Chapter 1
El Flaco was born Guillermo Montoya on September 27, 18___, in the small town of Agua Ruidosa in the Mexican state of Durango. His mother died giving birth to him. No man claimed him as his son, but Pedro Montoya proudly claimed him as his grandson and reared him from birth.
Flaco can mean “skinny” or “lean” in English, but it can also mean “frail” and “weak,” and it was in this latter sense that young Guillermo came to be known as El Flaco. But his grandfather never called him El Flaco. To him, he was always Guillermo.
But Guillermo was truly frail and truly weak. When the other boys ran, Guillermo could not keep up and quickly tired. When the other boys climbed the hills surrounding the village, Guillermo gave up at the lowest levels.
There was something wrong with Guillermo’s lungs that made it difficult for him to breathe—sometimes so difficult that he was afraid he would suffocate. When the difficulty came upon him, his little shoulders and his upper chest would struggle to draw in the air and then struggle to push it back out again. He would narrow his eyes and concentrate on each incoming breath and then on each outgoing breath. He would think of nothing else except accomplishing the next breath and then the next. In those times, his breath tasted like metal and like blood.
It pained his grandfather to watch Guillermo suffer through those periods of difficulty. There were nights when el Señor Montoya would sit up with Guillermo as he tried to breathe and sleep at the same time. On those bad nights Guillermo would remain sitting up as he tried to sleep, because the struggle to breathe was much worse if he lay down. When Guillermo would eventually fall asleep sitting in his bed with his back leaning against the wall, his grandfather would place his hand on his shoulders to feel his breathing, so that he could wake Guillermo up if he stopped breathing and alert him to start breathing again. Eventually, the grandfather would fall asleep also, sitting in his chair by the boy's bed.
Listening to the windy noise Guillermo made struggling to breathe during the time when the difficulty was upon him reminded the grandfather of a young deer he had once killed by shooting it with an arrow. The deer did not fall where it was struck but ran away. Sr. Montoya followed the deer that day by looking for the drops of bright red blood it left on the ground in its flight. He found the deer nearby, lying in some brush; it had not run far. The arrow was deep in its chest, a few inches behind the shoulder. The deer panicked when it saw Montoya and tried to get up on its feet to run but could not and fell back down and did not try again. It lay quietly then, looking at Montoya with frightened eyes. Like Guillermo, it had struggled with every breath then, making the same windy noise. A soft spray of blood came from its muzzle with every puff of outgoing breath. Montoya had ended the deer’s suffering that day by holding its antlers with one hand and cutting its throat with a knife held in the other.
But he could not ease Guillermo’s suffering when the difficulty was upon him. He could only hold his hand. And read to him. Sr. Montoya was one of the few men in town who could read. He owned three books: Don Quixote, [two other titles I don’t know yet; probably some boring non-fiction; suggestions anyone?]. Of these, he read to Guillermo only from Don Quixote and read from it so many times that they could each recite parts of it from memory. And it was from Don Quixote that Guillermo himself learned to read.
One day when Guillermo was eight years old, in a moment when he was happy because the difficulty was not upon him, he asked his grandfather, “Why am I so frail?”
His grandfather sat silent, thinking. In truth, he did not know the answer. And he did not want to say anything that would hurt Guillermo in his heart. He remained silent for a long time.
“Grandfather, did you hear me?”
“Yes, I heard you. I am thinking.” Sr. Montoya felt that he was in a very awkward position. His usual policy when he was in an awkward position was to make up a lie, and that was what he was trying to do. But he was having trouble thinking of a good one.
Finally, he said, “You are not frail.”
“I am not frail?”
“No.” Sr. Montoya tried to think of another lie to follow the first. “You are strong.”
“I am strong?” Guillermo asked, puzzled.
“Yes, you are.” Sr. Montoya was beginning to wish that he had made up a different lie, but he kept going. “You are strong, but your body does not know it.”
Guillermo sat puzzling over this idea. He was a smart boy and would normally have been skeptical of this notion, but he trusted his grandfather. “Is there a way to teach my body that it is strong?” he asked.
“Of course.” Sr. Montoya was anticipating the next question and trying to think of an answer for it but none came to him.
“How?”
“By . . . walking. Sí. By walking.”
“But I walk now.”
“But we need to walk together,” Sr. Montoya said.
“That will make a difference?” asked Guillermo.
“Yes, of course!” Sr. Montoya said enthusiastically. He firmly wished now that he had thought of a better lie, but there was no turning back and so he resolved to speak with great conviction.
But Guillermo was a smart boy and even though he trusted his grandfather he had his doubts. “Grandfather, are you sure about these things?”
“Guillermo, do not question me!” the grandfather said. The grandfather was seldom cross with Guillermo and really was not cross now, but he was looking urgently for a way to change the subject.
“Should we go on a walk now?” asked Guillermo.
“No. Tomorrow. In the morning. Morning time is the best for the walking we will do,” said Sr. Montoya.
The grandfather stood up. “I must go now. There is something I must do.” He walked away quickly, thinking to himself what a fool he was to have said such stupid things. He shook his head as he walked. “Poor Guillermo,” he thought. “Not only is he flaco, but he has a pendejo for a grandfather. A stupid pendejo who tells only stupid lies instead of smart lies.”
But stupid lie or no, the very next morning Sr. Montoya told his grandson, “Come, Guillermo, it is time for our morning walk. We will try to walk as far as the church and then back again. If the difficulty comes upon you at any time, tell me, and I will do the walking for you.” They walked through the town in the cool of the morning, past the houses of the people Guillermo knew and past the abandoned blacksmith’s shop until they reached the church. There, they rested on a bench in the shade of an old cottonwood tree, because the difficulty was coming upon Guillermo. His breath was sounding windy and his chest was beginning to heave with the struggle to breathe. His grandfather hoisted Guillermo onto his shoulders for the return trip to their home.
They walked every morning, without exception, even in the foulest weather. Even when Sr. Montoya was sick they would walk. And even when the breathing difficulty was upon Guillermo, Sr. Montoya would make him walk at least a few steps beyond their door, just to prove to him that he could do it and to maintain the habit.
Some days went well and some went badly, but as the months passed, and then the years, Guillermo was walking further and further. When he could consistently walk to the church and back to their home without difficulty, Guillermo and his grandfather began to extend their walks past the church up the trail that led away from town up into the mountains. And with the passage of more time, Guillermo found that he could follow the trail higher and higher and even talk at the same time. He and his grandfather would then play a game in which one would begin a passage from Don Quixote and challenge the other to complete it. They were both very good at that game.
There came a time when his grandfather could no longer keep up and would stop at the church, sitting on the bench under the old cottonwood tree, and wait for him. Guillermo could climb to the very top of the trail into the mountains and even beyond the end of the trail, where he had to use his hands to climb the rocks. He climbed the rocks until he reached the top of the ridge and stood up and looked down into the valley and at Agua Ruidosa and at the little river that gave the town its name, and he would take a deep breath that completely filled his lungs and then let it out again without the taste of blood or metal, and he truly knew that he was not frail any longer.
Guillermo had grown tall and strong, with long muscles. Many of the townspeople still called him El Flaco, but mostly out of habit. If the nickname still described him at all, it was only in the sense that he was lean and not fat.
His grandfather, now too old to walk beyond the church, was very proud of his grandson, whom he only called Guillermo, never El Flaco. Guillermo was now strong, not frail. He could recite passages from Don Quixote by heart. And he could read and write. Sr. Montoya wished he were young, but since he had to be old, he was glad to be old with such a fine grandson.
And Sr. Montoya was also very proud of himself for having had the fine idea many years before of going on daily walks with Guillermo to teach Guillermo’s body that it was strong and not frail.
