Sympathy for the Devil

by Tim Pratt

  The stranger collected a bottle and two glasses from the barkeep, gesturing with them towards one of the back tables.

  "Still don't know who I am, do you Bill?" He said as he poured.

  "No, Sir, that I don't." Bill raised his glass.

  The stranger smiled over the rim of his glass. It was a thin smile, like the curve in a butcher's knife. "Round here folks mostly call me Nick Scratch."

  Bill set his own drink back on the table and got to his feet. "I don't care for your jokes, Sir," he announced. Across the room, heads turned and chatter dropped away. Boots and chairs scraped across the floorboards.

  "Sit down, McGregor," said the stranger.

  Bill sat.

  "Drink your drink."

  Bill lifted the glass and knocked back the whiskey. The other customers' attention went back to their own business. Bill set the glass on the table top. He drew his hand away and watched it shaking. He felt nothing, nothing at all.

  "Are you ready to listen to me, Bill?" said the Devil.

  "Have I got a choice?" McGregor couldn't get his gaze to leave the table top.

  "Course you do. But your life'll be easier if you sit there calmly and let me finish. I've no wish to see you come to harm, Bill." McGregor heard the Devil pour himself another shot. "You're one of my best men."

  That got McGregor's chin to jerk itself up.

  "Oh, yes, you work for me, Bill." A red light sparkled deep down in the Devil's black eyes. "And I got a nice spot in Hell saved for your soul. Right next to the stove, so you won't take a chill.

  "See, wherever you go, the good church-going folk denounce you, using my name. But the young folks see you thriving by it and they line up for a chance to follow your way of life. Some of them do as fine a job for me as you do. Some do much better.

  "How many times has somebody said you've got the devil's own luck, Bill? It happens to be true. I've seen to it that you prosper and I'll see that you continue to do so, just so long as you stay away from those Cheyenne. I've a bargain to keep with them and I'm a man of my word." The light in the Devil's eyes snapped. "I've got to go, Bill, but I'll leave you with this, just in case you're inclined to believe I crawled out of that whiskey bottle. A riot's going to start tonight in the Royale House. Before sun-up, three-quarters of the town'll be burnt down and Ned Carter will be dead behind the Summner House hotel. Shot in the back."

  The Devil walked out of the saloon. McGregor, with his hands still trembling, poured another whiskey but all he did was look at it. Minutes ticked themselves away to the click of coins on the faro table.

  Bill didn't believe in haunts, nor spiritualism. He tried hard not to believe what his father had preached in the Boston parish he'd ruled with such an iron fist. But he believed his eyes and his head. He'd stayed alive believing those.

  Right now, his eyes and his head told him what was going on here was past all understanding. If a man couldn't understand the rules of the game, it was best he leave the table.

  Bill pulled himself to his feet and left the whiskey and the saloon as fast as he could. Outside the door, he chucked the piece of silver ore into a patch of weeds. Then he made tracks for the Royale.

  He found Ned in one of the bare rooms on the second floor, getting in a few sociable hands before Jamie Raeburn's big game. McGregor waited impatiently for the hand to play itself out before he sidled up to Ned, who was raking in the pot.

  "I'd like a word with you in private, Ned, if I may," he said into his friend's ear.

  "Keep my seat for me, Gentlemen," said Ned instantly. He got up and followed McGregor out onto the porch.

  "What's the matter Bill?"

  McGregor faced him. A fresh sweat that had nothing to do with the heat of the day prickled under his collar. "Ned, I've had word there's going to be trouble tonight."

  "What kind of trouble?" Ned hitched up his eyebrows.

  McGregor's memory showed him the Devil's black eyes and the sweat broke under his hat brim as well. "Just trust me on this one, Ned. We need to get back east, fast."

  Ned searched his face for a long moment. "OK, Bill, but I'll need to work up some cash."

  "Me too. What do you say we meet out here at five sharp? We can get horses and gear from the blacksmith and get out while there's still some light."

  Ned consulted his pocket watch. "Not much time, but," he grinned, "there's a couple of boys in there, fresh out of the mines. Five it is."

  The two gamblers parted ways at the door. Ned stalked over to the poker table and Bill to the faro games.

  McGregor always played to win, but there were a few times, like now, when he played to win quickly. Years of practice let him set everything aside but the game. Part of his mind ticked off the cards as they were played. Part of it calculated the possible order of the ones remaining in the spring-loaded box. He split his bets between cards. He bet which cards would lose as well as which would win. Carefully, he bet on the order of the last three cards to be drawn from the box and won at four-to-one odds.

  By the time the railroad clock chimed the hour of five, McGregor had taken in enough to make the dealer sweat, but not quite enough to break the bank. He took up his gold and script and met Ned outside.

  Ned patted his money belt. "Got enough here that we can head back east in style." He glanced around at the mud and bare-board town. "Soon as we get some place that knows what style is."

  McGregor shared his laugh half-heartedly. "Ned, you get down to the forge. I'll settle up at the Summner House, settle up and meet you there."

  "All right, Silky." Ned started up the street.

  "At the forge," repeated McGregor.

  Ned frowned. "I heard you, Bill."

  McGregor left him reluctantly and made tracks for the Summner House.

  Ned, like McGregor, travelled light. Once in their room, it didn't take him long to load both of their belongings into their cases.

  He snapped the latch closed on Ned's grip and hoisted their bags off the bed. He turned, only to find old Fallen Star sitting cross-legged in the doorway.

  The bags thudded to the floor. "How the hell'd you get in here!"

  "I walked." He took a puff from the pipe he carried.

  "They'd never let a Red in here!" McGregor took a step back, hand reaching for his revolver.

  "No one saw me." Fallen Star blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.

  "Then how'd you get across the lobby?"

  "I walked."

  McGregor set his jaw. "Then you can walk on out of here. You're in my way."

  "McGregor."

  For the second time that day, the sound of his own name paralysed him. "Running away will do you no good," the old man said. "You must fight your Devil or he will plague you forever."

  "He's not my Devil!" snapped Bill.

  "Then whose is he?" Unbending one joint at a time, Fallen Star stood. "Gambler, you want to save your friend. I want to save my son, Standing-in-the-West. You call your Devil here and work against him with the White Man's understanding. I will strengthen you with the Red Man's medicine. Maybe together we can beat him."

  McGregor remembered the Devil's eyes and found the nerve to move again. He pulled his gun out of its holster. "Get out of my way or I'll blow a hole clear through you."

  Fallen Star shook his head heavily and took a long drag on his pipe. "That you may see the truth." He blew a rank cloud of smoke into McGregor's face.

  By the time Bill quit coughing, the old man was gone. McGregor didn't stop to ask himself where or how. He just gathered up the bags and toted them down the stairs.

  He was passing his money across the pigeon-hole desk to the hotel owner's beefy hands when the first shot split the air.

  McGregor dove for the floor. The hotel owner was already down behind the desk. On hands and knees, the gambler crawled to the door and eased it open.

  Men spilled out of the Royale, guns in their hands. The thunder and lightning of revolver shots rang through the air. A stranger sprawled face-down
in the mud. Another hollered wordlessly and took his own shot. The crowd spread out. So did the gunfire.

  All at once, the storm hit the Denver House. McGregor scrambled sideways as somebody kicked the door in. Men shoved and stumbled inside, yelling over the top of each other until McGregor couldn't understand any of them. Somebody shattered a pane of glass with the butt of his revolver. Some fool waved his gun towards the owner. A shot and the stench of gunpowder exploded from behind Bill and blood burst across the fool's chest. All heads turned to see the Summner House's owner with his Winchester raised. He couldn't keep them all covered though, and the fool had a friend. Another gun barked and the landlord hit the back wall on top of most of his brains.

  McGregor eased his revolver into his hand and slid out the door. Wood smoke and a roaring on the wind competed with the smell and noise of gunfire. The heat hit him a second later and Bill looked up. More heat seared his face. The Royale was on fire. Men and women leapt shrieking from the windows.

  In the middle of the chaos stood the Devil, thumbs tucked into his waistcoat pockets and a grin spread across his face. No one payed him any heed. A naked woman jumped from the Royale's second storey and landed in the street, her body bent and broken. No one stopped to help her. A hunk of burning wood landed on the roof of the assayer's. Flames and sparks wriggled to the sky. A few folk turned out with water buckets, but most scattered, trying to get out of the way. Men with rifles appeared on rooftops. A couple of blue coated soldiers galloped in on horseback, raising clouds of dust and shouting orders to no one at all.

  The Devil laughed.

  Something in McGregor snapped. Without thinking, he was running to the spot where Nick Scratch stood.

  "Stop this!" he hollered, grabbing Scratch by the shoulder.

  The Devil turned and looked at him with eyes more red than black. "I'm going to forgive you this, McGregor, because you don't know what you're doing." Pain bit hard into the gambler's hand. Bill jerked backwards.

  The screams got louder. Fire laid its claim to The Nugget with DeArmant still shooting through the window. McGregor thought about Ned and saw the woman lying dead in the dirt.

  "What'll it take to get you to stop this!" he cried.

  "Go away, Bill."

  All McGregor's desperation melted into panic. Before he had time to realize it must be Scratch working on him again, he backed up two steps, turned, and ran for his life.

  Bent almost double, Bill raced up the street. Bullets and screams whizzed past him. He hugged board walls and dove through open spaces, returning fire when he needed to clear his way and didn't stop to see if he hit anything or not.

  At last, from the shelter of a clapboard shack, McGregor could spy the open-frame building that housed the forge. Horses reared and hauled on the reins that tethered them to the rail beside it. McGregor ducked his head from side to side, trying to see Ned between the thrashing animals.

  A man's shadow crept around the forge. With a quick knife, he slit the horse's reins, setting them free to gallop out of town. Then the shadow climbed to the roof of the forge as easily as a cat. He pulled a rifle from a sling on his back and took aim.

  The Shadow fired. McGregor saw DeArmant knocked off his feet. The shadow fired again and a nameless man on another rooftop toppled over.

  "Standing-in-the-West!"

  Bill blinked and knuckled his eyes. Fallen Star stood beside the forge, right in the shadow man's line of fire. His gnarled arms were raised towards the heavens. The pipe still burned in his hand.

  Standing-in-the-West held his fire. "Out of my way!"

  "You will not win the war with the White Men this way!" Fallen Star's voice carried clearly over the rage of men and gunshot and fire. Bill shook his head hard. He knew the old man spoke Cheyenne, but he could understand him clearly. "You only make a slave of yourself to your anger and their Devil! Will you fight and die as a slave or a free man?"

  Standing-in-the-West aimed his gun at the old man. "Is your medicine strong enough to stop my bullet, Fallen Star? Or do you use too much to keep the riot away from you? The White Men will leave our land!"

  "Our land!" retorted Fallen Star. "We do not own this place! It is not a dog or a slave! You talk like the White Men!"

  "And I will kill you with their gun if you do not leave me now!"

  Fallen Star dropped his hands. "I would have wished another kind of trail for you, my son." He said. And despite the noise of fire and riot, Bill heard Standing-in-the-West cock the rifle's hammer.

  Fallen Star walked away towards the edge of town. Standing-in-the-West took fresh aim towards the center of the riot and fired again. Another man fell. Shots buzzed towards the Cheyenne. None found the mark.

  McGregor's stomach knotted itself up. He dropped his gaze to search the forge. Ned was nowhere in sight. Bill turned to run back the way he came.

  Reality became a blur of noise and fading color as he stumbled towards the Summner House. Something heavy caught the toes of his boots and Bill measured his length in the dust. He came up, spitting and swearing, looked at what tripped him up and saw Ned.

  What was left of Ned's blood oozed out of the bullet hole in his back. McGregor's strength gave out and he sat down hard next to his friend's body, unable to think, let alone move. Vaguely, slowly, he noticed that Ned's money belt was still around his waist and that his hand clutched some leather strips. McGregor touched them. Horses' reins. He thought of Standing-in-the-West's knife and his fist bunched up and pressed against his forehead.

  "See the great gambler sitting in the dirt!" cried a voice.

  McGregor looked up. The world had receded silently into a solid curtain of fog. The only things left were Ned's corpse and a one-handed red man with a huge nose and wrinkled skin. His eyes glittered brightly under a sagging hat hung with strings of feathers and animal tails.

  "Who?" Bill heard his voice without feeling his mouth move.

  "Many." The man smiled. "Napi," and he was a half-naked indian brave. "Nana Bosho," and he was a scrawny scavenger with three legs. "But for you, I'm Wihio," and the one-handed man was back. "Come with me."

  McGregor was on his feet without standing. He followed wrinkled Wihio without walking. "I'm dreaming."

  "So you are," grinned Wihio. He pointed with the stump of his wrist. "Look that way. You will learn something."

  McGregor saw Standing-in-the-West sitting naked in a dark lodge full of smoke, or maybe steam. His skin was slick with sweat. His eyes were shut tight and he called out.

  "Medicine Arrows! Arrows, I know you were captured from us long ago, but I know that you have helped the People many times even from afar! Medicine Arrows, help me now! Help me kill these White Men so that no more may come to harm us!"

  A voice from nowhere answered him. "We cannot help you kill the White Men. Guns and horses have made us weak and scattered us. Go out to the People, Standing-in-the-West. Look for ways to live, not to kill. Maybe then we can help you."

  Standing-in-the-West called out. "Wihio! Wihio! You are strong in tricks and mischief! Help me work mischief on these White Men!"

  Wihio spoke. "I cannot help you work mischief on these White Men. They thrive on challenge and danger. Go out to the People, Standing-in-the-West. Look for ways to strengthen yourselves, not weaken others. Maybe then I can help you."

  The world shifted. Now Standing-in-the-West waited on a hillside where autumn's colors touched the trees. His knife drew a five-pointed star on the ground. A cross hung upside down from a baby cottonwood's branch. Standing-in-the-West stepped away from the star and methodically recited the Lord's Prayer, backwards.

  The Devil stood in the center of the star.

  Standing-in-the-West spoke. "I want to make a treaty with you, Devil, to drive the White Men off of Cheyenne land."

  "Why should I do that?" The Devil spread his hands.

  "I will give you my soul."

  "You do not believe in souls, Standing-in-the-West. They are outside of what the Cheyenne know to be tr
ue."

  Standing-in-the-West shrugged. "I am a Christian now. I know what a soul is. I will make a treaty with you."

  The Devil smiled his thin smile. "Very well, Standing-in-the-West. We have a treaty."

  "What are you doing here!" cried Wihio.

  The Devil turned his head, but Standing-in-the-West didn't move. "I am taking his soul, Wihio."

  Wihio reared up, suddenly as big as a mountain. "Go!" His voice rocked the entire world. "By the Great Spirit that birthed me and the land that strengthens me! Go, Foul One! You have nothing to do with the People!"

  The Devil stood his ground. "I do now."

  Wihio dwindled to a man's size again. The mists swallowed up everything but he and McGregor.

  "White Man, I do not understand your people. I do understand that your Devil is strong in corruption and Standing-in-the-West has brought that corruption onto the People. He will use Standing-in-the-West and he will make the People his own. I will not have that, Gambler. The People are my people, not his.

  "He is your luck, Bill McGregor, but I am a gambler too. If you rid the People of your Devil, I will take his place as your luck."

  "You can hold it right there!" McGregor exploded. "You people! Do this! Do that! You're a white man! You're greedy! Here, we'll pay you to risk your life... your soul for us!" He threw up both hands. "Damn you all! This is your problem! What are you and that medicine man risking!"

  Wihio didn't even blink. "That is fair, Gambler. All right. I too will risk something." He tore one of the tails off his hat and it was in McGregor's closed hand. "I will be beside you when you face the Devil. I will do what you say, even if you say I should kill or die. I will tell Fallen Star he must do the same. Is that enough for you?"

  McGregor's fists tightened up. He could see Ned's body again. He drank in the details of it for a long, long time.

  "Wihio." His tongue felt thick and heavy. "If I do this, will you make Standing-in-the-West's life rough on him?"

  Wihio smiled and his teeth flashed like stars. "Gambler, I will make his life impossible for him."

  "All right, then," Bill whispered.

  Bill woke up.