Free Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford

the stone bridge railing, waiting for me. He'd been giving me nothing but lip for more than a week, and wasn't making me as nervous as before. I was beginning to believe he was all talk. "Hallo, you sissy queer pendejo bahstair."
    I stopped near him. "Chango, why don't you go get a haircut. You're getting grease all over your collar." It wasn't very sharp, but it was the only thing that came to me.
    Chango whistled through his teeth, and another boy crawled out from under the bridge—the acequia was empty at the time—and began to climb the bank. He was a stranger, but mean-looking, with pocks on his face and half a right ear. There wasn't any point, that I could see, in staying around for a discussion. I pushed Chango in the chest, and he fell backwards into the acequia as I started running.
    Home was uphill, a bad slope to run, so I turned left along Camino Chiquito, which paralleled the canal, and ground down the dusty road between high adobe walls. Driveways cut the walls on both sides, and as I ran, hearing Chango yelling "Hey, Tarzan! Gat the son of a beech!" I looked down each one for a place to hide. Chango's friend was behind me when I turned my head to look. Chango himself wasn't running very fast, and was limping. He'd apparently sprained his ankle when I pushed him off the bridge. The one with the ear was in the lead, running very fast and lightly, like a gazelle. As usual, the altitude was beginning to get me; it was hard to breathe and my chest hurt.
    On my right I saw a break in the wall, and a compound behind it, with a turning circle and some small houses grouped around it. I skidded into it, ran behind a house and through a patio gate, and dived behind a pile of neatly stacked piñon wood. I could hear Chango and then the other one, crunching on the gravel in the drive, and then leaving and walking back out to Camino Chiquito. The patio I was in was full of boulders, pushed against the wall and scattered around on the flagstones.
    Each of the boulders was about a hundred-pounder, white or tan, and some of them were carved into heads and faces. But they weren't marble or tombstone granite. They were just big rocks, the sort that lie all over the hillsides around Sagrado. I went over to one of them; it was carved like an Indian's head, with the hair cut in bangs and a cloth band tied around it I don't know much about art, and I don't think that's what it was, but it was a professional job of carving.
    The patio gate was still open where I'd busted through it. It was just good luck that Chango and his honcho hadn't noticed it, and come in to drag me from behind the woodpile. Or maybe they did their stomping only on public streets, and had a rule about not invading private property. I walked over, still panting, to the patio gate, but before I reached it I glanced into a window of the house to see if anyone had seen me. I believe that technically I was trespassing.
    Inside was a naked woman, standing on a table. Her feet were slightly apart and her head was held back, her long brown hair reaching almost to her waist. She didn't seem to be doing anything, just standing there and looking at the ceiling. I turned my head and felt my face turning red, then looked back at her. She didn't appear to see me. She was pale and well-built, and it was an interesting view. I'd never seen a woman completely undressed before; it was fancier than a statue. She was talking to herself, or to someone I couldn't see. Her lips were moving, but I couldn't hear what she said. I stood in the shadow of the wall and just watched. My breathing was more regular now, and the spots before my eyes were clearing. I always got them when I ran too hard or too far without warming up, even in Mobile.
    The woman relaxed and stepped off the table onto a chair, and then onto the floor. She still didn't look at me, but reached for a bathrobe hanging on the chair and put it on. Then someone came into the patio through the open gate.
    "Are you a lover