Mexico

by James A. Michener

  Standing almost face-to-face with the bull, I desperately wanted to photograph that great head—black, powerful, quick little eyes, and those deadly horns, straight, unmarred and unshaven—but when I moved my camera into position Ledesma knocked it away and indicated with a nod of his head that others were in this darkened area too, high above, looking down from a perch that placed the bull’s rear quarters directly under them.

  Because of my long acquaintance with Veneno, I knew he was capable of doing anything to give his son even a slight advantage against a deadly enemy, but I could not have guessed at the outrageous move he was about to make. Perhaps he was going to shoot a mild tranquilizer into the bull. No, his tactic was far more primitive, one sometimes used when a matador knew he had to face a fearful adversary, a strategy I had heard of but never expected to see.

  Immediately after the close of Victoriano’s triumphant fight with the fourth bull, Veneno had hurried to the area where the picadors kept their horses and the reserves in case one got killed or incapacitated during the fight. There he had waiting for him Diego and Chucho dressed in their uniforms, and together they had dragged from its hiding place the extremely heavy sack of cement that had been soaked in water. Heaving and huffing, they had hoisted it aloft to the runway overlooking the bulls’ cages, and there they had positioned it directly over the rear hip joints of No. 47. Now, with Gómez about to start the third portion of his last bullfight, they were ready.

  Within ten minutes, this powerful bull would explode into the arena and start looking for Victoriano with his needle-like horns, but Veneno intended him to reach the ring with his power to kill sharply reduced. As Ledesma and I watched in silence, we heard the picador whisper “Now,” and the three Leals shoved the bag of cement forward, inch by inch, then “Ugggh!” and it fell with a thud on the most vulnerable part of the bull’s rear end where the hind legs were joined to the hip. Ledesma and I, only a few feet away, heard the heavy weight hit the bull and watched as the wet bag slumped for a moment on the bull’s back, then slipped to the ground. We heard the bull grunt and watched as he tried to exercise his suddenly painful rear quarters, and after a few irritated shakes of his legs, he adjusted to the new pain and was again ready to defend himself. But Veneno and his sons could now be sure that when he reached the ring he would have lost that extra degree of explosive energy that made a big bull so dangerous. This one would be slowed down, not enough to lame him but more than enough to retard him when trying to use his rear legs for that sudden burst of energy which could destroy horses and men.

  As Veneno and his sons climbed down from their perch and hastened to their positions for the final fight, I wondered if Victoriano, who stood to profit from their furtive efforts, was aware that his bull had been so damaged that the fight would be unfair. I hoped that he was not, for I saw him as a man striving to be honorable, but in the treacherous world of bullfighting, who could be sure?

  As León and I crept back from our spying mission, we heard the dismal trumpet wail the first aviso to Gómez warning him: “Speed it up, matador! Time’s awasting!” and before Ledesma and I could regain our places in the passageway, the second aviso sounded. We arrived in time to see the poor Indian sweating as he tried vainly to work this devilish No. 38 into position where it could be finished with the sword, but the bull refused to cooperate, even though badly wounded by the matador’s previous thrusts. Slowly, planting its feet carefully and solidly, it staggered on, a foe of tremendous vitality who refused to lie down and die.

  In desperation, Gómez called for the sword that ends in not a point but a dagger and with it he tried to cut the spinal cord with one thrust into the spot behind the horns where the cord joined the head. This was a most difficult operation requiring skill and luck. He had neither, and as he tried repeatedly, with sweat rolling down his face, the crowd began a monotonous chant with each thrust: “Tres, cuatro, cinco, seis…” It was humiliating and disheartening, but Gómez did not allow the jeers to hurry or distract him. On the ninth try he placed his feet properly, as always, gripped the cloth in his left hand so the bull could see, and steadied the nerves in his right arm. Just as the trumpeter started his final aviso, the dagger hit home and the bull dropped dead spectacularly. Juan Gómez turned to salute the president high in his box and that official nodded back. Both knew what a hellish job it was to kill a powerful bull who refused to die.

  Ledesma and I were back in the passageway when the clarion sounded for the final bull. After what we had just seen we were eager to watch how he reacted. He came thundering in looking for enemies but, noticeably to us at least, he avoided pushing off with his right rear leg; it was clear that a new and sudden pain was affecting his charge. I was surprised to see how quickly he mastered that pain, or ignored it, for by the time he reached where we waited, he was galloping at what looked like full strength. The three young Leal men—Veneno of course was in the corrals astride his horse awaiting his call to action—must have observed with relief that their bull seemed just a bit slower than expected; in a crisis this fraction of a second might make the difference between life and death.

  Keeping my eyes riveted on the bull, with whom I now identified, my right forefinger waiting on my camera to photograph his fight against pain and devious adversaries, I watched as he stabbed at the giddy capes twisting on the ground before him. Until the matador stepped into the ring to take charge, it was a rule of the bullring that the peóns could run the bull only with the cape held in one hand so that it dragged. This provided the matador an opportunity to study how the bull reacted, and now Victoriano ran into the arena to launch whatever good passes he could while the bull was still in a voluntary chasing mood. He acted wisely, for when the animal saw the cape that had been on the ground now fluttering in the air, he interpreted it as a new kind of enemy and lunged at it exactly as the matador had planned. The thousand pounds of fire and muscle passed properly into the folds of the cape and out the other side, then quickly turned to catch the foe it had somehow missed. As it spun around I spotted the defect in the beast. Its right leg hesitated for the flick of a second, and the return charge was delayed just long enough for Victoriano to reset his feet and execute another fine pass.

  Satisfied by these explorations that the bull was compliant, he now made one of those instant decisions that are the wonder of bullfighting: he would attempt one of the most dangerous and beautiful of all the passes, the mariposa (butterfly). Boldly he threw the cape over his head so that it came down behind his body, leaving nothing protecting his face, heart and stomach area. One thrust of the horns there and he was dead. Only two rather small triangular areas of cape were exposed to the bull, one guided by the left hand, one by the right, and these he began to show the bull in a tantalizing pattern. Now the left was visible and the bull looked in that direction. Then the left disappeared and the right came into view, tempting the bull to turn first here then there. The matador backed across the arena with the bull following as if the two were performing a ballet, a pas de deux of death. Then, without warning, the bull made a wild dive at the left square of cape and passed under the arm of the matador, who spun as the bull went past, so as to present the right corner of the cape still held behind his back. Twice more the bull charged the bit of cape, not the man, who at the end of the last pass twirled the cape with one hand and turned the bull into a knot, leaving him motionless and perplexed. It had been a masterly performance and the crowd cheered both partners of the dance.

  At this point the clarion sounded and into the ring came old Veneno astride his enormous white horse, accompanied by a second picador who had apparently been given instructions to stay clear so that the bull always struck at Veneno’s horse and not his. The bull, who in the campo would have ignored the horse and had often done so when in the companionship of other bulls, now saw the mounted man as the only adversary in the ring and began a powerful drive that would have carried him straight into Veneno with overwhelming velocity. Victoriano, seeing the peril his fa
ther would face if the bull struck him with that accumulated force, deftly stepped forward with his cape, and slowed the bull’s forward motion before delivering him close to his father. Now Veneno demonstrated why he was, even at his age, one of the finest picadors in Mexico. Leaning far forward to keep the bull away from his horse, he jabbed his oaken staff with its triangular steep point deep into the neck muscle. When it was well seated, he leaned even farther forward till he was right over the horns, still pushing downward, still trying to revolve the pic so that its barb could do the most damage, destroying most of the bull’s power before the final act when Victoriano would have to face him alone.

  The president, seeing what Veneno was attempting, ordered the trumpeter to sound a warning that this first pic should now end, whereupon Veneno treated the crowd to the comedy act of dancing the carioca. Maneuvering his horse by knee pressure, he kept it always positioned so that the bull could not break loose and run away, while with his stout right arm he kept punishing the bull, indeed almost destroying him, and at the same time indicating to the president that he was doing his best to obey orders. It was, I thought, much like the raucous masquerade performed by professional wrestlers in which the villain drags the hero into a corner where the referee cannot see what’s happening and then gouges the man in the eye, bites his ear, strangles him, and knees him in the groin. When the referee admonishes him, he throws both hands in the air and cries: “Who? Me?” Wrestling and bullfight crowds enjoy such nonsense.

  When Veneno finally allowed the bull to run free, his son ran in with his cape and performed a new series of handsome passes in such a way that the bull was left a free choice as to which picador to attack this time. The second picador, still under orders, maneuvered his horse so that the bull had to go back to Veneno, who repeated his crushing performance. I thought that by this time the bull was markedly favoring his right hind leg, but I was mistaken; he was merely gathering strength for one mighty thrust. When it came, without warning, the bull bowled over both Veneno and his horse as if they had been made of straw. Sensing that it was the fallen man, not the horse, who was his abuser, he lunged at the defenseless old man. Veneno was in the most perilous position possible: if a horn caught him while lying flat on the solid earth, there would be no bouncing off or sliding away—that horn would pierce him and pin him to the ground. It was a fearful moment as Pepe Huerta and the peóns of both Victoriano and Gómez sped out to confuse the bull with their flashing capes.

  He was not deceived. Almost as if he were brushing aside the capes, he continued to lunge at the fallen picador, but now a new defender rushed in. It was Gómez, cape flapping in front of him like an old woman drying a sheet on a sunny day, whose bold gesture saved the fallen man. Slowly the bull followed Gómez, able at any moment to pierce the cape and kill the little Indian, but somehow Gómez continued to lure him away. Spectators who knew anything about bullfighting knew what a heroic act the Indian had performed; even those who had counted his disgrace a few minutes before—“Cinco, seis”—now sat mute in wonder at his bravery.

  Victoriano, still confident of his eventual triumph over the difficult little fellow, sought to hammer home his victory by first placing an admirable pair of banderillas and then arrogantly marching over to where Gómez waited. Holding the second pair of colorful sticks in his right hand, he raised his left forearm parallel to the ground, rested the sticks upon it like a votive offering, and invited the Indian to try his luck on this fine Leal bull. Gómez, taken by surprise and aware that he was no match for Victoriano in this part of the fight but always gallant, accepted the challenge. Taking the sticks from Victoriano’s arm, he came to where I waited with my camera and said, “Pañulo?” When I handed him my handkerchief he asked Ledesma the same question and received his handkerchief with an honest blessing from the big man in the black cape: “Buena suerte, matador.” Gómez nodded gravely, for he was about to risk his life.

  Striding out in his bowlegged way to where everyone could see, he stuck the two handkerchiefs in his mouth, took the two banderillas in his hands, and broke them off a few inches from the barbs, reducing them from twenty-six inches to six. Then, wrapping the jagged ends in cloth, and holding both banderillas in the right hand, he began the slow, fatal march toward the bull. “Eh, toro” I heard him call. “Toro!” and when at last the bull reacted, Gómez ran in a wide circle, carefully calculating where he would intercept the bull’s charge. When that spot was reached he leaped high in the air, leaned in over the horns and with one hand jabbed the two barbs directly on target. It was a superb performance, one that could have been done only by a very brave man, but he paid a fearful price, for as he completed his miracle his left foot struck the bull’s lagging right rear foot and he stumbled slightly, enough to give the bull a chance to turn back and rip deeply into his right groin.

  In a flash, peóns from both sides rushed out, protecting him with their swirling capes, then stood guard while medical attendants swarmed in to carry him to the infirmary beside the chapel. There practiced medics cut the leg of his trousers, cleaned the ugly gash without administering an anesthetic, and dusted the gaping hole with “the bullfighter’s friend,” Dr. Fleming’s penicillin. In the old days a matador with a wound like this died four days later of septicemia. Now a wounded man lived, so when the doctors hastily sewed up the hole, they could predict with confidence: “You’ll live, but you’re finished for today.” A junior doctor attending Gómez whispered to a nurse: “And for this year.” So Juan Gómez’s Ixmiq-61 had truly ended in disaster. There would be no triumphant season in Madrid this summer and in the stands Lucha González, anticipating the gravity of the wound, groaned: “Oh hell,” for she saw her chance of becoming a flamenco singer in Spain once again delayed, if not destroyed.

  In the ring other changes had occurred. Now the inexperienced Pepe Huerta became more important; if anything should happen to Victoriano Leal, Huerta would be obligated to fight the last bull to a conclusion. Victoriano, realizing he and Huerta were now partners, invited the young aspirant to place the third pair of banderillas, which he did with less flair than the first time but well enough to gain applause.

  That was the last light moment of the afternoon, for now a frightened Victoriano, with no Veneno to protect him, had to march out and tackle this powerful bull whose right rear leg might be weakened but whose heart seemed more resolute than before. This bull knew how to defend himself. Despite his apprehension, Victoriano remained the gallant. Striding matador fashion to where the actress sat behind his handsome parade cape, he raised his bullfighter’s black cap with its two end points, held it straight toward her, and dedicated the bull to her. Then, in the time-honored tradition of the bullring, he turned his back on her, threw his cap insolently over his left shoulder and stalked out to do battle. The actress, although unprepared for this abrupt conclusion to the dedication, caught the cap and pressed it to her lips, where she would keep it as the last moments of the festival unwound.

  Victoriano’s task was to kill this bull expeditiously with the least possible exposure to those lethal horns. The bull’s task was to defend himself to the last breath of his pounding lungs, the last swipe of his practiced horns. And each had a store of tricks to neutralize the other’s devices.

  When Victoriano tried, in deference to his exalted position and his performance so far, to give his bull at least a couple of decent passes, the animal, now tired and aching from strange afflictions, refused to comply and would not budge from the defensive position he had taken. Veneno, now coaching from the passageway, cried: “Finish it, however you can,” but this prudent counsel of surrender only encouraged the matador to attempt one last pass to show his dominance over even this difficult beast. When the bull saw him approaching he waited till the critical moment, then swung his forequarters about and lashed out with his saberlike right horn, catching Victoriano in the right leg. From my vantage point I could see that it was a serious wound, one that would require stitches, but I judged it would not
be disabling like the one taken by Gómez.

  As Veneno gathered his bleeding son in his arms for the trip to the infirmary I could hear him whispering, “You’ll live. You’ll not lose your leg.” He had learned that it was vital in these first moments to prevent the wounded torero from thinking that he might die. “You’ll live, Victoriano. You’ll be back next year, bigger than ever.”

  While the matador was being carried out the far gates, Mrs. Evans was whispering: “I think I see Ricardo getting ready to make his move.” The young American had edged himself into a position from which he might leap over the barricade and dash into the ring while others were preoccupied with the confusion, and at Mrs. Evans’s prompting I readied my camera, but nothing happened.

  The ring was now clear except for one side where the bull, who remained motionless, protected himself by keeping his back to the wooden barrier that hemmed the arena. Toward him, marching slowly across the sands, came the substitute, Huerta, whose task it was to kill this immensely dangerous bull. The young man did not know what Ledesma and I knew, that No. 47 had killed the great bull Sangre Azul, but he was aware that 47 had already sent two of Mexico’s major matadors to the hospital. He moved cautiously, trying to determine what he could do that Victoriano, a much more experienced man, had failed to do. He was in no hurry for this test of his skill.

  This hesitancy gave young Ricardo Martín, the same age as Huerta, the opportunity he needed. After secretly reconstituting his folded stick and jamming its spiked end into the far corner of his red muleta, he nodded slightly to both Mrs. Evans and Penny, who flashed him the thumbs-up sign. He then vaulted the barrier, and before any peóns or officials could intercept him, was upon the bull and dropping to his knees. From this position he accepted the charge of the bull, passed him handsomely, as the crowd roared approval. Then he whirled about, still on his knees to take a return charge, which again he handled with a flourish. Martín, realizing that he faced two fights, one against the bull, the other against the horde of men who were trying to drag him off to jail, fought a skillful and courageous two-front battle, first running so fast that no one could catch him, then doubling back at enormous risk to himself and throwing a few hasty passes at the bull, who was so confused by the racket about him and the flashing bodies that he continued to attack the one thing he did understand, that red cloth.