Visions of Liberty

“Anything else?” Chapin asked. “Wax? We sell that in pound bricks. Axe handles? Honey? Liquor? Lanterns?”

Faelin considered. Wax would be useful for waterproofing as well as for making candles. Axe handles

they could make. Both he and Simon were whittlers from way back. Sweets and liquor, though, those were luxuries that he and Simon had resolved to do without. They had a cake of sugar swiped from Speculation’s stores and would make that last.

“Two pounds of wax,” he replied. “I’ll think on the rest.”

Chapin nodded and started arraying the goods on the counter. A small group of idlers watched with interest, making Faelin feel acutely self-conscious. He wasn’t used to shopping except for minor luxuries—shipboard life took care of the basics. Barter wasn’t unfamiliar, not with all the ports he’d been to, but he didn’t like the vague feeling that he was about to be taken.

When Chapin finished setting everything out, he asked Faelin to inspect the goods for flaws.

“’Cause it’s yours once it goes into your saddlebags.’”

Then he hopped up on a tall three-legged stool, bent his hands back to crack his knuckles, and said:

“So what do you have to trade, Faelin?”

Faelin pulled out some nails.

“Nails are good,” Chapin said, hopping down from his stool, agile as a monkey to check their heft and quality. “These are good nails. They’ll cover the poultry, flour and sack, wax, and, because I’m in a good mood and leather buckets aren’t moving since we got a cooper in town, the buckets. What you got to cover the shovels?”

Faelin glowered at Chapin. There had been a few chuckles about the buckets, chuckles that made him feel uncomfortably like an outsider.

“Leather buckets are good,” he growled. “And my mate and I can mend them ourselves.”

Chapin waved a hand airily. “Don’t be such a hard case, Faelin. Can’t you see I’m having a joke at my own expense? I over-bought last winter and all the pakeha know it.”

Rather than being soothed, Faelin felt even more out of place at this reminder that he was a newcomer. “What do you want for the shovels?” he asked stiffly.

“You brought a nice mule in with you,” Chapin said. “How about him?”

“You must be joking!” Faelin replied.

“Well, I can’t see what else you’ve got if you don’t put it on the table,” Chapin said amiably. “What’s weighing down your goody bag there? It’s more than a few nails or I’m a one-legged weta.”

Faelin had the vague idea that the weta was some local critter—a bug, he thought.

“And how do I know you’ll play fair with me if I put my cards on the table?” he retorted.

“You are a hard case, aren’t you?” Chapin said. “Look, Faelin. We’re all neighbors. We live together, work together. How far would I go if I stole from my neighbors? Why they’d just trade with each other

and leave me out of the mix. I only manage to make my living because people trust me to be fair and to provide them with a savings of time.”

He leaned forward on his stool, his ugly walnut face earnest. “These aren’t the petroleum days, Faelin. You could make most of what you’re buying from me or hunt it out yourself. I’m just saving you time. If you don’t want to trade for the churn and the shovels, ride on over to the cooper. He’ll make you a churn—it might take a couple of weeks if he doesn’t have one in stock, but he can make you one. Old Mrs. Velma has a couple of rusty old shovels. I bet you could rent them from her in return for splitting a couple cords of wood and returning the shovels all bright and sharp.

“Now, walk or pour out your trade goods. I have customers waiting. They may be enjoying the show —’specially since it’s giving them a good idea of market value for a few things, but I don’t have time to waste.”

Faelin flushed and nearly walked, but he had a long trip back to the claim and didn’t want to explain to Simon why he came back empty-handed. He spilled out the contents of his sack: more nails, a couple of feet of wire, and, selected almost at random, a pulley.

Chapin inspected the goods, then he looked around the store as if assessing his audience.

“A lesson for you, Faelin. The nails and wire, those are really good. Most of the nails we have here are wrought iron or salvage. These you’ve brought are better than local made. The wire’s more of the same. Hell, most of us make do with twine. The pulley, that’s a matter of need. With the new settlers come in—yourself among them—there’s going to be a lot of house raising.”

Faelin nodded. Rather than being grateful for the lesson, he was feeling embarrassed. He suspected now that both Mrs. Philbert and her sister back in Auckland had ripped him off. He wondered about the livestock dealers from whom he’d bought the horses and mules. At least Simon had gotten them good stock, but he’d bet his left foot they’d overpaid.

He felt color rising along his neck and fought down a desire to storm out the door.

“I’d keep that pulley if I were you,” Chapin went on, “and hire yourself and Simon out to help raise a couple houses. Then when you’re done, you’ll have help and more to build your own place.”

Chapin nodded happily, pleased by his own sermon.

Faelin swallowed hard. He wasn’t going to accept this walnut-faced little monkey pushing him around. There wasn’t a government here to make him build other people’s houses. He’d just learned his nails made him pretty rich by local standards. He’d buy labor when he needed it and damn Chapin for trying to turn him into a toady.

“How much for the churn and the shovels?” he repeated.

“Nails for the shovels,” Chapin replied, his friendly manner suddenly take it or leave it, “and the wire for the churn. Keep the pulley and I’ll put you down for house building.”

Faelin started to say, “Don’t bother,” then swallowed the words. He could always refuse when asked.

He settled his bill and got out of there as fast as possible, then he fumed the entire way back to the claim. The chatter of the indignant chickens didn’t help his mood.

As the weeks and months passed, Faelin’s opinion of Chapin didn’t change.

“He’s made himself king in a land where there’s supposed to be no government,” he growled to Simon after another frustrating shopping trip. “Did you know that since we decided not to go to the Dutchmans’ barn raising, Chapin refused to sell me anything? Said he didn’t feel like trading with a man who couldn’t be bothered to help a close neighbor. Those Dutchmans are just rolling in cream and butter! They could pay for my time!”

It hadn’t helped Faelin’s feelings about Chapin’s know-it-all attitude that after a month or so of trying to make their own butter, Simon had timidly suggested that they trade the churn to Debra and Fleming in return for a few months’ supply of butter and cheese. Faelin had been forced to agree. After a day of dealing with livestock and working on the house, neither man had the energy to churn.

He ignored the fact that he, not Chapin, had been at fault in the matter of the churn and continued his list of grievances.

“I had to go to the miller direct and she gouged me, charged everything that Chapin would have and made me pull nails from old lumber while I waited!”

Simon said nothing. Though Simon would never complain to Faelin, Faelin had seen the other man’s distress when they didn’t go to the barn raising. Simon liked the Dutchmans—a handsome, mostly Chinese couple despite their names—and the two men’s isolation on the claim after crowded quarters on the Speculation had proven almost more than Simon could bear.

Faelin, not normally a sympathetic man, took pity on Simon, letting him make some of the supply runs into town and not even protesting when Simon came back with a fat black and brown sheepdog puppy of the type locally known as a huntaway. He tried not to recall that this new arrangement also saved him further confrontations with his self-appointed rival.

But Faelin continued to feel the pressure of Chapin’s influence. When he got into a fistfight with the cooper over a horse race, Chapin just turned away and sighed, but the next time Faelin came into the Dairy, Chapin refused to serve him until Faelin promised to donate something to the cooper’s support while he recovered from the hand Faelin had broken.

When Faelin tried to recruit some labor for raising the walls on the new house—he and Simon had built a solid foundation, but couldn’t hope to finish stone walls by winter—mysteriously no one was available, not even