people working with him would take responsibility for finding the food-processing plants that had survived the war. He explained how his group would also collect food from the houses and warehouse it to stock any small neighborhood stores, as well as the general store located on the town square.
Jesse wasn’t sure the Sanguinati appreciated the charts, but Fagen had thought through what his group wanted to do.
“The collection of food and distributing it is what you’ve been doing since arriving in Bennett,” Tolya said. “How is this different?”
“When we first came to Bennett, we came for the adventure and because we believed helping you secure the town would earn humans the right to have a place in the town’s future,” Fagen said. “We worked for room and board and, basically, spending money. And we worked for the town council—or you, as the mayor. But not everyone works for you now. You’ve got doctors and lawyers and dentists, and that’s a good thing. But those people will charge for their services, so those of us who are staying need to earn our own living because you need to pay the folks who are actually working for the town, like you and the sheriff and his deputies. Like the people who are needed to collect garbage and maintain the streets in summer and winter.”
“We will consider what you have said,” Tolya said.
Zeke’s proposal was much the same as Fagen’s, only Zeke and his group wanted to be the salvage business that cleared out houses. More charts explained how each house would have careful documentation so that jewelry would be taken to Kelley Burch for assessment and private papers would be packed up for the lawyers to review in an attempt to find any heirs who might have lived elsewhere and survived. Zeke’s group had information about a few towns—most of those places being no more than a handful of buildings—that, most likely, had been resettled by terra indigene. Part of the salvage business would be to drive out to those places with a van packed with goods that the Others might find useful: human clothes, books, games, canned goods that could tide someone over if the hunting was lean.
Tolya thanked the men and asked them to wait outside the room while he and the town council discussed their proposals.
Jesse wondered how much discussion there would be and how much had already been discussed by the Sanguinati using the terra indigene form of communication.
As soon as the door closed, Tolya turned to her. “You feel people. What do you think about them?”
Jesse considered what she’d felt during the meeting—and realized Tolya had been watching for her tell. But her left wrist hadn’t tingled or ached in warning. “Zeke and Fagen were among the first Intuit men who came to Bennett to help out. I think they have a frontier sense of adventure, much like the Intuits who settled Prairie Gold.” She smiled. “Much like the Intuits who still live in Prairie Gold. The people who came here from the Lakeside job fair all have skills we wanted for the community—not just the doctors and lawyers but the electricians and plumbers and carpenters too. And those people, who are skilled in their trades, have promised to hire youngsters as apprentices to learn those trades. People coming in now have to clear their own houses of the personal effects of those who lived there before them. It’s time to stop requiring sorting of goods to be part of every person’s workday. Let Zeke and Fagen start their own businesses to do what is needed.”
Tolya nodded, an indication that he had listened to what she’d said. Then he looked at the Wolves. “Virgil?”
“One of those stores is close to the new boundaries,” Virgil said. “I think the Elders would agree to expanding the town boundaries that much.”
“That store also has other stores nearby, like the one that has many different kinds of things,” Kane added.
“A department store?” Jana asked.
Kane shrugged. “It is a store with many things.”
“The other food store is too far beyond the new boundaries,” Virgil said. “It is in the wild country now. It would not be safe for humans to go there with new food.”
“But there would still be a lot of foodstuffs on the shelves or in the stock room,” Jesse said. “Most of the fresh food will have rotted by now, but the food in cans and jars should be good.”
“The terra indigene who have claimed some of the houses