All My Relations Read Online Free PDF Page A

But he remembered standing tall in the stirrups, as if he could see over the edge of the yellow horizon, the end of Oldenburg’s land, and he kept his hands spread on his knees. At the thought of vodka’s sickly tastelessness, bile rose in his throat. Pretending to drink, tipping the bottle and plugging it with his tongue, would be foolish and shameful. Out of friendship and respect for Lopez, he could not leave. Their wounding each other, Milton realized, had bound him more closely to Lopez.
    As night fell the men became drunker and louder. Bosque went out for more liquor. When he returned, he danced with the oil-drum cookstove, blackening his hands and shirt.
    â€œHey, not with my wife,” Lopez said, grabbing the drum and humping it against the wall. “Need somebody to do you right, baby,” he said. The drum clanged to the floor. The men cheered. Lopez, knees bent and hands outstretched as if waiting for something to fall into them, lurched to the middle of the room. A smile was glazed over his face. He saw Milton.
    â€œDrink with me, you son of a bitch,” he shouted.
    Milton motioned for the Crown Russe, a third full. “Half for you, half for me,” he said. Marking a spot on the label with his finger, Milton drank two long swallows and held out the bottle for Lopez. Lopez drank and flipped the empty over his shoulder. Side by side, arms around each other, Milton and Lopez danced the
cumbia
. Lopez’s weight sagged until Milton practically carried him. The man’s trailing feet hooked an extension cord, sending a lamp and the radio crashing to the floor. Lopez collapsed.
    Milton ran outside and retched. Immediately he was refreshed and lucid. The stars burned like drillpoints of light. Patting the horse into an easy walk, he sat back in the saddle, reins loose in his lap, and gave himself to the brilliant stillness. As his eyes adjusted to the night, he could distinguish the black silhouettes of mountains against the lesser dark of the sky. Faint stars emergedover the ranges, bringing the peaks closer. The mountains were calm and friendly, even the jagged line of the Ka kai.
    That night Milton dreamed that a chocolate-colored flood swept through Hashan. The
O’odham
bobbed on the foam; from the shore others dove backward into the torrent, arms raised symmetrically by their heads. Receding, the flood left bodies swollen in the mud—Milton’s brother Lee, their mother, belly down, rising in a mound. Milton, long hair fixed in the mud, stared upward. His hands were so full of fingers they had become agaves, clusters of fleshy, spiny leaves. Peering down at him, C.C. and Allen were black against the sun, arms crooked as if for flight. Milton was glad they had escaped.
    Milton woke serene and energetic, the dream forgotten. Over breakfast Oldenburg studied him intently—clear gray eyes, a slight frown—but said nothing. The penned calves were weighed and loaded onto the shipping trucks. Many remained free, and the year would be a loss.
    Milton wrote C.C. of Audrey Lopez’s death. “I had a big drink to keep Lopez company,” he added, “but I threw it up. It was the first booze in more than a year. I don’t like it any more.”
    Lying beside Milton the following weekend, Helene said, “Poor finger. I’ll give you another one.” She laid her pinky against the stub so a new finger seemed to grow. Her lavender nail looked like the fancy gem of a ring. She lifted, lowered the finger. “And Lopez with the purple spots on his shoulder like the eyes of a potato,” she said. She shifted and her small, hard nipple brushed Milton’s side. “It’s a wonder you two didn’t fight.”
    â€œShut up,” Milton said. “His wife is dead.”
    â€œI know. It’s terrible.” She had worried for him, Helene said, knowing he would be at the funeral with Lopez. He should have brought her.
    â€œI didn’t