Gunner Read online

  The next day felt like one disaster after another to Brent, but again, he was learning. This was show life, and southern horse people were a resilient bunch. If they could survive Category 5 hurricanes, they could laugh off the minor catastrophes of a typical, high-stress show day with ease.

  Heather had them up at the break of dawn, preparing for the day ahead. Gunner needed to be groomed to perfection and his stall kept spotless to prevent stains on his coat.

  Gunner seemed to sense the excitement and was trying them with his old-time pranks. He fooled around in the wash rack and managed to soak both Brent and Heather. He untied himself while they were working on his legs and began wandering down the aisle, visiting other horses and raising a ruckus before they could catch him and get him back to his tie ring. He tipped a water bucket, nipped Tramp, and was just being a general nuisance. Heather couldn’t have been more pleased!

  She left Brent in charge of him for a while so that she could run to the vendors and buy a show outfit to wear. Brent was in a sweat the whole time, worrying that something would go wrong. Everything was fine, but by the time they began to prepare for the afternoon classes, Brent was exhausted – and the fun had only just begun.

  About an hour before their hunter class, Heather took Gunner out to the practice ring to lunge him and warm up his muscles and burn off a bit of his high spirits. He was frisky and playful and, while goofing around, he took a misstep and fell hard. Instead of springing to his feet as he normally would, he stayed down, and for a moment, Heather panicked, thinking he was seriously hurt. Brent was at her side in a moment, eager to do what he could to help.

  A minute later, though, Gunner heaved himself to his feet and stood quietly … perhaps a little sheepishly … as Heather inspected him from top to toe for scrapes and bruises. She had Brent walk and trot him out so she could check for any sign of lameness. He seemed fine. “I think he just knocked the wind out himself,” she said, relieved. They headed back to the barn to prepare for the hunter class.

  Once again they groomed him, removing every trace of dust from his coat, and saddled him and tied him in his stall to wait a few more minutes before they would head out to the warm-up ring. But the mischievous gelding didn’t feel like standing around. He got down in his stall and rolled, saddle and all. Heather let out a yell when she saw what he was doing and urged him back to his feet. He stood before them, his mane sticking up wildly, his tail and saddle pad full of wood shavings. Heather could only laugh … this was so Gunner! But Brent was horrified. With only fifteen minutes before their class was due to be called, they worked to clean him up again and get him out to the ring for at least a short warm-up.

  Despite all of this, Gunner held up well in the class and placed more than respectably, especially for a horse that could not stand on his own a half year earlier.

  Between classes, Heather and Gunner were invited to the media station to tell their story. The little Paint was a celebrity and everyone was talking about “that miracle horse.”

  Later that afternoon, they were waiting at the gate again for the showmanship class to be called. Heather had pulled together a very good-looking show outfit, minus some glitter, but at a fraction of the money that she would normally have spent. Both she and Gunner were groomed to perfection, and Brent was feeling very proud of the effort he had put in to help get them there. They were just minutes away from the class he’d been waiting for, along with the dozens of other fans who filled the stands that afternoon to get a look at Gunner.

  Wes, with Tramp at his heels, was never far from the action, and he stood now, munching a chocolate bar and watching his mother smooth her hair and brush dust from her dress shirt. Gunner chewed on his lead rope, trying to pull it from Brent’s hands.

  “Do you think Gunner’s glad to be here again, Mama?” Wes asked thoughtfully.

  Heather rubbed one of Gunner’s ears and answered, “Yes, I think he is. He likes all this attention, and he hasn’t been this playful in a long time.”

  Wes reached up and offered Gunner the last of his Snickers bar, and before Heather or Brent could stop him, Gunner was munching the half-melted, gooey treat, tossing his head and flicking bits of chocolaty saliva when the candy stuck to his teeth. Wes laid his hands on either side of the gelding’s white face and kissed him.

  “I’m glad you’re still here,” he whispered.

  It was a sweet and moving moment, but Brent and Heather exchanged looks of dismay when Gunner raised his head again. Chocolate smudges marred the perfect white face that they had labored so hard to make gleaming. A year ago, this would have been a disaster and sent Heather into a tailspin. Now, she looked from Brent’s shocked expression to her son’s broad smile to Gunner’s chocolate muzzle, and she burst out laughing. With minutes to spare, they cleaned the chocolate off as best they could, and Heather and Gunner hurried into the ring to join the rest of the competitors.

  Gunner conducted himself like a pro, responding to the tiniest cues, moving with the crisp energy and subtle flare that had earned him top honors the year before. He was underweight and still bore the scars of his hurricane ordeal, and his eye was dark and sightless now, but Brent, watching from the sidelines, saw them dance. It was enough to advance them to the finals in the class, despite all that was against them. He would not be named champion that year, but in Heather’s, Wesley’s, and Brent’s eyes, and to everyone who knew him, he was a champion beyond all measure.

  PBJ Decks Smokin Gun still lives with Buttermilk at the little farm in Picayune, Mississippi. Gunner’s hardships were not over. The young horse survived a tragic trailer wreck a year after his return to the Worlds – a wreck which took the life of six-year-old Wesley and a young girl who had been traveling home from a show with them. Gunner has been one of the reasons that Heather has been able to find a way forward. He is still sassy and full of life, despite the incredible challenges he has faced, and he remains one of her most beloved friends.

  This story is written in memory of

  Wesley William Goodwin,

  August 2000 – June 2007.

  True HORSE Stories by Judy Andrekson:

  Little Squire: The Jumping Pony

  Miskeen: The Dancing Horse

  JB Andrew: Mustang Magic

  Fosta: Marathon Master

  Brigadier: Gentle Hero

  Gunner: Hurricane Horse

  Text copyright © 2010 by Judy Andrekson

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by David Parkins

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books,

  75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,

  P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938092

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Andrekson, Judy

  Gunner : hurricane horse / Judy Andrekson ; illustrated by David Parkins.

  (True horse stories)

  eISBN: 978-1-77049-227-1

  1. Gunner (Horse)–Juvenile literature. 2. Show horses–United States–Biography–Juvenile literature. 3. American paint horse–United States–Biography–Juvenile literature. 4. Hurricane Katrina, 2005–Anecdotes–Juvenile literature.

  I. Parkins, David II. Title. III. Series: True horse stories

  SF295.187.G85A54 2010 j798.2′40929 C2009-905855-3

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Co
rporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

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