Death in the Afternoon Read online

  The manoeuvring of fighting bulls is made possible by the operation of the herd instinct which makes it possible to drive bulls in groups of six or more where one bull, if detached from the herd, will charge instantly and repeatedly anything, man, horse, or any moving object, vehicle or otherwise, until he is killed; and by the use of trained steers or cabestros to herd and decoy the fighting bulls as wild elephants are caught and herded by elephants which have been tamed. It is one of the most interesting of all phases of bullfighting to see the steers work in the operations of loading, separating, putting the bulls into the runways that lead to the shipping cages and in all the many operations connected with the raising, transporting and unloading of fighting bulls.

  In the old days before they were shipped in their cages by railroad, or now, since the building of good roads in Spain, sometimes in motor trucks, an excellent and much less fatiguing way, bulls were driven along the roads in Spain, the fighting bulls surrounded by steers and the whole herd guarded by the mounted herders carrying their protective lances, much like those the picadors use, raising a cloud of dust as they moved and sending the inhabitants of villages running into their houses to slam and lock doors and look through the windows at the wide, dusty backs, the great horns, the quick eyes and damp muzzles, the belled necks of the cabestros and the short jackets, brown faces and wide high-crowned gray hats of the herdsmen moving along through the street. When they are together, moving in the herd, they are quiet because the feeling of numbers gives them confidence and the herd instinct makes them follow the leader. Bulls are still driven in that way in the provinces away from the railways and occasionally one will desmandar or unherd. One year when we were in Spain this happened before the last house of a little village outside of Valencia. The bull stumbled and went to his knees and the others were past when he got to his feet. The first thing he saw was an open door with a man standing in it. He charged at once, lifted the man clear out of the door, and swung him back over his head. Inside the house he saw no one and went straight through. In the bedroom a woman sat in a rocking chair. She was old and had not heard the commotion. The bull demolished the chair and killed the old woman. The man who had been tossed in the doorway came in with a shotgun to protect his wife who was already lying where the bull had tossed her into a corner of the room. He fired point blank at the bull but only tore up his shoulder. The bull caught the man, killed him, saw a mirror, charged that, charged and smashed a tall, old-fashioned armoire and then went out into the street. He went a little way down the road, met a horse and cart, charged and killed the horse and overturned the cart. The driver stayed inside it. The herders by this time were coming back down the road, their galloping horses raising a great dust. They drove out two steers that picked the bull up and, as soon as there was a steer on each side of him, his crest lowered, he dropped his head and trotted, between the two steers, back to the herd.

  Bulls in Spain have been known to charge a motor car and even, getting onto the tracks, to stop a train, refusing to back up or leave the track when the train stopped and when, with much blowing of the whistle the train finally advanced, charging the engine blindly. A really brave fighting bull is afraid of nothing on earth and in various towns in Spain in special and barbarous exhibitions a bull has charged an elephant repeatedly; bulls have killed both lions and tigers, charging these animals as blithely as they go for the picadors. A true fighting bull fears nothing and, to me, is the finest of all animals to watch in action and repose. From a standing start a fighting bull will outrun a horse for twenty-five yards although a horse will beat him in fifty yards. The bull can turn on his feet almost as a cat does, he can turn much quicker than a polo pony, and at four years he has the strength in his neck and shoulder muscles to lift a horse and rider and throw them over his back. Many times I have seen a bull attack the inch-thick wooden planks of the barrera with his horns, or horn rather, for he uses either the one or the other, and splinter the planks into bits, and there is, in the bull ring museum at Valencia, a heavy iron stirrup that a bull from the ranch of Don Esteban Hernandez perforated with a horn stroke to the depth of four inches. This stirrup is preserved not because it is unique for having the horn driven through it but because of the fact that on this occasion the picador was miraculously not wounded by the horn stroke.

  There is a book, now out of print in Spain, called Toros Celebres, which chronicles, alphabetically by the names the breeders gave them, the manner of dying and feats of some three hundred and twenty-two pages of celebrated bulls. At random you can take Hechicero, or the Wizard, from the ranch of Concha and Sierra, a gray bull fought in Cadiz in 1844 who sent to the hospital all the picadors of all the matadors of the fight, a minimum of seven men, in addition to killing seven horses. Vibora, or the Viper, from the ranch of Don Jose Bueno, a black bull, fought at Vista Alegra, the 9th of August, 1908, as he came into the ring, jumped the barrera and gored the bull ring carpenter, Luis Gonzales, giving him an enormous wound in the right thigh. The matador charged to kill Vibora, was unable to do so and he was returned to the corrals. That is not the sort of case which would be long remembered except, perhaps, by the carpenter, and Vibora was probably included in the book more because of the timeliness of his action and the recent impression he had made on possible buyers of the book than for any permanent motive. There is no record of what the matador named Jaqueta, whose only appearance in history is this one action, went through before he was declared unable to kill Vibora, and the bull may have been more memorable for more than the not exceptional goring of the carpenter. I have seen two carpenters gored myself and have never written a line about it.

  The bull Zaragoza, raised by the Lesireas ranch, while being taken to the ring at Moetia, Portugal, on the 2nd of October, 1898, broke out of his cage and pursued and wounded many people. He pursued a boy who ran into the town hall, and the bull, pursuing the boy, climbed the stairs to the first floor, where, according to the book, he caused great destruction. He probably did.

  Comisario, of the ranch of Don Victoriano Ripamilan, a red bull with the eye of a partridge and wide horns, was the third bull fought in Barcelona on the 14th of April, 1895. He jumped the barrera and got into the grandstand, and, driving through the spectators, the book says, produced the imagined disorder and damage. The civil-guard, Isidro Silva, drove his sabre into him and the corporal of the civil-guards, Ubaldo Vigueres, shot at him with his carbine, the bullet passing through the neck muscles of the bull and lodging in the left breast of the bull ring servant, Juan Recaseus, who died on the spot. Comisario was finally lassoed and killed with dagger strokes.

  None of these occurrences belong to the realm of pure bullfighting except the first, nor does the case of Huron, a bull of the ranch of Don Antonio Lopez Plata, which fought a Bengal tiger on the 24th of July, 1904, in the Plaza of San Sebastian. They fought in a steel cage and the bull whipped the tiger, but in one of his charges broke the cage apart and the two animals came out into the ring in the midst of the spectators. The police, attempting to finish the dying tiger and the very live bull, fired several volleys which "caused grave wounds to many spectators." From the history of these various encounters between bulls and other animals I should say they were spectacles to stay away from, or at least to view from one of the higher boxes.

  The bull Oficial, from the ranch of the Arribas brothers, fought in Cadiz the 5th of October, 1884, caught and gored a banderillero, jumped the barrera and gored the picador Chato three times, gored a civil-guard, broke the leg and three ribs of a municipal guard, and the arm of a night watchman. He would have been an ideal animal to turn loose when the police are clubbing manifestants in front of the city hall. Had he not been killed a strain of police-hating bulls might have been bred which would give the populace the advantage they lost in street fighting with the disappearance of the paving stone. A paving stone at short range is more effective than a club or sabre. The disappearance of cobble and paving stones has been more of a deterrent to the overthrowing of
governments than machine guns, tear bombs and automatic pistols. For it is in the clashes when the government does not want to kill its citizens but to club, ride down and beat them into submission with the flat of a sabre that a government is overthrown. Any government that uses machine guns once too often on its citizens will fall automatically. Régimes are kept in with the club and the blackjack, not the machine gun or bayonet, and while there were paving stones there was never an unarmed mob to club.

  The type of bull the aficionados of bullfighting rather than police-fighting would remember is Hechicero, whose feats were performed in the ring against trained bullfighters and in the face of punishment. It is the difference between street fights which are usually infinitely more exciting, portentous and useful, but out of place here, and the winning of a championship in boxing. Any bull might, on escaping, kill a number of people and smash up much property without taking punishment, but in the confusion and excitement of a bull getting into the grandstand the people who are in his way are in much less danger than a bullfighter is at the moment of killing, for the bull, when confused and in a mob of people, charges blindly and does not aim his horn strokes. A bull that jumps the barrera, unless he makes the leap while pursuing the man, is not a brave bull. He is a cowardly bull who is simply trying to escape the ring. The really brave bull welcomes the fight, accepts every invitation to fight, does not fight because he is cornered, but because he wants to and this bravery is measured, and can only be measured, by the number of times he freely and willingly, without pawing, threatening, or bluffing, accepts combat with the picador and whether, when the steel point of the pic is sunk in his muscles of neck or shoulder, he insists under the iron and continues his charge after he begins to really receive the punishment, until man and horse are thrown. A brave bull is one that, without any hesitation and in approximately the same part of the ring, will charge the picadors four times, paying no attention to the punishment he receives and each time charging with the steel in him until he has reversed the rider and horse.

  It is only by his conduct against the pic that the bravery of a bull can be judged and appreciated, and the bravery of the bull is the primal root of the whole Spanish bullfight. The bravery of a truly brave bull is something unearthly and unbelievable. This bravery is not merely viciousness, ill-temper, and the panic-bred courage of a cornered animal. The bull is a fighting animal and where the fighting strain has been kept pure and all cowardice bred out he becomes often, when not fighting, the quietest and most peaceful acting in repose, of any animal. It is not the bulls that are most difficult to handle that make the best fights. The best of all fighting bulls have a quality, called nobility by the Spanish, which is the most extraordinary part of the whole business. The bull is a wild animal whose greatest pleasure is combat and which will accept combat offered to it in any form, or will take up anything it believes to be an offer of combat; yet the very best fighting bulls of all often recognize and know the mayoral or herder who is in charge of them on the ranch and on their trip to the ring, and will even allow him to stroke and pat them. I have seen a bull which in the corrals allowed the herder to stroke its nose, curry it like a horse, and even mount on its back, go into the ring without any preliminary excitement or goading, charge the picadors again and again, kill five horses, do its best to kill banderilleros and matador and be, in the ring, vicious as a cobra and brave as a charging lioness.

  Of course not all bulls are noble, for one that the mayoral can make friends with, there are fifty that will charge even when he is bringing them food if they see any movement which makes them think he is challenging them. Neither are all bulls brave. When they are two years old they are tested for bravery by the breeder, being confronted with a picador on horseback either in a closed corral or on the open range. The year before they were branded, being thrown by men on horseback who tumble them over with a long blunt pole, and when, at two years, they are tested against the steel-tipped lances of the picadors they already have their numbers and names, and the breeder makes a note of the manifestations of bravery given by each one. Those that are not brave, if the bull breeder is scrupulous, are marked for veal. The others are marked in the book according to their bravery shown so that when he makes up a corrida of six bulls to ship away to some ring the breeder may dose the quality as he desires.

  Branding is done as it is on ranches in the cattle-raising country of the American west except for the precautions necessary for separating the calves from their mothers, the necessity not to injure their horns or eyes and the complications of the marking. The branding irons are heated in a big fire and consist of the brand of the bull raiser, which is usually a combination of letters or a crest, and ten irons bearing the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. The branding irons have a wooden handle and the points that are in the fire are heated red hot. The calves are in one corral, the fire and the irons in another; the two connected by a swinging door, and when the door is open the vaqueros drive them, one at a time, into the branding corral where they are thrown and held. It takes from four to five men to hold a fighting-bull calf still and they must be careful not to injure the budding horns, for a calf whose horns are injured will never be accepted for a formal bullfight, and the breeder then must sell him for a novillada or defective bullfight and lose at least two-thirds of his probable value. Also they must be very careful of their eyes since a straw in the eye may make a defect of vision that will unfit the bull for the ring. When they are branded one man holds the head, and the others the legs, body and tail. The calf's head is usually placed on a sack of straw to protect it as much as possible, the legs are tied together and the tail pulled forward between the legs. The main brand is placed on the right hind quarters and the numbers along the flank. Both male and female calves are numbered. After the brands are on, the ears are slit or clipped with the sign of the ranch and the hairs at the end of the tails of the male calves are snipped with scissors so that they will grow out long and silky. Then the calf is released, gets up furious, charges everything and anything it sees and finally goes out of the opened door of the branding corral. The herradero or branding day is the noisiest, dustiest, most confused of all operations in bullfighting. When a Spaniard wishes to describe the utter confusion of a bad bullfight he compares it to a herradero.

  The actual testing for bravery, the part of it which takes place in a closed corral, is the quietest of operations. Bulls are tested when they are two years old. At a year they are too young and not powerful enough to stand it, and at three years they are too powerful, too dangerous and would remember it too well. If they are tested in a closed corral this will be either square or round, fitted with burladeros or plank shelters for a few men with capes to stand behind. These are professional fighters, or amateurs who have been invited to the testing, being promised the chance of practicing with the female calves, and they take the calves in turn for their workouts.

  The whole corral is usually about thirty yards across, or half the size of a major bull ring, the two-year-old bulls are in an adjacent corral and are let into the testing corral one at a time. When they come in, a picador, who wears the leather chaps and short jacket of a bull herder, is waiting for them, holding a long pic about twelve feet long and with a triangular steel point slightly shorter than that used in the actual fight. He places his horse with his back turned toward the gate the young bull has entered by and waits quietly. No one in the corral says a word and the picador does nothing to excite the bull, for the most important part of the testing is the willingness with which the bull charges without being harassed or annoyed in any way.

  When the young bull charges every one notes his style; whether he charges from a distance, without pawing the ground first or without any preliminary bawling; when he comes at the horse whether he keeps his feet well back and thrusts with full power, keeping on pushing to reach the man and animal when the steel goes into his muscle, using the full force of his hind legs and the small of his back; or whether he gets his feet forward
and only chops with his neck to try and get rid of the pic, turning quickly and quitting the charge when he is punished. If he does not charge at all he is, if the owner is scrupulous, certified for castration and the meat market. If he is sentenced to this the owner calls out "buey" or ox instead of saying "toro," which means the bull has been approved for the ring.

  If the bull knocks over horse and man, and sometimes even at two years they are able to, the bullfighters must take him away with their capes, but ordinarily the bulls are not allowed to see the capes at all. When they have charged the picador once, or at most twice, if their style and probable bravery could not be judged in the first charge, the gate to the open range is opened and they are allowed to go free. How they accept this freedom, whether they are eager or reluctant for it; hurrying off or turning at the gate to look back, wanting to charge again, are all valuable indications of how they will act in the ring.

  Most breeders are reluctant to have the bulls charge more than once. They feel that a bull has only so many pics in him to accept. That if he takes two or three in the testing that is three less he will take in the ring, and so they put their faith in the lineage of the bulls and do the real testing on those bulls that are to be used at stud and on the cows. They believe that the get of an exceptional bull and really brave females are all proper bulls, and they call every two-year-old "toro" that is perfect of horn and body without making any practical test of their bravery.

  Cows which are to be used for breeding are sometimes allowed to charge the testing picador as many as twelve or fifteen times and are passed with both cape and muleta by the bullfighters to test their charging quality and their aptitude for following the cloth. It is most important that the cows be of great bravery and that they take the cloth well, as these are qualities which they transmit to their offspring. They should be strong, well built, and sturdy. On the other hand if they have defects of horn this is not important as these are not generally transmitable. A tendency to shorter horns can be transmitted and breeders who are trying to make their product highly acceptable to bullfighters, so that these will select this breeders' bulls when they have an opportunity in their contracts to specify the bulls to be fought, often try to breed down the length of horn by careful selection, trying to keep the length of horn to the minimum that the government delegates will allow and breed for a low-slanting horn which will pass below the knee when the bull's head is lowered in charging, rather than a high horn that will pass higher and more dangerously as the man goes in to kill.