Susie had brought the stretched van with Jock, Mattie, and the two townspeople. Susie let Mattie and Jock out at the store, and then went to drop off the other two at their homes. She pulled the small tank trailer with fuel.
Besides those waiting for food and water, there was a small group of people to see Dr. Bluhm. He’d brought what he thought he might need and began seeing people in the office of the store.
Claude was with Steven, and they helped Percy begin unloading the food from the Unimog. When the food was unloaded, Percy and Claude took the animals to his butcher shop. They unloaded the animals into the holding pens behind the shop. Claude would coordinate the butchering with Steven, to make the meat available for the orders Steven would take ahead of time.
When Susie and Percy both returned, Percy and Mattie walked down to the city hall to see Tom and the council. Percy had come prepared. Several people were waiting to see Percy there at the city hall. He asked them to wait until after he’d seen the council.
Mattie checked in with Tom, and then went off to find her friends. Percy hitched up the straps of his overalls and went into the council meeting room with Tom and the rest of the council. Several others crowded in to watch the proceedings.
“We can do this in private,” Tom said, surveying the group that wanted to watch.
“I’m okay with it,” Percy said. “In my view, this is their town and they have a right to know what decisions are being made, just like before the war.”
“That’s the way I feel, too,” Tom said. There were some murmurs from the council members, but Tom ignored them. He addressed those that had taken seats in the observers’ section of the meeting room.
“It’s okay to observe, but this is official business. Unless we open the floor for questions or comments, I expect everyone to keep it quiet while Mr. Jackson and the council discuss the matters before the council.”
Tom sat down at the head of the conference table and the members of the town council did as well. Tom motioned for Percy to take a seat. Percy took the proffered seat and opened the portfolio he’d brought with him.
“I guess we should let you know what’s happened and what we’ve come up with, before we start negotiating,” Tom said.
Abigail interrupted before Tom could continue. “We don’t have to explain anything to him. Just let him make his demands and we can do what we have to do. And I still think we should just seize the property and do what we want with it.” Her words brought some whispers from those observing.
“He’s not even close to the city limits,” Tom said, rather harshly. “We have no authority to seize anything outside the limits, and we may be on shaky ground doing what we are doing, if someone ever takes it to court, once the court system is up again. It’s just easier for everyone to know what is going on.
“Now. As I was saying, Percy, what we’ve done, based on what you indicated you’d be doing is assumed that the town owns everything in town that doesn’t have a local owner or local resident. Things like the Jiffy Quick store. It’s part of a chain and Rodney doesn’t own it. He was just manager. So it’s part of city property now. Not that there’s much use for it. It’s just an example.
“There are a lot of people that headed for the hills when this all started. We figure anything not tenanted is public property. We’ll keep track of everything, and if someone returns or has a claim, we’ll do something to correct the situation. There’s been quite a bit of scavenging already, but we’ve pretty much got that organized now, using your system of barter.
“We’re using Johnson’s warehouse to store things and Betty Lou is keeping track of where everything came from and where it goes. Most of us never realized how important some simple things are. Old newspapers have become very valuable, if you know what I mean.”
Percy smiled. “Toilet paper,” he said.
“Exactly. People are not throwing much of anything away and some are cataloging even little things that they have, with the intention of trading for things they need, just like you said. We figure to use the warehouse as a trading post for city property goods. The other businesses will do business as usual, just trading, bartering, and using gold and silver, like you said.
“Clarence, our mechanic, figured a simple way to get water, we just need more fuel. Alfred had a small deep well submersible pump in stock. We moved the generator from the phone company substation down to the maintenance building by the well and hooked it up. We can pump water and there’s enough power to use some other electrical stuff. We set up Howard’s big ham rig there and he keeps an eye on things while he monitors the radio during the day.”
Tom looked at Percy questioningly. “We’re giving him food credits, based on you saying you’d be buying some stuff the city has, to handle the well and generator.”
“It won’t be a problem,” Percy said. He pulled two plastic coin tubes from the pockets of his overalls. He removed a pad of his barter slips from the portfolio. “I’m prepared to make a few offers.” There were a couple of gasps and whistles at the glistening gold and silver.
The room was crowded with spectators by the time Percy and the council had concluded their deals. The city now had a treasury of ten one ounce gold coins, a hundred tenth ounce gold coins, a hundred twenty silver quarters and five hundred silver dimes. They also owned barter slips for a hundred gallons of gasoline, five hundred gallons of diesel, and food for two hundred individual meals.
In return, Percy now owned several items of town property, including the clinic shuttle bus, and the town’s agricultural museum and all its contents. No one seemed to understand why Percy wanted the museum, but Percy had offered what seemed a generous amount for it. Reasons why he wanted some of the other things weren’t quite clear to most, either.
He also gave the town additional gold and silver as his tax contribution for the following year. “We just figured an ounce of gold for each section, and an ounce for the improvements. I’ve got the six hundred forty at the estate, and then the other nine hundred sixty spread out,” Percy said, adding one one-ounce gold coin, five tenth ounce gold coins, a hundred silver quarters and two hundred fifty silver dimes to those already on the table. “We can adjust it next year, if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine, Tom said. “Geez,” he added staring at the gold and silver. “How we going to handle this?”
“I was figuring on opening a deposit account with Camden Dupree. I figure his bank is as safe as it ever was. You might consider doing the same.”
Tom saw a hand go up in the crowd. He smiled and acknowledged Dupree. Camden stood and said. “I’ll be glad to handle the money. For a fee.” Most of those in the room laughed.
Percy wasn’t sure what Tom intended to say, but Percy spoke first.” I’m okay with one tenth of one percent per transaction, accumulated until it is redeemable in round figures.”
It was obvious that Camden was figuring in his head. “That’s okay by me.” He looked around. “I’ll do the same with anyone. Gold, silver, and barter slips for labor, food, and fuel, like Mr. Jackson was talking about.” He looked at Percy.
“You said before the exchange rate for silver to gold is thirty-six to one. What is it for labor and food?”
Percy had figured to let that work itself out. He had a rough idea in mind. Since it had come up this early, he decided to voice his thoughts on the matter. “To keep it simple, what about a silver dime for a meal, a silver quarter for a day’s food, an hour’s labor, or a gallon of fuel. Would that work?”