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some of the cows in the pasture across the road. Alec took another hurried step backward. His hand touched the cold stone wall!
    He climbed as the bull charged, springing harder and higher than ever before in his life. As his fingertips reached the top of the wall and he began pulling himself up, the air beneath him was splintered by the massive horned head.
    Alec dropped down to the ground on the other side of the wall, his wounds bleeding more profusely than ever. But he was thankful to be alive. It was more than he’d counted on.

B LACK M ARÍA
5
    Above the splash of the water from the patio fountain a rooster crowed. Angel González said, “It’s a pity I had to awaken you before the first light but …” He shrugged his big shoulders easily and gracefully without finishing the sentence.
    “It’s not hard for us,” Henry said. “Knowing the light of early morning is one of the rewards of working with horses.”
    “And bulls,” González added, smiling. “But come, let us eat so we can be on our way.” He stirred the thick black coffee at the bottom of his big cup. “María,” he called, “milk, please.”
    From outdoors came the jingle of spurs and neighs of horses. The sun reached over the patio wall and fell warmly upon the flagstone terrace. Henry waited for it to enter the open doors and windows of the dining room. Not that he was cold. He just needed a bit of cheering up and the sun might do that for him. He had a feeling something was wrong.
    “You say Alec went to his horse before I called you?” his host asked.
    “Just a few minutes before. He’s an early riser where the Black is concerned.”
    “It is good to tend one’s horse before one’s self,” the big man said. “Young Alec is to be highly admired.”
    “He’s a horseman,” Henry said simply. He toyed with his fried eggs and his gaze swept the huge dining room with its heavy antique furniture and silver plate, its mounted bull’s heads and portraits, the hanging chandelier and marble floors. He longed to be away from this house. It was too rich for his blood, as was Don Angel Rafael González.
    A great bulk hovered behind him. “More coffee, Señor?” the servant asked in hesitant English.
    “No thanks, María,” he said, smiling but not looking up at her. Like everything else in the house María was big, almost as big as González. She was as gracious as he, too—except for her ancient eyes which said,
“Who are you and why do you come here?”
    Alec entered the room and Angel González greeted him while María poured steaming milk into his coffee cup. Henry noted the sudden raising of the old woman’s drooping, waxen eyelids. Her eyes disclosed the same resentment they had shown when he entered the room. But her voice did not betray her as she asked Alec graciously, “Would you prefer chocolate, Señor?” Her gray head nodded as if she knew what his answer would be.
    Alec said, “Please.”
    María’s voice was too sweet for her age, almost honey sweet, Henry decided. It put his nerves on edge.There was too much bitterness underlying the sweetness. Or was he making too much of all this?
    He turned to Alec. The boy’s shoulders were hunched forward and his left hand was sunk deep in his pocket. Such table manners weren’t typical of Alec. Neither was the turned-up collar of his polo shirt. Henry didn’t have to be told that Alec was up in arms about something and trying unsuccessfully not to show it.
    “The Black all right?” Henry asked.
    “Fine,” Alec answered. “I cleaned out his stall … that’s what took me so long.” He removed his left hand from his pocket to take the plate of freshly baked bread which María offered him.
    Henry saw the heavily bandaged arm. “What’d you do there?” he asked anxiously.
    “It’s nothing. A scratch. I got everything I needed from the tack trunk.”
    “Scratches around a stable are never nothing,” Henry said with concern. “You’d better let me look at