The Devil and His Due

The man began to write.

Dear Favorite Son,

That was their own personal little joke. Favorite Son that is. He was the man’s only son, his only child.

I won’t be here much longer and I want to tell you this story about myself that I have never told anyone before, not even your mother, and it needs to be told now before I die.

The man was 92, bedridden in a nursing home, and he was painfully sitting up in his bed as he wrote.

This is about something strange, real strange, that happened to me in my youth when I was a young and foolish man, before I met your mother that is. It’s a pretty tall tale even for a former tall Texan like me but I swear to God it’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I’ve never told it to anyone before because I knew no one would believe me. They would all think that I was crazy. But I know you won’t, Favorite Son. So let me begin.

Back in my youth I was a cowboy. I worked on a ranch in Wilson County to the southeast of San Antonio. On the weekend my bunkmates would take their pay, go into town, pay, and I do mean pay, a visit to Madame Reina’s. It was one of those houses of the rising sun as they say because it faced East. Now I know what you’re thinking, my father visiting a brothel. How could he? Well remember that I said I was young and foolish then and the guys kept on razing me about not going with them and after a while it finally got to me so much that I caved and I agreed to go with them to town. So we go in. It was a pretty gaudy place highlighted by the gilded gaudiness of Madame Reina herself. She was a Russian Jewess, and her name wasn’t exactly appropriate for the kind of business that she ran. But she was a likable ole grandma type, pleasantly plump, with a big pile of twisted gray hair crowned high upon her head, a big heart warming welcoming smile with a gold capped tooth on each side, they looked like gold fangs, a voice as smooth as silk, and big elongated black eyelashes that when she fluttered them I swear that one could feel a breeze clear across the room. Well the other guys already knew who they wanted. They all  had been there before. So they grabbed their partners and headed upstairs.

I was left standing there all by my lonesome. There was only one girl left and she looked like a girl alright, a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. But she was a cute little coquettish thing with mousy brown hair, pale blue eyes, and pale white skin. Madame Reina looked at her, paused, and then asked her, Will he do? To which the girl answered, He’ll do. I had no idea what they were talking about.

Then Madame Reina says to me, well Cowboy looks like you get Colleen tonight but before you two get down to business, and here she finger quoted business, she’d like for you to do a little favor for her first. She needs to take care of some business down the street and she needs a gentleman to escort her there because as you know these streets aren’t safe at night.

How could I say no. After all, I had just been upgraded from Cowboy to Gentleman.

Madame Reina turned back to Colleen, He’s all yours Sweetie. Good luck. I wish that I would have had your guts when I was your age. 

Again I had no idea what all that was about. Anyway Colleen took my hand and led me down the street a couple of blocks and she then stopped in front of the Happy Endings Funeral Home, took out a key, unlocked the door, and drug me in. The place was pitch black. No one was there. Just the two of us. She found a kerosene lamp and lit it.

I finally had to know what in the hell, pun prematurely intended, was going on here.

Why are we here? I asked.

Because I made a deal with someone.

A deal? With whom?

That’s none of your business.

I thought I was clever then when I countered with, Well if you want my business tonight, you better tell me your business now. 

Okay then but you're not going to believe me.

Try me. 

I couldn’t take it living there on the farm anymore. Helping Ma take care of my ten younger brothers and sisters all the time, watching two of them die, one from the croup, one from a farm accident, and being the oldest helping Pa with the farm chores and in the field from sunup to sundown, every day, day in, day out, without end. I hated chopping and picking cotton. It was driving me crazy. I knew that I had to get out of there before I went totally certifiably insane. So one day this traveling salesman comes to the door selling pots and pans and what not. It was not that I bought. Anyway Ma was too busy to answer it so I did. He was a handsome fellow with a devilish look in his eyes, though at that time I didn’t know that it was devilish. I thought it was intriguing.  Somehow he sensed my plight and was most sympathetic to me and we got to talking and I told him why I hated it here. So he told me that he could take me away from all this and get me a good job in San Antonio working at this big fancy house with room and board included if I’d work there for him. Doing what I asked. Don’t worry he said it’s not that hard of a job. It sounded too good to be true, too good to pass up, so I said yes that I’d work there for him. He told me let’s go then. I said shouldn't I pack a bag and tell my folks first. He said no that I would be provided with all the clothing that I needed and that I could send my folks a letter but he had to get going right now or he’d be late for an important meeting. It was now or never, so I chose now. So he took me to this big two story fancy brownstone house in San Antonio. Here it is, he said. Well so far so good I thought. He doesn’t knock, just opens the door and walks in. That’s funny I thought. Does he live here? Then this fluffed up old hen comes over and introduces herself as Madame Reina, not Mrs. Reina, Madame Reina, looks me over from head to toe and says to him, She’ll do just fine here. I took that as I was hired. Then she added, Men like young girls. I wondered what she meant by that but before I could ask she said, Let me introduce you to the girls. She leads us to the parlor. The whole time his hand is on my elbow dragging me along. We go into the parlor and there’s all these scantily glad women there. Well I might have been a dumb country girl but at sixteen I had still heard enough of the ways of the world to know what was going on here. I look up at my captor and see that devilish look in his eyes, that devilish grin on his face, and I swear to God I saw horns coming out of his derby hat. I tried to pull loose from his grasp but he only tightened it further and held me in place. Don’t even think about it Sweetheart, he said. This was the deal you made. I got you a job as promised and now you’re going to keep your end of the bargain and work here for me. If you try to escape I’ll just find you wherever you go. You belong to me now. I knew now was not the time to try to escape. So I resolved myself to my fate but only until I could figure out a way to get out of here and you Cowboy are my way out.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head side to side in disbelief. 

Look Cowboy I’ve got a proposition for you that will make all this worth your while. I’ll give you two free ones, but not tonight though, the next two times you come to town, if you do something for me here tonight at the funeral home.

Well that sounded like a bargain alright if there ever was one. I just couldn't pass it up because that way I could certainly prove my manhood to the guys now couldn’t I. So I bit. 

Okay what do you want me to do?

I want you to guard a body that’s here for me tonight.

A body? Whose?

My fiance Wilbur. He’s in the back.

Hold your horses there a minute sister, I said. I thought that getting married was against the rules in your business.

It is. But he’s so cute with those dimples of his and he’s so adorable, cuddly, and romantic and all that I just couldn’t help myself. I fell in love with him and he with me.  After all, I'm just seventeen you know, and he’s so mature. He’s twenty.

Hold on again, I said again. I thought you said he was dead?

I didn’t say he was dead. The doctor said he was dead but I know for a fact that he’s in a trance. The Devil cast a spell on him because I’m not supposed to fall in love. That broke my deal as far as he is concerned with him and he wants me to pay him his due now since I reneged. That’s why we’re here.

I don’t get this at all, I said.

Look, the Devil knows that I’ll come here tonight and try to save Wilbur before they bury him tomorrow. 

All of a sudden I got it. I cut in. I just couldn’t resist. 

So the Devil thought that if he had your handsome sleeping prince here, you the fair maiden, would come along to give him the proverbial kiss to wake him up and if you had me here as your white knight in shining armor I would pop out, slay the Devil before he took you two away and you two would live happily ever after, convoluted but right, right? 

Right 

Well just exactly how do you expect me to slay the Devil since as you can see I don’t  carry a gun.

She reached in her purse, took out a six shooter, and handed it to me.

I looked it over. 

There’s no bullets in it, I said.

She took out a bullet and handed it to me.

I looked it over. It didn’t look like a real bullet but it had a funny smell to it. I smelled it.

What is it? I asked.

It’s a brimstone bullet she said not missing a beat. They say that a brimstone bullet to the Devil’s brain will blow him back to Hell where he belongs and break any spell that he has cast here on earth.

And you believe what ‘they’, whoever they are, say?

Yes I do.

Where in the hell then, If I may so boldly ask, did you ever get a brimstone bullet?

The blacksmith made it for me.

Why’d you only get one?

Because I didn’t want to pay the price for any more. That’s why.

What was his price?

Well if you have to know, it was being chained up by that greasy dirty perverted old man while he had his way with me. I didn’t want to go through all that again. There, are you happy now? Come on. Let's go. Wilbur is in the back room.

She led the way as I put the bullet in the gun and then spun the chamber thinking that’s what a good gunslinger would do. There in the back of the room up against the wall was Wilbur in a closed cheap pine box coffin all stretched out on top of a table.

I went up to him, opened the lid, and looked him over. He certainly was a handsome sort of fella in a cute sort of boyish way and as far as I was concerned he was most certainly dead, most sincerely dead, and not in a trance. 

Okay here’s the plan, she said. I stay in the room here with Wilbur as bait. You go back in the other room, leave the door open a bit, stand behind it, keep a watch out, and when the Devil comes in the back door you rush forward and shoot him. Remember to shoot him in the head and not the heart because as everyone knows the Devil doesn't have a heart.

What if he comes in the front door and I don’t see him, he sneaks up on me, and  gets me first, I asked.

He won’t. The Devil always comes in the back door. Now go back to the other room and wait.

I did so. After all, I was already in for the proverbial penny and therefore stuck for the pound. In no time at all, as if out of thin air, the Devil himself appeared behind the now opened coffin of Wilbur. I rushed in, stopped directly across from him, aimed my pistol at his forehead, and that’s when I felt two beams of red light from his red eyes burning holes into my chest. It literally hurt like hell.

The Devil  was wearing a blood red cape with a likewise blood red hood. He had a pencil thin black mustache and goatee and in his hands high above his head he held his pitchfork with the prongs pointed downward ready to stab it into the chest and belly of Wilbur. 

Well Sweetie, he cackled. If you think this here hayseed cowboy can save the day for you, think again. I'm gonna to take all three of you now to Hell with me tonight.

I aimed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger. Nothing. Then I remembered that I had spun the chamber, so I kept pulling the trigger until on the fifth pull the gun finally went off when the pitchfork was half an inch from Wilbur’s body. 

I shot the Devil. But he wasn’t there. There was no body anywhere. No blood nor brain matter anywhere. Only a thick greasy black cloud of putrid sulfuric acid smoke hung in the air so thick that Colleen had to use her hands to cut through it as she clawed and coughed her way to her fiance. Then as the two of them ran out the front door, she looked back over her shoulder and hollered at me, Thanks, Shining Knight.

Years later I heard they got married and bought a potato farm in Idaho. Had a dozen kids too. As to Madame Reina, well I heard that the doctor, the same doctor who said Wilbur was dead, not in a trance, said she died of a heart attack because she was overweight but I knew better. Better than the truth coming out that she died from syphilis, the disease of the trade. The Devil probably made him say that because that wouldn’t have been good for business now would it? Then again who knows maybe Devil just struck her dead on the spot in order to get his due from her for not stopping, well rather for encouraging, Colleen.

I knew a gunshot would draw the law and I’d have some explaining to do. I knew that if I told the truth, the sheriff wouldn’t believe me, would probably think that I was crazy, and take me to a judge so he could lock me up in a mental institution and throw away the key. So I did what any good Texan would do when the law comes after him, I lit out for the territory. But after I had ridden a few miles therein, I got to thinking, this isn’t a good idea. This is the land of the outlaws, misfits, thieves, cutthroats, murders, etc. I better hightail it out of here. So I kept on riding North and crossed the line into Kansas. 

It was harvest time there and I got me a job helping a farmer thresh wheat. When his daughter brought out the noon meal for the crew that first day, that's how I met your mother. I was smitten and bitten. A year later, after a proper courting, and her father’s blessing, we got married. Then I was twice blessed when I got you Favorite Son. Well as you know your mother inherited the farm, then she died. I got the place, farmed it until I couldn’t, and deeded  it to you, Favorite Son, and put myself in this nursing home here in Hutchinson.

I got a funny feeling now that I won’t be here tomorrow morning when you come to see me. That’s why I’m writing this letter. I don’t care if you believe me or not or if you want to show it to the grandkids or whether they believe me or not. That’s all okay with me. But that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Love ya Favorite Son. Your father.

The man licked the envelope and sealed it shut. It was addressed of course To My Favorite Son. It was tear stained. He put it in the night stand drawer next to his bed.

It was after lunch now, time for his afternoon nap. He fell asleep and when he woke up, the room was dark. He looked out the window. The sun was out but the room was dark, pitch black dark. He held his pocket watch toward the window. It  was three ten. Then he felt it, again. Two burning holes in his chest. He looked up and there at the foot of his bed stood the Devil himself but  in disguise as one of the help here.

Didn’t think I’d find ya, huh Cowboy. I regularly check all the nursing homes you know. It’s time for you to pay the Devil his due now Cowboy or should I say Shining Knight.

Well come on then said the man. Let’s get this over with. Get on with it.

The Devil got on with it.

Next morning, The Favorite Son found his father dead. No letter was found anywhere.