The Eagles Legacy

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 eye 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.

Duff caught the revolver, then turned it around and shot his adversary at point-blank range.

“What the hell? Where did you . . . ?” He fell forward, facedown into the watering trough.

The man’s shout that there were only three of them left corresponded with Biff’s report that there had been eight of them. That meant that now there were only two. He knew that Malcolm was in the saloon, but he had no idea where the other one was.

“MacCallister, look over here!” Malcolm called.

Looking toward the front door of the saloon, Duff saw Malcolm coming outside. Another man was with him and this man was holding Lucy in front of him. Duff couldn’t see that much of him, just about half of his head as he was peeking around Lucy’s shoulder.

“Now, Mr. MacCallister, here is how we are going to play this little drama,” Malcolm said. “You and I will both raise our pistols toward each other. I will count to three, then we will fire. If you fire before I get to three, Mr. Pogue, here, is going to kill this lady. But”—Malcolm smiled, as he held up a finger—“here is what makes the game even more interesting. When I get to three, Mr. Pogue is going to kill the girl, anyway. That means you are going to have to make up your mind as to whether you want to try and save the whore or shoot me. Not fair I know, but those are my rules.”

Duff raised his pistol and shot Pogue, the bullet whizzing cleanly past Lucy and hitting Pogue in the forehead. He dropped like a poleaxed mule.

“No!” Malcolm shouted, shocked at how quickly and cleanly Duff had killed Pogue.

“I’ll make my own rules,” Duff said.

Malcolm had turned his pistol toward Lucy, but realized, at once, that he had made a big mistake. He tried to bring his pistol back to bear on Duff, but it was too late.

Duff’s bullet hit Malcolm between his eyes.

Before he headed back home, the entire town of Chugwater turned out to hail Duff as a hero. Duff had a few people of his own to thank, Biff Johnson for shooting the man off the roof who had a bead on him, Fred Matthews for tossing him a loaded revolver just in time, and Megan Parker, who reminded Duff that Chugwater held a dance, once a month, in the ballroom of the Dunn Hotel.

It was about a ten-minute ride back home, and as he approached, he saw a strange horse tied out front. Dismounting, he was examining the horse when Elmer Gleason stepped out onto the front porch.

“Mr. MacCallister, you have a visitor inside. He is a friend from Scotland.”

Duff smiled broadly. Could it be Ian McGregor? He stepped up onto the front porch, then went inside. “Ian?” he called.

It wasn’t Ian, it was Angus Somerled. Somerled was standing by the stove, holding a pistol that was leveled at Duff.

“Somerled,” Duff said.

“Ye’ve been a hard man to put down, Duff Tavish MacCallister, but the job is done now.”

Duff said nothing.

“Here now, lad, and has cat got your tongue?”

“I didn’t expect to see you,” Duff said.

“Nae, I dinna think you would. Would you be tellin’ me where I might find my deputy?”

“Malcolm is dead.”

“Aye, I thought as much. Killed him, did ye?”

“It seemed the thing to do.”

“There is an old adage: If you want something done right, do it yourself. I should have come after you a long time ago, instead of getting my sons and my deputies killed.”

“That night on Donuum Road, I was coming to give myself up,” Duff said. “None of this need have happened. Your sons would still be alive, Skye would still be alive. But you were too blinded by hate.”

“We’ve talked enough, Duff MacCallister,” Somerled said. He cocked the pistol and Duff steeled himself.

Suddenly the room filled with the roar of a gunshot—but it wasn’t Somerled’s pistol. It was a shotgun in the hands of Elmer Gleason. Gleason had shot through the window, and the double load of 12-gauge shot knocked Somerled halfway across the room.

“Are you all right, Mr. MacCallister?” Gleason shouted through the open window. Smoke was still curling up from the two barrels.

“Aye, I’m fine,” Duff said. “My gratitude to ye, Mr. Gleason.”

Gleason came around to the front of the cabin and stepped in through the front door.

“Seein’ as how I saved your life, don’t you think me ’n you might start callin’ each other by our Christian names?”

“Aye, Elmer. Your point is well taken.”

“Sorry ’bout tellin’ you he was your friend. But that’s what he told me, and I believed him.”

“And yet, you were waiting outside the window with a loaded shotgun.”

“Yes, sir. Well, considerin’ that the fella you went to meet in Chugwater was from Scotland, and wasn’t your friend, I just got to figurin’ maybe I ought to stand by, just in case.”

“Aye. I’m glad you did.”

Gleason leaned the shotgun against the wall and looked at the blood that was on the floor of the cabin.

“I reckon I’d better get this mess cleaned up for you,” he said.

“Elmer, I’m sure you don’t realize it, but you just did,” Duff said.