Two-Gun & Sun (23 page)

I've been hearing about him since Moose Jaw.

So you said. That's why we came up with that deal, correct? Your thirty per cent share of the
Bullet
in exchange for an introduction.

Morris hadn't paid it yet, so I left out the fact that the thirty per cent was to give me money I badly needed for operating costs. Instead, I'd had to go to the bank. And how long until those funds ran out?

I haven't forgotten, he said. You will be impressed. He has a presence that a good leader should have, he is all things to all people. He's not unlike me. Yes, you laugh my dear, but he is as fond of the gentle sex as I am. Married twice. He is a great man, but flesh and blood like the rest of us. Not much of a drinker and I am hoping he is not a total abstainer, or he and I will never get along. But with a leader like him we can take our rightful place in this world. I know what you're thinking. I'm not one of them. Not really. But you are wrong. I am. He will change the lives of people in China and abroad, people that the English look down upon. I have arranged to set up an appointment with him as soon as he arrives.

And with me, as well.

What? Oh, yes. You'll be the first one I tell him about. I will make the proper introductions and, rest assured, he will be delighted to meet you, and he will want my shooting expertise as well.

Not as easy as it looks, he added. And he extended a pistol. Why wait until tomorrow?

Every time I'm ready to discount the man as a fool he does something wise. I'm not the only woman around who'd want to try, but he is one of the few men I know who would indulge me. Well, why not? I needed to know if I could hit pork hide with one of these.

It was heavier than I expected. I needed two hands to hold the pistol upright. He stood behind me, arms circling my elbows, ready to help, as I squeezed the trigger.

A bottle exploded. I lowered the gun and smiled, imagining the surprise on his face. But in his enthusiasm Cohen had allowed a hand to wander from my elbow to my ribs, thumb just below a breast in danger of being measured for a handful. I might have been poorly loved in my twenty-nine years, but this Two-Gun was no remedy.

I whirled around and pointed the pistol right at him.

His hands flew upward and roosted in his vest pockets. You're a good shot, he said.

I've used a rifle. We shot game back home.

I should have guessed that about a woman like you.

He was smiling at me as though I was the most beautiful creature in the world and not someone aiming a gun barrel between his eyes.

I lowered it then, thinking of that blasted opera. I was perfectly fine going by myself and sitting with Meena and her beau. But then I considered the advantage I had right now. I needed someone familiar with the hosts—mining interests, exploration—and here he was. Well, Jewish, which was a concern, among many others. Unwelcomed in such gatherings as a single woman normally was, but wasn't this night the exception? And wouldn't that make a statement, two souls normally banned, showing up together, united? We were going to be partners, after all.

He'd be the perfect guest. As long as he didn't get any ideas. I'd have to put him straight on that immediately.

I described the situation.

Pure business, I explained.

I'd be honoured, he said, and smiled with his eyes.

That's exactly what I mean, I said. Stop that.

A regular firecracker, he said.

I ate the apple for breakfast. It was a small, delicate fruit, white-fleshed with veins of pink, and it was all I could manage. My head pounded, but that was my penalty from indulging in too much whisky. By mid-morning I had consumed two pots of coffee, and that helped somewhat. That was yesterday. I spent all of the day recording key events in this notebook, and writing and setting copy. I didn't mind the quiet Sunday after such a busy night.

It was tempting to save the best news for this first edition, but it would be old news by then. So I decided to run this item now, in the fourth and final newssheet:

The coal leavings of South Africa: One traveller's story

And then I added an item I had almost forgotten until Morris repeated it last night:

Coal likes company—what lies beneath

Finally, a slender item:

Black moths signal storms

This was the last of the newssheets, bringing me closer to my ultimate goal, the first edition. Five days. My hand trembled just a little as I took up the pencil and struck a crooked line through today's date: Monday, September 25. I would miss these single sheets. I had done with them what I set out to do from the start, dispense news quickly, like a bullet straight into the minds of the readers. That one newsletter was an unfortunate blunder. Maybe that was to be expected of first attempts.

Did Vincent feel the same fondness for these newssheets? I checked his face: furrowed brow, lowered eyes.

If I asked, though, I might resurrect the topic of my botched news announcement, or of the deputy's crude insinuations. I was glad enough that this time he would stay to run off the copies, instead of leaving me to finish them alone, glad enough that he had returned at all after that incident, though working without comment, as though the only unusual event the other night had been the explosion. It was day, now. No danger of working into the night. He was all business, checking the test run for high and low spots on the page, adjusting the metal bits to lower or raise these spots that would, otherwise, gather too much ink, or none at all.

Meena had placed a long, slender advertisement in the newssheet. We used another engraving that Vincent borrowed from
The Times:
a tall woman in a fancy dress and hat. The setting could be Shanghai or Paris, and with her face turned away, she could be anyone, Meena herself, beneath the wide brim. The opera company placed another ad for a Saturday matinee for those unable to attend the Friday evening performance. Again, Ben brought over their own plates. We used the same type and plate for the airship tour to run another ad.

We were right on schedule for the upcoming first edition. News items that were not pressing, such as an exclusive interview with Mr. Benjamin Gill, would go on the inside pages. We had already composed those and, once these newssheets were done, would start to prepare the big press to run them. That was why Vincent had stayed, of course, for the preparatory work for the first edition, for the money. Strange, to have seen and done so much together, and yet to now behave like unfamiliars, polite to the point of rudeness.

I had worked hard to line up more ads, including one from the hotel laundry offering a special for cleaning gowns, to make sure I could pay Vincent's wages. In time, I hoped to be able to stop borrowing on the business and run it entirely from the earnings from ads. So far, my partnership with Morris had been in name, only.

We were finishing up from the run and had said very little to each other. If I was going to get a conversation going I had better say something soon. I had thought out a number of possible ways to begin, and knew that whichever I chose, what I was about to attempt was provocative. Well, why not. So it should be, given what has been said about us.

The food at Wolf's cantina, I began, is far better than the hotel's.

The remark came out of nowhere, and I scrambled to connect it to something relevant to our task. Though I suppose, I said, that if either of them places ads in the paper, it will be the hotel.

Wolf's. When were you there?

Saturday evening. Morris took me there.

He began to scrub particularly hard at the borrowed engraving, complaining about old ink left to dry by some second-rate printer.

Then slowly, as though he were weighing each word, he asked, Busy that night?

I seized the moment.
The Lonesome
was hopping, I said. A number of the opera crew were there. Did you know that Morris calls himself Two-Gun? No? And he told me that you print
The Bugle
.

Vincent lifted his head.

My competition, I added.

He wiped his hands on his thighs, took off his cap and adjusted the brim, then jammed it back on again.

Others were there, as well, at the café. Miners, I think. Chinese miners. And Marcel. Morris took me outside for a little tour around the place. Oh, I added, smiling, just a minute.

I went to my front desk and brought back the red vase that I'd carried downstairs earlier, for just such an opportunity.

Look what Morris gave me, I said.

I'd filled it with water to just below the crack, and it held the cutting from one of the rose bushes, just beginning to open its pale petals.

Vincent had stopped scrubbing and now looked directly at me, then at the vase.

Then you saw it, he said, where they get their food?

The garden, I said, Yes. But with strict orders not to put anything in the paper.

He smiled tightly, and I didn't need to wonder what he was thinking. I wouldn't make that mistake again.

You told me Lousetown got some sun, I said, but I didn't know there was enough for growing vegetables. And roses.

I waited for him to tell me that they were his, and why. He went back to scrubbing.

Morris gave me an apple, too, and it was delicious.

Though now I wished I hadn't eaten it, had brought it out instead with the rose, as a reminder of that first apple I had wanted. He'd been holding out on me.

I had no inkling, I said, all those people out there, weeding and picking.

He looked up, though at a point somewhere beyond me.

When the moon's out, we all meet on the shop roof. Full moon, crescent moon. Whatever shape the moon is in, if we can see it, it's time to celebrate.

It was the most he had spoken to me all day.

A party? I asked. With the gardeners?

And everyone from Wolf's.

When?

Last Saturday, for one.

I thought you weren't there. I didn't see you.

I was here first, stripping ink from the press.

The moths, I said, remembering.

It took me most of the evening. Then I headed back.

Again, I saw the silver outline of the moon burning behind the clouds as Morris and I left Wolf's
Lonesome Café
. While I was there, he was here. While I headed home everyone else gathered for a party. Maybe even those girls with their whorehouse-stinking flowers. I pivoted and then forced myself to turn back and then pivoted away again. Shit. Embarrassed. Hurt. I wanted to know why I'd been left out, but I refused to ask. Instead I tried to be flippant.

News to me, I said.

Because you live over here.

I waited for that welcoming sign, the open flower of a dish pointing toward a future. But it remained closed. He could have said it, I'll let you know next time.

With this newssheet, all of Lousetown would soon know I could be trusted with the secret of the garden. All the printers including Vincent already knew I hadn't published anything about their rooftop dish. So why not tell me about the parties? Was I, once again, being punished for that foolish announcement? For his rude and cruel treatment by that wretched deputy? I wouldn't ask. I pictured me night after night alone upstairs, staring out the windows and sitting at a table set for one. Feeling sorry for myself, then, and now, seeking out Parker as a source of company. Occasionally, Morris. Two-Gun, as he called himself, now. I supposed he was there as well, went back after seeing me home. Shit. I would not cry over this.

It happens all of a sudden, he continued. The winds shift, the moon climbs higher. And bang, there it is.

When he said the word
bang
he slammed a hand onto the counter and I jumped, my hand leaping at my side, my nerves were that stretched.

I waited for him to say more. Come by more often and you'll hear it, you'll see it.

Instead, he said, Your rose. It's turning blue.

True enough, the bud had unfurled, the delicate veins of each petal ink-stained from drawing at the cloudy tap water. I recalled the abandoned house and the blue rose growing in the tall grass. Not so rare, after all.

*

By late afternoon the prep work was done, Vincent had left and the newssheet copies were handed out. I was walking back up Zero, admiring the opera tents that glowed like lampshades. I couldn't write about the garden but I still had the performance. In this place so dependent on arrivals, it made a good lead story. The whole town was excited. It wasn't so much newsbreaking as a break from the usual. We all need that from time to time.

Morris stepped onto the street, then, glowing almost as brightly as the tents. I hurried ahead to confront him. About the party. About the fact that he was standing on the corner near the bank, hands in pockets, forcing the sides of his white jacket behind his arms like coattails, exhibiting his pistols for the whole world to see, and after telling me it wasn't prudent to show them.

He seemed lost in thought, and when he saw me he leapt out of his reverie like this time I was the one who'd popped out of a black hole.

My dear! Let me buy you a drink, he said, though I wasn't the one who needed calming.

I could have raised my point then about his contradictory behaviour with his guns, but the thought of his long-winded explanation suddenly exhausted me. And it was seldom anyone invited me out for a drink. Indeed, he was the only one who ever had, and I didn't want to be alone after hearing about those parties.

This would be an opportunity for me to finally see
The Saloon
, but he said he wanted something fancier for me.

We stopped for my mail first, then settled at a table amongst the familiar ferns and tusks.

Your strongest brew! Morris ordered. And he winked.

You'll have to drink from a teacup, I warned.

I'd drink out of an old boot if I had to.

It really was quite pleasant in
The Bombay Room
, where I could pretend I was in a foreign country, especially now that I had the desperado Two-Gun with me, and needn't argue with Ed for a drink. I was being mean, but at least I kept the comment to myself.