clumsiest killer, he ran the sword in three times, and
the kid with the dagger had to stick twice before they finished, Big
Dependence Day Bullfight my jet! This is the worst in years, Fergus made
the only clean kill all afternoon, and I flew every one of eighteen
hundred miles myself to see it, this last bull better be good!" The
little man waved his bag of rotten eggs.

Although the bullfight followed the basic procedures established by
Francisco Romero in the Spain of 1700, changes had occurred, including
the elimination of all Spanish words from the vocabulary of the
spectacle since the unpleasant dispute with the Spanish Empire twenty
years before. The gaudy costumes worn by participants had been replaced
by trunks and sneakers.

A purring grader smoothed the sand. The crowd quieted, except for those
near the box of Ringmaster Oswell. They suggested in obscene terms that
their money be refunded. A trumpet recording blared. A scarlet door,
inscribed, "Moe of Bays Mountain Farm," opened. The crowd awaited the
first wild rush of the bull. It failed to materialize.

GRAND FINALE

Slowly, Moe came through the doorway. Above, on a platform inside the
barrier, stood a gray-haired man who stuck identifying, streamered darts
into bovine shoulders. His hand swept down, carrying Stonecypher's
chosen colors, black.

Moe's walk upset the man's timing. His arm moved too soon. Moe's front
hooves left the ground. Horns hooked. The gray-haired man screamed and
dropped the dart. With a spike of horn through his arm, between bone and
biceps, he gyrated across the barrier. He screamed a second time before
cloven hooves slashed across his body.

The crowd inhaled, then cheered the unprecedented entrance. Killer
Fergus's team stood rigid, not comprehending. Then men dashed through
shielded openings in the barrier, yelling and waving pink and yellow
capes to draw the bull from his victim.

Moe ignored the distraction, trotted nonchalantly to the center of the
ring, and turned his bulging head to examine the spectators jabbering at
his strange appearance. The short horns, the round skull, the
white-banded eyes, the mane that seemed slightly purple under the cloudy
sky, and the exaggerated slope from neck to rump that made the hind legs
too short--together they amounted to a ton of muscle almost like a bull.
"Where'd you trap it, Oswell?" someone near the ringmaster's box yelled.

Forgetting the mess Illard had made with t