Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 130 of 150

Ben woke before dawn with one question stuck in his chest. Eileen was coming to pay for the eleventh piece. He had the axle fragment under the flagstone and the fox curled beside it. He did not know if the fragment was real. If Eileen inspected it and found a scrap of broken cart wood, she would leave, or worse, take the coin back and mark him a cheat. He pulled the sack out and unwrapped the wood on the hearthstone. The fragment was blackened, split along the grain, iron banding at one end. It looked like any broken axle. He set the fox down beside it. The fox stiffened, ears flat, and hummed in its throat. The sound matched the low note the chest had carried for weeks. Ben watched the fox lean toward the wood and press its nose to the iron band. The hum climbed a step and held. He carried the fragment to the doorway and set it in daylight. The fox followed and hummed again. He carried it back and laid it on the hearth. Same note. He wrapped it, unwrapped it, moved it three paces off. The fox hummed only when the wood was near. That was the test he had. It was the test he would give Eileen. Joe came in at midmorning with a scrap of oilcloth and news from the ruin. The crew had not moved. A rider had gone west for tools. "They dig at dawn," Joe said. "You have tonight." Lolly brought water and a cloth and cleaned the iron band until the maker's stamp showed. A small square with three notches. Ben did not know the mark. He set it beside the fox again and the hum came on cue. Eileen arrived at dusk with Anita's runner and a lean man carrying a strapped case. She looked tired and did not sit. "Show me," she said. Ben laid the fragment on the table. He set the fox on the floor a room away, behind the closed inner door. The fox went quiet. He carried the wood through the doorway. The hum rose from behind the door, steady and true. He carried the wood back. The hum stopped. He did it twice more. Eileen watched the door, not the wood. When he set the fragment down the last time she opened her case and counted coin onto the table in stacks. "The stamp is my grandmother's carter," she said. "He hauled the set the first time it moved. I know the mark." She wrapped the fragment in her own cloth and closed the case. "Payne's crew digs at dawn," she said. "We go now." Ben took the fox under his arm and blew out the lamp. The eleventh piece left the cottage in his sister's hand. The set, wherever it sat, was whole again in the world.