Basic Needs

Jack drives into a dried-out river. In the distance on the other side is a group of houses that, while they have certainly seen better days, don't look abandoned. The truck struggles to get traction in the sand on the other side of the river and eventually gets stuck. Well fuck. Jack backs up and turns into the river. He accelerates, then steers back onto the river bank – to no avail, the truck gets stuck again. He turns back into the river. The engine roars. First gear, second gear, third gear...

The suspension bottoms out as the truck plows uphill through the sand, barely making it out of the river. Annie holds her shoulder, it hurts from getting pushed into the seat belt.
Can we not do that again, please?
response?
Jack turns around and drives onto the overgrown remains of a road leading to the settlement.

He parks in front of an old store.
This is it, I guess.
They get out and start walking towards the door. A small dog runs up to them, barking, jumping around, running in circles, and wagging its tail. It picks up a stick and drops it in front of Annie. She crouches down, pets the dog, and picks up the stick.
I'll be right there, Annie says to Jack before throwing it.
Okay. Jack goes into the store.

After playing fetch for a bit, Annie follows. Behind the counter is a man who appears to be in his 60s. He is talking to Jack:
I mean in the long run. We have plenty of food right now but, since the <river name> has changed course, we don't even have enough water to grow crops for ourselves. The cisterns and wells simply don't cut it.
So, basically, you're saying you need water.
The man interrupts the conversation and looks at Annie:
Good afternoon, what can I do for you?
I'm with him.
I see.
He turns back to Jack:
Listen, we don't just need a little bit of water. The amount of water we need can't simply be carried here or we'd do it ourselves. And we need it regularly and consistently. When the <river> still flowed here, water used to flow into our irrigation system upstream and got distributed to all the fields and greenhouses from there.
I know you need an industrial quantity of water. We can get you an industrial quantity of water. Will you give us food if we supply you?
"Who is *we*?"
He musters Jack for a moment.
And how do you wanna get it here?
By train - assuming the railroad south of here is in a serviceable state. Seeing the man's confusion, Jack adds: Let that be my problem to solve. Will you trade water for food?
I'm gonna have to discuss that with the others. Wait outside.

After playing with the dog some more, they get approached by a group of people, amongst them the man from the store. They shake hands. Jack repeats his idea to supply water by train in exchange for crops.
What's this train you're talking of?, one of them asks.
A large vehicle from the old world. It drives on tracks like the ones that should be south of here.
So that's what these rails were used for... But that's still pretty far from here, how do you wanna transport the water here?
That irrigation system of yours... Can we take a look at it?
I see where you're trying to go with this. It's still not particularly close to the rails.

After a bit of additional back and forth, they agree on a plan. The man who did most of the talking asks a girl:
Mary, can you go, show them around?
Sure, follow me. It's a bit of a walk...
Wait, Jack stops her, We're here with a truck.
So that's your car? Cool! I've only ever seen one working car in the city. So we're gonna drive there?
If you show us the way.
Let's go!

Not sure of this should be the end of a chapter or if I should continue here. The way this has turned out, it would also be nice if they ended up delivering construction machines (excavators, etc.) to the village so they don't need to rely on water shipments past the day when the protagonists leave for Nova Metropolis.