“You need to buy all the building supplies you can.”
“Sure, but we have a budget and—”
“Now.”
Silence. Finally, Meg said, “Simon?”
He kept his eyes on Steve. “You need to buy supplies for your village. You need to buy the human supplies used by the Simple Life folk and the terra indigene. You need to prepare now for a hard winter.”
Meg looked at the three men. “But . . . it’s Juin. Summer is just starting.”
Steve stared at Simon. “How long and how hard a winter?”
“Long. And very hard,” Simon replied. “If you buy a product from another city, make sure you buy enough of it to see you through to spring.” That would give them all a few months to figure out new ways to get what they needed.
“My wife starts buying extra toilet paper in September to make sure we’re not trying to grab the last roll in the grocery store when the ferry can’t make a supply run,” Jerry said. Not looking at any of them, he added, “And the female supplies.”
But that was as far as Jerry ventured into that dangerous territory. Simon hoped it was enough for Meg to take the hint.
“Do we know when winter will arrive this year?” Steve asked.
Simon shook his head, relieved that Steve understood they weren’t actually talking about the season. This talking about one thing and meaning something else felt strange, but there were things he didn’t want to share with humans, even ones he trusted. “When it comes, it will come hard and fast.” He and Vlad had heard a news report about a speech being given by all the HFL leaders in Thaisia. Did Captain Burke and Lieutenant Montgomery think it odd that all these leaders were howling to reporters but Nicholas Scratch was so conspicuously absent from the news?
The terra indigene knew that a storm was coming. The only questions were when it would hit and what would still be standing when it was done.
“Wait by your car,” Simon said. “I’ll show you the lake.”
Steve rolled up the plans. He and Jerry said good-bye to Meg and went out the back way.
Simon watched Meg rub the crosshatch of scars on her left upper arm.
“You know something,” she said.
“I know we should buy human supplies while humans will still sell them to us.”
“They have to sell them to us.”
“They’ve gotten bold. They don’t believe we’ll do anything if they break the rules. Why should they? The HFL is telling them what they want to hear—they can take without consequences.” Simon gently pulled Meg’s hand away from the scars. “You and the female pack need to start buying the things that are essential for you. I don’t know how much longer those things will be around. Some companies might go out of business.”
Meg stared at him in disbelief. “How can companies that make things like toilet paper go out of business?”
Should he show her the letter from Jean? Was it wrong to want to protect her from that information when she already had so many things to think about?
Before he could take the letter out of his pocket, Meg got that look in her eyes—the look that told him she was reviewing training images and memories.
“A while ago, Ruth told us—the female pack—about a list she had found in an old book,” Meg said with a care that made Simon think of a Wolf testing the ground with each step. “It was a list of human towns and cities that didn’t exist anymore. I suppose you could say that the companies in those towns went out of business.”
“You could say that,” he agreed. “Maybe another company in another town would start making some of the same products, but it would take time.”
“I understand.”
Did she? He hoped that was true. “However much you decide to tell them, you need to keep this just within the female pack, Meg. Make the other girls understand that they have to keep this within the pack.”
Meg nodded. She didn’t look happy, which made him unhappy, but sometimes you couldn’t share a carcass—or information—if you wanted your own pack to have enough to eat.
“Steve and Jerry are waiting for you,” she said.
He wanted to press his lips to her skin, but he didn’t think she would let him right now, so he walked out to join the other males.
“She’s going to want to buy toilet paper for every person she’s met, isn’t she?” Steve asked as he opened the back door and got in, leaving the front passenger seat for Simon.
“She can’t.” What was this obsession with toilet paper?
After a moment, Jerry said, “Where to?”
Simon directed him to the road and the turn toward the Crowgard’s part of the Courtyard—which meant passing the new sign. He smelled fear, but neither man said anything.
“The information you received that makes you think a big storm is coming,” Steve said. “You didn’t get that from Meg, did you?”
Simon shook his head. “From Jean.”
“Gods above and below.”
He could hear Steve trying to steady his breath. “Simon, Jean is . . .”
Simon hesitated, thinking of what he’d just said to Meg about keeping information within the pack. But he’d already told Steve and Jerry that a storm was coming. He didn’t feel easy about telling them more, but he removed the letter from his pocket and handed it to Steve. “Her brain is sick. That’s not why she sees what she sees, but maybe it’s the reason she chooses to remember what she sees.”
“Gods,” Steve said again after he read the letter. “All right, we’ll purchase what we can afford.”
“Buy what you can get. The Courtyard has money. We’ll pay for it. You’d better buy what you can for the River Road Community too.”
“Yeah, all right.” Steve handed back the letter. “One thing the ‘Meg, the Trailblazer’ e-mails have done for us is provided us with an expanded network of Intuit settlements. We’ve started a second list of what each settlement makes and what it wants to buy. The village council already decided to purchase as much as we could from our own.”
“Send that list to Meg and Vlad, since Meg doesn’t remember to check e-mail.” He pointed. “Pull up at the bridge. That’s the lake Meg wants you to see.”
“The campus doesn’t have a lake, but there is a creek that runs through that land. I think we could find a spot that could be opened up to make a natural swimming hole,” Steve said. “We’ll take another look when we get back to the island.”
They drove back to the Market Square, letting Simon out when they reached the access way.
“By the way,” he said as he opened the door. “Can Sledgeman’s Freight haul livestock?”
“Sure,” Jerry replied. “We have a big trailer for livestock. Mostly use it for horses, but it will work for other kinds of animals. You need something relocated?”
“Yes. They will be coming soon.” Simon got out of the car, then waited until Steve moved to the front passenger seat before adding, “And you need to find someone who can ride a horse and look after some young bison.”
They stared at him. “Bison?” Steve said.
“Eleven of them. We can split the herd between the River Road Community and the Courtyard.”
Their expressions reminded him of Skippy when the juvenile’s brain wasn’t working quite right. Hoping Jerry had enough sense not to drive before he could think, Simon went into Howling Good Reads to get ready for their guests.
Meg called the female pack, including Eve Denby, assuring everyone it would be a quick meeting but it needed to be now.
“Girl stuff,” she said and started to close the Private door. As she expected, Nathan scrambled off the Wolf bed and let out a protesting arroo at being shut out. But when he saw the rest of the girls, he turned around and went back to the bed. Guarding against feral deliverymen was one thing; dealing with the human females, whom he couldn’t bite, was something else.