Adams, Nick (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
Hernandez ran sideways, taking the bull out and away with the cape,
toward the other picador. He fixed him with a swing of the cape,
squarely facing the horse and rider, and stepped back. As the bull saw
the horse he charged. The picador’s lance slid along his back, and as
the shock of the charge lifted the horse, the picador was already
half-way out of the saddle, lifting his right leg clear as he missed
with the lance and falling to the left side to keep the horse between
him and the bull. The horse, lifted and gored, crashed over with the
bull driving into him, the picador gave a shove with his boots against
the horse and lay clear, waiting to be lifted and hauled away and put on
his feet.
Manuel let the bull drive into the fallen horse; he was in no hurry, the
picador was safe; besides, it did a picador like that good to worry.
He’d stay on longer next time. Lousy pics! He looked across the sand at
Zurito a little way out from the barrera, his horse rigid, waiting.
“Huh!” he called to the bull, “Tomar!” holding the cape in both hands so
it would catch his eye. The bull detached himself from the horse and
charged the cape, and Manuel, running sideways and holding the cape
spread wide, stopped, swung on his heels, and brought the bull sharply
around facing Zurito.
“Campagnero accepted a pair of varas for the death of one rosinante,
with Hernandez and Manolo at the quites,” _El Heraldo’s_ critic wrote.
“He pressed on the iron and clearly showed he was no horse-lover. The
veteran Zurito resurrected some of his old stuff with the pike-pole,
notably the suerte——”
“Olé Olé!” the man sitting beside him shouted. The shout was lost in the
roar of the crowd, and he slapped the critic on the back. The critic
looked up to see Zurito, directly below him, leaning far out over his
horse, the length of the pic rising in a sharp angle under his armpit,
holding the pic almost by the point, bearing down with all his weight,
holding the bull off, the bull pushing and driving to get at the horse,
and Zurito, far out, on top of him, holding him, holding him, and slowly
pivoting the horse against the pressure, so that at last he was clear.
Zurito felt the moment when the horse was clear and the bull could come
past, and relaxed the absolute steel lock of his resistance, and the
triangular steel point of the pic ripped in the bull’s hump of shoulder
muscle as he tore loose to find Hernandez’s cape before his muzzle. He
charged blindly into the cape and the boy took him out into the open
arena.
Zurito sat patting his horse and looking at the bull charging the cape
that Hernandez swung for him out under the bright light while the crowd
shouted.
“You see that one?” he said to Manuel.
“It was a wonder,” Manuel said.
“I got him that time,” Zurito said. “Look at him now.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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