Two-Gun & Sun
June Hutton
Copyright © 2015 June Hutton
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Hutton, June (Heather June Hutton), author
Two-Gun & Sun / June Hutton.
ISBN 978-1-987915-10-5 (EPUB)
1. Cohen, Morris Abraham, 1887-1970âFiction.
2. Sun, Yat-sen, 1866-1925âFiction. I. Title. II. Title: Two-
Gun & Sun.
PS8615. U88T86 2015 C813'.6 C2015-904040-X
For Tony
for the idea
“
Two-Gun Cohen
is essentially a piece of historic fiction. Each page, like many of the stories that he relayed to the press over the preceding thirty years, contained inaccuracies and outright falsehoods.”
Daniel S. Levy, author,
Two-Gun Cohen, a Biography
âcommenting on the Charles Drage version of Cohen's life, as told to Drage by Cohen himself
April 1, 1923
HONG KONGâPreparations are underway to launch yet another campaign against China's notorious warlords, according to a representative of Generalissimo Sun Yat-sen.
Mr. Morris Cohen, a former banker and financier from Montreal who currently serves as bodyguard to the national leader, told travelers and news correspondents gathered in The Hong Kong Hotel lobby that his first priority is a rail line to cross the country to facilitate the movement of goods and troops. The second, is to straighten out China's finances.
Furthermore, teaching the troops to box and shoot will be Mr. Cohen himself, once a sergeant with the Canadian Railway Troops in Europe during the Great War. In his new capacity he will be given the title of Acting-General. “It'll be a force such as China has never seen,” he said.
Accompanying Mr. Cohen was by all accounts a handsome woman who declined to be named, simply insisting to all who asked that she was here for the drama and that no, she was not “the betrothed of Mr. Morris Two-Gun.”
Recently he earned the name Two-Gun Cohen for the second pistol he packs as added protection, and because it was in the Wild West of North America where he first met the national leader . â¦
In the Wild West of North America
A Saloon, a Woman and an Outlaw
Ten Minutes Past Seven O'Clock
In the Wild West of North America
Midnight, and no stars, no moon. I stood alone on the deck, gripping the rail, waiting for a glimpse of this town that would be my new home. The rusted prow cleaved the bank of fog in two, grey foam folding rapidly to either side as the ship motored up the inlet, a dizzying presence that pressed against my face, rendering me sightless. The stink of it was up my nose, a mix of outhouse and crushed barnacles and rotten eggsâand damp, too. Hair that I had combed flat and clamped in place with my silver pin had gone haywire, I could feel it, had absorbed the wet and sprung to life, unwinding and loosening from the knot, coils of it dangling over my ears, tapping onto my shoulders and the back of my neck to drip and dance and bounce back up to drip again. One lock fell over my nose, a russet curl I snuffed away as a horse might. If I were made of metal I'd be hearing the bolts and screws clattering to the ground as I came undone.
The midnight ship, blinded as well by the fog, came upon the wharf so suddenly its sides ground and shrieked against the wood and its engines reversed, sending a shudder up the sides.
Hands clenched on the railing, legs braced, I rode each pitch and roll. I was not about to get tossed overboard, but if I had been I was prepared, my travel outfit a split-skirted, leggings style of get-up, lavender-grey to take the dirt, the one sensible piece of clothing I owned. I could ride a horse in it if needed, swim to shore if I had to.
The ship settled at last, rolling gently in its own wake. Lights flickered on down below, and the mist seemed to thin. I breathed in, then out, as though I were swimming.
There would be no one on shore to meet me. That was how I'd wanted it. Who would meet me anyway, except a stranger, and I saw no purpose in that. I had been eager to leave home, the stifling prettiness of the orchard, the suffocating heat, the long distance to town, the likelihood that I would die there without ever having lived. It was in that very orchard, at the very moment I was inspecting the branches of budding fruit, looking over my shoulder, bear scat in the grass and any shadow the possible bulk of a bear that, far away in Black Mountain, Uncle died. I learned this only later. At the time, I never thought the shadows could be him, come by one last time to say farewell before leaving for good. A foolish thought, but it soothes me now. At the time, all I thought was: bear. It was too early for them, but it had been an early spring.
And there it was: Uncle was dead, and I was here to take over. He could have picked one of my brothers to run the newspaper, but his Last Will and Testament named me, the only girl, his only niece. Still, I almost said no, sitting in the lawyer's office back home, our horse, Ruby, tearing and chewing at grass outside the window while I listened to the details and contemplated a life in some desolate mining town on the coast. The bank agreed to a small loan for start-up costs if I could guarantee results in one month. If not, it would seize the newspaper, already in arrears.
I said yes, for all of the above-noted reasons.
Whistles and shouts erupted from the ship's crew. A rope was tied and the men began to fling crates onto the boards below. The lights that marked the edge of the wharf revealed two dark figures emerging from the swirling mist. I squinted. Chinese, one with his hair in a single braid down his back, like the old coolies who worked on the rail beds. They rummaged through the pile, unmindful of the falling freight, neither dodging nor ducking as parcels landed all around them.
I watched intently. My leather bags were in that pile.
One of the ship's crewmen materialized next to me.
Miss, he said.
Sinclair, I said, Lila.
He didn't introduce himself, but he must have been a navigator of some sort because he hung over the railing, barking directions about the crew, the ship, the ropes, the lowering of the gangplank, the moving of cargo.
I'm going down now, I told him.
He wrenched his grizzled head around. We're not done yet, miss.
I grabbed the rope railings anyway and lurched down the descending gangplank, its tip still inches above the wharf. I jumped and landed neatly on the boards below. Everything I'd thought essential to my new life here I'd packed in those bags. Clothes. A black, beaded evening bag that was all I could recall of my mother: her arm, and the beads sparkling from it. Favourite photos and books. A whisky bottle, full, so it wouldn't slosh around and give me away.
The handle of one of my leather cases jutted from the side of the pile and I ran for it.
That one's mine, I shouted.
I seized the handle and pulled.
There's another just like it, I said.
My words were wasted on the scavenging men. They were arguing back and forth in their language, flinging other people's goods aside while they searched.
The navigator must have followed me down because he pushed past me, now.
You two, he said. Watch it. Let the lady find her things!
Their digging had unearthed my second bag and the navigator plucked it for me. I grabbed it from him and clutched it against my chest, triumphant, but the one with the braid was equally victorious. He pulled out a package, long and slender like a rifle, and raised it high above his head. It was only then that I saw his face, his dark brows curved as though surprised, and a wide mouth that also curved downward, and realized that he was young, my age. He wedged the package under his arm and, with the other man behind him, vanished into the grey air.
It was a moment before I found my tongue.
They just up and took it, I said.
The navigator squirted tobacco, then wiped his chin. Most likely theirs, he said. Had Chinese writ all over it.
His stained fingers directed me to turn from the cargo pile. A luminescent mass had appeared behind us, undulating in the mist and growing closer. Could there be such a thing as fireflies in fog? Surely one extinguished the other. Pinpricks of light bounced madly in the air, as though whatever was holding them up perambulated on wheels over rough ground, while amongst the lights gleamed metal heads bobbing along with every bump as though each would snap right off. But strangest of all were the outstretched limbs that groped the fog, reaching perhaps, searching.
People! I declared.
Come to get their freight, too.
Are those miners' helmets on their heads?
Hats, helmets, he said. All fashion of headgear worn in Black Mountain. But strapped onto each is a light such as the miner's wear. Here's one for you, courtesy of the General Store.
In his other hand, I noticed only now, dangled a strap.
You can settle your account later. Just say where you got it.
I dropped one bag and took the offered strap by my fingertips.
If the ship docked in the daytime we wouldn't need these, I said.
Every hour that calls itself day is dusk in Black Mountain, he said. Dirt and smoke from the coal mine for starters, and the fog, and them hills, particularly the largest. It's why the name. Throws the whole place in shadow. Sometimes you'll need the light, sometimes you won't.
I haven't heard any fog horns.
You won't, miss. It's always socked in to some degree, so why bother?