Sympathy for the Devil (17 page)

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."