“Captain Timmons, do you know anything about dairy cattle?” I asked, as we ate a magnificent gumbo.

“No, sir, I do not…not aside from the basics, anyhow. My mother kept a few, but I was always out on the fishing boat with my father and can’t be trusted any further than keeping a cow fed.”

Well, that made me laugh. I turned to Isaiah and his friends and repeated the question, to mostly head shakes. The one quiet guy at the end slowly raised his hand.

“Mister, my name is Thomas, and I grew up on a dairy farm in New York. I think I might remember enough to be of help.” He was soft spoken and I had to focus to understand him, but I seemed to have gotten lucky again.

“Well, Thomas, any chance you also know about making cheese?” Hey a guy could dream, couldn’t he?

Thomas just shook his head sadly, like he had failed somehow, “No sir. I’m sorry to disappoint. sir, but that would be my wife.” He really looked like he thought he had just blown it as the rest of us fellows erupted in laughter.

“Thomas, I think everyone here agrees that you and your wife will be mighty fine additions to our little plantation. With any luck, we’ll have Captain Timmons here hauling milk and cheese up and down the Missouri in just a few years’ time.”

I pushed on, “Anybody got experience raising pigs?” All the black men raised their hands. I just had to smile.

“Well, fellas, here’s what we’re gonna do tomorrow. Y’all gonna pair up with the white guys I hired earlier today to purchase our dairy and pork herds. When you go out buying it’ll probably best to usually let the white guy do the talking, but both y’all gonna agree on the decision before you come to me for the money. Does that make sense?”

We got agreement all around on that and I paused to get more coffee. I was surprised to see that Mouse had taken charge while I plotted; she had set up our second tipi for the new folk to sleep in tonight. It was truly amazing how quickly those women could operate.

I walked over to her and she simply said, “The children need to sleep now.” Sure enough, the black families were already ensconced in the tipi and it appeared to be story time. I just shook my head, gave her a kiss and walked back over to the fellas.

“Well, gentlemen, it looks like your beds have been made for the evening. I hope you hadn’t planned on leaving, cuz your women sure ain’t.” That brought laughter all around. This was going to be a good group.

“Timmons, we need to work on your crew next, particularly since you are not welcome in Leavenworth’s town. Do you have a first mate who can act for you?”

“No, sir”, he replied. “My first took a position on another boat and is half way to N’Orleans by now. Come to think of it though, I did have this young up and comer who worked on the Connecticut River growing up. I talked to him earlier today and he was still looking for a job.”

“Is he white?” Brutal to have to ask that, but this was 1822, after all, and it still made a lot of difference to a lot of folks.

“Yes, he is, as a matter of fact. I think he hasn’t been hired just cuz he’s a Yankee.” That made me smile. Regional prejudice was a pretty common fact back then.

“Well, then, hire him on and build us a crew. We need to get back to Rulo soon. Gather them all and meet me at your boat at noon. I’ll get them paid and we’ll start to load.” That brought a smile from him, until I reminded him that he would be working from here on, and not be in charge until we were well on our way. I was basically sneaking him out of town, so as not to damage my fragile alliance with Leavenworth. It was going to be hard enough to keep that relationship positive with that weasel Douglas sniping in Henry’s ear, every day, all day.

“Please keep in mind, for the load out, that the first run will be mostly people - kids and women, in fact. I know that will change your balance or something on the boat, so please consider it. After we drop the kinfolk off, you can come back up here to collect the goods we purchase.”

Timmons got up. “I’ll take the wife back down to town and prepare my family. We’ll be up directly after breakfast.” And, with that, he took his leave.

I turned my attention back to Isaiah, “I’d like you to stay here in camp tomorrow to help me organize things. A lot will be happening very fast and I’ll need assistance.”

It was time to address the other two, “I hope y’all got names and an idea of what kind of specialty work you want to do.” We started to talk.

The big guy was called Samuel and he worked the wood, mostly cutting trees and such, but worked in the wood shop during the cold months and helped to make the barrels. He reckoned he could put together a basic barrel, if given the time to remember everything.

I smiled as I recalled that I had data on all of that in my library. Anybody who had the basic skills would come up to speed pretty quickly once they got used to the talking screen. God bless free internet videos and tutorials, not to mention my insatiable lust for pointless knowledge. Trish used to tease, and occasionally harangue, me for my ability to stay up late watching someone make a primitive dam, but couldn’t stay awake through a family movie. I absolutely loved learning that stuff.

Our final guy simply liked to work the earth. Timothy was a bit of an older guy, but it didn’t take long before he was going on about the herbs he liked to grow and the different techniques for teasing the best performance out of a plant. It seemed that Timothy liked to talk about plants.

Well, hell, that was easy. I needed to write all these names down, but we seemed to be assembling a solid core of skills to grow our little enterprise. My spirits were high as we all wandered off to bed.

It didn’t hurt to be cocooned in by three beautiful women, even if I wasn’t sleeping with any of them. I really did get a good night’s sleep that night.