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(Page 2 of 2) The Sangerria by JJ van der Merwe
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Shirts dripped blood from almost every barranca we passed. We had sangerria with some of those families.
Insults to honour had to be avenged. As the canon of Nabastao says "Hunt down all who impugn your family, no matter how slight the wound." Any method was acceptable; lies, bribery, poison, ambush, rape. All of these things had taken place in our sangerria with the Gerales. Fat Naimo was the target, as both Cairaldo and Branco were holed up in the mountains in fear of our vengeance. Fat Naimo, younger than both, was also the more foolish. He had strutted around the market boasting of how he had killed Terriao, watched him squirm like a pig and moan like a whore as they buggered him.
Long ago the church had been burnt by a Tresantine raiding party; no-one had ever bothered to rebuild it, so the shell was patched up by peasant's thatching. It was frowned upon to live inside, but since we had not had a priest for half a century, some wretched families inhabited the hovel.
The graveyard spilled out of the environs of the church, out over crudely ploughed fields and around shepherd's shacks.
Fat Naimo Gerales, the same age as me, black locks and pudgy cheeks, was watching a stallion mounting a mare with his friends, the two animals pulled and pushed together by their retainers.
The four of us drew our pistols.
Their man called a warning, and I shouted my hate and pulled the trigger.
I saw fat Naimo fall, and as I drew my other weapon Ioya, a young son of the Gerales, fired at me. He wasn‘t much of a shot; he couldn't afford rifling and I aimed my second pistol slowly, shot him as he ran for cover. So two of them would die for our loss.
The stallion and the mare were whinnying and running from the noise; their retainers scattered by their flailing hooves.
A couple more shots flew past me, and I ducked down behind a dry-stone wall, laughing.
I reloaded, stood back up, saw one of the Gerales, and fired. He fell back silently.
I stood, and ran, fearful of bullets, for Naimo's body. I found the fat kid with a bullet in his chest, abandoned by his cowardly gang.
Greetings, Fat Naimo, I said, and saw the fear and shock in his eyes. I have no idea what goes through the minds of those about to die.
I drew my knife and slit his throat slowly, letting the air escape from his throat in exquisitely painful gusts. His shirt soaked with spurting blood would soon hang upon his family's barranca.
This is a better death than you gave Terriao, son of the great whore, I said, Gerales scum, we will have blood for him. Your blood.
Kalefero called out to me; the job was done. Without waiting another moment I ran, joined by the other three men. We whooped and cheered as we ran through the streets, covered in the blood of our enemies.
When we arrived back at our barranca Junero was waiting in the hallway; he embraced me, in the tradition, and gave us rakao.
Later, we were heartily drunk, and across the village no doubt the Gerales were cursing and weeping. Junero, humming a tune to himself in that way of his, took me onto the balcony.
You are avenged, brother, we said together, and cast the bloody flag into the street.
The sangerria would continue.
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