A Fatality in Spain, page 4
Sean cleared his throat. “What’s the meaning of this?” he said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. He was still jovial, still the peacemaker. “Now I think you should back away. There’s a good lad . . .”
The man swung his gaze to him, staring daggers, and as he did, his sequins caught the sunlight and nearly blinded Diana. She blinked, and the next thing she knew, he was pointing at her and letting out a long-winded Spanish tirade that made her head spin. She didn’t even catch a single word of it. The only thing she knew was that he clearly blamed her for something.
“What is it?” she whispered to Sean, afraid to make any sudden moves. As worked up as the shiny man before her was, she couldn’t put it past him to try to take her down, like one of his bulls. “What did I do?”
Sean raised an eyebrow in question and stroked the white whiskers on his chin. “It seems . . . and I may be wrong here, but this is what I’m getting . . . is that he thinks your name is Maria and that you . . .”
“Maria? And what did this Maria person do? Murder his family?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s not making any sense.” He leaned in, and with the most appeasing tone, said, “Amigo. Ese . . . no Maria. Sí?”
Diana nodded as the man narrowed his eyes at her. She patted her chest and summoned her first-year Spanish. “Me llama Diana. De los Estados Unidos.”
His confusion melted away. She’d hoped for a moment that his face would clear, and that he would acknowledge her mistake. Maybe shake her hand, pull her in for a hug. She even offered her hand to him.
Instead, he scowled, let out a grunt of annoyance, and pushed past her, his sequins flashing like a beacon in the sun before being swallowed up by the crowd.
“Ooookay,” Diana said, pulling back her unshaken hand. “What a pleasant guy. I can tell why everyone loves him and wants his autograph. If I was at the ring, I’d be on the side of the bull.”
Sean shook his head. “Strange man. Very strange,” he said, linking his arm through hers.
“But no matter. Come along. We have a date with some bulls.”
She nodded, still a bit shaken over the whole ordeal. After that, she wasn’t as concerned about the running. She doubted the bulls would be more onery than that matador.
“He’s the perro!” a woman suddenly said, grabbing Diana’s arm and yanking her away from Sean. She had dark, curly hair, tinged with more than a little gray, a long, flowing skirt, and Birks. Unlike everyone else, she wasn’t wearing the customary white and red, so she stuck out even worse than Diana was worried she would. But the woman didn’t seem to care. Her skin was tanned from the sun, freckled, with more than a few crinkles around her eyes.
“I’m sorry . . . who are you?” Diana began, confused until she looked down and saw the sign the woman was holding, on a giant piece of cardboard. It said: Corridas Crueldad Hacia Los Animales!
Suddenly, it made sense. There was a small group of people with placards, walking around outside the bullfights, shouting and shaking their fists at anyone who tried to pass by them into the arena and festival grounds. One of the other signs said, Pamplona Se Tiñe De Sangre! And another said, Pamplona’s Streets are Stained with Blood!
She thrust a brochure into Diana’s hand that had a similar slogan. “I’m Rachel Hawkins. I’m from Peta. I came here from America to protest these horrible crimes against animals!” she said with an anger that made Diana step back.
“Oh, I see,” she said, trying to pry the woman’s fingers off her arm. “You came all this way to protest the festival?”
The woman glared at her. “Of course! Of course I did! I came to band with my fellow animal lovers. This whole festival is built on the blood of these creatures, and it’s shameful. The animals are scared to death, in a panic, when the guns go off. They’re being marched to their deaths. It’s so sad. And the bullfights? Only a coward stands over a bleeding, exhausted, dying animal and stabs him to death again and again and again—and then demands applause! People watch it—they’re no better than the savages who watched the gladiators or witnessed public hangings. It’s cruel. Too cruel. I can’t just stand by and let it happen. Can you?”
Diana nodded. “I see . . . that’s awful. But. . .” I’m going to run with the bulls right now didn’t seem like a good thing to say, considering the wild look in the woman’s eyes.
Sean laughed as he inserted himself between them. “I’m sorry, Dear, but we’re late for our turn in this bloody ritual.” He winked at her and led her away, leaving a scowling woman behind her.
“Sean!” she muttered, shocked. Diana’s every nerve was on end now, at the intensity of the exchange. “She was kind of right. The poor animals are in a panic. Maybe we should . . .”
“Not a chance.” He dragged her farther along the street. “You’re roped into this just like the bulls. I’m not letting you get away, now.”
Around her, people had gone back to enjoying the festival, watching the street performers and sampling the food from the stands. Diana’s stomach had been doing cartwheels, even before the attack from the matador. Now, as the beginning of the run approached, it felt like it was about to roll right out of her body. She clutched it as they wove their way through the crowd, toward the starting line.
Suddenly, Sean stopped so short, she nearly ran into his shoulder blades. “Bugger all.”
When he turned, she realized he was staring at his phone, a rare look of annoyance on his face. “What?”
“Looks like that Airbnb I got for our stay was double-booked. They canceled my reservation.”
“Canceled?” Her heart caught in her throat. “They can’t do that. Not when you—”
“They did. Sorry.”
“But there’s got to be some recourse to that. They can’t just throw you out without at least giving you a reason. You made that booking in good faith.” She motioned to his phone. “Here. Let me see. I’ll call them and see what they can do.”
He shook his head, pocketed his phone, and sighed. “All right, macushla. You got me. I forgot to put my credit card in for the ressies. And they cancelled the booking for that. It’s utterly my fault.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re . . . serious? We really have no place to stay in Pamplona?”
“Appears that way.” He was still smiling. How could he still be smiling?
She swallowed and looked around. Something told her that finding a hotel room in this city, for their biggest event of the year, would be no easy feat. As her throat continued to tighten, she wondered if trusting Sean would go down as the biggest mistake of her life. Fighting with a shiny matador. About to be gored by bulls. No place to retreat to so she could lick her wounds, afterwards. And a travel companion who seemed to think nothing was a problem, at all. “But—”
“Don’t worry, Love. We’ll figure it out.”
Easy for him to say. Sean wasn’t prone to worrying. Or, really, to thinking much ahead about anything. She’d only known him for a short time, and already she knew he was the type who just let the wind blow him where it may, never minding much where he landed.
Meaning, the exact opposite of her.
Panic snaked its way up her spine. “How can you say that?”
“Because things always have a way of working themselves out. You’ll see.”
She glared at him, doubtful. At that moment, the regret was like a heavy weight on her chest. If it wasn’t for Sean, she’d be traipsing around Barcelona, taking in the sights, completely oblivious to these horrors.
Calm down, Diana. One calamity at a time. Right now, you need to think about surviving these bulls.
It was easy to find where the race began. Police officers standing in front of city hall had formed a chain across the narrow street, barricading the runners so that they couldn’t start on the course prematurely. Every iron balcony above was teeming with people. People were shouting and clapping so loudly that Diana could barely hear a thing.
“Right here. This is a good spot to start from,” he said, stopping in the middle of the throng of tightly-packed bodies.
“If you’re sure.” Now, Diana found herself doubting his words. Maybe he had no clue, just like he’d had no clue when he made his reservations. Diana stood on her tip-toes but couldn’t see much as she scanned for the bulls. “Where are the bulls coming from? Over there?”
“Yep. Right over there.” He grabbed her hand. “Don’t worry, macushla. I’ll stay behind you, so you don’t get a horn in your fanny.”
She let out a laugh laced with worry. “I hope that doesn’t happen! But you shouldn’t run behind me. I’m slow. If you do, you’ll definitely get one in yours.”
“Ha, they say that the run is only worthwhile if you feel the breath of the bull on the back of your legs!”
The thought almost made her stomach drop out. “I swear, I’d rather it not be worthwhile, then.”
He squeezed her shoulder as Diana scanned the area. She noticed the statue of a saint, and assumed that was Saint Fermin, the person the festival was named after. A loudspeaker crackled, and a man in a suit came to the podium. Smiling like a game show host, he spoke in Spanish, and everyone cheered.
“That’s the mayor,” Sean said in her ear. “He’s wishing all of us good luck in the event.”
As he spoke, Diana looked around. There were thousands of spectators behind the barricades, and security was sweeping non-runners out of the way. Shops along the route had been boarded up. This reminded her a bit of the time when she’d agreed to run in a 5k to raise money for some charity at Lily’s high school. Diana wasn’t athletic in the least, but her daughter had needed people to sign up, and Evan had been in surgery that weekend. During the entire three miles, she felt as if she was going to die. Twice, she’d tripped over her own feet and nearly faceplanted; and more than once, she’d nearly collapsed like a house of cards. And of course, she’d come in dead last.
Of course, that wasn’t with a large mammal with lethal horns, breathing on the back of her legs.
“Uh . . . how long is the course, did you say?” she asked.
“Eight-hundred and seventy-five meters,” he said, eyeing her carefully.
He was on to her, of course. Though Sean chatted with her throughout the train ride, she’d spent much of that time, studying the Running of the Bulls website, watching gorings on YouTube and learning all the ins and outs of the race. At the time, she’d been shocked to learn that it was that short a course. Not only that; the whole thing only lasted two and a half minutes. She knew that. It seemed like it would be easy.
Of course, this wasn’t a running race. It was a survival race. A race for people with a death wish. And somehow, she’d found herself in the middle of it.
Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her white pants. She fished it out to find a text from Lily: How’s Barcelona?
Oh, Lily would love to know about this one. That she was no longer in Barcelona, but that she’d taken a train with a man she barely knew with the goal of having a large, lethal animal chase her? Lily was her worry-wart daughter. Probably best not to get her blood pressure up, especially since she already had enough to worry about with her pregnancy.
Fingers shaking, Diana quickly typed in: Lovely and pocketed the phone. She’d tell them all after the fact, when she came out of it.
If she came out of it.
She looked around at her fellow-runners, trying to see who else was as insane as she was. Most of the women were up on the balconies, waving flags, or safely behind the barricades. She saw a few women on the street, but they were all probably about half her age. Even Sean, with his salt-and-pepper hair, was out of place. These people were all fit, spry, capable of outrunning a bull. Many of them were doing stretches, jumping up and down to get pumped for the exertion, just like they’d been doing at the 5k she ran back in the USA—moments before they all ran in front of her, leaving her at the back of the pack.
But the person in the back of the pack in that race had gotten extra cheers for trying. Here? They got a horn in the fanny.
And then there was Diana, whose feet felt like cinderblocks underneath her. In the heat of the moment, she really couldn’t even put it past herself not to freeze in the middle of the street, like a puddle in January.
Was she crazy? She was fifty-four and hated running on her treadmill at home! How on Earth did she ever agree to this?
The men around her jumped up and down, ready to go. Some held rolled-up newspapers, which she’d read during her fact-finding Googling session was to taunt the bull.
Taunt the bull? No thanks. My objective is to be as far away from the bull as possible.
Diana thought the atmosphere was decidedly party-like, considering what was about to happen, and the danger involved. Maybe it was pure male testosterone, but even the women seemed to get into it, cheering loudly. The smell of old alcohol was a heavy cloud around her, and several of the people looked bleary, as if they’d spent the entire night prior partying.
The announcer read a benediction to patron saint of the event, Saint Fermin, and then everyone burst out into a rowdy song, hugging each other and swaying. Then, he clapped his hands and a hush fell over the crowd, full of anticipation and pent-up adrenaline.
Diana held her breath. Oh, gosh. Here it goes.
Sean grasped her hand tightly and squeezed it, moving her off to the side a bit. She appreciated that—in all the videos she’d seen, the bulls ran down the middle of the street, leaving the people on the edges largely unscathed. She’d leave the center to the daredevils.
He winked at her. “Ready, macushla?”
No, she thought, but nodded anyway as she watched the announcer hold up the starting gun. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely see. She was going to pass out, and the race hadn’t even started yet.
BANG!
CHAPTER FIVE
It was like Black Friday shopping at Target, but with everyone wearing white, and no Bing Crosby’s White Christmas being piped in.
The moment the gun went off, Diana sprang into action, running, well . . . as if a huge animal was chasing her.
Sean was still holding her hand. She’d expected he’d be way in front of her since she was no runner. But he lagged annoyingly behind, looking over his shoulder constantly, as more and more runners tore past them. Someone was screaming non-stop, like an annoying morning alarm that just wouldn’t end, and it wasn’t until much later that she realized it was her.
Not enough time had passed before the second gun went off, indicating the bulls were now in the street. She definitely didn’t feel like she’d put enough space between herself and the corral. Again, Sean looked over his shoulder.
What is he doing? Forward! Forward! We must go forward! “Come on!” she cried, yanking him.
“It’s all right, love! We’re doing it!” He yelled, whooping loudly, as if he was having the time of his life. He wasn’t running, so much as skipping joyously.
In fact, everyone seemed to be. The adrenaline and excitement were palpable, so thick in the air that Diana couldn’t get a proper breath. Some men were squealing in glee like schoolchildren on a playground as they rushed past her. Some were laughing and a couple of women were giggling. A few of them were probably drunk. They might as well have been skipping off into a summer meadow for a picnic.
Far behind her, the joyful noise of the crowd dissolved to a low, horrified collective gasp, indicating someone had probably gotten trampled or gored. Sean started to sing, “Another One Bites the Dust.”
Be serious about this! She wanted to warn him. We are about to die, and you are serenading me with Queen.
She looked back for a second, only to see Sean falling farther behind. He still had a massive smile plastered on his face, though, like he wanted that horn where the sun didn’t shine.
“Hurry!” She screamed, arm now extended fully to keep ahold of his hand, creating a bigger gap between their bodies.
In the chaos, one of the male runners shot through that gap, wrenching her hand from Sean’s. At first, Diana took it as a good thing—she could move ahead, faster. It was only a few seconds later that she realized she was doing this, alone . . . and had no one protect her from getting that horn in the fanny.
The thought made her run faster, hands on her backside for whatever protection that could give. Heart beating like it never had before, she exploded, hardly feeling her feet touching the ground as she wove her way around runners half her age. For a moment, she wondered if this was how Usain Bolt felt.
Then she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a flash of brown fur. Hot breath seared the flesh of her elbow.
No no no no, this is not happening!
She screamed and hung a sharp right, to the corner of the street, only to be jostled back by a man in the audience who looked like a linebacker and clearly wanted to see her die.
Right into the path of a snorting, angry-looking bull. A bull far larger than any of the other ones, she’d seen in those YouTube videos. It was like a mutant, something that could occupy its own zip code.
And it was staring straight at her.
Squealing, now, she spun around and took off like a dart. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and she shot ahead, hearing the bull’s heavy hooves on the cobblestone, mere feet away from her. She tripped over someone’s leg and nearly went flying into a barricade but righted herself just in time and shot around a corner.
Above and around her, people cheered, swinging their kerchiefs in excitement. She turned for a second, just in time to see the sharp horns of the mutant bull, headed right for her . . .
“Agh!” she screeched, just as a shaggy-haired man rushed between them. The bull, not impressed, bent its head, delivering a blow to the man’s butt. The tip of his horn caught in the man’s white pants, dragging them down the man’s hairy, skinny legs.
Even as the man began to be trampled underfoot, he flailed, squealing excitedly. Diana was pretty sure he must’ve been drunk, because he seemed to enjoy it. People applauded louder and groaned in pain as the bull had its way with the man. When it tossed him onto his stomach, he scrambled to his hands and knees and . . . began to puke, torrents of amber liquid splattering at Diana’s feet on the pavement. The audience cheered. El Gordo! El Gordo!
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