forbidden (illicitus) wrote in the_colony, @ 2011-02-02 18:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 33, alice munroe, thomas galloway, | alice and tom, ~ series: traders |
Week 33: Thursday
Characters:Tom, Alice, Evie, and Noah
Location: Farmhouse
Summary: The leaders of the Colony and Evie’s traders make a deal.
Rating: PG
Trading for services rather than goods always complicated things a little, in Evie’s experience. She enjoyed the concept, and typically trading services often meant a bigger payout and a larger haul, but she hated the idea of having to be rooted to a spot until things were finished. While it was true that her people --which she’d come to start calling her tribe ever since realizing she was pregnant-- had gracefully adopted her nomadic ways, it was always hard to leave a place when attachments were made. It was why they were heading back up to Orchardtown; partly out of attachments to the people and place there, and partly to keep from becoming too strongly attached to the New Vegas Farmstead.
Evie also had to be careful not to let their goods bleed over too much. Shared meals were good, and it meant not relying wholly on their own stock, but it also meant having something to bring to the table and she was a hoarder by nature given her current state. Noah, Zeke and Orin had sat down with her the prior morning to plan out a scout-around of the area for scavenging and trap-laying for meat, with the potential for a bit of game hunting if they could find droppings and tracks. After the other two men had left, Noah and her had parsed through how much time and energy they could afford to put out for the trade. Builds would need a lot more goods in payment, but working the land was an easy exchange; the more land they worked, the more goods they could potentially return for come harvest time. When it became clear that they couldn’t continue on without speaking to their modest host, Evie sent Noah out to check if he was available and retrieve him or make plans for the next available bit of time.
Tom had responded to the request with a suggestion that the other leader and her second join himself and Alice for a working lunch a bit later in the day. The former soldier wasn’t thrilled with the idea of wheeling and dealing but it was part of the job. He knew that Evie had to be a shrewd negotiator, and he would rather meet at a time and place of his choosing than in her comfort zone.
Alice, on the other hand, had worked with Evie at least twice before. Granted, both were much shorter deals, but they’d came out with both parties satisfied. Things would be different this time around, though. Much, much more different.
She wasn’t sure how much the two traders would bring with them to their arranged lunch, so for safety’s sake she went ahead and made plenty for four people (with second helpings to spare, for Evie’s sake). It wasn’t anything too fancy --just beans and rice with canned chicken and a little fruit cocktail-- but it was quick to make on such a short notice. Tom helped out with the meal preparation in the interests of time and because it was the right thing to do rather than make her do all the work.
Her only real worry was that she wouldn’t be in sync with Tom during the deal, and she didn’t want them to come off too unprofessional. On both previous trades, she’d been the one to handle most of the legwork; Jed had mostly been quiet, and the one time Cassidy had came along all she’d really done was nitpick her decisions afterward. Tom’s a better guy, though, she reminded herself as she and Tom set about prepping the table space.
Despite her size, Evie still moved pretty good, so Noah only had to shorten his strides a little as they made their way to the New Vegas house. To anyone watching, it was just a pleasant stroll, but Noah took it as a good opportunity to get the lay of the land, and see just what this bunch was up to in the middle of the day. Almost unconsciously he took Evie’s arm as they reached the stairs.
“Think we can just go in, or we gotta wait for a formal invite? Like vampires,” he added with a grin.
The matching grin that immediately broke across her face made it that much more obvious that they were siblings to anyone who might not have been sure. “Wouldn’t that be something,” she answered, amused. “Nah, I think if they’re cooking, that should be invite enough.”
Almost on cue, Tom appeared at the door. He’d been keeping an eye out for them once he and Alice had the meal going, and extended a hand to help Evie up. “Welcome, glad you could make it.”
Soon enough everyone was seated working on clearing their plates of tasty food.
“It’s too bad there isn’t any fresh cilantro in this,” Evie said, helping herself to another portion of the main course. “But I bet you could probably grown some in a window box. Spices’ll be important to have.”
“Bridget has been after me to put in some kind of herb garden,” Tom responded after a sip of water. He’d finished his own food and simply waited politely for the others to do the same before getting down to business. “She says she’d do it herself but mobility isn’t her strong suit these days. I guess her mother used to have a large kitchen garden when she was a girl and she wants to recreate it here.” He shook his head. “I have a two-page list of different kinds of plants she wrote out last month.”
Evie giggled good-naturedly in response. “I can certainly sympathize. We have a few small containers floating around camp, but room is limited and the water waste always makes me a little anxious.”
“Water isn’t really an issue here,” Tom nodded his understanding. “If anything I’m more worried about the river flooding during the rainy seasons than I am a drought. There isn’t anyone around to maintain dams and levies anymore.”
“You can deal with that with sand bags,” Noah said after swallowing a mouthful and taking a sip from his own glass. “And dikes aren’t hard to handle.”
“I’m familiar with sand bags, more than I care to remember.” The veteran shrugged. He wasn’t quite as sanguine about the issue as the younger man was, but he had a healthy paranoia where mother nature was concerned.
“We’re from upstate Washington,” Evie replied, oblivious. “So technically so are we, though we definitely didn’t grow up as close to the river as you guys are currently living.”
“My experience was more for using them to build blast walls than for keeping out water, but the principle is the same I suppose.” Tom glanced over at Alice, then decided it was time to get to the point of the luncheon. “So how long do you think you’d be willing to stick around? We have a couple different projects we could use the extra manpower for and I’m sure you have all manner of goodies to tempt us into trading you all our worldly goods.” The last bit was said with a humorous smile, looking for a laugh out of the siblings.
Evie smirked, continuing to munch away at her meal, though after a moment her expression turned thoughtful and she looked sideways at her brother.
“We do have plans with another group up north in a month or so,” she said after a moment. “So
at least for that long, and we can certainly swing by again once we’re done. Shouldn’t be two weeks up there at the most.”
Alice’s brow furrowed as a few different stray thoughts warred for attention in her head. If the traders were already heading up in that direction, she wondered if there was any way to convince Evie to act as ambassadors on their behalf, but she bit the words back before they fully formed. Evie was a businesswoman first and foremost; she wouldn’t have time for politics, and she probably wouldn’t trade on their behalf unless she was turning some sort of profit.
Picking up his sister’s train of thought, Noah said, “Trading goods will be easy enough. With the labor, though, we gotta figure on how many hands you need, what you need doing, and whether you wanna pay by project or by hour. Then we can give you an opening bid and take it from there.”
“The more hands we have, within reason, the faster the work will get done.” Tom tapped his fingers on the table, thinking. “It would probably be cheaper to pay by project than by hour. We want to add a wing to this house, finish the greenhouse, crops will need to go in too but it might be too soon to plant before you leave.” He wanted to go overboard this year when it came to planting crops. It was better to worry about where they were going to put it all than worry if they were going to have enough to make it through next winter and have enough left to plant the following spring.
He glanced over at Alice. “Am I forgetting anything?”
“The guard tower,” she replied with a nod. “And we could use a few extra hands when we go hunting down the solar panels.” Pausing long enough to take a sip of water, she added, “We could certainly till the land’n stuff with your guys’ help.”
“Right, thanks.” This is why he kept her on as his second, among other things. The woman had a mind like a steel trap when it came to remembering details. He returned his attention to Evie. “We could probably get all those projects done before the snow flies next winter, but your help would definitely get things done faster if we can make a deal.”
“Well, there’s two ways we could go at it,” Evie said after a moment. “We could either attack each project and go at it until it’s finished, or get them all started at once.”
“The guard tower has priority, but with some help I can’t see it taking more than a week. I want us to have more warning if strangers show up on our doorstep, and it would be an excellent spot to place one of the longer ranged weapons we scavenged from the national guard armory back in the fall.”
“Well, we could all pitch in on the the tower first, and then split up when it comes to the other projects,” Noah said, leaning back. “But the more folks we have on a project, the more it’ll cost.”
“Understandable.” Tom nodded. “Other than taking care of the animals and chopping wood there isn’t a whole lot that needs to get done outside of guard and cooking shifts. We can put a fair number of people on it. How handy are your folks?”
“I’d say pretty handy,” Evie said coyly, finishing off her plate and taking a long gulp of water. “You point us in the direction, we’ll make it work. But s’far as guard and cooking shifts... can’t say we can really contribute to either of those outside of maybe sharing meals.”
“Nobody was asking you to,” Tom replied. “I don’t have a problem sharing meals when we have mixed work crews, but guard duty is a separate item. Guard tower first, then we can work on the addition and greenhouse at the same time. We’ve already relocated a fair amount of the building material we’ll need, so that should make things go faster. Help us with the building, and possibly help in planting some crops if the weather’s good enough before you leave and we’ll give you a portion of the harvest.”
“One third of the harvest and half of any goods looted while we’re here,” Evie replied smoothly.
“Not a chance in hell Evie.” Tom laughed. He might not like wheeling and dealing, but he recognized a bad deal when he saw one. “If that’s your best offer we’ll just handle it ourselves. You can have five percent of the harvest and ten percent of any goods looted from our territory while you’re here.”
“Your territory?” Noah said, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t realize you’d owned anything besides the land you worked on.”
“As far as I’m concerned Grants Pass is our turf.” Tom replied evenly. “We live here, we’ve explored it and we’ll take action if someone who isn’t a friendly decides to set up shop in it.” He leaned back. “Your first offer was unreasonably high. Mine may be low but it’s my starting position, you don’t like it give me something that’s more reasonable.”
Evie gave Alice and Tom a long, measured look before turning her eyes to Tom with a patient smile. “I’m not sure if you understand how bartering typically works. The person providing the goods and services sets the bid, and the one wanting the goods and services tries to talk them down until they’re both satisfied. You throwing a low ball straight up is guaranteed to make the person with the bid either--” she ticked off the two points on her hand, “--bid higher in spite, or leave. But I’m an understanding woman. I can let you give it one more shot.”
“I’m an understanding man, Evie.” Tom considered his words carefully, as his first instinct was to revert back to Sergeant Major mode and tell her to go fuck herself and end the meeting then and there. Fortunately he was old enough not to blurt the first thing that came to mind. “And perhaps my bid was too low, but yours was an insult to my intelligence. If you help us with the planting and harvest you can have a fifth of the crops.” They’d just have to plant that much more to compensate. “As for the looting, that’s a bit more of a trickier issue. How do we mutually decide how much items are worth? I’m open to suggestions but half is an awful lot.”
The whole exchange was eating its way through Alice’s patience. She understood exactly what Evie was doing, and had handled it twice before. She knew the woman aimed high because she was guaranteed to get what she wanted regardless. By all accounts, Alice found that she typically doubled what her lowest acceptable amount was. Rounding down, half of thirty is fifteen and half of fifty is twenty-five...
“Tom, can we talk for a minute in private?”
Tom glanced over at Alice curiously, then nodded before returning his attention to Noah and Evie as he rose from his seat. “Excuse us for a moment.”
He walked down the hall to his room and closed the door once Alice followed him inside. “All right, let’s have it.” He told her with a wry smile. “I’ve done what you did just now to enough young officers who were about to make fools of themselves that I can recognize it when someone else does it. What’s up?”
“She isn’t bidding high to insult your intelligence; she’s bidding high because she’s expecting to barter,” Alice said without preamble, not sitting but swaying on her feet. “She did the same to me when they first came down. Regardless of all of this? She’s not losing anything, but we will be, and she knows that. You gotta separate your ego from the deal.”
“So what would you suggest?” Tom asked reasonably as he leaned against the wall, trying to do just as she suggested. “I started low and expected her to bid down from there, and she looks at me like a naughty schoolboy instead.”
It took all of Alice’s energy not to crack up laughing at the mental image, and she ploughed on: “That’s because we’re the ones who’re supposed to talk her down, not the other way around. The one with the goods is the one with the power, remember? We have theoretical goods, and everything else we have she doesn’t want. Assuming we don’t fuck up the crops altogether since who the hell here has ever really farmed large crops ever? The greenhouse back in Vegas was all Sam’s work.”
“And what do they have that we need aside from extra bodies?” Tom responded. “I was tempted to end the meeting after her opening bid. We’ve got plenty of food, we’ve got good ground for farming and enough seeds to figure out what the fuck we’re doing without starving. If we had three or four more able bodied people I wouldn’t even let them raid around here, they’ve got the entire fucking country to loot from after all.”
“Time,” Alice replied. “Extra bodies and time. Having all that extra time to be able to use to get more things, plant more crops, generate more supplies. And they also have goods, coming up from Mexico.” She shifted on her feet again. “And who knows, if we build a better rapport with them over the time, she may even lower it. Builds are heavy labor, Tom. It makes sense that she would ask for a bit more, knowing the potential risk involved.”
“I’m not giving her a third of the harvest or half of whatever is raided while they’re here.” Tom shook his head. “Intentional or not, it was insulting.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, working to let go of his irritation. “All right. Was my last bid too low or am I giving too much?”
“We don’t have to raid as much this month,” she countered. “And we’ll be sure to drag them along. They’ll probably have some new methods to observe, and we’ll get more stuff that way.” She paused briefly. “Do you trust me?”
“You even have to ask that?” Tom seemed to sag a little against the wall at the question, eyebrows coming together and lips tugging downward in a frown. “You really think I’ve been keeping you as my second for kicks all this time?”
Alice cracked a small smile. “Just making sure. Let me do the talking at the table. I’m pretty sure I can get it to a good place.”
“All right, probably better that way. This keeps up and I’d probably end up kicking them off the property in frustration.” Tom smiled back, only half joking. He opened the door and gestured for Alice to step through. “You go ahead and take over on this, show em’ how it’s done.”