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 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.