In spite of the reasonable words Trev kept an obstinate silence going for almost a minute. “Yeah, me too,” he finally admitted with a sigh. “And I do like our neighbors down there. They don’t have to be such jerks about everything, though.”
His cousin chuckled. “They’re fighting tooth and nail to survive. They’ll be just as big jerks as they need to be.” He clapped Trev on the shoulder. “Relax, I’m exaggerating the situation a bit. They might be resentful because we started out better off than them, but once we’re all ground into the dirt and depending on each other to survive they’ll come around. Even in these desperate circumstances they are still capable of gratitude.”
I hope so, Trev thought as he followed his cousin down the gap, but he’d been enough of a downer for the day. “It’s good to see Matt though, isn’t it?”
“Even if he came like a beggar,” Lewis grumbled. Maybe he wasn’t quite done venting yet.
They reached the river and crossed it cautiously over the familiar but always treacherous stones, waving to the two people waiting for them on the other side. Trev thought he recognized Tom as one of the refugees who’d been heading up to inspect the gunshots last fall, but he definitely recognized Jane. If her copper-bright hair hadn’t been enough there was the confident way she stood with her hand on her pistol, same as when she’d prepared to draw it when she’d seen him gathering up the bandits’ guns last Halloween.
She was also cute. He hadn’t really seen her close enough last time to catch that detail. And she was tall, probably only a few inches shorter than him. And while she was skinny she didn’t look quite as starved as Tom, or as Matt had for that matter.
She was also looking at them suspiciously. “Where’s Matt?” she demanded.
Lewis answered calmly as he hopped the last few stones. “Up at our place eating a meal,” he lifted the pot he held. “I brought your share down for you. You don’t mind camping in a cave, right? We’ve got a good secluded overhang beneath the cliffs on the other side of the river that should shelter you from the cold and weather at least a bit, and we’ve got firewood.”
Jane shrugged and took her hand away from her pistol. “That’s fine. Matt told us you were paranoid.”
Trev hopped onto the far shore in time to see his cousin smile slightly. “Who isn’t these days?” He held out his hand. “I’m Lewis. This is my cousin Trevor.”
“Trev,” Trev corrected, holding out his hand to shake after his cousin. She had a firm grip, but she seemed in a hurry to let go of both their hands.
Tom stepped forward to introduce himself and shake hands as well, after which Jane gave a quick glance at each of their faces and hesitantly spoke up. “On behalf of my group I wanted to thank you for saving us last winter.” She sounded a bit stiff and awkward, but then again how exactly do you casually thank a complete stranger for something like that?
Trev glanced over at Lewis, wondering if his cousin was going to deny their involvement in the matter out of caution. But Lewis just nodded slightly. “You’re welcome.”
For some reason the reply seemed to irk the redheaded woman, and she scowled slightly. “Well don’t look too proud of yourselves, it was only our lives!” she snapped.
She was chastising them about a poor response? Trev felt himself starting to get annoyed as well, and he certainly felt like he had more justification. “Not just yours. You know my cousin got shot in the leg trying to help you? I had to drag him back to our hideout and remove the buckshot myself. You said “thanks” but you don’t sound very grateful.”
Jane flushed until her face nearly matched her hair, looking too abashed to respond. Instead it was Tom who replied. “It meant more to her than you realize. Her dad was killed by those bandits a few days before you ran into them. You not only protected us but also avenged his death.”
Trev was going to argue that she still didn’t sound very grateful, but Lewis calmly cut him off. “We didn’t do it for gratitude, although we’re happy to know you made it out of the mountains safely.” He addressed the words to both of them but his eyes were on Jane. “Did your dad have a gun?”
She stiffened, starting to look a bit outraged. “A .30-30 with a scope.”
“The bandits had it. We’ll make sure it gets back to you.” His cousin looked at her expression and sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re grateful and we were happy to help. Let’s keep this friendly, okay?”
“It is friendly,” she insisted, sounding frustrated. “I just… I’m not good at this sort of thing.”
“Fair enough.” Lewis hefted the pot again. “Probably too late to eat this warm, but you’ll probably want to get to it before it freezes. Should we go get you set up in your camp?”
A half hour later they left the two with their tents set up and a small fire crackling at the mouth of the long, deep overhang beneath the cliffs. Dense trees and underbrush covered the opening just beyond the fire, which would keep out most of the wind. Matt’s companions had elected to heat the food over the small blaze, probably a wise choice, so they left them with the pot as they picked their way through the dense undergrowth along the cliffs to the gap.
“Should we cover our tracks?” Trev asked, looking over his shoulder at their deep prints in the snow.
Lewis shrugged. “We’re not going to be here tomorrow, and those two don’t seem like the sort to share secrets. Anyway if we do decide to head back up here at a later date and the location of our hideout gets out, I hope anyone who comes for it is ready to brave a long trip through an extreme environment and two armed men just to get at whatever we might have in our little shoebox home.”
“I suppose.” Trev climbed the gap after his cousin and followed him up the gentle slope.
When they entered their hideout they found Matt sprawled on Trev’s cot sleeping, but he jolted awake as soon as he heard the door opening and sat up. “Well?” he asked as Trev and Lewis sank into the chairs facing him.
“We’ll sell the food and accept IOUs for it,” Lewis said. “But when we collect on the IOUs we get to decide whether to value the food at what it’s worth now or what it’s worth when we call in our debt.”
Their friend grinned. “That’s fair enough.”
Lewis held up a stern finger to silence him. “The town will also, to the best of their ability, return all non-consumables Ferris stole from us. I’ll draw up a list. And we’ll be moving back into our shelter with the assurance that it’ll be protected the same as the rest of the town. Finally, we trust you and Mayor Tillman, but it would still be nice to hear some assurances directly from her that none of our stuff is going to be “confiscated” in the future and that we won’t be kicked out of our home again.”
Matt shifted uncomfortably. “Um, about that…”
Trev frowned. “You don’t think the town will go for our terms? They seem pretty reasonable.”
“Oh no, they will!” his friend hastily assured them. “At least I’m pretty sure they will. I just, uh, need to tell you something about your shelter.”
Lewis’s eyes narrowed alarmingly. “You better not be about to tell me the town housed refugees in our shelter over the winter.”
“They didn’t, I swear!” Matt said, waving his hands. Then he shifted uncomfortably again. “Actually the town put refugees in our house, Jane’s group to be exact. Because, um, my family moved into your shelter.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence, then Lewis nodded. “Okay.”
Both Trev and their friend stared. “What?” Trev asked.