The Undertaker's Devil - 14. A Boomtown Man

April, 1899

The house Ritter and Samael shared stood a few yards from the old shack, which Ritter continued to use as a toolshed and tinkering station. There he continued to perfect his dry washer for separating gold from ore without using water, invented a fruit canning machine, and played with designs for other devices.

Joe Corbin and Dutch Vos had helped them build their house. While Samael constructed their water-slowing leaky rock dams in the arroyo and built a garden in the floodplain that had once washed out every year, Ritter dug a well and piped water into the house and around the property.

Carson came to visit in 1893, during the construction. He frowned at the four men working together. Pulling Ritter aside, he asked, “You all going to live here?”

“No, just Sammy and me. Joe and Dutch are still attached to Tombstone.”

“What about me?”

“What about you, Carson?”

“Did you want me to live here?”

“I assumed you wanted to stay closer to Mammoth with Frank Schultz.”

“I do. This is too far out for me. I don’t see why you’d build this far out.”

“I like it here.”

Carson hesitated. “Why did Sammy move up here?”

“Why shouldn’t he?”

“I just think you should rely on me, not on him.”

“I’ll rely on you just as much as you let me.”

“I know, but I mean, I don’t want to if he’s around.”

Ritter took a deep breath. “Don’t make me choose between Sammy and you, Carson. Because if I have to choose, I will not choose you.”

Carson kicked the ground. “Can’t get clearer than that.”

Carson did not visit often over the next years.

Samael enjoyed hosting when Corbin and Dutch visited. They usually stayed overnight because it was quite a journey. Dutch told stories about his family and his younger days in Antwerp and Italy. Apparently he had an eye for short, dark-haired, hairy men, so Corbin was perfect for him.

Ritter told stories about the Army, about his early days in Tombstone, about Samael, of course, and about his recent experiences prospecting.

“One old prospector, Chester Morton, told me an interesting story about an Apache woman he came across, lugging a load of firewood to her camp. She spoke a little English, Chester spoke a little Apache, and they managed to talk. She was looking down at Tombstone from the hills, so he said to her, ‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’

“She grinned and said, ‘So many white men, so many white men.’

“Chester said, ‘I guess the time of the Apache is over, and it’s the time of the white men now.’ She laughed. Chester asked her what was funny about that.

“She said white men are like a grass fire. Wildfires burn hot but not very long. When they’ve burnt up everything in their path, they die out. White men will go away when they’ve eaten everything in their path. The Apache will stay. All the Apache have to do is wait.

“And I’ve thought about that. All these boomtowns in the West, these mining towns – it’s true, they are like grass fires. They can’t last. There’s a boom for a few years, then a bust, and they go back to scrub and mesquite and buzzards. They will be nothing but ghost towns.”

Samael told this story: "When Andy first left Tombstone, I would wake up early sometimes and go out to look at the stars. I saw the morning star, and I wished that Andy would have a friend in Mammoth to be with him all the time. And a little after that, Andy got General Grant, who as it turns out is Andy's twin brother. I think you can all see the resemblance."

Ritter added, "You will all please note that this young devil has been praying to Lucifer, star of the morning."

Ritter still took part in civic affairs, scouted new mines in Goldfield and Tempe and Mesa, and kept in contact with old acquaintances from the G.A.R. and other fraternal organizations. But he slowed down considerably at the end of 1898, and by April 1899, he allowed himself the luxury of staying at home with Samael.

Late in the month, he stayed in bed almost all the time. He sent messages to some of his true friends asking them to come and visit. A few did.

On April 28^th, Samael asked if there was anyone else Ritter wanted to see. “Only you,” he said.

“Hardly anyone is going to remember you,” Samael said, “after all you did to try to build up Tombstone. It’s not fair that Wyatt Earp, a half a man with half a soul, gets remembered as some kind of hero and you don’t get remembered at all.”

“I’m just a boomtown man, Sammy. I was never meant to live very long. I’m surprised I made it to fifty-seven.”

“I can’t help thinking it’s because of me that you’re going to die.”

“I thought I’d cured you of that kind of thinking. And I much prefer the few years I’ve had with you to a longer life without you.”

“And I’ve preferred this time on Earth to staying in Heaven, which is actually kind of boring, if you end up there.”

Ritter laughed weakly. “Seems unlikely.”

“The company is more interesting in Hell anyway.”

Ritter touched Samael's hand. "I never stopped loving you, from the day you showed up at my front door."

"And I never stopped loving you, from the day you let me in."

Ritter slept for a few hours. When he woke, Samael was still at his side.

“Sammy?”

“Yes?”

“What’s today?”

“April twenty-eighth.”

“What year?”

“1899.”

“But that would mean that you’re – thirty-five or thirty-six.”

“Yes.”

“But you look exactly the same as when I met you, while I’ve gone all white-haired and skinny.”

“Oh, I’ve got a few grey hairs myself, thanks to you.”

Ritter looked closely at him. “Yes, I see you do. Sammy?”

“Yes?”

“Take care of the General.”

“I will, Andy.”

Ritter died shortly before dawn. Samael walked out, saw a bright star in the eastern sky, and made a wish. "Please tell Joe to come right away. And please tell Carson, too." Then he walked over to the mule and said, "Come on, General. Let's make sure Andy gets where he needs to go."

********

Corbin, Dutch and Carson arrived later that morning. Seeing that Ritter was dead, lying peacefully on his bed, they went in search of Samael. But Samael was nowhere to be found, nor was the mule. All Samael’s clothes and effects were stowed neatly. Corbin looked through the piles of drawings and paintings Samael left behind. About half of them were of Ritter, asleep. Dutch also leafed through them, exclaiming over this one or that.

On the table Carson found a piece of paper on which was written, in Samael’s hand:

For Andy’s Obituary: Mr. Ritter was a whole-souled citizen whose good heartedness was a failing that cost him dearly during life’s experience.

Carson asked Corbin, "How did you know to come today?"

"Just a feeling. How about you?"

"Same. I'm gonna go back down to Mammoth and send a telegram to my uncle, Pop's brother. Then I'll come back."

"All right. I'll go down a little later to send a notice to the papers, maybe contact his G.A.R. friends about a funeral. This old undertaker needs an undertaker."

Outside, Corbin and Dutch watched Carson ride away. Dutch asked, “Where do you think Sammy went?”

Corbin scanned the eastern horizon. “Where he came from, I suppose.”

THE END

********

HISTORICAL NOTES

A.J. Ritter was buried in Tucson in the G.A.R. section of Evergreen Cemetery. Tombstone was split politically during his time there, between pro-Earp Republican business interests, generally Northerners, and anti-Earp Democrat farmers, ranchers and working men, often from the South. Ritter was unusual in being a business owner with a reputation for championing the rights of the working man.

Carson Carey Ritter died in 1930, age 59, of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Wyatt Earp died in 1929, the last living participant in the famous gunfight. The facts of his life have long been obscured by poor scholarship, biased sensationalism (both from supporters and detractors), and fiction masquerading as fact, such as William Noble Flood's Tombstone: An Iliad of the Southwest, Billy Breakenridge's Helldorado: Bringing Law to the Mesquite, and Frank Waters' The Earp Brothers of Tombstone. Wyatt himself gave accounts of what he did, when, and where, which do not square with established facts, and contradicted himself (on one occasion claiming he killed Johnny Ringo, and on another stating that he didn't). His wife Josephine Marcus was a ruthless curator of his reputation and, if anything, a bigger liar than Wyatt.

Here are a few newspaper articles from the time:

1/1/1886 Daily Tombstone Epitaph

...A.J. Ritter has been a careful and conscientious guardian of the public treasury, and to his faithful and able management is largely due our present splendid financial showing...

10/8/1886 Daily Tombstone

EVERY word of abuse that is heaped upon Andy Ritter by the morning dish rag [a rival newspaper, presumably] gains Andy many votes. Keep it up Mr. Dunbar, you are doing good work for Andy.

10/30/1886 Daily Tombstone

A Card.

EDITOR TOMBSTONE.—Will you allow me a little space in your paper in regard to those articles in last evening’s issue? I do not know who the writer was, but such articles I do not endorse, not do I wish to injure the character of anyone to build myself up. I try to make my canvass in a quiet and gentlemanly manner, so that if elected I will have the respect and friendship of all. Respectfully yours.

A. J. RITTER.

12/31/1887 Arizona Weekly Enterprise

County treasurer Ritter of Cochise county, has set up a claim for a fee of 3 per cent for collecting taxes for the years 1885-6, amounting to over $6,000, and purposes holding out the money from taxes received this year. The courts will decide the matter.

9/6/1890 Arizona Enterprise

A LUCKY FIND.

Clouds of Gloom Dispelled by a Single Blast.

Nogales Herald.

Some years ago Andrew J Ritter was the most popular man in Cochise county. He owned considerable property, carried on a lucrative undertaking business and enjoyed the confidence and esteem of every business man in Tombstone, and everybody in Cochise county knew him. He was nominated by the republicans for county treasurer and was elected by the largest majority ever given a man in the county. In fact the name of honest Andy Ritter was in everyone’s mouth. He served his first term with credit to himself and the people who elected him, and was re-elected. During the second term, by some hocus-pocus—perhaps by the dishonesty, carelessness or incompetence of some one under him—he fell short of his accounts and a season of litigation followed, resulting in his bondsmen being called upon to make good the large amount asked by the county. It was a severe blow to honest Andy Ritter, the true soldier and noble patriot, and the whispers of dishonesty on his part that went around were harder for him to bear than the gallant charges of the enemy which he had withstood in many a battle while fighting for the preservation of the grand union which he loved so well.

It was with him as with everyone in this life—he had hardly got started on the down grade when he discovered that no one seemed desirous of applying the brakes, but instead added velocity whenever opportunity afforded. He lost all the accumulation of years of toil and industry and was left almost in the evening of his life, destitute and with a foul blot upon a once enviable character. But there were those who did not desert him. They knew the man; had full faith in his honesty and none could charge him with contriving to escape the payment of just debts.

He floated along on the rough and troublous sea of life, bowed with misery and bereft of hope and almost of ambition until a short time ago. He concluded he would try prospecting and Frank Moore and Mr. Macneil, two popular and kind-hearted business men of Tombstone, gave him a “grub stake.” He went over on the San Pedro near the famous Mammoth mine and began looking around. He found two men who had sunk a shaft about 18 feet deep and asked them to take him as a partner. They told him that he could have the claim—that there was nothing in it, and they left. Andy cleaned out the shaft and prepared for work but with little hope. He put in a shot and when the smoke had cleared away was astonished to find that he had uncovered “color.” He put in another shot with greater hope and that time lifted the covering of a veritable bonanza. He needed no assayer to tell him that he had struck it rich, the gold was in full view. The poorest rock from the ledge assayed into the thousands and he had plenty of it. The meagre “grub-stake” was soon swelled into a comfortable “sack” for development work, and it is now only a few months when honest Andy Ritter will handle his thousands and no reasonable luxury will be beyond his reach.

This information was given us during a recent visit to Tombstone, by a gentleman who knows all the facts. “And,” added the gentleman, “you can rest assured that Andy Ritter will pay every obligation, for he is that kind of a man.” The noble veteran deserves his good fortune.

4/30/1899 Tombstone Epitaph

A. J. Ritter, the old Arizona pioneer and resident of Tombstone for many years, died at Mammoth, Pima [s.b. Pinal] County, yesterday and will be buried at Tucson. Mr. Ritter was a whole souled citizen and his good heartedness was a failing that cost him dearly during life’s experience. He was a citizen of Tombstone for many years, was county treasurer of the county and had many staunch friends throughout Arizona who will be pained to hear of his death. Mr. Ritter had been in ill health for some time at Mammoth where he was engaged in mining and although his illness was not regarded as serious, it nevertheless proved so. He leaves a son, Carson Ritter, who is located in Mammoth, to mourn his loss and the heartfelt sympathies of all Tombstonites and friends are extended to the bereaved young man. Mr. Ritter was an honored member of the Masonic order and also belonged to the A. O. U. W. under whose auspices the funeral will be held at Tucson.

5/13/1899 Argus, Holbrook AZ

Last week a strange coincidence occurred at Mammoth over the sudden death of A. J. Ritter. His son Carson went to the telegraph office to notify a brother of the deceased in California of the sad event, when he found a dispatch announcing the death of that selfsame brother, who had also died suddenly that very day. –Florence Tribune.

8/6/1899 Tombstone Epitaph

Arizona pensions have been granted as follows: Original: Andrew J. Ritter Mammoth, $8; Joseph Fishburn Craig, $6; …

(Gee, thanks for the posthumous pension, fellas.)