“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?”
