Two-Gun & Sun (9 page)

I heard the shot before I saw that Silver Evans had pulled out a gun. My laughter was sucked back into my lungs. I wanted to puke. My ears rang from the blast.

Marcel stood in the kitchen doorway, stunned, my dinner in a paper bag in his hands.

Silence roared about the room until my voice eventually emerged, stripped of sex, deep, and ragged, What's the matter with you? You're supposed to be the law.

Silver's face was twisted, confused.

Indecent, he said. You heard the man. And he waved his pistol at the Scot. It's my job to defend the town, on moral grounds.

I was on my feet, don't know when I stood. But the old man had slid backwards all the way down the flight of stairs, coming to rest with an iron step wedged into the small of his back, thrusting his pelvis forward, his sex a rumpled starfish, wine-stained against a pink thigh, more vivid now than when he was alive.

How do I put that in a newspaper?

Half the day had gone by when my printer arrived at the back door. I had assumed by now that he'd had second thoughts, and I was both relieved and disappointed. After all, who else could I go to? I kept my back to the wall as I invited him in and showed him around.

He wore the same ink-stained smock, this time bound at the waist with a tool belt. On his head, a painter's cap, his shaved scalp hidden, his queue hanging down the back.

When he saw the machine he let out a long, low whistle.

I told him about the shooting as he strolled around the press, but the machine had his full attention. He ran his hands over the curves, the wheels, the handles of the rollers and said, No easy fix for this one.

He pulled a rag from his pocket and rubbed at the brass plate, then stepped back to admire what the rubbing had revealed, a single, ornate letter engraved on the metal eye.

B
for
Bulletin
—
Bullet
, he added.

I inclined my head to acknowledge his correction.
B
for
Beast
was what I had been thinking.

He took hold of a large wheel, tugged it, and told me that the press ran on steam from a coal-fed boiler in the basement. I hadn't realized that keeping coal dust out of the ink tray and the joints would be our first concern.

The second, he said, just as I thought.

I leaped inside my skin when he turned and levelled his eyes at me.

I haven't worked on a machine quite like this before, he said.

Oh, I said. Antiquated. Yes.

But he smiled at that. You got a manual? he asked.

I snatched it from the shelf where the tray of metal bits had been flattening it. Maybe he could make more sense of it than I could.

He flipped through the pages, then looked around the room.

This covers just part. Your uncle must have built it himself. Smart man.

I wouldn't be surprised, I said. He loved this shop, the newspaper. It's all he talked about.

Vincent handed the manual back to me. You read, he said, and I'll follow.

He reversed the cap so that the brim was over the back of his neck, and he tucked the braid down the back of his smock. Then he climbed onto the machine just as he had in his own shop.

Can they spare you? I asked.

You pay twice what they do.

And he pulled two metal tools from his belt.

The ink wasn't cleaned after the last run, he said.

My uncle died unexpectedly, I shouted back, though I was still thinking: Twice!

We'll wash it down with solvent, he called out. Someone used a wrench on this.

He didn't ask who, and I didn't offer.

Read me the section on the rollers.

Page 2, I said, and began reading.

For the rest of the day we worked on the press, him asking, me reading, then both of us busy at tasks. A rag and solvent on the rubber rollers. Scraping scum and ink from the metal bits. Sanding grit. Massaging bolts with clots of grease. We shovelled coal and fired up the boiler. A click of the switch and the press shook like a locomotive.

Whoa! he cried. Back to—what was it, page 14? What does it say?

*

We broke early for supper, backs against the press, sitting on the floor. There were chairs around, but he sat, so I did, too, but I chose the opposite end of the press, where my eyes could slide to the side, keeping watch. Supper for me was fried bread, this batch only slightly more successful, with canned turkey. I wanted what he had, a small meat pie.

My aunt used to make those, I said. Cornish pasties.

Your uncle's wife?

Father's sister. Uncle never married.

Vincent tipped his head back to look up at the press.

I bet he was something. I got here two months ago, but we were busy on our own machine.

He was gone by then, I said. But you would've liked him. Everyone did. My mother was especially fond of him. Or so I hear. When I was quite young she drowned with a child inside her, boy, girl, they never said which, but I always imagined a sister, to make up for all the boys because I was the only girl—

I was talking out of nervousness, and without the distraction of work, the weight of such words was too much, thick and tangled with images of women and wombs, of death as well, and suffused into each of these, me. I chased a piece of turkey with my fork, and tried again.

My father was terrified that one of us would drown in the lake, too. So he insisted each of us learn to swim. From May to October we'd be down at that beach, no matter what the weather, while he stood with a whistle around his neck, blasting out commands. The twins, Pete and Pat, they hated it, but I learned to like it.

Vincent's head turned slightly toward me, his eyes flicked to the side, and then back. He dug into his pocket and said, Here. You asked about him.

He had to lean all the way over, hand outstretched, while I leaned hard from my side until my fingers closed on the book:
The Vital Problem
of China
by Sun Yat-sen.

His leader.

I printed them, he said. Feel that cover. High rag content, gives it weight.

The paper was both rough and smooth under my fingertips, as though the uneven surface had been waxed.

I thanked him and slipped the slim volume into my coverall pocket where it tugged, reminding me of its presence, its significance. This was an unexpected gift. Did dangerous men give presents? I had nothing to give him in return, except for paid employment. Still, it wasn't as though this was a box of sweets tied up in a bow. I had stood in a classroom long enough to recognize a lesson in the works, and he was right. I needed to learn more about his leader and his plans if I wanted to write about him.

Vincent stood at once and so did I. He strolled past the shelves lining the wall, scanning the cases of type, the rows of jars, the stacks of paper, while I stood where I was, my back to the press. He called over his shoulder, I can't remember my mother, either.

She died?

Mmm. Bad lungs, I guess. Pop never said. But always coughing. I remember that.

And then he pointed up.

See that? It's a table-top press. I started on one of those. Your uncle probably used it for test runs, or job-printing. You saw—those small machines in our shop running off menus and business cards.

He began packing up his dinner things from the floor.

I followed, and took up my cup to finish my tea.

Back home I used to take my breaks sitting outside the printing shop, on the docks, he said. Watching the boats, thinking about seeing the world.

He counted off on his fingers, New Orleans, Montreal, Paris…

French-speaking, I offered.

French, yes. I wanted anything French. Not like here. This place is too Chinese.

Was that a wicked grin? I laughed, anyway, tea things rattling in my hands. I headed to the sink and asked, How did you end up here, instead?

My plan, he said, was to work my way across the country to Montreal.

The hair on the back of my neck bristled with the sound of his voice close behind me. Travel down by water to New Orleans, back up to Montreal to sail for Paris. I'm what they call a hobo pressman. I'm supposed to stick around as long as they need me, then move on.

He placed the tea pot next to the sink and my left elbow, leaving my skin charged from the proximity, from the need to flee.

Was, he said. The plan had changed.

I heard him climb the rungs of the press at the far end of the room, and then I turned. From this safe distance the grey light drifted in from the window, touching the gleaming metal, the printing machine a sculpture from this angle, as smooth as his silver dish.

He'd had many opportunities to shoot me or chop me up into pieces had he wanted to. If he was going to squeeze the work he did for me into his other work schedule at
The Times
, I had better make it easier for him to come and go when the time suited him.

I called out to him, saying much of this, minus the shooting and chopping, and left the spare key dangling from the switch on the press. Then I left the room before he could see my hands shaking.

That night as I was getting ready for bed I closed the upstairs door and, to secure it, shoved the chair up against the doorknob.

*

The next day I sat at the desk and tried to compose an introductory editorial. It took me some time to find the typewriter, indeed it took me some time to find the desk. It was jammed into a corner behind the counter, hidden beneath an assortment of file folders and sheets of paper, the legs of the desk itself composed of stacks of old newspapers. I had come downstairs with the intent of pinning up the opera poster. I needed something to stand on and swept the debris away to discover a desk top, with an inlaid square and a large handle over the top drawer that, when pulled, opened not the drawer but lifted up the inlaid square which then folded back and revealed, rising up from within the works, the typewriter itself. It clicked neatly into place. Clearly, Uncle had not used it in some time.

After I got the poster up I climbed back down and sat in the chair. I slipped a page into the typewriter and rolled it through. No sooner had I begun typing than I changed my mind, questioned the phrasing, doubted the effect of my sincerity, and took up a pencil to strike out lines and add words as I wrote:

It is
a pleasure
my
deep
honour and pleasure to
have arrived
introduce myself to the people of Black Mountain. When I
first
arrived September the 1st I
was aghast
knew right away that here was a town
wroth
worth arriving at

Would my printer even be able to read this mess, and do whatever it was he did to put these words into the machine? I sat back in the chair, absent-mindedly tugging at the ruffled paper edges of the desk legs, working out a corner that tore free from the stack.

It appeared to be from a commentary, the scrap allowing just a glimpse of the piece:
benefits of organized labour.
The full piece could have said there were no benefits, but in order to free the entire page I'd have to lift the desk, and it was too heavy. Besides, I had heard Uncle's opinion on the subject many times to know he was arguing in favour of a union. This wouldn't have made him popular with the mine. I tried another leg, ripping out a strip of an ad for women's hats.
The Bluebell
. I was procrastinating. I rolled the chair forward, tore out my mess of an introduction and crumpled it into a ball that I tossed into the box of scrap paper. And tried again.

Twinges rippled across my navel and down. I changed position, ignoring them. Then a pain tore up and through me, bending me double. I rolled the chair backwards and tried to stand. Another wave. Still bent in half, I groped past the machine and toward the stairs. Back in school, Bess used to call these my advanced warning pains, chewing up my insides before spitting them out, and that I should be grateful. She had no such alert, and in the auditorium one day she stood to sing the anthem, head up, then down, dark curls hanging about her ears as she watched it all come pouring out, leaving murderous stains down the back of her skirt. I walked her home, a sweater tied around her waist, and her older sister told us that one day we would marry and have children and then all this cramping and blood would be worth it. Bess did exactly that, got married and had four babies in a row, whereas I had been enduring this for seventeen years to no purpose. I rummaged through my things for an old sheet and began tearing strips as we had that day at Bess's, both of us wondering how would a man feel if every month he had to come up with silly excuses for staying home. Polishing the silver. Washing his hair. I tore the last of the strips. Two days' worth, though I might not need all of the second. In that, Bess said, I was also fortunate, though not as fortunate as a man.

*

That evening I stood in front of the calendar and crossed through the fourth, yesterday. Labour Day. Back home there would have been union parades and picnics and protests. But I heard nothing in the streets, saw nothing. I crossed through today, the fifth, then drew a large circle around it. My printer had to work at
The Times
today, so it was just as well, though I could have managed had he shown up, made frequent excuses to dash up the staircase. A boiling kettle. A forgotten notebook.

Upstairs while I ran water in the tub, I took up the book he gave me and began to read. China should not involve itself in the war. It had no more problems with Germany than it had with England.

I flipped back to the first pages. 1917. Year of the Russian Revolution. One year remaining of the Great War. If more world leaders had felt as he did from the start there might never have been a war. More boys might be sitting down to dinner with their families, instead of having been blown to bits in France. But Sun lost the argument. China declared war later that year. I remembered because it was August, as it had been three years previously when Britain declared war. Sunny and warm, when a soldier could spend a night in a trench in some comfort, when November and freezing rain were far from anyone's thoughts.