Two-Gun & Sun (18 page)

*

This time, Vincent knocked before unlocking the door, and I made sure to prepare for his arrival, fully clothed in my ink-stained coveralls. My thoughts were still in a turmoil from the other morning, but at least I knew that nothing I did or felt in this town would have anything to do with getting back at my father. He wasn't here to comment. I was acting by and for myself.

Still, I was thankful for the distraction of work. We said brief hellos, and after a fumbled attempt to step in the same direction, requiring us to shuffle around each other, we got to work.

The type was set, the page locked and ready to be printed:

Opera Comes To Town

Strange Fish

Wild Hogs A Menace

Modern Mine Allows Women

My story about the opera was little more than an advertisement, and a free one. I kept it short. Ed's answer about the fish was good enough to paraphrase, and became another short item. Parker's response to the pigs was too good to paraphrase and I quoted him directly, Shoot 'em and be done with it.

The rescue drill was less straightforward. I had told Meena and her customer about the girl and in doing so was making assumptions about her. But to put it in a newspaper? I had to be careful and stick to the facts.

Silver provided the solution and the headline with his remark, We're more modern than that. It allowed me to allude to the presence of the girl. All who were present could fill in the blanks. That feathered woman knew the details and if she wanted to share them with her friends, who was I to object? Perhaps they would write a letter to the editor, too. That would be ideal.

There was just enough room under
Commentary
for a suggestion that the holes in the streets be filled. In my next issue I planned on more room for an editorial on mine safety.

Given the missteps on my first issue, I was careful to read and re-type each article several times over. That meant it had taken six days to get this second newssheet out. I had suggested to Mooney there could be four of them before the first edition, which meant that between the 18th and the 29th I had to get out two more, and then a full newspaper the day after.

As we worked I told Vincent about meeting Ben and the others in the opera troupe.

At one point he swivelled around in amazement, blackened hands wringing a grey rag.

Green and yellow—huh. Gunslingers or clowns?

And then, laughing, he added, Like I said. Not my favourite opera to begin with.

Twice he has said my name. Introductions, both times. Once to Morris and once to the town. Ever since he dropped the lead type into place I have been waiting for him to say it again, so many obvious opportunities to do so, such as just now, as though we were old friends, good friends:
Green and yellow, Lila!

And why not? We worked together.

Distracted, I missed his next request and he had to shout it.

Wrench, he said, right behind you.

You.

I handed out the newssheets that evening and by morning was at the typewriter, working on my next editorial, one that had been on my mind for some time:

There is a need for p
Public facilities
in
this town
Black Mountain
are necessary
If
if Black Mountain is to ever become a modern

A commotion of loud voices and clanging music outside yanked me from my desk, and then out the back door toward the pithead.

There stood Meena's best customers, a ragged line of them. They had dressed in the corsets I'd seen at her shop, the ones that needed constant tugging to contain the mounds of flesh, with little skirts of green and blue, brilliant in the gloom, and that revealed long legs of netted black stockings hitched by garters, the feathers, and the beads. They strutted before a wagon that had been pulled by a motorcycle. It had come to rest on the ground just below the outbuildings. Once the taxi driver anchored the wagon wheels with boulders, he unhitched the apparatus and got back on his bike and roared off.

In the wagon were three men in tuxedos who blew into brass instruments and pounded a drum to create a saucy tune. The feathered agitators moved to the music, their heels clattering on stones scattered over the hard-packed dirt. Each move involved lifting a placard to expose specific areas, breasts that sprang free with hints of nipples rouged a violent red, backsides bulging beneath lace trim, and little satin skirts at the front that barely covered the area between their garters.

The placards were emblazoned with the words
On Strike
, punctuated by red lips on one side, dollar signs on the other.

I strode around the strikers, notebook in hand, scribbling and observing. Morris was among the crowd of onlookers, distinct in his white suit. I angled over to him, but before I reached him he was shouting out to me, A calamity! And a top news item, my dear. They are essential to this community, the very backbone!

I lifted my notebook and waved it at him to indicate I was right on it. And then I laughed out loud at the image of the women on their backbones holding up the community's men. If not for the strike I would turn around and grill Morris about the money, but I pushed ahead to find a protestor to interview.

Just ahead was the one I'd seen at Meena's the other day, the one who had been on Morris' arm, the one of the crooked corset previously.

Hello, again, I said, and pointed up to the musicians, Are they from the opera?

We hired them fair and square, Miss.

But with all of you on strike, I asked, where will you get the money to pay them?

She gave me a look of wonder, and I realized too late how the instrument players would likely be paid. It must have shown on my face because she smiled deeply at my belated understanding.

I tried to recover, and asked, Care to comment on the protest, itself?

I was hoping for mention of the girl, so I could fully report it this time.

It's all in there, thanks to you.

She handed me a pamphlet, and the line shimmied past as I stopped to read:

The women of Black Mountain's Saloon have ceased work to protest the presence of similar work being conducted within the premises of the mine, whether with or without financial remuneration, that have taken prospective clients and work from said women at the saloon, and rendered the offenders the same objectionable status as any scab labour.

Women of the Saloon
. Good. Better than stating it outright. I read quickly to the bottom, which went on to say that because of the expertise gained by years of said occupation at the saloon and of special skills passed down within the trade, the professional workers should not only be given exclusive rights of such occupation, but be paid in a manner befitting of their special skills. A private meeting was requested between the women and the mine authorities, and until then all favours, services and other duties to the town would be withdrawn. It was signed Miss Deirdre (Dee-Dee) Klein, and was the complete opposite in tone of the protest, stating their requests in crisp, formal English, as in a legal document.

I had been moving my lips as I read, and my next thought stopped me mid-sentence. She had followed the dancing line, so I hurried after her and called out, Where did you have this printed?

Lousetown, of course.

My scalp bristled from forehead to back of neck. There were several printers at
The Times
, perhaps several customers, but only one capable of such writing.

It reads, I said, almost like a legal document.

She turned her head toward me and smiled. We have friends in high places, she said. Very high.

I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing that moment. Yes, the wording had the distinct precision of a lawyer or a banker about it, maybe even Mr. Mooney.

The wagon and the music and the shimmying had the desired effect. If allowed to remain, they would be in the path of the lines of workers heading to and from during the shift change. There would be trouble then. Already a couple of the wives had gathered. I heard one whisper coarsely, Next to nothing! Shame on them.

The band continued its saucy tune and the women continued to move their bodies to match. Dee handed out her pamphlets to the gathering crowd that included some of the evening shift of miners, who'd shown up long before the shift change. She bowed deeply to show her rouged parts to full effect. One wife snatched the proffered pamphlet and tore it in half.

Silver arrived then, and sent his deputies running to circle the commotion and shove the workers and wives aside, away from the protesters. There was much pushing and shouting and releasing of pamphlets into the grey air. Then the noise subsided as a messenger ran out from one of the buildings and delivered a note to Silver, who trotted to a set of steps to confer with someone, the dirty deputy not far behind him.

Silver returned, loudly shouting to this Deirdre that she and her girls would have their meeting right then and right there in the mine office.

I moved closer as she called to her girls to cease and desist, at the musicians to kindly stop their tune.

Miss—I whispered, pulling her aside. Deirdre, I said.

Dee, she replied.

Dee. Let me cover this meeting for the paper. It is exactly what—

I stopped because she had wrapped her fingers around the wrist of my writing hand, gently squeezed, and looked deep into my eyes, again.

Not that kind of meeting, she said.

Oh, I said. Well.

And I tried to laugh again to cover my embarrassment, but it vexed me, too. Not just because this was a wrong-headed notion of negotiation, giving, it seemed to me, exactly what the women of
The Saloon
had purported to be withholding, first to the musicians and maybe the banker and now the mining authorities, but also because of the sort of man who would be at the getting end.

I looked around for Morris. He might help me dissuade her. But he had vanished.

That filthy toad over there, I said, indicating the loathsome deputy. He is dangerous. You should be careful.

We know all about him, she said. We offer him two for the price of one so that one of us can keep watch. We know what we're doing.

She turned to the deputies and called out, Just one thing, first. That girl is gone. Right now. Or no deal.

I hadn't expected this. Everything up until now was exactly as I had imagined, a few surprises, the band and the costumes, but all in all the sort of story I was looking to feature in my paper. A good story. An offence committed, action taken, resolution reached. I had brought the perceived offence to their attention, true, but from there, events had unfolded without intervention from me, and unfolded in a most newsworthy way. That was supposed to be the end of it.

And I hadn't considered what might happen to the girl. Perhaps that a group of women would have a talk with her—and what group would that be? The wives? The women of
The Saloon
? Well, maybe that her boss might pull her aside, or Silver, that she would be warned to cease such questionable conduct, that if she wanted to keep her job in the mine her work should be limited to the harvesting of coal, and furthermore, furthermore—I hadn't considered any further, any more than that. Hadn't seen events out to their ugly conclusion, unfolding before me now as the girl emerged from the mine, dragged out by two deputies, her heels kicking up a cloud of black.

She didn't look at all frightened, lifting her chin and pulling her arms from their grip.

Dee and the other women saw her and began to shout horrible things, that she was a humping scab, a filthy tart. They threw hunks of dirt at her.

She replied with rocks, dropping a shoulder to snatch them up, her baggy dress exposing her limp breasts.

When the deputies grabbed her arms again and yanked her up, she shrieked at the whores and what she called their slimy sluice boxes.

I can smell your stink from here! she cried, and pulled free again from the deputies.

The women began tearing and pulling at her and although the girl was outnumbered she fought hard. They slapped and kicked and punched each other for the right to have worse done to them. Was I the only one who realized this? Their screams ceased to contain words, just sounds, low and guttural and odious.

One of the deputies blew a whistle and then several more appeared, wielding sticks to break up the fight.

Then it was all over.

My notebook swelled with filled pages. I shoved it into my pocket and it banged against my leg as I walked away. I had brought them to this. I was the one who told Dee all about it, hoping for a reaction. I got one. I could still hear their voices, shrieking, could still see the girl dragged out in that gaping dress, could imagine those women of
The Saloon
and their sordid notions of negotiation, occurring at this very moment, a few feet from my back door.

I woke up vowing to never tamper with the news again. Today would be a new start. The sounds of metal clanging told me Vincent was already at work. I washed and dressed and hurried downstairs, struck through the 20 on the calendar as I passed it, and added the flourish of an asterisk to remind me of this new day.

No fish was draped across the door mat out back. I strode down the hall. Or nailed to the front door. I stepped into the pressroom, at last.

We said our good mornings and I included his name in my greeting, hoping that the more I said it the more he would be inclined to respond in kind.

Not today, though, and so we set to work.

The old machine rattled to life, clicking along at a relaxed pace that allowed me to lift sections of the newsprint, scanning for splotches of ink. The run was only halfway through when a roar like an avalanche or an earthquake sounded and rocked the walls of the shop, lifting the iron legs of the press from its platform even as it spat out test impressions for the upcoming first edition, loosening the bolts and threatening to ruin the machine. I raced to the back of the press to find Vincent already scrambling up the ladder. We had reacted as one, the security of the machine our first thought, even over our own safety. In a flash my mind had rejected the idea of natural causes. The tunnels ran right below us, extending out to the sea. The upheaval, I knew, had to come from the mine. Only briefly did I consider running out to see what had happened. My livelihood was at stake, here.