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Chapter 21
Vaqueros who had been waiting inside the corral converged on their horses with whirling lariats. They quickly immobilized the bear while the crying bull sat in his intestines — a dazed and beaten animal with an eye hanging loose. He was lassoed and pulled out of the corral trailing his innards.
Now what would happen? The bear had won the fight, yet he stood fighting the loops around his neck. People were pointing. Grizzly Hair followed the fingers. Another bull was being brought! Pulled by the ropes around his horns, this bull was fresh and sleek and rested, his horns even wider and sharper.
Sickened by the unfairness and the bloodthirsty crowd, Grizzly Hair watched the skillful vaqueros tie the new bull to the bear, drop the lariats and back their horses to the fence.
The crowd went silent as O-se-mai-ti, on three feet, gauged his new enemy. Yet the real enemy remained the same. This was a bad dream of Condor. Neither bear nor bull moved. People yelled. Men threw rocks over the fence, pelting both animals. Still nothing happened. A San Jose man hurled a flask, which landed on the bull’s rump in a spray of red liquid.
Apparently driven by that and the thunderous crowd, the bull finally charged. The bear, rising to his hind feet, stepped aside and grabbed the bull’s tail exactly as he had done to the previous bull. He threw him into exactly the same place in the fence. Grizzly Hair saw it shake loose from its posts, and knew what would happen. Estanislao was pushing into the crowd.
As the bull struggled for footing the bear bit into the bull’s lassoed leg. Spitting out the hoof, he emitted a spine-tingling roar and hurled himself into the weakened fence. With a loud snapping and crackling, the timbers gave way and the bear rampaged into the carretas.
Horses reared and dumped riders. Carts turned upside down, wheels spinning. Women screamed. The pain-crazed bull also smashed through behind the bear. With a twist of his horns, he charged into the scattering crowd and a woman flew up kicking in her billowing skirts. A fusil thundered amidst the screams and yells from the crowd.
Meanwhile, trailing ropes and parting the herd of horses, the bear loped for the hills on three legs. Excited neophytes ran after him, or the scattering of horses. Grizzly Hair ran with them, hidden like a bird in a flock.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw a scene like the one Padre Fortuni had hung on the pillar — a mass of people in the Devil’s fire. Here, father sun colored the people red. Men on rearing horses wheeled this way and that as they tried to chase the charging bull. Mouths were stretched wide in horror, and the screams were deafening though no individual could be heard.
In the fading light Three Legs vanished over a rise and disappeared in the trees. Thanking him for the message, Grizzly Hair veered away from the chase and followed him to freedom.
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