The Undertaker's Devil - 13. Exile

July, 1890

Samael had barely dropped the last of his belongings in the familiar upstairs room at the undertaker’s when he heard a knock at the front door. He walked down and found Joe Corbin waiting outside.

“My key doesn’t work anymore,” Corbin said apologetically when Samael let him in.

“Mister Walker changed the locks. He just gave me one yesterday.”

“So, back to your old position, more or less?”

“Yes. Mister Walker came and asked me to. More business than he can handle himself. And he likes the idea of someone living here to keep an eye on things.”

“No more Can Can?”

“Well, no more cooking there. Mister Quong is still hanging my paintings. And we’ve finally agreed on his commission if one sells. What about you? Where are you working?”

“Oh, there’s always call for a carpenter. Not always fine work, but enough to live on.” Corbin sat down. “I gave Andy the money you sent.”

“Thanks. Who did you say it was from?”

“Oh, I told him it was another miner whose taxes he had written off. The county didn’t authorize him to do any such thing, of course, but he did anyway when a mine was played out. Lot of these fellows didn’t have two nickels to rub together and the county was still charging them like their mines were producing as much silver as in ‘81. So Andy would pay some out of his own pocket and write off the rest.”

Samael shook his head. “Meanwhile he was losing his shirt himself, even before Robbie. Joe, why didn’t he go after Robbie? Why didn’t he report it to a Federal marshal?”

“He was too ashamed, is what I think. So he decided to pay back the money out of the funds he thought the county owed him. And then as soon as he took them to court, they took him to court, that whole embezzlement hoodoo.”

“And how is the case going?”

“Slow as always, calculated to use up every dime in lawyers’ fees. He thinks you don’t want to hear about it.”

“I don’t.” Samael rubbed his neck. “I don’t like what it’s done to Andy. It changed him. I would ask him to drop it, but it’s like trying to get a bone away from a dog. He sold everything he had to pay for it, now he’s up in Mammoth and I never even catch a glimpse of him.”

“I wish you would go see him. He’s been prospecting and he’s had some success. I wish you could forgive him.”

“For Robbie? I have. I know it wasn’t as bad as I thought at first. But the court case – I can’t compete with that.”

Corbin sighed. “All right. But I know he misses you.”

“How is his – cough?”

“He has his bad days now and then. But mostly, it’s not so bad. You know Andy, works like a mule, nothing slows him down.”

“Wait here a minute. I have to run upstairs.” Corbin sat where he was until Samael returned. “Give him this, from another grateful taxpayer.” Samael handed Corbin forty dollars.

“Are you sure? This is a lot of money.”

“I sold two paintings. He needs the money a lot more than I do.”

Corbin thought a moment before saying, “I wish I had a tenth of whatever it is Andy has that inspires such devotion.”

Samael kissed his cheek. “Don’t sell yourself short, Joe.”

Corbin leaned forward and kissed Samael’s lips. Samael pulled back and stopped him. “I’m still in love with Andy.”

Corbin pulled back as well. “Well, damn.”

“Goodbye, Joe. I appreciate you telling me how Andy’s doing. Please keep coming and telling me.”

After Corbin left, Samael returned upstairs to unpack his things. In a chest, one drawer had a false bottom. When he lifted it, he found two hidden sheets of paper with the letters of the alphabet written large on them, many of them doodled into drawings – his first reading and writing lesson. The memory made him sit abruptly on the bed. He spent a half hour looking over the sheets of paper before he could proceed.

********

Ritter stood back from the explosive charge he had placed and felt a tingle of nervousness about setting it off. Not fear that it would go wrong, exactly; more fear that would reveal nothing of value.

Since returning to prospecting, he had staked a few minor claims. The money he made from them helped his situation a bit, but it did not come close to erasing his debts. In 1889 he had reached destitution. If not for the grubstake Frank Moore and Jay McNeil had given him, he couldn’t have managed even this petty bit of scavenging for silver and gold others had overlooked.

One advantage to losing his entire fortune was that he knew now who his real friends were. And they were many; but so were the jackals who assumed that accusation meant guilt, and who loved to kick a man while he was down.

Oddly enough, Ike Clanton’s rants about Ritter and Samael being “morphrodites” (or, in his less refined moments, “buggers”) did not substantially contribute to anti-Ritter feeling in the town, perhaps because everything Ike Clanton said was assumed to be a lie.

Ritter was done with Tombstone. His redemption was far more likely to come from this harsh wilderness than from that fickle town.

For true friends he was grateful; for false friends he still felt disappointment and resentment; but his real heartache was for Sammy. The thought of redeeming himself in Sammy’s eyes was a big part of what drove his determination to vindicate himself in court. Yet he knew that even if he prevailed on every count, he was still too ashamed to face Sammy.

So now here he was, in the blazing wasteland, feeling his age and ill health, hoping against hope for a strike in a trench which two miners abandoned as worthless and freely gave to him.

He curbed his wandering thoughts, stiffened his resolve, and set off his charge. When the dust cleared, he wandered about examining the debris. At first, nothing; then a small gleam of gold; then more, and more, and more. Veins of gold in every piece of quartz. He had been hoping merely for a little silver, but this was a good, solid gold strike. He began gathering samples to take back to town.

This could fund the court case no matter how long it takes, Ritter thought. And I’ll finally have enough that I can send something to Sammy, after these years of having nothing to offer him. He’ll accept it if he doesn’t know it’s from me.

********

June, 1892

Samael heard the shopkeeper’s bell ring and walked out to the front. Joe Corbin stood just inside the door with a tall, slender blond man of about thirty years. “Hello, Sammy. Have you heard the news about Andy?”

“Joe! Now which news is this, exactly?”

“He’s been acquitted of all the charges the county brought against him, and his bondsmen are all released from any obligation. The court cases are over.”

“Does this mean he gets the money he claimed?”

“No, not a penny. But he’s a free man. And all the legal maneuvering his lawyers did to keep his bondsmen from having to pay that damn Board’s claims of shortages worked out.”

“So he still has no money.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. The new mine is still producing.”

“And how is he?”

“Well, that’s the more important thing I came to tell you. He got through the case, but it wore him out. He’s been staying indoors, pretty sick, if you ask me. He could use someone to take care of him for a while.”

“Has he been getting the medicine I’ve been sending?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if he’s been using it. I told him it was direct from China Mary. I don’t know if he believed me.”

Samael shook his head. “That man is so stubborn. I don’t care if I lose my job. I’m going up there.”

“If anyone can make a difference, it’s you.”

Samael turned his attention to the blond man while still addressing Corbin. “Are you going to introduce us?”

“Oh, sorry,” Corbin said. “Sammy, this is Pieter Vos, the amazing teetotaling bartender.”

The blond man blushed. Speaking with a new immigrant’s accent, he said, “Joe, in America, my name is Dutch. You can call me Pieter but no one else can.”

Joe smiled at Dutch, who dipped forward and pecked Joe on the lips.

Corbin was clearly infatuated. “I never was one to hang around in saloons, but I couldn’t stay away once I saw Dutch tending bar. I kept coming in and ordering nothing stronger than sarsaparilla, and he thought that was pretty funny, and we got to being friendly. He doesn’t drink either.”

Dutch turned back to Samael. “In Antwerp I am reading that Tombstone is an exciting place.” He mimed shooting a pistol. “I am reading about cowboys. Where are the cowboys?”

Samael smiled ruefully. “Go five miles east and back ten years.”

********

When Corbin and Samael reached Ritter’s shack, Corbin hurried to the door. “Andy! Where are you?”

Samael untied the mule standing outside and led it toward the best vegetation he could see. “Is there water? A well? A spring?”

“There’s usually a trickle in the arroyo,” Corbin called back over his shoulder. Then, looking around inside, he said, “Oh, Andy. Two days alone and you fall apart.”

Samael left the mule to browse and rushed to the door. He saw Ritter lying on the floor, a thin blanket under him and a coat over him, his breath rasping. “Let’s get him to the bed, Joe.”

Ritter was not quite dead weight, but he wasn’t really conscious, either. As he settled into the thin mattress, he grabbed Samael’s hand, and after a moment, opened one eye. Panic briefly showed in his face. He lifted a hand to his lips, pointed outside, looked confused, and closed his eye again.

“Don’t worry. Your father’s not here,” Samael assured him. He stood and surveyed the wreckage of the room. “How did he end up with a mule?” he asked Corbin.

“He bought him off an Army unit passing through. They wanted to get rid of the General because he’s too old and mean.”

“’The General’?”

“General Ulysses S. Grant, retired Army mule first class.”

“As an Army mule, he should be used to taking care of himself. I need to get this place organized. Show me where this water is. And where’s Carson?”

“Carson’s busy with his own mining venture.”

“Has he been around?”

“Not much, from what I hear.”

Samael sighed. “He’d probably just get in the way.”

As soon as he could boil some water, Samael coaxed a little of the bitter Chinese medicine down Ritter’s throat. He also drank some himself.

********

After Samael had inventoried Ritter’s meager foodstuffs, he sent Corbin away to fetch supplies. Waiting for Corbin to return, he watched Ritter sleep, examining the deepening lines on his face, the spreading grey in his hair, the tense muscles around the eyes.

Later, while Corbin piled packages on the table, Samael went outside to the mule, which trotted up and turned its hind end toward him. Samael took the hint and scratched the General’s butt. General Grant made appreciative noises.

Corbin emerged. “That mule has been ornery to everyone else I’ve seen except Andy. He bit me twice.”

“This sweetheart? He’s just an old soldier who needs some love, aren’t you, General?” The mule flicked his tail in annoyance that Samael had stopped scratching.

“Well, I’m off. I’ll be back in a few days.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

********

Sometimes Ritter was feverish, sometimes not. Sometimes he was sweating, sometimes shivering. Samael forced some mush into his mouth.

Ritter struggled to swallow. He whispered, “Jim?”

“Nope.”

“Where’s Jim?”

“He’s not here right now.”

Ritter sank back.

In the night, Ritter thrashed in panic, crying out, “Get down! Down!”

Samael sat or lay down on the bed next to him. He tried to hold Ritter’s thrashing arms still.

Early in the morning he went to get more water. One side of the arroyo was steep and rocky, almost a cliff. Water trickled through a gap between boulders. Glancing at the ground, Samael saw the course the water took during a flash flood, perilously close to the shack. The remains of a crude low dam of rocks lay across a narrow point at the gully’s bottom. It was washed away on one side, but on the other was a slight buildup of silt in which some grass and a seedling of a bush or tiny tree had sprouted. “I’ll be out later to build some brothers and sisters for you higher up,” Samael promised the dam. As soon as he said it, he knelt and coughed for a few minutes.

Samael roused Ritter for another mouthful of gruel. Ritter barely opened his mouth and kept his eyes closed. He mumbled, “Any funerals today?”

“No, none today. Go back to sleep.”

So it was for three days until Corbin returned. By then Samael had put the shack in order and hung washing out to dry.

Samael led the mule around the shack in search of food and water as Corbin brought more parcels into the cabin. The mule followed Samael around like a dog.

Inside, Ritter woke and saw Corbin. “I had a dream about Sammy being here. Maybe not here, maybe some combination of here and the shop.”

“It wasn’t a dream, Andy. He’s here.”

“Oh.” Ritter lay back. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

“Do you think he’d be here if he was still mad at you?” Corbin rolled his eyes. “It’s about time I tell you that all through ’89 and ’90, he was sending you money, making me swear to tell you it was from someone whose taxes you forgave. And then, after your strike, he was still sending you money, and you started sending him money, and neither of you wanted me to tell the other one who it was from. It was ridiculous.”

“Well, did he get the money I gave you for him?”

“I couldn’t figure out a way, other than buying some of his paintings with it. And if I did that, he’d just send the money from the sale right back to you. So I opened a bank account in his name and stashed the money there. For such a poor man he sure is rich.” Corbin had finished unpacking and prepared to leave. “I'd better get going. Believe it or not, I have my own work to do.”

“Yes, Joe, of course. I don’t mean to keep you.”

“Sammy’s the one you should keep. Maybe next time I come up, I’ll bring Dutch.”

“Who’s Dutch?”

Corbin could not help smiling broadly. “You’ll see.”

********

Samael watched Corbin ride away, then heard Ritter’s voice behind him.

“Boy, don’t you have some place to be?” Ritter stood in the doorway.

Samael shook his head. “Mister Allen Walker told me he don’t need me no more.”

“How old are you, boy?”

“I was created five thousand seven hundred and eighty-four years ago as a junior assistant Angel of Death. But I fell from Heaven, and now here I am.”

Ritter chuckled. “A lie is a very poor way to start a friendship.”

“How old would you like me to be?”

“Oh, I’d say twenty-eight or twenty-nine.”

“Let’s make it twenty-eight. Twenty-nine sounds like I’m thirty and lying about it. Now get back to bed while I make you something to eat. No wonder you’re so thin – you didn’t have enough food in this shack to feed a cat.”

“Sammy.”

“Yes?”

Ritter looked down. “I’m sorry I let the tussle with the Board of Supervisors take over my life.”

Samael turned back to pet the mule. “Well, it’s over now.”

“And I’m sorry about Robbie. Sorry I didn’t see through him. I’m sorry I hid things from you.”

“Andy, I got over that a long time ago.”

“Joe tells me you’re working at the undertaker’s again, just like old times.”

“Nothing like old times. It used to be fun when you were there. And I’m not allowed to talk to customers and tell them that dying is nothing to be afraid of. Anyway, I fired myself.” Samael turned back to Ritter. “I’m thinking of taking up mining.”

“I know an old miner who needs a partner.”

“Really? Does he have any experience?”

“Oh, he knows the business all right. But he’s a broken-down old wreck.”

Samael snorted a laugh. “You’ve been saying that since I met you.” Samael went to Ritter and kissed him.

“Sammy, I’m ill. Very ill.”

“I know. I am, too.” Samael laced his fingers through Ritter’s. “Plus, I’m still evil.”

“What a fortunate coincidence,” Ritter said. “So am I.”