Majority decides." "And if the majority is wrong?" "Then the majority is wrong and we deal with the consequences together," Caleb said. "That's what together means."
Birch considered this. "Fair enough," he said. Everyone looked at Hutchins. Hutchins was leaning against the barn wall with his arms crossed looking at the floor.
He had the expression of a man running numbers, not the arithmetic of resources, which he'd already done, but the more complex calculation of what this arrangement meant for the position he'd held in this valley for 15 years. Being the largest operation had meant being the authority. Being brought into an arrangement as an equal, or more accurately as one voice among many on a ranch that wasn't his, was a different thing entirely. He looked up.
"The decision-making," he said to Caleb. "You're not putting yourself above it." "No," Caleb said. "You're one vote." "Same as you," Caleb said.
"Same as Reuter, same as Birch." Hutchins was quiet for another moment. Then he uncrossed his arms. "All right," he said. "But I want it written down.
What everyone contributes and what everyone gets back. I don't do handshake agreements. "Neither do I." Caleb said.
Mara keeps the accounts. Hutchins looked briefly at the barn door, at the house beyond it, where Mara was at the stove managing a kitchen that was now feeding 11 people three times a day. He looked back at Caleb. He nodded.
"Then we're agreed." Caleb said. They were agreed, but Mara wrote it down that evening at the kitchen table with four of the other adults present. She wrote the names of every family, what they'd brought in terms of livestock and stores, what the current combined total was, and a projected allocation schedule that went through to the end of March.
She wrote it in the same small precise hand she wrote everything. And when she was done, she passed it around the table and every person who could read read it. And every person who couldn't had it read to them. And they all agreed to it.