Welcome to Jon
"Do you have a husband to go with that child?" He asked.
Kayrin didn't like all the additional questions, she had a task and she wanted it done quickly, not being sidetracked by men with questions that didn't help her and only satisfied their own selfish curiosity. "I had a husband. He is away ... away by his grandfathers."
"By his grandfathers." Jon repeated. "Well that is a new way to put it. He is dead, then. You are a widow?"
"Yes."
"Came here for a new start, then? I can understand that." He reached under the counter and pulled out a long roll of paper, which he deftly sent across the counter and quickly weighted the ends. It was a map with color-coded grids and lines crisscrossing and zigzagging over it. "What type of land are you looking for? There's small lots close in town, larger tracks on the outskirts. What do you plan on doing?" He asked, still sizing her up.
"Horses, cattle, and farm."
"Well that will be these larger tracks outlined in green, anywhere from 80 to 640 acres, but that's a lot of land for one woman to manage." He swept his hand across the map along the outer perimeter. "Unless you plan to keep it small, under 80 down to 10 acre parcels are yellow," he pointed out a smaller ring closer to town, "and 9 to two acre lots are orange, anything smaller is red. The ones with names on them are already spoken for. The government has laid out some pretty good incentives for those willing to make the plains of Tromar their home."
Kayrin studied the map, she touched where the town was and followed the road south. "What is this?" She questioned.
"That's the reason this town exists." Jon Savin said. "That's the tannery."
"Tannery." She repeated with a small frown, trying to find a word that sounded similar in Kamenan.
"I mentioned it on our way over." Tos spoke up. "The tannery is South of town. It smells." He scrunched up his nose and pinched it shut with his fingers to illustrate. "It makes the⁰ hides from the [name of large herd mammal] into leather."
"Not nearly so bad smelling as the ones on the coast, I'll tell you that Tos, your Papa Jon figured out a better way to do it." The older man said with pride. "That tannery is why your father was able to open his store, and has kept your uncles and their families well taken care of."
"Does the leather go South or North?" She asked.
"It does both, but mostly South. I don't know how you came into Ela'yas, but north is miles and miles of the plains of Tromar, not many settlements until you hit the northern forests and the Anlizer river on the North border. Of what goes South, some goes to Gollan and the rest takes the Solnerrith river to the coast."
Kayrin nodded and traced the road back through the town and North. Many of the properties immediately around the town were spoken for, not that those interested her. Finally she found one. A small creek wound it's way through one of the most northern properties. "This one, here."
Jon looked down at it. "That one? Quite a ways from town." He commented.
"Town keep not small. How much for this ... track? parcel? The 160 acres here and here."
"Are you paying in Ela'yan money or weighted metals?"
"Gold and silver." She replied.
He pulled out a scale and the deeds for the two 80 acre parcels. Once the transaction was complete Jon rolled up the map and replaced it and the scale under the counter. "Welcome to Jon, Miss Hillenbohn."