Duff Tavish MacCallister, a tall man with golden hair, wide shoulders, and muscular arms was sitting on a stool at the opposite end of the bar from the Somerleds. This wasn’t by accident; there was a long-standing feud between the MacCallister and Somerled Clans, going back to the time of Robert the Bruce. And although the killing of each other had stopped a hundred years ago, their dislike of each other continued.
Ian McGregor, owner of the tavern, was wiping glasses behind the bar and he stepped over to speak to Duff.
“Duff, m’lad, I was in the cemetery the other day and I saw marked on the tombstone of one of the graves, ‘Here lies Geoffrey Somerled, an honest man.’ So this, I’ll be askin’ you. Think ye now that there may be two bodies lyin’ in the same coffin—Geoffrey and an honest man?”
Duff MacCallister threw back his head and laughed out loud. He was wearing a kilt and he slapped his bare knee in glee. McGregor’s daughter, Skye, a buxom lass with long red hair, flashing blue eyes, and a friendly smile, had been filling three mugs with ale as her father told the joke. She joined in the laughter.
Duff and Skye were soon to be married, and their banns were already posted on the church door. Most of the customers of the White Horse Pub appreciated Skye’s easy humor and friendly ways and treated her with respect due a woman. But some, like the sheriff’s three sons, treated her with ill-concealed contempt.
“Bar girl!” Donald shouted. “More ale!”
“You know her name, Somerled,” Duff said. “And it isn’t bar girl.”
“’Tis a bar girl she is and her services we’re needin’,” Donald said.
“I’ll not be but a moment, Mr. Somerled,” Skye replied. She had just put the three mugs on a carrying tray. “I’ve other customers to tend now.”
“You’re carrying three mugs—there be but three of us,” Donald said. “Serve us first. You can get more ale for them.”
“I’ll not be but a moment, sir,” Skye replied.
Donald was carrying a shillelagh, and he banged it so loudly on the bar that it startled Skye, and she dropped her tray.
“What a clumsy trollop ye’ be!” Donald said. “If you had brought the ale here, as I asked, this no’ would’a happened.”
“I told you, sir, I had other customers.”
“Your other customers can wait. Be ye daft as well as clumsy? Do ye know who I am?” Donald asked.
“Donald Somerled, that is my fiancée you are talking to and if you speak harshly to her again, I will pull your tongue out of your mouth and hand it to you,” Duff said, barely controlling his voice, so intense was his anger.
“We’ll be seeing who is handing who their tongue,” Duff said, hitting his open hand with his shillelagh.
Duff put his mug on the bar, then stepped away to face Donald. “I’m at your service,” he said.
With a defiant yell Donald charged Duff, not with his fists, but with a raised shillelagh. Duff grabbed the same bar stool he had been sitting on, and raised it over his head to block the downward swing of the club. The clack of wood crashing against wood filled the entire pub with a crack almost as loud as a gunshot. The noise got the attention of everyone in the bar and all conversation stopped as they turned to watch the confrontation between a MacCallister and a Somerled.
Donald raised his staff for a second try, but as he held his club aloft MacCallister turned the stool around and slammed the seat into Donald’s chest so hard that he let out a loud whoosh as he fell to the floor with the breath knocked from his body.
“You’ll be paying for that, Duff MacCallister!” Alexander said, and even as Donald writhed on the floor trying to recover his breath, his older brother charged Duff.
Duff tossed the bar stool aside, then put up his fists to meet Alexander’s charge. He parried a wild, roundhouse right, then countered with a straight left that landed on Alexander’s chin, driving him back. With a yell of anger, the third of the Somerled brothers, Roderick, joined the fray.
Duff backed up against the bar, thus preventing either of them from getting behind him. He sent a whistling blow into Roderick’s nose and felt it break, causing the big man to grab his nose and turn away from the fight. Now only Alexander was left, but he was the biggest and the most dangerous of the three. Shaking off the blow to his chin, he raised both fists, then advanced toward Duff.
The two men danced around the barroom floor exchanging blows, or rather, attempted blows. Duff learned early in the fight that he could hit Alexander at will. That was because Alexander was so big and so confident of his strength that he made no attempt to block Duff’s blows, willing to take them in order to get into position to return the blow. And, he seemed to be taking them with no ill effect.
Duff, on the other hand, bobbed and weaved as Alexander tried roundhouse rights, straight punches, and uppercuts. Finally Alexander connected with one of his attempts, a straight shot that Duff managed to deflect with his left shoulder, thus avoiding a punch to his head. And, even though it was not a direct hit, there was so much power in the blow that Duff felt his left arm go numb, which meant he could no longer count on that arm to ward away any more of the big man’s punches.
Duff knew he was going to have to end the fight soon, so he bobbed and weaved, watching for an opening. The opening came after Alexander tried another roundhouse right. Duff managed to pull back from it, and as Alexander completed his swing, it left the opening Duff was looking for. Duff pulled the trigger on a straight whistling right that drove his fist into Alexander’s Adam’s apple.
Alexander gagged, and put both hands to his throat. When he did so, Duff followed with a hard right to the chin that sent Alexander down to join Donald, who was just now getting up but showing no interest in continuing the fight.
For a long moment everyone in the bar looked on with shock and amazement. The Somerleds had a reputation for fighting, something they did frequently. And, because they were the sons of the sheriff, they never had to pay any of the consequences that others of the county had to pay when they engaged in the same activity.
They seldom lost a fight and yet here, in front of an entire inn full of witnesses, one man, Duff MacCallister, had taken the measure, not just of one of them, but of all three, and at the same time.
“Hear, hear, let’s give a hurrah for Duff MacCallister!” someone shouted, and the bar rang with their huzzahs.
“Now, gentlemen, I believe you called for more ale?” the bartender said, speaking to the Somerleds as if nothing had happened, as if he were merely responding to their request. Donald and Roderick responded with a scowl, helped their oldest brother to his feet; then the three men left.
Everyone in the pub wanted to buy Duff a round, but he had already drunk his limit of two mugs, so he thanked them all, accepting their offers to buy for him when next he came in.
“Skye, would you step outside with me for a moment?” Duff asked.
“Ian, best you keep an eye on them,” one of the other customers said. “Else they’ll be outside sparking.”
Skye blushed prettily as the others laughed at the jibe. Duff took her hand in his and walked outside with her.
“Only four more weeks until we are wed,” Skye said when they were outside. “I can hardly wait.”
“No need to wait. We can go into Glasgow and be married on the morrow,” Duff suggested.
“Duff MacCallister, sure and m’ mother has waited my whole life to give me a fine church wedding now, and you would deny that to her?”
Duff chuckled. “Don’t worry, Skye. There is no way in the world I would start my married life by getting on the bad side of my mother-in-law. If you want to wait, then I will wait with you.”