American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
The crowd shouted all the time and threw pieces of bread down into
the ring, then cushions and leather wine bottles, keeping up
whistling and yelling. Finally the bull was too tired from so much
bad sticking and folded his knees and lay down and one of the
_cuadrilla_ leaned out over his neck and killed him with the
_puntillo_. The crowd came over the barrera and around the torero and
two men grabbed him and held him and some one cut off his pigtail and
was waving it and a kid grabbed it and ran away with it. Afterwards I
saw him at the café. He was very short with a brown face and quite
drunk and he said after all it has happened before like that. I am
not really a good bull fighter.
chapter 14
If it happened right down close in front of you, you could see
Villalta snarl at the bull and curse him, and when the bull charged
he swung back firmly like an oak when the wind hits it, his legs
tight together, the muleta trailing and the sword following the curve
behind. Then he cursed the bull, flopped the muleta at him, and swung
back from the charge his feet firm, the muleta curving and each swing
the crowd roaring.
When he started to kill it was all in the same rush. The bull looking
at him straight in front, hating. He drew out the sword from the
folds of the muleta and sighted with the same movement and called to
the bull, Toro! Toro! and the bull charged and Villalta charged and
just for a moment they became one. Villalta became one with the bull
and then it was over. Villalta standing straight and the red kilt of
the sword sticking out dully between the bull’s shoulders. Villalta,
his hand up at the crowd and the bull roaring blood, looking straight
at Villalta and his legs caving.
chapter 15
I heard the drums coming down the street and then the fifes and the
pipes and then they came around the corner, all dancing. The street
full of them. Maera saw him and then I saw him. When they stopped the
music for the crouch he hunched down in the street with them all and
when they started it again he jumped up and went dancing down the
street with them. He was drunk all right.
You go down after him, said Maera, he hates me.
So I went down and caught up with them and grabbed him while he was
crouched down waiting for the music to break loose and said, Come on
Luis. For Christ sake you’ve got bulls this afternoon. He didn’t
listen to me, he was listening so hard for the music to start.
I said, Don’t be a damn fool Luis. Come on back to the hotel.
Then the music started up again and he jumped up and twisted away
from me and started dancing. I grabbed his arm and he pulled loose
and said, Oh leave me alone. You’re not my father.
I went back to the hotel and Maera was on the balcony looking out to
see if I’d be bringing him back. He went inside when he saw me and
came downstairs disgusted.
Well, I said, after all he’s just an ignorant Mexican savage.
Yes, Maera said, and who will kill his bulls after he gets a
_cogida?_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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