MacAllister

by William W. Johnstone

  By now all the other outlaws had drawn their pistols as well, and they stood there holding them at the ready as the smoke from four discharges floated up to form a blue-gray cloud just under the ceiling.

  Malcolm turned toward Biff Johnson just as he was reaching for the shotgun that he kept under the bar.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Malcolm said, pointing his pistol at the bartender.

  Biff backed away from the bar.

  “You killed the marshal,” Biff said.

  “You saw it, barkeep,” Malcolm said. “We really had no choice.”

  “He was a good man,” Biff said.

  “Ha!” Pettigrew said. “Well, he’s a dead man now.”

  “Barkeep, I want you to do a favor for me,” Malcolm said.

  “Why should I do you a favor?”

  “Because if you don’t do that favor for me, I shall kill one of these ladies,” Malcolm said, pointing his pistol toward Lucy and Peggy. “And here is the interesting thing. I am going to let you pick the one that I kill.” He smiled at the two women, who had been stunned into silence by what they had just witnessed. “What do you think, ladies? Which one of you will he pick?”

  “You can’t do that!” Biff said. “I’m not going to choose which one you kill. Are you insane?”

  “Insane? No, just curious as to which one you will choose.”

  “I’m not going to choose either one.”

  “Never mind, I will choose. And after I kill one of them, if you still won’t do the favor, I will kill the other one. What do you think about that? And so, you see, it really doesn’t matter which one you would have chosen, because I will kill them both if you force my hand. And if you still won’t do the favor, then I will simply kill you and find someone else who will do me the favor.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to go find Duff MacCallister and bring him to me.”

  “Duff MacCallister? What do you want with him?”

  “He is a countryman of mine,” Malcolm said.

  “Somehow I have the idea that you don’t want him for a reunion of old friends.”

  “Do ye now?” Malcolm said. He laughed. “You are most astute. Now, will you fetch MacCallister for me? Or shall I choose one of these ladies to die?”

  “No, no, there is no need for that. I will go.”

  “Good for you. You have made a wise choice.”

  “And Falcon MacCallister,” Pettigrew added quickly. “Don’t forget to bring him along as well.”

  “Aye,” Malcolm said. “Do, please, bring Falcon MacCallister along as well,” Malcolm said. “Mr. Shaw?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have a loud voice. Kindly step out into the street and announce that we have two women as hostages. If anyone comes into the pub, we will kill them. If anyone makes a move toward us, we will kill the women.”

  “All right,” Shaw said.

  “I wonder where Biff is going,” Fred Matthews said as he saw Biff riding away.

  “The marshal, he ain’t come out yet,” Lonnie said.

  “This doesn’t look good.”

  Next door to the saloon was Megan’s Dress Emporium. The proprietor and seamstress was Megan Parker, a very pretty young woman. Mrs. Finley, one of her customers, had just finished trying on a dress and was about to leave when Megan held out her hand.

  “No, Mrs. Finley, I don’t think you should leave yet,” she said.

  “Oh, dear me,” Mrs. Finley said. “What is happening?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

  At that moment Shaw came out into the street and began yelling at the top of his voice.

  “All you people, hear me now!” Shaw shouted. “We just kilt your marshal! We got some business to take care of in this town and we’re goin’ to stay here till that business is done! Don’t nobody come into the saloon! If you do, we’ll kill you! Don’t nobody make any moves toward us, ’cause we got us two whores in here, and we’ll kill them.”

  “Did he say they killed Marshal Craig?” Mrs. Finley asked.

  “That’s what he said,” Megan replied.

  “Oh, my. Poor Gladys.”

  Sky Meadow

  “He is Scottish, you say?” Duff asked.

  “He is Scottish, all right,” Biff said. “I would recognize the brogue anywhere.”

  “I’m sure it is Rab Malcolm,” Duff said. “He is nothing if not persistent.”

  “Malcolm, yes, that is his name. I heard the marshal call him that.”

  “And you say he has men with him?”

  “Counting the Scotsman, there are eight of them,” Biff said. “One of them asked that I bring Falcon back as well. I think they want him as much as Malcolm wants you.”

  “Aye, Falcon had spoken of the enemies he has made, and ’twould be like Malcolm’s way to recruit others by using Falcon as his bait. But Falcon isn’t here. He left yesterday, to go back home.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Did ye not say that Malcolm has threatened the ladies if I don’t appear?”

  “Not exactly. He threatened them as a means of persuading me to come after you,” Biff replied. “I have kept my end of the bargain, I have come after you. I think that is all that’s needed to keep Lucy and Peggy safe.”

  “I would not want to count on that,” Duff said. “Malcolm is a man with fewer redemptive qualities than a bilge rat. I had better go into town and get this settled, once and for all.”

  “You forget, he isn’t alone.”

  “I think there will be no problem with the others. ’Tis obvious they want Falcon. They hold no animus toward me.”

  “Duff, you don’t understand,” Biff said. “People like that don’t have to be angry with someone in order to kill them. They can kill a human being as easily as they can step on a bug.”

  “He’s right, Mr. MacCallister,” Gleason said. “You bein’ from a foreign country an’ all, maybe you don’t understand what kind of polecats we have over here. I’ve known fellas that would as soon kill you as look at you. And this here bunch that’s gathered around Malcolm strikes me as that kind.”

  “If you have another gun, I’ll go in with you,” Biff offered.

  “I’ll go as well,” Gleason added.

  “No, I appreciate the offer, but this is my fight,” Duff said.

  Chugwater

  Back in Fiddler’s Green, Malcolm saw that the men with him were taking advantage of Biff Johnson’s absence by helping themselves to all the drinks they wanted. Malcolm was sitting at the table with Lucy and Peggy, and he wasn’t drinking. And, though he said nothing about it, he was getting concerned that the amount of alcohol the others were consuming would hinder their effectiveness.

  “Why do you want Duff MacCallister?” Lucy asked.

  “Ye may not know this, lass, but I am a deputy sheriff back in Scotland. And there, he is wanted for murder. That’s why I am here.”

  “You are a deputy sheriff, but you robbed a bank and you just killed our marshal,” Peggy said.

  “Aye, well, it has gotten a bit—complicated, let us say.”

  “Who did Duff MacCalliser kill?”

  “He killed the sheriff’s three sons and two of my friends.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “’Tis of no matter to me, lass, whether you believe it or not.”

  “You talk just like him,” Lucy said. “But you aren’t like him.”

  “What the hell?” Shaw suddenly said, holding up his hand. “Ever’one, be quiet and listen. What the hell is that sound? Do you hear it?”

  Everyone stopped talking and, as they did, all could hear the sound. It was a high, skirling sound, underscored by a constant drone.

  “’Tis the pipes!” Malcolm said, standing up so quickly that the chair in which he was sitting fell over with a bang.

  “The what?” Pettigrew asked.

  “The pipes! MacCallister is playing the pipes! Everyone g
et into position, he’s coming!”

  The others moved quickly to get into the positions they had already selected. Malcolm, with pistol in hand, moved to the bat-wing doors and looked out into the street as Pogue and Shaw went about clearing it.

  “Get off the street! Get out of the way!” Pogue and Shaw were shouting. “Get out of the street or get shot!”

  The pipes continued to play “Scotland the Brave,” which only Malcolm recognized as the incitement to battle. The fact that pipes were being used against him gave him a chill, and though he wouldn’t mention it to any of the others, it frightened him.

  Everyone in town heard the pipes being played, from R. W. Guthrie, to Fred Matthews, to Megan Parker, the beautiful young dressmaker who, as she was disembarking from the coach, had noticed Duff on the first day he came to town. She knew that he was the one playing the pipes, because she had heard him play them at the funeral of one of the bar girls.

  At first she felt a little thrill at hearing the pipes being played. But when she saw armed men running everyone off the street, she felt a great sense of apprehension and knew, somehow, that Duff MacCallister, the handsome young Scot, was the center of all this, and was in danger.

  She stood to one side of the big window in front of her shop and leaned over to peek outside. The street was absolutely quiet, except for the sound of the pipes.

  Then the pipes fell silent.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Duff let the air out of the bag with one, long, lingering, dying tone. He hooked the pipes on the pommel of his saddle and rode the remaining quarter mile into town. In contrast to the way the town was on Duff’s previous visit, this time the street was absolutely empty. He stopped at the south end of Bowie Street, dismounted, and tied Sky off at a hitching rail. Then, as he walked down the middle of the street, he saw Rab Malcolm step out of Fiddler’s Green.

  “’Twas nice of you to play me a tune before you came in,” Malcolm said.

  “Pity the man who hears the pipes and is nae a Scotsman,” Duff said. “Or who be Scot, but is evil of heart.”

  Malcolm chuckled. “And would that be me?”

  “Aye,” Duff replied.

  “Where is your cousin? The one they call Falcon.”

  “He has gone,” Duff said. “He stayed long enough to help me build my house, then he went back home.”

  “Och, and you’ve built a house, have you? ’Tis too bad you won’t live long enough to enjoy it.”

  “How is this to be?” Duff asked. “Are we to face each other down in the street?”

  Malcolm laughed out loud. “Sure’n I think ye may have been reading one of the sensational novels about the American West. Nae, we won’t be facing each other down in the street. Well, that’s nae entirely true, is it? Ye see, lad, I’ll be facing you down, but there won’t be anything you can do about it.”

  Megan was watching from the window of her dress emporium and she saw, right in front of her store, two men lying on the ground behind a watering trough, one at one end, and one at the other. She knew that they were there to ambush Duff, and she wanted desperately to call out to him. But she knew that if she did, they would more than likely shoot her and her customer. She had to do something to let Duff know, but what? How could she warn him?

  Duff saw Malcolm turn and give a signal to someone. Another man came out of the saloon, holding a bar girl in front of him. It was Peggy, one of the bar girls who worked in the saloon.

  “Recognize this woman? I’m told that she is a friend of the whore for whom you played the pipes at her funeral. Really, MacCallister, you actually debased our national instrument by playing a dirge at the funeral of a whore? Be ye without shame? That is enough to cost you your commission in the Black Watch.”

  “I’ve resigned my commission,” Duff said.

  “Aye, I daresay you have.”

  Lucy appeared at the bat-wing doors of the saloon. “Peggy!” she called.

  Malcolm turned toward the saloon and pointed at Lucy. “Get back inside!” he called.

  “Please, let Peggy go!”

  “Back inside,” Malcolm ordered.

  “Let the woman go,” Duff said.

  “Sure, I’ll let the woman go,” Malcolm said. He walked back to the saloon, but just before he stepped inside, he turned back to the man who was holding Peggy. “Let her go, Pettigrew.”

  Pettigrew let Peggy go and she stood there for a moment, looking around as if unable to believe she had been released.

  “Peggy, get off the street,” Duff called. “Go into the mercantile.”

  As Peggy started across the street toward the mercantile store, Pettigrew and Malcolm went back into the saloon. Duff didn’t like the way this felt. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He drew his pistol and started running toward Peggy.

  “Peggy, get down!” he shouted.

  Startled by Duff’s sudden shout, Peggy stopped in the middle of the street and looked at him with an expression of confusion on her face. At that moment Pettigrew stepped back out of the saloon and fired.

  “No!” Duff shouted, and he saw blood and brain matter fly from Peggy’s head as she fell facedown into the dirt.

  Duff fired at Pettigrew and saw the look of shock on Pettigrew’s face when the bullet hit him. Duff ran back across the street toward the nearest watering trough and leaped over it, even as the bullets began whining around him.

  Megan saw the two men behind the watering trough cock their pistols and start to move toward the edge. If Duff had no idea they were there, they would have the advantage over him. Dare she call out to him?

  Then, she got an idea, and she hurried to the back of her shop.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Finley asked from behind a trunk. “What is going on out there?”

  “Stay down, Mrs. Finley. Just stay down and you’ll be all right,” Megan said. She unscrewed the knobs that held the dressing mirror on the frame. Then carrying it to the front, she turned it on its side so that it had a lengthwise projection. Holding it in the window, she prayed that Duff would see it.

  Once he was safely behind the watering trough, Duff slithered on his stomach to the edge, then peered around it. He looked first toward the saloon to see if Malcolm was going to make another appearance, but the saloon was quiet. Then, looking across the street, he saw a woman in the window of the dress shop. It was Megan, the same pretty woman he had seen step down from the stagecoach the first day he rode into town, and had actually met for the first time at Annie’s funeral. At first, he wondered what she was doing there, then he saw exactly what she was doing.

  Megan was holding a mirror, and looking in the mirror Duff could see the reflection of two men lying on the ground behind the watering trough that was directly across the street from him. He watched as one started moving toward the end of the trough in order to take a look. Duff aimed his pistol at the edge of the trough and waited.

  “MacCallister!” Malcolm called from the darkness of the saloon. “Maybe you do have the right idea. Why don’t you come back out into the street, and I will as well. We can face each other down, just as your cousin does. Oh, yes, I know all about your cousin. I have read of him in a dime novel. He must be a most courageous man. What do you say? Just you and I, alone in the street.”

  “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” Duff called back.

  “Believe what?”

  “That it would just be the two of us.”

  Malcolm laughed. “You think that because I have friends with me, that I may take unfair advantage of you, MacCallister? Alas, that is probably true. Tell me, what does it feel like to know that you won’t live long enough to see the sun set tonight?”

  All the while Malcolm was talking, Duff was keeping one eye on the mirror and the other on the corner of the watering trough. Then his vigil was rewarded. Duff saw the brim of a hat appear, and he cocked his pistol, aimed, took a breath, and let half of it out. When he saw the man’s e
ye appear, Duff touched the trigger. Looking in the mirror he saw the man’s face fall into the dirt, and the gun slip from his hand.

  “Carter! Carter!” the man at the end of the trough shouted. Suddenly he stood up. “You son of a bitch! You killed my brother!” He started running across the street, firing wildly. Duff shot one time, and the man running toward him pitched forward in the street.

  Duff heard the bark of a rifle. Then he saw someone tumbling forward off the roof of the dress shop. The man had had a bead on Duff, and Duff hadn’t seen him. Looking toward the sound of the rifle shot, Duff saw Biff Johnson. Smiling, Biff waved at him, then stepped back behind the corner of Curly Latham’s Barber Shop.

  There was someone behind the false front of Fiddler’s Green, and he fired at Duff. Duff returned fire, but the man had slipped back behind the false front, so he missed. But he kept his eye peeled on the false front and when the man appeared to take another shot at Duff, Duff fired first. The man dropped his gun to the street as he pitched back.

  “I’m gettin’ out of here!” someone shouted.

  “Me too.”

  Duff saw two more men abandon their hiding places behind the corners of buildings. As they ran across the street, they started shooting toward Duff. He fired back. His bullet caught one of the men high in the chest, and he pitched forward, halfway across the street, falling across Peggy’s body. He missed the second man with his first shot, but the next one brought him down.

  “Malcolm!” someone shouted. “Malcolm, they’s five of us down! There’s only three of us left! Hey, wait a minute! He’s shot six times! Ha! He’s out of bullets!”

  The person who was shouting suddenly appeared from the corner of another building, running across the street toward Duff, shooting as he ran.

  “MacCallister!” a voice shouted from behind Duff. Turning toward the voice he saw Fred Matthews. Fred tossed a revolver toward him.