Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 77 of 150

The gray in the slits went white. Ben stayed still against the back wall and watched the light move down the stone. Millie slept with her wrapped ankle propped on the crate. No horn sounded. No boots crossed the wash outside. But the tower held only two things Ben could not fix by waiting: a girl who could not walk, and a crate too heavy for one man to carry. He had sent his blood north on the winged creature two nights ago. He did not know if Eileen had read it. He did not know if she was alive. Without her, he could not move the crate to the pines before dark. With her, he could. Everything after this hour turned on a message he could not check. A scratch came at the stones in the doorway. Ben drew his knife and pressed flat. The scratch came again, lower, quick and light. Not a boot. He shifted one stone aside. A small orange animal squeezed through the gap. Rounded body, ears up, a scrap of cloth tied to its foreleg. It hopped once, sat, and looked at him. Ben knew the knot on the cloth. Eileen had tied knots like that in their mother's kitchen, thirty years ago. He untied the cloth with hands that would not stay steady. Inside was a scrap of paper and a small green bottle with a tapered nozzle. The paper said: WEST WASH. NOON. BRING NOTHING BUT THE BOX. SQUEEZE THE FLASK ON THE STONES BEHIND YOU. E. Ben woke Millie. He showed her the paper. She read it twice. "She got it," Millie said. "She got it." He uncapped the bottle and sniffed. Sharp, oily, wrong. Something to kill scent, or to lay a false one. He did not need to know which. Eileen had sent it, and Eileen had never in her life told him a plan she had not already walked through twice. They waited until the sun was straight overhead. Ben cleared the stones from the arch. He lashed the cord handles back to the crate and tipped it onto its runners. Millie climbed on top with her bad leg out. At the door Ben squeezed the flask along the base of the tower and out ten paces onto the stones behind them. The liquid darkened the rock and gave off a smell that made his eyes water. He took the handles and pulled. The crate came out into the light. The wash was empty. West, where the scrub thinned toward the pines, a figure stood on a flat rock with a lynx at her heel. She raised one hand. Ben raised his in return and leaned into the cord. The crate scraped forward over the stones. For the first time in four days, he was not moving it alone.