Two-Gun & Sun Read Online Free PDF

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
.
    â€”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,