I barely saw the bull he was fighting, I was too entranced by his body, the way he moved around in gracious circles, like he was dancing, his brown limbs moving like the swaying trees in a wind, arced towards each other to grasp and switch the cape over if need be, and so I could envision myself in his extended arms. His body was large and strong, you could see the broad chest beneath the golden jacket, his face was beautifully still, almost stern in concentration of his art, I could envision his eyes burning down like that into mine.

“El Posador!” I shrieked out, and fell silent again. He had done nothing to merit my shout to the crowd around me, who were engrossed in his movements and otherwise quiet. My shout was a single burst of sound in a moment of tense quiet. I had not even known I was going to shout until the words came pouring out of my lips, full-grown, in all their fury. His head jerked towards me, my overloud shout, and the bull charged.

I groaned in fear. My shout had distracted him. But he stepped aside as smoothly as ever and the next few passes of the bull he handled with his back to the beast and its fatal horns!

The crowd poured out its shouts of praise to this intrepid hero.

“Afraid of the bull, is he?” I said to Manuel.

Manuel could only shrug. His theory of El Posador was gone. El Posador was NOT afraid of the bull! No man, even one out to prove his courage, would turn his back on a pain-maddened bull.

El Posador worked his poetry of motion, he wore down the bull, and then motioned for the sword. I leaned forward with the rest to the very edge of my seat to see the finale. Most matadors fought two bulls, but El Posador, only one, always. This would be his only kill of the day.

The light was getting weaker, the sun was diminishing. The bullfight was over as soon as the sword was driven home.

The flash of steel. The red spray of blood, a clean kill to an honorable opponent. The bull gave a last whuffle and dropped, decently dead.

The crowd waved their handkerchiefs. Both ears and the tail! Both ears and the tail! He must accept it this time for certain!

But El Posador didn’t wait to receive the judge’s call. As always, at this time, with his bull dead, El Posador’s body jerked upright, and the crowd hushed. El Posador dropped the sword and the cape to lie filthy and forgotten in the dust of the arena, and fled, running madly for the exit, out of the arena and into the streets of the city.

I wanted to run after him. But I was with my friends and too far from the exits. One day, I swore, I would come without my friends, and I would sit by the exit and I would dash after El Posador. I would not shame him by telling anyone what I saw if I could but follow him.

I know it would have been simpler to wait outside for him to dash out of the main gate as he always did. But I never did that. If I did, then I couldn’t have the joy of seeing him in the arena, the graceful moves of his body. So, as always, I sat where I was, a miserable coward, and only left with my friends and with the crowds when the final moments of the bullfight was over for another night.

I went home for a light supper and then back into the streets. It was night now, and the hot day departing was giving myself as well as everyone else some renewed energy and interest in life. The air was still warm from the day, and while the summer sun slept at last, we lived and rejoiced in the cool night air.

In the cooling air of day now gone, the guitars began to play. It seemed that night like every corner held a man with a guitar, making its warm melody. So soft, so slow, like a lover’s touch, I felt so much at peace with my emotions, my dreams of El Posador. I could imagine, in those golden notes that floated through the air, that he would reach out and touch me. I found a bench and sat for a time, still tired from the hot day seated in the arena. I would but close my eyes for a time....

It was the moonlight that woke me. I was not sure how much time had passed, but the full moon was now high in the sky. The guitars played on, only a few now, but nearby. Slow, golden notes, soft as the light of the gentle moon.

I looked around and saw I was alone, then up to the sky, and the moonlight was the color of the smile of El Posador. And I saw that the moon bore a ring about it, what my mother always called “the wishing ring.” It was only a superstition, that when the moon had a ring, you could make a wish upon that ring, but I felt a special power in that light.

“Ah, El Posador.” I spoke to that white light. “If I could but hold you for one night, I could die a happy man in the morning.”

Far off, some people laughed, and at first I thought they laughed at me. But when nothing more came of that, and I grew braver in my solitude, I turned again to look at the moon and I prayed, “Gentle Moon, only you know where El Posador hides after the fight. Guide him to me this night, I pray, let me speak to him as I have always wanted to. I can no longer bear the distance between us in the arena, for this day he saw me and smiled at me and my heart is broken in two. Please, take me to him, or send him to me, for this one night.”

Some nights are magical, and the world moves to fit itself to your needs. I heard the footsteps on the alley behind me and I quickly turned and moved to sit down. And knowing the magic was mine that night, I was not very surprised when I saw first the suit of lights, and the lights that glimmered in the moonlight turned themselves into El Posador. So when he turned his deep eyes into my own, I was able to meet them with something like self-confidence.

“I saw you in the arena today.” he said to me, recognizing me at once.

“Yes.” I said to him.

“It was you who called out when I was facing the bull.”

“That was me.” I admitted. “I was afraid for you then. The bull nearly got you.”

He only smiled. “The bull never gets me.” he said.

I knew then that Enrique was also wrong, that he was not possessed by the power of the bull he had slain. And since the magic was mine that one night, the Moon had answered my prayer, I asked him the question that everyone wondered. “Why do you run out of the arena once you have killed the bull?”

“That is not easy to explain.” he said to me, seeming to be willing to explain it. It was like he wanted to talk to me.

“Sit by me, and tell me.” I said.

He moved and sat beside me on the bench. From nearby, the slow guitars continued their warm melody, and he was golden sparkling beauty beside me on the bench, lit only by the moonlight, we were wrapped in moonlight, cool moonlight and warm guitars.

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