The Trail of the Crazy Gringo

by Antonio Landauro

In Arica in the year 1883 or 1884 a pleasant Englishman named Thomas O'Ryan arrived with plans to settle himself. It was supposed that he was a doctor or something along those lines. We're talking about a kind cordial man who exhibited a deep religious feeling. He went to mass almost every day and he enjoyed talking to the priest. He used to explain his devotion by relating it to the suffering that was caused by an old injury he had received in the last rebellion in Ireland. So, "Mister Tommy", as the little rascals of Arica called him, felt obliged one day to make a decision. The townspeople had told him about some marvelous healing hot springs that existed in the South, in the area around the Tinguiririca River. Those hot springs were called, and are still called, the Baths of El Flaco (the Thin Man) and were located in the heart of the Andes.

Hoping that a treatment with these thermal waters would relieve his pains once and for all, "Mister Tommy" sold all of his possessions in Arica, packed his personal effects and departed toward the South. The Aricans imagined that they would never come to see him again, but it was not so.

Meanwhile, the Englishman arrived dusty and muddy, in the little hamlet that was Tinguiririca and prepared to go on to the baths. A trip to the Baths of El Flaco in that time constituted a true expedition, and for that reason "Mister Tommy" had to hire a pair of muleteers with their mules and provide sufficient provisions to live for two months.

Having set up his camp near the baths, he began his treatment in the waters.

After ten days he began to feel like a new man, and having struck up a great friendship with the muleteers, he got some information from them about the geography of the surrounding area. For him, the countryside was marvelous, and the Andean air a blessing. Little by little, as he came to feel better from his pains, the relative solitude in which he found himself began to weigh on him. The monotonous and sedentary life of the camp did not agree with his active and enterprising temperament, so for that reason he decided to dedicate his time to make some excursions into the area around the baths. He was slowly enlarging the radius of his hikes, until one morning he left the camp announcing to the muleteers that he would not return until sunset.

"I want to get to the summit of those mountains", he told them, pointing to the mountain directly across from them. "Don't worry about me, I'm carrying enough food for the whole day."

At dusk, the muleteers were awaiting him with dinner ready, but "Mister Tommy" did not appear. The two men began to get nervous, but did not decide to go out to look for him, because the night was very cold and especially dark. Thinking that on the following day they were going to find him blundering in some ravine, they stayed awake almost all night. The dawn broke and "Mister Tommy" was still absent. Altruistically, the two muleteers decided to look for him; they couldn't leave him abandoned to his fate. Painstakingly they searched for him among the neighboring hills, without finding any trace of him. In this search they spent five unending days, until they finally decided to face the facts.

"Listen, Pedro", one of them said, "we have to go back to Tinguiririca to report the disappearance of this gringo. How did we get ourselves into this mess? Nobody is going to believe us that he died alone!"

"It would be better if we put up with a couple more days", the other suggested. "There's no doubt that they're going to imagine that we attacked him and left him hidden in some ravine. Let's make another thorough search of those mountains; it was in that direction that this gringo from hell went wandering."

The muleteers made one last exhaustive search, and in the last rays of the sun with their hope gone they were preparing to return to camp when they saw a small shape that was advancing painfully on the slope of the mountain. It could not be anyone but "Mister Tommy".

Both men ran to meet him just in time to receive the Englishman's exhausted body into their arms. His sunken eyes, his haggard face betrayed the hard trial he had undergone. To the anxious questions of the muleteers he only responded with vague unconnected explanations. He said that he had fallen into a ravine that he could not get out of and had only been saved by a miracle of God.

"But where was it sir? If we have covered the hill on all sides", insisted the muleteers. But he only responded:

"Over there...over there".

They returned quickly to Tinguiririca. The muleteers no longer had any faith in the Englishman.

"The gringo is confused", they commented to themselves. "He doesn't know what happened. Where the devil could he have spent those six days?"

They could find out nothing. On the other hand, when they arrived back in Tinguiririca, the Englishman paid them generously and returned to Arica. But when he was back in the sunny lands of the Moors, he was no longer the same. All of his friends noticed that he had obviously changed. The happy and loquacious gringo appeared silent and thoughtful, as if seized by a grave worry. To top it all off he gave himself to drinking, and under the effects of the alcohol his tongue was loosened and he used to talk incoherently about very strange things.

"I saw it...there, within hand's reach", he stammered. "A mountain of rocks with spikes of gold! And over there, a wide vein of the flower of the earth! Gold, gold on all sides!"

Those who heard him shook their heads compassionately. The poor gringo must have given over to "raving" again. But one day, irritated by their laughter, the Englishman took two or three stones out of his pocket that shone fascinatingly before the admiring eyes of those surrounding him. They were stones encrusted with gold, spiked with pure gold.

"Where did you find these stones, 'Mister Tommy'?," they all asked him in unison, and they began to demand a precise location. "You have talked of mountains of these rocks. But where in the South did you find them?"

"I don't know...I don't know ...I don't remember", said the gringo finally and inflexibly.

The news ran quickly from mouth to mouth; everyone made conjectures and tried to find out where "Mister Tommy" had been. It was supposed that he had not gone beyond Tinguiririca and the Baths of El Flaco. The people's interest in finding out where the trail of the crazy gringo had been, passed beyond the borders of the province and awakened the greed of the miners of Atacama, Antofagasta and Copiapó. Many of them made special trips to Arica to try to squeeze more information from the Englishman, but he persisted in his denial of having any further knowledge.

"I repeat to you that I don't know where it is!," he grumbled. "I don't remember anything. And don't bother me any more. I don't want to know anything about this matter."

"Mister Tommy" continued to be unmovable and the people began to doubt the veracity of his story, because he never showed the least interest in exploiting his discovery. But in 1897 an unavoidable fact brought the subject back to life. "Mister Tommy" was in agony and made a call to his friend, the priest of Arica.

"Father, do you have the power to relieve me of a vow that I made on pain of death?," he asked him, and when the priest answered in the positive, he continued, murmuring: "In that case I will have to hurry, because I feel as if the time of my death is at hand. It is about the gold. I haven't told anyone what really happened. One afternoon I left the camp with the intention of climbing a mountain. I suddenly found myself blocked by a high mass of rock. While looking at the panorama, my gaze was attracted by some pebbles that shone in the sun. I picked one up and was surprised by its strange weight and upon examining it further I saw, with chills, spikes of gold. My heart gave a turn and I jumped up", the dying man continued his narration to the priest. "I anxiously covered the ground and noticed that it was sprinkled with the same kind of rocks. A little farther away I discovered a wide gold-bearing vein that extended until it was lost in the distance. Overcome with a delirious joy, I walked from one side to another, when suddenly I lost my footing and fell rolling to the bottom of a kind of crater seven or eight meters deep. On getting to my feet I realized with horror that the walls of that hole were smooth and vertical, making it impossible for me to scale them on any side. I exhausted my energy trying to get out, until I became convinced that if I didn't get outside help I was condemned to die of hunger and thirst in that infernal hole. Two days and nights passed, and feeling lost, I decided to commend myself to God."

Thomas O'Ryan paused. He was already scarcely breathing. But he continued his story. In his invocation to God he had said: "Lord, if you want to take pity on my unhappy luck and take my life out of this difficult juncture, I will give you my solemn vow, here, on my knees, that I will never reveal the location of this vein, whose richness would bring man to crime or corruption."

At sunrise the next morning, according to the Englishman's story, it began to snow and he was able to quench the thirst that was consuming him. A little while later a wild goat, scared by some bird of prey, fell down with him at the bottom of the hole. He ate its flesh raw and making use of its bones was able to dig footholds in the wall of the hole until at the end of two days of hopeless work he reached the surface.

"God had saved me", concluded the dying man, already at death's door. "That is the story father; and now it rests with you to relieve me of my vow."

The parson of Arica traced the sign of the cross over the forehead of the dying man and liberated him from his promise.

"Now, provide me with the details of your discovery and I will transmit them to whomever you request me to", the priest suggested to him, remembering perfectly that the Englishman had no relatives. But the man no longer possessed enough mental clarity to reflect any more.

"Give me a pencil and paper", was all he could ask the priest, "and I will show you the exact site where I found the vein."

With a supreme effort he began to draw a crude sketch, whose starting point was Tinguiririca. He continued wavering until he had reached the Baths of El Flaco. Here a weakening of his energy stopped him, and while he was tracing an unsteady line to the north, his head collapsed heavily. Thomas O'Ryan had died, and with him his secret.

The parson of Arica was left with the useless sketch in his hands and in a fit of anger he had crumpled it until he had reduced it to a tiny ball. But later he decided to keep it, just in case. However, the trail of the crazy gringo has not yet been discovered. Nevertheless it is a legend that it still exists on a semi-crumpled paper that is preserved by an Arican family. But the truth is that the gold is there, in the vicinity of the Hot Springs of El Flaco...near the mountain behind them...a little to the north. Who is interested in going? There is gold, a mountain of gold. All one must do is discover "The Trail of the Crazy Gringo", Mister Thomas O'Ryan.