Dealing with the miners who had been harassing Miss Nevada had been a challenge. Not that he was overly concerned about being out numbered, he would have gladly given his life in performing his duties as a Debuty, he was instead concerned with inner conflict. He had given his word to his wife to not take a life if it could at all be avoided. What he had noticed during the encounter with the miners was he wanted to cut them down, even though they were, for the most part limiting their attacks to unarmed combat. Fortunately he hadn't found it necessary to kill anyway, though one of the miners had died but not through his own actions.
For now, he was able to keep his word and hopefully with time he would lose the desire to kill. It had been harnessed and fed during his time with the Shinsengumi but that was an entire different situation. Most of the rebels he fought against would have ended his life and those of innocents without hesitation, it would have been pointless to avoid killing blows during that time. His wife understood that, but in America the rules were different and she didn't want him to get into any trouble. She had a gentle heart and one he found helped balance his own violent nature. Shintaro missed her and will always remember her for the rest of his days but life goes on and he had to think of his future.
With his duties of the day complete, Shintaro decided to call on Miss Nevada. He wanted to apologize to her for not catching her and preventing a fall when Cecil had pushed her. Also, he was curious about her drawing, not having met anybody outside of Japan who was artistic. He had met a few who claimed to be artists but their art certainly left much to be desired.
It was a nice day so he hoped to find Miss Nevada out on her porch, if she wasn't then he'll simply knock upon her door.
For the most part, Tully tried to stay out of the public eye, although she was getting a little more comfortable being out during the day since she'd moved into the back room of the Union, and Mr. McVey had encouraged her to stop hiding. Before this, she would usually spend her days on the fringes of town, in trees or abandoned buildings, or sheltered under stairs or in an alley, only sneaking out when it was dark and the streets were quiet.
Now, though, she was a little more confident in venturing out during the day, although she stayed close to the building, especially after the trouble with Cecil and his pals. Among her chores at the newspaper office was keeping the place tidy, so she was out sweeping the front boardwalk when she spotted Mr. Shintaro walking toward the building.
Pausing in her task, she smiled and gave him a small wave. He'd been kind to her, and had actually believed her over the young men who had been pestering her, and she appreciated that. Besides, she was still curious about the strange man, who he was, and how he'd landed in Kalispell.
As he had hoped she was outside and seeing her smile and wave, he felt he wasn't intruding on her day. He nodded in response to her wave but didn't smile, smiling wasn't something he had done all that much since he lost his wife. Once he was closer he bowed slightly in greeting.
"Hello Miss Nevada," he greeted verbally. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything, however if you are free, I would like to speak with you."
The little bow took her a bit off-guard -- it was sort of like the beginning of a fancy-dress dance at a ball or something, and she wasn't sure how to react. The ones she'd seen from the fringes while she was minding her employers' children, and they'd all curiously peered through the stair banisters, then, when the music started, they'd re-enact the adults.
To that end, when Shin bowed to her, Tully responded with a slight curtsy, then frowned and stood strait, holding the broom against her, immediately defensive at his request to talk to her.
"I don't care what that Cecil Barbour told ya," she grumbled, "I ain't done nothin' ta him but try'n stay outta his way. But he come at me, an' I'm sorry 'bout Larry, but I didn't ask fer none'a that."
As she spoke, she watched the man warily, ready to throw the broom at him and run if she needed to, calculating her chances of actually getting away, and plotting a path in her head that would take her under some of the boardwalks and buildings, where he hopefully couldn't follow.
At first he was confused as to why Tully started talking about Cecil and denying anything he made had said. Shintaro then realized she thought he was here on official business and not just a social call.
"I know you are innocent of any wrong doing, Miss Nevada," Shintaro assured her, keeping his body still as he could tell she was nervous. "To my knowledge Cecil is still locked up jail and likely stay there for awhile."
"The reason I wished to talk to you was first, to apologize for not catching you when that thug pushed you towards me. If it was any other situation I would have caught you and prevented you from falling. However, giving the situation I felt it would put not just yourself by me as well in danger. I had four attackers willing to take a swing at me and I doubted they would care if you were in the way. Thus, I made sure you were out of the line of fire so I can deal with those eta."
"The other thing I had wanted to talk to you about was your art, Mr. Cantrell had mentioned you were quite talented."
"I know you are innocent of any wrong doing, Miss Nevada," Shintaro assured her, keeping his body still as he could tell she was nervous. "To my knowledge Cecil is still locked up jail and likely stay there for awhile."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." Relaxing her stance, Tully looked down at her feet, her cheeks going bright red. Mr. McVey had warned her about being so defensive, that everyone was out to get her, and, indeed, most folks were respectful and polite to her, not pushing her to be social. Now, she could see that Mr. Shin didn't mean her any ill, and she'd been wrong to jump to conclusions.
"The reason I wished to talk to you was first, to apologize for not catching you when that thug pushed you towards me. If it was any other situation I would have caught you and prevented you from falling. However, giving the situation I felt it would put not just yourself by me as well in danger. I had four attackers willing to take a swing at me and I doubted they would care if you were in the way. Thus, I made sure you were out of the line of fire so I can deal with those eta."
"I kinda figured somethin' like that." Giving a slight smile, she shrugged. "Made good sense, an' it didn't hurt me none." She'd been tossed around more than that, and skinning her knees and the palms of her hands had been well-worth the rest of the show! "Ya sure did show them ruffians somethin'!"
"The other thing I had wanted to talk to you about was your art, Mr. Cantrell had mentioned you were quite talented."
"Oh, well, don't know 'bout that." Shrugging, her blush deepened. "I did do a renderin' of Mr. Cantrell once, an' some odd lookin' critters for th' circus posters." At that, she laughed. "I got them pictures from a proper book, but I don't really believe that they're more'n someone's doodlin'. Most don't look like they could stand, let alone walk!"
"I didn't do much," Shintaro said, shrugging off the compliment. "They were drunk and not very good fighters to begin with, but I was more concerned they would give up on using fists and go for their guns. A gunfight would have raised the possibility of innocents being harmed."
"I have heard there could be strange creatures in a circus but I haven't been to a circus to know myself," Shintaro admitted. San Francisco did get its fair share of carnivals traveling circuses but he had been far too busy to see any.
"I have tried my hand at sumi-e in the past but I wasn't very good at it," Shintaro admitted. His wife had been the artist and he still had some of her ink drawings in his possession. "I still would like to see some of your work later, if you're willing to show some to me."
Tully didn't know what 'sumi-e' was, but she might ask about it later, she was always interested in different types of art. As for showing her drawings, some were all right to display, after all, she was sketching out the critters for a poster in the paper, but others were private, ones she never planned on seeing the light of day, much the less showing to a real person!
Still, Mr. Shin had been kind to her, and he didn't seem to be the sort who would mock her or judge.
"Yeah, all right." She leaned the broom up against the wall then led the way into the side alley. "I stay here, in th' back," she explained, "Mr. McVey lets me, an' I keep th' place clean an' help out."
The small room at the back had its own door...it was used for storage, as well as Tully's quarters, but she didn't mind sharing the space with a few crates. There was still enough room for a real rope-frame bed and her own crate that doubled as a chest and a desk. It was all she needed, and the tight quarters encouraged her to go out in the daylight sometimes!
"Wait here..." She left the door open as she maneuvered around the room to grab her drawing papers, then returned to the alley. "We can sit here, if ya want." She indicated another crate that was on the alley boardwalk, under an awning.
For a moment, she rifled through the papers, singling out some of the ones she'd done for the posters, accurate renditions of lions, camels, tigers and other exotic beasts, rendered in colored pencil.
"Just mostly copied these from th' book," she explained.
Shintaro followed Tully around back but dutifully stayed outside of her room, respecting her private space. He was well aware that Westerners were far more touchy about the idea of a man and woman being alone together than Japan, especially when neither were married. Not that Shintaro would ever make moves on a woman against her wishes. He waited silently outside of her room while Tully gathered her drawings. He was curious about what kind of space she had, given it was in an alley and he could see through the open doorway it was sparcely furnished. In a way he found it almost home like, all it was missing was tatami mats and shoji doors.
Once she came out with the drawings, Shintaro used the crate to spread out the drawings to examine. He could understand why she had to use illustrations from a book to draw the animals, there wasn't any lions or tigers around Kalisport to his knowledge.
"These are quite impressive, especially considering you based them off somebody else's renderings of these animals," Shintaro complimented, looking over at her. "I'm sure you would do much better if you had the opportunity to draw real living animals. Perhaps the circus would allow you a chance to see lions and tigers first hand once in town."
"Do ya really think they'd let me?" Just going to the circus, and the carnival, had seemed so exciting, and she was working up the courage to go out in the crowd she knew would be there. Mr. McVey would be with her, but she didn't want to tie him up all day. But the thought that she might actually get to spend the time near the wild beasts that it would take to draw them was thrilling, and she was all the more determined to brave the public.
"That'd be really somethin', I think!" She didn't know at this point that the animals would be in cages, sad and confined, not that there was any other way to safely display them. "Here, look, I done some kinda my own way, just fer fun."
Grinning, she extracted more pages showing a variety of the same creatures, but with wings, fangs, shaggy hair, long legs...and in a cacophony of wild colors. What she didn't notice was that, among those papers was the sketch of Shin that she'd been working on, complete in pencil, and partly colored in before she'd been so rudely interrupted by Cecil and his bunch.