MacAllister

“Yeah, sneak up on it,” Shaw said. “You know, get the feller into a conversation, then you ask.”

“All right,” Malcolm said. “Suppose we let you do the talking at the next pub.”

“Saloon,” Shaw corrected. “And that’s another thing. The saloon we was just in is too highfalutin. We need one that’s more down to earth, so to speak.” He pointed to one that had a totally different exterior. Unlike the Aces and Eights, there was no false front to this building, no cutout, or even a drawing of a mug of beer, and no beautifully lettered and brightly painted sign. This one had crudely lettered words scrawled in whitewash across the front of the unpainted building. The name of the saloon was The Black Dog.

MacCallister homestead

The house was filled with people and they were all MacCallisters, either by blood or name. Falcon’s brothers Jamie Ian, Jr., Morgan, and Matthew were there with their wives, along with his sisters, Joleen, Megan, and Kathleen, and their husbands. They were already in the house when Falcon and Duff arrived. Falcon introduced them to Duff.

“My word, I had no idea I had so many cousins in America. All of you, plus Andrew and Rosanna.”

“What you see here are just a few of us,” Joleen said. “This house isn’t big enough to hold all of us.”

“How many are there?”

“One hundred and three.”

“Soon to be one hundred and four,” Matthew said. “You forgot Mirabelle.”

“I didn’t forget her, Matthew. I know she is pregnant,” Joleen said. “But the question was how many are there, not how many will there be.”

The others laughed.

“Tell us, Cousin Duff, how are Andrew and Rosanna doing?” Megan asked. “We see them so seldom now that they are famous in the New York theater.”

“They are doing well. When I left New York they were the principal players in a play called The Highlander.”

“The Highlander? What an odd name for a play. What does it mean?”

“It refers to someone who lives in the Highlands. It is rather like calling an American who lives in the West a Westerner.”

Duff answered many more questions: how he met Andrew and Rosanna, and about his family back in Scotland, though, as he explained, he was the only one left.

“With my departure, there is not one MacCallister left in all of Scotland, or if there be, they are cousins so distant that they are not known by me.”

“What brought you to America?” Jamie Ian asked.

“Andrew and Rosanna invited him,” Falcon answered quickly, with a glance toward Duff cautioning him not to go any further with the answer. Falcon was now aware of all the details of Duff’s flight, first to New York, and then from New York to Colorado.

The rest of the family had brought food, and they had an enormous dinner that evening. Then, as the ladies cleaned up from the meal, the men gathered in the parlor for drinks and cigars.

“The drink is fine,” Duff said. “But I’ve never caught on to smoking.”

“Ahh, it’s a nasty habit anyway,” Matthew said.

“Jamie, Morgan, Matthew, it was more than a mere invitation from Andrew and Rosanna that brought Duff to America,” Falcon said.

Jamie took a puff of his cigar and nodded. “I thought it might be,” he said.

“What was it?” Morgan asked.

“I’m going to let Duff answer,” Falcon said.

“I’ve killed a few men,” Duff said.

“Haven’t we all?” Jamie Ian replied.

“What do you mean by a few?” Matthew asked.

“Five. Well, more if you count those I killed in war. But five that I killed were my own countrymen.”

“I take it they needed killin’,” Jamie Ian said. “Or else you wouldn’t be telling of it so easily.”

“One of the men I killed, the son of the sheriff, was trying to rape Skye. And because he was the son of the local sheriff I decided to go to the sheriff to tell him my side of the story. Skye would not have it any other way but that she go with me, being as she was a witness. But on the road we were met by the sheriff and three of his deputies. Before I could say a word to explain the situation, and to tell them that I was voluntarily coming to the sheriff’s office, they began shooting. They were shooting at me, but they killed Skye. I killed the two deputies.”

“Who was Skye?” Matthew asked.

“Skye was my fiancee.”

“I thought as much,” Morgan said.

“Then I was right,” Jamie Ian said. “The sons of bitches needed killin’.”

“I was still in Scotland when I killed those men, but knew that the sheriff was never going to let it go to trial. And without Skye’s testimony as to what happened, I would not have been able to prove that the killing was justified, even if it had gone to trial. I knew that I was going to have to leave the country, so I boarded ship that very night and worked my passage to America.”