McDougall Christopher - Born to Run

To live with ghosts requires solitude.

A NNE M ICHAELS , Fugitive Pieces

FOR DAYS, Id been searching Mexicos Sierra Madre for the phantom known as Caballo Blancothe White Horse. Id finally arrived at the end of the trail, in the last place I expected to find himnot deep in the wilderness he was said to haunt, but in the dim lobby of an old hotel on the edge of a dusty desert town.!

S, El Caballo est, the desk clerk said, nodding. Yes, the Horse is here.

For real? After hearing that Id just missed him so many times, in so many bizarre locations, Id begun to suspect that Caballo Blanco was nothing more than a fairy tale, a local Loch Ness mons-truo dreamed up to spook the kids and fool gullible gringos.

Hes always back by five, the clerk added. Its like a ritual.

I didnt know whether to hug her in relief or high-five her in triumph. I checked my watch. That meant Id actually lay eyes on the ghost in less than hang on.

But its already after six.

The clerk shrugged. Maybe hes gone away.

I sagged into an ancient sofa. I was filthy, famished, and defeated. I was exhausted, and so were my leads.

Some said Caballo Blanco was a fugitive; others heard he was a boxer whod run off to punish himself after beating a man to death in the ring. No one knew his name, or age, or where he was from. He was like some Old West gunslinger whose only traces were tall tales and a whiff of cigarillo smoke. Descriptions and sightings were all over the map; villagers who lived impossible distances apart swore theyd seen him traveling on foot on the same day and described him on a scale that swung wildly from funny and simptico to freaky and gigantic.

But in all versions of the Caballo Blanco legend, certain basic details were always the same: Hed come to Mexico years ago and trekked deep into the wild, impenetrable Barrancas del Cobrethe Copper Canyonsto live among the Tarahumara, a near-mythical tribe of Stone Age superathletes. The Tarahumara (pronounced Spanish-style by swallowing the h: Tara-oo-mara) may be the healthiest and most serene people on earth, and the greatest runners of all time.

When it comes to ultradistances, nothing can beat a Tarahumara runnernot a racehorse, not a cheetah, not an Olympic marathoner. Very few outsiders have ever seen the Tarahumara in action, but amazing stories of their superhuman toughness and tranquillity have drifted out of the canyons for centuries. One explorer swore he saw a Tarahumara catch a deer with his bare hands, chasing the bounding animal until it finally dropped dead from exhaustion, its hoofs falling off. Another adventurer spent ten hours climbing up and over a Copper Canyon mountain by mule; a Tarahumara runner made the same trip in ninety minutes.

Try this, a Tarahumara woman once told an exhausted explorer whod collapsed at the base of a mountain. She handed him a gourd full of a murky liquid. He swallowed a few gulps, and was amazed to feel new energy pulsing in his veins. He got to his feet and scaled the peak like an overcaffeinated Sherpa. The Tarahumara, the explorer would later report, also guarded the recipe to a special energy food that leaves them trim, powerful, and unstoppable: a few mouthfuls packed enough nutritional punch to let them run all day without rest.

But whatever secrets the Tarahumara are hiding, theyve hidden them well. To this day, the Tarahumara live in the side of cliffs higher than a hawks nest in a land few have ever seen. The Barrancas are a lost world in the most remote wilderness in North America, a sort of a shorebound Bermuda Triangle known for swallowing the misfits and desperadoes who stray inside. Lots of bad things can happen down there, and probably will; survive the man-eating jaguars, deadly snakes, and blistering heat, and youve still got to deal with canyon fever, a potentially fatal freak-out brought on by the Barrancas desolate eeriness. The deeper you penetrate into the Barrancas, the more it feels like a crypt sliding shut around you. The walls tighten, shadows spread, phantom echoes whisper; every route out seems to end in sheer rock. Lost prospectors would be gripped by such madness and despair, theyd slash their own throats or hurl themselves off cliffs. Little surprise that few strangers have ever seen the Tarahumaras homelandlet alone the Tarahumara.

But somehow the White Horse had made his way to the depths of the Barrancas. And there, its said, he was adopted by the Tarahumara as a friend and kindred spirit; a ghost among ghosts. Hed certainly mastered two Tarahumara skillsinvisibility and extraordinary endurancebecause even though he was spotted all over the canyons, no one seemed to know where he lived or when he might appear next. If anyone could translate the ancient secrets of the Tarahumara, I was told, it was this lone wanderer of the High Sierras.

Id become so obsessed with finding Caballo Blanco that as I dozed on the hotel sofa, I could even imagine the sound of his voice. Probably like Yogi Bear ordering burritos at Taco Bell, I mused. A guy like that, a wanderer whod go anywhere but fit in nowhere, must live inside his own head and rarely hear his own voice. Hed make weird jokes and crack himself up. Hed have a booming laugh and atrocious Spanish. Hed be loud and chatty and and

Wait. I was hearing him. My eyes popped open to see a dusty cadaver in a tattered straw hat bantering with the desk clerk. Trail dust streaked his gaunt face like fading war paint, and the shocks of sun-bleached hair sticking out from under the hat could have been trimmed with a hunting knife. He looked like a castaway on a desert island, even to the way he seemed hungry for conversation with the bored clerk.

Caballo? I croaked.

The cadaver turned, smiling, and I felt like an idiot. He didnt look wary; he looked confused, as any tourist would when confronted by a deranged man on a sofa suddenly hollering Horse!

This wasnt Caballo. There was no Caballo. The whole thing was a hoax, and Id fallen for it.

Then the cadaver spoke. You know me?

Man! I exploded, scrambling to my feet. Am I glad to see you!

The smile vanished. The cadavers eyes darted toward the door, making it clear that in another second, he would as well.

CHAPTER 2

IT ALL BEGAN with a simple question that no one could answer.

It was a five-word puzzle that led me to a photo of a very fast man in a very short skirt, and from there it only got stranger. Soon, I was dealing with a murder, drug guerrillas, and a one-armed man with a cream-cheese cup strapped to his head. I met a beautiful blonde forest ranger who slipped out of her clothes and found salvation by running naked in the Idaho forests, and a young surfer babe in pigtails who ran straight toward her death in the desert. A talented young runner would die. Two others would barely escape with their lives.