Scotty Green's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

The repaired dog found parts fast. Too fast. By noon it had sniffed out a dozen missing cogs across Forgotten Hollow and barked at each hiding spot. But Scotty's water tower held nothing to fix them with. His bench sat bare. Three broken clockwork toys waited in a row, and he had no gears, no springs, no brass plate to cut. The dog could find parts. It could not make them appear on his shelf. "I can locate a hundred cogs," Scotty told Amanda. "But I can't fit a single one. They're scattered all over town, half rusted, wrong sizes. I'd spend a year chasing each piece." He sank onto his stool. The line below the ladder had not shrunk. A heavy boot clanged on the rungs. The hatch swung open, and Amanda's father hauled himself through, belly first, cowboy hat scraping the frame. He carried a long wooden box under one arm. He set it down like it weighed nothing and looked around the empty workspace. "Heard my girl married a tinker with no tools," Papa Ward said. He thumped the box with his boot. "That's a shame." Scotty stood fast. He had met the old man twice and still felt small under that stare. "Pops. I've got the jobs. I just don't have the parts." Papa Ward flipped the box latches. Inside lay rows of cogs, springs, brass stock, and cutting files, each one clean and sorted. He'd been fixing machines in the Hollow longer than Scotty had been alive. "Had this packed since you set up here," he said. "Been waiting to see if you'd quit first." Scotty ran his fingers over the sorted gears. "I can't take all this." "You're not taking it." Papa Ward pulled a stool over and dropped onto it. "You're learning where I get more. There's a scrap shed I've kept stocked for thirty years. You send that little dog to it, you'll have cogs for every job down that ladder." He tapped the mechanical dog's head. "Train it to the shed, not the whole town." Scotty grabbed the dog and wound its key. He held a bent cog from the box to its nose. The dog's gears ticked. It turned toward the hatch and barked once, sharp and certain. It had a source now, not a scattered hunt. By dusk the bench was full. Scotty fit a fresh cog into the first broken toy and wound it. It walked. He fixed the second. Then the third. The line below moved for the first time all day. Papa Ward watched him work and said nothing for a while. Then he stood, groaning, and set his hat straight. "Shed won't last forever," he said. "Thirty years of picking, and the good scrap's near gone. You'll fill those shelves fast. Then you'll have to find your own." Scotty looked at the full box, and the long line still waiting below.