They sat together on the weathered pine bench outside the former border tollhouse. They watched Barnaby the gelding eat oats from a canvas nosebag tied securely to the tailboard of the blue cart. The rhythmic crunch of grain between the old horse’s back teeth was the only sound competing with the mountain wind.
Above them, the steel canopy stretched like a huge heavy-duty bridge across the roadway. Fifty yards from flank to flank, a hundred feet from northern top door beam to southern arch, framed in massive riveted roof beams of double-flanged iron.
For twelve years, this structure had served as the physical bottleneck through which the Survey Office pulled out its office tariffs. Beneath its shadow, five barred iron cages had held travelers awaiting quarantine check. Three separate clerk’s kiosks with lead-lined cash drawers had audited commercial manifests. And a heavy steel drop-gate had dropped each evening at the third ring of the curfew gong.
Now, the cages had been unbolted from the foundation stones and hauled away to the quarry scrap heaps. The three kiosks had been scrubbed clean with lime and water, their iron grilles replaced with broad cedar writing counters open to the street.
Behind the first counter sat Corin Petch, the Gate customs clerk who had quietly risked his neck on Day Six to stamp Tavi Rusk’s outside escape permit. He was stamping commercial manifests for two farmers with an ordinary wooden stamp dipped in purple ink, chatting about the price of winter onions in…
