He thought of passing the bull closely with the big cape, then remembered the tiny purse he was getting, remembered the fading embroidery of his uniform. The bull snorted, pawed the sand, came at him again. He led the bull wide with the big cape, and the animal startled him by wheeling swiftly, charging again. But he made the wide pass. Feeble shouts of “Ole!” were masked by whistles.
Why risk death for these country people? But this was, in truth, a magnificent animal.
He gave the signal for the picadores and, one at a time, they came through the proper gate on the blindfolded horses. Ricardo Espinosa and Pepe Redondo came into the ring with their capes to perform the necessary quito should the bull knock down a horse.
Paco enticed the bull with the cape, moving aside so that the bull saw the first picador, charged the horse. The picador placed the pic just as the horns hit the heavy padding. The bull, conscious of the sting of pain, surged up with his massive neck muscles, tumbling both horse and rider. Paco made the quito, passing the bull by him while the monosabios quickly got the frightened but unhurt horse to his feet, helped the picador to remount.
As the bull was lured toward the second picador, Paco, to his own intense surprise, heard himself shout, “Lightly! Not deep, hombre!”
The picador gave him one startled look just as the bull charged. Paco cursed to himself. It was to his advantage to have the bull pic-ed deeply, weakened in the mighty shoulder muscles so that the head would be carried lower. He wanted to reverse his orders, but pride would not let him. The other toreros had heard his orders and he had seen Pepe Redondo’s look of deepest respect.
The bull was pic-ed three times, not deeply. And each time he displayed the utmost courage, boring in against the padded horse, ignoring the pain of the pic.
The signal was given, the trumpets sounded and the picadores left the ring. Paco looked at the bull. He felt himself in touch with the mentality of the beast. He could almost hear the bull thinking, “Something has hurt me. I wanted to chase away these silly creatures, but now they have hurt me and I shall kill them.”
The bull was but slightly weakened by the pics. Too slightly. Paco suddenly realized- how he could make himself safe once more without earning the whistles and hisses of the crowd. He would demand to place his own banderillas; the crowd would like that. Then he would make certain of placing one deeply in the wound of the pic, thus giving the bull a hard and steady pain that would make him difficult to handle, but much weaker.
The crowd roared its approval as Paco took two of the slender, thirty-inch banderillas, decorated with bright paper, small barbed hooks on the ends. The purpose of the banderillas, as of the pics, is not idle cruelty. The bull may become disconcerted by charging constantly, meeting nothing with his horns but the wraithlike cape. The banderillas, hooked lightly through the hide, dangling against the flanks, are a constant reminder to the bull of the hurt that has been done him. A constant incentive to charge.
Meat cattle are bred for the sordid death of the slaughterhouse. This proud animal had been bred for the hot, bright, sunlit death of the bull ring, pitting his strength and cunning against the artistry and cold courage of a man one-sixth his size. He would die at last, with dignity, and quickly. In a bull fight is all the soaring pathos of a master tragedy, and the triumph of the courage of a man.
Paco went out to the center of the bull ring and stood fifty feet from the bull. He stamped his foot against the sand and called the bull. The bull began to come slowly toward him. As it gathered itself for a charge, Paco began to move quickly toward it. He was alone in the ring with the bull, with no cape, with no protection but the two slender banderillas. Man and beast moved toward each other. Paco angled his approach to cross the line of charge of the bull. As they met, he leaned in over the horns, placing the two banderillas, their points together, making a quarter-circle away from the horns.
The crowd screamed its approval. The bull turned, but was lured away by a cape in the hands of a banderillero while Paco, shaking his head in bewilderment, went to the barrera to get the second pair. He had meant to place the right-hand banderilla improperly and deeply, but in the perfect moment as he met the charge, he had placed them properly, lightly.
No matter, there were two more. One of them deeply. Once again he performed the “al cuarteo” maneuver, and in the very instant of placing them, of twisting just outside the horn, he could not somehow drive the right-hand one down with all his strength as he had intended to do.
There was a note of hysteria in the roar of the crowd. They had not expected this polished perfection, this calculated grace and courage in the small local ring.
It was only after Paco Solis had placed the third pair that he realized he had lost his last chance of weakening the animal to the point of relative safety. His throat knotted and his mouth dried as he suddenly knew he would have to face the bull with nothing but the small felt cape doubled over the wooden stick, the sword in his right hand. With nothing but the little red cape he would have to subdue the bull to the point where he could safely go in over the horns, sink the sword to the hilt in the tiny place between the two shoulders, no larger than a silver peso.
As the muleta and sword were given him, he felt in an odd trance of both exaltation and fear. Was this the cool touch of the fingers of death? What had possessed him to take the gaudy chance of an unweakened bull of such enormous size and agility. He saluted the girl to whom he had dedicated the bull and signaled that the bull be enticed to the exact center of the arena.
As he walked out he decided that he would perform the safest passes he could devise. He would perform these passes until he could take the chance of a kill, and then he would make the easier kill, sinking the estoque to only half of its full length.
The bull saw him and stood tense, head held too high. Paco Solis took a deep, shuddering breath, stamped his foot, flapped the cape and called “Hut! Toro! Aqui!”
The bull charged, strong and true and straight, and he smelled the heat of it, felt the tremor of the ground as he passed it by with a high pass, a por alto, designed to weaken the animal’s neck muscles as it thrust up at the cape.
The bull made a long charge, stopped. He called it again. Another high pass. The crowd was silent, sensing the strength of this beast, sensing the dilemma of Paco Solis, not approving of the passes he made with the muleta, yet too respectful of the strength and quickness of the bull to condemn Paco Solis for his caution.
The bull thundered toward him the third time. Paco’s sweaty hand slipped a trifle on the cape, swaying the end nearest his body. The bull, swerving in the charge, moved in closer to Paco than he had intended. The shoulder of the beast struck Paco’s side, knocking him two steps off balance. The thunderous “Ole!” of the crowd came from seven thousand throats at exactly the same moment.
The impact of that trumpet note of approval was like a blow against the soul of Paco Solis.
The next charge of the beast was shorter. Paco used the por alto, but brought the beast in closer to his body. Again seven thousand throats roared “Ole!” at the moment of the pass.