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Chapter 8
TO APPRECIATE Caballo’s vision, you have to go back to the early ’90s, when a wildernessphotographer from Arizona named Rick Fisher was asking himself the obvious question: if theTarahumara were the world’s toughest runners, why weren’t they ripping up the world’s toughestraces? Maybe it was time they met the Fisherman.

Total score all around, the way Fisher saw it. Some spit-chaw towns bag a ton of TV for theiroddball races, the Fisherman turns into the Crocodile Hunter of Lost Tribes, and the Tarahumaraget primo PR and become media sweethearts. Okay, so the Tarahumara are the most publicity-shypeople on the planet and have spent centuries fleeing any kind of relations with the public, but…Well, Fisher would have to deal with that speed bump later; he already had far stickier problems tohandle. Like, he didn’t know jack about running and barely spoke a lick of Spanish, let aloneRarámuri. He had no idea where to find Tarahumara runners, and no clue how he’d persuade themto follow him out of the safety of their caves and up into the lair of the Bearded Devils. And thosewere only the minor details: assuming he did assemble an all-Tarahumara track team, how the hellwas he going to get them out of the canyons without cars and into America without passports?

Luckily, Fisher had some special talents going for him. Top of the list was his amazing internalGPS; Fisher was like one of those house cats who reappear at home in Wichita after getting lost ona family vacation in Alaska. His ability to sniff his way through the most bewildering canyons maybe unrivaled on the planet, and it appears to be mostly raw instinct. Fisher had never seen anythingdeeper than a ditch before leaving the midwest for the University of Arizona, but once there, heimmediately began plunging into places better left unplunged. He was still a student when hebegan exploring Arizona’s mazelike Mogollon canyon range, venturing in just after the head ofPhoenix’s Sierra Club killed there in not-uncommon flash flood. Fisher, with zeroexperienceandBoyScout-gr(was) adegear,notonlys(a) urvived, but came back with breathtaking photosof an underground wonderland.

Even Jon Krakauer, the adventure überexpert and author of Into Thin Air, was impressed. “RickFisher can fairly lay claim to being the world’s leading authority on the Mogollon canyons and themyriad secrets they contain,” Krakauer concluded early in Fisher’s career, after Fisher had led himto “an utterly spellbinding slice of earth, like no place I’d even seen”—a Willy Wonka world oflime-green pools and pink crystal towers and subterranean waterfalls.

Which brings up Rick Fisher’s other skill set: when it to grabbing a spotlight and persuading peopleto do thingsthey’drather not, Fisher couldput a t(comes) elevangelist to shame (well, asmuch as that’s possible). Take this classic Fish tale that Krakauer tells about a rafting trip Fishermade into the Copper Canyons in the mid-1980s. Fisher really didn’t know where he was going,even though he was attempting, by Krakauer’s estimation, “the canyoneering equivalent of a majormountaineering expedition in the Himalaya.” Yet he still managed to convince two pals—a guyand his girlfriend—to along. Everything going grand … until Fisher accidentally beachedtheraftnexttoam(come) arijuana field. Suddenly,(was) a drug sentinel popped up with a cockedassault rifle.

No problem. Fisher just whipped out a packet of news articles about himself he carries everywherehe goes (yup, even on very wet rafts through non-English-speaking Mexican badlands). See! Youdon’t want to mess with me. I’m, uh, whatchacallit—importante! .Muy importante!

The bewildered sentinel let them paddle on, only to have Fisher come to shore at another drugencampment. This time, it got really ugly. Fisher’s little band was surrounded by a band of thugswho— being womanless in the wilderness—were drunk and dangerously lusty. One of the thugsgrabbed the American woman. When her boyfriend tried to pull her back, a rifle barrel wasslammed into his chest.

That did it for Fisher. No fanning out his scrapbook this time; instead, he went berserk. “You’remuy malos hombres!” he screamed in an absolute spitting ............
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