Pig Iron was still struggling for breath, and because it was impossible for him to actually talk, he nodded.
“Good. Next time we meet, may I suggest a more convivial exchange?”
Pig Iron nodded again, and Duff returned to the table.
“Damn,” Falcon said with a big smile. “You’ll have to show me that trick sometime.”
“Nothing to it,” Duff said. He put his fingers on Falcon’s solar plexus and made a slight jab. The jab was very gentle, but was enough to show Falcon what a hard jab would do.
“I’ll have to remember that,” Falcon said.
Pig Iron got up and left the saloon as Biff Johnson was bringing a drink for Lucy, even though the girl hadn’t ordered.
“He must know your brand,” Duff said as he paid for the drink.
“That’s not hard. One glass of tea is pretty much like any other glass of tea,” Lucy said with unaccustomed candidness. She picked it up and held it toward Falcon and Duff in a toast. The two men laughed and touched their beers to her glass.
“Well, ’tis an honest lass ye be about me paying whiskey prices for your tea,” Duff said.
“Honey, if everything we drank really was whiskey, we’d all be drunk before mid-afternoon,” Lucy explained.
“Get down!” Falcon suddenly shouted and reacting quickly and without question, Duff dived from his chair onto Lucy, knocking her down and falling on top of her. By the time they reached the floor, he heard the roar of a gunshot, not a pistol, something bigger.
Falcon fired back as Pig Iron pulled the trigger on the second barrel of his twelve-gauge shotgun. Duff saw Pig Iron grab his chest, then fall back. Looking over toward Falcon, he saw a smoking pistol in Falcon’s hand.
“Annie! Oh, my God! Annie!” a woman screamed.
Duff rolled off Lucy and looked over at the table near the back of the room. One of the bar girls was lying on her back, her chest red with blood. Everyone in the room ran to her, but they saw as soon as they arrived that there was nothing they could do.
Lucy began crying quietly.
“I’m sorry, lass, I’m truly sorry,” Duff said softly.
Lucy turned and leaned into him, and he held her as she cried on his shoulder. He pulled her more tightly to him, realizing that it was the first time he had held a woman, any woman, in his arms since his Skye had been killed.
Chapter Twenty-one
Pig Iron was taken back to the Davis Ranch where he worked, and there he was buried. Annie, whose real name turned out to be Matilda Ann Gilbert, was buried in the town cemetery at Chug-water. The entire town turned out for the funeral and for the burial. Biff Johnson, upon learning that Duff not only had bagpipes, but could play them, asked if he would play “Amazing Grace.” Duff agreed to play it, and when he showed up at the cemetery, he was wearing the kilt of the Black Watch, complete with the sgian dubh, and the Victoria Cross.
The townspeople gathered around the open grave as the Reverend E. D. Sweeny of the Chug-water Church of God’s Glory gave the final prayer.
“Our Lord and Savior who is ever mindful of all our sins knows that we all fall short. And it might be said of our sister, Matilda Ann Gilbert, that she fell further than most, but those who knew Matilda Ann know that if she was sinful of the flesh, she was saintly of heart. We know that it is Your way to be forgiving, oh Lord, and we ask You to be forgiving of your daughter and to receive Matilda Ann into your bosom. Amen.”
Reverend Sweeny nodded at Duff and he inflated the bag. The first sound was from the drones. Then, fingering the chanter, Duff began playing the haunting tune, the steady hum of the drones providing a mournful sound to underscore the high skirling of the melody itself. It was beautifully played, and by the time he finished, there were many who were weeping.
After the interment, Falcon and Duff, who was still wearing his kilts, invited Lucy to have lunch with them.
“If we can have it at Fiddler’s Green,” she said. “I know that Biff had the cook do something special today to honor Annie.”
“That’s fine with me,” Falcon replied. “Duff?”
“Aye. I can think of no place I’d rather be right now,” he said.
When they returned to Fiddler’s Green, it was draped in black bunting. A sign on the front said, “IN MEMORIAM, MALTILDA ANN GILBERT, OUR ANNIE.”
Biff brought the meal to the table: roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, and freshly baked bread. When Duff and Falcon attempted to pay for it, Biff held out his hand and shook his head.
“No. This is for Annie,” he said. “But, if you don’t mind, I’ll be taking my dinner with you as well.”
“We don’t mind at all,” Duff said. “’Tis welcome company you’ll be.”
“I left my plate on the bar. I didn’t want to presume,” Biff said. He stepped back to the bar, then returned with his own plate.
“Tell me, Biff, why do you call this place Fiddler’s Green? Have you fiddlers who play here from time to time?” Duff asked.
“Colonel MacCallister, suppose you tell him about Fiddler’s Green. I know you know what it means.”
“Colonel MacCallister?” Falcon looked across the table at Biff for a moment, then he smiled and snapped his fingers. “You are Sergeant Johnson! You were with Custer at Ft. Lincoln!”
Biff smiled and nodded his head. “I knew you would remember it,” he said. “I was in D troop with Benteen.”
“No wonder you call this place Fiddler’s Green.”
“I still don’t know what it means,” Duff said.
“It’s something the cavalrymen believe,” Falcon said. “Anyone who has ever heard the bugle call ‘Boots and Saddles’ will, when they die, go to a cool, shady place by a stream of sweet water. There, they will see all the other cavalrymen who have gone before them, and they will greet those who come after them as they await the final judgment. That place is called Fiddler’s Green.”
“Do they really believe that?” Lucy asked.
“Why not?” Falcon replied. “If heaven is whatever you want it to be, who is to say that cavalrymen wouldn’t want to be with their own kind?”
“I like the idea,” Duff said.
“Many is the time we went into battle with the promise to a friend to be waiting at Fiddler’s Green,” Biff Johnson said. “I’ve many friends there now, waiting for me, and I’ve no doubt but that Custer and his brother Tom and Captains Calhoun and Keogh are there now.”
“And Isaiah Dorman,” Falcon added.
“Custer’s black scout,” Biff said. “That’s right; he was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”
“He was indeed.”
“’Tis a good thing to hold on to,” Duff said. “I’ve many friends of my own who were killed in battle. Perhaps they have found their way there as well.”
“If they were good men, warriors who died in battle, you need have no doubt about it. My lads will invite them over, to sit and visit,” Biff said.
“I hope they behave like gentlemen when they see Annie,” Lucy said.
“You need not trouble yourself, Lucy,” Biff said. “All in Fiddler’s Green are gentlemen.”
“Tell me what you knew about the lass we buried this morning,” Duff said.
Biff shook his head. “I’m sorry to say that I know very little about her. She came into town on the stagecoach one day, came straight here from the stage depot, and asked me for a job. She was attractive and had a good sense of humor. The men liked her. I was glad to see that the whole town turned out for her funeral, but I wasn’t all that surprised. We are very isolated out here, and to a degree each one of us is dependent upon the other.”
“She was from Memphis,” Lucy said. “She had married into one of the wealthiest families there, but she was raped one night while her husband was out drinking. The rapist was one of her husband’s friends, but her husband blamed her and said he couldn’t live with her anymore because she was soiled. So she decided that if she was going to have the name, she would have the game. She came here with the specific intention of becoming a soiled dove.”