The Wild Shore: Three Californias (Wild Shore Triptych) by Kim Stanley Robinson

meat there is, as you know if you’ve ever eaten any.”
    “I’ve eaten it,” the woman snapped. “But I’m sorry. Crab is good all right, but there’s never enough of it to make a difference. These barrel halves are hard to find. You’d have it forever, and I’d get a few tastes of crab for a week.”
    “But if you don’t sell them you’re going to have to cart them back north,” I interrupted in a friendly way. “Pushing them up all those hills and then making sure they don’t roll down the other side … why we’d be doing you a favor to take one of them off your hands for free!—not that we want to do that, of course. Here—we’ll throw in a jar of Barnard honey with these delicious pinchers, and really make it a steal for you.” Melissa had been glaring at me for butting in on her deal, but now she smiled hopefully at the woman. The woman stared at the honey jar, but looked unconvinced.
    “Blue Book says a barrel half is worth ten dollars,” I said. “And these sidewalks are worth two dollars apiece. We’ve got seven of them, so you’re already out-trading us four dollars’ worth, not counting the honey.”
    “Everyone knows the Blue Book is full of shit,” the woman said.
    “Since when? It was scavengers made it up.”
    “Was not—it was you grubs did.”
    “Well, whoever made it up, everyone uses it, and they only call it shit when they’re trying to deal someone dirty.”
    The woman hesitated. “Blue Book really says crabs are two dollars each?”
    “You bet,” I said, hoping there wasn’t a copy nearby.
    “Well,” said the woman, “I do like the way that meat tastes.”
    Rolling the barrel half back to our camp, Melissa forgot about my rudeness. “Oh Henry,” she sang, “how can I thank you?”
    “Ah,” I said, “no need, yuk yuk.” I stopped the barrel to let pass a crowd of shepherds with a giant table upside-down on their heads. Melissa wrapped her arms around me and gave me a good kiss. We stood there looking at each other before starting up again; her cheeks were flushed, her body warm against mine. As we started walking again she smacked her lips. “You been drinking, Henry?”
    “Ah—old Barnard gave me a few sips back there.”
    “Oh yeah?” She looked over her shoulder. “Wouldn’t mind some of that myself.”
    Back at camp Melissa went off to meet Kristen and I helped the end of the fish trading. Nicolin came by with a cigarette and under the sunbeams sparking the dust in the afternoon air we smoked it. Soon after that a fight started between a Pendleton cowboy and a scavenger, and it was broken up by a crowd of big angry men whose job was keeping things peaceful. These meet sheriffs didn’t like their authority ignored, and people fighting were always going to lose, slapped around hard by this gang. After that I nodded off for an hour or two, back with the sleeping dogs.
    Rafael woke me when he came back to feed scraps to the perros. Only the western sky was still blue; high clouds overhead still glowed with a bit of sunset light. I walked over to our fire, where a few people were still eating. I crouched beside Kathryn and ate some of the stew she offered me. “Where’s Steve?”
    “He’s already in the scavenger camps. He said he’d be in the Mission Viejo one for the next hour or two.”
    “Ah,” I said, wolfing down stew. “How come you aren’t with him?”
    “Well, Hanker, you know how it is. First of all, I had to stay here and help cook. But even if I could’ve gone, I can’t keep up with Steve for an entire night. You know what that’s like. I mean I could do it, but I wouldn’t have any fun at it. Besides, I think he likes being away from me at these things.”
    “Nah.”
    She shrugged. “I’m going to go hunt him down in a bit.”
    “How’d it go at the seed exchange?”
    “Pretty good. Not like in the spring, but I did get a good packet of barley seed. That was a coup—everyone’s interested in this barley ’cause