Chapter 4 #3
"He's not going to just hand any of that over," Russ said. "Man's not unkind, but he's not foolish either. He's got fourteen mouths depending on what that farm produces same as we depend on what ours does."
"What are we trading?" Grace asked.
That was where her mind went first, same as Russ's went straight to the iron.
"Wool," she said. "Martha's been wanting more of it than her own sheep can give her, and we'll have plenty once shearing starts.
Labor, too — we've got hands to spare for a week here and there if he needs help with something heavy.
And repair work. Some of our people are handy, and idle hands are easy to lend when the Hollow's not using them. "
"What about doctoring?" Russ asked. "Cal's people could use it same as anybody."
Grace thought about that carefully. "Not yet.
Karen's gone, and I'm not offering something we can't deliver while she's away.
" She left the rest unsaid — that offering medical access meant explaining where it would come from, and that was a door she wasn't ready to open with anybody outside the Hollow, not even Cal.
Russ didn't push on it. He seemed to understand there was more behind the answer than he needed to hear.
"What about food?" he asked instead.
"Not now. Come fall, once we know what we've truly got in the ground, maybe. I'm not promising anybody a share of a harvest that hasn't happened yet."
"Fair."
"Maybe we don't need to own any of it," Grace said, turning the receipt over to sketch out the thought. "If Cal's people need the plow the same weeks we do, that's a problem. If they don't, we borrow it. Use it, bring it back. Share the forge time instead of trying to build our own."
Russ looked at her like she'd said something worth writing down. "That could work better than buying the thing outright. Nobody's got to give anything up permanent, and if his ground and ours don't need the same tool the same week, everybody wins."
"Just has to trust we'll bring it back."
"That's the part that worries me."
"Then we bring it back early," Grace said, and Russ laughed, short and real, and went back to his list with a little less weight in his shoulders than he'd carried out to the shed that afternoon.
"I'll write up what we've got to offer," Grace said. "You keep working out exactly what we need. No sense walking in there without knowing precisely what we're asking for."
"Cal'll respect that more than a wish list."
"That's the idea."
Grace found Rebecca again before supper, sitting where she usually sat these days, watching the last of the daylight go gold over the fields.
"How'd it go?" Rebecca asked.
"Harlan knows about the Ravagers."
"What else does he know?"
"Nothing I didn't want him to."
Rebecca nodded slowly, some old tension leaving her shoulders that Grace hadn't fully noticed was there until it left.
"He guessed you were here," Grace added. "Didn't push past that. He's not going to come looking, and even if he did, he's got nothing solid enough to act on."
"And if he asks again?"
"Then I tell him the same nothing I told him today." Grace shrugged. "Man's used to not getting everything he wants. He'll survive it."
"Russ and I are probably going to ride out to another farm in a couple of days," Grace said. "Cal and Martha's place."
"To warn them?"
"That too. Mostly we need equipment they've got and we don't."
Rebecca was quiet a moment, turning that over. "I didn't realize there were this many people out here. Connected, I mean."
"Not connected the way you're thinking," Grace said. "Nobody's in charge of anybody. We just help where it helps everybody, and we tell each other things worth knowing." She glanced toward the fields, where Russ's mules stood waiting for morning. "Seems to be working so far."
"Daniel used to say something like that," Rebecca said. "About the freight system, before all this. Nobody in charge of the whole thing, really. Just a thousand people trusting the next link would hold."
"Sounds about right," Grace said, and let the comparison sit there without chasing it further.
Luke found her at supper, plate in hand, dropping onto the bench across from her with the hunger of a boy who'd spent the whole day on his feet.
"How'd Harlan take it?"
"Seriously. Asked good questions. Doubled his watch."
"Did he call you Madam Mayor?"
"No."
Luke waited.
"Everybody else did," Grace said, and Luke laughed loud enough that Matthew looked over from two seats down to see what he'd missed.
"Russ and I are going to ride out to Cal's place in a couple of days," Grace said. "Need equipment for the fields, and they should hear about the Ravagers too."
"Who's handling things here?" Luke asked, already reaching for another biscuit, and then stopped with it halfway to his plate as he heard himself say it.
Grace looked at him and didn't say anything.
"Me," Luke said. "It's me."
"Look at that," Grace said. "Didn't even have to ask."
Luke shook his head, half laughing at himself, and went back to his supper.
"Your father's going to come home and find out nobody needed him for a month," Grace said.
"Don't tell him. He'll take it hard."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Watches went fine today," Luke said, in the tone of someone reporting rather than asking for praise. "Danny's back tomorrow, so we're back to full rotation by the weekend."
"Good."
"Curtis would've found something to complain about."
"Curtis finds something to complain about whether there's anything to complain about or not," Grace said. "Don't go looking for his approval. He's miles down the road and doesn't get a vote."
Luke grinned around a mouthful of biscuit and didn't argue.
They ate in easy quiet after that, the kind that came from a day mostly won, and Grace was halfway through her own plate when Matthew called over from the house steps.
"Mom? Ben says you told him he could have the last biscuit."
"I did not."
"He says you're the mayor, so it counts."
Grace closed her eyes.
Curtis was going to pay for this when he got home.