Noah Mine's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Friday came, and Noah counted his fares by lantern light on the dock. He laid the coins on the weathered planks and stacked them into columns. Nine dollars and forty cents. A slow week had left him sixty cents short. At eleven Amos wanted his ten. If Noah missed the deadline, the clerk kept his sealed logbook, and the logbook held every fare he'd ever banked toward his father's dock. He walked to the boarding house before the crossing. Amos sat in the back room, one inked forearm resting on his cane. He heard Noah's boots and named the shortfall before Noah spoke. "You're short," Amos said. "I hear it in how you carry the bag." "Sixty cents," Noah said. "By morning I'll have it." "The seal is dated Friday. Friday is the law." Amos turned a page in a ledger he could not see. "Miss it, and the record stays filed under my name." Noah went back to the water with his cap in his hands. A young nun waited at the end of the dock, her habit hemmed with dried mud. Noah knew her. Half the town whispered its worst to Clara Voss in the confession booth, and she forgot nothing. "You gave me a free crossing once," Clara said. "When I had no fare and a dying man on the far bank." "I remember." "I don't carry money." She reached into her sleeve and drew out a folded paper. "But I carry what people owe. A man confessed he never paid you for a month of night crossings. He named the sum. Two dollars." She held it out. "His name is on it, and his mark. Take it to him and he'll pay, or take it to the clerk. Amos honors a signed debt." Noah took the paper. The ink was steady, the mark pressed hard. "Why give me this?" "Because you ferried a dying man for free," she said. "The ledger runs both ways." He carried the paper into the back room. Amos ran his fingers across the signature and the pressed mark. He recited the name aloud. "A true debt," Amos said. "I'll credit it against your ten. Two dollars, signed and owed. The rest in coin." Noah poured out his nine dollars and forty cents. With the two-dollar note credited, the count crossed ten and left change. Amos slid the extra coins back across the desk. "Paid," the clerk said. "The seal holds. The logbook stays yours." Noah pocketed his coins and his book. Outside, the lanterns glowed on the dock posts. He'd kept the record safe. But the two dollars had cost him nothing, and now a debtor across the river owed the paper's face. Come morning, Noah would have to find that man and collect what the nun's note only promised.