Free Two-Gun & Sun by June Hutton Page B

dinner in a paper bag in his hands.
    Silence roared about the room until my voice eventually emerged, stripped of sex, deep, and ragged, What’s the matter with you? You’re supposed to be the law.
    Silver’s face was twisted, confused.
    Indecent, he said. You heard the man. And he waved his pistol at the Scot. It’s my job to defend the town, on moral grounds.
    I was on my feet, don’t know when I stood. But the old man had slid backwards all the way down the flight of stairs, coming to rest with an iron step wedged into the small of his back, thrusting his pelvis forward, his sex a rumpled starfish, wine-stained against a pink thigh, more vivid now than when he was alive.
    How do I put that in a newspaper?

II—The Bullet

Whoa!
    Half the day had gone by when my printer arrived at the back door. I had assumed by now that he’d had second thoughts, and I was both relieved and disappointed. After all, who else could I go to? I kept my back to the wall as I invited him in and showed him around.
    He wore the same ink-stained smock, this time bound at the waist with a tool belt. On his head, a painter’s cap, his shaved scalp hidden, his queue hanging down the back.
    When he saw the machine he let out a long, low whistle.
    I told him about the shooting as he strolled around the press, but the machine had his full attention. He ran his hands over the curves, the wheels, the handles of the rollers and said, No easy fix for this one.
    He pulled a rag from his pocket and rubbed at the brass plate, then stepped back to admire what the rubbing had revealed, a single, ornate letter engraved on the metal eye.
    B
for
Bulletin
—
Bullet
, he added.
    I inclined my head to acknowledge his correction.
B
for
Beast
was what I had been thinking.
    He took hold of a large wheel, tugged it, and told me that the press ran on steam from a coal-fed boiler in the basement. I hadn’t realized that keeping coal dust out of the ink tray and the joints would be our first concern.
    The second, he said, just as I thought.
    I leaped inside my skin when he turned and levelled his eyes at me.
    I haven’t worked on a machine quite like this before, he said.
    Oh, I said. Antiquated. Yes.
    But he smiled at that. You got a manual? he asked.
    I snatched it from the shelf where the tray of metal bits had been flattening it. Maybe he could make more sense of it than I could.
    He flipped through the pages, then looked around the room.
    This covers just part. Your uncle must have built it himself. Smart man.
    I wouldn’t be surprised, I said. He loved this shop, the newspaper. It’s all he talked about.
    Vincent handed the manual back to me. You read, he said, and I’ll follow.
    He reversed the cap so that the brim was over the back of his neck, and he tucked the braid down the back of his smock. Then he climbed onto the machine just as he had in his own shop.
    Can they spare you? I asked.
    You pay twice what they do.
    And he pulled two metal tools from his belt.
    The ink wasn’t cleaned after the last run, he said.
    My uncle died unexpectedly, I shouted back, though I was still thinking: Twice!
    We’ll wash it down with solvent, he called out. Someone used a wrench on this.
    He didn’t ask who, and I didn’t offer.
    Read me the section on the rollers.
    Page 2, I said, and began reading.
    For the rest of the day we worked on the press, him asking, me reading, then both of us busy at tasks. A rag and solvent on the rubber rollers. Scraping scum and ink from the metal bits. Sanding grit. Massaging bolts with clots of grease. We shovelled coal and fired up the boiler. A click of the switch and the press shook like a locomotive.
    Whoa! he cried. Back to—what was it, page 14? What does it say?
    *
    We broke early for supper, backs against the press, sitting on the floor. There were chairs around, but he sat, so I did, too, but I chose the opposite end of the press, where my eyes could slide to the