English version of El Josco

1. Josco
by Abelardo Diaz Alfaro (Translated by C. Virginia Matters)
Josco's eternal shadow, cast upon the mountainside overlooking the Toa va-lley. Head erect,
rapier-tipped horns stabbing the bood-tinged cape of a luminous sunset. Savage, dark brown, the
fleshy jowls in shadows, his gait slow and rhythmic. The gelatinous slaver fell from the black,
rubbery lips, leaving foamy silver snails on the jewel-green grass. He was sullen in color and in
manner —self—centered, hostile, a tireless fighter. When the stars nailed their small pennants of
light above the black ridge of the Farallon range, I would watch him descend the mountainside
majestically, bend his thick neck, blow his virile bull's breath on the virgin soil and send a long,
powerful bellow toward the low lands near the River.
"All bull, a lusty sire like that, not another like him; wasn't born for the yoke," pale Marcelo
used to tell me. One black, sullen night he had midwifed Josco's birth by the feeble light of a
torch. He had reared him and loved him like a son. His only son. A solitary man, a veteran witness
to the break of dawn, he saw in the bull the incarnation of something of his own manhood, of
his own discontent, of his own obstinate, primitive spirit. And bull and man fused together into the
same landscape and the same sorrows.
Any bull in the neighboring farms who crossed the boundary lines into his territory earned a
bloody brand on its flank, a sure horn thrust, Josco's rubric of siredom.
When the silver horn of the moon was tearing the shadowy curtain of night, I heard Uncle
Leopo tell Marcelo:
"Tomorrow bring me the American bull I bought from Velillas for breeding; I want to start
using him; we've got to improve the brood."
And I saw Marcelo struggling in his strong, primitive mind with an idea much too wounding, much
too painful, to be true. And after a short pause he mumbled weakly, as if his voice were splintered into
sighs:
"Don Leopo, and what do we do with Josco? "
"We'll yoke him up to haul cane. The crop's heavy this year and that bull is strong, can take a lot
of hard work."
"Your pardon, don Leopo, but that bull was born a sire, he's wild, he can't be yoked." And he
descended the winding steps, walked along the moonlit pathway and was lost in the sea of shadows
of the cane field. Wounded, as though they had thrust a sword through the center of his heart.
The next day I saw Marcelo walk through the big white gate that opened from the road to the

2. adjacent farms, leading a huge white bull by a rope. Short-horned, a powerful head with sepia spots. His
broad, dilated nostrils pierced by an iron ring. Pale Marcelo walked along the path by the guava trees
reluctantly, slowly, as though he never wanted to get there.
And suddenly a powerful, piercing bellow came from the maya hedges that formed the boundary
lines of the Cocos' sector, echoing and reechoing from the steep banks of the San Lorenzo River and the
cliffs of the Farallon. A red lightning flash of joy brightened Marcelo's lean face.
It was Josco's war cry, his challenge to match horns for the leadership of the herd. He began to sway
his head like a pendulum. He thrust furiously at the earth, bearing aloft clods of earth and grass on
the sharp-pointed horns. Frenzied, he made frontal attacks at the air, as though fighting against a shadow.
Marcelo, on the slope next to the house, yanked the white bull to a stop. Josco moved with a quick
stride, until he got to the path. He stopped for a moment. He milled about rapidly, and began to prod
the small guava trees that bordered the path. His crowned head became festooned with branches, wild
flowers and twigs. He came on slowly, craftily, with a monotonous, repeated lowing. He stretched up
his head and the lowing ended with a long, clarion bellow.. He scraped the earth with his cleft hoofs and
raised clouds of golden dust. He advanced a little. Then he stood immobile, hieratic, tense. On his black
rubbery lips the slaver foamed in silvery bubbles. He remained like that for a while. He bent his neck,
nose level with the ground, snorting violently, as though he were sniffing a mysterious footprint.
The people crowded onto the porch of the huge old farmhouse. The tenants came from their shacks.
The swollen-bellied children cut the air with their shrill cries:
"Josco's going to fight the americano from Velilla."
In the surrounding hillside, others echoed them.
The children egged Josco on. "Give it to him, Josco, you can do it."
Josco continued to advance, head lowered, his pace slow and serious. Pale Marcelo could not
control himself and let go of the white bull. He squared off distrustfully, began to paw the dirt with
his broad hoofs and uttered a harsh bellow.
"Hey, hey! Yaaah, Josco! " the peons shouted.
"Go on, my Josco! " yelled Marcelo.
And the violent, hard crash of horns sounded. The deafening screams of the peons increased.
"Give it to him! Hey, Josco! "
Heads tight together, black eyes bloodshot and glaring, lips dilated, forehoofs firmly planted on the
ground, hindhoofs widespread, leonine tails erect, firmly knit muscles undulating upon solid flesh.
A collision of forces whose very strength immobilized each other. Neither gave way; they seemed to

3. be engraved on the festive-colored landscape.
The slaver thickened. The fiery lips resounded like bellows.
Suddenly they pulled their horns apart and began to dart at each other with sidewise blows, each
trying to stab the other in the face. The clash of horns sounded like castanets. The dagger-blossomed heads
came together once more.
A tenant shouted: "The white one is bigger and weighs more! '
And Marcelo angrily snapped back: "But Josco is smarter and has better blood."
The white bull, with a supreme effort, retreated a bit and advanced egregiously, putting all the power
of his weight behind his impressively sculptured body And Josco backed up, swept away by that
uncontrollable avalanche.
"Hold it, my Josco! " shouted Marcelo desperately. "Don't run! You're a thoroughbred."
Josco's hindhoofs dug into the ground, searching for support, but the white bull pushed him along.
He bent his haunches trying to ward off the impact, straightened up again and whirled rapidly
backwards, lessening the white one's charge.
"See? He's bigger," a peon said sorrowfully.
"But Josco doesn't run away," Marcelo spit at him.
And Josco's hindhoofs bumped into a mound which gave him support. Firm on his feet now, he swung
his body to one side, clear of the white bull's charge, which continued into empty space.
Takingadvantage of his opponent's loss of balance, Josco turned rapidly and ripped him, tracing a
deep bloody gash along the snowy flank. The white bull gave a snort of pain and fled in fright
amidst the jubilant uproar of the peons. Pale Marcelo cried out excitedly: "Sly bull, smart bull,
thoroughbred! " And Josco stretched his fine body and raised the triumphant head with its
sharp horns golden in the sun, puncturing the blue mantle of the cloudless sky.
The white bull stayed on for breeding purposes anyway. Pompously he would parade the corrals
where the cows were kept.
They tried to put Josco to the yoke with an old ox to train him, but he turned violent,
threatening the lives of the peons. He wandered alone, hostile, and bellowed mournfully, as though
stricken by an immeasurable sorrow.
He would stride over to the enclosure of the bald-headed, slow-gaited work oxen. Raising his head
over the barbed-wire fence, he would low sadly. He would watch the frayed-tail oxen, the lame oxen,

4. the one-horned oxen, the bad-tempered oxen, the castrated bulls.
That afternoon I saw him by the light of a sunset stained with the blood of bulls, on the verdant
mountainside overlooking the Toa valley. He no longer looked arrogant, his crowned head was no
longer reared defiantly against the sky; he looked worn out, as though stricken by a great anguish.
He drooled a little, stretched his head forward and let out a weak bellow, descended the hill and
his shadow blended into the depths of the starless night.
About midnight I thought I heard a painful bellow. Sleep overcame me.
The next day Joseo could not be found.
They looked all around for him. He could not have gone to any of the neighboring farms, for there were
no openings among the maya hedges nor in the barbed-wire fences. Pale Marcelo walked around
frantically. Uncle Leopo suggested, "Perhaps he followed the Farallon path down to the grass
along the river." Marcelo journeyed there. He came back disappointed. Later he went toward a hollow
among the trees on the Cocos' boundary line, where Josco used to sleep after eating. We saw him throw
up his arms and, in a voice choked with anguish, cry out: "Don Leopo, here's Josco." We ran
anxiously to where he waited, head bent, eyes blinded by tears. He pointed in the direction of a slope
covered with roots, wild flowers and reeds. And there we saw the inert form of Josco, hindlegs
spread wide apart and stiff, head buried beneath the weight of the brawny body.
And Marcelo, in a trembling, recriminating voice, exclaimed: "My poor Josco broke his neck in
rage. Don Leopo, I told you so. That bull was a sire from birth; he wasn't born for the yoke."