Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 91 of 150

Ben and Chilly Willy pushed the handcart up the track toward the fork. The chest rode low under a canvas. Ben kept his eyes on the north post ahead. If Marty's chalk was there, they turned east to the mill. If not, they ran north with the load and no buyer. The fork came up in gray light. Ben stopped the cart behind a stand of alder and walked the last stretch alone. He circled the post. He ran his thumb along the wood at knee height, then shoulder height. He checked the back side. Bare. Nothing but weather and old grain. He stood there longer than he meant to. Marty was small and quiet and would not have missed a post he was paid to mark. If there was no mark, Marty had seen something at the mill he did not want Ben walking into. Or Marty was face down in the reeds. Ben went back to the cart. "No mark." Chilly Willy spat. "Then we go north." "We go north." They turned the cart off the mill road and pushed it into the thin trees. Ben's arms were shaking by the time they cleared the ridge, and not from the weight. He had cut Cage loose. Twelve pieces in a box and no one left who could buy them as a set. A figure sat on a stump twenty paces off the track, whittling. The small blue-gray creature from the hut lay at his feet. A heavy iron-banded tankard stood in the dirt beside his boot. Ben's hand went to his knife. "Put it away," Tax Evasion said, not looking up. "Followed you slow. Didn't want you walking past." "You were supposed to hold the hut." "Hut's held. Nobody came." He shaved a curl of wood. "Your small friend, though. He came through the hut before dawn. Left this." He reached into the tankard and pulled out a folded scrap. Ben opened it. Marty's hand, in charcoal: SIX AT MILL. NOT CAGE. RUN. Ben read it twice. His mouth went dry. The mill was six men and none of them the buyer. The chalk mark was never coming. "Why not put it on the post," Ben said. "Post is watched." Tax Evasion set the knife down. "He saw a man in the reeds by the north post at dusk. Left the paper with me instead. Said you'd come by the hut or you wouldn't come at all." Ben folded the scrap into his coat. Marty was alive. The trap was named. He still had the chest, and no buyer, and one more day at most before someone found the track they had cut through the alders. Chilly Willy took up the cart handles again. "Where now." Ben looked north into the pines. "Away from the mill. I'll think of a name by dark."