"Maybe I've got a spark of life left in me after all, Miss Lily."

She smiled. "I imagine you do. But today you're still Mister rather than Sheri f. You're doing well, but you're far from fully recovered."

"I think I knew that already." Tanner lifted a hand to the back of his head and winced. "It feels like I've been trying to waltz with an ornery mule."

"Can I get you some coffee, Bart?" Maudie said.

"Thank you, Maude. That would be good." He moved stiffly to the table and sank into a chair.

Liza came downstairs then. She had been seeing to Niles Barrett-the Englishman was still unconscious-and now she helped Maudie put out breakfast in the dining room for the boarders. However, the rest of them ate at the small table in the kitchen, where they could talk.

"I'll need a gun, I suppose," Travis said.

Maudie gave him a sharp look. "Why, surely you have a gun, Mr. Cai...I mean, Mr. Wilder."

Travis opened his mouth, but Lirith was faster. "He lost it. Isn't that right?"

"Well, you can use my gun, seeing as it does me no good." With a shaking hand, Tanner pulled a revolver from the gun belt at his hip and set it on the table. It gleamed bright silver; the grip was carved of smooth ivory. "It's a .45 caliber Colt Single Action Army. A Peacemaker. Although, back when I was with the US Marshals, some of the men liked to call it a Thumb Buster."

Travis peered at the gun but didn't touch it. It was big, the barrel as long as his hand, but sleek all the same. It looked powerful. And dangerous.

"I've never shot one of these before," Travis said.

Tanner gave him a curious look. "A Peacemaker, you mean? It's not so different than any other six-shooter you'll have fired. It's heavy, and the action's stiff, but that's about it. Though I suppose it would be good for you to practice some to get the feel of it."

"That would be good," Travis said, letting out a breath. "I'm a little...rusty."

Tanner nodded. "I know a place we can go shoot. That is, if the doctor will allow me outside."

Lirith crossed her arms, her expression stern. "As long as you ride instead of walk."

"Yes, ma'am," Tanner said.

However, it seemed Lirith didn't entirely trust Tanner, as she decided to go along, as did Durge. The Embarran fetched a pair of horses from the livery, and Lirith and Tanner rode while Travis and Durge walked. Travis was worried someone might see them leave town, but the streets were deserted, and no one accosted them as they rode toward Granite Creek.

They stopped in a small gulch. On one side, scattered on the dirt slope, were mutilated tin cans and the shattered remains of glass bottles. So they weren't the only ones to use the place as a shooting range.

Durge set up several of the less hole-ridden cans in a row, then returned to the others. Tanner handed Travis the six-shooter.

"Go ahead and give it a try," Tanner said. "It's loaded." Travis tried to recall what he knew of guns. There wasn't much. He took it in his hands, trying not to fumble. "Is the safety off?"

Tanner frowned. "Safety? What's that?"

"Nothing," Travis muttered. He raised the gun, aware of Tanner's eyes on him. Clenching his jaw, he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

"You really are rusty," Tanner said, letting out a low whistle.

"You forgot to cock it. Go ahead-it's easier if you do it all in one quick motion with your thumb. That's right. Now keep your arm straight. Don't tense up your shoulder. And squeeze the trigger, don't pull."

Travis tried to keep all of this clear in his mind. He aimed, fired. Thunder rent the air of the gulch. Lirith and Durge winced. The cans, however, appeared unaffected. Travis fired again and again, until the gun clicked when he pulled the trigger.

"Don't forget to count your shots," Tanner said as Travis lowered the gun. "You've only got six before you have to reload." He gave Travis a handful of bullets.

Travis stared at them; they felt hot in his hand. Tanner gave him a sharp look, then took both bullets and gun and showed Travis how to slip them into the chambers. He handed the gun back to Travis. "Ready to try again, Mr. Caine?"

Travis made a decision. "I'm not Tyler Caine."

"I know," Tanner said.

"My shooting gave me away?"

"It's not that." Tanner seemed to reconsider his words.

"Well, it is that. You're a terrible shot. But I knew it even before you picked up the gun. You look like him all right. But you don't walk like a gunslinger."

"How does a gunslinger walk?"

"Like he's got death riding at his hip." Tanner glanced at Durge. "Like our Mr. Dirk here walks."

Durge gave him a surprised look.

Tanner grinned. "You don't know any more about guns than Mr. Wilder does, Mr. Dirk, but I'd bet my life you're no stranger to carrying a weapon. Only I can't think what on Earth it would be."

"A sword," Durge said in his deep voice.

Tanner raised his eyebrows.

"Can you teach me?" Travis said. "To shoot?"

Tanner nodded. "You've got a steady hand. And there's something about you, Mr. Wilder, something I can't put my finger on. You don't walk like a gunslinger, but you know something about power, and something about keeping it in check. That should serve you well. A man's got to wield his gun, and not the other way around."

"So you can teach me."

"I can. But not in two days. It would take two months for you to get any good. And two years before you could face someone who's as quick on the draw as Aaron Locke."

Travis's hope crumbled. "So I have a steady hand but no skill."

"And I've got the skill and a hand that shakes like a scared jackrabbit," Tanner said. "Between us we make one gunslinger, Mr. Wilder. Too bad there's no way to put us together."

"Isn't there?" Durge said.

They all looked at the knight. He shifted his feet and glanced at Lirith. "Can you not do something, my lady? Something like what you did to...what you did in the Barrens?" There was a queer expression in the knight's eyes. At first Travis thought it was fear. Then he realized it was awe.

Lirith met Durge's gaze. "It might work."

"What are you talking about?" Travis said, confused.

Lirith moved to him. "There's a way for me to grant some of Sir Tanner's knowledge to you. If he's willing." She glanced at the sheriff.

He shrugged. "I don't pretend to know what you're talking about, Miss Lily, but if there's a way to help Travis learn more quickly, I'll be happy to see what it is."

"Very well," Lirith said, and she took Tanner's wrist in one hand and Travis's in the other.

Travis started to ask Lirith what she was planning, but before he could she shut her eyes and murmured something he couldn't quite catch. Travis heard-no, felt-a rushing noise, and images flashed before his eyes. Only they weren't just images, because he could hear and feel and smell.

He stood in a valley between two forested ridges, his too-big boots squelching in thick mud. The hot air thudded with the noise of cannons, and ragged clouds of smoke drifted by like mist. Then a bugle called out, and he was running alongside men dressed in blue uniforms.

He threw himself down on his stomach behind a fallen log, then raised himself up on his elbows, rifle cradled in his arms. A line of men in gray trampled a bean field, running toward him and the others. Shots rang out. The men in gray uniforms fell like wheat before a scythe. Travis fired, reloaded, and fired again until the rifle grew hot in his hands.

More shots rang out, behind him now, along with the screams of men. A shadow fell over him, and he looked up into a pair of frightened eyes. The soldier didn't look more than seventeen, his dirty gray uniform sagging from bony shoulders. Travis started to reload, but the soldier thrust down with his bayonet. Pain sank deep into Travis's shoulder, but his scream was drowned out by the bellow of a gun. The young soldier's head dissolved in a spray of red and gray, and his body toppled on top of Travis.

The image blurred, refocused. Now Travis was on a sidewalk in a busy city. Brick buildings rose several stories above him. Horses clattered down steep cobbled streets. He caught the glint of a bay in the distance.

A shout. There was a man running toward him. Travis saw his hand rise in front of him. Only it wasn't his hand. It was smaller, knobbier, stronger. In it was a silver six-shooter with an ivory grip. The man running toward him pulled out a gun, aimed. Travis knew what to do. His gun fired, the man fell dead.

More images flashed before Travis. He shot two men riding away from him on horses. A sack tumbled to the sage-covered ground; green bricks of paper money spilled out. Another man, a kerchief hiding his face, ran out of a bank, gun blazing. Travis felled him with a single shot between the eyes. He turned, and for a second, in a store's plate-glass window, he caught the reflection of a man: He was slight of build, handsome in a sober way, with a sandy brown mustache and watery blue eyes.

Sun glinted off the window, so bright Travis was forced to look away. When his vision cleared, he found himself staring at the same face, only older, wearier. Tanner stood before him. Lirith released his wrist. The sheriff took a staggering step back. He stared at her, then at Travis.

"Who are you?" he said.

Travis glanced down at the gun in his hand and ran a thumb over it. A minute ago it had felt heavy and alien. Now it seemed to fit snugly in his grip, and he could feel the expert way its weight had been balanced. In an easy motion, he raised the gun, cocked it, and fired. A tin can flew toward the sky, then clattered back to earth. He fired again, and again. Four, five, six. Each time, one of the tin cans skittered away. He lowered the gun and met Tanner's stunned eyes.

"We're not who you think we are," he said.

They told him everything: how Durge and Lirith were from another world, and Travis from the future of this one, and how the sorcerer had followed them through. When they finished, Tanner was silent. He stared at the twisted metal cans. Finally, he nodded.

"Maybe Maudie's right. Maybe you really are Tyler Caine."

Travis tightened his grip on the gun.

Lirith cast a worried look at Tanner. The sheriff's face was gray. "We should be getting back."

"I'll get the horses," Durge said.

They rode back to the town in silence and reached the Bluebell around noon. Tanner and Lirith dismounted, and Durge took the reins of the horses to lead them back to the livery. However, before he could go, the front door burst open, and Maudie rushed onto the porch, leaning on her cane. "Thank the Lord above you're back!"

Tanner seemed to forget his own weariness. He bounded up the steps and took her arm. "Maude, what is it?"

"It's-" A fit of coughing took her. He gripped her shoulders until it passed. "It's Mr. Barrett."

The rest of them were on the porch now.

"What is it?" Lirith said. "Has Lord Barrett finally awakened?"

"No," Maudie said, gasping. "He's dead."

They buried Niles Barrett the next day.

It was late morning when Durge fetched a wagon from the livery and drove them up the hill outside town to Castle Heights Cemetery. As Durge brought the wagon to a halt, a tall man in a black suit approached. For a moment Travis wondered if it might be Brother Cy.

It wasn't. The undertaker was about Travis's age, his face as dusty as his suit. Tanner spoke to him, and he pointed across the cemetery. Durge helped Maudie down from the wagon and guided her across the rough ground. Tanner offered his arm to Lirith in a polite gesture. However, Travis could see the way the sheriff leaned on her as they walked. Travis came last, along with Jack, holding on to the small bunch of wildflowers Lirith had picked that morning. Travis, Durge, and Tanner had donned their best shirts, and Lirith her gray dress, which matched Jack's suit. Maudie was dressed all in black.

"He doesn't have a wife to mourn him," she had said back at the Bluebell. "So I guess it's up to me."

They found his grave on the far side of the cemetery, a hastily dug pit. Lying within was a pine coffin. The only marker was a plain wooden cross.

"Oh, Niles," Maudie said, wiping the tears from her cheek. "I'll sure miss your voice."

Tanner laid a hand on her shoulder, and she leaned back against his chest.

"What happened?" Travis had asked Lirith the previous afternoon, after she examined Barrett's body.

Lirith's face was tightly drawn. "His injuries were too great. I wish Grace was here-I can't be as certain as she could be- but I believe there was bleeding in his head."

An aneurism. Brought about by the blows to his skull, Travis supposed. "But I thought you said he was waking up."

"No, I said he was trying, and that he was strong. But sometimes..." Lirith's voice caught in her throat. "Sometimes, no matter how strong you are, it isn't enough."

Those words echoed in Travis's mind now. What about him? Would he be strong enough to do what he had to that day? Last night, at the Mine Shaft, he had overheard a number of whispers that let him know their plan had worked. Word was all over town that Tyler Caine had challenged the leader of the Crusade for Purity to a gunfight, and that the showdown would happen tonight at the Bar L Ranch.

There was no way Locke couldn't have heard the rumors. But did he know their source? More than once Travis had looked up as the saloon's doors swung open, expecting to see Lionel Gentry and Eugene Ellis, or even Aaron Locke himself, step through. But he never did. They were waiting, just like he was. Waiting for sundown tonight.

"Where's the preacher?" Maudie said, looking around the cemetery.

Good question, Travis thought. Where was Brother Cy? He wasn't sure. Only that he had a feeling he wouldn't see Cy again, at least not in this century. "I don't think there is a preacher," Travis said.

"Then we'll have to speak prayers for him ourselves," Lirith said.

Each of them talked in turn about how they had met Niles Barrett, and some memory of him: his sardonic laughter, his intelligent gaze, how he had wanted to start a newspaper to rival the Clarion .

"I wish I had gotten the chance to meet this fellow," Jack said wistfully. "It sounds as if he was the only civilized man in Castle City."

When they were done, Travis set the flowers on top of the coffin. Maudie smiled, tears shining on her cheeks. "He's gone to meet his lieutenant. I don't think I told you, Miss Lily. Niles found out last fall, more than a year after his ship went down off the coast of Australia. But they're sailing away together now, aren't they?" Her smile faded, and she looked at Tanner. "Aren't they, Bart?"

Tanner took her hand in his. "Forever, Maude." He put his arm around her shoulder, and slowly the two made their way back to the wagon as the rest of them followed.

The afternoon was long and hot. None of them felt like eating when they got back to the Bluebell, but Liza made lemonade with the last bit of ice in the cellar, and that provided a bit of relief. Tanner went upstairs to rest, but Maudie seemed unable to sit still. She bustled from room to room dusting and straightening, until finally a fit of coughing seized her.

"Please, madam," Jack said when her spasm subsided, "will you keep me company in the parlor?"

Maudie daubed at her lips with her handkerchief. "I can't imagine I'll be very good company, Mr. Graystone. But I'll sit with you, if you like."

Travis shot Jack a grateful look. He spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the front porch with Lirith and Durge. They didn't speak much, but Travis knew they were all thinking the same thing. Would they get Sareth back alive? Then, just as the shadows stretched down the length of Grant Street, the front door squeaked open. Tanner stepped onto the porch.

"It's time," he said.

Travis went upstairs, looped the gun belt around his hips, and put on the black hat. Last of all, he slipped the wire-rimmed spectacles onto his face. As usual, everything looked strange. Not blurry or distorted, but instead too clear. Travis met his eyes in the mirror, then he went downstairs to say good-bye.