Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 79 of 150

Ben pulled the crate along a game track until the pines thinned and a broken fence line came up out of the brush. A keyhole shape was cut into the top rail. This was the mark on Eileen's paper. He set the crate in the ditch behind the fence and covered it with dead pine boughs. Millie slid down and sat on a stump, favoring her ankle. "How long do we wait?" Millie said. "Until dusk. No later." The sun was already low. Ben crouched by the crate and listened. A faint hum came through the sap seal when the wind shifted. Not loud yet. Loud enough that a scout on the wrong side of the fence would stop walking and turn his head. Millie pulled the bone whistle from her collar. "I can send him up. One loop. He sees the road from there." "Do it." She blew a short note. The winged creature dropped out of a pine two ridges over and climbed. From the stump, Ben watched it circle once and bank east. Then it climbed higher and did not come back down. "He sees something," Millie said. She was watching the sky, not him. "He only stays up like that when he sees something." Ben looked east through the fence rails. Two figures on the ridge road, moving at a walk. Not scouts. Not yet running. But they were coming toward the fence, and Eileen was not. He checked the sun. Half an hour of light. He counted the paces to the pines behind him. Too far to drag the crate alone before the two men reached the fence line. He could leave it and run with Millie. He could sit on it and hope. The winged creature dropped fast out of the sky and landed on the top rail. It had a strip of cloth in its beak. Millie took it and held it up. A lynx track, drawn in charcoal. An arrow pointing west along the fence. One word: MOVE. "She's alive," Ben said. "She's ahead of us." "And them?" Millie pointed at the ridge. "Not her men." Ben uncovered the crate and pushed the cord handle into Millie's hand. He lifted the other. The winged creature caught the far strap in its claws and took the weight off the ground. They moved west along the fence at a run, the crate skimming, Millie limping behind. A hundred paces on, the fence bent into a hollow. A carter's wagon stood in the hollow with its tail down. Eileen sat on the seat with the reins. She did not smile. She jerked her chin at the bed. "In. Now." They slid the crate up the tail. Millie climbed after it. Ben got up beside Eileen. She snapped the reins and the wagon rolled west into the trees before the two men on the ridge cleared the next stand of pines. "Two days to Jack," Eileen said. "Don't sleep."