The Old Bull's Broken Horn

“What can I do for you?” the Spaniard behind the bar asked. It was a humid summer day, and the air was thick with a lingering sweat.

“Uno cerveza, por favor,” Winston said as he limped into the relative shelter of the bar. It was the last bar on the edge of town, and his only chance to escape the humidity of the day for a few passing moments before continuing his trek.

“Please, friend, I am more than happy to speak in English,” the Spaniard said. However, his accent did not share his confidence.

“You’re not from here,” Winston observed. He pulled back a wooden stool that scraped across the ramshackle floorboards and took a seat. Beside him, he rested his cane against the bar. “I’ve traveled enough to notice a Spaniard far from home.”

“A good ear,” the Spaniard chuckled as he poured a cloudy glass full of dark beer.

Winston took the dark glass and drank it down greedily. “So, what brings a Spaniard to Zapala?” he asked after he finished. His voice was filled with gravel.

“Oh, this and that,” the Spaniard said. “Mostly mi familia.”

“Mostly?” Winston inquired. It was barely passed noon and no other patrons entered the dingy bar to disturb their conservation.

“Si, well, mostly because we were driven out.” The Spaniard thought for a moment. “It would have been Agosto—August,” the Spaniard corrected, “of ’36. Nacional fighters came and removed my wife and I from our home. Took everything. We had nothing left. Her familia was from Argentina, so this is where we came. I worked along the Portuguese coast as a fisherman until we had enough to make the trip. That was twelve years ago.”

Winston swirled the swill that remained in the glass and stroked his coarse grey beard. “Would you ever go back?” he asked.

“To España?” the Spaniard laughed as the crow’s feet around his olive eyes pulled tight. His smile was wide and friendly and the few teeth that weren’t missing glinted gold. “No, señor, this is my home now. My wife passed two years after we came here. To leave would be to leave her. I could never.” The Spaniard shook his head. “But you ask about me, señor. What about you? What has brought you so far from your home? You are no Argentine.”

“No, I am not,” Winston admitted. “Like you, I came here to escape fighting.” He picked up his oak cane and tapped it against his mostly useless right leg. “I was hit by a piece of artillery the second time the Germans tried to cross the Marne at the end of the Great War." Winston sat lost in thought for a moment. "The Great War,” he scoffed. “You want to know the greatest part? The tank that fired that piece of artillery was as American as I am. 3rd Infantry. I could practically see the shock on their faces when they fired their round short. Stupid bastards.” Winston groaned and readjusted his leg. “But I don’t know who’s stupider. Them for hitting me or me for climbing out of that damn trench in the first place.” His shrug was as dismissive as it was weary. “Oh, well. That was a lifetime ago. Those dumb bastards are probably dead bastards now. We survived that hell, but hell still waits for us all in the end.”

“So, you came here after the war?” the Spaniard asked.

“More or less. I wanted to be as far away from all the noise and commotion as I could get. And traveling from bar to bar, eventually that led me here. To a town at the end of the world.”

“To Zapala? I suppose that is about as far from the world as you can get.”

Winston nodded. “Took up work as a gaucho after that. My leg had mostly healed, and I could ride well enough on horseback. So, I took up work with a local ranchero and tended to his cattle. Ranged nearly from Cape Horn to the Pampas for the most part. That was until ’33.”

“Where did you go after that?” the Spaniard asked.

“Been in hospitals for the most part since.”

“Why is that?”

"A feral bull,” Winston replied. “A big, mean son-of-a-gun that broke loose from a neighboring ranch. Señor De León, the man whose bull it was, sent two of his gauchos to go capture or kill it and I joined them.”

“To kill it?” the Spaniard objected.

“It was too wild. Señor De León said it had already broken his nephew’s arm when he tried to stable it the winter before. Once it had broken out, he knew it was too aggressive to be left alone—and he was right. We found it in an open field beneath a mountain. It was barely spring, and we found it in the early morning when we started our search for the day. I was a gaucho for nearly fifteen years, but that bull was the biggest that I’d ever seen. It was too big to ever hope to bring back, so we knew we had to kill it before it could hurt a person or the livestock. So, all three of us grabbed our Mondragón rifles and we snuck up on it just after dawn. It was Santiago, Martín, and myself facing off against this ungodly bull. Every breath he took you could see the heat from his nostrils. But we planned to approach it and get in our rifle sights. That was the plan until Martín set it off. He stepped on a patch of snow that crunch under his foot and that was that.”

“Oh, no” the Spaniard interrupted.

“I’ve never seen an animal go so utterly berserk before. It gored him before he was even able to get a shot off. Santiago and I started shooting as soon as we could, but it barely noticed. It threw Martín off his horn and into a snowdrift. After that it turned toward Santiago. Poor bastard tried to get out of the way. He rose the butt of his rifle and tried to brace himself as best he could, but that monster bull cracked the wooden butt and his horn along with it just to get at him. What a sight that was. Then it turned toward me. With its bloody and cracked horn, it ran full tilt at me and I kept firing. Santiago, the poor bastard, saved my life that day. When that bull reached me, it hit me—well it hit me harder than I’ve ever been hit before, even harder that that artillery piece. He nearly tore my whole damn leg off, but I dodged out of the way toward that broken horn and it gave way. That’s the only reason I still have this.” Winston patted his right leg with his cane.

“And what of the bull?”

“On its next charge I managed to get a shot off.” Winston pointed right between the Spaniards almond eyes. “Bullseye.”

The Spaniard laughed and clapped triumphantly, "Dios mío! My god! What a shot! What did you do after that?”

Winston shrugged. “I lay at the bottom of that snow capped peak for the better part of the day. I tended to my leg and bandaged it as best as I could. And at nightfall I buried Martín and Santiago on that Patagonian plain.”

The Spaniard made a sign of the cross on his forehead and began pouring another beer. “For all of that I think you deserve another drink. Still, why have you come back after all this time? No offense, señor, but I think your bull fighting days are behind you.”

“I agree,” Winston said with a grunt. “Still, when you reach my age, you have few friends left and I came to visit mine.”

“And who would that be?”

“Señor Peron, the ranchero whose cattle I tended to all those years ago.”

The Spaniard’s pouring turned to a trickle as he set the half full beer glass down. “Oh, señor, I am so sorry you came all this way only for me to tell you.” He made another sign of the cross. “Señor Peron passed away last winter. His son and daughter sold his farm and moved to Buenos Aires in the spring.

“Did he?” Winston ruminated for a moment. “Another poor bastard.” Winston pulled his seat back from the bar and stood as best as he could with his cane and bad leg. “Well, I suppose I have no reason to stay here then.”

“Please, señor, you should not have made this trip for nothing. You are more than welcome to stay with me. We can visit where Señor Peron is buried if you’d like. I am sure we can find it.”

“No but thank you. I’ve seen enough of buried friends, and I prefer the company of the one’s who are alive. I know hell’s waiting for me one day soon and I’d like to visit the living while I still can.”

“Well, I hope you will visit again.”

“Take care, Spaniard,” Winston said as he made his from the bar into the dwindling light of the humid Argentine afternoon. Each step pained by the remnants of the old bull’s broken horn in his leg that he would carry with him for the rest of his life.