow. Ima looked at Ben. "We have to move." "Where." "Anywhere he doesn't know." Ben closed the lid on the creature. He lifted the chest. His arms were tired and his legs were tired and the morning he had bought was gone before it started. He had walls and a door and none of it counted now. One man knew the room. He stepped outside. The pines were quiet. He could not see which way Adam had turned. He went north, away from both roads, and carried the chest into trees he did not know.