Gunner Read online

  “All right,” she finally relented, “but be prepared for a long, hard night!”

  To her mother, Maria, she instructed, “Call Dr. White and tell her we’re going to need her. I’ll phone you when we’re getting close. And get a stall ready. I’m bringing him home if I can.”

  Maria also tried to talk her out of the rescue mission, but Heather would have none of it. “I have to see him for myself. I will not give up on him until I know for sure.”

  It took them over five hours to travel the thirty miles to Waynesboro. They were forced to detour around broken bridges, washed out roads, and storm-ravaged terrain. It had been more than eight hours since they had received the call. Heather hoped they had been able to make Gunner somewhat comfortable and that he was still hanging on.

  Tears filled her eyes when she finally saw him. He was emaciated, so weak he could barely stand, and one eye was swollen and infected. He was scraped and bruised and very dirty, but it was definitely Gunner. He raised his head ever so slightly at the sound of her voice. That was enough to make her want to try.

  “I’m taking him home,” she announced.

  Getting him home would be a lot easier said than done, however. Gunner was too weak to walk onto the trailer on his own, and they ended up having to use a hoist to get him into a cattle trailer, instead. This whole process took all the energy he had left, and he could not stand for the journey home.

  The drive back to Picayune was agonizingly slow and nerve-wracking. Heather was tense and whispered, “I’m sorry,” at every bump and bend in the damaged road, knowing that Gunner was feeling every jolt. “Just make it home, Gunner. Then it’ll be all right,” she encouraged him over and over, although he could not hear her.

  When they finally pulled into the yard at Picayune, the vet, Dr. Anne White, and Maria were there, waiting. Gunner had managed to get to his feet when the trailer stopped, and now staggered onto solid ground very unsteadily.

  “Oh my,” breathed Dr. White, approaching to put a steadying hand on his side. She gave Heather a look that told her to prepare for the worst.

  Two things helped Heather make up her mind in the next few minutes. First, her mom smiled at her and said “He doesn’t look quite as bad as I expected.” Heather could have laughed – or cried – she wasn’t sure which would come more easily. She had watched her mother mend injured dogs, children, broken hearts, and many, many horses over the years. If anyone could pull Gunner through, it was Maria.

  The other deciding factor came from Gunner himself. Wes stood by the trailer with tears streaming down his face while Gunner was being unloaded.

  “Is Gunner gonna die?” he sobbed.

  At the sound of the boy’s voice, Gunner stopped and nickered, soft and low, as though to comfort him. That clinched it. They had to try.

  “No honey,” Heather said, smiling encouragingly at her young son. Poor Wes had been through so much lately. “Gunner’s going to be okay. He’ll be sick for a while though, and we have to take good care of him.”

  Gunner would be sick for a long while! The effort of getting into the barn was too much, and as he turned in his stall, he went down again. They knew that without intensive help, he would soon be unable to rise at all. He had very little left.

  The emergency room nurse in Heather kicked in as she assisted Dr. White in starting an intravenous line and hooking up a bag of nutrient-rich fluids to start rehydrating Gunner’s depleted body.

  They set up a body sling, supported by the barn rafters, and a pulley system to help Gunner stand. Horses spend the vast majority of time on their feet, even sleeping standing up. They cannot be off their feet for extended periods of time without suffering life-threatening damage to their hooves. A special structure in their hooves, a triangular, spongy bulb called the frog, works like a pump to force blood through the hoof and lower leg. Blood is pumped with every step the horse takes, and without this vital blood flow, a hoof suffers very serious damage.

  They wrapped Gunner’s lower legs with support bandages to try to prevent fluid from building up and to assist with standing.

  With Gunner now supported by the sling and the IV in place, Dr. White was able to conduct a more detailed examination.

  Gunner’s right eye was badly damaged and now infected. He had likely been struck by blowing debris during the hurricane and had been coping with the painful, untreated injury for all those weeks. The extent of his suffering must have been terrible. Partially blinded, he would have tried to seek shelter, food, and water, only to find a confusing and unfamiliar landscape. How he had gone unnoticed all this time, and how he had made his way to Waynesboro was anybody’s guess. Along the way he had gathered many scrapes, gouges, and one deep laceration on a hind leg, but he had survived – barely. The following hours and days would be critical.

  Dr. White added strong doses of antibiotics and painkillers to the IV “soup” already coursing through Gunner, and then left Heather and Maria with instructions for his care. They blanketed him to reduce the effects of shock. They offered him small amounts of hay and water, but he was too weak to do more than nibble just a little of it. There was a long road ahead for the pretty Paint … but first, he had to make it through the night.

  Gunner did survive that night, and the IV fluids made a world of difference to their patient. Although he was nowhere near strong enough to go without the sling yet, he seemed brighter, his eyes were less sunken, and Heather felt certain that she had made the right choice. What they needed now was time to get nutrients into him and to help him regain his strength. They’d also need a lot of luck so they wouldn’t run into secondary problems with internal organs or with his feet.

  Over the coming days, Gunner slowly began to come back. Heather was still working very hard at the hospital and had to be up by 3:30 a.m. to change Gunner’s IV bag, get herself ready, and leave the house by 4:30 a.m. if she was going to be at work by 7:30 a.m.

  Maria was working to get her school up and running again, but most of Gunner’s care fell to her throughout the day. He was beginning to eat a little more hay each day and was gradually able to spend more and more time out of the body sling, although they continued to support him in it for a couple of weeks. Maria groomed him and bathed his damaged eye and dressed his wounds, and gave him what he needed the most … a soothing voice and a gentle hand. Outwardly, he was beginning to heal, but he was very quiet. The spirited young horse was no longer there. His ordeal had taken such a lot out of him.

  As exhausted as she was, Heather would arrive home late and spend time with Wes and Gunner and her mother. She was devoted to Gunner’s care and pitched in as best she could. On the days when she didn’t work, she took over his care entirely.

  Weeks passed, and Gunner began to put on weight and no longer needed the sling. He was able to get out now for short walks and a bit of paddock time with his buddy, Buttermilk. He was still eating only hay and a bit of fresh grass. Heather and Dr. White agreed that starting him on grain too soon could lead to laminitis, an inflammation of the hooves, especially if the circulation had been compromised for any length of time before they’d gotten him on his feet. Every gain had to be approached gradually, and Heather waited until the end of January before she began offering him small bran mashes. Gunner had always dug into his grain greedily, but now he picked and nibbled and ate halfheartedly.

  His lack of spirit became a larger issue for Heather than his physical wounds. His eye had cleared with the antibiotic treatments and care, but it was dull now – black and visionless. It didn’t seem to be paining him any longer. But the good eye, that fierce blue eye that had challenged her so boldly at times, was also dull. He did what he was directed to do. He ate what he was given to eat. But there was very little life behind his actions. Heather greatly missed her sassy, bossy colt.

  At times, there would be subtle reminders that he was still there inside. Sometimes, he rested his head against them as they changed a leg wrap or nickered a soft greeting when they came int
o the barn. He leaned into the brush as they cleaned and cared for him. He watched as they worked around the barn. It wasn’t much yet, but it was something. Heather hoped that, with time, they’d start to see more and more of him.

  By mid-February, almost six months after the hurricane, Heather began to notice her mother complaining about “that horse.” “That horse will not keep his leg wraps on,” she’d say. “I straighten them out in the morning, and by lunch he’s got them all pulled off, trampled in the shavings, and tangled around his legs.”

  One day she came home to find her mother grinning, but trying to act annoyed. “That horse squashed another one of my hens!” she announced, and Heather burst out laughing. Gunner was back.

  With every passing day now, Gunner was gaining strength and his old personality was shining through. The only difference was that he was more affectionate than ever before, demanding attention and raising a ruckus if he didn’t get it. He was digging into his feed with vigor again and beginning to play with the other horses when he was turned out. He was skittish on his blind side now, and they had to be more careful about how they approached and handled him, but he seemed to be adjusting and finding his way back.

  Competing wasn’t even a thought for Heather that year, with Gunner or any other horse. Between rebuilding their lives in Laurel, working in what remained of New Orleans, and caring for Gunner and Wes, there seemed little room for anything like play. Heather was much like Gunner. She had survived the ordeal and was healing, but she was looking at life through a new set of eyes. It would take a while before she found where she fit again.

  It was hard seeing the reality every day – the thousands of people who had lost family, homes, pets, and all they had cherished. So many of them didn’t have the resources to rebuild their shattered lives as she had been so lucky to be able to do. She was enormously grateful for the blessing of still having all of her family and even her horse returned to her, but she was changed, like everyone and everything around her.

  If some things had been torn apart by Katrina, friendships had been forged and strengthened. The people who had worked alongside Heather at Touro Hospital for all those desperate months had become as close as family to her. They knew each other’s stories and had shared many tears, hugs, laughs, and life-changing moments together. One of these friends, Brent Becknow, had heard Gunner’s story and was keen to meet this miracle horse. One day, in June 2006, he finally did, and it would mark a new beginning for Heather and Gunner.

  It was a pleasantly warm afternoon, and Gunner was out in his field with Buttermilk, grazing contentedly like a horse that’s never known a care in the world. Brent was not a horseman and admitted that he would not have been able to pick Gunner out from any of the other horses. He could see nothing wrong with him from where he stood. He was certainly striking … his gleaming golden coat with its odd splashes of white caught the eye, but beyond that, he saw nothing unusual. At least, not until Heather called to him.

  At the sound of her voice, his blazed head shot up and turned so that one fierce blue eye faced them. The look was intense and, for a second, Brent felt goose bumps rise on his arms. Gunner arched his neck and, tossing his pretty head, nickered deeply, breaking into a trot to meet them at the fence.

  As Brent watched the greeting between Heather and her horse, he saw, for the first time in his life, what a horse/human partnership – one might even say friendship – looked like. Without words, the pair was communicating clearly, and the affection between them was unmistakable. It wasn’t merely human affection for an animal that was owned, but a genuine affection for a partner and friend, and Gunner returned it in kind.

  To Brent’s further amazement, Heather and Gunner began what looked to him like some sort of a dance. She moved a hand; he took a step back. She stepped to one side; he stepped the other way. She turned and jogged down the fence line; he immediately broke into a brisk trot and followed at her side. She turned; he turned. She faced him and he stopped, alert to her every move. She pointed a toe, and he shifted a hoof. Brent was spellbound.

  “What was that?” he asked when Heather was once again beside him.

  She laughed self-consciously and answered, “Oh, it’s just a bit of showmanship stuff. We mess around with it all the time. He seems to like it. He’s always liked to play games like that.”

  “You mean that’s the sort of thing you’d do at a show?” Brent pressed.

  “Yes, sort of … in the showmanship class at least. It’s all about anticipating each other’s cues and moves. It’s fun. It’s too bad that his show days are over. He was really good.”

  Brent looked puzzled and asked, “Why are they over? He’s looking great from what I can see. Why don’t you take him back?”

  Heather frowned. “Not with that eye,” she answered. “Things are different now. Besides, chasing titles? What does that even mean anymore? It’s hard to remember why it was so important, somehow.”

  Brent thoughtfully watched Gunner, walking quietly back to Buttermilk. Things might have changed for everyone, but he believed in jumping right back into life if things were ever to be normal again. He knew Heather had been through a lot in these past months. They all had. But here was her chance to start again. He said no more then, but a plan was forming in his mind.

  Two weeks later, Heather was herded into the staff room at the hospital. She found herself surrounded by a group of grinning friends. Brent’s smile was the widest of them all.

  “What?” she asked suspiciously.

  One of the ladies handed her a card. “An early birthday present,” she announced.

  Heather looked from the eager faces around her to the card in her hands. Half expecting something to explode or pop out of it, she opened the envelope slowly. Inside the card were papers with the World Paint Show emblem on the letterhead. She glanced over the contents, and then looked up, puzzled.

  “I don’t get it,” she said, looking straight at Brent. “I told you I’m not going to the Worlds this year. Why did you buy my entrance fee? I don’t have a horse to enter.”

  “Yes, you do,” said Brent confidently. “You have Gunner! We entered you and Gunner!”

  Heather was dumbfounded and, at first, could hardly comprehend what her friend was suggesting. She decided to phone Mike Stable and see what he thought.

  “Great! I’ll meet up with you there. I’m taking a few in,” said Mike.

  “But Gunner’s still underweight and he’s not fit and … his eye! He hasn’t had a saddle on him in almost a year,” Heather argued.

  “Well, get a saddle on him. Just come and have fun. It’ll do you both good.”

  With only a week to prepare, Heather and Gunner got ready to go back to the Worlds. It would be Heather’s tenth World Paint Show, but she had never done it quite like this. Usually it was months of training, thousands of dollars, high-level competition, and intensely serious. Now they were going just to play, just because they loved to be there, and it felt like the craziest thing she had ever done. By the time they were ready to go, Heather was excited. It was like being a kid on her favorite pony in a 4-H show again.

  Wes and his little dog, Tramp, would travel to the Worlds with Heather again that year … and so would Brent Becknow. Heather insisted that he come and be her stable-hand, since it had been his crazy idea to go in the first place. He had readily agreed, thinking he was in for a bit of an easy adventure, but it would turn out to be a real education.

  It was Brent’s first time at any horse show, and the sheer size and magnitude of this one was stunning. He dressed up on their first day, expecting to sit up in the stands and watch as Heather and Gunner and all the other magnificent competitors “did their thing,” but Heather soon set him straight.

  “You’re no good to me hanging around the stands,” she complained. “Go put on some work clothes and meet me in the barn.”

  What Brent soon learned was that these big shows were all about the horse. Even though Heather had come in a less c
ompetitive frame of mind this year, she still planned to give the few classes they had entered her best shot, and Gunner’s care and comfort was her number one concern.

  The days started early – far earlier then Brent was prepared for! Bleary eyed, Heather had him cleaning stalls, lugging water buckets, hay bales and bedding, and mixing complicated grain rations. He helped her bathe and groom their charge, polishing hooves, removing grass and urine and mud stains from the white patches on Gunner’s coat, and taming a mane and tail that had been allowed to grow wild over the past months. Going from pasture-pretty to show-gorgeous was a lot more work then Brent could ever have guessed. Tack needed to be cleaned, Gunner needed time out of his stall to exercise, and the whole process seemed to be repeated several times a day.

  Mike Stable greeted Heather warmly when he saw her, and seemed delighted to find Gunner back in good form.

  “Well, he’s not what he was before,” Heather cautioned. “He’s really skittish on his blind side now. That may be a problem when the judges come up on that side in the showmanship class. And he’s not in very good shape. But he’s alive, and he’s here. That’s a lot more than I could have hoped for not too long ago.”

  Mike assured her that they would do fine, and then asked if she was ready. He was used to her being extremely organized, polished, and driven, so he was surprised when she laughed and answered, “No, not quite. I don’t have an outfit yet.”

  He frowned and pulled the class schedule out of his pocket. “What are you in? Showmanship and hunter, right? They’re both tomorrow afternoon!”

  “Yup,” she answered with a grin. “I’ll pick up some stuff when the vendors open in the morning.”

  Mike laughed. “Oh boy, when I said just come and play, I didn’t think you’d take me this literally. It’s sure good to see you both back here though.”

  “It feels great to be here,” she admitted.