is nothing they fear more than a serious montón. When bad pileups occur there are often deaths and injuries numbering in the hundreds. One person falls in the tunnel, several fall on top of him, then an avalanche of bodies collapses to the ground, plugging up the narrow passage of the tunnel. When the herd reaches this plug it attempts to plow through. It pushes into the bodies; goring, breaking bones, and suffocating those unfortunate ones on the bottom. And sometimes mozos die there at the bottom in the darkness, underneath the tremendous weight and pressure.
As the Jandilla approached the arena that morning in 2004 there was a terrible pileup forming in the tunnel. The bulk of the herd navigated around the pile and through the tunnel. The trailing two bulls fell. Trigueño, an enormous pitch-black bull, plucked Julen Madina out of the pile and gored him repeatedly. One serious shot near the spine almost killed him. A brown striped bull named Zarabrando turned backward and gouged at several of the fallen. Years later, Julen himself would tell me what happened that morning in horrific detail.
“I was running with the Jandillas like any other day. I was coming down on Telefónica and there were lots of people. The encierro (bull run) was very dirty. People were falling over. They were crossing in front of me. I couldn’t see the bulls. I had a bull at my back very close. I was trying to stay under control. I had to keep looking down and measuring the space. I saw that by the left side of the tunnel a very great cork was forming. People were falling over and piling up. I decided to go toward the right side of the tunnel to avoid the problems. I entered on the right side with a bull very close to my back.
“What I could not see was that behind that first pile there was a second pile. I fell over directly on top of that second pile. The bull [behind me] was very aggressive, so as soon as I fell it gored me. It lifted me from my belt and shook me vigorously. I tried to grab my belt buckle to loosen my belt but I could not, so the bull continued hauling me before he dropped me. I landed on top of a group of people and I lay very still, without moving because I knew that there were a lot of people who were going to shout so the bull would raise its face and go away. Or, that is what I hoped. But the bull stayed with me and he kept on goring me. It lasted twenty-two seconds and nobody was able to take the bull away. Aside from the gorings, I remember hearing this noise, a zzzz zzzz, like a stabbing sound.
“The bull then took to me from my butt cheek and lifted me and kept me on his horn. Then he dropped me, and I noticed a severe pain. The other thing that called my attention was the bellows of the bull, how it snorted, the energy with which it was attacking me. I could hear the noise that the hooves made in the ground, and the burned scent of the hooves scratching against the ground. I was lying face down and I stayed quiet, quiet, quiet. He gave me a terrible beating. I remained on the ground totally crushed and I remember that then I thought, I can see the street, so the pile is being broken. What the bull didn’t do now, the people will. There is an avalanche of people coming, and they are going to massacre me. They are going to crush me and step on me.
“So, I dragged myself and I got underneath the wall [an opening low in the tunnel], hoping that the help would arrive soon. I remember that I was falling asleep because of all the blood loss. I was talking to myself a lot. I told myself to breathe slowly, breathe through the nose and your mouth, control the breathing, because I thought if I breathed slowly the blood would flow slowly. With an accelerated heart rate the blood circulates faster and you will bleed to death faster. I thought, If someday this had to happen, this is the best place, here in Pamplona. They have the best doctors and best resources. They’ll help you. Now wait and be calm. That is when I heard voices and I saw the Red Cross guys. They tore my clothes and made a tourniquet. One of them put his fist in my wound, in my left leg to stop the hemorrhage. They carried me to the horses’ patio, and they performed surgery at the nurses’ station right inside the arena.”
Julen never resented the animal who gored him. Later he said this was a small price to pay for all the joy the bulls gave him. He recovered quickly and was preparing to run on that morning one day shy of a year later, July 11, 2005, as I crouched in the small balcony above the curve.
After about twenty minutes up there a woman in a balcony across the street noticed me and got on the phone. Five minutes later the window opened. An older man with a police officer led me out through a nice apartment and onto the street where I resumed my search. I walked urgently up and down Estafeta Street asking people if I could watch from their balcony. I had no idea that most balconies cost fifty euros for one space; I was waving a ten euro note and begging. The police began to clear Estafeta. The officers closed in on me standing about half a block from La Curva. I caught eyes with an older woman four flights above and begged my heart out. She disappeared from the balcony, and just as the police started to push me up the street she emerged from her doorway and waved me in. She brought me upstairs where I stood behind some children in the balcony and waited. I had a perfect view of La Curva. My gracious hosts offered me wine and food even though I couldn’t communicate with them. Their smiles made me feel right at home.
I was grateful Ned had convinced me to watch. This perspective opened a whole new understanding of the course. I saw my folly standing on the inside of the curve. It blinded me to the pack’s approach. I watched as many runners foolishly gathered there. Across from them a pocket of runners in colorful shirts gathered. They stoically shook hands and embraced each other. Then guys with green shirts and thin willow canes walked past; their shirts read PASTORES. They were the official Pamplona herdsmen. The pastores stopped and embraced each of this group in the doorway. One of the guys in the doorway was bald and wore spectacles. His green and red sweater was bright and bold. He greeted everyone eagerly and generously. I’d later learn he was an American named Tom Turley. The year before he’d made his bones as a runner on the same morning Trigueño nearly killed Julen Madina in the tunnel.
Back in 2004, the Jandilla hooked and gored several runners along the early part of the course, but when they reached the curve they crashed hard and the herd dismantled. Most of the pack continued up the street. Trigueño and Zarabrando remained. Turley hailed Zarabrando with a shout and ran the brown-striped bovine’s horns for a long distance up Estafeta. The act was remarkable and heroic. Turley helped keep the animal moving up the street and stopped Zarabrando from halting and attacking his fellow mozos. Even with all the blood the year before with the Jandilla, there seemed to be nothing special in the air. It was just another morning in Pamplona.
As I stood on the balcony the rocket rose into the sky in the distance and burst. A joyous roar swelled throughout the balconies. About thirty seconds later bodies poured around the corner like a raging rapid. There was a huge swell in density, then a quiet before the final surge. The bulls blistered into view and crashed into the wall. Three tumbled over each other, and when they rose they turned backward the wrong way up the street and went after several runners. One animal disappeared up Mercaderes. Two galloped up Estafeta. The final animal, a jet-black bull with huge, wide shoulders and a bulbous neck named Vaporoso, stood mystified. Tom Turley appeared and called to Vaporoso. Vaporoso charged and Turley ran his horns for thirty yards. Vaporoso gained on Turley. Turley peeled off to the side. Vaporoso surged on, and I noticed a portly man running ahead of Vaporoso. Vaporoso picked him out of a dozen others and accelerated. The man’s name was Xabier Salillas. Salillas ran as hard as he could until his legs began to fail him. His strides desperately elongated as Vaporoso closed. Salillas collapsed into a doorway directly under and across the street from my balcony. I gripped the railing and peered over the heads of the children; one little girl whimpered and burst into tears as she witnessed the mayhem. There were easily 100 people within Vaporoso’s reach, but he stopped and loomed over Salillas. Then Vaporoso dug his horn into Salillas’s gut, lifted him up, and slammed him into the boarded-up shop door. Salillas slipped off the horn and fell to the ground. Vaporoso stabbed the horn in Salillas’s thigh and bashed him against the wall. Vaporoso continued to ferociously gore Salillas. His horns ripped through cloth and flesh.
He’s killing him. I’d seen people die horrible deaths before, and I was sure now I was witnessing it again. A terrifying helplessness gripped my heart like a massive claw. Time stretched. The horror
