The Book of Duels Read Online Free PDF Page B

blackbirds, and I am kneeling half blind in the water when a chill-shadow covers me, a silhouette horse rearing, its stockinged hooves thrashing, and I make out its belly and chest and neck and giant head, and I know I should not be here and I know I should not have befriended Custer. I should not have translated the Blue Coat treaties, which I knew to be lies and, because they came from my lips, became my lies too. I should have stayed with Magpie as she suckled our newborn and I should have chased our children about the teepee, laughing, and I should have roasted them rabbits on spits as the moon crested the hills and the ponies whinnied in the distance. I should have made clear to Custer that Sioux and buffalo are not two but one and that slaughter of the animal is slaughter of the man. I should have killed Custer in his sleep. I should have braided my horse’s mane with feathers and colored twine, put my blueclay handprint on its haunch and ridden alongside this warrior here who now sets his pinto down, the man rising in sight like something come over the horizon, yet he remains only a shadow, a shade, with his hatchet held high.
    I put my arms across my bloody face as if to block a brilliant light but then drop them by my sides and rise to my feet and raise my chin and say in my purest Lakota, Go ahead, tanhanši, and try to cleave me in two any more than I already am .

Fiesta de Semana Santa: Fuego v. Lopez y Avaloz
    During the Fifth Corrida de Toros of Easter Sunday in Granada, Spain,
    March 27, 1932



Sueño de Fuego, 5, 584 Kilos,
    Miura Bull from La Ganadería Miura Lineage
     
    S cratch and snort and huff and puff and put my hoof-print in this earth—this my place and this my time and here I’ve come to fuck or fight—here I find no cow nor steer to my delight, so stomp and spit and huff and thrust and put my rut in this beast here—six legs, it has, three arms, two heads—has it come to muscle me, to make a morsel out of me—but truth be told, I want it more, so I drive my horn straight through its torso, and even as it barbs my hide, I lift it from the earth, shift my hump and dump it rump-wise and tear its insides out—I stomp and bellow, grumble and dig and suffer as it dies.
    Jabbed and hooked four men today and drove them each and all away—they barbed and barbed but I drove them each away—now comes their god, skin of shiny lights, who cries and spins and shouts and hides behind a bright red cape that goes a swishy sway, and it ripples like heifer scruff when I mount and huff and puff and grunt my calf-make rut—I rush and rush but it twirls and I spin and crash and fall again until the red is me running from my snoring snout and coming in strings from my open mouth—still the cape goes wiggle waggle more—I rake my hoof and miss my mark and grunt and puff and thrust my horn twice more into earth, holes each the size of this god’s waist—about me roars the horde who wave their small white rags and shriek for ears and tail and more— Toro , he cries and Toro , again—and my wind blows out the holes in me and so too goes my blood—I cannot lift my head, I am bone-rattled and beaten, defeated in battle—and now my nape lies smooth, my tense muscles unknot—I’ll soon be leaving this body behind,rise over the moon to the Great Pasture beyond, in time to join my harem of grazing long-lashed gals who will swoon and low when they gaze at me and raise their swishy tails.
    Toro , he calls again, and though my mouth is slick with blood, I will not show my tongue nor shake the sticks stuck near my spine; no, let them whistle till their lips go numb but I will bristle at dirt no more nor snort nor snore nor warn nor bluff, but wait till time is mine and true and ripe with proof, and then, horns low, I will charge.

Ignacio Lopez y Avaloz, 31, 64 Kilos,
    Famed Matador from Priego de Córdoba
     
    I urge the bull to meet my half-cocked thrust and bravely die same as he fought but now he balks and so