Two-Gun & Sun (30 page)

The medicine, I said at last, and dropped the bottle into her lap.

Not necessary now. But thank you.

She slipped it into her apron pocket.

Thank goodness she has lost consciousness again, she said. I've never seen anything like this. Barely a pound. Put it by the door. Mr. Bones will see to burying it.

She slid a box across the floor. I took it up, and forced myself to look inside. Small, glistening, grey-green.

Malformed, Meena said, like a fish.

Where she saw fins I saw wings, but bug or not, the tiny creature was not a human shape.

Poor child, I said.

Meena nodded sympathetically at the wooden box.

I mean her, I said, and looked at the bed. It's just as well, I added. She's in no position to be a mother.

I was seeing that wretched miner, and her with him.

Meena shook her head. She is a mother, already. A little girl and a little boy. Why do you think she does what she does? To feed them.

Where are they now?

Being looked after by others.

I haven't seen any children here, I said. Just in Lousetown.

They were born somewhere else. But it is curious, you know. I have delivered only a few babies here, and all of them on the Lousetown side. Nothing like this.

I set the box by the door. Already, I was composing headlines: Giving birth/To death

No, it was more than death. Somehow, its natural development had been corrupted. Silver should hear about this. He was the law, and I felt that a law of some sort was being broken.

For the first time since I began working on the paper I realized we needed photographs. I could have used a camera for the airship crash, but I relied instead on my words. This was different. This required more than description. This required proof. I didn't even know how to begin. How to take photographs, how to make images and how those in turn would be printed onto the newspaper page. I've read enough about them to know there is a process, and that big city papers use them, such as that photograph of Shanghai that looked like Lousetown. We needed photographs here. We needed evidence.

Vincent would know.

Parker said Uncle liked things the way they were. But am I not the one who said she was eager for change, who'd otherwise be happy to hand-crank newssheets and let that beast of a press fossilize in front of me? Change would mean a modern press, cameras, darkroom equipment.

The thought of crates of fragile equipment being dropped onto the wharf, though. I'd have to accompany them, safeguard them from being broken. Vincent could join me. A trip out of town. Together. A break from here, I could say. I'd proved my point. I could produce a newspaper.

I could put up a notice just as Uncle might have:
Closed for the fall
.

I took up my newspaper sacks and left Meena with the girl. Outside, I stood for a moment, frozen, wondering whether to return to the shop or go looking for Silver. Night had fallen. I decided on the sheriff. If Vincent had a camera I'd have seen it by now, and I needed to plan my wording carefully. I needed time for that.

I was walking past the front of
The Saloon
when I saw Silver inside. The matinée was over, and it seemed a town meeting had been called. He was surrounded by citizens, many of them talking heatedly. I pushed through the swinging doors, dropped the sacks with the rest of my papers onto a table behind me, pulled out my watch to check the time, and sat, taking notes.

I paused to glance up at the staircase and railing that ran above, across the length of the room. Behind that railing was a waiting room in luscious reds, another room in copper-golden satin, and Dee, with that fish hook. I should have taken a few copies of the newspaper to her. I wouldn't be going back, now.

Chairs had been arranged in rows for the meeting. The tables we had dined upon at the opera last night were shoved to the side. The air rustled with the opening, folding and closing of newspapers. A drone of voices, too, commenting. While no one had been around when I was delivering the papers, these citizens had returned, in the time that I had been with Meena, to pick them up and read them, and bring them here.

One voice rose above the others. Something about diamonds found in the old tunnels.

Another voice shouted, That's exactly what he told me!

I leaned over to Bugle Boy. What's going on?

Ha, he quipped and turned so I couldn't read his notes. You missed it all, he said. It's almost over.

And with that, still hugging his notes to his chest, he gathered himself up and scuffled out, taking the reek of booze with him.

Someone two rows up cried out, For one hundred dollars you get a piece of the Black Diamond Mines. That's what he told us. The evidence is everywhere!

I sat up high to see who it was. Ed. He turned and pointed at me. There you are! he said. You wrote all about it in your paper.

Me? I reached back for a paper but I didn't need to read it. I knew what I'd written and that item was in the last newssheet.

That was in South Africa, I countered, and rose to my feet to defend myself.

In the far corner stood that damn Mr. Mooney, arms folded as he listened.

I was quoting the travel experiences of someone else, I said.

And then I realized my mistake. I hadn't sought corroboration. I had taken one man's word for it, and what a wretch of a man. It was an error Uncle never would have made. He would have been very unhappy with me. There was no corroborating a story about South Africa, not unless I could track down someone else who had been there. That was unlikely. It was equally unlikely Two-Gun had even been there. The fact is I shouldn't have run the story at all. I was too eager to fill pages.

My eyes scanned the turned faces, all angry, and tried again. You're saying diamonds were found here?

That's what your partner said.

I wished I could deny our connection, but they were reading the very newspaper that announced:

2-Gun Backs Bullet

which meant not only were we partners, but partners because of his money.

Fakes! another added. Courtesy of Two-Gun.

I recalled his great white rump as he rooted around in the dirt. You dropped something, I told him. Yes, and he had been planting it until I came along. A piece of glass, most likely, and not a diamond.

The Saloon
had grown hot. The air itself seemed to glow with the rows and rows of reddened faces. Then, one by one, the angry citizens stood, and their faces loomed higher, their voices shouting at once: You owe us! We want our money back! We'll have you thrown in jail!

And they rushed at me, shaking my own newspaper at me, mouths still open and moving, their words now incomprehensible as each accusation gobbled up the one before.

Surely they were not saying that because of what I wrote—and what they found—what he planted—that I…

And then I realized what they meant and how he had earned the money he gave me. One hundred dollars for a full share. It was
their
money he gave me. How many of them had bought a share or gone in on one together? How many people in this saloon had been duped into putting their money into his scheme, money that he, in turn, put into my paper? That's how he backed the
Bullet
. I should have asked him, but I was too busy planning how to spend it. So busy I never wondered why he wanted to invest in a paper that was struggling. To hide money, why else?

That conniving, corrupting two-faced—he had used me. He used my paper to pull a scam, even used my copy of
The Edmonton Journal
to hide what he was handing me, an envelope fat with their money. In no time he'd be trying to steal it back. Why else give it to me?

And not a single sign of him since the opera.

I was too shocked for tears. I began to stammer and stutter. I could not be held responsible.

Could I?

They dropped my papers, stepped all over them as they surged, hands reaching out to grab a piece of me, my collar, my shoulder, my hands. And Mr. Mooney right there watching the whole show.

Silver took my arm to hustle me out of the room.

No, I said, yanking my elbow from his grip. I do need to talk to you, but this first.

I called out to the crowd, Please! I tried again. Please tell me what he took.

The roar was instant. Silver produced a whistle and blew one long blast until all noise subsumed to his. Then he shouted, The lady has something to say.

I flipped open my notebook.

Tell me your name and what he took from you, I said. I'll write it down. I'll get the money back to you, somehow.

Mr. Mooney turned on his heel while Silver barked, One at a time. Line up.

And they did, shuffling up to me with their names, Jessup, Marcus, fifty dollars, Martini, Anna, twenty-five, Anders, Lars, a full one hundred dollars on behalf of his family.

For twenty minutes I wrote names and recorded numbers, until the last person had left.

Silver walked to the door and said, C'mon. Patrons will be wanting in, now.

The canvas sacks were almost empty. I slung both over one shoulder and followed him to the jail where, finally, I conducted my interview. It was my first time in any jail and it was smaller than I expected, with just two cages of black bars set into the room, with no wall separating them from the front door. The bars were the first site to greet me, and both cages were empty. Also unexpected.

We sat across from each other at his desk. I hoped he had a bottle in the drawer, and would offer me a drink. I needed one. I was so upset I was shaking, and at one point had to tuck my writing hand under the weight of my thigh to steady it. But he didn't even offer me a glass of water. My intended interview, about the birth, was brief, given the sudden turn of events.

No, he hadn't yet heard about the child but said no good could have come from such evil doings in the mines. He completely mistook my meaning, which was that something about this place caused the malformation. He blamed it on blasphemous fornication.

I moved the discussion along to Two-Gun, who had become a more pressing subject to me since I stumbled into that meeting and heard myself and my paper slandered.

Silver was curt about it. I brought your friend in here for questioning, he said, same day that airship crashed. We watched it through the bars.

Well, he's not—

Business partner, then. And your guest at the opera. I let him go. I had him promise to stay in town in case I needed to question him further. He said he had no intention of leaving because he had that date with you. Wouldn't miss it for anything, he said.

Date! I said.

Silver shot me a look not unlike the look he gave me at the opera. I had mistaken suspicion for jealousy. He was onto Two-Gun by then.

I'm the law, he said, but I figured there's not much we can do about fools who part with their money so easily. There was no proof there were diamonds in that seam. A couple of people insisted they saw gems in the ground that looked like diamonds. I said who's to say Cohen put them there?

I opened my mouth to say what I had seen, but Silver wasn't stopping.

And don't they know that diamonds don't come out of the ground looking like diamonds on a ring? he said.

My face grew hot, because I had thought they did. Silver was sharper than I had first thought.

They have to be cut and polished, he said. And don't you think they misunderstood his use of the term black diamond, which anyone knows is a fancy name for anthracite, the fanciest of coal? I'm not saying he's innocent. It's not my first run-in with him. He cheated at cards and a group was going to string him up.

I saw that! I said. When I first got here.

They roughed him up and I said that was warning enough. I figured he wouldn't do it, again.

But he did.

Yes, a different group altogether. The first was just passing through, drifters just like your Morris Two-Gun. The second lived here. One didn't know t'other, so there was no advance warning.

I listened as Silver talked. He could have warned them. Maybe he was in on the scheme with Two-Gun. I might have said so, but I had finally found my own defence, people drew conclusions I hadn't intended.

Exactly. Can any of us help it if people are so willing to be convinced? Even you. Well, in a town rich with ore deposits, who would question a new mineral find? Your friend mimicked their success and acquired their legitimacy. You should have seen his evening of cigars and brandy. I'm surprised you weren't there.

My face burned hotter. Was I invited? Not exactly, but I set the type for the notice. I helped him write it. Maybe he thought that was invitation enough. Or maybe he wanted to keep me away.

That soirée, Silver continued, was full of the sort of person that deserved to be swindled. One of them turned to me and said, I don't normally like his kind—a Jew he meant—all the while swilling his drink and gobbling his shrimp on toast.

I appreciated that about Silver. Still, by now I was even more certain that he had conspired with Two-Gun. He had such a deep level of understanding, of admiration, almost, for the man.

If you knew what Two-Gun was up to, why didn't you warn me?

Figured you knew, being the newspaper publisher and all. He must have done this before.

I thought of his eagerness to take my
Edmonton Journal
, probably looking to see if other parts of the country were onto him.

Silver nodded at my newspaper sacks. So, he said, your printer returned.

I was filled with the need to hurry back. I had intended to ask about that dirty deputy, and whether it was Silver who had sent him away, but the evening's events had taken my thoughts in new directions. I had to get back to the shop. I had left that note, though with the opera and then our silence over the first edition, I still hadn't explained the note's contents. I needed to warn him, but with the deputy gone was there a need? Drummond. Yes.