Wild Horses

Vicky also glowed that night. The guitarist and singer, Uxio Silva, had also ridden back down the mountain on his white stallion for the night. Most of the riders stayed up at the mountain corral, but it soon became obvious that he'd come down because he was part of the festival entertainment. He played and sang into the wee hours of the morning, and, mesmerized by him, feeling he was singing directly to her—which he undoubtedly was—Vicky was lost in the magic of his deep baritone voice, the strumming of his guitar, and the silky sounds of Galician Spanish.

Sabela left the group for a few minutes and when she came back, she told them, "There are tents available if we want to overnight here rather than make the trek back and forth to the hotel. They say the horses will be brought down by eight tomorrow morning and the ceremony will start right away."

"I'm fine with staying, if others are," Peggy said, looking around for agreement.

"How big a tent should be we ask for?" Sabela asked, looking meaningfully at Denise. "For three or four?"

"Two, I would think," Denise answered. "Anton and I already have one reserved."

"Two?" Peggy asked.

"Yes, I would think Vicky has other arrangements too."

"Me?" Vicky asked, suddenly tearing her attention away from the music and looking surprised.

"Oh come on," Denise said. "You and Uxio have been making goo-goo eyes at each other since last night. It's time you let the charm and romance of Galicia take over and enjoyed yourself."

"Like you have?" Peggy asked, her voice amused.

"Damn right, like I have," Denise responded vehemently. "The greatest revenge in life is to live it fully. And you have your Galician beauty in Sabela. I have mine. Why can't Vicky let loose and have hers, as well?"

"A tent for three, please," Vicky turned to Sabela and said.

Denise snorted. "The romance of Galicia is going to get you yet, girl," she pronounced. "That's what fate has brought you here to discover."

No one responded to that, either to counter it or to push Vicky farther on what the other three had hoped this trip would produce.

* * * *

The next morning Vicky and the others were in the bleachers on one side of the football stadium as the riders on the white stallions herded the wild horses down from the mountain corral to the enclosure, the curro, on the playing field. After they had done so, pandemonium ruled for the next few hours as the festival of A Rapa das Bestas continued with, first, the separation of the foals from the rest of the horses so that they wouldn't be trampled in the melee that was then to proceed on the field. The men performing the ritual in the curro were called adoitadores. The foals were taken off to an adjacent enclosure, claimed by owners, and branded with the owners' brands and their manes cut and their tails docked.

The mature horses also had their manes and tails cut, but they had ID tags stapled inside their ears as well. The unique part of this exercise, though, was that the men inside the enclosure had to wrestle the horses into submission with only their body and bare hand strength for the procedure. The ritual included a demonstration of male physical prowess and was taken as a challenge of their manhood by the men who went into the enclosure. Everyone else watched from the stands.

Although Vicky started off in the stands as a spectator, she wasn't able to stay there, especially as the process could get quite rough on the frightened horses and the foals were in physical danger until they could be located and separated out. She had heard that there was controversy surrounding continuing to hold this very popular festival, and she could clearly see why there was. It was seeing a man having trouble pulling a foal out of a swarm of milling frightened horses and hearing the foal's plaintive whiney that brought Vickie out of her seat and down into the enclosure.

"Here, the poor dear is frightened to death," she cried out as she waded into the teeming mass, quickly told the man she knew how to work horses, put her arms around the foal's neck, and whispered calming sounds into its ear. The foal stopped trembling and she and the man were able to pull it to safety. As she reached the edge of the enclosure, another man brushed up against her, put a hand out to prevent her from being butted by a reeling horse, and gave her a broad smile. It was Uxio Silva, who was in the enclosure with the other men, working with the horses as one of the adoitadores.

Is there nothing he doesn't do, she wondered.

She smiled wanly back at him as she helped guide the foal to the other pen. When she'd done so, she turned and looked back into the main enclosure and saw that Uxio was having difficulty now trapping and containing a particularly large and heavily muscled wild horse, a white stallion, which undoubtedly would be the pride of the festival the next year after it had been tamed—if it could be tamed. The three men trying to wrestle it into submission so the cutting ritual could be performed on it had their hands full. Uxio looked particularly vulnerable to being pulled underneath the horse and to feel the strike of it hooves.

Vicky waded into the enclosure once again and made her way to that horse.

"No, you shouldn't be in here. It's too dangerous. Go back," Uxio cried out to her. Although not impeccable, his English was easily understandable. She would have been helpless trying to figure out what he was saying if he only spoke Spanish.

"Here, let me help," she stubbornly cried out. "The horse is just terrified. Let me help you quiet him down. I have a way with horses. I rescue ones as frightened as this."

And she did have a way with the white stallion. She threw her arm around its neck, just as she had done with the foal, and whispered to it and stroked it. Although it took time, the wildness that was in the beast's eyes toned down and it stopped trembling and stood there, in the embrace of Uxio, another man, and Vicky, as the fourth man cut its mane and tail, and inserted the tag in its ear.

When they were done, they let the horse go. It snorted and tossed its head up and down and was gone. The two nameless men who had worked on the horse with Vicky and Uxio, harnessed it and pulled it out of the ring to go to the holding corral for those horses that had gone through the ritual.

"He's magnificent," Vicky exclaimed as the horse was led away.

"You're the one who is magnificent," Uxio said, putting his hand on her arm. "But now, women aren't permitted in the enclosure. It's too dangerous, and it isn't permitted at the festival. Let me take to you the side before we have more than the wild horses to worry about."

He did so, and Vicky docilely went with him. Once they were out of the enclosure, they stood there, their eyes locked in some sort of unspoken understanding of each other. Vicky thought then that he would try to kiss her, and she didn't struggle long with the thought of whether she would let him do it. But someone called his name from within the enclosure, and he turned and was lost inside the teeming mass of horses still to be processed.

Suddenly Vicky was very tired, and as interesting as the rituals of this festival were, they made her a bit uneasy. The horses were frightened, if only for a while, not knowing that some of them would go to an easier life than being at the mercy of the elements, that those with a medical issue would be sent for treatment, and that those that were released back to the wild would have less competition for another year for food and natural shelter.

She walked away from the swirling activity in the corral and, wanting to get away from the noise of the crowd and frightened whinnying of the horses as well, she left the stadium rather than going back into the stands and slowing started back up the mountain path she'd been on earlier that day. She didn't intend to go far, only out of hearing and sight of the stadium, and she certainly didn't play for Uxio to see that she was walking away, but he did, and he followed her at a distance. He didn't close the distance as long as she was walking. He probably intended only to ensure that she was safe and didn't get lost. But when she knew he was there, she stopped and they looked at each other briefly, and when she went off the path and to a fern-covered area sheltered under trees, he followed her.

She didn't really get lost in the memory of her first time with her husband—and certainly had no illusions of Uxio being John, but the similarities of encounters made it easier to give herself to the handsome Spaniard. He held her close in the glade and they kissed. She yielded to him easily and fully, and she was the one who worked the buttons of his shirt before he undid hers. She's the one who pulled them slowly down onto the ferns, he on top of her. She raised no objection, was kissing his chest, when he unbuttoned and slid her shorts and panties off her legs. She arched her back, panting heavily and murmuring her pleasure when he cupped her V with a hand and moved his fingers inside her folds—his thumb going to her clitoris and his index finger penetrating her.

She moaned and clutched at the back of his head as he feasted on her breasts and then worked his lips, tongue, and teeth down until he was feasting on her vulva. When he rose back up and took her mouth in his, It was Vicky who released his stiff shaft and guided it inside her. And then the two were moving their hips and groaning their groans as one.

Later, when she went back to her friends in the stands, Uxio parting from her in the shadows at the entrance into the stadium, she found them saying that they'd seen enough—even Denise's new boyfriend, Anton, agreed with that. They were all ready to climb into their rented car, go back to the Torre do Rio Hotel in Caldas de Reis, and hit the swimming pool.

As they were leaving, Vicky looked around for another sighting of Uxio Silva, but he was nowhere to be seen.

* * * *

The festival was over. The four, who were now five, with the addition of Anton Vasquez plastered to Denise's side, were relaxing from their A Rapa das Bestas festival adventure around a table in the ruins by the pool at the Torre do Rio Hotel. All were weary—Peggy and Sabela most likely weary from a different form of exercise than Vicky, Denise, and Anton were, although Peggy and Sabela would have their moments when they returned to their hotel room. They all were content with sitting, drinking wine, admiring the atmospherics around them, and listening to the guitar music and the mellow singing. Once again, the entertainer was Uxio Silva, seemingly bottomless in energy since he had been more active in the festival rituals than any of the rest of them had been.

Once again Uxio seemed to be singing and playing directly for Vicky, and now Vicky was openly acknowledging the attention.

"Two more days to take in the rest of Galicia and then back on the plane to Virginia," Peggy said, with a deep sigh. "We should have listened to Sabela, I guess, and booked for a longer stay. There's so much to see here in Galicia. It's all so fascinating."

"I think I will stay a bit longer," Vicky announced to her companions out of the blue. I've called Alec and he claims to be doing well and would be just as happy if I extended my vacation here.

"What do you . . . oh," Sabela started to say, but when Denise nudged her with an elbow and tilted her head toward where Uxio Silva was sitting, Sabela snapped her jaw shut.

"Although I guess I might have trouble changing my airplane reservation," Vicky continued.

Denise jumped on that. "We could go to the travel agency and see if the name can be switched on your reservation. I can pay you for your seat and then you can just book for later."

"What do you need with another . . . oh." It was Peggy's turn to have her question stifled by a nudge of the elbow from Sabela and a titling of Sabela's head toward Anton.

The music had stopped and Uxio was being replaced by another entertainer. He was putting his equipment together, ready to leave, but he stopped and looked over to their table. As the other entertainer, a woman, started to play and sing an ancient Galician ballad in a mournful voice, Uxio came over to the table and reached a hand out to Vicky.

"Gustaríache bailar comigo, fermosa?" he said, smiling at Vicky.

"He's asking whether you—" Sabela started to explain.

"I know what he's asking," Vicky said. "I would be delighted," she spoke to Uxio with a smile of her own as she rose, he guided her to the terrace by the pool, and he swept her up into a close dance embrace. It wouldn't have mattered what music was being performed.