Two-Gun & Sun

by June Hutton

  The lights were dimmed and we returned to our seats. Each of us was handed a folded programme at the door, and I read it quickly. As Ben had said, the setting was a saloon, and the lights returned to shine on our Saloon dressed up with the Parisian tarp. A group of extras that formed the production’s bar patrons were all Chinese, giving that backdrop of Paris the look of Shanghai, though that city wasn’t in the story, either.

  I watched as the Diva in scarlet rolled out on stage to play the slender young Minnie. She was in love with the dashing young Johnson, played by Ben’s old friend. The opera’s sheriff was played by the other actor who tugged off his green tights in the tent that time, brandishing them high. Their real names were in the programme, but it stayed folded in my hands because, as the action moved along and the players began to sing, I began to forget who they really were. I could see why it wasn’t Vincent’s favourite, it had none of the urgency of the ones I’d heard on the gramophone. But it took little time to believe the drama’s premise, that Johnson was, in fact, the outlaw Ramerrez, and that young Minnie didn’t know this as she danced with him.

  At intermission there were waiters with trays held high, balancing more glasses of champagne. My eyes darted around the room, but no Vincent.

  I wanted to push the evening forward, away from my discomfort, my guilt. I was determined to look as though nothing was wrong. The men stepped outside to smoke and I stood, too.

  Z-z-z-z-t, Meena said, an utterance that needed no explanation once she reached over and yanked at my hem.

  I thanked her, and strode after them. I would be outrageous I decided, I would be avant-garde and ask my date for a cigar.

  Isn’t she something, gentlemen? he said. He struck a match for me and added, I think I’m going to marry her.

  Morris, I said. Really.

  It was an awkward moment as my appearance seemed to kill the conversation. I didn’t know if that was because I was a woman or the newspaper publisher or the so-called future Mrs. Two-Gun, for God’s sake. I smoked the cigar, anyway.

  Back inside, Minnie told Johnson about her life. I wished she wouldn’t sing it, but I could see what Puccini was trying to do. They might as well have been leaning against a printing press, sharing stories over lunch.

  Was he watching from the kitchen doors?

  There was a sudden scurrying on stage and then a pistol aimed at Ramerrez/Johnson. I gripped my handbag so tightly a bead popped free and rolled across the floor like a stray bullet, and then a bang sounded as the young man was shot.

  Several audience members scrambled to their feet: Two-Gun, Sun and his entire entourage, Silver and Drummond, and two figures this time, their long coats flapping like sails as they dashed from the room. Their faces, Manchurian and mustached. I couldn’t quite tell, they moved so quickly. But the way they moved was familiar.

  It’s them! I said. The ones I saw before!

  Imperial troops! Two-Gun shouted. They’re after our leader!

  And he was out the door, too, Drummond and then Silver behind him, shouting, Deputies!

  My lungs and guts tensed to hear that.

  Ben bellowed from the stage, Intermezzo! And the band behind the bar began blasting a tune.

  The famous man must have ducked out the back door, again—Vincent, too. I imagined he shed his kitchen clothes to become, once more, aide and translator to the great leader. Two of the entourage were left at the table, standing nervously, palms pressed at hip level over their guns. Watching.

  I grabbed my beaded bag and headed out into the street. A black horse bearing a white backside and legs thundered past me and I leapt aside as its rider shouted, Humblest apologies, my dearest darling!

  Take me with you! I shouted back.

  I waited for him to ride back. I could throw myself onto the saddle behind him. I’d done that many times before. I’d tear the dress doing so, but damn the dress. I wanted to follow the action. If nothing else I didn’t want to be left standing alone. That despicable deputy could come by, and there I’d be dressed in a gown tight as a corset, forcing my breasts up like an offering. I had lost the protection of the suit and old man’s hat.

  But Two-Gun rode away without me.

  A cluster of motorcycles buzzed past, in each sidecar a pair of men with guns pointed up the street. Deputies, none of them filthy. I waved dramatically but they, too, kept going. At the far end of Zero I heard shooting, and then the drone of idling machines. I peered into the blue-grey air, the murk of dark, moving shapes. And I heard it, I am certain, the clopping of hooves over the scrabble of one of the hills. The motorcycles weren’t built for that, and it was too dark. They’d have to turn back.

  A horse in this place. I pictured a hoof caught on the edge of a hole, a tear in its flesh just like my own. Its screams as the bone snapped and burst through.

  Had Morris leapt into the role of bodyguard just now, become Two-Gun once and for all? Did he think there was no better way of showing he was capable of apprehending train robbers than to appear on a horse like a western gunman?

  The horse. I saw it delivered and only once allowed memory of it to fly across my brain, quickly lost in a stampede of facts about cowboys and leather boots and gamblers and Cold-Ass Marie. The delivery man’s voice, so clear to me now in recollection without the distraction of whisky and Morris' stories, called out a name not familiar to me then, Twoooooguunnnn, as he led the horse from the dock. Why did we walk all the way to Lousetown that night? And with those pigs about. We would have been safe up there in the saddle. I should have asked right then and there about the horse but the fleeting thought hadn’t returned until now.

  I was losing my mind. He was right. I was bushed.

  I should hire my own taxi. I should grab one and drive it myself. There was a story in all this but whose was it? Who should I follow? I wanted to follow the horse and lead it to safety. Imperial troops? Ridiculous. I didn’t think there were any left. The leader’s revolution had returned the country to the people. Or tried to. Maybe they were spies working with the warlords in the north, the ones hired by Drummond to work his cause as well. Yes, that would make sense. Spies who were here to find out what the famous man was up to, and then to sell their information to Silver and Drummond while they were at it. I had many things to ask them. Vincent as well, if I could find him. Or the leader, himself. And Two-Gun—he was always up to something and especially now would merit following. But if they’d headed for the labyrinths of Lousetown, and I was certain they had, I’d never find my way, not on my own. And he’d be much faster on that poor horse—if it had survived the holes. My thoughts turned and turned until I felt dizzy and sick.

  A single motorcycle approached from the opposite direction, heading toward the docks. Was this my chance, at last? I might be able to get it to turn around.

  I began to flag it, then snatched my hand back, hoping the driver hadn’t seen. In the sidecar was a sight I had been dreading all evening, the deputy. They wheeled within inches of me yet he refused to look my way. In a suit and no longer dirty but scrubbed pink, he looked almost more vulgar. Exposed. He stared straight ahead, one hand gripping the handle of a leather suitcase stuffed beside him. He was going away. He was leaving on the midnight ship.

  I bent to take up my dress, mindful that in so doing I provided full exposure of my twin offerings. So what, the sound of the motorcycle was growing faint, its human cargo gone for good. I climbed the steps back up onto the veranda, and returned to The Saloon.

  The band was playing furiously, men and women fanning themselves with programmes and turning nervously as the saloon doors swung open at my entry. The commotion had spoiled the opera. Ben was pacing across the stage, waiting for enough of us to return to resume the production, now running late.

  More champagne, waiters scurrying from table to table, every waiter except Vincent. And now my escort was gone, too, and if not for Meena I’d be sitting alone. Marcel had disappea
red as well. I threw myself into my chair and accepted two glasses of champagne, one for my date and one for me. I downed them both, and wiped my mouth with the back of my satin-gloved hand.

  I nodded to the empty chair beside her. Back in the kitchen? I asked.

  No, he has gone back to our place in Lousetown, to make sure there is no damage.

  I worked the words over in my mind: our place.

  You don’t live over here?

  With him? That would never be allowed.

  We had to take the programme’s word for it that Minnie nursed the wounded Ramerrez back to health, and that he was subsequently arrested. We’d lost time with all the commotion, and had to skip ahead.

  Hands cuffed with raw rope, Ramerrez fell on his knees before the noose.

  Meena whispered excitedly, This is where he says don’t tell her. Let her think I’ve gone away.

  The Chinese extras gathered round to mourn the imminent hanging of Ramerrez whose voice, deeply and convincingly that of the handsome outlaw, began to sing, Ch’ella mi Creda.

  It was singing I had never expected from this opera, nor from Ben’s old friend. Had Vincent come back and was he listening on the other side of the door? I hoped so. Hoped he would hear what I heard in the deep bass, barges on a river and the moan of fog horns, lungs exhaling wearily as workers pushed on poles that guided the junks and sampans along the harbour’s edge. Couples strolling along the Bund, just as he described them to me, the gardens heavy with pale pink azaleas and roses. Even the low blast of the approaching midnight ship, signalling that the deputy would soon be gone, folded itself into the sounds of the opera.

  My thoughts drifted back to the other Shanghai. I lifted the programme to my nose, the programme that his shop had printed, smelled the green of warm air rubbing against water, of sulfur-yellow flowers struggling up from cracked concrete, of poverty.

  He’d asked, Crazy, isn’t it? To drag the worst of Shanghai here, to Black Mountain.

  They hadn’t of course. They had brought people like him. Why hadn’t I ever told him that?

  Next to me, Meena let a single tear slide down her cheek. A sob climbed up my throat. And something more welling up inside. Each draw of the bow across the cello’s strings was the razor shaving my scalp, was a blade between my ribs. I couldn’t breathe. I stood, chair scraping noisily as I bolted for the door.

  That Pistol-Packing Fool

  We’d practised this day and become so efficient it took just a few hours. I wrote the opera story, set the type, Vincent inked the press, ran the final pages through. This would have been the second time he brought the knife with its enormous blade, but it was the first time I had seen it used in my shop, the metal flashing each time he raised it and sliced the printed paper, cleanly and neatly, a constant arc of action. I took stacks of the sliced pages to the table, folded each sheet in half, swiping the crease flat with the bone, then inserting the inside pages he’d printed previously, making eight-paged copies of our newspaper.

  Our first edition, right on time, September 30, the very last day of the month. I paused by the calendar, but moved away without touching the pencil. The day was not over, not yet.

  We worked in silence.

  I supposed I should be grateful he showed up at all. I went over all the reasons why he had. He had to run the big press, of course, though he could have walked away from it. Then there was my promise to show him my coverage of his leader’s speech before the article was set, but he could have looked when I wasn’t here. I would have simply asked him why he had, but he might have said, For the money, what else?

  Well, and why not? Who was I to criticize him for that. Money. It had obsessed me since I arrived here and found the printing machine in a rusted heap. It is the reason I agreed to a business deal with Morris, the reason I set up that unsavory appointment at the bank. Without it I had nothing to pay for supplies or Vincent’s wages, or yes, even to buy a gown for the opera. Somehow, I had found the funds for that. So who was I to judge him? He couldn’t let his leader be dragged away by Drummond and the deputies. What would I have thought of him, then? Political passion was something I valued, to the point of finding another wanting for having had none.

  And yet the fact was I was abandoned, left alone dressed in men’s clothes. I was stuck on that point.

  I could imagine his argument: That’s why. You were in disguise. You were safe.

  Safe? I was a sitting target. Even that pistol-packing fool of a partner was nowhere to be found.

  You can handle yourself, he’d say. Isn’t that what you’re always saying? And you made it home okay, didn’t you?

  But with that thought came the deputy and my head filled with such raw emotion I felt the top of it might explode.

  *

  As we were finishing up, Doctor came by to take out my stitches. Why not yesterday or two days ago so that I wouldn’t have worried each time I sat or stood at the opera that I would be exposing that tarantula of a stitching job? Meena had buzzed in my ear about it, even leaned over that time and gave a yank at the hem.

  I could have taken Doctor upstairs, or into the back room. But I wanted Vincent to see. I was hoping for sympathy, to get him talking to me, again.

  I pulled off my coveralls and stood in my blue-flowered dress, the same one Vincent had brought back to me, wrapped in paper. Doctor had me climb onto a chair and then he snipped each knot.

  Steady, he said, and pulled the thread all the way through and then out, a nauseating sensation, as though the thread had been strung between my legs and up and out my navel. It brought tears to my eyes, and I wiped them away with the back of my hand.

  I looked up just as Vincent looked away.

  I handed Doctor an envelope that contained his payment, along with a freshly printed copy of the first issue. It was only as I closed the door that I heard him say something about Uncle. Your uncle would be pleased, or proud. Something like that.

  I climbed back into my coveralls and by late morning we were done cutting and folding the last copies, and still not a word between us.

  He began cleaning up. I paused in the doorway, and finally spoke.

  I won’t be long, I said.

  And then I headed straight out into the arsenic gloom of midday, canvas sacks slung like saddle bags across each shoulder, to deliver the newspapers.

  I expected some hand-shaking with the townsfolk, another crowd of them outside my door requesting copies. But there was no one to greet me. I supposed a newssheet was no different to them than this first edition, but I was proud, and reviewed the headlines as I slipped the front page behind the framed glass, and then stepped down from the veranda.

  Ch’ella mi creda highlight of La Fanciulla

  Gunshot spoils opera night

  Sun Yat-sen speaks of hope in Lousetown

  Below it, a sub-headline:

  Raid ends talk

  and finally,

  Coal heap chokes orchard

  These front page stories continued onto the second page, filling it, along with an index listing the paper’s contents.

  Parker’s was the largest order, but he had a sign on his door: Back in 5 minutes. So I dropped a bundle on his doormat and felt the load across my shoulders lighten immediately. I headed down Zero, walking briskly as I considered the third page of news items.

  Wind storm brings blast of light

  And next to it:

  Future dreams crash with airship

  These, along with several ads, filled page three. I’d written a small editorial to follow up that previous news item on strange fish:

  Foul stream Runs through Black Mtn

  and a larger one that trumpeted the new, full-sized newspaper, with plans for upcoming issues:

  Bringing news on a regular basis

  How regular remained to be seen. I hoped the next issue wouldn’t take a month. We might have to run just six pag
es to make sure of that.

  These editorials, along with more ads, left room for a small announcement on page four. I had thought long about this one, deciding in the end that this was business and was the right thing to do.

  2-Gun backs Bullet

  I was going to call him by his last name. That is proper newspaper style. But Cohen isn’t a name that immediately conjured his visage, not to me. Two-Gun did, and its close proximity to Bullet amused me with its play on words. However, there wasn’t room for six letters and a hyphen. That’s when I struck on the idea of using the numeral 2. I was quite pleased with myself for my inventiveness, though Vincent merely nodded. I gathered he had seen many such headlines in his work in Shanghai.

  Then there were all the smaller items that filled the remaining pages, such as the holes in the ground. Parker was always ruminating on them.

  Black holes in the road a danger

  and Morris had suggested hunting as an alternative to roast pig:

  Hunting for game proposed in the wilds beyond Black Mountain

  and then a small item:

  Healing properties of leeches and tea

  To fill a hole, once more I carried forward the subject of the front page story about the airship crash. This time it ran as a separate piece on the last page.

  Women of the Saloon donate yards of linen — making bandages for the wounded

  It was a first edition that would make a second hard to follow. Only eight pages but what news in them, more than I could have imagined a small town capable of producing. And again, so much more that I couldn’t include: the Lonesome and its fresh food, the garden where the food came from, the press run by sunlight.

  Meena’s shop was closed, so I fed a slender bundle of six copies through the mail slot and returned to the street.

  There were more ads and items on those back pages but the specifics left my mind quickly. Something was going on. There were few people on the street, but the faces of those I passed looked stricken, half laughter and half horror, which wasn’t all that unusual in this town. But was there another strike?