Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 85 of 150

The rosin held overnight. Ben slept an hour and woke to Jack standing over him with a mug of black tea. "Seal's good," Jack said. "Buyer's not. You told me Cage. Where's Cage?" "No word yet." "Then the crate goes off my property tomorrow. I don't care where. My cousins asked twice yesterday why my back wall hums when the wind turns. Twice is a count. Three times is a warrant." Ben drank the tea. Jack was right. The rosin sealed the smell and most of the sound, but a sealed crate with no buyer was just a countdown. He needed Angelina Cage to answer, or he needed a name he did not have. Millie's winged creature had not returned. Four days out now. He had sent it with the offer: twelve pieces, complete set, price to be named, a place to meet. He had no fallback. Every other broker he knew worked for the herbalist or was dead. He went to the yard to wait. Millie sat on the woodpile with something small cupped in her hands. A kit, orange-furred, blue-eyed, no bigger than a pear. It watched Ben with a steady, unbothered look. "Followed me in from the fence," Millie said. "Won't leave." "Put it out. We don't need another thing to feed." "It has a knot on its collar." She held up the kit's neck. A red trader's knot, the same weave the courier animal had worn at the seam. Ben took the kit. Under the knot was a folded scrap of oilcloth no bigger than a coin. He worked it open with his thumbnail. Three lines, in a small square hand. YES. Full set only. Bring to the mill at Wet Ford, third night from receipt. Come alone with the crate. — A.C. Ben sat down on the chopping block. Third night from receipt. He did not know when she had written it. He looked at the kit. The kit blinked. "When did it come in?" he asked Millie. "Sunrise. Maybe just before." Two nights, then. Maybe less. He went inside. Jack was at the table cleaning a pistol. Ben laid the oilcloth in front of him. Jack read it. He set the pistol down. "Wet Ford is a day and a half by cart if the road holds," Jack said. "You leave tonight, you make it." "I'll need the crate off your wall by dark." "You'll have it off my wall by dark whether you have a cart or not." Jack almost smiled. "But you have a buyer now. That changes the price of my help." Ben went to the back room and pulled his mother's old chest from under the cot, the small one he had carried since he was a boy. He opened it. Nine coins inside. He counted them into Jack's palm. "Cart," he said. "Driver. Dusk." Jack closed his hand.