"Another! Another!" Norris barked.  He scampered through the brush off to the side of the wagon, daring thorns to scratch his bare skin.

Heather brought the wagon to a halt absently.  The crossing of the Channel had been exhausting, but her slowness in pulling the wagon of late was due more to the drag they all felt from the death of Calliope than from anything physical.  Norris' discovery of the airplanes had been a welcome distraction.

"What have you got there, son?" Freedomhowler called from his seat atop the wagon, trying to voice more enthusiasm than he felt.

"Triplane!" Norris called, running back and forth in front of the wreckage.  "Come see!"

It was the fifteenth smashed German plane they'd come across since Dover, but the first triplane.

At this point, Freedomhowler was a knot of frustration and could think of nothing he wanted less than another interruption in their journey.  The "Nature's Own Remedy" reworking of the show was turning out to be a near-complete bust.  Norris' newfound healing abilities were shaky at best, and had been less and less reliable as the month wore on .  Without Calliope, they really didn't have an old show to fall back on, and it was terribly difficult to wring money from an audience when the performers themselves seemed unsure of what they were doing.

And there were other problems.

Wild Bill was being particularly troublesome.  He just wouldn't keep quiet about Calliope -- kept talking about what a tragedy his death had been, and how he'd be sorely missed, and that night when they'd all stayed up late, gotten drunk, and Cal had taken a burning stick from the fire and revealed that he could light his whistles.  The constant reminders were making it near impossible for Freedomhowler to get on with life.

Then there was Drake's will.  Even though he knew the key, he was still having a terrible time decoding the thing.  He had promised the man that he'd follow its instructions, only to find that the first sentences ordered whoever was reading it to stop doing so and kill himself immediately.  Ha, ha.  Joke's on me.  It had rather sapped his enthusiasm for revealing the document's secrets.

And that whole time travel business just wouldn't leave his mind alone.  He kept second guessing what he had done with the device.  If he had kept it, could he have written Drake out of his life before he'd entered it? Avoided that weird hunchback with the drum who seemed at the root of so many problems? Just gone back ten years and invested in businesses that he now knew would be successful? The thing should be whiskey spilled and gone, but he couldn't stop from trying to think of some way to get it back in the bottle.

All that shape changing and magic had thrown a turd into the still as well.  Probably the hardest hit was Heather -- something about being dainty and attractive for a spell had done a number on her libido, and the woman was spending a lot more time eying the men in the audience than she ever had before.  It had done nothing to reign in her strength, however, and only a week back the intensity of her lovemaking had left the son of a burgomaster paralyzed, hastening their departure from the continent .

Thinking of problems with the troupe brought him back to Norris.  The boy had been acting more of a mutt of late than ever before.  He was getting mighty ornery about putting on pants, even when people were around, and had once bared his teeth at Grenadine when she tried to insist he get dressed.  Ah well, he thought, might as well all pile out to look at his latest find.  There was no harm in humoring him, and Freedomhowler supposed the troupe needed every distraction.

He was just standing to climb down from the wagon to rouse Grenadine when a voice, clear and sharp in the afternoon air, stilled him.

"Stay where you are.  Sit back down and don't move.  Those of you in the wagon, hold your place.  Do as you are told and nobody gets hurt."

A young man stood at the edge of the road a few feet in front of the wagon.  He appeared no more than twenty and was dressed like a city gentleman, save for a gun belt that hung low across his hips.  The tooled-leather could have been a hundred years old, but the guns -- one in its holster a hair from the man's hovering left hand, and the other pointed square between Freedomhowler's wide eyes -- were as bright as polished silver.  The young man held the gun with the same casual assurance that Annie had held her rifle back in the days with Wild Bill, and this fact frightened Freedomhowler more than the presence of the weapons themselves.

The only weapons at Freedomhowler's disposal were his eloquence and the rifle beneath his seat.  Had there been opportunity, he would have preferred to rely on the latter.

"Dear sir," Freedomhowler said, trying to sound amicable with no hint of condescension.  "I am afraid you have made a mistake.  We are but poor --"

The man with the sixguns cut him off.  "You speak when you're spoken to or I declare I'll leave you for the buzzards instead of giving you a proper burial.  Now call in your --" he hesitated, perhaps searching for the right word before settling on "-- dog, before we have a misunderstanding that gets someone shot before their time."

Only then did Freedomhowler notice Norris slinking through the underbrush off the road not more than ten feet behind the gunman.  The dog-boy had been silent so far as he could tell, but had somehow been sensed anyway.

It took two calls before Norris obeyed Freedomhowler's order to come stand by the wagon, and even then he did so reluctantly.

"That's all to the good," the gunman said.  "Now let's see how still you can be."

The gunman was too far away for Freedomhowler to reach with a spit of flame, so he hazarded another attempt to talk his way out of the situation.  "I assume you're a fellow American, suh," he said, "judging by your accent."

"And I'd guess you're a Southern gentleman, judging by your inability to shut your mouth.  I'll be putting 'Kentucky' on your headstone, is that right?"

"It is," Freedomhowler said, only realizing what he'd agreed to after the words tumbled out.  Wild Bill was throwing a fit in his head, making it impossible to think straight.

The gunman then made what looked like the biggest mistake imaginable.  He took his eyes off Freedomhowler and turned his head to speak to Heather

"Pardon, ma'am," the gunman said.

That seemed like Freedomhowler's cue.  He reached under the wagon seat and grabbed for his rifle.  The weapon's stock had barely come into view when it exploded, spraying his face with splinters.

"I'm trying to talk to the lady here," the gunman said.  "You keep your peace."  The smoking gun barrel seemed to track the space between Freedomhowler's eyes as he sat back in his seat.

"Now," the gunman said, turning back to Heather.  "I was going to ask you, ma'am, if you can take that harness off yourself or if I need to get you some help."

"I dinna need any 'elp," Heather said, managing a cold smile.  Freedomhowler could tell she was wishing the highwayman was within arm's reach.

"Good.  Take it off."

Heather did so, letting the harness fall to the road.

"Now, off with you," the gunman said, giving a little nod down the road.

Heather stood, blinking.

"Go on, off with you.  It's okay.   I've got them covered."

"I dinna understand," Heather said.

"I'm setting you free, woman.  Go!"

Freedomhowler laughed, his relief making the sound too loud and drawing a twitch from the gun.  "The boy thinks you're being held against your will, my dear! Indeed! As if such a thing were possible!"

Heather's eyes brightened up like a spring day.  "You were trying t' save me?"

The man lowered his gun.  "You're not his captive?"

Heather bit her upper lip, smiled, and shook her head.  She almost looked girlish, and the sight gave Freedomhowler an odd feeling in his stomach.

"Is everything all right?" Grenadine asked, peeking out from behind the wagon.

"Aye, it's bonnie fine!" Heather said.

The man holstered his sixgun.  "I'm a mite embarrassed about this," he said, turning to Freedomhowler.  "I do believe an apology is in order."

"Not at all, son, not at all!" Freedomhowler said, too relieved to demand his due.  He climbed down from the wagon.  "It was right honorable of you to attempt a rescue, misinformed as it might have been."

Freedomhowler walked to the man and extended his hand, "Professor Bernhard Freedomhowler, impresario, general manager, proprietor, and professor de-lux of Freedomhowler's Internationally-Acclaimed Traveling Exhibition of Medicinal Wonderment, and proud purveyor of Nature's Own Remedy, at your service."