Read Gunner Online

Authors: Judy Andrekson

Gunner (7 page)

BOOK: Gunner
5.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“Tell them not to do anything. I’m coming,” she told E.W.

E.W. tried to talk her out of it. “Heather, it’ll take you hours, and he’s suffering. They said he’s in really bad shape. The roads are still a mess east of here. … You’ll have to go around by the back roads to get there. Why don’t you just let them deal with it?”

“No. He’s hung on for three months. Who am I to give up on him! Tell them I’m on my way.”

The following hours were extremely chaotic. By then, Heather had a vehicle again, but the roads in and out of New Orleans were still nearly impassable. The drive to Picayune, which under normal conditions took about forty minutes, now took her close to three hours. Wes was there, and while Heather hitched the trailer, he insisted on going with her. At first she resisted. She wasn’t sure exactly how they were going to get there, or
just how bad Gunner would be. But Wes was very much his mother’s son and would not take no for an answer.

“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.

G
unner 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 into 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.

BOOK: Gunner
5.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

GianMarco by Eve Vaughn
The Altar by James Arthur Anderson
Beating the Babushka by Tim Maleeny
Just Friends by Dyan Sheldon
In the Woods by Merry Jones
The Dark Flight Down by Marcus Sedgwick
Killer's Kiss by R.L. Stine