Free Mexico by James A. Michener

everything, banderillas, sword, how to bow to the president up in his box, how to dedicate a bull to a pretty girl, then turn and toss my hat over my shoulder for her to catch. So in my first fight I was nervous--of course I was--but I was not afraid, because I knew I was prepared."
    At this point in our discussion he hesitated, thought a long time, and said, "Don't use this, Norman, in your story, but in that first fight I also knew something shameful, something quite terrible. I knew that I looked like a matador, and my brothers didn't. They were too fat, not poetic in their moves. They couldn't march toward the bull properly, one foot before the other in a straight line, and when they stood in front of the bull they couldn't profile, their spine curved forward, their neck and head pulled way back. They could not do these things, but I could. The crowd knew it. I knew it. And I think maybe they knew it."
    "How did that first one end?" I asked, and he said with no arrogance: 'The president awarded me an ear from my second bull, and with it in my right hand I marched around the arena drinking in the cheers ... and I've continued marching ever since."
    "Is it true that a crowd of boys no bigger than yourself carried you from the ring shouting Torero! Torero!'?" and he said: 'They did."
    The effect of Victoriano's first fight on his father was elec trifying. The old picador reacted as if he had seen a ghost; a sense of terror seemed to overcome him and for three days he brooded in silence, walking the streets of Toledo and allowing his boys to practice by themselves.
    Then he went to see Don Eduardo Palafox, who was lounging at the House of Tile, and asked bluntly, "Did you see the fights on Sunday?"
    'They were very good," the elderly rancher replied.
    Veneno reached forward, grabbed Don Eduardo's hands and gasped pleadingly: "Tell me, sir. Was he as good as I thought?"
    'The little one?"
    "Who else?"
    The rancher looked at his friend, this ancient enemy of all bulls who had mutilated so many Palafox animals for his matadors, and said slowly, "I think that in young Victoriano you have found what you've been looking for."
    As if thrown into the air by some powerful bull, the old picador leaped up, stormed about the tables, and cried, "I'm sure of it, Don Eduardo! I watched that boy as if he were a vision. He is already better than his father ever was. When I see him face a bull I have the feeling I'm seeing his grandfather."
    The rancher remained seated, watching the white-haired picador, and when the latter's excitement had subsided he observed, "This boy will be far better than his grandfather."
    The words were those that Veneno had wanted to hear, yet he was afraid to believe them. Falling into a chair and clutching Don Eduardo's hand, he pleaded: "Did you see this for yourself or are you merely feeding my hopes?"
    "I saw it," Don Eduardo assured him. Then he asked briskly, "Now tell me, where do the boys fight next?"
    "Zacatecas, on Sunday."
    "I will watch them on that day," Don Eduardo replied, and it was on Sunday, 11 March 1945, in the dusty, mountain town of Zacatecas, where the bullring clings to the side of a hill, that Veneno Leal made his big decision. After the fight he strode, in his heavy picador's costume, to where Don Eduardo Palafox sat and asked the rancher bluntly, "Do you still believe in the boy?"
    "Like you," the rancher replied, "I hold to my belief more strongly than before."
    "Thank you, Don Eduardo," the powerful old picador replied, wringing his friend's hand. "You have made up my mind."
    "Victoriano did it," the rancher said gravely, and the two men separated.
    In the barren hotel room in Zacatecas, as the exciting Sunday came to a. close, Veneno assembled his three sons and said forcefully, "Tonight we begin our campaign."
    "For what?" Chucho asked. He'd had a good afternoon and was pleased.
    "For wealth. For fame," the old fighter said simply. "For a place like Belmonte's."
    A hush fell over the