“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.
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 get 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.
