Matt fidgeted helplessly. “Come on, that’s not quite fair. Nobody felt good about what happened to you. But at the same time it was a lot of food, and if Ferris was confiscating it anyway that meant the town was in that much better a position to survive the winter. You can’t really blame them for being happy about that.”
“Why not?” Lewis demanded. “They got enough to feed the town and all the refugees for what, a single day? And how many of those people ended up dying anyway? I had enough in there to survive for about 4 years, and Trev had about a third of that of his own! Let’s say we go back down there and give you what we cached because you said “pretty please”. If we work ourselves half to death and manage to scrape together more food storage will you come running to rob us blind the moment things look bad for the town again?”
He was doing this all wrong. Matt rubbed at his eyebrows. “Look, I told you Catherine’s in charge. She’s got one major rule the town lives by now: a person’s property is their own. No one, not even the government, has the right to take anything from anyone. We’ve exiled people, sent them out into the cold in the heart of winter, for theft.
“As for saying “pretty please” or expecting you to just give away anything you have, you should know me and Catherine better than that. I’m here to buy the food on behalf of the town. I probably should’ve mentioned that in the first place.”
Trev gave him a doubtful look. “Buy with what? Nothing’s more valuable than food these days.”
Matt waved at them again. “You look like you guys can feed yourselves if need be. There’s other things you can’t get for yourselves that the town can offer you. Ammunition for one.”
Lewis’s patience had been thin enough as it was, but at this it seemed to snap. “Does everyone in town think we’re an endless wellspring of food? As soon as there’s any trouble it’s off to Halsson and Smith for help, and we always get the short end of the stick. Do you realize how cheap wheat was, even after the Middle East Crisis? You could’ve each spent a couple hundred bucks and everyone in town would still be alive and still with a bit to spare. But no, you always look to us to bail y—”
Trev cut in. “Look, this arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere. You’ve made your request, Matt, and we’ve shared our objections. Why don’t you head inside and get some food. We’ll take some more food down to your friends and show them a good camping spot, and that’ll give us a chance to talk it over.”
Matt wanted to press the issue, but he knew his friend was right. He hadn’t done the best job representing the town’s interests or arguing their case, but for now better to let them think things through. They were both decent people, and if they thought they could manage without the food he had a feeling they’d sell it.
So he allowed himself to be led up to their hideout, which looked much different from when he’d last seen it. Although it was still tiny and didn’t seem adequate for two people cooped up there month after month. He’d thought the shelter felt crowded! It smelled a bit rank inside which was no surprise, but was surprisingly clean and, more importantly, blessedly warm.
Matt settled down in a chair with a grateful groan as Lewis dished him up a plate of food. When Trev had mentioned boiled wheat he hadn’t expected much, but from the smell of it that boiling had included a nice blend of savory spices, and the rabbit strips were tender and juicy. He wolfed it down as Lewis gathered up the rest to take down to Jane and Tom, while Trev disappeared for a while and came back with some sort of stick frame loaded with firewood strapped to his back.
He was nearly finished by the time his friends were ready to head down, but they insisted he stay there and rest while they went. Remembering that half their reason for going was so they could talk things over, Matt nodded and gave them his companions’ names along with brief descriptions. Then he settled back in his chair and put his hands over the fire as the door shut behind him, leaving him with just the dim light of the stove. It wasn’t so bad, though.
What would it be like to live here with Sam, hunting and trapping food and not having to worry about patrols or helping an endless stream of sick people or anything else? Aside from the smell he was surprisingly tempted by the idea.
“Were you really surprised?” Trev asked as he followed his cousin towards the cliffs.
Lewis glared back at him for a second before returning his eyes to the trail. “Of course not, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ticked. We were planning on going back to Aspen Hill once things warmed up a little!”
“We still can.”
“Think, Trev! Now that they’ve come sniffing after our food we’ve got the choice of saying yes and being the town heroes as we return to starve with them, or saying no and receiving a frosty welcome even though we haven’t done anything wrong.”
Trev frowned. “I wouldn’t exactly put it like that. They’re starving down there. I mean you saw how ragged Matt looked, and he had my cache to see him through the winter. Even if the townspeople know it’s not exactly fair you can’t blame people for resenting us a little when they had to watch loved ones starve to death and barely avoided that fate themselves, while come spring we head back into town all hale and hearty.”
“Why can’t I blame them? Unfair seems to be all we see when we deal with people these days. We give and give and give and they take and take and take and somehow we’re always the bad guys! And Matt! I guess he got the old saying “a friend in need is a friend indeed” completely backwards.” Lewis scooped up a handful of snow and flung it at a nearby tree, which probably didn’t provide much of an outlet for his anger since the powder immediately broke up into a cloud that only went a few feet.
“So we tell him no?” Trev asked. He understood his cousin’s feelings, and he certainly felt them, but his own desire to refuse was more about pragmatism than anger.
“No, we tell him yes.”
Trev blinked. “Run that by me again.”
“I forgot to ask Matt about our shelter, but it’s safe to assume people are living there. And if they’re living there they’re definitely using our woodpile. That ups the chances of them finding the cache underneath. Not to mention if everyone assumes we have more food they’re probably poking around the shelter looking for it, and beneath the woodpile isn’t that great a hiding place. For all we know it might already be gone, and Matt’s here asking permission rather than forgiveness.”
“Matt’s not a liar,” Trev argued.
“I know, but he might bend the truth on behalf of the town if things are really that desperate.” Lewis shrugged. “Besides, even if the cache is still there that just gets us back around to being the bad guys if we keep our own food for ourselves. Matt had a point that we can probably fend for ourselves if we really need to, and it would be nice to have the town grateful to us and owing us for the food they purchased. Besides, it’s almost planting season.”
Trev supposed his cousin had a point, but although he wasn’t as angry as Lewis he also didn’t feel as willing to roll over. “It’s still tempting to tell them to push off.”
“Short term, maybe.” Lewis shook his head. “One of our first talks when you made it down here from Utah Valley was about helping the community survive and thrive, not just to help ourselves but so that there’d be something worth surviving for. I still feel that way.” He smiled a bit ruefully. “I may have needed to vent some steam but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to come around.”