Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 87 of 150

Marty left at noon. Ben watched the gate swing shut behind him and turned back to the yard. The cart would come the next evening. That gave him one night and one day to solve a problem he had been pushing off since Jack sealed the crate behind the double wall. He could not drive up to the mill with the chest on the cart. Cage's people would see it before any coin changed hands. If they wanted it more than they wanted to pay, they would take it at the water and leave him in the reeds. He needed a place near Wet Ford to drop the chest before he walked in. Somewhere he could reach in the dark and find again fast. He went to the kitchen. Chilly Willy sat at the table eating cold pork with both hands. Jack's brother-in-law knew the country between here and Wet Ford better than anyone Ben could ask without paying twice. "I need a hole," Ben said. "Between here and the mill. Off the cart road. Close enough I can walk in from it after dark." Chilly Willy chewed. "How big." "Chest and me." "Dry or wet." "Dry. And nobody's." Chilly Willy wiped his hands on his shirt. "Shepherd's hut. Half mile short of the ford. West side of the road, back through the alders. Roof's gone. Walls stand. Nobody's used it in six years." "Doors?" "One. Fell off. Frame's still there." Ben thought about that. A structure with a doorway would draw a search. But Lolly had told him once that people only searched buildings that still had doors on them. A roofless hut with a fallen frame read as ruin. "Anyone live near it." "Nobody within a mile. Ground's sour. Sheep won't take." "You been inside recent?" "Last spring. Floor's stone. There's a feed trough at the back wall, tipped over. Big enough to cover a chest if you lay it flat." Ben pictured it. Cart stops on the road. He and the driver carry the chest through the alders to the hut. Slide it under the trough. Cover it with brush. Walk the rest of the way to the mill empty-handed. If Marty's chalk mark is on the north post, he comes back with Cage's people and coin, and they carry it out together. If there is no mark, he comes back alone and moves the chest north before dawn. "Draw me the turn off the road," Ben said. Chilly Willy pulled a burnt stick from the hearth and scratched lines on the tabletop. A bend. A split alder. Ten paces west. The hut. Ben memorized it and rubbed the marks away with his sleeve. He had a staging spot now. He had a plan that let him walk into the mill light. What he did not have was any way to know if Marty was still alive to leave the mark.