Lisa saw a crowd gathering in front of her group. She took a breath to calm her nerves. She took a second and a third. She still didn’t feel calm.
The trip to Alamosa had been trying, to say the least. The roads she had used on White Rocks were still paved from when the planet was first settled. The road to this town, however, had completely fallen apart. On parts of the road the pavement had turned to rubble, while others were missing any trace of paving. Worse, the road’s route was more difficult that Coe had let on. A trip that should have taken a morning and part of an afternoon instead took two days and plenty of hard labor.
Lisa’s body chose this day to start, as her father called it, her “regular rough patch.” The weight of this important visit pressed down on her, intensifying her misery. She knew she wasn’t at her best, and that she had to put on a good face or else.
As long as I can get through this without killing anyone, she thought, I’ll be fine.
The town didn’t stand out one way or the other. There was a mixture of old and new homes. There were a few other large buildings, so things were going on. None seemed to be a store or inn. The town wasn’t in dire straights, but they didn’t appear to be doing so well as to not need to make any deals. Lisa found some comfort in that.
She signaled for her group to stop. She climbed down from the lead wagon and approached the group. “Hello, there,” she said, “my name is Lisa Herbert. My friends and I have a few items to trade for.”
A few groans rose up from the crowd. A slightly tall man with fair hair and brown eyes stepped forward. “You’re from Great Junction, aren’t you?” he asked.
“We’ve come from there, yes. But we don’t live there, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then where are you from? Pueblo? Red Cloud?”
“Actually, we’re from another world.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. I come from Fairfield. Most of my friends are from Lone Star. Only one of us is from this planet.”
“Hey,” a voice in crowd said, “they got one of those Indians with them.”
“His name is Little Wolf. He’s the only person from White Rocks in our group.”
“If they got an Indian with them,” another voice said, “they ain’t from Great Junction.”
Lisa looked at the fair-haired man. “Why do you say that?”
“Guys from down there don’t trust them,” the man said. People in the crowd laughed or shook their heads. The man approached Lisa and stuck out his hand. “Name’s Bob Logan.”
She shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“We probably don’t need what you got, but we don’t want to be unkind. Eat with us, stay the night.”
“Thanks. You don’t mind if we put our stuff on display, just in case?”
“Nope. Just don’t get your hopes up.”
Logan was annoyingly correct. Her friends had worked hard to build the displays not just to promote their wares, but to be easy to set-up and take down. What they thought would be the displays’ first test turned out to be a lot of work for nothing. Only a few locals came by, and those took a glance or two then walked away.
I ought to find out why these people are so skeptical.
At dinner she sought out Logan and asked him why no one in Alamosa was interested in their goods. “A few folks ’round here been down to Great Junction to buy or sell,” he said. “If they went to buy, they had to give too much. If they went to sell, they got too little in return.”
That made some sense to her, considering her few encounters with the merchants of Great Junction and Pueblo. “Still,” she replied, “you shouldn’t assume that everyone is like that.”
“Maybe not. But we’ve had to learn how to do things ourselves. We try not to reply on outsiders. Sort of like the tribe, I guess.”
“So you’ve had contact with them. They deal fairly with you?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’re better folks than up in Pueblo.”
Logan didn’t answer. Lisa decided to take a look around, to see if there might be another approach. She’d noticed earlier than almost all the building in Alamosa were made of stone. It occurred to her that they appeared to be in pretty good shape. Some had details carved around their doors and windows. The town hall had columns on either side of the entrance. The church had a little stone cross on the steeple.
“Did these building survive the Rain?”
“Most did.”
“So, some are new?”
“Yep.”
“You have a quarry?”
Logan jerked a thumb behind him. “Don’t get much use, but the masons keep practicing.”
Lisa glanced around again. She couldn’t see too many homes from the center of town. She could see more lawns. On some of those lawns were figures, mainly animals. “Who made those animals and figures?” she asked.
“We do. It’s fun. Makes the town look nice.”
“Have you ever thought of trying to trade those?”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Anything.”
“We don’t need much.”
“Do it for tokens, and use the tokens when you have to.” A smile crept onto Lisa’s face. “Tell you what, Mister Logan. Let us take a few with us. One or two, as an example of your work. We have to go back to Great Junction to get to Two Forks and on east. I’ll show off those examples to a few people. The town manager, and a few of his friends. If they like them, I’ll tell them to come up here themselves.”
“I don’t know if anyone would want to part with...”
“Then don’t part with them. Make more, on request.”
Logan paused to consider the idea. After a moment he nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.” His face fell a bit. “Does seem odd, though, trading our statues for things we might need.”
Lisa almost agreed with him until something he’d said earlier popped back into her mind. “Well, you said it yourself. They make this town look nice.”
“That’s true.”
“I’ll bet folks don’t choose just any statues. They want ones that... reflect who they are. What they like.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, trust me, those merchants like showy things. They want everyone to know who they are.” Lisa smiled again, but this was a more gleeful smile. “Why not take advantage of that vanity?”
Logan smiled back at her. “Why not, indeed? Maybe then they won’t be so quick to take us for fools.”
“You weren’t taken, Mister Logan. You just didn’t have what they wanted. I think now you do. My father always said, ’A good deal is when everyone comes away happy.’”
“Then maybe we’ll make some good deals after all.”
***
Lisa thought she was prepared when her group arrived at Two Forks a few days later. She knew well before then that some merchants had come here. She now knew that they didn’t have a good reputation. She decided that a little conversation combined with strong observation would overcome any problems.
She looked into the village as her group approached. Nothing was left of the buildings that existed before the Rain. Everything was made of wood, with small one-story homes predominating. There were no signs of a market square or a trade store. There were gardens in front of every home, and a small field of grain behind them.
Lisa caught sight a young man carrying the carcass of a deer into a home. She looked at the land around the town. The trees were a few dozen paces away from the nearest buildings. One mountain not too far off was devoid of any plants. It was clear the people were living off the land. They had to be making do, and probably weren’t doing well.
They can’t possibly refuse us, she told herself.
A half-dozen men walked up. One man stepped in front of the group. “What you want?” he asked.
Lisa climbed down from the lead wagon. “My name’s Lisa Herbert,” she said. “My friends and I have some trade goods.”
“Not interested.”
“What?”
“Not interested,” the man repeated, louder and slower.
“You don’t even want to look?”
“No. We’re doing just fine. We don’t need your slick crap.”
“We’re not from Great Junction, Mister...”
“Reed. Where are you from?”
“I’m from a world called Fairfield.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Really!” She turned to Little Wolf. “Come here.” She turned back to Reed. “He’s from the tribe north of Pueblo. I know merchants from Great Junction don’t have his people with them.”
“Maybe so, Miss, but we still ain’t interested.”
Lisa glanced at Little Wolf, hoping he might know what to do. He shook his head. She took a moment to think. Reed and his friends started to turn away.
“You don’t mind if we camp here?” she asked quickly. “We’ll just stay the night, and head on to Quail.”
“Do what you like.”
“You won’t keep anyone from coming here if they choose to?”
“No.” He led his friends away.
“A friendly town, huh?” Lisa muttered to Little Wolf after the men were far enough away.
“They didn’t even invite us to eat with them,” he said. “That is a grave insult among my people.”
“It’s not the manners I was raised with, either.”
“Are they hiding something?”
“I doubt it.” She nodded towards the center of town. “Look around. They’re getting by, that’s all. It’s not like they don’t need help.”
“Could they mean us harm?”
“What, to rob us? I don’t think so. I mean, if they were going to rob us, wouldn’t they invite us closer? Lull us into a sense of safety?”
“Then perhaps their ruler is a bad man.”
“If that was true, why let us camp here for the night? Why not tell us to move along? Besides, none of the men with him were armed. Could an evil leader keep control without armed thugs?” Lisa shook her head. “No, I think they’ve been hurt the same way the folks in Alamosa were hurt. Only they’re shutting themselves away. It’s sad, really. They can’t keep living off deer, a little bread, and a few vegetables for long.”
“What do we do?”
“Set up camp, put up our displays, and hope.”
***
Two people did approach the group around sunset. Lisa noticed a mixture of defiance and shyness in their manner. She guessed they were young teenagers. The boy had unruly light brown hair, was taller than average, and a very skinny. The girl had reddish brown hair, pale skin, and was slim and compact. It was very unlikely that they came to trade.
“Hello,” Lisa said. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Lisa Herbert. Who are you?”
“I’m Jane,” the girl answered, “and this is my friend Alek. He don’t speak, but he can hear.”
“I see.” She hadn’t heard about any illnesses that affected speech but not hearing. That didn’t mean they were lying. The boy could have been injured.
“What can I help you two with?”
“I heard you came from Great Junction.”
“Actually, we’re from other worlds. Our plan is to try and get some of the towns to trade with each other.”
“So you’re traveling on?”
“That’s right.”
“You need a guide?”
Lisa didn’t reply immediately. The roads weren’t that hard to follow. She didn’t think that these two teens had been too far from town, and therefore wouldn’t know where the outlaws were. She could guess how they felt. She decided not to turn them down without finding out if they had any useful skills.
“We don’t need a guide, Jane, but we do need help. What are you two good at?”
“Well, we can shoot. Every kid had to learn to shoot around here.”
I don’t doubt that, Lisa thought. “Bows or crossbows?”
“Bows.” Jane lowered her head. “We left ours at home.”
“That’s okay. Little Wolf!”
He was standing next to Wayne, helping him and Donna figure out how to distribute weight on the wagons. “Yes?”
“Come here. Bring your bow.” A few moments later Little Wolf arrived with his bow and quiver. “Pick a target for a good archer,” Lisa said.
Little Wolf looked around. He pointed to a wide pine tree several dozen paces from their camp. “That tree,” he said.
“Give them your bow, and let them take a shot.”
Little Wolf handed the bow and an arrow to Alek. The boy aimed and fired. The arrow struck the tree almost dead center. Jane aimed and fired; her shot hit an arm’s length above Alek’s.
Little Wolf nodded. “Good shooting.” Lisa thanked him, and let him recover the arrows and return to his work.
“How is it that you two are such good shots?” Lisa asked.
“Everyone learns to shoot,” Jane said. “My folks didn’t have any other kids. Alek’s didn’t have any that lived.” She smiled shyly. “That’s why we’re friends.”
“I see. Well, we are going to need good archers. Tell you what: we can’t feed you dinner, but you’re welcome to join us in the morning. Be here at breakfast, or we leave without you.”
“Thanks.” Jane shook Lisa’s hand awkwardly. Alek nodded, and the two jogged back to the village.
Lisa walked back to the wagons. Wayne and Little Wolf were still struggling the trade goods. “Any luck yet?” she asked Wayne.
“Not yet,” he said. “Everything we try leads to a shaky pile.” He glanced around. “You’d think the least those folks could do is lend us a wagon. It’s not like they don’t have trees.”
“Or wood homes,” Donna added.
“We can’t force them to deal with us,” Lisa said.
“I know.” Wayne nodded towards the town. “What did those two kids want?”
“To join us.”
“They are good shots,” Little Wolf said.
“We don’t have any spare horses,” Wayne said. “Can they drive a wagon?”
“I doubt it,” Lisa answered. “And with the load problem, I don’t want to find out. They look pretty healthy; they can walk.”
“I’ll bet their parents won’t like that.”
“Nothing we can do about...” Lisa stopped. An idea began to form in her head.
“What?”
“What? Oh, just thinking. Wayne, figure out if there’s a way to load the wagons so our stuff stays just stable enough.”
“Just stable enough?”
“Trust me.”
***
Lisa felt a bit guilty about not joining her friends in their breakfast conversation. She was just too nervous to talk. She had too much to worry about. She could barely eat.
Jane and Alek arrived right on time. She introduced them to Wayne, and told him to show them their goods and the displays. She apologized to them about not having horses. She let them see the problem of the overloaded wagons to explain to them why they wouldn’t be driving one. The two teens accepted the situation without protest.
The group started out immediately after breakfast. They would have to go through Two Forks to get on the road up to Quail. They moved slowly due to the wagons. As they moved through the town people gathered on either side. The man Reed glared at her, but most looked on dispassionately. Let’s hope there’s more curiosity than hostility, she thought.
When the group was about halfway through town a brown-haired woman burst through the crowd. A thin man walking with a crutch trailed behind. The woman waved indignantly at Reed. “Why’s my girl walking?” she demanded. “Why don’t you do something?” Reed didn’t reply. The woman dashed in front of Lisa’s wagon.
Lisa yanked on the reigns. The horses stopped abruptly. The wagon jerked to a halt. Lisa turned away from the woman to look at the goods in the wagon bed. Those at the top of the pile swayed perilously, then lurched away. “Wayne!” yelled Lisa.
Wayne and Kathy urged their mounts to make a sudden left turn. They arrived behind the wagon in time to stop the goods from falling off. Lisa breathed a long sigh of relief, then turned back to the woman.
“Why ain’t my girl on a horse or a wagon?” Jane’s mother asked. “Why’s she and the mute walking?”
Lisa took another breath to calm herself. “We don’t have enough horses or wagons,” she said, her voice even. “If we had another wagon, I could let Jane and Alek drive it. I’ll trade whatever you want for two more horses, or a wagon.”
“Then why didn’t you do that yesterday?”
“Mister Reed doesn’t want to make any deals with us”
The woman shot a glance at Reed. “Why don’t you let them have Frank’s old lumber wagon? Maybe we could use some of the stuff these folks got.”
A dark-haired man a few yards away from Reed nodded. “If they’re willing to give us some stuff,” he said, “I’m willing to get rid of it.”
“You know if any of that stuff is any good?” Reed asked the crowd.
“We’ll let you examine everything before you accept it,” Lisa said.
Reed snorted. “Well, that don’t matter anyway.” He looked at Frank. “You ain’t got a horse to pull that cart.”
Another man pushed forward. His lined face was passive, his voice soft. “I’ve got a pony that’ll pull it.” He turned to Lisa. “I’ll let you have it, if you swear you won’t let any harm come to my Alek.”
Lisa glanced at the ground, then faced him. “I can’t promise that, sir. But I’ll do my best to keep your son safe. We do take care of each other.”
She expanded her gaze to include the crowd. Opportunity was in her arms, and she wasn’t about to let it go. “In fact, that’s why we’re here. We want to trade with you because we want to be friends with you. We want to be friends with every town that trades with us, and we want the towns to be friends with each other. And not just the towns on this world, but on others as well.
“When we take care of each other, we can make all our lives better. It’s like this: one town has some extra meat, but no one to shoe their horses. The town down the road doesn’t have enough meat, but they’ve got a good blacksmith. If they help each other, they form a bond. They keep helping each other, that bond gets stronger. When something bad happens, they can join forces and solve that problem.
“Before the Rain, people worked together in all sorts of little ways. But they didn’t always help each other out. That’s why the Rain happened in the first place. If we don’t start helping each other, not only won’t life get better, but we might just have to suffer through another Rain.”
Lisa looked directly at Reed but kept speaking to the crowd. “Check everything we have to trade. That’s fine. If we don’t have any goods, we can trade information. We’ll deal with you fairly. All we ask is that you do the same to us.”
Lisa turned to Alek’s father. “Your son is willing to trust us. I hope you are, too. If something happens to him, I know what I say won’t make much difference. I hope you feel better about him coming with us, now that you know what we’re trying to do.”
The man looked down for a moment, then nodded once to her. “If you’ll treat him like a man, and give him a place, that’s good enough for me. I’ll get you that pony.”
“Thank you.” Lisa stepped off the wagon. She shook his hand before letting him leave. She looked at the man called Frank. “You want to bring that wagon, of would you like to look over our goods first?”
“I’ll bring the wagon,” he replied. “You might need to fix it up a little before you take it with you.”
“No problem,” she said with a smile, “as long as it rolls.” The man nodded, then walked away. Lisa climbed off the wagon and walked up to Reed. “We’re not here to tell you how to run your town, or hurt anyone, or steal from you. We just want to do some good.” She offered her right hand, and hoped.
This time he shook her hand.
***
Lisa didn’t know what to expect as her newly-enlarged group approached the town of Quail. She didn’t tell anyone what they might expect. She decided not to play that little game; it was too stressful. Instead, she simply wanted to get there and see what happened.
“If we get our hopes up,” she explained to Wayne, “and they act like Reed did at first, we’ll all feel bad. If go expecting nothing, we might not be at our best, and we end up getting what we expect.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Wayne said. “There it is.”
Quail looked very similar to Two Forks. All the buildings were wood, homes far outnumbered other buildings, and there were no signs of trading activity. A crowd gathered in the center of town as Lisa’s group came closer. As her wagon neared the outskirts of the village, Lisa saw another road cut into the forest heading south.
That isn’t on my map, she thought. She rummaged through her traveling sack for the map Coe had given her. It didn’t show a road going south. I wonder why that’s there?
She called for a halt when her wagon came within a few paces of the crowd. She stepped down and took a step forward. A husky man with bushy blonde beard met her and stuck out his hand.
“Harry Volkman,” he said.
“Lisa Herbert.” She shook his hand.
“You folks from Great Junction?”
“More or less. We’re from other worlds, but yes, we passed through there to get up here.”
“Oh. So, you aren’t here to do any trading?”
“Uh, yes, we are, actually. We’re just trading between worlds, instead of just towns.”
Volkman smiled. “Oh, that’s great. We’ve been hoping that somebody would bother to come up here. What you got?”
Lisa raised her hands. “Give us a few moments to set up our displays.”
“Oh, yeah, go right ahead.”
Lisa turned around. “Set them up!”
She and her friends were peppered with questions while they were setting up. People asked what was going on in Great Junction and elsewhere. They asked Lisa if the portals were in use again. They asked if the people of Two Forks were doing okay.
Once the goods were out the questions stopped and the deals started. Seeds and tools were in the greatest demand. Offers included smoked meat, arrows, three horses, and a wagon. Lisa accepted everything but the wagon.
She also wanted information, but was so busy that she didn’t have time to ask. When the group was invited to dinner she accepted, and made certain to grab a seat next to Volkman.
“Your people are pretty happy to see us,” she said.
“We heard that trading was going on out west,” Volkman replied. “We’d hoped that someone would come up this way. We know we’re just getting by. We’ve felt so isolated. And old Keith Dashner raised hopes so much.”
“Who?”
“Yeah, you probably never heard of him. Dashner lived down in Custer. I think he was some kind of town leader there. Anyway, a few years back he had this idea of getting the towns out here trading again. Maybe get some wagons out to Great Junction, even.”
Lisa knew she wasn’t the first to try reviving trade. After all, that was her father’s job, and his father’s job before him. Add to that Great Junction and the Rangers, and she felt like a bit of a latecomer. It had also become clear that not everyone had succeeded. Others were content to stick to their modest efforts. Most of all, of course, no one had tried to trade between worlds.
“You see that road going south?” Volkman asked. “He led the effort to get it cut out of the trees. Goes down to Custer, then all the way to Pine Needle City. It’s not like the old paved roads, but we’re still pretty proud of it.
“Well, that road got built, along with a few wagons. I think he managed to get to Red Cloud to get horses. He managed to make a couple runs, and everyone thought things were gonna get better.”
“What went wrong?”
“Outlaws, that’s what. Nobody knows where they came from, but boy, they came.”
Oh, I bet I know, Lisa thought.
“They never killed, but they stole. They even took one of the wagons. Broke old Dashner’s heart. When he heard that some of the stuff was being traded out west, well, that was that. I hear he just up and died.”
“And no one’s tried to follow his lead?”
“Nope.”
“No one tried to hunt down those outlaws?”
Volkman shook his head. “Most of them disappeared once the wagons stopped going. Around here we have had some food stolen, and a man up from Custer to visit his cousin said he thought someone was living the woods near the road. He also said they’ve had some food taken.
“Still, you made it up here safe and sound. Maybe those bastards gave up and moved somewhere else. I hope they starved to death.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
The story stuck with Lisa the rest of the evening. It wasn’t the danger of an outlaw attack that troubled her. That was always a strong possibility. Groups were obvious targets of attack. A group with weapons, food, and trade goods was even more threatened. She was prepared for attack, and was surprised that they had gotten this far without being attacked.
What bothered her was how quickly people had been discouraged. A few robberies shouldn’t be enough to stop such a worthwhile effort. You don’t learn anything without making mistakes. You can’t change things without running into problems. You have to keep going, whether that “you” is a person or a society.
What seemed worse was that when the man driving this effort gave up, everyone else did too. It was possible that the man Dashner was no great leader. He might have been just a man with an idea. Maybe he didn’t consider what would be involved. Maybe he didn’t prepare for trouble.
There was nothing wrong with his idea. Just because something goes wrong as you put it into practice doesn’t mean you give up. You fix what went wrong and you try again.
What does that mean for what I’m doing? she wondered. If something happens to me, will they go on? Could they go on?
Maybe I need to plan for that.