Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 131 of 150

Ben stood in the empty cottage after Eileen's lantern faded down the road. The coin sat on the table in stacks. The fox pressed against his boot, quiet now that the wood was gone. He had until dawn. Payne's crew would clear the collapsed arch at first light and walk the road east. If they read the fall wrong, they would trace the cut stones back to him. He could not run with the coin and the fox both. He could not leave the arch as it stood. Joe came through the door with pitch on his hands. "They set a watch at the ruin. Two men. Lolly is at the ridge." Ben nodded. He swept the coin into a sack and set it under the flagstone where the axle had lain. He picked up the fox. "Show me the fall again." They went west through the pines. The ruined hall stood pale in the moon, one arch down, the other still holding. Ben crouched at the rubble. His cuts showed clean on two of the stones. A mason would read them by lamplight. He needed the fall to look old, or he needed a second fall to bury the first. Lolly slid down from the ridge, hair wet from the ditch. "They are drinking. One is asleep." She looked at the standing arch. "Bring the other down on top." Ben studied the keystone. The arch leaned already. Joe had brought a pry bar and a coil of rope. Ben set the fox in a hollow behind a fallen block, where the stone would muffle any hum. He climbed the rubble with the rope. Joe worked the pry bar into the seam above the keystone. Lolly went back up to watch the guards. The stone gave with a low grind. Ben dropped from the pile as the arch came down. Dust rolled over the road. The new fall crushed the cut stones under a ton of rough block. No mason would find the seam now. The noise brought a shout from the ruin. Boots came at a run. Ben grabbed the fox and went flat behind the fallen block. Joe crawled the other way with the pry bar. Lolly threw a rock down the far slope. The guards ran toward the sound, lamps swinging. Ben counted to twenty and moved. They reached the cottage before the sky turned. Ben lit no lamp. He lifted the flagstone and looked at the sack of coin. He had bought the road. Payne's crew would spend the morning hauling stone and cursing the hill. They would not read a staged cut in the mess he had left them. The fox climbed into his lap and went to sleep. Ben sat with the coin under his hand and thought about the buyer who had bought the eleventh piece two months back, and the carter who had died on the road with it.