“You’re not hungry?” I asked.
“No, not tonight, sweetie,” Linda said, in a faraway voice I’d heard from her only once before: that night in a West Virginia gas station when she told me how close they’d come to losing Karin.
“We’re just going to sit here quiet for a bit,” Karin said. “You can go on back. We’re okay.”
Any one of those things in itself was a red flag—sitting, quiet, or by themselves—but all three at once meant they were far from okay. The reason Karin hadn’t answered the phone, she said, was because she was busy with the police. “We were driving back here, and we got passed by this Mustang, really flying,” she said. Seconds later, a motorcycle screamed around them, hot on the Mustang’s tail. The motorcycle rider tried to whip back into Karin’s lane, but he cut too hard and his footrest caught the road. It jerked the bike back up, throwing the rider. He flew through the air, the bike tumbling around him, and Linda’s heart froze: “No helmet. He was up in the air and I was thinking, ‘Oh no, baby, don’t hit the ground.’ ”
Karin stomped her brakes, smoking to a stop and skidding the truck sideways to block both lanes of the road. She threw open her door, then stopped to grab her phone while Linda—yes, seventy-two-year-old, eleven-year-old-girl-size Linda—ran into the face of oncoming traffic to cover the injured man with her body. He’d already stopped breathing, but when Linda knelt beside him, he gasped. Was his wife there? he asked. His wife was in the Mustang. He was trying to catch up with his wife. Was his wife there?
“She’s coming,” Linda said. “She’ll be here.”
The rider fell quiet. “Baby, keep breathing,” Linda pleaded, her hands on his chest. “Baby, keep breathing.” The Mustang’s driver must have seen the crash in her rearview mirror, because moments later, the motorcyclist’s wife ran to his side. She arrived as he took his last breath.
“By the time the police came, he was gone,” Karin said.
She saw the look on my face and poured me out a sip of whiskey. “You could have been killed yourselves,” I said. “You’re lucky you weren’t run down out there.” For all the Ladies’ bravado about grabbing their purses anytime they got wind of an adventure, I couldn’t forget that the real reason Karin and Linda were there was because they were the only ones who stepped up when they heard we were in a jam. They’d never met us, but they signed on anyway for a grueling trip and a week living in a trailer. I knew they liked taking their own chances, but I hated knowing that because of me, they could have been dead on the highway thousands of miles from home.
“You’ve been great to all of us,” I said. “I’m really sorry it led to this.”
Karin stood up and put down her glass. “I learned something from being sick,” she said, and began shaking her arms like she was shedding water. “When bad stuff is behind you, you’ve got to shake it off and move ahead. We’ve been through a lot this trip. Before we go home, let’s make sure it’s worth it.”
26
An Army of Wann
Eight forty-five in the morning on July 31, 2016, will go down as the single greatest moment in Sherman’s life. That’s when he looked outside and discovered that donkeys had taken over the world.
We’d just turned right at the only traffic light in Fairplay and entered a town filled with jackasses. It was like the summoning of a barbarian army, all of them furry, sturdy, and intense, braying a battle cry that passed through the ranks and echoed through the streets. I glanced in the side-view mirror and saw that back in the trailer, Sherman was electrified: he’d spun around from his usual ass-backwards position toward the wall and shoved his head out the window, nostrils flaring and ears sky-high. He puffed his lips, like a tenor loosening up, then erupted in a yodel so thundering and soulful, it seemed to tell his entire life story. His tribe was here. Gathered to greet him. At last.
“This is probably as close as we can get,” I told Karin. Mika and I had ridden into Fairplay with the Ladies, while all of our crew, including Zeke’s and Kip’s families, was caravanning behind. With little more than an hour left before the starting gun, livestock trailers had crowded every inch of the fairground and choked the side streets. “Once we get into town, we’ll never have room to turn around.”
“We’re good,” Karin said. “We’ve got VIP parking.”
“We do?” Outside, I could see we were passing Curtis Imrie’s trailer, unmistakable with its Old Glory red-white-and-blue paint job and emblazoned with his motto: “Donkeys, Drama & Democracy.” “It doesn’t look like Curtis has VIP parking,” I pointed out, “and he’s been doing this for forty years.”
“Don’t distract her,” Linda scolded. Karin threaded the giant trailer through the needle of narrow streets, heading straight for the race registration table in front of the historic Hand Hotel. When we were about ten steps away from the starting line, she cut the wheel and eased the truck to a stop in front of a giant hand-painted sign reading: NO RACE-DAY PARKING. YOU WILL BE TOWED!!
“I don’t think we’re getting away with this,” I said.
“Nah, we talked with the lady and she said we could,” Karin said.
“What lady?”
“Such a sweetheart,” Linda said. “We met her in the Italian restaurant and she said, ‘Be my guest!’ ”
Sweet mystery of life. By that point, the only thing that surprised me about the Ladies was the way they kept finding ways to surprise me. If they lucked into the very best parking spot in a jam-packed town because they had an afternoon craving for calzone, well, of course they did. “We’ve gotta get a move on,” Karin said, ending the discussion. “The more time the donkeys have to get used to this scene, the better.” We hopped out of the truck and pulled open the trailer doors, watching as Sherman, Flower, and Matilda slowly stepped out, awestruck, and joined the Grand Gathering of Burro Nation.
Sherman was so excited, his fur seemed to be standing on end. Probably at no time since the Civil War have more donkeys been united in one place than here, at Colorado’s annual burro races, and it was turning into a family reunion for creatures who never knew they had cousins. Up and down the street, burros were hollering and sniffing and checking one another out. Sherman threw back his head and thundered out another yodel of joy, with Flower and Matilda joining in to lend backup vocals. Karin covered her ears. “Oh my god. It’s like heavy metal out here.”
On World Championship morning, Fairplay belongs to the burros.
Mika and the Ladies set out buckets of feed and fresh water for our Gang of Three, while I went to meet Tammy. I found the Pedretti clan, many still in pajamas and red Wisconsin sweatshirts, clustered in the Hand Hotel’s breakfast room. Roger and Rick were the only ones not eating. They were in running shorts and warm-up tops, having just jogged down to check their burros at the fairground.
“They seemed edgy,” Roger said.
“They know it’s race day,” Rick agreed.
“Worst two hours of the year,” Roger said, holding a hand over his belly as if he were sick.
“Suddenly, the air is a whole lot thinner.”
Right—the air. Last night, I’d woken up over and over, thinking about the girl from Pennsylvania who’d gone for a hike near here and died at 10,000 feet. One of the scary things about altitude sickness is the way it fogs your mind before it kills you; just when red flags are going up that you’re in trouble, your brain is too oxygen-starved to recognize them. I knew that Carol, the Pedretti family matriarch, was a nurse, and by now she’d seen many rookies from the flatlands attempt this race.
“Should I be worried?” I asked her. “Is there a way to know if things are getting serious before your lips turn blue?”
“I’ve got just the thing,” Carol said. She rummaged in her bag, pulled out a finger-clamp blood pressure monitor, and reached for my hand. Her friend Renee is also a nurse, and she leaned over with Carol to see the read
out. “People all over the country run a marathon and go ‘Woo hoo!,’ but nothing compares to this,” Renee said. “These people are tough. So if you’re not up to it,” she added, laying a consoling hand on my arm, “you shouldn’t feel bad.”
“Ninety-one over seventy-seven,” Carol said. “Oh, that’s good. You’re good.”
“And this really works?” I asked. The Pedretti boys looked at each other and shrugged. “We’re still here,” Roger said.
Tammy appeared as I was plucking my finger out of the gadget. If anyone on your team feels disoriented, Carol warned, stop immediately. Don’t lie down; lean against your burro and stay on your feet until help comes. “You’ve been here a week, so you should be fine,” she concluded. “But you can’t take any chances. If it hits you, it’s for real.” With that send-off ringing in our ears, Tammy and I headed back to the trailer to gather our saddles for weigh-in and registration.
Every racer’s saddle had to be equipped with the traditional trio of prospector’s tools—pick, pan, and shovel—while burros of Flower’s size had to carry a weight minimum of thirty-three pounds. Zeke’s parents had arrived the night before, just in time for Zeke’s dad, Andy, and Kip to tear into our equipment in Kip’s bike shed. I’d heard nightmare stories of racers who’d fought their way through snowdrifts and hailstorms for twenty-nine miles, only to approach the finish line and have to turn around when they realized they’d shed a few tools back on the trail. Andy and Kip made sure our equipment was bolted firmly to the saddles, then they tightly wired a pair of fifteen-pound barbells to Flower’s pick and shovel to reach the required thirty-three pounds. Our rigs were bombproof.
As Mika, Tammy, and I were shouldering our ropes and saddles to have them weighed and measured, Hal Walter suddenly appeared. He came stalking toward us, dressed in black running tights and a black jacket, his head hanging and his face bristling with stubble, looking as distant and distracted as when we’d first met in Leadville ten years earlier.
“Hey, Hal,” I called. His head jerked up, and he managed a thin smile. “Good to see you,” he said.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Bad week,” he grimaced. “I’ve been sick. Really worn out and stuffed up. And then this weird vein bulged out on my chest. I noticed it in the shower yesterday. I tried pushing it back in, but it popped out again. I don’t know what the hell it is. Spent all last night researching it online. By the way,” he added, suddenly shifting gears, “do you know if they’re measuring ropes?” I had to guess that besides his sudden-onset vein tumescence, Hal was also worried about Teddy, his feisty new burro that was so rambunctious around water that he’d taken a chunk out of Hal’s shoulder while crossing a creek. “He lashed out like a snake and went for blood,” Hal said. “Bit me so hard, blood began gushing. Kind of traumatic, really. I thought he’d severed some tendons.” He sighed. “How long have I been doing this? Thirty-seven years? How come it never gets easier?” Because of Teddy’s issues, Hal was wondering if he could get away with a longer-than-rulebook fifteen-foot rope to reduce his risk of getting dragged.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We haven’t checked in yet.”
“Yeah, never mind. I’ll see you up there. Or not. I don’t know.”
At the registration desk, I hung my saddle on the scale and bent down to sign the waiver. For choice of race, we’d decided on the fifteen-mile course. It was farther than we’d ever gone in training, and the idea of attempting to double that distance after the summer we’d endured seemed not only crazy but pointless. We’d had one goal from the beginning: to give Sherman a job he could love and friends he could share it with. If we could push ourselves halfway up the side of that mountain and bring him back, still trotting strong, that would be a win.
“Did Hal say where he’s going?” the race director asked. “We’re about to start and he’s not signed in.”
“I don’t think he’s going to run,” I said. “He’s having some health issues.”
“ ’Course he is,” the race director said. “We call him Nervous Nellie. Hal has won this race more than anybody, and every year he’s a wreck. Watch—he’ll forget his health issues and be right in the fight.”
Sure enough, Hal came slouching to the table before I was finished with the paperwork. Pushing him from behind was Curtis Imrie. “Look who I found,” Curtis said. “Better brand him and get him in with the herd before he breaks loose again.” When Curtis saw me, he left Hal and wrapped me in a big hug. “You did it!” he said. “You jumped all the way in and committed to some burros. Be the death of you.”
“Are you racing today?” I asked, noticing the big hinged brace on Curtis’s knee.
“Sure. You work with what you got.”
The countdown clock was ticking. We hurried back to the trailer, and with the Ladies’ help, we saddled the donkeys and double-checked their halters. I pulled on a pair of running sandals I’d been given by my Born to Run friend, Barefoot Ted. I didn’t know if they were ideal for this terrain, but it felt smart to arm ourselves with charms and talismans. Mika wore her Speedy Goat Farm tee as a reminder of home, and Sherman had the special brown rope with a tasseled edge that we’d given Zeke for his birthday.
Sophie and my niece, Sara, clustered around Sherman and gave him a good deep head scratching for luck. “I hope you like your birthday present, Soph,” I said. It suddenly seemed a lifetime ago since we’d first seen Tanya crashing out of the woods on her riding donkey, Muffin, and Sophie had thought she might like one herself. “If it wasn’t for you, Sherman would still be locked in that stall.” Suddenly, my stomach knotted so badly, I could barely breathe. Hal Walter had won this thing seven times and it still scared him. Was Sherman really ready for this? Were any of us?
“This is it,” I croaked. “Everyone set?”
“Hang on,” Zeke said. He stepped up and rubbed Sherman’s ears. “Some last lovin’ from Papa Zeke.”
“He wouldn’t be here without you,” Mika said, pulling Zeke in for a hug. “None of us would.”
Zeke’s eyes misted. He blinked fast and looked away. “Are you thanking me, or blaming me?” he said, as his mom came over to throw an arm around his shoulders.
“We’d better get moving,” I told Mika and Tammy. We took the donkeys by the halters and marched them toward the crowd gathering at the monument to Prunes, Fairplay’s beloved town burro. Prunes had wandered loose in the 1860s after working in the mines, but instead of disappearing into the mountains, he stuck around town, circling the streets with such a routine that people on one side of Fairplay could stick notes on his halter for friends on the other. Prunes died in 1930, but he had become such a part of Fairplay’s identity that his memorial has been preserved in a place of honor to this day.
“CHRIS!” someone was shouting. “We made it!” All around us, burros and racers were shifting and circling like an agitated sea. I scanned around and finally, at the far edge of the crowd, I spotted Amber Wann jumping up and down. Beside her was her husband, Brad, hollow-cheeked after his hospital nightmare but still beaming, happy to be back among his fellow misfits. Amber pointed, and I saw their thirteen-year-old son, Ben, nervously holding a burro’s lead rope.
“Watch out for him!” Amber called, crossing her fingers. For the first time in his life, Ben was attempting the race alone. Amber had decided they wouldn’t run that year because of Brad’s illness, but Ben was adamant: epilepsy or not, he was going to get out there and show what Wanns are made of. Amber asked Curtis’s opinion, although she should have known better. “Someone has to be young and foolish. Might as well be Ben. Can’t always be me,” Curtis said. Then he added quietly, “Mrs. Wann, you know that every man and woman on that mountain will watch over Benjamin like their own child. Starting with me.”
We tried to move back toward Ben, but the donkeys were getting antsy and twisting around one another, tangling ropes and clanging pa
cksaddles. Rick forced his way through the crowd for one last bit of advice. “This place is about to erupt—” he began.
“RACERS! ARE YOU READY?” the race director shouted.
Rick raised his voice. “Whatever you do—”
The mob began to chant: “TEN…NINE…”
“Hold them back!”
“SIX…FIVE…”
“If you go anaerobic in this race—”
“THREE…TWO…”
“Your race is over!”
BLAM!
* * *
—
The dam burst, and donkeys flooded Front Street. The lead pack blasted off at a gallop, with elite runners like Justin Mock and George Zack relying on honed marathoner’s speed to keep pace, while the not-so-elites who’d gotten sucked in beside them were hauling back on their ropes and wondering how much longer they could hold on. Beside us, a woman was at war with a bucking bronco; her burro reared and kicked as she circled at a distance, gripping her rope heroically while trying to soothe it back down. I searched quickly for Ben Wann, but he’d disappeared in the mayhem. Even if I’d spotted him, I had my hands full with Flower.
Flower was quivering with anticipation, dying to join the fun, powerful enough to break free at any moment. I spun her backward so she was facing away from the stampede, a potentially winning strategy if she hadn’t kept spinning until she was pointed forward again. So I met her halfway and hoped for the best; gripping her by the halter, I let her tow me along at a fast walk, trying to hold her back from a gallop. I glanced behind and saw a donkey I didn’t recognize; the Wild Thing was politely declining an opportunity to create more havoc than he’d ever dreamed possible and was instead strolling calmly beside Matilda, the two of them taking in the mayhem like a pair of spectators enjoying a piece of performance art.
Running with Sherman Page 32