All My Relations Read Online Free PDF Page B

Quickly he drank three double vodkas. The jukebox streamed colors, and he floated on its garbled music.
    Shoving against the men’s room door, Milton splashed into the urinal, wavering against the stall. He groped for the Sundowner’srear exit. The cold bit through his jacket. He pitched against a stack of bricks.
    Waking in the dark, Milton jumped to his feet. C.C. was coming, and his job was in danger. He was foreman of a white man’s ranch. Allen and C.C. would be amazed at his spread. With a bigger bank account than three-quarters of Hashan, he could support them for a year on savings alone. The night before was an ugly blur. But his tongue was bitter, his head thudded, he had the shakes. Cursing, Milton mounted and kicked the horse into a canter. To deceive Oldenburg he must work like a crazy man and sweat out his hangover. The fits of nausea made him moan with frustration. He kicked the horse and struck his own head.
    Milton arrived an hour after sunup. Shooing the horse into the corral with a smack to the rump, he stood foggily at the gate, unable to remember his chore from the previous day. A ladder leaning against the barn reminded him: patching. He lugged a roll of asphalt roofing up the ladder. Scrambling over the steep pitch didn’t frighten him, even when he slipped and tore his hands. He smeared tar, pressed the material into place, drove the nails. Every stroke was true, two per nail. Milton had laid half a new roof when Oldenburg called him.
    â€œCome down.” Oldenburg was pointing to the corral. The gate was still ajar. Milton’s horse, head drooping, dozed against the rail, but the other three were gone.
    Milton stood before him, wobbly from exertion, blood draining from his head.
    â€œYou lied,” Oldenburg said. “You abandoned your job. The week is
my
time. You’ve been drunk. I’m going to have to let you go, Milton.”
    Milton couldn’t speak.
    â€œYou understand, don’t you?” Oldenburg said more rapidly.His eyes flicked down, back to Milton. “Do you see what happens?” His arms extended toward the empty corral.
    â€œSo I lose a day running them down.”
    Smiling slightly, Oldenburg shook his head. “You miss the point. It would be wrong for me to break my word. You’d have no cause to believe me again and our agreement would be meaningless.”
    â€œOnce a year I get drunk,” Milton burst out. “We’ll put a name on it, November Something Milton’s Holiday.”
    Oldenburg smiled again. “Once a month … once a week … I’m sorry. I’ll give you two weeks’ pay but you can leave any time.” He turned.
    â€œI’ve worked hard for you!” Milton’s throat felt as if it were closing up.
    Oldenburg stopped, brow furrowed. “It’s sad,” he said. “You’ve managed the Box-J better than I could. I’m going to miss our baking.” He paused. “But we have to go on, Milton, don’t you see? My family leaves me, Jenkins leaves me, you leave me. But
I
go on.” He walked away.
    Two long steps, a knee in the back, arms around the neck, and he could break the man in half—Milton’s arms dropped. He had lost the urge for violence. Long after Oldenburg had disappeared into the open green range where the horses were, he stood by the corral. Then, arms over his head as if escaping a cloudburst, he ran into the adobe, packed his belongings in a sheet, and that afternoon rode the exhausted horse back to his old home.
    To C.C., Milton wrote, “I don’t have my job any more but there’s plenty of money in the bank.” Weeks later she replied, “Milton, I know what’s going on. I can’t come home to this.” But she would continue to write him, she said. Milton saw no one. Pacing the house, he talked to the portraits over the TV—Allen’s eighth-grade class picture, a computer-drawn