All day, in this winter rain, writing of heat and Spain, revising this

Miguel heads for the jeep. I climb in beside him and slam the door and he drives—past the house into the fields of bleached-out grass, over earth rising and collapsing, into the thick of the dust. There are check points—that’s what he calls them—and at each, Miguel hops out, turns the key in a lock, swings open the gate, hops back in, drives forward, stops, then locks the gate behind us, until finally we are out among the bulls, jerking along like some African safari. He tells me the facts as he thinks them up, and when he has the English to explain: The bulls fight when they are four. They weigh 480 kilos. They wear the brands of their birthdays on their back, the cortijo logo. They have nice, straight backs and horn geometry.

We scatter the herd, break them out of the shade until they are near, running beside us—fast in a straight line, awkward on the turns, annoyed. Miguel keeps talking about the finest horns, the best backs, the beauty. In a few weeks, he says, he will take the six bulls that he loves best and pack them into a truck and send them off to a bullring. Bullfighting is poetry and mind, he tells me, and when his bulls die well he does not feel the sadness; he feels the pride.