Free Healers by Laurence Dahners Page A

us. You think this is some kind of picnic? It’s dangerous out here!”
    Despite the big guard’s condescendingly angry tone, to Kazy’s astonishment, Tarc answered calmly. “Sorry, one of our patients caught up to us and we were giving him a treatment back there. It took a while, so we got pretty far behind.”
    “Pretty far behind! You damn right! There’re people out here who’d kill you just for those horses! I’d think you’d have learned after we got attacked by those raiders just out of Walterston.”
    Tarc said nothing, not even tightening his shoulders or blushing, though Kazy felt angry to be so chastised. Instead, Tarc simply kept his horse moving forward, requiring Jason and Wayne to turn their horses and trot back up alongside.
    Kazy saw Jason eyeing Daussie’s mount. “Where’d that horse come from?” he asked.
    Daussie grinned at him, “Some men tried to rob us, just like you said they might. But while they had us waylaid, the leader’s horse bucked him off and we managed to ride past their roadblock.” She shrugged, “Tarc captured the horse so they wouldn’t be able to catch up to us.” She gave Jason an inquisitive look. “What do you think we should do with it?”
    Jason stared at the horse, a little goggle eyed. He snorted, “You guys lead charmed lives! I suppose we should ask Arco and Norton what to do with the horse, but I doubt they’ll want to give it back to a pack of thieves.”

Chapter Four
    The Hyllises sold their new light brown horse to the wagon that was short a mule after the raiders’ attack. After stopping for a few hours each at a couple of small villages, the caravan pulled into another walled town late the next day.
    Tarc started into town with the bay horse to buy food. Daum started a run on his still and Eva ran Daussie and Kazy ragged trying to make a quick meal to sell to the caravan.
    When Tarc returned, the horse was burdened with a couple of large rounds of cheese in addition to sausage, flour, a sack of vegetables, and sugar. Eva lifted an eyebrow, “I’ll bet you think we should try making some pizza?”
    Tarc grinned at her, “Yes I do !”
    That night their first experimental pizzas consisted of thinly sliced bread, tomato sauce, sliced sausage and cheese, all melted together by a brief period in the oven. They were good, but Eva soon had them rolling out small rounds of dough to bake for another trial run the next day.
     
    The next day’s lunch at the stall featured pizzas as well as their always successful roast pork and beans. The pizzas were a huge hit, both with the townsmen and the caravaners.
    To her delight, Kazy heard two of the caravaners arguing about whether Eva’s pizzas were better than the ones from the tavern in Denton’s Crossing or not. Kazy figured, if it was questionable on the second set of pizzas Eva had ever made, there’d be no doubt once she’d had a little more practice.
    Eva continued worrying about their healer business. Once again no one even asked about it. Kazy had seen more people smirking when they looked at the sign. Eva worried that, because people looked very skeptically on the part of their sign that talked about healing, it put them off enough they were less likely to check out the food or the moonshine.
    Kazy heard Daum quietly talking to Eva. He said, “Don’t worry so much about it. We’re making enough money on the food to support ourselves. Any healing, or sweets or moonshine sales are gravy. The two golds that guy from Denton’s Crossing paid you were like a really fine dessert!” He lifted an eyebrow, and I’ll bet the next time we go through Denton’s, you’ll have more customers.”
    Eva shook her head, “I don’t know. There must be some better way to let people know what we can do. I see people come through the line for lunch who have diseases we can treat and I just want to…”
    Daum grinned at her, “Slip some medicine into their food?”
    She shrugged, “You know I won’t treat