The Black Stallion Mystery (6 page)

María had cocked her head, birdlike, but her eyes were as hard and cold as flint as she looked upon the man she obviously considered more of a son than an employer.

“You are too emotional to fight the bulls,” she said. “Even as a little boy you were too close to everything you tried to do. You
feel
too much. You cannot become emotionally involved with the bulls
or you die.
”

Alec glanced at Angel Rafael González. The big man was no longer snapping his fingers to the woman’s words. As he listened to María he was the picture of doom. And although he had silenced his fingers he had no control over the nervous tic below his eye.

“Ten years ago it was racing cars,” she accused him. “Later it was planes. Then came the bulls! First you were content to ride with your
vaqueros
, using your herder’s lance to tumble young bull calves in moving
them from field to field. Soon this, too, bored you. So you separated full-grown bulls from the herd and met them in the ring. Only then were you happy, for you were defying
death.
” She was crying when she left the room.

González said with embarrassment, “Ridiculous accusations. It is a wonder that I stand for it. Still,” he shrugged his shoulders, “she has been everything to me, as she says, mother and father. But enough of this! Come with me while I prepare for the ring. I have already sent for El Dorado.”

They went to his bedroom where he pulled on two pairs of long white cotton stockings beneath his pants and leather
zahones
. He changed his shirt and put on a short leather jacket. Both were soiled and wrinkled.

María entered the room, her eyes dry. “See how fearful of the bulls he is!” she said scornfully. “He will not let me wash a dirty shirt because it is pale with the sand of the bull ring!”

“I fought well in it,” González answered matter-of-factly. “Please go, María, and leave us alone.” He slipped a gold chain and cross around his neck, ignoring the woman, who hadn’t budged. Nervously he unbuttoned his jacket and reached for a cigarette in his shirt pocket. There was no doubt that he was upset regardless of all his brave talk.

By her ridicule, María sought to embarrass him still more and keep him at home. She turned upon Alec and Henry and said shrilly, “He goes because he cannot help himself, yet he is deathly afraid. You have only to look at him to know!”

The big man took a round, wide-rimmed hat from his closet. Like the shirt and jacket it was soiled with the sweat marks of many hours spent with the bulls. “It is no time to flout one’s courage,” he said quietly, “or, for that matter, one’s superstitions.” Without looking at María he fingered the thin red chin strap, twirling the hat while he finished his cigarette.

“Of course,” he said, glancing at Alec, “it is not so strange that one’s heart beats a little faster before such an encounter. My young friend understands what I mean, since he has many times awaited the opening of a starting gate.”

The woman laughed loudly. “Your young friend would run for his life if the
toril
gate opened and he saw the bull come charging out of his darkened pen! No, it is not the same at all. Your young friend’s heart pounds fast with stimulation,
yours with fear!
”

The big man finished his cigarette and stomped upon it with his boot. “I’m dry,” he said. “Get me water—and quickly.”

María met his gaze defiantly, then poured a glass of water from a pitcher beside the bed. “You are always dry on such a day. You won’t eat for fear of being gored and requiring an operation. But you will drink water, gallons of it.”

“That is my business.”

“
You
are my business,” she answered and there was a sudden softness to her voice. “Please give me peace. Give up this dance of death.”

González laughed and the sound of it filled the room, the house. He kicked a booted foot high in the
air, pretending to dance. “My herdsmen would laugh to hear you call it so. Every day they ride with the bulls and return safely at night.” He reached for her but she flung his hand away.

“Is it not different,” she asked softly, “that you are alone with a raging, fighting bull in a small cage?”

“I have my horse and lance,” he answered, smiling.

She turned to him, her eyes wet with tears. “You are afraid and yet you go,” she said simply.

He shrugged his big shoulders. “Perhaps a little afraid, María, but it will pass quickly. In the ring there is no time for fear.” His voice was as soft as hers. “I see I cannot even pretend to be a hero to you,
ever.
”

“You risk your life for nothing.”

His arms swept gently around her. “It is not for
nothing
, María. I wish you would come just once to see how beautiful it is. Please come.”

She shook her head. “You cannot always win. The bull must have his day, too.” She burst out crying and his big arms pressed her close.

“Now, now, María,” he said. But she turned tearfully from him and went toward a large crucifix on the far wall. There she knelt before it.

For a moment González watched her, then he turned to Alec and Henry and smiled. “Come, the longer we make the bull wait the angrier he becomes.”

Henry couldn’t help saying, “Perhaps you’re looking forward to all this but what about your horse? How do you think he feels?”

The big man smiled at Henry’s obvious sarcasm. “Come,” he said, “I’ll be glad to show you.”

Alec stared at the man’s back. At the other end of the room María would remain at the foot of the crucifix until González returned safely from the ring. Alec looked at her and then followed the two men out the door.

As they left the house Henry asked González, “Is the object of this to kill the bull before he kills you?”

“No one gets killed, Henry,” the big man answered patiently. “Not the bull or my horse or
I
.” He shoved his round hat far back on his head, straining the red chin strap which cleaved deeply into his chin. “You must think of this as Art and not Sport. The beauty of it lies in the skill and agility with which my horse avoids the bull’s charge. I use my lance only when necessary as is done in the fields.”

“And your horse enjoys this?” Henry snorted.

The smile on González’ face disappeared. “You do not believe me?” he asked coldly. “As a trainer don’t you know it’s impossible to train a horse to love cruelty? You will see for yourself how willingly El Dorado faces the bull. He has no fear, having spent most of his life within the shadow of the herd. It is his life just as your horse has been trained to race.” He turned from Henry saying, “But you will see all this for yourself. There is no need to discuss it any further.”

The sky had clouded and a fresh wind rippled the grass between the house and stableyard. From the private ring came the mutterings of the penned bulls. González cocked his head and eyes in its direction and then glanced skyward—nervously, Alec thought.

The boy’s attention quickly left González, however, for silhouetted against the whitewashed wall of the bull ring was El Dorado! A herdsman stood at the head of the black horse holding a long wooden lance over his shoulder.

Henry had seen the horse too for he glanced at Alec and each knew what the other was thinking. They were several hundred yards from El Dorado and closing the gap quickly. There was no question in their minds that this was
not
the sire of the yearlings they had seen in America. They would have staked their professional careers upon it.

“Is that El Dorado?” Henry asked suspiciously.

“Of course. There is no other like him in Spain. He is all horse.”

They neared the stallion. There was no doubt that his midnight-black body carried a strain of Arabian blood from the highlands of Central Nejd. Alec and Henry had seen enough such horses in Arabia to know. And they knew he would have the courage to stand his ground before lions and tigers as well as bulls.
But El Dorado was no race horse and could have sired none!
His quarters were too huge and his hocks too let down and too far under him. They could picture him crouching upon his heavy muscled hindquarters, ready to leap into the air upon an unsuspecting enemy or performing some intricate movement of a finished
dressage
horse.
They knew he could turn on a dime with the agility and grace of a fine dancer, that every movement would be as quick and sure and wily as a jungle cat’s. He had been bred to accomplish such feats and he would have stamped his colts
as his
in one way or another regardless of what mares he was bred to. But to be asked to believe that he could have sired race horses such as the yearlings they had seen was ridiculous! Why was González lying? And if El Dorado hadn’t sired the Sales yearlings, what stallion had?

Neither Alec nor Henry asked these questions of the big man. They knew they wouldn’t get the truth. They stopped before El Dorado, noting the Arabian head with the enormous purple-brown eyes. His neck was short and bulging with muscle. Quality and courage stood out all over him.

González placed a hand on the heavily muscled hindquarters. “See how eager he is to go, my friends! It is more than a week since he has worked the bulls, and he knows what is at hand.” The man’s face flushed with the pride he felt in the horse who danced so lightly beneath his hand. Then he mounted.

Alec and Henry stepped back, watching González take the long lance and sling it gracefully over his right shoulder. They could think only of a knight going off in search of a dragon or a Roman gladiator about to enter the Circus Maximus to amuse Julius Caesar.

The big man sat with easy grace in the deep herder’s saddle that was strapped snugly over a red-and-yellow blanket. The line made by his back and shoulders reminded Alec of pictures he had seen of
centaurs. González oozed confidence, leaving no doubt that he would be bold and persistent in attack.

He burst out laughing at the sight of their sober faces and pushed his round hat forward to a jaunty angle. “You look so worried, my friends,” he said, shifting the lance beneath his right arm and letting the blunt end extend several feet in front of El Dorado. “Let me cheer you up!” His heavy stockinged legs bulged beneath the leather of his
zahones
as he sent his mount forward and rode into the ring.

Alec wondered how a person so big could sit so lightly in the saddle. He waited for González to give the signal for the
toril
door to be opened. The big man reached inside his shirt pocket for another cigarette, delaying the moment of decision.

“Do you think he’s afraid?” Henry asked.

“No. It would be the end of him if he was,” Alec answered.

“Then what’s he waiting for?”

“The right moment, I guess. See how he’s talking to that black stud with his legs, Henry? He has him right up to the bridle, to the tips of his fingers. You’ve never seen a horse collected like that!”

“No, I haven’t,” Henry admitted. “It’s not my business to—any more than it is to see a rider sit like he does. It’s as if he had an iron rod sewn up the back of his jacket.”

They could hear horns scraping now, rattling the wood behind the closed red door. Any second now the bull would come out into this cloudy, overcast day searching for his herd and finding instead a mounted
herdsman. They were glad they stood behind the
barrera
, a wooden fence that encircled the ring. They could just see over it.

El Dorado was the picture of restrained energy. He was ready to go, and impatient that the command hadn’t come. He began dancing in place, his knees coming up high while his hind legs remained still. He snorted constantly.

Alec thought,
“The final moments are always the longest and hardest.”
He felt that his own mouth must be as dry as González’ and he wished that he had some water to rinse it out. He smelled the horse manure in the sand and the tobacco smoke from the burning cigarette which González had cast near him. He could smell the bull, too. Wrapping his fingers about the top of the
barrera
, he waited.

The red door swung open and a big black bull rushed into the arena, coming to a stop in the center of the ring. He did not bellow or paw the dust. Slowly he looked around, his great neck muscle swelling and bulging. It was as if he had all the contempt in the world for those who would try his patience by keeping him confined.

Alec took his eyes off the bull to glance at González. The man had not moved a muscle. Was he pondering the wide horn-spread of this bull? The quietness of the ring was filled with peril.

Suddenly the bull bellowed and pawed the sand, flaying it in the air. He turned his wide horns toward the man and horse. Again he became still; then without a snort, gasp or warning of any kind he swept into action. He raced across the sand, his wide, branching horns
reaching for their target. When they found nothing he skidded to a stop, his horns crashing into the wooden
barrera
. He turned away from the fence, surprised and baffled. Once more he lowered his head and followed the twisting run of the horse.

González had his long herder’s lance under his right arm and was ready to use it if necessary. So far the bull hadn’t come close enough. He touched El Dorado with his legs and the horse moved forward, his bright eyes upon the black bull who was attacking again.

González touched rein and El Dorado went into a long, loping run, leading the bull to the left. The big man sat very still in his saddle, judging the distance between his horse and the bull and bracing himself in his right stirrup. To avoid the bull’s charge by a touch of rein and leg was an art, while resorting to a lance was the work of a herdsman.

He brought El Dorado to a dead stop as the bull lowered his head and charged straight at him. The black horse pivoted swiftly on rigid hind legs as the bull passed a few inches away from him. Riding to the middle of the ring, González stopped El Dorado directly in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold. Now more than ever his horse must be alert, for the bull was tricky and had plenty of room in which to maneuver.