Sympathy for the Devil

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Sympathy for the Devil Page 14

by Tim Pratt


  I was for that, and we went back along the bank to the bridge, walking quick without speaking. When we got there, my Dad dropped to one knee and examined the place where we'd found my rod. There was another patch of dead grass there, and the lady's slipper was all brown and curled in on itself, as if a blast of heat had charred it. While my father did this, I looked in my empty creel. "He must have gone back and eaten my other fish, too," I said.

  My father looked up at me. "Other fish!"

  "Yes, sir. I didn't tell you, but I caught a brookie, too. A big one. He was awful hungry, that fella." I wanted to say more, and the words trembled just behind my lips, but in the end I didn't.

  We climbed up to the bridge and helped one another over the railing. My father took my creel, looked into it, then went to the railing and threw it over. I came up beside him in time to see it splash down and float away like a boat, riding lower and lower in the stream as the water poured in between the wicker weavings.

  "It smelled bad," my father said, but he didn't look at me when he said it, and his voice sounded oddly defensive. It was the only time I ever heard him speak just that way.

  "Yes, sir."

  "We'll tell your mother we couldn't find it. If she asks. If she doesn't ask, we won't tell her anything."

  "No, sir, we won't."

  And she didn't and we didn't and that's the way it was.

  That day in the woods is eighty-one years gone, and for many of the years in between I have never even thought of it... not awake, at least. Like any other man or woman who ever lived, I can't say about my dreams, not for sure. But now I'm old, and I dream awake, it seems. My infirmities have crept up like waves which will soon take a child's abandoned sand castle, and my memories have also crept up, making me think of some old rhyme that went, in part, "Just leave them alone/And they'll come home/Wagging their tails behind them." I remember meals I ate, games I played, girls I kissed in the school cloakroom when we played Post Office, boys I chummed with, the first drink I ever took, the first cigarette I ever smoked (cornshuck behind Dicky Hammer's pig-shed, and I threw up). Yet of all the memories, the one of the man in the black suit is the strongest, and glows with its own spectral, haunted light. He was real, he was the Devil, and that day I was either his errand or his luck. I feel more and more strongly that escaping him was my luck--just luck, and not the intercession of the God I have worshipped and sung hymns to all my life.

  As I lie here in my nursing-home room, and in the ruined sand castle that is my body, I tell myself that I need not fear the Devil--that I have lived a good, kindly life, and I need not fear the Devil. Sometimes I remind myself that it was I, not my father, who finally coaxed my mother back to church later on that summer. In the dark, however, these thoughts have no power to ease or comfort. In the dark comes a voice which whispers that the nine-year-old boy I was had done nothing for which he might legitimately fear the devil either... and yet the Devil came. And in the dark I sometimes hear that voice drop even lower, into ranges which are inhuman. Big fish! it whispers in tones of hushed greed, and all the truths of the moral world fall to ruin before its hunger. Biiig fiiish!

  The Devil came to me once, long ago; suppose he were to come again now? I am too old to run now; I can't even get to the bathroom and back without my walker. I have no fine large brook trout with which to propitiate him, either, even for a moment or two; I am old and my creel is empty. Suppose he were to come back and find me so?

  And suppose he is still hungry?

  The Power of Speech

  Natalie Babbitt

  A lot of people believe that once a day every goat in the World has to go down to Hell to have his beard combed by the Devil, but this is obvious nonsense. The Devil doesn't have time to comb the beards of all the goats in the World even if he wanted to, which of course he doesn't. Who would? There are far too many goats in the first place, and in the second place their beards are nearly all in terrible condition, full of snarls, burrs, and dandelion juice.

  Nevertheless, whether he wants to comb their beards or not, the Devil is as fond of goats as he is of anything, and always has one or another somewhere about, kept on as a sort of pet. He treats them pretty well too, considering, and the goats gives back as good or as bad as they get, which is one reason why the Devil likes them so much, for goats are one hundred percent unsentimental.

  Now, there was a goat in the World once that the Devil had his eye on for some time, a great big goat with curving horns and a prize from every fair for miles around. "I want that goat," said the Devil to himself, "and I mean to have him even if he has to be dragged down here by his beard." But that was a needless thing to say, and the Devil knew it, for animals, and especially goats, are nothing at all like people when it comes to right and wrong. Animals don't see much to choose between the two. So, Heaven or Hell, it's all one to them, especially goats. All the Devil had to do was go up there, to the cottage that the goat called home, and lead him away.

  The only trouble was that the old woman who owned the goat was no dummy. She knew how much the Devil liked goats and she also knew how much he hated bells. So she kept the goat--whose name was Walpurgis--tied up to a tree in her yard and she fastened a little bell around his neck with a length of ribbon. Walpurgis hated bells almost as much as the Devil did; but there was no way he could say so and nothing he could do about his own bell except to stand very still in order to keep it from jangling. This led some passers-by to conclude that he was only a stuffed goat put there for show and not a real goat at all. So many people came up to the old woman's door to ask about it that at last she put up a sign which said: THIS IS A REAL GOAT. And after that she got a little peace and quiet. Not that any of it mattered to Walpurgis, who didn't give a hoot for what anybody thought one way or another.

  The Devil didn't care what anybody thought either. But he still wanted the goat. He turned the whole problem of the bell over in his mind, considering this solution and that, and at last, hoping something would occur to him, he went up out of Hell to the old woman's door to have a little talk with her. "See here," he said as soon as she answered his knock. "I mean to have your goat."

  The old woman looked him up and down, and wasn't in the least dismayed. "Go ahead and take him," she said. "If you can do that, he's yours."

  The Devil glanced across the yard to where Walpurgis stood tied up to the tree. "If I try to untie him, that bell will ring, and I can't stand bells," he said with a shudder.

  "I know," said the old woman, looking satisfied.

  The Devil swallowed his annoyance and tried a more familiar tack. "I'll give you anything you want," he said, "if you'll go over there and take away that wretched bell. I'll even make you Queen of the World."

  The old woman cackled. "I've got my cottage, my goat, and everything I need," she said. "Why should I want to buy trouble? There's nothing you can do for me."

  The Devil ground his teeth. "It takes a mean mind to put a bell on a goat," he snapped. "If he were my goat, I'd never do that. I'll bet a bucket of brimstone he hates that bell."

  "Save your brimstone," said the old woman. "He's only a goat. It doesn't matter to him."

  "He'd tell you, though, if he could talk," said the Devil.

  "May be," said the old woman. "I've often wished he could talk, if it comes to that. But until he can, I'll keep him any way I want to. So goodbye." And she slammed the door between them.

  This gave the Devil the very idea he was looking for. He hurried down to Hell and was back in a minute with a little cake into which he had mixed the power of speech, and he tossed it to Walpurgis. The goat chewed it up at once and swallowed it and then the Devil changed himself into a field mouse and hid in the grass to see what would happen.

  After a while Walpurgis shook himself, which made the bell jangle, and at that he opened his mouth and said a very bad word. An expression of great surprise came over his face when he heard himself speak, and his eyes opened wide. Then they narrowed again and he tried a few more bad
words, all of which came out clear and unmistakable. Then, as much as goats can ever smile, Walpurgis smiled. He moved as far from the tree as the rope would allow, and called out in a rude voice: "Hey there, you in the cottage!"

  The old woman came to the door and put her head out. "Who's there?" she asked suspiciously, peering about.

  "It's me! Walpurgis!" said the goat. "Come out here and take away this bell."

  "You can talk, then!" observed the old woman.

  "I can," said Walpurgis. "And I want this bell off. Now. And be quick about it."

  The old woman stared at the goat and then she folded her arms. "I had no idea you'd be this kind of goat," she said.

  "To the Devil with that," said Walpurgis carelessly. "What's the difference? It's this bell I'm talking about. Come over here and take it off."

  "I can't," said the old woman. "If I do, the Devil will steal you away for sure."

  "If you don't," said the goat, "I'll yell and raise a ruckus."

  "Yell away," said the old woman. "I've got no choice in the matter that I can see." And she went back inside the cottage and shut the door.

  So Walpurgis began to yell. He yelled all the bad words he knew and he yelled them loud and clear, and he yelled them over and over till the countryside rang with them, and before long the old woman came out of her cottage with her fingers in her ears. "Stop that!" she shouted at the goat.

  Walpurgis stopped yelling. "Do something, then," he said.

  "All right, I will!" said the old woman. "And serve you both right. If I'd known what kind of a goat you were, I'd have done it in the first place. The Devil deserves a goat like you." She took away the bell and set Walpurgis free and right away the Devil leaped up from the grass and took the goat straight back to Hell.

  Now the funny thing about the power of speech is that the Devil could give it away but he couldn't take it back. For a while it was amusing to have a talking goat in Hell, but not for very long, because Walpurgis complained a lot. He'd always been dissatisfied but being able to say so made all the difference. The air was too hot, he said, or the food was too dry, or there was just plain nothing to do but stand around. "I might as well be wearing a bell again, for all the moving about I do in this place," said Walpurgis.

  "Don't mention bells!" said the Devil.

  This gave Walpurgis the very idea he was looking for. He began to yell all the bell-ringing words he knew. He yelled them loud and clear--clang, ding, jingle, bong--and he yelled them over and over till Hell rang with them.

  At last the Devil rose up with his fingers in his ears. "Stop that!" he shouted at the goat.

  Walpurgis stopped yelling. "Do something, then," he said.

  "All right, I will!" said the Devil. And with that he changed Walpurgis into a stuffed goat and took him back up to the old woman's cottage and left him there in the yard, tied up to the tree.

  When the old woman saw that the goat was back, she hurried out to see how he was. And when she saw how he was, she said to herself, "Well, that's what comes of talking too much." But she put the bell around his neck and kept him standing there anyway, and since the sign was still there too, and still said THIS IS A REAL GOAT, nobody ever knew the difference. And everyone, except Walpurgis, was satisfied.

  The Redemption

  of Silky Bill

  Sarah Zettel

  "He'll eat the Cheyenne too, you know," said the coyote.

  Standing-in-the-West picked up another log and rested it on the chopping stump. A fresh wind blew off the prairie, ruffling his newly-cut hair and the cloth of his cotton shirt. "Go away, Wihio."

  The coyote looked towards the canvas enclosure that served Fort Summner as a church and then back to the Cheyenne brave wielding the steel axe as if it weighed no more than a feather. "You've forgotten who you are," said Wihio.

  "No." Standing-in-the-West brought the axe down onto the wood. Thwak! "Peter Standing-in-the-West." Thwak! "He is good Christian." Thwak! "He helps Reverend." Thwak! "He preaches Bible book to Red Man." The log splintered in two. "And he has found a way to get rid of the White Man using the White Man's own medicine." He hefted the axe in both hands. "When you would not even deign to help him. Go away, Wihio."

  Wihio shrugged, and went.

  "Silky" Bill McGregor picked up the chunk of rock, keeping one eye on the Cheyenne that pitched it down. The withered old man didn't look like he could squash a bug, but the buck at his side, all done up in red paint and feathers, was another story. McGregor couldn't figure out why no one was making a ruckus about the pair of them standing bold-as-you-please in the middle of Fort Summner's only street with spears in their hands and bows on their backs. But nobody did. The morning traffic on foot, and on horse and wagon, just clumped and rattled around them. Folks sneered or they whispered, but nobody asked nobody's business. Nobody ran for the soldiers or the sheriff. Which didn't make sense.

  McGregor turned the rock over in his long fingers. The hazy summer sun picked out the glittering flecks of silver embedded in its brownish surface. Although McGregor made his living at cards, he had some experience with raw ore. To his eye, this rock had come from what could be a valuable hunk of ground.

  "Where'd you say you found this?" He cocked his eyebrows.

  "We will show you the place." The old man has a voice as dry as dust. "Fallen Star," he tapped his own chest. "He will guide you, but first you must help the People. One of our braves has summoned your Devil. We want you to send it away."

  McGregor's first impulse was to bust out laughing, but being stared at by the old Red was like being stared at by the mountains, and the mountains thought this was too big to be laughed at.

  "Tall order." McGregor tugged at the brim of his hat. "You'd be better off seeing the preacher for something like that." He jerked his chin towards the tent church.

  The old man shook his head. "The preacher will not listen to us. The soldiers will not listen to us. Your Devil is a dark and bloody mystery, White Man. I do not understand him. We need a white man to send him away. We do not have a holy man, we do not have a brave. We must get a trickster."

  "Well, now." McGregor tucked the rock into his jacket pocket. "I'll have to think about it."

  Fallen Star nodded. "When you have made up your mind, meet us on the northern edge of your town. Long Nose, come." The brave and the old man turned and walked slowly down the street. The folks passing by steered wide of them, but still, nobody said nothing.

  "Never thought I'd see Silky Bill McGregor stoop to talk to a couple of whiskey-soaked reds." Ned Carter laughed at him from the door of the Royale saloon until his belly shook. Ned and Bill had been partnering around together for years, flush and broke, and Bill'd never figured out how he managed to stay so fat.

  "Whisky-soaked ain't what I'd call 'em." McGregor remembered the old man's eyes. Crazy as a possum at noon, maybe, but he was stone-cold sober.

  Ned was staring at him now. "What're you talking about? Neither of 'em could stand up straight. What were they after?"

  "I don't know." Bill said absently. His head was still working on how he and Ned, and apparently the rest of the town could have seen such a different set of reds. His throat started itching and he realized he wanted a drink.

  Ned ambled over and slapped him on the shoulder. "Well I do know. They was after money, or whiskey. And I know something else. Jamie Raeburn's gettin' up a game tonight and if we're real polite, you and me might finagle ourselves a couple of seats." He winked.

  "You go on, Ned. I got some thinking to do."

  Ned shrugged and took himself back indoors. McGregor strolled away down the hard-packed dirt street, dodging a couple of drovers on horses and side-stepping a load of workmen with tool bags. The town outside Fort Summner was just a touch over three years old and its canvas shanties were just beginning to be replaced by board and shingle buildings that looked like they might actually last awhile. People were filling the place up, coming in and out of the store and the stable almost as much as they were
coming in and out of the three saloons.

  And not one of them had said a word about two armed reds in the middle of town offering a silver mine to a gambler. The idea gave Bill a queasy feeling.

  Past the assayer's stood The Nugget, a saloon so new they'd barely finished pegging the door together. The bar was a couple of planks balanced on a pair of empty kegs. McGregor ordered himself a whiskey and surveyed the room. A couple of boys shared red-eye and cigarettes in one corner. A three-handed poker game played itself out in another. Along the far wall, Dennis DeArmant, the skinny owner of the place, dealt a faro game across a rickety table.

  Bill's hands twitched. If poker was Ned's game, faro was his. He felt in his pocket for a couple of five dollar pieces. Might as well teach these suckers how a man played it. It'd help take his mind off those Cheyenne anyway.

  "Mr. McGregor?" said a cultured voice behind him.

  Bill turned, taking his hand out of his pocket, in case he needed it for something else. The owner of the voice was a narrow man in a dark suit that had been cut to fit. His waistcoat was as silky and brightly patterned as Bill's own, and a gold toothpick dangled from the watch chain. What struck Bill, though, were his eyes. They were black, solid black.

  Recognizing a gentleman when he saw one, Bill quick pulled together his professional manners. "May I ask who you are, Sir?"

  The stranger gave a short chuckle. "Just an associate, Mr. McGregor. We've played cards together a few times." Bill racked his brains trying to recall where he could've seen those eyes before and came up with nothing. "May I buy you a drink?" asked the stranger.

  McGregor glanced at the faro game and then at the stranger. He shrugged. "All right."

 

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