Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

“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.