Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 52 of 150

Ben stayed low through the brush. The paste was gone from his hands. The smock was gone from his back. He wore his own sweater now, dirt smeared on his face for cover, and every scout in these woods had a description that fit him. A mile and a half to Chris. No disguise left. He kept off the track. He moved tree to tree, listening for boots. The wind carried nothing but jays. Amanda's cough had drawn the two men north. That was one problem solved and a worse one waiting. At the edge of a clearing he stopped. Open ground between him and the next stand of pine. A scout on the ridge could pick him out in three seconds. He crouched behind a weathered rock the size of a cart and studied the far tree line. Movement. Not a man. A low shape came around the stone at his knee, plated in gray, eyes flat and dark. A rock creature, no taller than a dog. He knew the kind. One had helped him at the low house. This one only watched him. Ben stayed still. The creature stayed still. Then it turned its head toward the ridge, back at him, and walked a slow line along the base of the boulder. It stopped where the rock threw the longest shadow. He understood. He moved when it moved. He crossed the open ground behind the creature, matched to its pace, keeping the boulder's shadow between his body and the ridge. On the far side he pressed flat against pine bark and breathed. A horn sounded far to the north. Short, then short again. The tracker calling his partner. They had followed Amanda past the split oak. They had not turned back. Half a mile now. Ben moved faster. He kept off the ridgeline and off the road. Twice he heard voices and dropped. Once a scout passed within twenty feet, eating from a cloth, looking east where the horn had gone. He came over the last rise on his belly. Below him sat the abandoned traveler's hearth. A thin line of ordinary smoke rose from the chimney. Chris P. Bacon sat on a log by the door, feeding a small fire in a pit outside, chewing something slowly. No scouts in the yard. No horse. No prints on the path but Chris's own. Ben watched for a full minute. Then he came down the slope in the open, hands loose at his sides, and walked to the fire. Chris looked up. He did not stand. "You said two days. It's one." "Change of plan," Ben said. "Anyone come by?" "A woman looking for a goat. A boy with a stick. That's all." Ben looked at the chimney. The chest hummed nothing. The flue held. He had made the last mile, and no one had seen him do it.