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It took a thousand years for Willie Watkins to grow up. That's how his mother has it. She says she counted every minute of it, and almost every second. She says she might have missed a few when she was asleep but she's not sure she didn't count them in her dreams. When Willie was eight he made up his mind he was going to live to be two thousand, and he was convinced that the route to long life was through his mouth. By the time he was ten he could talk a drunk sailor sober and argue sense into a Saturday night.
Once a big city lawyer came to town and was sitting out front of Hank Grabber's store arguing politics with Ira Porter and Jeb Tooley. Willie happened along with his slingshot and took the lawyer's cigar out of his hand with one shot, clean as a whistle. That lawyer had a complaint to file and he took it to court right there on the street, even if it was only a dime cigar and given to him free by Hank at that. He set to on his opening argument and was ready to take it straight to the jury, but he hadn't counted on Willie one bit. Ira and Jeb just settled back to watch. It wasn't two minutes before that lawyer found himself open and shut by an argument the likes of which he'd never seen in court. He wasn't ever the same after. He'd break down in the middle of a question and forget whether he was defending or proscecuting. The poor man finally got so bad that they made him into a judge and forgot about him.
Willie found a cat once. He didn't give it any fancy name. He just called it 'Cat' and that answered. That cat was never born with just nine lives or even ninety-nine. Wasn't a day passed by it didn't chalk up more lives than half the other cats in the world put together. When Willie first saw it it had its paw into Mary Sue Tolbridge's canary cage up to its whiskers. Mary Sue wasn't any city lawyer. Willie had to argue at her for a solid hour and his teeth were sticky sweet before she'd consent not to send Chester after it with her husband's bird gun. That cat was a grey streak. Wasn't anything that moved, big or small, solid or invisible, that it wasn't ready to pounce and chase. Sandyman swore up and down that once he saw it pounce on a bolt of lightening. Batted it around and carried it half a block onto Hank's porch before he got tired of it and let it loose. Blasted Hank's favorite rocker to cinders. That cat could yowl like Willy could talk. Together they were a match for anything, man or beast.
Thirty years before Willie was ever born a man came to town by the name of Crawkins. Ebeneezer Crawkins was a weaver. Town never had a weaver before. Doesn't anybody know how much they missed a weaver until they got one. If there ever was a demand for anything Ebeneezer Crawkins stepped right into the middle of it. Folks've got to wear clothes. Tables got to have tablecloths, windows curtains, and beds spreads. Inside of a month Amie Toog and her card group had him voted most eligible bachelor in the county. And with Amie's daughter, Sarah, already most eligible young lady for three months running it seemed a sure shot they'd abdicate their titles together. Only something wasn't quite right. Sarah'd have him over for dinner and she'd spend half her afternoons in his shop but Crawkins never took her anywhere. He never spent a nickle on her---not even a penny for a peppermint drop.
Fact was, Ebeneezer never spent anything anywhere. Wasn't long before Sarah stopped going over to see him at all. Still sometimes she'd look out her window and watch him go by, with his head down, like he was searching for pennies in the dust. There might still have been hope for Crawkins but one night, while the church clock struck twelve, there was a strange and muffled knock at the door to his shop.
When he opened the door no one was there. All he saw was a coach in the middle of the road and a team of ebony horses with manes like black flame. The first he knew of anybody in his shop was when he heard a voice behind him.
"Allow me to introduce myself."
Crawkins turned and saw a tall and sinister figure standing in the center of the room. Red lips curled about fine sharp teeth and eyes stared down at Ebeneezer right from out of the pit. There was a cat too. Black as sin with eyes deep and red-gold like black burning pools of dying blood. Ebeneezer's stomach turned.
"Well Scratch. I didn't reckon my time would come so soon. I never expected to go to a better place but I didn't expect you to come and fetch me personal."
Ebeneezer Crawkins was not a bad man. He knew who he had to deal with, but the stranger couldn't have timed it any better.
"You know me. I'm flattered. But you misunderstand. You have nothing to worry about. I'm here entirely on business. Entirely. I have a proposition for you."
"What kind of a proposition?"
"I would like to suggest a little---partnership."
Ebeneezer's heart turned. "I do all right on my own."
"Of course you do. You've quite a little fortune sewn up in your mattress."
Ebeneezer twitched and his body jerked into the space between the stranger and his bed. He glared at the stranger.
"I understand. Don't worry. It's our little secret. But what a little secret it is. Pennies? Nickles? Dimes? A dollar here and there? What would you say if I said I had a proposition that could turn all you have in your mattress to gold and multiply it by ten---and ten times again?"
"What is it?" Ebeneezer strained forward.
"For what you weave I pay you gold, for what you intend to weave but don't I pay you double, and for what you never mean to weave at all I pay you three times over."
The cat began to purr and rub itself against Ebeneeezer's legs. He felt like he was in a dream, falling forever. With a start he looked up.
"How do I sign? In blood?"
"You are a man of character and perception. Indeed, I have the document here, ready to sign. The contract stands for twenty-five years, upon which time..."
"I know! I know! I lose my soul! Hand it here."
He took the brown parchment and signed it without reading.
"The gold! Remember the gold!"
"Dear sir, I am a man of my word. And we will see to it, when the time comes, that you are a man of yours."
With that the stranger left. The cat paused at the door, and then it was gone. Crawkins pulled at the corner of his mattress and two coins fell to the floor. Gold, like the eyes of the cat, staring back at him, burning into his soul.
Twenty-five years passed. The stranger returned. The light burned long and late in Miser Crawkins' shack that night but at last he got an extension. The terms weren't as good as they were before but he felt he's got by the stranger all right. Fifteen years more wasn't bad, but there was something ominous in the way the stranger said "fifteen more". And when the cat glared into his eyes he could feel his soul twisting and tearing away from him.
Crawkins counted the days. Time came when days were dearer than dollars, even gold ones. He had a dull knife he used to cut a mark into the post of his bed for each day gone by. He'd make his mark each night after he counted his money. The night came when no matter how he added them the marks came to just one day left. Crawkins couldn't sleep that night. He clutched his mattress to feel the jinglings and stared out at the cold gold moon.
Next day was bright and sunny. Hank and Ira sat out front of Hank's store talking about the good old days when folks had nothing better to do with their money than spend it. Sarah hung her sheets out to dry and Mary Sue got Chester to change the water in her birdbath. Amie sat out on her front porch staring up into the sky seeing clouds gone by a hundred years past and Willie played out in the street with his cat. It would have suited Crawkins better if the sky was black and the thunder rolling. Nature ought to have come up with something more fitting for his last day on earth.
Crawkins sat at his window watching Willie out in the street dragging a stick through the dust so his cat could chase it. A man ought to have company on his last day. Crawkins stepped out of his door turning his face away from the sun.
"You! Boy!"
"What?" Willie pulled his stick over to Crawkins.
Crawkins couldn't think what more to say.
"You like cats?" Willie pointed to the grey. "This here stick is a dead snake been turned to wood. Looks just like it came off a tree, only cat here knows what it really is. He sees what things are, not what they pretend to be. People say you're rich. Say you've got a hole a hundred feet deep in there filled to the brim with gold. I saw a gold piece once. Hank was showing it off over at the store. Said it was worth all he had on the shelf. I gave him a rock weighed twice as much as that gold piece but he wouldn't give me anything for it. Said it wasn't the weight but the beauty of it that made it worth so much. So I brought him a feather. Best feather I ever had, it caught the sun all green and blue and purple. Made that gold piece look dull and cold. He couldn't get around it, had to agree that feather was worth at least a bag of peppermint drops. Here, want to play with cat?"
Willie handed the stick to Crawkins. Crawkins looked at it, then asked Willie if he could come in.
"Never heard of you asking anyone in before. Sure, I'll come. Come on Cat."
Crawkins pulled the stick in after him into his shack. Willie and the cat followed.
Crawkins was scared. A man that likes money better than people has got to be scared of something deep down inside to begin with, and now Crawkins was just half a day and half a step away from hell, and that's enough to scare any man. When the time comes there's not much to say for gold, it weighs too heavy on the heart.
Crawkins drug the stick up to the side of his bed. He stared down at his mattress. Every lump in it had more gold to it than'd go through ten Hank's hands in ten lifetimes. In forty years it hadn't given Crawkins one good night's sleep. Then he poked it. Opened a hole right in the side of it. It poured out with no end. It was better than a hundred foot deep pit. That mattress held more gold than any six holes put together. Gold coins tumbled out onto the floor. They jingled and they rolled. They sparkled and they shone. Cat chased them all over the shack, batting at them under the table and chasing them by the bed. Willie's mouth opened and he cocked his eyebrow. He kicked a pile of gold, then he turned to Crawkins.
"It's almost as good as breaking open a real feather bed."
Willie had a way of getting to the truth of things.
Willie sat in the shack all day talking to Crawkins. When his mother heard he'd been in there all day she didn't know what to make of it. She figured any place that tried to hold Willie that long was bound to explode. Cat curled up in the sun by the window and went to sleep. Crawkins couldn't keep his mind off of the gold on the floor. He wanted to hide it. But Willie just kept talking away until Crawkins forgot all about his gold. Willie was a talker. Wasn't a day in forty years Crawkins was more content.
Crawkins was half asleep on his chair when Cat jumped down from the window and climbed into his lap. Sun was down. Crawkins shivered. The sun was down. Forty years came back to him and the gold on the floor burned up at him. He threw the cat down.
"You got to go boy. My time's come. Get out or he'll get you too!"
"Don't reckon I'll be got by anybody til I'm good and ready. What time's come?"
"My time. Sold my time for gold and now it's up."
"For gold? You sold good time for gold? If you had no use for your time you should have put it by for somebody that does. I sure could use it. I've got so much to do I figure it'll take a hundred years just to get started. You tell me from the beginning. Tell me just what happened."
Crawkins told Willie everything from the very start. He talked about the first night he came into town and he talked about Sarah. He talked about the stranger's first visit and he talked about his extension. He talked about gold til his eyes glittered. Willie petted his cat and listened. Willie could talk the eye out of a storm but nobody much noticed that he could listen. He could listen as hard as he could talk, and there aren't many can do that. About eleven Crawkins finished.
Willie yawned. "Reckon I'll wait up and see what old Scratch has to say about all this. He's got a lot of explaining to do."
Crawkins tried to make Willie go but Willie wouldn't have any of it. "You just sit there and pet Cat. I've got some thinking to do."
Straggly grey clouds passed over the face of the moon. Crawkins fell asleep with Cat in his lap while Willie sat and stared at the door. At twelve o:clock the town went quiet. Crickets stopped chirping. Sound of horses on the road far away grew and stopped in front of Crawkins' shack. Cat's ears perked up and one eye opened. There was a knock on the door.
"Come on in! It's open!"
Crawkins woke up. He stared at Willie, mute, as the door opened.
"Reckon he's here."
The stranger came through the door, the black cat of forty years past trailing him. He glanced at Crawkins cowering in his chair in the corner, then he turned to Willie. "I hadn't expected to find anyone here other than my ahh---partner, with whom I have some business to conclude tonight. I don't believe we've met."
"It's not everyone has a chance to pay his respects to the devil before time comes to pay his due. I've heard a lot about you. Reckon I was curious to see for myself."
The stranger opened his mouth. His teeth were long and sharp under his curled lips.
"Nice teeth. But cat's are sharper. He bites hard but it doesn't bother me. I got quite a jaw myself. But I don't guess you came here to talk about teeth. Come on. Get to the point. I don't have all night."
"The point is, my dear boy..."
"Cat!" Willie interupted. "You'd better do something about your cat. Last time I saw that look in Cat's eye he took the whiskers off two toms for washing themselves too loud at naptime."
The stranger looked over at his cat and nodded at the door. The black glared at Willie's grey then it slipped out. Cat looked up at Willie. Willie shrugged and waved it to the door. The cats were gone.
The stranger looked back at Willie. "May I continue?"
"Don't see anybody stopping you."
"As I was saying, I'm here to settle a contract." The stranger pulled out a long roll of paper tied up with a ribbon. "I'm sure you'll find everything in order."
Willie sat up. "Don't know that in order or not has much to do with anything but I guess I'll have a look at it."
The stranger handed it to him. Willie read a line of two then looked up.
"I've got to hand it to you Scratch. I never saw a paper in any history book looked more impressive than this. 'I, Ebeneezer Crawkins, being sound of mind and body, do freely sign...' And here are some 'whereases' and some 'whereats', 'therebys', 'theretos', and look at this bit here, a line of print so fine all those angels that dance on the head of that pin would have trouble making it out. And look at this seal. This is some piece of paper all right. But what good is it?"
Crawkins looked up.
The stranger smiled. "I can make a great deal of good from it."
"Don't see what good you could make of anything. But say your say."
"This piece of paper documents a certain agreement between Mr. Crawkins and myself. I have fulfilled, to the letter, my part of the agreement and as payment Crawkins has agreed, given his word, and signed to it, to forfeit his soul. And since a man who can't keep his word is mine, and if he does keep his word he is mine, he is mine under any circumstance. If he keeps the word of our contract he is damned, and if he breaks it he is damned."
Willie's eyes glowed. "I've got a notion that I don't like pieces of paper like that. I don't expect I like them one bit."
Folks still remember the night the devil tried to outargue Willie Watkins. Clear skies went black and the stars went out. It hailed it thundered and it lightninged. The earth shook and the wind wailed. And those cats. Black and grey furies that screeched dead men to life and put healthy men into their graves. Folks locked their doors tight and bolted them. Wasn't soul brave enough to step out on the street that night.
The devil seemed to think the contract was all he needed.
"It's all right here," he said, "In black and white."
"You think a piece of paper's worth more than a man's soul?"
Willie had a point there, even if the devil couldn't see it. But if anybody could explain light to a blind man it was Willie. When that boy had a point there was no not getting it, even if you were the devil with a contract in your hand. Willie was having a high old time. Got Auld Nick so worked up and turned around his tail slipped out. It's not often the devil meets his match and it doesn't suit him at all.
"Haven't I met a relative of yours?" Old Nick's eyes were blazing.
"You might have. I think you did. But Webster had himself only one 'W' and I've got two. That makes all the difference."
What an argument that was. Crawkins' shack lit up like there was a bundle of sheet lightning locked up inside it. Red flames shot out the stovepipe and the street outside was half melted. The devil, he called up whole legions of the damned, but Willie had them all on their knees begging to be sent back to hell. Old Scratch brought up all the demons in hell but Willie boy, he had them ready to walk the straight and narrow. The incubi promised "'til death do us part" and the succuba went and joined the Little Sisters of the Poor. The fiends, vampires, and ghouls were out helping little old ladies across the street. Willie boy, he was a convincer.
"Just how much gold is a soul worth?" Willie asked.
"It's worth what the contract says it's worth." The devil couldn't get his mind off that contract.
"Don't give a damn about the contract. What's a soul worth on the open market? I'd say that any kind of decent soul at all couldn't be had for any amount of gold."
"It isn't any kind of a decent soul. It's a damned soul."
"Somehow I don't think that's quite a true statement or we wouldn't be here having this fine argument. When did you ever get a soul that was worth anything? And from all the trouble you're willing to put into it this one must be something special. If you're so certain it's worth having it can't be damned yet."
The devil'd played his last trick. It was just before sunup then and Willie's cat walked in through the door. He had a nick out of his ear and a scratch or two but he rubbed up against Willie's leg, and Crawkins' too, and seemed happy as he could be with the way he'd spent his night. Willie picked him up and scratched his chin. Cat spit out a hunk of black fur and began to purr.
"Now," Willie said, "I reckon it's about time you got back to where you belong Scratch. Your business is done here."
Stranger didn't seem inclined to go but when Willie got out his slingshot old Scratch gave up the argument completely. Just as the sun poked up Willie let loose one shot. There was a yelp that could have split granite, then Mary Sue's canary began to sing.
Willie was tired. All that was left of Crawkins' gold was one piece Willie kept in his drawer alongside a butterfly and a rock that was sixteen different colors. When he got home his mother nagged at him for two solid hours. No matter how he stretched and yawned he couldn't get past her. "Willie, Willie, Willie." She said. "How many times I got to tell you? Don't talk to strangers."
Gregg Writes
Blue Ox Stories
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