Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 84 of 150

The new sap held for the walk down the ridge. Ben felt it soften against his palm before they cleared the treeline. The dry wind up at the toll house had pulled the moisture out of it faster than he'd counted on. By the time he and Chilly set the crate back inside Jack's double wall, the seam was tacky again. Ben pressed a thumb to it and came away sticky. One day, maybe. Not two. Jack watched him wipe his thumb on his trouser. "That's not a seal. That's a bandage." "I know." "Then fix it right, or take it off my property." Ben needed something stronger than pine sap. Wax cracked. Sap wept. He needed a binder that stayed hard in dry wind and did not stink. He had nothing on the shelf. He had no coin to send Chilly to a chandler, and no chandler he trusted. He went out to the woodpile to think. A boy was already there, crouched by the split logs, pocketing dry pine knots the size of walnuts. Not a boy. Small man. Green hoodie, red shoes, hands quick as a squirrel's. He looked up at Ben without startling. "Not stealing wood," he said. "Stealing pitch." He held up a knot slick with old resin. "Fatwood. Burns hot. Trades better than coin at the Tall Folk's gate." "You're Marty," Ben said. Chilly had named him at the roadhouse, a scavenger who worked the fence lines. "Marty Party. And you're the man with the barrel that smells like turned pine." He tapped his nose. "Half a field away. Fix it or lose it." Ben crouched. "I need a binder. Hard. Dry. No smell." "Rosin," Marty said. "Cook the pitch off the knots. Skim the clear. Cools to glass. Won't weep in wind." He shook the knot. "Two pounds of these makes a fist of rosin. I have six." "What do you want." "Route through Jack's yard to the north fence. Once. Tonight. I'm going over the Tall Folk's wall by the middle gap and I don't want the hounds on me before I clear the road." "Done." They cooked the knots in Jack's iron pot behind the shed. Marty worked the fire low, skimmed the black off with a spoon, poured the clear amber into a shallow tin. It set in twenty minutes to a hard yellow disk. Ben chipped a piece off with the knife. It rang. He warmed it, laid it thick along the crate's seam inside the wall, and pressed a linen strip down. It cooled fast. The hum cut off. No smell came through. He waited an hour. No weep. He waited two. Still dry. Jack knocked the wall with a knuckle. "That'll hold." "Until it's moved," Ben said. Marty was already at the north fence, waiting for his gap.