This Will Make a Man of You by Frank Miniter

Author:Frank Miniter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2016-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

1 A. E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, a Personal Memoir, Scribner’s, 1955.

2 www.pilgrimpathways.com/pilgrim_pathways.asp?IdSeccion=1&IdNoticia=30.

STEP 4

The Gauntlets

When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is competent.

—Mencius

SOMETIMES YOU FORGET YOU ARE mortal. This is not a good thing. This is a stupid thing.

I stood in a deep shadow at the head of the canyon of shuttered bars that is Estafeta during a bull run. No one stands at the head of Estafeta and just around “La Curva” unless they are very stupid or very skilled. I thought I was skilled enough. I was wrong. At La Curva there are heavy wood barricades to force the bulls to turn right down Estafeta, the longest and most crowded portion of the run toward the arena.

The only other men waiting with me were a few Basques and a very naive Aussie. The Basques stood set like sprinters. One little Basque was getting solemn and respectful nods from runners who knew the field as they walked by this spot to take places in the packed street farther up Estafeta.

We heard the first rocket explode. The bulls were coming. It seemed like forever this time. Many people were running frightened past us and up Estafeta. As they did, all the runners were looking back toward where the bulls would come with melting expressions. These first people I knew were the valientes. I checked the Basques. Many people were running frightened past us and up Estafeta.

I could see another American, an experienced runner on his tenth Pamplona, on the other side of La Curva. I’d met him at a bar the day before with other foreign runners. This runner stands on the left just before La Curva. He lets the bulls pass him. The bulls will typically be on the right side of the street before they hit La Curva and follow the left side until the crowd pushes them back to the middle. His technique is to get between the bulls when a bull falls or slips at the 90-degree turn. He’ll then run the horns until he must dodge away. I wasn’t ready for that approach, but he advised me—if I got my timing right—that I could stand just around La Curva and run before I could see the bulls. He said to run when “the people’s eyes are trying to see through the backs of their heads.”

My timing was wrong. I didn’t see when the Basques ran. They were just gone, ahead of the bulls. A runner came around La Curva looking at me wildly in the eyes and screaming, “Run. Run.”

I ran, but it was too late.

I turned my head and saw the bulls hitting the barricades without a pause. The old guidebooks said this might give a little time.

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