aching left wrist was her tell that something about a situation made her uneasy—and the more severe the ache, the more dire the situation.
“I have listened,” Tolya said again. “But perhaps I’m not understanding?”
He watched her anger fade. Her right hand still cuffed her left wrist, but the hold was looser now. He wondered if her wrist would be bruised.
“What are we doing here?” Jesse Walker asked. “Are we just cleaning up what will become a ghost town with a few people manning the train station or are we doing something more?”
An important question. Looking at her, Tolya realized his answer would do more than decide the fate of this town. It would ripple throughout Thaisia in the same way that Simon Wolfgard’s decision to hire Meg Corbyn had started ripples that were part of the reason he was here in this town trying to figure out this woman.
If Simon were standing here right now, Tolya would cheerfully snap the Wolf’s neck. Then again, if he tried to be fair, Simon hadn’t known that taking in one stray human female would end up with the terra indigene trying to help—and even protect—packs of humans.
“Not a ghost town,” he said carefully. “Bennett is no longer a human-controlled town, but that doesn’t mean it has to decay.”
“Or that its workers are transient?”
“They aren’t meant to be transient. Some of the young humans who have come here don’t feel this is the right place. They came for adventure … or something.”
“They came for opportunities,” Jesse Walker countered. “They came because their home communities in the Northeast Region are crowded and it’s hard to find work, hard to learn a skill. And many of them left home for the adventure. But they also left what they knew because, suddenly, there are a lot of empty human places in the Midwest and Northwest. I have the feeling that there won’t be any new human places. Not for a long time. Not in Thaisia. Humans made too many mistakes over the past few months for the terra indigene to tolerate us anyplace we aren’t already established. So if the empty places aren’t reinhabited now, they’ll fade away.”
“I don’t think the Elders will allow humans to move back into those empty places,” Tolya said.
“Not alone, no. But there are terra indigene and Intuits working together here to take care of animals and make decisions about the food in the houses. And there’s a lot more that needs to be done. Decisions have to be made about every single thing in every single residence.”
“I can’t do that,” he protested.
“Neither can I. That’s why you need more than strong young men who will happily eat all the ice cream and cookies they find in the empty residences but don’t know what to do with the medicines. And whether those Elders of yours were justified in killing everyone in Bennett, those people may still have family somewhere who would appreciate having the personal effects. Having young men with a lot of energy and strong backs is great, but you also need skilled labor and professionals if you want this to be a viable town. Why can’t we create a place where terra indigene and Intuits and Simple Life folk and other kinds of humans can live and work together? Learn from each other. I got the impression that the Lakeside Courtyard and the Intuits in Ferryman’s Landing were trying to do exactly that—build a new community that had room for everyone.”
“Dangerous.” Tolya looked out the big front window of Bennett’s general store. “If the wrong kind of human comes here …”
“I know. No one can afford to make a mistake.”
“Then how do you suggest we get these new citizens?”
They heard the clip-clop of a horse coming down the street. Barbara Ellen Debany, their pet caretaker and almost-vet, waved at them as she passed the store.
“Same way you got her,” Jesse Walker said, smiling as she released her left wrist long enough to return the wave. “Have someone else screen the candidates before they get here, and then you make the final decision about who you want living in this town.” She took a folded piece of paper out of the back pocket of her jeans and handed it to him. “Ideally, those are the professions and skills you should have in Bennett for starters.”
Tolya unfolded the paper. His eyebrows rose as he studied the list. Then he looked at Jesse Walker. “Anyone from Prairie Gold who might want to fill
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