Adams, Nick (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
Zurito rode by, a bulky equestrian statue. He wheeled his horse and
faced him toward the toril on the far side of the ring where the bull
would come out. It was strange under the arc-light. He pic-ed in the hot
afternoon sun for big money. He didn’t like this arc-light business. He
wished they would get started.
Manuel went up to him.
“Pic him, Manos,” he said. “Cut him down to size for me.”
“I’ll pic him, kid,” Zurito spat on the sand. “I’ll make him jump out of
the ring.”
“Lean on him, Manos,” Manuel said.
“I’ll lean on him,” Zurito said. “What’s holding it up?”
“He’s coming now,” Manuel said.
Zurito sat there, his feet in the box-stirrups, his great legs in the
buckskin-covered armor gripping the horse, the reins in his left hand,
the long pic held in his right hand, his broad hat well down over his
eyes to shade them from the lights, watching the distant door of the
toril. His horse’s ears quivered. Zurito patted him with his left hand.
The red door of the toril swung back and for a moment Zurito looked into
the empty passageway far across the arena. Then the bull came out in a
rush, skidding on his four legs as he came out under the lights, then
charging in a gallop, moving softly in a fast gallop, silent except as
he woofed through wide nostrils as he charged, glad to be free after the
dark pen.
In the first row of seats, slightly bored, leaning forward to write on
the cement wall in front of his knees, the substitute bull-fight critic
of _El Heraldo_ scribbled: “Campagnero, Negro, 42, came out at 90 miles
an hour with plenty of gas——”
Manuel, leaning against the barrera, watching the bull, waved his hand
and the gypsy ran out, trailing his cape. The bull, in full gallop,
pivoted and charged the cape, his head down, his tail rising. The gypsy
moved in a zigzag, and as he passed, the bull caught sight of him and
abandoned the cape to charge the man. The gyp sprinted and vaulted the
red fence of the barrera as the bull struck it with his horns. He tossed
into it twice with his horns, banging into the wood blindly.
The critic of _El Heraldo_ lit a cigarette and tossed the match at the
bull, then wrote in his note-book, “large and with enough horns to
satisfy the cash customers, Campagnero showed a tendency to cut into the
terrane of the bull-fighters.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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