Lisa's Way

by Robert Collins

  Wayne and Kathy urged their mounts to make a sudden left turn. They arrived behind the wagon in time to stop the goods from falling off. Lisa breathed a long sigh of relief, then turned back to the woman.

  “Why ain’t my girl on a horse or a wagon?” Jane’s mother asked. “Why’s she and the mute walking?”

  Lisa took another breath to calm herself. “We don’t have enough horses or wagons,” she said, her voice even. “If we had another wagon, I could let Jane and Alek drive it. I’ll trade whatever you want for two more horses, or a wagon.”

  “Then why didn’t you do that yesterday?”

  “Mister Reed doesn’t want to make any deals with us”

  The woman shot a glance at Reed. “Why don’t you let them have Frank’s old lumber wagon? Maybe we could use some of the stuff these folks got.”

  A dark-haired man a few yards away from Reed nodded. “If they’re willing to give us some stuff,” he said, “I’m willing to get rid of it.”

  “You know if any of that stuff is any good?” Reed asked the crowd.

  “We’ll let you examine everything before you accept it,” Lisa said.

  Reed snorted. “Well, that don’t matter anyway.” He looked at Frank. “You ain’t got a horse to pull that cart.”

  Another man pushed forward. His lined face was passive, his voice soft. “I’ve got a pony that’ll pull it.” He turned to Lisa. “I’ll let you have it, if you swear you won’t let any harm come to my Alek.”

  Lisa glanced at the ground, then faced him. “I can’t promise that, sir. But I’ll do my best to keep your son safe. We do take care of each other.”

  She expanded her gaze to include the crowd. Opportunity was in her arms, and she wasn’t about to let it go. “In fact, that’s why we’re here. We want to trade with you because we want to be friends with you. We want to be friends with every town that trades with us, and we want the towns to be friends with each other. And not just the towns on this world, but on others as well.

  “When we take care of each other, we can make all our lives better. It’s like this: one town has some extra meat, but no one to shoe their horses. The town down the road doesn’t have enough meat, but they’ve got a good blacksmith. If they help each other, they form a bond. They keep helping each other, that bond gets stronger. When something bad happens, they can join forces and solve that problem.

  “Before the Rain, people worked together in all sorts of little ways. But they didn’t always help each other out. That’s why the Rain happened in the first place. If we don’t start helping each other, not only won’t life get better, but we might just have to suffer through another Rain.”

  Lisa looked directly at Reed but kept speaking to the crowd. “Check everything we have to trade. That’s fine. If we don’t have any goods, we can trade information. We’ll deal with you fairly. All we ask is that you do the same to us.”

  Lisa turned to Alek’s father. “Your son is willing to trust us. I hope you are, too. If something happens to him, I know what I say won’t make much difference. I hope you feel better about him coming with us, now that you know what we’re trying to do.”

  The man looked down for a moment, then nodded once to her. “If you’ll treat him like a man, and give him a place, that’s good enough for me. I’ll get you that pony.”

  “Thank you.” Lisa stepped off the wagon. She shook his hand before letting him leave. She looked at the man called Frank. “You want to bring that wagon, of would you like to look over our goods first?”

  “I’ll bring the wagon,” he replied. “You might need to fix it up a little before you take it with you.”

  “No problem,” she said with a smile, “as long as it rolls.” The man nodded, then walked away. Lisa climbed off the wagon and walked up to Reed. “We’re not here to tell you how to run your town, or hurt anyone, or steal from you. We just want to do some good.” She offered her right hand, and hoped.

  This time he shook her hand.

  ***

  Lisa didn’t know what to expect as her newly-enlarged group approached the town of Quail. She didn’t tell anyone what they might expect. She decided not to play that little game; it was too stressful. Instead, she simply wanted to get there and see what happened.

  “If we get our hopes up,” she explained to Wayne, “and they act like Reed did at first, we’ll all feel bad. If go expecting nothing, we might not be at our best, and we end up getting what we expect.”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Wayne said. “There it is.”

  Quail looked very similar to Two Forks. All the buildings were wood, homes far outnumbered other buildings, and there were no signs of trading activity. A crowd gathered in the center of town as Lisa’s group came closer. As her wagon neared the outskirts of the village, Lisa saw another road cut into the forest heading south.

  That isn’t on my map, she thought. She rummaged through her traveling sack for the map Coe had given her. It didn’t show a road going south. I wonder why that’s there?

  She called for a halt when her wagon came within a few paces of the crowd. She stepped down and took a step forward. A husky man with bushy blonde beard met her and stuck out his hand.

  “Harry Volkman,” he said.

  “Lisa Herbert.” She shook his hand.

  “You folks from Great Junction?”

  “More or less. We’re from other worlds, but yes, we passed through there to get up here.”

  “Oh. So, you aren’t here to do any trading?”

  “Uh, yes, we are, actually. We’re just trading between worlds, instead of just towns.”

  Volkman smiled. “Oh, that’s great. We’ve been hoping that somebody would bother to come up here. What you got?”

  Lisa raised her hands. “Give us a few moments to set up our displays.”

  “Oh, yeah, go right ahead.”

  Lisa turned around. “Set them up!”

  She and her friends were peppered with questions while they were setting up. People asked what was going on in Great Junction and elsewhere. They asked Lisa if the portals were in use again. They asked if the people of Two Forks were doing okay.

  Once the goods were out the questions stopped and the deals started. Seeds and tools were in the greatest demand. Offers included smoked meat, arrows, three horses, and a wagon. Lisa accepted everything but the wagon.

  She also wanted information, but was so busy that she didn’t have time to ask. When the group was invited to dinner she accepted, and made certain to grab a seat next to Volkman.

  “Your people are pretty happy to see us,” she said.

  “We heard that trading was going on out west,” Volkman replied. “We’d hoped that someone would come up this way. We know we’re just getting by. We’ve felt so isolated. And old Keith Dashner raised hopes so much.”

  “Who?”

  “Yeah, you probably never heard of him. Dashner lived down in Custer. I think he was some kind of town leader there. Anyway, a few years back he had this idea of getting the towns out here trading again. Maybe get some wagons out to Great Junction, even.”

  Lisa knew she wasn’t the first to try reviving trade. After all, that was her father’s job, and his father’s job before him. Add to that Great Junction and the Rangers, and she felt like a bit of a latecomer. It had also become clear that not everyone had succeeded. Others were content to stick to their modest efforts. Most of all, of course, no one had tried to trade between worlds.

  “You see that road going south?” Volkman asked. “He led the effort to get it cut out of the trees. Goes down to Custer, then all the way to Pine Needle City. It’s not like the old paved roads, but we’re still pretty proud of it.

  “Well, that road got built, along with a few wagons. I think he managed to get to Red Cloud to get horses. He managed to make a couple runs, and everyone thought things were gonna get better.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Outlaws, that’s what. Nobody knows where they came f
rom, but boy, they came.”

  Oh, I bet I know, Lisa thought.

  “They never killed, but they stole. They even took one of the wagons. Broke old Dashner’s heart. When he heard that some of the stuff was being traded out west, well, that was that. I hear he just up and died.”

  “And no one’s tried to follow his lead?”

  “Nope.”

  “No one tried to hunt down those outlaws?”

  Volkman shook his head. “Most of them disappeared once the wagons stopped going. Around here we have had some food stolen, and a man up from Custer to visit his cousin said he thought someone was living the woods near the road. He also said they’ve had some food taken.

  “Still, you made it up here safe and sound. Maybe those bastards gave up and moved somewhere else. I hope they starved to death.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  The story stuck with Lisa the rest of the evening. It wasn’t the danger of an outlaw attack that troubled her. That was always a strong possibility. Groups were obvious targets of attack. A group with weapons, food, and trade goods was even more threatened. She was prepared for attack, and was surprised that they had gotten this far without being attacked.

  What bothered her was how quickly people had been discouraged. A few robberies shouldn’t be enough to stop such a worthwhile effort. You don’t learn anything without making mistakes. You can’t change things without running into problems. You have to keep going, whether that “you” is a person or a society.

  What seemed worse was that when the man driving this effort gave up, everyone else did too. It was possible that the man Dashner was no great leader. He might have been just a man with an idea. Maybe he didn’t consider what would be involved. Maybe he didn’t prepare for trouble.

  There was nothing wrong with his idea. Just because something goes wrong as you put it into practice doesn’t mean you give up. You fix what went wrong and you try again.

  What does that mean for what I’m doing? she wondered. If something happens to me, will they go on? Could they go on?

  Maybe I need to plan for that.

  CHAPTER 11

  Lisa stared at the trio of armed young men standing in the middle of the road. They wore ragged clothes; their weapons were scuffed by age. She could hear movement in the woods one either side of the road. These three had allies under cover.

  How many she didn’t dare to guess. She had fourteen on her side, not counting Wayne’s and Dave’s young children. If they were willing to confront her group they would need at least ten, including those three. She had two people with bows in front of each wagon. The eight riders had hand weapons.

  They could take on these outlaws, no question. The three in front of her looked pretty lean. Maybe they’ve faced warriors before, but more than likely they haven’t. While her opponents might be hungry and outmatched, they did have combatants under cover. Her side would probably win, but not without losses.

  Lisa remembered Coe’s warning about outlaws and robbers. That meant that killing them could make her a powerful enemy, or it could silence a source of information she’d need. It made fighting them awfully risky. That left her to choose between turning around and trying to talk to them.

  I’ll talk. They won’t be expecting that. Maybe that gives me an advantage.

  Lisa turned to her back to the trio and addressed her friends. “Nobody moves unless I say so. Got that? Keep your eyes open, but stay calm.”

  She turned to Little Wolf, sitting beside her. “If anything happens to me, you get them back Quail.” He nodded. She climbed off the wagon and walked up to the young men blocking the road.

  “My name is Lisa Herbert. I’d like to speak to who ever’s in charge.”

  The tallest of the three stepped forward. “That’s me. They call me Ned.”

  Lisa took a long look at him. He was close to Dave’s height, with wild brown hair and dark eyes. He was leaner than Dave or Wayne, but not in a starving way. She thought his age might be between hers and Wayne’s, but she wasn’t sure. Considering his lifestyle, he might just look older. He did carry himself like a young man.

  She walked up to Ned and stuck out her right hand. “Pleased to meet you.” He didn’t take her hand. She put it down, and continued. “My friends and I are heading to Custer to do some trading.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do some trading with us, first.”

  Here it comes. “What’s your offer, Ned?”

  “You let us have some of your stuff, and we’ll let you go to Custer.”

  She mouthed an “O” and nodded. She put her hands on her hips. “So, you want us to give you some of our goods. In exchange, you’ll let us continue on to Custer. That sounds a lot like a toll, there, Ned.”

  He smiled. “Yeah. So this here’s a toll road now.”

  “Oh, come on. This wasn’t built as a toll road. Only Earth had toll roads, and there you paid money. If it’s money you want, I can see if I still have a few Great Junction trade tokens.”

  Ned’s face darkened a shade. “Maybe you pay our toll now. Be a shame to hurt someone as pretty as you.”

  She ran her right hand through her red hair. “I’m glad you think I’m pretty, Ned.” She let out a breath. “But compliments won’t change my mind. If you want some of our goods, you’ll have to make us a better offer.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. You have any meat? Seeds? A decent cook?”

  “I don’t like that bitch’s tone, Ned,” one of the boys next to him said.

  Lisa smiled pleasantly. “I’m an honest person, Ned. I’m not fooling with you. You have something we want, and we can make a deal. See, we’ve come this way because we want better lives. You want a life, don’t you?”

  Ned smiled back, but more cynically. “Yeah, sure! One of these days I’ll get a big home and a pretty wife.”

  “I don’t mean that. Wouldn’t you like to go to sleep without worrying if someone will take your place in your group?”

  Ned didn’t reply immediately. Lisa felt her spirit rise. It didn’t take much experience to know how outlaw gangs worked. A leader rises up because he’s the biggest, the meanest, or maybe the smartest. Usually he gets there over the corpse of the old leader. He ends up having to worry about that happening to him. Knowing that Ned was thinking about that gave her an even greater advantage, and she employed it.

  “You have any children, Ned?”

  The other two snickered. “No,” he snapped. He regained his calm a moment later. He ginned at her. “You offering?”

  “I’m not your type. I bite.” Lisa put on a more pleasant expression. “I don’t have kids, either. Haven’t been looking to, really. Someday I will. I’d like to see them grow up. I’m sure you’d want to see your kids grow up, too.”

  She waved him to step closer to her. “My friends back there probably don’t want to pay your toll. They’re good fighters, Ned. They aren’t the best, but as you can see they’re well fed. They’d rather fight than give in to you. But, y’know, they’ll only follow me so long as they agree with me. Same with you, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, if your friends attack first, or my friends think you’re about to attack, we fight. If we fight, some of your friends will die, and some of mine will die. Nobody wants to die, right?”

  “Course not.” Ned shook his head and frowned. “Look, what are you talking about, anyway?”

  Lisa raised her hands, palms slightly inward. “Suppose your men escort us to Custer, and on south to Pine Needle City.” When he didn’t immediately answer, she continued. “That way, you’re helping us, and we can give you a reward. Y’know, pay you for your help. Your friends get something, my friends get something, and we’re all happy.”

  He nodded slowly. “I guess that sounds fair.”

  “Oh, it’s more than fair, Ned. In fact, you might come out ahead.”

  �
�How’s that?”

  “I give my friends a share of what we get in trade. That’s one of the reasons why they’re with me. They’ll get something in exchange for helping me make deals. And they don’t have to keep what they get, if they don’t really want it. They’re free to trade their share for something they do want.

  “What’s more, once folks get to know them they’ll trust them. My friends can, if they want, get some more goods and visit the towns we’ve been to again. They can make more deals, and get more goods. Pretty soon they’ll be living the good life.

  “I’ll bet you and your friends are pretty tired of scrounging for scraps and and stealing bits in the night.”

  Ned shrugged. “We’re surviving.”

  “Look at my friends, Ned. We’re eating good meals. And get this. Sometimes, because we’re the first traders the folks in town have ever seen, they’ll feed us.”

  “No.”

  “Yes! We’re making their lives better, Ned. They like that. They want to thank us for helping them out. C’mon, Ned, wouldn’t you rather be thanked than hunted? Wouldn’t you rather be liked than feared?”

  “Yeah, maybe. What do we gotta do?”

  “Like I said, you help us. Get us to Custer and Pine Needle City. If you’re worried about folks recognizing you, we’ll protect you. But nobody knows who you are, right?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, we ain’t been seen by anyone round here.”

  “I bet you know who has been seen. I’ll bet there are some other outlaws who know you.”

  His face fell. “Sort of.”

  “Let me guess. They aren’t willing to share in their big robberies, huh? They think you’re too poor to bother with.”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Well, Ned, here’s your big chance. Not everyone gets this sort of a deal. You join up with us, follow my lead, and you get your share of what we get in trade. You tell me who the other outlaws are, and help me catch them. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the man to do all the trading around here.”

  She motioned him closer, so she could whisper to him. “I’m not from this world, Ned. Most of my friends aren’t, either. After we finish here, we’ll be going to another world to make more deals. Be a good guy, and you could have some of this world’s trade to yourself.”