Two-Gun & Sun (4 page)

If I could spot the
Times
from here I could shorten the trip. I'd like that. I'd like even better to turn back, send a letter saying that the task was impossible, that I couldn't do it all by myself.

And then what, head back home?

Parker could go ahead and call me a fool, but I needed to go down into those shadows. What would they do—shoot me? All I wanted was to find a printer to run my press: a wise, old Chinese experienced at unlocking mechanical quandaries.

Bald branches stirred and snapped about my knees as I descended, sending up nits and bugs that threatened to bite. I flailed at the air with my hands. I had no need to fear an attack in Lousetown—I was already under siege. A grasshopper landed on my hem, its eyes dull stones that didn't blink, its legs thin as twigs. I smacked it off.

Up ahead, the fish had beached itself on the creek's bank, its white belly gleaming in the grey light, then, closer in, a horned snout, its mouth pulled back into a hideous grin. Sockeye salmon take on ugly shapes before they spawn and die, but their brilliant red compensates. This was not like any fish I'd ever seen. It wasn't just dead, it was diseased. You couldn't touch such a thing, let alone put it on the dinner table. I nudged it with my boot, marvelling at its mangled mouth and blistered skin. I pulled out my notebook, flipped the pages. What had caused this?

*

Dark as a winter afternoon.

Lighter than dusk, at least. In Black Mountain I could only see across the street but here I could see all the way down the length of a block. The road narrowed to the width of an alley, shadow upon shadow, winding through lopsided sheds and huts. It was a wonder they survived the wind, or the weight of snow each winter.

The very thought of snowflakes in this place. Ashes, floating from a fire.

The sun still smouldered behind a belly of grey. More strands dropped from my knot of hair and stuck to my neck. I twisted them around my fingers and clipped them back into the knot.

I called out, Hello.

Boardwalks and hitching posts, false fronts and upper balconies, all the wood silvered from exposure, but none of the rippled metal from the other side. A splintered shutter opened a crack. Dark eyes glittered in the slice of black air, until it slammed shut.

Dust heaved up from the ground as I turned to study the cramped and tilted rows of shacks. Some might have been shops and places of establishment previously, but none had been operating recently. These were ancient structures compared to the tin boxes that lined Zero Avenue, raw with their yesterday newness.

It took everything in me not to turn and run.

Paths twisted to either side of the main alley. At least I could see no holes on this side. I heard something heading my way, though. The steady crunch of boot heels on the road, foreign voices rising. Men.

They rounded the corner, emerging two by two in the shadowy air. A funeral march. A body lying on boards shouldered between them.

The voices stopped abruptly and their dark eyes looked straight ahead, as though there were no woman standing before them. If there were they might have to answer any questions she might have. Nothing as formal as a funeral, for the black-haired corpse in white suit was face-down, hands tied behind his back. He was the same man I had seen last night, I was sure of it, with that posse behind him. Who else wore white in a coal town? And with his hands tied? These men showed the same grim determination, but they weren't from the posse. They were Chinese.

This dead man they carried must be one of them. I dug in my pocket for my notebook.

Pardon me, I said, stepping toward them. Who was he?

But they swung away without answering. The corpse slid on the boards, threatening to fall off into the dirt. My hand jerked, wanting to fly to my mouth. I fought the impulse, arms stiff by my sides. The men simply hoisted one side of the boards to right the body. The only sound they made was the crunch of their heels rounding the next corner.

I should have asked them about
The Chinese Times
, instead.

A door that was open a moment ago clicked shut. I strode over and knocked, the rough wood piercing my knuckles.

Please, I shouted at the closed door, where can I find
The Chinese Times
?

A mere two feet away a cement culvert had been dumped in a ditch. Giggles exploded from inside the tunnel. Children.

Hello? Giggles again, then a foot, an arm, and two little wretches squirmed out, grubby-faced, dark bangs falling into bright eyes. Boys or girls? I couldn't tell.

A tiny hand pointed while the taller child chanted, Pretty lady! Pretty eyes!

My father used to say I had eyes like storm clouds. I shot a glance at the gunmetal sky.

Two hands tugged at my sleeves and I followed, down those same alleys I had peered at and avoided. Clomping onto boards balanced over muddy water, tipping and slamming back down with each footfall. As the children dragged me along, old men in black and grey melted into the weathered walls, disappearing before I could make eye contact. Tiny back yards sprouted shirts drying like scarecrows, their arms strung through with sticks. Chickens. More pigs. And at last, a glass-paned door with gold-painted Chinese figures.

The children pushed through the door, running ahead of me.

Inside the shop, the clatter and slap of the machines muffled my entrance. Men in smocks stood at tables, cranking large metal wheels that turned rollers. My lungs tightened at the sight of sheets of paper spurting forth. The presses were in working order, the table tops jiggling from the effort. I squinted, eyelids heavy and damp in the muggy air. Menus, from the look of it. And invitations. One press was larger than the others, though smaller than mine. Rising from it were belts that seemed to go right through the low ceiling. Unlike mine, it had not been given its own second storey. Also unlike mine, its parts had loosened, its joints unfolding, then drawing back, an enormous insect bouncing on bent limbs, ready to strike, ink glistening from its mouth. Fear scuttled up my spine. I crossed my arms to steady myself. It was grotesque, yet there was also something thrilling about the rumbling and shaking, the very size of the thing. It puffed steam like a train engine.

The smallest child leapt up and down at the base of the machine. Both waved their arms, mouths open, their words swallowed by the roar in the room.

Up high, a man stripped to the waist sat astride one section of the shuddering machine. Attack it from above, not below, yes. A white undervest washed so many times his skin glowed through the thin cloth. He swung around, his back to me, bare upper arms bulging with the effort to work a bolt. Between his shoulder blades rested a thick braid of black hair, sleek as the horse tails we plaited for parades, their muscled haunches exposed.

It was him, the one I had seen at the dock holding up that package shaped like a rifle. The others—I scanned the pressroom to be certain—had shorn hair, as had the men carrying the body. I tucked loose strands of my own hair back into the knot, re-folded my arms. Where was that rifle, now? He leaned his weight onto his palms and turned himself around, finally seeing the children, and perhaps me, though he didn't look my way. But the others must have seen me. They stopped cranking the smaller presses. One by one the clatter stopped until there was only the pounding of the one, large machine.

He jumped down and landed before the children. Their filthy faces broke into grins and their shrieks were discernible now as they hung from his arms, one on each side, crying Uncle! as he lifted them up into the air, spun them around and then set them down again. He raised a hand, palm up, and they stood back, hands folded behind their backs, waiting. I did the same. From a pocket he plucked an apple. An apple! Then from the back of his belt, a large knife. He lifted it high and then down in one swoop, the blade singing through the air as it dropped and cut the apple cleanly in half. The children clapped their hands and he handed a half to each. They bit large mouthfuls before running from the shop, cheeks full, juice dribbling across them.

Only then did he turn to acknowledge me. He seemed not such a threat now, though I flinched when he wiped the blade with a rag and slid the knife into the back of his belt again.

I had intended to introduce myself, clean, crisp and formal, then ask if he or anyone else were interested in a job, that is, if indeed he spoke English. Instead I blurted, Where did you get that apple?

He stood back, head up, chin out, that mouth of his downturned, and said, You think I stole it?

English, all right. And cocky. I tried for humour this time, though I was only half-joking.

No. In fact, I'd buy one from you if you had another.

No reply. He unhooked a smock from a rack, slipped it on and wrapped it tight.

The silence was maddening, and I said, I'm Lila Sinclair.

Bonjour, he said, and bowed slightly. Vincent, he added, and then a second name that sounded like Cruise.

I tilted my head. It didn't sound Chinese, and I felt my eyelids drooping stupidly.

He spelled it out, C-r-u-z. Then he bowed again, stiffly, with a hint of annoyance.

That wasn't Chinese, either. But he spoke French as well as English. So I said to him: It almost sounds Spanish, your name, but of course, that can't be right.

Portuguese, he replied, looking directly at me.

I pressed my lips into a smile. He was making fun of me. I was in too much of a hurry for this, but I tried not to rush my next remark.

I'm looking, I said, to hire a printer for my newspaper.
The Bullet
.

—Bullet?

Bulletin
was what my uncle called it. The paper's mine now and I've given it a new name. It has a printing machine something like this one. Are you for hire, Mr. Cruz?

His bottom lip curved further downward.

Follow me, he said.

He swung around and hiked up a narrow flight of wooden steps behind the press, assuming that the unwelcome outsider wouldn't know what else to do but follow. He was right.

The steps led to a door that opened up to the roof. The apparatus that connected to the press did indeed go right through the ceiling, with pulleys to a concave metal dish that was at least ten feet wide, and a stamen like a flower's, aimed upward.

It's run by the sun, he said.

Here on the roof we were directly in the path of the largest of the hills, Black Mountain itself, and the wash of shadow stained everything it touched. My skin must have looked grey. His lips were black.

Sun?

You just missed it. Every morning, for about four hours, right there, through the hills.

He pointed.

That's the east. It's all the light we get, but enough for this.

His hand indicated the dish.

I had noted the difference in light, here. The cloud cover was higher and thinner in Lousetown, allowing for the sensation if not the fact of light, except for those four hours, apparently, when the rising sun slipped both under the bank of grey and between those hills, and blazed down upon this dish.

But, I said. Why not coal to run the press? It's everywhere.

He studied the quilted sky, and I tried to imagine where the sun might be, possibly to the southwest. By the time it moved around the mountain it would have set.

I like to make things, he said at last. I made this.

I walked around the metal dish, impressed. It beamed softly in the grey light, a sign of the future. I pulled out my notebook.

You can't print that, he said. It means we don't need their coal. Company won't like that.

This Vincent Cruz stood in front of the dish, hands on hips, as though blocking it would erase it from my mind. I flipped the notebook shut.

Why d'you think we call this place Lousetown? he asked. To keep them out. Louseville, we say to each other. Our joke, this fancy way of talking about lice.

He pronounced it the French way, Louse-veelle, but his accent was hard to place. Chinese, of course. French. But something else, a clipped, rapid way of speaking.

Why show me, then?

He ran a hand along the curve of the dish.

You don't have one of these, so your machine's going to be different. I can try, but —

I'd pay you for your time.

Would you, now?

Even when he smiled that bottom lip arched downward. It was a cheeky smile.

Keep this a secret, he said, and you might have a deal.

His bold manner astonished me. Did I not put away my notebook? Was I not offering him employment, deserving, therefore, of some respect? Would he talk to a man this way?

Of course, I said.

If you want your press to run again—

I stiffened. His comment could be taken two ways. I thought of the knife in the back of his belt, of that rifle. I shouldn't have come up here with him.

He indicated the door and we headed back downstairs. I insisted he go first.

I grabbed a railing to steady myself. I should have eaten more before I left the shop.

I paused on the landing to say, A dollar an hour.

Either a smile or a sneer, a flicker too fast to catch.

This could be a mistake, inviting such a man to work for me. Maybe he wouldn't show up.

I descended the last step, and he stood aside to let me pass. I walked sideways, my back against the railing, keeping my distance.

The clacking of the little machines had resumed. Rows of insects rubbing their wings and legs, devouring leaves of paper, disgorging them spittled with print.

Steam laden with paper dust stung my eyes and I lifted a sleeve to rub my lids, heavy as lead. It was too close in here. I needed air, and looked around for the shop door.

Hey, he asked, you okay?

Yes. Fine.

I wouldn't admit otherwise, not to him. But I wasn't fine. The heat, possibly. The steam. My vision was blurred. Pounding behind my eyes. And my face, burning. I banged a hip against a counter, an elbow on metal.

Doorknob snugged in my palm, at last, I stepped over the sill. Cool air. Fat drops from clouds the colour of coal dust struck my cheeks. I turned to look for the children who brought me here, and saw myself in the polished glass of the shop door.