Mid-morning four days later found me relaxing on the roof of the steamboat as we slowly chugged our way upstream. It had taken me three days to fully recover from whichever bug it was that decided to bite me. I had no clue and didn’t care as long as it was over. The third day was a day of recovery; while I had been tempted to get going the thought of relapse while stuck on a boat was enough for me to take it easy. But those first couple of days, those days had been a nightmare. In fact my intermittent sleep during those days was always filled with nightmares in which I couldn’t find a toilet or the door was always locked. Horrid dreams that always ended with me jerking awake to rush over to the shitter.

I had quickly run through the small amount of toilet paper that I carried with me, so I ended up sending Amos up to the general store to purchase a bolt of white cotton cloth. The sort of cloth you would use for baby diapers if you could afford it. Well I could afford it and I had them cut that cloth into six inch by six inch pieces and used those to wipe my ass. It worked well and you cleaned them just as you would a babies diaper. Though bleach wasn’t widely available, there were still a number of methods for getting your whites white again and Sinclaire apparently knew those techniques.

On the third day I was mostly back to normal and felt in charge of bodily functions. Real food, a shower and a good night's sleep in a real bed did wonders for my attitude and the sore tender bits of my body. From a diet of meat broth, tea and water I was able to shift back to full-on steak and eggs with roasted mushrooms and onions. That first meal was heavenly.

And so I found myself sitting on roof of the cargo box watching the river go by.

Our progress was slower than normal as Captain Sven had taken advantage of the extra time and purchased a large skiff which we were laboriously towing upriver. On the plus side, this allowed us to carry a quite a bit more cargo and gave us some deck space back. On the minus side, it definitely decreased our speed of travel and introduced risk we normally wouldn’t have.

Thankfully they had loaded the barge boat down with the good doctor’s furniture and belongings; his wife fussed about dings and scratches the entire journey. That woman liked to fuss; some people just aren’t happy unless they are complaining about something, I felt sorry for poor Doc Browne. It was obvious that he loved the lady but despite his great patience he would eventually snap at her, after which she would spend the rest of the day pouting in the cargo house. Mrs. Browne apparently considered herself a ‘Lady’ and demanded special treatment.

I took issue with her self evaluation and expressed it to Amos thusly, “A Lady takes measure of the situation and modifies her expectations and behaviors to be helpful rather than act as a hinderance.” Amos, as usual, took in those words of advice without reply. The boy could be rather reflective when he was of a mind to be; it was to be a trait that served him well as he grew into a man.

Mrs. Browne on the other hand appeared to lack the ability to observe and analyze a situation. It appeared that her priorities were set as follows: herself, her reputation, her children, herself and that guy she was married to. As the journey proceeded upriver she seemed to settle into a scheduled routine of high-pitched rants regarding her current lot in life and the people responsible for her unfortunate current status.

Due to the small size of the river boats, privacy was not in the least bit available for anyone. There was a little space we set aside in the cargo house, basically a few crates to sit on out of the weather. The rest of the available space consisted of the tiny fore and aft decks and the cargo house roof. The roof was crowded even during the best of times because the tillerman was there along with the brazier, as well as Amos, Brin and myself. Every sentence uttered above a whisper was shared with everyone on the boat and I don’t think that woman knew how to actually whisper.

Our camping situation was little better, we eschewed towns and pretty much slept rough as a rule. These weren’t prepared camping grounds, just simple clearings we knew about along the way. Tents weren’t usually an option and most of us just went with a quick canvas lean-to. Silly lady thought she’d be getting a full-size tent with cots which just wasn’t on the quick run schedule and this was definitely a speed run.

We liked to be on the river at first light which meant cold leftovers for breakfast and the coffee had to wait until we were settled in and headed upriver. None of those realities went over well with our delicate princess and she made sure we knew about it every single morning. Her endless gripes, insults and complaints were starting to grind on me, I was pretty sure the only time she was silent was when she was working on a new complaint to add to her list of various woes.

Part of me was thrilled that summer was coming to a close, I could hardly wait to see what came out of her mouth if we hit a cool spell on our way home. The days were getting shorter and the morning air was now brisk enough to make a person want to sit in front of a fire and drink a cup or two of coffee to warm themselves after a cold night.

I enjoyed such weather, but I was pretty sure Mrs. Browne did not.