Two-Gun & Sun Read Online Free PDF Page B

impressed. It beamed softly in the grey light, a sign of the future. I pulled out my notebook.
    You can’t print that, he said. It means we don’t need their coal. Company won’t like that.
    This Vincent Cruz stood in front of the dish, hands on hips, as though blocking it would erase it from my mind. I flipped the notebook shut.
    Why d’you think we call this place Lousetown? he asked. To keep them out. Louseville, we say to each other. Our joke, this fancy way of talking about lice.
    He pronounced it the French way, Louse-veelle, but his accent was hard to place. Chinese, of course. French. But something else, a clipped, rapid way of speaking.
    Why show me, then?
    He ran a hand along the curve of the dish.
    You don’t have one of these, so your machine’s going to be different. I can try, but —
    I’d pay you for your time.
    Would you, now?
    Even when he smiled that bottom lip arched downward. It was a cheeky smile.
    Keep this a secret, he said, and you might have a deal.
    His bold manner astonished me. Did I not put away my notebook? Was I not offering him employment, deserving, therefore, of some respect? Would he talk to a man this way?
    Of course, I said.
    If you want your press to run again—
    I stiffened. His comment could be taken two ways. I thought of the knife in the back of his belt, of that rifle. I shouldn’t have come up here with him.
    He indicated the door and we headed back downstairs. I insisted he go first.
    I grabbed a railing to steady myself. I should have eaten more before I left the shop.
    I paused on the landing to say, A dollar an hour.
    Either a smile or a sneer, a flicker too fast to catch.
    This could be a mistake, inviting such a man to work for me. Maybe he wouldn’t show up.
    I descended the last step, and he stood aside to let me pass. I walked sideways, my back against the railing, keeping my distance.
    The clacking of the little machines had resumed. Rows of insects rubbing their wings and legs, devouring leaves of paper, disgorging them spittled with print.
    Steam laden with paper dust stung my eyes and I lifted a sleeve to rub my lids, heavy as lead. It was too close in here. I needed air, and looked around for the shop door.
    Hey, he asked, you okay?
    Yes. Fine.
    I wouldn’t admit otherwise, not to him. But I wasn’t fine. The heat, possibly. The steam. My vision was blurred. Pounding behind my eyes. And my face, burning. I banged a hip against a counter, an elbow on metal.
    Doorknob snugged in my palm, at last, I stepped over the sill. Cool air. Fat drops from clouds the colour of coal dust struck my cheeks. I turned to look for the children who brought me here, and saw myself in the polished glass of the shop door.
    My eyelids were swelling shut. I’d been stung by those accursed creatures on that mountain.
    I felt my throat swell. But I wouldn’t cry, not now, not if the miners couldn’t make me.
    Soon, my eyes would close completely and I’d be left with the vacant stare of that grasshopper. Ugly. Well, so I would be. So what. I’d be goddamned if I was going to ask him to help me home. Pay him to run the press, yes, but a favour? No. I burst from the doorway, stumbling, half-blind, determined to find my own way back.

The Famous Man
    Wheels clicking along a track. Coins rattling in a jar. A set of keys, jangling.
    The printing press—running at last?
    I jackknifed up and out of bed and the floor swam beneath me. I was blind, too, my eyes stuck shut, a weight bearing down on them. I groped for the bed and sat. The weight fell clumsily from each lid, two damp wads landing one after the other into my lap until I pushed them off. My eyes still strained under heavy lids, the bedding painfully white. Then I recalled: I hadn’t unpacked my sheets. I hadn’t yet slept in my new bed.
    Stupid with sleep I decided I was dreaming and forced myself to look again at the bed, at the two clumps I’d pushed onto