Chapter 147: No Man’s Suburb
The awkward moment spread a wee bit further.
Then Fenwick decided he’d had about enough of it. "Simplest way I know it, Captain. First man to stake a claim keeps it, as any decent farmer’d tell ye to not leave good ground sittin’ empty on the chance some damned soul might come wantin’ it later."
Isaiah let the words sit for a spell before answering, "And if a man stakes ten claims before sundown, meaning to build on only one, while nine other households wait for land he never intends to touch?"
Fenwick clicked his tongue. From the look of him, the thought had never crossed his mind, and he didn’t much enjoy meeting it now.
Mateo nodded slowly. "This happens in Spain also, Captain. Pijos keep land they never work, while men who would work it cannot have any."
"Then the claim ain’t what’s important."
James shrugged. "The work is. A man stakes out a plot, and it’s his so long as his household’s usin’ it. Let it sit empty long enough, do nothin’ with it, and it goes back to the town for the folks who will."
Fenwick accepted that readily enough. Once that knot came loose, the talk moved on to how much land any one claim ought to cover.
"One house lot and one farm lot to each household." James started.
Isaiah kept his eyes on him. "Whether a man came on the first ship or climbed ashore from yesterday’s last boat?"
"Aye, standards’ the same."
James thought another second, then couldn’t help himself. "Though I reckon the captain’s own house might stand just a touch grander than the rest, seein’ as..."
He got no farther.
"No."
Fenwick cut him off so flat it stopped everybody else before they could object.
"No wretched favorites, Captain, or it don’t mean a bloody thing."
Adrienne raised an eyebrow. Mateo looked down, fighting a smile.
James lifted both hands.
"Fair enough. I withdraw the motion before anybody has to vote it down."
Without looking up from his ledger, Whitlock said, "A wise decision, Captain. I’d rather not record the settlement’s first act of hypocrisy before we’ve even finished writing the laws."
With the size of a claim decided, the next question came walking right behind it. How did a family decide where one plot ended and another began?
"The neighbors ought to settle that."
Adrienne added. "A boundary marked by the fellow claiming it is worth exactly as much as his own honesty, and none of us have reason enough to trust anybody’s without looking."
Mateo nodded. "The men on both sides walk the division together. If they both say it is true, then it is true, every farm I have known does it this way."
"And if two households both want the same piece?" Isaiah asked.
That one left the table silent until James answered with a small smile.
"We draw for it."
Fenwick blinked.
"Draw? Like cards?"
"Aye. Cards, or dice if they’d rather trust their luck that way."
That earned the first honest laugh of the afternoon. Adrienne covered her mouth. Mateo shook his head like he’d expected nothing less.
"Of course."
Adrienne said. "Cards. We’re still a town full of pirates, whatever respectable names we give ourselves."
James shrugged. "Can’t fault a way of settlin’ arguments that’s worked since the day we landed. A fair draw’s fair enough, no matter what comes out of the pocket."
That left the bones of the whole thing standing plain enough for anybody to see. The next matter weighed more than all the rest put together, and the room stopped before anybody could open his mouth.
Isaiah finally started the discussion.
There wasn’t a trace of caution in him now.
Only steady certainty, "No household is turned away from land, nor put behind another household in drawing for it, because of the color of his skin or the tongue he was born speaking. Not here, not in this place. We did not cross an ocean in chains just to trade one master’s prejudice for another’s."
Nobody argued.
Nobody even looked inclined to try.
Adrienne was the first to test where the rule reached. "And your villages, Mateo? Little settlements scattered behind the reefs, each apart from the others. Doesn’t that leave one Spanish, another French, another English, each keeping to its own folk whether the Code says so or not?"
Mateo frowned. It was plain enough the idea had never occurred to him.
"That was not my meaning."
He said, working through it as he went. "The villages are only for safety. I did not think about who lived beside who."
"Then let’s say it plain."
Isaiah said, not unkindly. "These villages may be separate by water and stone, yet not blood. Whoever draws a lot in any draws it fair way as anywhere else, and lives where the draw puts him."
Mateo nodded, and some of the burden left his shoulders.
"Yes. That I can agree to."
With that done, the meeting drifted back to matters a man could measure with a rope and a shovel, and those proved easier. There was still more coastline than people to fill it.
"I reckon new ground only opens once the assembly says where."
James said. "Keeps us from crawlin’ over farmland, and makes sure every new stretch is laid out right before the first house goes up."
Fenwick gave a short nod, satisfied enough. Adrienne too, and even Isaiah couldn’t find anything worth adding.
James let that stand before bringing up another matter altogether, one that had been waiting its turn since before their merry group ever sat down.
"I’ve already got three projects on the books."
He started to explain. "A chain of beacons to guide friendly ships through the reefs after dark. Then a shipyard, so we quit draggin’ every damaged ship back to Nassau. And an assembly hall with a roof over it, built around the Code itself, so we can stop runnin’ the settlement out of a tavern whose drunken regulars we had to throw into the street two hours ago."
That brought the afternoon’s second real laugh.
Fenwick grinned at last.
"Aye, Captain. I noticed the joke myself."
Adrienne gave an approving nod at the mention of the shipyard. There wasn’t much to dislike about fixing ships close to home instead of limping all the way back to Nassau every time the timber cracked.
Whitlock kept writing. "I confess, I’d rest easier keeping the settlement’s records somewhere the ale hasn’t already soaked through the tabletop."
That earned easy agreement all around.
Mateo tapped a finger lightly against the table, as though remembering something that had been waiting its turn. "Then perhaps a chapel as well, near the crossroads, where everyone may reach it. We may pray differently, but we still kneel before God. I doubt there will be much argument over giving folks a place to do it."
Nobody around the table seemed inclined to make one.
The afternoon heat leaned through the tavern windows, and more than one face around the table had exhaustion not from work, but from thinking too hard.
Funny thing about it. Thoughtful talk could wear a fellow out worse than a fistfight, and nobody ever warned you beforehand.
James let the silence linger a moment longer, then leaned forward. "Now that we’ve gotten through the hard matters, there’s one bit of advice I’d give before we all start congratulatin’ ourselves."
That drew a few tired looks his way.
"On what?" Fenwick asked.
"Disease."