"Impulsivo"

A full moon splashed its pale silver light along the pastures. From the north, the biting wind driving down from the Sierra Morena.

Instinctively the herd of brave cows clustered together in a compact mass, protecting them against the cold.

Yet, despite the cold, one wide-horned cow split apart from the herd and lurched up a gentle incline towards a clump of trees. Her name was Impulsiva. She tumbled to the ground falling under the branches of a paradise tree, so named because, the Andalusians believe, its leaves were patterned from angels wing's. There by the light of the full moon, Impulsiva fulfilled the destiny she had been assigned on the ranch of Don Jose Cubero.She dropped a bull calf onto the soil of Andalusia.

Francisco Galindo, the mayoral, found her at dawn still under the paradise tree, her with her bull calf, and chose his name

Impulsivo after his mother. This bulls violent heritage was evident in the young bull from the first hours of his existence soon as he could stand and run, he prepared to charge any creature coming within his range.

The Brave Bull

They call them the gates of fear. Every eye in Madrid's Plaza de Toros Was focused on them. El Cordobes to kept his eyes, too, fixed on those wooden gates. He had no idea what kind of animal those gates sheltered.

He had never seen him. He did not know his name.

All he knew of him was written in chalk on a blackboard over the gate:

Number 25 Impulsivo 1,161 pounds.

Those heavy gates began to creak open. "I was not afraid El Cordobes later remembered. "I thought of nothing. I leaned my chin on the edge of the Burladero and tried to stare down into the black hole the doors were uncovering.

Impulsivo burst from the yawning black hole like a race horse in full gallop,so swift was his headlong dash that the ribbons of the Cubero ranch,stood out straight on his neck. His horns thrust from his heavy skull in a broad U, each almost a foot long, each plunging straightforward with a slight upward sweep at its tip. As they should be, they were astifino, fine, slimming down the sharpness of a knitting needle at their points.

They could uproot a tree,or disembowel a man. In a sprint he could outrun a racehorse; and could swivel his massive bulk around with the grace of an alley cat.

El Cordobes sent Paco, his Banderilleros in on Impulsivo.The bull was before him, barely six feet away, his head already lowered for the thrust that could impale Paco on his horns.Paco pulled his extended arms inwards and onwards until they formed a v, rising at a 45 degree angle above his head. He drew his feet together at the same instant he rose unto the balls of his feet and lunged forward, driving his arms down in one quick motion. The metal points of the banderillas cut into Impulsivo, s hide with a dry pop clearly heard around the silent bullring.

It was now Pepin, s turn as El Cordobes second Banderillero.

Pepin started to work his way across the bullring towards Impulsivo.He paused before the bull and provoked the charge,asa he placed the banderillas and pirouetted away. Impulsivo,s left horn chopped upward at the fleeing figure. The new burst of pain drew a furious reaction from the bull.Instead of contining his forward rush, he swivelled around and set of in search of Pepin.

Suddenly a savage voice rang out .Impulsivo turned his massive head in the direction of that noise , it was El Cordobes with his cape dancing magenta and yellow in the middle of the ring. Having now caught the bulls attention with his shout Cordobes now lured him away with his cape. As he did, a polite round of applause rewarded his rescuing gesture.

After a few passes with the cape Cordobes walked away from Impulsivo. and returned to the centre of the ring with sword and muleta in hand. One flick of his rist was enough to send Impulsivo charging at the cloth.Once , twice,three times,the bull charged past him, coming so close Cordobes felt the air his rush displaced brushing his face.

At the end of that circling pass, the flat of his searching horns bumped against El Cordobes legs,forcing the matador to struggle for an instant to keep his balance.

Cordobes walked away to the delirious roar of the crowd,leaving Impulsivo staring dumbly at his retreating figure as though his animal brain were trying to understand why his horns could not find their target.

It was time to kill now, Paco Fernandez his sword handler ready to pass him the estoque,the steel sword with which he would end the life of the bull Impulsivo. As he did he heard a new,approvingroar rise from the crowd.Turning his eyes back to the ring,he saw to his astonishment the figure of his matador marching back towords the bull. "No, no, Manolo!" he screamed."Thats enough!".

El Cordobes turned at the sound of the frightened yell.With a brutal gesture, he waved Paco away. Another voice rang out "Kill him", it was the voice of his banderillero Pepin Garrido.He too,was adding his frantic warning's to Paco's.

The young man in the middle of the ring was not heeding their warning's,he swept his hair back from his forehead.Then, snapping the folds of his muleta, he called Impulsivo to the left again exposing his stomach to Impulsivo's blind left eye and the hooking left horn.

With each pass he now gave Impulsivo, eL Cordobes ran a new risk, a risk of upsetting a fine equation,a balancing of the many forces of the bullfight. I f a matador gives his bull too few passes, his animal will not be trained to take the lure of the cloth, and so, when the moment comes to kill, and the bull must follow that cloth and doesn't, the bull will catch his executioner on his horns. But if the man gives the bull too many passes, the animal will learn the difference between man and muleta.

And so it happened El Cordobes had gone beyond his bull. He had given him more muleta than he could take. Impulsivo found what his horns had been searching for.