would-be grandee thundered, his muttonchops bristling. These were the last words he spoke, for the invaders instantly shot him, and prepared the way for their general. When Don Alfonso's old horse-faced Spanish wife, screaming, attacked the intruders, they shot her, too. Then they raped the dead couple's daughter and cut the throat of Dona Raquel, the matador's widow. When General Gurza and his men were finally driven from the city, the old Spanish palace was a ruin, its walls knocked down and its tapestries burned by Gurza's drunken lieutenants.
Don Alfonso's business had been failing, and when he died the boys Justo and Anselmo were virtually destitute. But instead of surrendering to despair, Justo, who was a husky nineteen at the time, looked upon his unexpected freedom as a deliverance and at the invitation of the Palafoxes moved himself and his brother to the bull ranch, southwest of Toledo. There he surprised everyone by becoming a master picador. Astride a horse he had natural courage, and with his broad shoulders and powerful arms he had no difficulty driving the long iron-tipped pics deep into the bull's neck muscles. He was a fierce opponent of the bulls and one day a rancher warned, "If you drive the pic so deeply, you may kill the bull."
"I want to," Justo growled.
"You fight that bull as if you hated him like some evil poison," the watcher observed.
'To me all bulls are poison," Justo replied, and from that day his name was Veneno, Poison. As Veneno he appeared in the new plaza in Mexico City, and as Veneno, one of the most famous picadors of his era, he accompanied the Mexican matador Luis Freg to Spain, where he enhanced his reputation.
In Spain Veneno became known as the fearless picador. He would drive his blindfolded horse anywhere to encounter the bull and worked from terrains that a lesser man would not have dared to approach. He exhibited demonic hatred for the bull, and on the days when four or five of his horses were killed under him and he would be prone on the sand, with the infuriated bull trampling him while trying to gore him, it sometimes appeared as if Veneno wanted to fight the bull with his bare hands. That he was not killed before the end of his first season in Spain was a miracle.
All matadors breathed easier when Veneno was in their troupe, for with his cruel, probing lance he punished a bull more severely than any other picador. So during those years, now termed the golden age of bullfighting, Veneno fought repeatedly for most of the giants: Joselito, Belmonte, Gaona.
And he came to know as much about bulls as any man who ever fought. The bullfight fans, knowing this, were apt to shout when he rode into the plaza on some pathetic nag whose right eye had been blindfolded so he could not see the bull about to attack and shy away: "Ole! Veneno! Kill him with your pic." And this he tried to do. Twice in his career he succeeded in so damaging a bull, his lance driving toward the vulnerable backbone itself, that the animal had to be returned to the corrals, where it died. Normally such an act would have been condemned, but with Veneno it was different, for everyone knew that he wanted to kill bulls to avenge his father.
His brother, Anselmo, never acquired the reputation that Veneno enjoyed. Perhaps because he had been left at home in Toledo on that dreadful afternoon when the bull tore away most of his father's head, he lacked the consuming compulsion of Veneno and failed to attain that mastery of bulls that characterized his brother. He became a minor matador, without class, and moved inconspicuously from one Mexican plaza to the next, brave perhaps but lacking fire. He also tried his luck in Spain but was promptly identified by critics as one who should leave the fighting of bulls to others. But he knew no other occupation, so he continued, one of those semitragic men who waste their lives on the periphery of an art that is cruel to horses, bulls and people alike.
Anselmo's only
Don Alfonso's business had been failing, and when he died the boys Justo and Anselmo were virtually destitute. But instead of surrendering to despair, Justo, who was a husky nineteen at the time, looked upon his unexpected freedom as a deliverance and at the invitation of the Palafoxes moved himself and his brother to the bull ranch, southwest of Toledo. There he surprised everyone by becoming a master picador. Astride a horse he had natural courage, and with his broad shoulders and powerful arms he had no difficulty driving the long iron-tipped pics deep into the bull's neck muscles. He was a fierce opponent of the bulls and one day a rancher warned, "If you drive the pic so deeply, you may kill the bull."
"I want to," Justo growled.
"You fight that bull as if you hated him like some evil poison," the watcher observed.
'To me all bulls are poison," Justo replied, and from that day his name was Veneno, Poison. As Veneno he appeared in the new plaza in Mexico City, and as Veneno, one of the most famous picadors of his era, he accompanied the Mexican matador Luis Freg to Spain, where he enhanced his reputation.
In Spain Veneno became known as the fearless picador. He would drive his blindfolded horse anywhere to encounter the bull and worked from terrains that a lesser man would not have dared to approach. He exhibited demonic hatred for the bull, and on the days when four or five of his horses were killed under him and he would be prone on the sand, with the infuriated bull trampling him while trying to gore him, it sometimes appeared as if Veneno wanted to fight the bull with his bare hands. That he was not killed before the end of his first season in Spain was a miracle.
All matadors breathed easier when Veneno was in their troupe, for with his cruel, probing lance he punished a bull more severely than any other picador. So during those years, now termed the golden age of bullfighting, Veneno fought repeatedly for most of the giants: Joselito, Belmonte, Gaona.
And he came to know as much about bulls as any man who ever fought. The bullfight fans, knowing this, were apt to shout when he rode into the plaza on some pathetic nag whose right eye had been blindfolded so he could not see the bull about to attack and shy away: "Ole! Veneno! Kill him with your pic." And this he tried to do. Twice in his career he succeeded in so damaging a bull, his lance driving toward the vulnerable backbone itself, that the animal had to be returned to the corrals, where it died. Normally such an act would have been condemned, but with Veneno it was different, for everyone knew that he wanted to kill bulls to avenge his father.
His brother, Anselmo, never acquired the reputation that Veneno enjoyed. Perhaps because he had been left at home in Toledo on that dreadful afternoon when the bull tore away most of his father's head, he lacked the consuming compulsion of Veneno and failed to attain that mastery of bulls that characterized his brother. He became a minor matador, without class, and moved inconspicuously from one Mexican plaza to the next, brave perhaps but lacking fire. He also tried his luck in Spain but was promptly identified by critics as one who should leave the fighting of bulls to others. But he knew no other occupation, so he continued, one of those semitragic men who waste their lives on the periphery of an art that is cruel to horses, bulls and people alike.
Anselmo's only
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