title: Bullfighting: Stories
author: Roddy Doyle
description: "There is not a writer currently working in the English language who can match Doyle for the fluency with which he tacks back and forth between hilarious and the heartbreaking."<br><i><b>--The New York Times Book Review <br><br></b></i>"Doyle never tells a reader what to think and so preserves a sense of wonder and interpretation that is pure oxygen to the story form."<br><i><b>--Los Angeles Times</b></i><br><br>"These stories feel natural, autobiographical, like the kind of thing a man might tell you over a warm beer in a quiet bar."<br><i><b>--The Boston Globe</b></i>
zlib_text: 	
  	
  	
  	
  Desperado
  Diana	Palmer
  	
  
  CHAPTER	ONE
  The	ranch	outside	Houston	was	big	and	sprawling.	It	was	surrounded	by	neat	white	fences,	which
  concealed	electrical	ones,	to	keep	in	the	purebred	Santa	Gertrudis	cattle	that	Cord	Romero	owned.
  There	was	also	a	bull,	a	special	bull,	which	had	been	spared	from	a	corrida-a	bullfight-in	Spain	by
  Cord's	father,	Mejias	Romero,	one	of	the	most	famous	bullfighters	in	Spain	just	before	his	untimely
  death	in	America.	Once	Cord	grew	up	and	had	money	of	his	own,	Cord	had	traveled	to	his	elderly
  cousin's	ranch	in	Andalusia	to	get	the	bull	and	have	it	shipped	to	Texas.	Cord	called	the	old	bull
  Hijito,	little	boy.	The	creature	was	still	all	muscle,	although	most	of	it	was	in	his	huge	chest.	He
  followed	Cord	around	the	ranch	like	a	pet	dog.
  As	Maggie	Barton	exited	the	cab	with	her	suitcase,	the	big	bull	snorted	and	tossed	his	head	on	the
  other	side	of	the	fence.	Maggie	barely	spared	him	a	glance	after	she	paid	the	driver.	She'd	come
  rushing	home	from	Moroc