Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 93 of 150

Ben came up out of the cellar into the pines a mile north of the hall. He set the chest down in the needles and listened. No horns. No dogs. Just wind. He had eleven pieces on his back, no cart, and no Chilly Willy. The big man had said he would draw the mill men down the trail with the empty cart. That was an hour ago. He should have circled back by now. Ben waited until the sun cleared the ridge. He watched the trail south. Nothing came up it. A crow crossed the clearing and settled on a stump. He counted to a hundred and started again. Chilly Willy had a wife's sister to go home to. He would not vanish for a coin and a drink. Ben slid the chest under a slab of rock and covered it with brush. He marked the spot with three stones and cut south along the ridge above the trail. He moved slow. Every step he expected to hear the horn. He found the cart a quarter mile down, on its side in a ditch. One wheel was gone. The canvas was slashed open and empty. No blood on the wood. No body in the ferns. Boot prints all around it, six sets, heading back toward the mill road. One larger set went east into the brush, dragged at the heel. Ben crouched by the drag mark. Chilly Willy had gone east on his own two feet, or been walked out that way. Either way the mill men had him. Six against one, and Ben with a chest a mile north and no way to carry it alone. He followed the drag a hundred paces and stopped. The trail opened into a hollow. In the hollow sat a wooden crate the size of a coffin, marked on the side with a neat bundle of twelve black lines. The lid was off. Inside, curled together on straw, were twelve small creatures. Each one different. A blue kit with white ears. A green one with a torn lip. A gray one already watching him. Ben understood without being told. Anna Conda had sent them after him. She kept twelve of everything. She had counted him short a partner and made it right. The gray one climbed out and put its nose on the drag mark. The others followed in a line. They moved east through the ferns without a sound. Ben went back for the chest. He hauled it down to the hollow alone, breath tearing, and set it in the crate on the straw. The creatures made room. Twelve small backs took the weight the way a cart would. He had lost Chilly Willy. He had a set of eleven, a buyer who might already be dead, and a dozen strange animals waiting on his word. He picked up the lead rope and walked east after the drag mark.