I have already arranged for your entry.”

González moved toward the yellow convertible, striding with the easy grace of a leopard. Alec walked behind with the Black, wondering what this man in the well-worn, tight leather charro clothes had in store for them.

Suddenly González spoke. “My people, I’m afraid, are not as impressed by the speed of a horse as I am or they would be here to see the Black. But it is just as well for I imagine you have had your fill of such excitement.”

González glanced back at the stallion; then his eyes rested on Alec in a flat stare. Seconds ticked by before he shrugged his shoulders and, turning around, continued walking.

The Black eyed the covered trailer scornfully but did not object when Alec led him inside. He pushed against the padded sides. The stall wasn’t much larger than the one on the plane. Alec made certain the ropes holding the stallion were tight enough and then went to the back seat of the convertible where he could speak to the Black through the small trailer window.

They drove slowly through the outskirts of the city with its rattle and volley of Castilian Spanish. The language was spoken loudly, rapidly, and his high-school Spanish was of no help to Alec at all. Yet the people on the crowded streets were little different from those he’d left behind on the streets of New York. They were just as well dressed, with the same number wearing dark glasses to shield their eyes from a hot summer sun. They stopped before store windows, too, in much the same way—and Alec guessed that it was no different in modern cities the world over.

Soon, however, they had left the city behind and the convertible and trailer picked up speed. As they rode farther into the country, snatches of the conversation going on in the front seat reached Alec.

“Henry, your picture of Spain is that of a golden legend and a very profitable one—promoted, I might add, by our State Tourist Department in Madrid,” González said, laughing. “Actually, your picture of the Spanish dancer lifting up her arms with castanet in hand and tapping out a taconeado with her feet is no more typical of Spain than a glamorous Hollywood movie set is of your country.”

They passed mud-colored villages with great, vast churches dominating the scene. Over long distances stretched the road and finally they turned off into a lane that led to a wide river. A glorious summer coolness filled the air. The area was thick with trees and irrigation ditches ran from the deep, dark river into the meadows.

González brought the car to a stop before a curved black iron gateway. A sign hung from it, reading:

Donde los toros son bravos
Los Caballos corredores …

“ ‘Where bulls are brave and horses swift …’ ” González translated. “Welcome, friends, to my home and yours.”

“Speaking of horses—” Henry began, only to be interrupted by their smiling host.

“First,” González said, “let us look at the bulls. See them over there, my friend. Seldom do they graze so close.”

The car was moving slowly, and behind a walled pasture on one side of the road the bulls grazed in ponderous silhouette against the late afternoon sky.

“Do not make the mistake of thinking they are like those you left behind in your country,” the man said quietly but with great seriousness. “They are Los Toros Bravos, The Brave Bulls, whose ancestors in ancient days ran wild. They are fast and bold and persistent in their attack on anything outside their own herd. A month-old calf, if separated, will attack a human being on sight. The instinct to run away, to escape, does not exist in our fighting bulls.”

Henry said, “It must not make for easy traveling around your ranch.”

“No, it is not easy. That’s why our horses must be swift.”

“Getting back to those horses …” Henry tried again.

But the man had turned away and once more was watching the bulls in the distance. “I realize that it is difficult for you to understand how we feel about our bulls,” he said. “We have bred for strength and courage and ferocity in our toro bravo as others have bred cattle for the maximum quantity of milk or beef or,” he turned to face Henry, “… as you have bred horses for speed and stamina.”

Now that González had turned in his seat Alec could see his profile again. He found it easier to listen to Angel Rafael González than to look at him. It wasn’t going to be easy to be courteous and polite, to look at their host without flinching before his unnatural ugliness.

“I’m very much interested in seeing your El Dorado,” Henry said.

Alec thought he caught a nervous twitching of the man’s cheeks.