Two-Gun & Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

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