? He forced a weak smile. ?Yeah. I love salt, but ah, I'm a little thirsty!? She chuckled. ?I thought you would be. Here.? She handed him a gallonjug...that was full of an amber liquid with little flecks of brown floating aroundin it. ?It's fresh urine from just a couple of minutes ago! I'm afraidwhen I scooped it out of the toilet I picked up some of my poop! I knew youloved me and wouldn't mind.? ?I don't care, I'm so thirsty! I do love you!? ? Go ahead, drink, it's a full gallon, just like I. " The women laughed."Especially when meeting two women," she smiled at me knowingly. She was also the older of the women. Since it was a table nobody was paired up. I spent most of the time engaging the younger woman in conversation. That is until Deacon realized that I had things a bit wrong.The women had gone to the ladies room in a pack, as women mostly did in those days. "David, Tommie is my lady friend. Selma is her aunt. I thought you might enjoy a real conversation for a change. So be. Look at these rings." She spread out her fingers to display the three or four plain gold rings she had on them. "Each of them is worth more than your television set. This suit cost more than three months of your salary, and I have several others. Part of this comes from my salary. The Brothel, as you know, is a believer in offering competitive salaries to its staff, and I can honestly say that my pay is in the top quartile for my grade. Which is quite senior. Some of it has come as a result of. I think it may help them get beyond what they were forced to endure during their captivity.The day after Jim left, a steamboat dropped off twenty-five empty wagons for us; Jim was obviously busy in Kansas City. We loaded our crated goods onto three steamboats bound for Omaha and took the empty wagons to the fort to load and to get them ready for us to ride in. Flo and I managed to buy thirty-two more mules from a couple of farmers to supplement the ones from the slavers’ farm. I wasn’t sure.