Hope, finally getting away from the crowd decided it was best they didn’t have to wait for hours on a line as they spoke to one single person. They divided the group by ten and the rest needed to wait outside until the ten inside were spoken to, which made everyone happy.
“So the rogues have been stealing your cattle since last week?” Hope asked as she three a leg over the other whilst the man in front of her nodded his head vigorously with a deep frown drawing more wrinkles on his face that before. His brows, knitted together only revealed his old age much more than it was supposed to. “Why didn’t you report instantly?”
“Because I wasn’t sure they were mere werewolves like us, I thought they were just wild wolves or foxes.” He explained with sadness and anger in his voice. “You need to threaten them!”
“Rogues are a pack without an alpha nor a leader, they work on their own terms and won’t be easy to negotiate with. We can try to bring them into our pack once we spot their camping grounds. For now, keep your cattle in the barn until we find them okay?” Hope smiled only to have the grumpy old man frown even worse.
“They need to be set out to eat!” The man insisted, getting Harley to roll his eyes in annoyance.
“Listen to her, if you want to have all your cows eaten away then set them free. We can’t deal with rogues immediately. You know it’s even dangerous for her so time will have to be considered here. Don’t expect sooner.” Harley explained, getting the man to grunt under his voice as he stood aside.
“Okay, so…” Hope redirected her eyes to the woman beside the grumpy man. “You mentioned about the watering wells being poisoned?” She asked and the woman nodded as she furrowed her brows and clasped her hands together.
“There’s some flower growing in there and it’s poisoning the water we use for the vegetables and all the plants. They grow sickly and brown and very inedible. If this goes on we won’t survive winter.” She explained and Hope nodded as she glanced down to the ground.
“We could build another one far from the previous one. We can’t clean it and reuse in immediately since we don’t know the flower’s growth pattern. It could just grow back. We can close it for now and avoid transferring the pollen to the new well. After all the vegetables are harvested before winter, that’s when we can investigate on it. Working before then can risk just transplanting it. Even touching the water is too risky.” Harley pointed out with his own thought and Hope grinned out as she snapped her fingers and nodded to his suggestion.
“Excellent thinking.” Hope nodded. “It should be closed down for now, we’ll build a new one today a bit further from the garden, since you might have some of the pollen from the water buckets you carried water in. You’ll burn those ones and remove any plant in the garden and burn the grounds, you’ll start all over again but we’ll install a water transport system so you don’t have to go too far to the well. The water will come to you and all you have to do is open the tap which will have sieves in them to avoid any contamination.” She nodded as Harley smiled down at her. “Now that’s solved, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You’re truly your father’s daughter, Hope. With Harley, you two make a very intelligent duo.” The woman smiled admirably as she stepped aside for the other one.
“Okay, so you and Mrs. Hopkins said you have a termite problem and your floor boards are being eaten up?” Hope asked as the man and woman nodded. “Fine. That shouldn’t even be much of a problem, you would have just told the man at the fumigation shop, he would have done it perfectly.” Hope chuckled out. “I’ll tell him for you. The nodded and stood aside for the next woman. “You were talking about new buildings?”
“Yes, we only have one clinic and our pack is getting bigger if you’ve noticed. Lots of women this season are expecting to give birth sooner before winter and they need a bigger clinic to keep them all.” She said with batty eyelids. Hoping Hope would understand her since she was also a woman. “Your father didn’t agree with me last week.”
“I’ll look into it as soon as I can. I can’t make a good answer right now but I will tell you after I see the budget.” Hope smiled slightly as the woman gave her one last look of hope before stepping aside.
“This is going to be a long day…” Harley groaned out as he reached into his hair and sat back into the beta’s seat beside Hope’s throne. “I’m already tired listening to them.” He whispered to her and she nodded as well with a pout.
“I can’t do this every single morning. We have to make a specific date for complaints.” She said and Harley nodded in agreement.
“Exactly. I’ve seen Mr. Grumpy pants there always coming in here to complain every single week when the beta asked if I could see how things went. He would complain about his cattle most of the time and how he wanted a higher price tag on them or how he wanted his cattle to bathe every three days with cheaper workers.” He chuckled into her ear a she suppressed a laugh. “He’s always complaining. We can’t listen to him every day.”
“I can’t too.” She nodded as she whispered back to him. “Besides, we should start some note writing programs so they can write their problems down and we don’t have to meet them all the time.”
“What if they’re urgent? I can’t stand reading papers all day.” Harley groaned out lowly as she nodded.
“Fair point, no paper then. Plus most of them can’t write either. It would be hopeless.” She sighed out, leaning into her seat. “I guess we can’t run away from this.”
“You brought this on us.” He sighed out.
“You can step down if you want.” Hope chuckled out, getting him to grin out.
“I’ll always be by your side Hope, I’m not giving up until you do.” He chuckled out as she nodded with a grin plastered on her natural cherry colored lips.