—THEO VAN GOGH, 1889“YOU’VE GOT TO HEAR THIS,” Barefoot Ted said, grabbing my arm.
Damn. He caught me just as I was trying to slink away from the madness of the street party andlimp off to the hotel to collapse. I’d already heard Barefoot Ted’s entire postrace commentary,including his observation that human urine is both nutrient-rich and an effective tooth whitener,and I couldn’t imagine anything he could possibly say that would be more compelling than a deepsleep in a soft bed. But it wasn’t Ted telling stories this time. It was Caballo.
Barefoot Ted pulled me back into Mamá Tita’s garden, where Caballo was holding Scott and Billyand a few of the others spellbound. “You ever wake up in an emergency room,” Caballo wassaying, “and wondered whether you wanted to wake up at all?” With that, he launched into thestory I’d been waiting nearly two years to hear. It didn’t take me long to grasp why he’d chosenthat moment. At dawn, we’d all be scattering and heading home. Caballo didn’t want us to forgetwhat we shared, so for the first time, he was revealing who he was.
————He was born Michael Randall Hickman, son of a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant whose postingsmoved the family up and down the West Coast. As a skinny loner who constantly had to defendhimself in new schools, young Mike’s first priority every time they moved was to find the nearestPolice Athletic League and sign up for boxing lessons.
Brawny kids would smirk and pound their gloves together as they watched the geek with the silkyhippie hair gangle his way into the ring, but their grins died as soon as that long left arm begansnapping jabs into their eyes. Mike Hickman was a sensitive kid who hated hurting people, but thatdidn’t stop him from getting really good at it. “The guys I liked best were the big, muscular ones,’cause they’d keep coming after me,” he recalled. “But the first time I ever knocked out a guy, Icried. For a long time after that, I didn’t knock out anybody.”
After high school, Mike went off to Humboldt State to study Eastern religions and NativeAmerican history. To pay tuition, he began fighting in backroom smokers, billing himself as theGypsy Cowboy. Because he was fearless about walking into gyms that rarely saw a white face,much less a vegetarian white face spouting off about universal harmony and wheatgrass juice, theCowboy soon had all the action he could handle. Small-time Mexican promoters loved to pull himaside and whisper deals in his ear.
“Oye, compay,” they’d say. “Listen up, my friend. We’re going to start a chisme, a little whisper,that you’re a top amateur from back east. The gringos are gonna love it, man. Every gabacho in thehouse is going to bet their kids on you.”
The Gypsy Cowboy shrugged. “Fine by me.”
“Just dance around so you don’t get slaughtered till the fourth,” they’d warn him—or the third, orthe seventh, whichever round the fix had been set for. The Cowboy could hold his own againstgigantic black heavyweights by dodging and clinching up until it was time for him to hit thecanvas, but against the speedy Latino middleweights, he had to fight for his life. “Man, sometimesthey had to haul my bleeding butt out of there,” he’d say. But even after leaving school, he stuckwith it. “I just wandered the country fighting. Taking dives, winning some, losing but reallywinning others, mostly putting on good shows and learning how to fight and not get hurt.”
After a few years of scrapping along in the fight game’s underworld, the Cowboy took hiswinnings and flew to Maui. There, he turned his back on the resorts and headed east, toward thedamp, dark side of the island and the hidden shrines of Hana. He was looking for a purpose for hislife. Instead, he found Smitty, a hermit who lived in a hidden cave. Smitty led Mike to a cave ofhis own, then began guiding him to Maui’s hidden sacred sites.
“Smitty is the guy who first got me into running,” Caballo told us. Sometimes, they’d set out in themiddle of the night to run the twenty miles up the Kaupo Trail to the House of the Sun at the top of10,000-foot Mount Haleakala. They’d sit quietly as the first rays of morning sparkled on thePacific, then run back down again, fueled only by wild papayas they’d knocked from the trees.
Gradually, the backroom brawler named Mike Hickman disappeared. In his place arose MicahTrue, a name inspired by “the courageous and fearless spirit” of the Old Testament prophet Micahand the loyalty of an old mutt called True Dog. “I don’t always live up to True Dog’s example,”
Caballo would say. “But it’s something to shoot for.”
During one of his vision-seeking runs through the rain forest, the newly reborn Micah True met abeautiful young woman from Seattle who was visiting on vacation. They couldn’t have been moredifferent—Melinda was a psychology grad student and the daughter of a wealthy investmentbanker, while Micah was, quite literally, a caveman—but they fell in love. After a year in thewilderness, Micah decided it was time to return to the world.
Wham! The Gypsy Cowboy knocked out his third opponent…… and his fourth …… and his fifth …With Melinda in his corner and those rain-forest runs powering his legs, Micah was virtuallyuntouchable; he could dance and shuffle until the other fighter’s arms felt like cement. Once hisfists drooped, Micah would dart in and hammer him to the canvas. “I was inspired by love, man,”
Micah said. He and Melinda settled in Boulder, Colorado, where he could run the mountain trailsand get bouts in Denver arenas.
“He sure didn’t look like a fighter,” Don Tobin, then the Rocky Mountain lightweight kickboxingchampion, later told me. “He had real long hair and was carrying this crusty old pair of gloves, likethey were handed down from Rocky Graziano.” Don Tobin became the Cowboy’s friend andoccasional sparring partner, and to this day, he marvels at the Cowboy’s work ethic. “He wasdoing unbelievable training on his own. For his thirtieth birthday, he went out and ran thirty miles.
Thirty miles!” Few American marathoners were putting up those numbers.
By the time his unbeaten streak reached 12-0, the Cowboy’s reputation was formidable enough toland him on the cover of Denver’s weekly newspaper, Westword. Under the headline FIST CITYwas a full-page photo of Micah, bare-chested and sweaty, fists cocked and hair swinging, his eyesin the same glower I saw twenty years later when I surprised him in Creel. “I’ll fight anybody forthe right amount of money,” the Cowboy was quoted as saying.
Anybody, eh? That article fell into the hands of an ESPN kick-boxing promoter, who quicklytracked down the Cowboy and made an offer. Even though Micah was a boxer, not a kickboxer,she was willing to put him in the ring for a nationally televised bout against Larry Shepherd,America’s fourth-ranked light heavyweight. Micah loved the publicity and the big payday, butsmelled rat. Just few months before, he had been homeless hippie meditating amountainto(a) p;now,the(a) ywerepittinghimagainstamartiala(a) rtistwhocouldbreakcinderbloc(on) kswith his head. “It was all a big joke to them, man,” Micah says. “I was this long-haired hippie theywanted to shove into the ring for laughs.”
What happened next summarizes Caballo’s entire life story: the easiest choices he ever had tomake were the ones between prudence and pride. When the bell clanged on ESPN’s SuperfightNight, the Gypsy Cowboy abandoned his usual canny strategy of dodging and dancing. Instead, hesprinted self-righteously across the ring and battered Shepherd with a furious barrage of lefts andrights. “He didn’t know what I was doing, so he covered up in the corner to figure it out,” Micahwould recall. Micah cocked his right arm for a hay-maker, but got a better idea. “I kicked him inthe face so hard, I broke my toe,” Micah says. “And his nose.”
Dingdingding.
Micah’s arm was jerked into the air, while a doctor began probing Shepherd’s eyes to make surehis retinas were still attached. Another KO for the Gypsy Cowboy. He couldn’t wait to get backhome to celebrate with Melinda. But Melinda, he discovered, had a knockout of her own todeliver. And long before that conversation was over— long before she’d finished telling him aboutthe affair and her plans to leave him for another man and move back to Seattle—Micah’s brain wasbuzzing with questions. Not for her; for him.
He’d just smashed a man’s face on national TV, and why? To be great in someone else’s eyes? Tobe a performer whose achievements were only measured by someone else’s affection? He wasn’tstupid; he could connect the dots between the nervous boy with the Great Santini dad and thelonely, love-hungry drifter he’d become. Was he a great fighter, in other words, or just a needyone?
Soon after, Karate magazine called. The year-end rankings were about to come out, the reportersaid, and the Gypsy Cowboy’s upset had made him the fifth-ranked light-heavyweight kickboxerin America. The Cowboy’s career was about to skyrocket; once Karate hit the stands and the offersstarted pouring in, he’d have plenty of big-money opportunities to find out whether he truly lovedfighting, or was fighting to be loved.
“Excuse me,” Micah told the reporter. “But I just decided to retire.”
Making the Gypsy Cowboy disappear was even simpler than dispensing with Mike Hickman.
Everything Micah couldn’t carry on his back was discarded. The phone was disconnected, theapartment abandoned. Home became a ’69 Chevy pickup. By night, he slept in a sleeping bag inthe back. By day, he hired himself out to mow lawns and move furniture. Every hour in between,he ran. If he couldn’t have Melinda, he’d settle for exhaustion. “I’d get up at four-thirty in themorning, run twenty miles, and it would be a beautiful thing,” Micah said. “Then I’d work all dayand want to feel that way again. So I’d go home, drink a beer, eat some beans, and run somemore.”
He had no idea if he was fast or slow, talented or terrible, until one summer weekend in 1986 whenhe drove up to Laramie, Wyoming, to take a stab at the Rocky Mountain Double Marathon. Hesurprised even himself by winning in six hours and twelve minutes, knocking off back-to-back trailmarathons in a scratch over three hours each. Racing ultras, he discovered, was even tougher thanprizefighting. In the ring, the other fighter determines how hard you’re hit, but on the trail, yourpunishment is in your own hands. For a guy looking to beat himself into numbness, extremerunning could be an awfully attractive sport.
Maybe I could even go pro, if I could just get over these nagging injuries…. That thought wasrunning through Micah’s mind as he coasted on his bike down a steep Boulder street. Next thinghe knew, he was blinking into bright lights in the emergency room of Boulder CommunityHospital, his eyes caked with blood and his forehead full of stitches. Best he could recall, he’d hit agravel slick and sailed over the handlebars.
“You’re lucky you’re alive,” the doctor told him, which was one way of looking at it. Another wasthat death was still a problem hanging over his head. Micah had just turned forty-one, and despitehis ultrarunning prowess, the view from that ER gurney was none too pretty. He had no healthinsurance, no home, no close family, and no steady work. He didn’t have enough money to stayovernight for observation, and he didn’t have a bed to recover on if he checked out.
Poor and free was the way he’d chosen to live, but was it the way he wanted to die? A friend letMicah mend on her sofa, and there, for the next few days, he pondered his future. Only luckyrebels go out in a blaze of glory, as Micah knew very well. Ever since second grade, he’d idolizedGeronimo, the Apache brave who used to escape the U.S. cavalry by running through the Arizonabadlands on foot. But how did Geronimo end up? As a prisoner, dying drunk in a ditch on a dustyreservation.
Once Micah recovered, he headed to Leadville. And there, during a magical night running throughthe woods with Martimano Cervantes, he found his answers. Geronimo couldn’t run free forever,but maybe a “gringo Indio” could. A gringo Indio who owed nothing, needed no one, and wasn’tafraid to disappear from the planet without a trace.
“So what do you live on?” I asked.
“Sweat,” Caballo said. Every summer, he leaves his hut and rides buses back to Boulder, where hisancient pickup truck awaits him behind the house of a friendly farmer. For two or three months, heresumes the identity of Micah True and scrounges up freelance furniture-moving jobs. As soon ashe has enough cash to last another year, he’s gone, vanishing down to the bottom of the canyonsand stepping back into the sandals of El Caballo Blanco.
“When I get too old to work, I’ll do what Geronimo would’ve if they’d left him alone,” Caballosaid. “I’ll walk off into the deep canyons and find a quiet place to lie down.” There was nomelodrama or self-pity in the way Caballo said this, just the understanding that someday, the lifehe’d chosen would require one last disappearing act.
“So maybe I’ll see you all again,” Caballo concluded, as Tita was killing the lights and shooing usoff to bed. “Or maybe I won’t.”
By sunup the next morning, the soldiers of Urique were waiting by the old minibus that was idlingoutside Tita’s restaurant. When Jenn arrived, they snapped to attention.
“Hasta luego, Brujita,” they called.
Jenn blew them screen-siren kisses with a big sweep of her arm, then climbed aboard. BarefootTed got on next, climbing up gingerly. His feet were so thickly swathed in cloth bandages, theybarely fit inside his Japanese bathhouse flip-flops. “They’re not bad, really,” he insisted. “Just alittle tender.” He squeezed in next to Scott, who willingly slid over to make room.
The rest of us filed in and made our sore bodies as comfortable as possible for the jouncing tripahead. The village tortilla-maker (who’s also the village barber, shoemaker, and bus driver) slidbehind the wheel and revved the rattling engine. Outside, Caballo and Bob Francis walked thelength of the bus, pressing their hands against each of our windows.
Manuel Luna, Arnulfo, and Silvino stood next to them as the bus pulled out. The rest of theTarahumara had set off already on the long hike home, but even though these three had the greatestdistance to travel, they’d waited around to see us off. For a long time afterward, I could see themstanding in the road, waving, until the entire town of Urique disappeared behind us in a cloud ofdust.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSBACK IN 2005, Larry Weissman read a pile of my magazine clips and synthesized them into onesmart question. “Endurance is at the heart of all your stories,” he said, or something to that effect.
“Got one you haven’t told yet?”
“Well, yeah. I heard about this race in Mexico. …”
Since then, Larry and his brilliant wife, Sascha, have served as my agents and higher brainfunctions, teaching me how to turn a clutter of ideas into a legible proposal and yanking hard onthe choke chain whenever I miss deadlines. Without them, this book would still be just a tale I toldover beers.
Runner’s World magazine, and especially then-editor Jay Heinrichs, first sent me into the CopperCanyons and even briefly (very briefly) entertained my notion of publishing an all-Tarahumaraissue. I’m indebted to James Rexroad, ace photographer, for his companionship and gorgeousphotos on that trip. For a man with such a huge brain and lung capacity, Runner’s World editoremeritus Amby Bur-foot is extraordinarily generous with his time, expertise, and library. I stillowe him twenty-five of his books, which I promise to return if he’ll join me for another run.
But I’m especially grateful to Men’s Health magazine. If you don’t read it, you’re missing one ofthe best and most consistently credible magazines in the country, bar none. It’s staffed by editorslike Matt Marion and Peter Moore, who encourage absurd ideas such as sending oft-injured writersinto the wilderness for footraces with invisible Indians. Men’s Health allowed me to train for therace on their dime, then helped me shape the resulting story. Like everything I’ve written for Matt,it came into his hands like an unmade bed and came out with crisp hospital corners.
For a clan so consistently misrepresented by the media, the ultra community was extraordinarilysupportive of my research and personal experimentation. Ken, Pat, and Cole Chlouber alwaysmade me feel at home in Leadville and taught me more than I ever wanted to learn about burroracing. Likewise, Leadville race director Merilee O’Neal filled every request I could think of andgave me a race-finisher’s hug even though I hadn’t earned it. David “Wild Man” Horton, Matt“Skyrunner” Carpenter, Lisa Smith-Batchen and her husband Jay, Marshall and Heather Ulrich,Tony Krupicka—they all shared their remarkable stories and secrets of the trail. Sunny Blende, theace ultra nutritionist, staved off disaster in the desert when Jenn, Billy, Barefoot Ted, and Ifumblingly crewed for Luis Escobar at the 2006 Badwater, and provided the best definition of thesport I’ve ever heard: “Ultras are just eating and drinking contests, with a little exercise andscenery thrown in.”
If you didn’t feel overwhelmed by weird digressions while reading this book, you and I both owethanks to Edward Kastenmeier, my editor at Knopf, and his assistant, Tim O’Connell. Also toLexy Bloom, a senior editor at Vintage Books, who offered her valuable insight and commentsdown the stretch. Somehow, they figured out how to cut the fat out of my writing withoutsacrificing any flavor. Likewise, my friend Jason Fagone, author of the excellent Horsemen of theEsophagus, helped me understand the difference between storytelling and self-indulgence. MaxPotter first let me write about Leadville for 5280 magazine and is the rare writer noble enough tocheerlead another writer on. Patrick Doyle, 5280’s amazing researcher, confirmed many factsabout Caballo’s mysterious life, and even unearthed that lost newspaper photo from “The GypsyCowboy’s” prizefighting days. Years ago, Susan Linnee gave me a job at the Associated Press thatI didn’t deserve, then taught me how to do it. If more people knew Susan, fewer would bashjournalism.
To be a great athlete, you need to pick your parents wisely. To survive as a writer, you should dolikewise with your family. My brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews have all been tremendouslysupportive and forgiving of missed birthdays and obligations. Most of all, I’m indebted to my wife,Mika, and my glorious daughters, Sophie and Maya, for the joy that I hope is evident in thesepages.
I now know why the Tarahumara and the Más Locos got along so beautifully. They are rare andwonderful people, and spending time with them is one of the greatest privileges of my life. I wish Ihad time for one more mango juice with that great gringo Indio, Bob Francis. Shortly after therace, he died. How, I don’t know. Like most deaths in the Copper Canyons, his death remains amystery.
While still absorbing the loss of his loyal old friend, Caballo got the offer of a lifetime. The NorthFace, the popular outdoor sports company, offered to become his race sponsor. Caballo’s future,and his race’s, would finally be secure.
Caballo thought it over. For about a minute.
“No, thanks,” he decided. “I don’t want anyone to do anything except come run, party, dance, eat,and hang with us. Running isn’t about making people buy stuff. Running should be free, man.”
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHORChristopher McDougall is a former war correspondent for The Associated Press and now acontributing editor for Men’s Health. A three-time National Magazine Award finalist, he haswritten for Esquire and The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Girl Trouble, based onhis reporting for The Times. He does his own running among the Amish farms around his home inrural Pennsylvania.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOKPUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
The End
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