Sympathy for the Devil

The Redemption of Silky Bill by 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.”

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 true.”

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.

He hadn’t moved but he must have been there for hours. Night had come down and the town had gone silent. The smell of burnt wood filled the wind. McGregor stretched his aching neck and saw dawn drawing a thin white line around the deserted forge.

He stared down at the coyote’s tail wound between his fingers.

“All right,” he said again.

Slowly, he forced his mind back over all the events of the day and added to them all the things he remembered hearing from his father’s sermons. Something that would be called a plan by a more generous man took shape inside him.

He folded the mangy tail up and put it in his pocket. Then, he turned Ned gently onto his back. Silky Bill closed his friend’s eyes and folded his hands.

“If I make it,” Bill eased Ned’s money belt off. “This’ll buy you the finest funeral this territory’s ever seen.”

McGregor straightened up his creaking legs and headed for the north edge of town.

The morning chill had soaked well into him by the time he made it out onto the prairie grass. Fallen Star, his boy Long Nose and three painted indian ponies appeared out from a cluster of cottonwoods to meet him. Bill found he was long past being surprised by so minor a miracle of timing.

“Wihio has told me what your answer is,” said Fallen Star. “What must we do first?”

“I could use something to eat,” McGregor croaked. “Then you’d better show me where Standing-in-the-West called up the Devil.”

Long Nose gave him water and dried buffalo meat. What Bill really wanted was whiskey, but he didn’t feel up to heading back to whatever was left of the town to fetch any.

Fallen Star led the silent procession of men and horses until the sun was almost directly overhead. The wind stiffened up to blow all the summer heat down on top of them. The ponies trooped steadily through the grass and pale-leafed trees until they reached the gentle slope McGregor had seen in Wihio’s strange dream.

Bill dismounted along with the two reds and marshalled his courage. “I’m telling you now, I don’t know what I’m doing. I just got a couple of ideas.” His voice was holding steady, even if his heart wasn’t. “I’m going to try to get the Devil into a card game. I’ll need something to bet with and his coin is people. I’ll need something I can use as chips so I can bet you. Both of you.”

Fallen Star did not hesitate. He handed over his long-stemmed pipe. McGregor turned to the brave. Long Nose gave him his necklace of red beads.

“You know I got a good chance of losing.” McGregor tucked the tokens into his coat pockets.

“We know,” said Fallen Star. “We also know you are going to do your best. You are now on a war trail.”

McGregor turned his back to the reds. He wondered if Fallen Star would have said the same thing if he knew all that Bill’s sketchy plan entailed. Bill brought up the memory of Ned’s corpse and of Standing-in-the-West on the rooftop. He squared his shoulders.

“Nick Scratch!” he called into the wind. “I’ve got some business with you!”

The thin stranger stood in front of him, fire glowing hot behind his black eyes.

“I tried to warn you, Bill.” The Devil shook his head.

“I’m not saying you didn’t.” McGregor tightened all the fibers in his wrists to keep his hands from shaking. The air had gone warm and thick around him. His ears felt stopped up and his heart beat slow and sluggish.

“You can still go, Bill,” the Devil breathed to him. “No hard feelings. Go on.”

Bill teetered. “I’m not leaving, just yet.”

“Neither am I,” the Devil replied evenly.

“Care to bet on that?”

A hot wind blew hard and sudden. McGregor clamped his hand on his hat and clenched his teeth. The Devil remained silent, watching him.

“I’ll play you a game of faro,” McGregor said. “’Til one of us is cleaned out. If I win, you clear out and never come near anyone here or their land or their family again.”

The Devil arched his delicate eyebrows. “And what do you have to put up in such a game, Bill?”

“How about them?” McGregor nodded towards the unmoving Cheyenne.

The Devil fingered his chin. “Mmmm. Fallen Star, now he would be a prize. They all you got?”

McGregor’s hand curled around the scrap of fur in his pocket. “No.”

“Well, well. All right, then.” The Devil nodded. “I haven’t much time though, Bill. One game, ’til one of us is cleaned out. I’ll deal.”

Nick Scratch didn’t even blink. The faro table from the Nugget appeared in the waving grass between him and Bill. At his left hand stood the owner of the Denver House with his eyes wide and his skull split open where the bullet passed through him.

“My casekeeper,” Nick Scratch gestured a fine hand at the dead man and the abacus that kept track of the cards played.

“Strange,” said Wihio’s voice in his head and Bill jumped half-way out of his skin. “I was expecting Standing-in-the-West. Why has he not claimed him yet?” Wihio paused and it seemed to Bill the invisible presence was watching him shudder. “Well, Gambler, don’t tell me you are afraid of shadows and voices.”

The Devil’s eyes sparkled. “Wihio? You here? Which of these fools is your champion, Dog-of-a-Mystery?”

The laughter left Wihio’s voice. “You have secrets behind your fire and when I learn them, you will need to look to your skin.”

The Devil’s eyes glowed red. “Oh, yes. I will look to my skin. See that you do the same when I have the People for my own.”

“Let’s get to it.” Bill plunked himself down in the chair that had appeared on his side of the table and tried to settle his mind on the game. It was just a faro game. He knew this game like the back of his hand. He could play this. Didn’t matter who was dealing. He took out the beads and the pipe. In his hand they turned to a pile of five dollar coins. Bill set them down on the table like they might bite. Just a faro game. And he was feeling lucky today. That shook him, but he felt Wihio hovering around back of him and the tension eased. Yes. He was feeling lucky today.

For the look of the thing, Bill inspected the box and the cards. Both were clean, which he hadn’t expected. The cards flashed between the Devil’s fingers as he shuffled. He tamped the deck even against the table and laid it neatly into the box. The wind blew the unnatural heat through the coarse grass around McGregor’s ankles but didn’t come near the top of the table.

The Devil turned the crank on the box and drew out the four of spades. That was the soda and it took no part in the game. His ghoulish casekeeper pushed a bead across on the abacus to count it as played. Bill’s eyes started watering.

The world changed. McGregor still faced the Devil across the faro table, but around them hunched the skin mounds of a Cheyenne camp.

“What’re you doing?” Bill’s voice came out in a whisper.

In this new place it was barely dawn. A river chattered to itself somewhere in the distance. The only people up and about were Long Nose and Fallen Star. Long Nose prowled between the lodges, clutching his feathered spear. Fallen Star looked across to Bill with his deep eyes and then he began to chant. It was a slow, strong sound and it made the hairs on the back of Bill’s neck prickle.

“Playing the game,” replied the Devil. “Place your bet, Bill.”

“Charge!” bellowed somebody.

Horses hooves pounded the ground until it shuddered. Dawn light flashed on sabers and rifle barrels and gold braid. Long Nose hollered in Cheyenne and no one answered. The cavalry bore down on the camp. Shots split the dawn. Long Nose dodged, dragging Fallen Star with him. Someone screamed. A soldier lept off his horse and slit a skin house open. Blood. Blood everywhere. Bill gripped the edge of the table and stared at the game. He felt the heat of the Devil’s grin. Long Nose lifted his spear and charged into the fray. Fallen Star did not move, but the world around him did. Soldiers who had clear shots at Long Nose missed by a mile. They fell from their horses for him to cut down. They swung their sabers over his head and got in each others’ way. Fought like a bunch of kids bogged down in the snow. Long Nose killed them and they killed the women and the children and the unarmed men and Bill sat and looked on.

Stop this, Bill, stop it now! cried a part of Bill’s mind. You already got him where you want him, and if it’s going to work, it’s going to work as well now as later.

Bill steeled himself. Not yet.

“Place your bet, Gambler,” said Wihio. Bill glanced behind him. The three-legged coyote sat beside him. It dipped its muzzle and Bill felt his mind clear. He heard the shouts and hoofbeats and he smelled blood and gunpowder but it was all a long way away. Right now, he had a game to play. He set his coins down, splitting the bet carefully.

The Devil gave a loud guffaw. “Him? This is your champion, Wihio? Phew! Dog-of-a-Mystery, you must be desperate!”

The coyote bared its teeth. “I may be all you say, Foul One, but at least I understand my own people.”

Still chuckling, the Devil turned the crank on the box and the game really began.

It didn’t take long for Bill’s little pile of chips to slide away. His splits didn’t work and he couldn’t keep count. He felt Wihio keeping himself between Bill and his fears but it wasn’t enough. Maybe Wihio was too busy keeping him from going raving mad to loan him any extra luck. Maybe he didn’t understand this White Man’s game. Maybe it was just that Bill knew the Devil had always made him lucky and his luck was dealing the cards against him.

Around them the fight kept on. Bill, using the calm Wihio loaned him, flicked his eyes towards the soldiers, searching for one face in particular.

He’s got to do it, he told himself. He’s cruelty itself. If he’s got Ned’s soul, he’ll pull him out of Hell and parade him for me. If he doesn’t, then… then things in Heaven are looser than Father ever knew, and we all can still get outta this OK. If I’ve got things figured right that is. Bill glanced down at Wihio and the coyote just shrugged. Well, he’d already laid everything he had on Bill, what was he going to do?

The cards flitted from the box and the coins clinked together into higher piles in front of the Devil. One shot found its mark. Long Nose dropped into the grass. A soldier laughed. McGregor laid another bet. The Devil turned the crank on the case. There was a sound like ripe fruit falling and a soldier raised a sword dripping with Fallen Star’s blood.

The battle fell silent, even the sound of the river fell away.

“That seems to be that, Bill,” said Nick Scratch. He nodded, friendly-like to the cavalry sergeant.

Bill glanced at Wihio. “He’s a hasty one, isn’t he?” said Wihio.

“Patience is a virtue,” said Bill from behind the blanket of calm Wihio kept around him. “He’s real short on virtue.”

“You don’t say, Gambler? And why hasn’t he got Standing-in-the-West, yet? Can you tell me that?”

Bill scratched his chin. “I’d say it’s ’cause he ain’t kept his side of the bargain yet. White Men’re still here, aren’t they?”

“Oh, is that the way it works?” Wihio nodded. “I see.”

Thunder rumbled from underground. “You’ve got another bet, Bill, I see it in you. Put it down or walk away.”

“Go ahead, Gambler,” said Wihio.

Bill scanned the battlefield and saw nothing but strangers’ faces among the dead. He swallowed hard, drew out the coyote’s tail and laid it on the king.

The Devil grinned from ear to ear. “And I thought you at least had brains, Wihio.”

He drew out a fresh card. The nine of spades. With one fine hand he picked up the tail.

“Now, Dog,” the Devil said. “Heel!”

Wihio whimpered and limped to the Devil’s side, his tail tucked between his legs.

Without the shelter Wihio gave him, the world slammed against McGregor. The steel taste of blood filled his mouth and all around him lay the victims of the battle; the dead and the worse-than-dead who could still scream. This was no dream. This was smoke and stench and heat and fear. Waves of it. Billows of it, surrounding Bill, pressing him down, drowning him. This was the riot in Fort Summner. This was how the Devil kept his bargain and how he’d serve his new people.

“You’ve lost, Bill.” Heat flickered through the Devil’s voice.

“N…ot yet,” stammered Bill. “I’ve got one more bet.”

“Now what could you possibly have left to lay on this table, Bill?” The Devil kicked Wihio sharply. The coyote yelped and cowered. “You’ve bet the soul of a whole people and lost it.”

“My life.”

The devil actually looked startled.

McGregor drew out his revolver. “I’m a preacher’s son, Devil. I know this much. You may have a spot in Hell for my soul, but as long as I’m alive, I could still go straight. I can repent any time before I die and save myself, work on savin’ those young folks you talked about. But if I lose this turn, I’m your boy, before and after I die,” he took the gun by the barrel and held the hilt towards the Devil.

“Bill McGregor, you’ve got fewer brains than Wihio.”

“Silky.”

Bill swung around. Ned stood behind him, blood oozing out of his chest and spilling onto his hands. “Silky,” he coughed. “He’s put me up against your life. Hurry, Bill. I…It hurts.”

“Oh, my…” Bill felt all the life drain out of his cheeks. “Ned. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Ned stretched out his hands. He was white like snow, like death. His round face had already fallen into lines and angles. “Hurry, Bill. Get me out of this. Place your bet.”

“No,” said Bill.

“Then I win,” said the Devil.

“Bill!” shouted Ned.

Bill forced himself to turn away from his friend. “Then take your winnings and go,” he clutched the gun barrel. “If you can. The way I see it, the game’s not over yet. And it won’t be until I’ve laid my last bet.”

“Bill!” Ned was screaming. Bill heard him fall. He closed his eyes and prayed with all his heart and soul that he had it right. This was the real gamble, not the way the cards came out of the box. Bill gambled everything on his guess at the reason why the Devil had to wait to take Standing-in-the-West, on why he didn’t just reach across the table and snatch Bill’s soul from his body. “I’m not cleaned out yet, Devil. And ’til I am the game’s not over.” Bill held the edge of the table to keep himself upright as he felt his knees begin to buckle. “If the game’s not over, you have to stay here.” That had to be it, it had to be. The Devil couldn’t leave an unfulfilled contract behind him. “That’s the deal. And you,” Bill added bitterly. “Are a man of your word.”

The Devil’s howl tore the world apart. McGregor’s heart stopped dead and then banged like a hammer against his ribs. His knees gave out, toppling him onto the ground. Ned lay there next to him. Ned who had all the guts of the pair of them. Ned was bleeding and crying. Crying like a baby.

Bill shouted to drown the crying out. “You cannot leave!” McGregor raised his head and saw all the fires of Hell raging in the Devil’s eyes and he knew he’d guessed right. Triumph rang through him. “You got a deal with me to play until one of us is cleaned out! You cannot do anything else, ever, until I lay my bet down! And I will not do it until we have a bargain!”

“You don’t have the will, McGregor!” The blast from the shout bowled the gambler backwards.

Painfully, Bill hauled himself back onto his knees. “Want to bet?”

The Devil swept his fist through the air.

Everything vanished. There was not even a mist. McGregor smelled nothing, heard nothing, had no ground beneath him. He had only his eyes, and all he saw was the Devil.

“I will leave the Cheyenne alone,” growled Nick Scratch.

Bill could not move any part of himself but he could speak as he had in the dream Wihio led him through. “That’s a start.”

The Devil’s eyes turned blood red. “I will return the lives you bet on the faro table and I will touch them and theirs no more.”

“Not enough.”

“Gambler,” the word filled the universe. “What do you want?”

“Ned Carter’s soul,” said Bill. “And mine.”

The Devil’s face twisted. His mouth worked itself back and forth. At last he said “I have not had your soul since you tried to stop the riot in Fort Summner.”

A warmth that had nothing to do with the Devil’s head spread through McGregor. “I want this notarized.”

The Devil bared his teeth. “You had better tread very carefully the rest of your born days, McGregor.” Wihio stood beside the Devil now, hat and all. “Wihio,” said Nick Scratch. “If I break my treaty with Bill McGregor, you may hand me over to the Master of Heaven.” Each word sounded like a branch snapping in the fire.

“It is well, Foul One.” Wihio bobbed his head and smiled.

The world dropped back into place in a rush of burning wind and bright sunshine. Bill looked at the table, calculated the state of play and set his gun down on the eight card.

He didn’t even see the game vanish. His posterior hit the ground, jarring all the breath out of him. For a moment, Bill blinked stupidly up at the cloudless sky.

A wrinkled hand reached into his line of vision. Bill let Fallen Star help him to his feet.

“Thank you,” Bill ran his hand through his hair. Long Nose handed him his hat. He nodded to the silent brave.

“We thank you, Gambler,” Fallen Star said. “Now,” Sunlight caught a spark deep in the medicine man’s eyes, “I would ask you to please leave this place.”

“What?” Bill pushed his hat down over his rumpled hair and holstered his gun. “After all that? How about that land you promised me?”

Fallen Star sighed. “I will take you to where we found the stone, if that is what you wish, but hear what I say first.

“Our people take the war trail against each other. Your people have too much hunger for things which are not yours and we have too many young men like Standing-in-the-West.

“You have done us a great service. I do not want to hear that one of my braves has taken your life.”

Bill dug his hands into his pockets. A scrap of fur brushed his palm and Wihio’s mocking presence brushed his mind.

He sighed. “Just as well, I suppose. I’d just about made up my mind to go straight anyways.” He held the coyote tail out to the medicine man.

“To keep away your Devil?” Fallen Star accepted the token.

McGregor shook his head. “No. To get him good and mad.” He cracked a smile. “It’s the only revenge I’m likely to get on him for letting Ned die.” He dug his hands into his pockets. In a strange way, he actually had lost his life on that faro table. Only he hadn’t lost it to the Devil. Bill glanced at the clear, blue sky. Well, his father’d be pleased anyway.

Fallen Star raised his hand and the wind blew gently around them. “May you have a bright sun and blue sky for your journey, Gambler.”

McGregor raised his hand in return. Then, he set his back to the prairie and started walking.