The Long Day of Revenge (6 page)

A full grown bull would have demolished this target, but as it was, Gaditano used his own horns well. With Manolo flat on the sand, the beast drove the right horn into his abdomen and due to his prone position on the ground, was able to penetrate with just the right amount of force.

The onlookers screamed, with Lucinda’s raising above all the other cries.

“Nooooooo…”

Manolo was pushing to free himself from the horn, as he felt himself dragged in the dirt. Suddenly, he was loose and lying motionless as a strange phenomenon took place.

Gaditano looked at him.

It was as if the animal had the mind of a human and knowing the damage he had done, was satiated. Gaditano ignored the capes being hurled before him and on his own accord, went to the other side of the ring to watch the action like a curious spectator.

Manolo pulled himself to his knees, with his hands on his abdomen, feeling certain he was holding back his intestines from the mouth of the wound. Suddenly he was flying.

“Manolo!”

It was Lucinda’s cry in the distance, but muffled.

“Manolo...”

He was not airborne like a bird as he thought, but in the arms of others on the sand, who were rushing him out of the ring, but to where was uncertain. Someone had thrown a towel on him to help compress the massive wound as best as possible.

“Get him out of here!”

“Up to where, God damn it!”

“Hermosillo! Throw him in the back of my truck! Go! Go! Go! It’s the best we can do! Drive like the devil!”

“He’s got one like Joselito! His fucking guts will be coming out! Get him to a damned doctor!”

“Lucinda,” he managed to gasp out, but there was only the whirl of motion and the panic-stricken male voices surrounding him.

“To your right from the ranch property! There’s a hospital on that road into the city! Damn it! Move!”

“Is he gonna make it?”

“Not if we keep fucking around! Didn’t anyone think to have a fucking doctor here today?”

“Piss on that! Go! Go!”

Manolo was hurled into the back of the pickup truck and someone, he thought Rafael Something-or-other, was in there with him, taking charge.

“I’ve got him! Let’s go! Drive like the stinking devil is on our ass! Now! Go! Move!”

In the midst of the madness, Manolo managed to gasp out one request just in case it was his last and Rafael heard. It was not a farewell to Lucinda or a prayer for life, but the most unlikely request of all.

“Tell Don Eliseo not to destroy the bull. Don’t send it to the stockyard.”

“What?” Rafael asked, holding the towel over the wound with his hands as the truck jolted down the road, shaking both of them. “What?”

“Tell him I want the bull. I will be back, and I will kill it.”

“Sure you will,” the banderillero mumbled, trying unsuccessfully to keep the injured man as still as he could. “I’ll tell him.”

Though he should have been concerned with whether he was even getting out of this alive or not, Manolo was more angered than afraid. Gaditano had extracted a heavy price from him. If the tienta wasn’t cancelled outright due to what had happened, he would miss his chance to shine with Esmeralda the cow. Instead, she would most likely go to Gomez and if he had any luck at all, would be the one to catch the interest of the important people watching. He, on the other hand, had shown only the grand ability to fall in the path of an oncoming bull and come close to being gutted.

“Damn that little bastard,” he muttered as he started to slip into unconsciousness. “Damn that little bastard.”

If a demon had entered the body of Gaditano when he charged into the bullring that day, it had left and found a new host, in the form of Manolo Garza.

Chapter Five

The goring had been a blessing in disguise, just like the old cliché said, for word of a young man being badly injured by a calf at a tienta had spread thanks to the miracle of the internet. News of the injury even reached Spain and South America where bloggers and journalists rushed to find out everything about the wounded bullfighter.

Now everyone was strung to find photos or video of the few professional actions Manolo had. YouTube was suddenly receiving multiple hits for clips from his action in Ciudad Obregon alongside Gomez, and some prick had even posted the Manzano ranch goring as well. These provoked a number of controversial responses, with the aficionados all wishing him a speedy recovery and those against the bullfighting wishing him to die. Yet he did not die, regardless of the pros or cons. He lived.

The wound to his leg was superficial, but the intestinal goring had been close to fatal. The major problem was not the wound itself, but the dangerous infection that set in en route from the ranch to the hospital. Antibiotics saved his life, but he was none the worse for wear. He had even been given last rites, but fought back accordingly, wrestling with the angels of disaster until they fled from him in fear.

In no time, everyone was talking about a novice by the name of Manolo Garza.

Public sympathy was with him, which made him a celebrity from out of nowhere, as the promoters contacted him directly to work out terms for contracts in their bullrings. One by one, he conquered these cities. Tijuana, Nogales, Juarez, Mazatlan, Guadalajara, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Torreon, Piedras Negras, and finally Mexico City itself. There, in the largest bullring in the world, he cut ears and tail from both his bulls, proving none of his bravery had spilled out with his blood that day at the Manzano Ranch.

The relationship with Lucinda had flowered, for right after his release they announced their engagement. From a hospital bed, they had vowed their love for each other, and a new beginning had come for both of them.

A spanking in a rodeo ring and a goring on a ranch had changed Manolo Garza’s life more than he could dream.

The Mexico City triumph had been a great one. With the last bull of the day, his second, he took the muleta and sword for the final act where he was to face his enemy alone. As was customary, a bullfighter would doff his hat, scan the stands for a chosen person, and dedicate the death of the bull to the honoree.

Spotting Lucinda, he went to her with his montera or bullfighting hat in hand.

“I dedicate this bull to you, as the love of my life. This performance I bestow upon you.”

Lucinda received the hat tossed to her with mixed reaction, for in spite of what had been done to him on the ranch, he knew she still felt sorry for the bulls and hated the kill. It was annoying.

“Ah ha,” he called to the animal. “Ha, novillo. Ha.”

The bull was much bigger than Gaditano, whom had nearly killed him, but Manolo stood his ground and for nearly ten minutes, executed the most daring passes ever. The crowd was behind him all the way, and all he had to do was kill well to receive ears and tail.

He had tried to explain to Lucinda why appendages were cut from the animals after they died, and she didn’t get that either.

“In the early days of the bullfight, the matador was not paid well, so if he performed effectively he could claim the meat of the dead animal, which he would sell to the butcher himself as an added profit. In the times that followed, and as the bullfighter’s were paid more, they would have cared less about the dead bull, so the cutting of an ear was symbolic of laying claim to the meat which, of course, they did not sell. Somewhere along the line, someone did so well, one ear did not seem enough, so they cut a pair of ears for him. Somewhere again, someone else surpassed that, and the tradition of cutting a tail was born.”

“I don’t like it,” Lucinda would constantly say. “I don’t like it, and I don’t like the kill either.”

“I don’t like it myself,” he answered. “I do it because that is the way of things. There’s only one animal I want to kill, and when he is a full grown toro, I will do so. I haven’t forgotten Gaditano and what he did to me.”

“There you go again…”

Manolo had been afforded a brief moment to think of this as he walked to the fence and traded the lighter performance sword for the actual killing sword to be used to put the animal to death. The weight was noticeably different.

“Ha.”

Again, Manolo approached the bull and after a few positioning flaps with the cloth, profiled for the supreme event.

They called it the moment of truth, for in the process, for a few fatal seconds, he would lose sight of the horn. While moving the cloth with his left hand to the right and across his body, distracting the bull, he would bury the sword with his other hand and bring the affair to a close.

Others had not been so lucky. Manolete had received a fatal goring as he made the sword thrust. So had El Zorro, Pepe Mata, Pepe Hillo, Antonio Montes and Senorito Mexicano. Dead men all, who met their end at the moment of truth. The Zorro goring had taken place in Barcelona in the 1950s and though under different circumstances was remarkably similar to the one Gaditano had inflicted upon him at the ranch.

“I curse the name of Gaditano.”

He thought not of the animal he faced this day in Mexico City, but his hated enemy on the Manzano ranch. The rancher had agreed to hold the beast for him until the proper time, and there they would meet again.

“Gaditano.”

It was this animal he killed within his mind as he went in with the steel, sinking it in the spot between the bull’s shoulders where they opened slightly when its head was low. All the way to the hilt! The beast barely had time to pause and bellow before falling over on the sand.

Delirium had reigned supreme in Mexico City as the ears and tail were given to him.

Manolo Garza had arrived.

Later in the hotel room, he had showered and come out in his robe, smiling in triumph. Lucinda was in a chair waiting for him. They were going to go out to eat late before coming back and hitting the bed for a long session of romance.

“Is there hot water left for me?” she asked him.

The bullfighter nodded.

“Good.”

She arose and started to unbutton her blouse. She had been in these clothes all day and after sitting through the bullfight felt as if they smelled of death.

“It was a great afternoon,” he mouthed, hugging her. “I’m going to have the ears I cut bronzed and mounted.”

Lucinda’s eyes drifted to the dresser and the pair of hairy appendages sitting there, as if appetizers for some gourmet chef. Next to them, was the severed tail he had won from the last bull of the day.

“I hate those things,” she grimaced. “Why don’t you throw them out?”

Not waiting for an answer, she slipped into the bathroom, unhooking her bra as she went. When the door shut behind her, Manolo was alone in the main room and his eyes fell upon his bloody trophies.

It was then an uncontrollable rage possessed him.

“Why don’t I throw them out?”

He thought of the pain he had suffered at the Manzano ranch and afterward, how he had started to become rich. He was putting his life and body on the line, not just for him, but for her as well, and all she could do was show contempt for his art? He had faced death in the afternoon to cut those trophies. They were his badge of courage, and he was proud of them.

“For all that I have faced...”

It was not Lucinda he saw in his mind, but Gaditano crashing down on him, just as it had happened on the ranch. He felt the horn go into him and the animal shake its head upon impact. Though young, the bull knew what to do. He was trying to disembowel him.

“Why don’t I throw them out?”

It was not Lucinda he hated, though he was clearly annoyed, but Gaditano. Never had he felt so much pain in his life. Never did he want to again.

“I curse the name of Gaditano.”

Eliseo Manzano considered him crazy, but he had set Gaditano aside to let him grow. When the moment came, someway and somehow, he and Manolo would meet again, and this time it would be to the death.

“I live to kill and kill to live,” he snarled. He was addressing Lucinda who was in the shower and unable to hear him.

“After all we have been through, you don’t understand this. Not only will you not suck my dick, but you won’t accept my choice of life style. Why do you stay with me if what I do is that repulsive to you, you ingrate?”

The rage continued to build.

“Ole! Ole! Ole!”

He heard the cheers, as they had thundered in the massive Plaza Mexico this past afternoon. The people were cheering for him, the new star who had cheated death. Like Lazarus, he had risen from the grave. Or maybe Dracula?

“Ole. Ole.”

In his mind, he retraced his steps as he slammed the sword home, feeling it sink between the animal’s shoulder blades. Just before he made the fatal stab, the beast had lowered its head, causing that target the size of a peso to open between the shoulders where the blade was meant to go. Right then he had delivered the thrust and it had been deadly. The bull’s aorta was cut and it fell in a heap.

“I am Manolo Garza,” he proclaimed so there would be no doubt. “No bull can kill me.”

He envisioned himself not bringing death to the two bulls he had dropped this afternoon, but the hated Gaditano back in Hermosillo on the Eliseo Manzano ranch. Gaditano was no longer a calf, but a grown bull and Manolo was no longer a rising novice, but a top matador de toros. The time had come.

“Goodbye, old friend.”

He lifted the sword to his mouth and kissed the blade for luck, then took aim. Slowly, Gaditano lowered his head and Manolo sensed the moment.

“Goodbye, Gaditano.”

Manolo pictured himself going in for the kill, but as he sank the sword, Gaditano raised his head and caught him in the intestines once more. This time, however, he had a grown bull’s set of horns, and they tore through his insides like a javelin.

In the stands Lucinda was screaming. Everyone was screaming. It was the last thing man and bull would hear, as both died together.

“Why don’t you throw those bloody things away?”

Lucinda had emerged from the shower, wrapped in a towel.

It was at that point Manolo exploded.

“Because I risked my life for them! That’s why! You didn’t learn your lesson in Agua Prieta, so we’ll try again!”