Lassiter learns the truth.

Lassiter couldn't help but notice Minerva's anorexic, filthy body, covered in rags as she was trying to make a home for her husband Jimmy and their newborn baby girl Lil' Madeline. "Child, you appear to be struggling. Whatever happened to all that money I wired you when you were working your fingers to the bone at that dilapidated old boarding house in Valdosta, Georgia tending to the wounded and dieing Confederate soldiers in the newly reconstructed South after the War of Northern Aggression? Is Jimmy, your third grade frontier school dropout newly wed husband who works as a dung boy at the local livery, getting drunk and mistreatin' you?" Minerva, dumbfounded, started sobbing and collapsed to the bone dry, dusty, dirty ground. Looking up at her father she said, "Daddy, you mean to tell me you don't know!?" Lassiter said, "Dont know what?" Minerva proceeded to tell him how one day out of nowhere she received a wire transfer of money from him, her long lost father who walked out on the family many years before leaving them destitute and ill equipped to unsuccessfully fend for themselves. Not knowing how to read, she sought the best advice available and met with the highly respected Mr.Balfour Bagette, the president of the most reputable Southern Union Bank. Well, it turned out that Mr. Bagette was ethically and morally challenged to say the least and the Sougthern Union Bank was not as respectable and reputable as it should have been. Mr. Bagette pocketed the $250.00 Federal bank notes and gave Minerva $50.00, after the war, worthless Confederate money. Later, on the train West, Minerva was befriended by "The Preacher Man" who got her drunk and stole the worthless Confederate dollars leaving her helpless, hopeless and homeless. After learning what had happened to the money, Lassiter said nothing, slowly turned and walked away. Minerva called after him crying, "Daddy, where are you going? Don't you hurt nobody. We're getting' by." To be continued......Sláinte, Tommy Maaltman