Two-Gun & Sun (3 page)

I stepped off the boardwalk to cross the road at the corner, and very nearly put my boot into a black hole. I leapt back, heart pounding, hand at my throat, reeling around to confront the first person I saw. What was this doing in the middle of the road? Why wasn't it blocked off? A child could fall in. I could bloody well fall in.

But all I saw was swirling mist. Then I thought of that Chinese, how he had melted into the fog and how he could be a few feet from me right now, his rifle aimed at my head.

I hurried on.

The hotel café doors flew open and empty food tins were booted into the street, the clatter drawing stray pigs that charged around me for the rubbish and rooted gleefully, obscenely pink against the soot streets. There was news here, that much was certain. That group of men roping that boulder last night. That large man, absurdly dressed in white, hands tied behind his back. And that Chinese, that rifle.

Words crammed into my mind. Headlines and subheads. Commentaries and stories. What torture to have the words and not the means because, without a newspaper, none of them would gain the heft of news. I darted around the pigs and turned back up the street to the General Store, where light was now spilling from the window.

*

Desk lamps with green shades lined the long counters. A thin man, balding, leaned on his elbows, his green visor staining the tip of his pointed nose and chin.

Newcomer, Miss?

Sinclair, I answered. Lila. I approached him with hand held out to shake his. He reached under the counter and dropped a package into my palm.

Tea, the man said. What your uncle used to order.

I nodded and pushed the package onto the polished wood counter. He knew exactly who I was, though my last name was different. Uncle was my mother's brother. But word had spread. No surprise. In such a small place, I was news.

Mister, I began.

Parker, he corrected. Just Parker.

You knew my uncle, I said.

Well enough. A going concern.

Until he met his death, I said.

Until he met his death, he agreed.

There was no sign of sympathy on the man, but it was hard to see anything under that visor. His eyes flashed green, though they were likely pale blue.

It was a shock, I added. He wasn't that old.

His sister was much younger.

My mother, I replied.

Uncle must have told him about her. I waited for this Parker to tell me more. He didn't. I was in a hurry and wanted to ask about the press, but out of politeness found myself filling the silence. I saw a man last night, I said, dressed all in white, which you have to admit—

I waited for him to finish my sentence. Is absurd, he might've said. Foolhardy in a coal town. Again he didn't respond, so I added, His hands were tied behind his back!

Hmmph, he said.

Then I almost fell into a black hole in the middle of the street. There should be signs—

Mind the holes! he said. Exploratory digs, they're everywhere.

Well I suppose.

No supposing. It's a fact. This is a mining town.

I studied the shelves above his head. Tins of peas and corn, of beets, of sardines and corned beef, of peaches and pears. To the side, in the corner, a pickle barrel.

His thin voice dragged my eyes back. You ready to run the newspaper, Miss?

Lila, I repeated. I plucked my notebook from my pocket and gave it a flutter. Ready for news, I replied. I taught grammar once, and history.

That last fact was to make me seem some sort of expert, though I'd actually found the schoolchildren to be worse demons than my little brothers.

Not what I meant, exactly, he said.

You mean because I'm a woman.

Could be, he said, drawing out the words. You a woman who knows how to run the machines?

My arms went loose. He'd found me out. The wasp thumped against my ribs again, desperate for escape.

Didn't think so, he said.

I shook my head, thoughts ranging until they latched onto a point of logic. That's why I'm here, I said, to ask you who my uncle had to run them.

Ran them himself.

In addition to writing all of his articles? And interviewing? Going to meetings—

Then I stopped. How much did I want this Parker knowing about me and my concerns? And the fact that, clearly, I had not expected to operate machinery. Tinker with the parts, certainly, as I had done already, just to see if I could. But I had thought there'd be someone else. At least, I hadn't thought at all about whether there would or wouldn't be someone else. I hadn't thought at all beyond digging up news and writing it down. I knew that would mean running the business, too, and I looked forward to it, just as I had when my brothers went overseas, all four of them, and Father and I were left to run the fruit farm. We did a good job. I did a good job, more and more it was left up to me, to cut the orchard grass and pick the fruit, load it up and drive the truckload to the jam factory in town. When the war ended and the twins and Robbie came back, Father suggested that if I wasn't going to marry I needed to find a way to take care of myself. Had I said I wouldn't marry? I was still sore about the Poznikoff boy at the jam factory, John, whose people were from Russia. Blasted pacifists, our father said. You stay away from that coward. Why should our Will have to sacrifice his life, when a Doukhobor can fold his arms and refuse to fight? I said how else could I meet a boy—the rest had been blown to bits. And more things, many more things said that day, too many to dwell on now, in the General Store. It was enough to recall that Father took over the runs and then the boys returned and I was left with teaching as my future. And now? I just assumed there'd be an assistant, an apprentice, I don't know, someone more familiar with the intricacies of producing the newspaper: setting the type and loading it, if that's even what the process was called, adjusting the pressure, fixing a paper jam and now that I thought of it, inking the press. I hadn't thought I'd be alone with all that.

My thinking had exhausted me. I leaned on the counter for support.

Your uncle tried to hire a man once, Parker said. Just to help out. But he was no mechanic. He was an Australian. There's the Chinese, if you're fool enough to go there.

I saw a Chinese yesterday—I began, but Parker spoke over top of me.

They call it Lousetown, he said, if you see what I mean. Where all them live. Chinese, Hindu, whatnot.

He lifted his visor. Yes, his eyes were pale blue and they bugged clear out of his head. He opened a drawer and began digging around it, done with the conversation. He stopped only to raise both hands as though to indicate that I'd been warned.

Finally, he looked up and asked, Anything else?

I straightened up.

A man on the ship, the navigator, he gave me a headlamp.

It's on your bill.

Peaches, I said, pointing to the shelves. Corned beef. Sardines, too, please. And bread.

I was hungry, and asked for a pickle as well. He handed it to me wrapped in waxed paper, and I ate it as he returned to our previous conversation.

The mine is directly behind your back door and Lousetown is directly behind the mine. You could climb Black Mountain to have a look around and get your bearings.

That great big hill, you mean?

He worked his mouth for a time. Chinese call their paper
The Times,
he said.
The Chinese Times.
That's where you'll find a printer.

I thought of asking him about rifles in Lousetown, but something stopped me. Parker talked about those people the way my father talked about Doukhobors.

It's in English, I gather, the newspaper?

No.

Then why isn't the paper a Chinese name?

Ask them. Here's your bread.

A package of flour landed on the counter, followed by a pound of paper-wrapped lard.

He shook his head at my obvious bewilderment.

Thought so, he said. You could pan fry it instead.

I nodded vigorously, though I knew no more about frying bread than I did baking it.

He slapped open a paper bag and filled it with my purchases.

I swallowed the last of the pickle and crumpled the waxed paper into my pocket. Hungry as I was, I would be glad to dump the bag inside my front door, and set a course for Lousetown.

If I was fool enough to go there, Parker said. I had travelled all the way to Black Mountain by myself. What was one more short trip?

Behind my shop the land sloped into a haze-streaked hollow. Hovering at the three-foot level was thicker fog that stunk of smoke. My building had turned its back on the mine, with all windows aimed toward the street side. It was only by walking down the side of the building and around the corner that I was able to see this back view for the first time. It brought me to a standstill. The outline of the pithead towered in the grey distance like a double-decked outhouse, tall and rambling and leaning, as though it had been tipped by misbehaving boys. All that was missing was a crescent moon carved in the door. Crouched around it was a jumble of tin outbuildings, each as black and filthy as the next, with orange fires crackling over the rubble-strewn blackened grounds, a set of shoulders hunched over each, tending the flames.

The low whine of a motorcycle cut through the thick air and I turned to watch it appear. Headlamp first, glowing like the moon. Beetle-nosed sidecar next. Then the driver, goggled as though he'd risen from the ocean, his leather dripping like second skin. I waved and he pulled the bike up beside me, oily steam leaking from its vents and joints. A leather boot with silver buckles planted itself into the dirt.

Where to? the taxi driver asked, lifting his goggles to expose pink circles around his eyes. Careful, he added. Trout Creek behind you.

I looked back and sprang clear of the creek that steamed where it met a channel of black from the mine, just a few feet from my back door. Some sort of fish bobbed belly-up in the mix, unearthly white.

I pulled my eyes from the sight and told him: Lousetown.

Without a word he slapped the goggles back in place and gunned the engine, leaving me in a greasy cloud with the joined creeks bubbling behind me.

I would walk then, my sole companion the fish that turned in slow circles beside me in the water.

But no. To my right, two lines of miners emerged in the gloom, startling me with their sudden proximity, close enough for me to make out their features. The far line trudged toward the pithead, grim-faced, about to go under, while the near one lurched from it, black-faced, metal helmets studded with lamps. Limp-armed, lunch pails dangling.

These were the sort of men I'd like to interview for the paper, men like my friends' fathers back home who toiled in the smelter and in the nearby mines. This mine seemed to have a ready supply of them. There they staggered beside me, exhausted and filthy, resigned to the prospect of coming back tomorrow. Blackened lips muttering. Scottish brogue, Irish lilt, American drawl. The last one a torrent of Italian, or was it Spanish? The tall one could be a Swede or a Dutchman, his fair hair dusted grey by coal. The short one—a Welshman? All different, but all one in the cold look they gave me, the outsider, the niece who might be just like her newspapering uncle, prying where she wasn't wanted, vulgar in her lavender-grey, a blush of colour in their ashen world.

And then a sound I can't stomach, though I heard it many times from my brothers and their friends, a sound from the back of the throat, a wad of mucus hurtling towards my shoes.

I leapt, but not soon enough, my pleated hem catching the slime.

What animal—

My voice broke and I told myself, Don't cry, don't cry, don't you goddamn-well cry. If you do, they'll think you're afraid. And a part of me was, it really was. Why would they do such a thing?

I stopped, heard the sound of the men wheezing, the dry rasp of their sleeves against their shirts. Each man regarded the blackened ground, toed it with a black boot—shame or plain weariness replacing the rabid moment. They were done with me now, and turned away.

I could've shouted after them, I want to know who spat on me! Was it on purpose, don't deny it.

My thoughts roared with accusations, requests for apologies. In the end, I found that my anger abated, too. I swung around, leaving them and the creek and my floating companion. I had other concerns.

Up the trail that tacked the south side of Black Mountain, the charcoal surface was a scruff of crab grass and creeping yellowish brambles. Round one clump and out of eyeshot I stooped, slopped water from a puddle onto my hem. The water was black, and left a grey streak, but better than what was there, green-black slug of gob.

I marched on, more tired than I liked to admit, the cruelty of the miners heavy on my shoulders.

In my mind I composed a letter of woes to my brothers, then tore it up.

On the summit my throat, squeezed tight since I passed the pithead, opened to the cool air. I had automatically faced west, a gasp caused as much by delight as from air rushing in. While the town itself was cloaked in grey, the sun shone outside it. Even so, for miles I saw nothing but parched hills of grey. Only in the distance was there green next to a stretch of water like rippling silk, a deep, deep blue, the Pacific, sparkling where it chopped, studded by distant craft, a white bird or two, dipping, screeching. I turned to the south. A second, larger wharf I hadn't known existed until now. I could barely make it out through the bank of grey, but it seemed the coal carts climbed a ramp and tipped their contents into the hold of a coal hulk, because a second line of them came back along the hills, empty.

My shop, scarcely visible, marked the end of Zero Avenue, with Parker's General Store next to it. Behind both of us, as I had just discovered and Parker had told me, was the mine. There was Trout Creek, on a course to empty its grey self into the sea. I stopped turning, having completed the circuit.

Further north, on the other side of the pithead, the blurred outlines of one wooden shack after another, twisting paths linking them, boards thrown down across what must be streams. Lousetown. And somewhere in there,
The Chinese Times.