I told Tanya all about those badass young burro-racing women. Louise Kuehster was edged out by John Vincent in the World Championship, but came back two weeks later to smoke him in Buena Vista. Meanwhile, Lynzi Doke—who should have been dead twice—had put her future as the next Barb Dolan on hold for the time being while she focused on school and track. She would graduate as one of her school’s best athletes and at the top of her class, and go on to follow her mother into nursing.
But that winter, Lynzi lost one of her biggest fans: Curtis Imrie, the beloved chieftain of the burro racing tribe, died suddenly of a heart attack while leading one of his prize burros at the National Western Stock Show in Denver. Hal Walter didn’t know how he’d break the news to his son, Harrison. So many times, it was sharp-eyed Uncle Curtis who first noticed that Harrison was on the verge of an episode, and he’d suddenly shout, “You startin’ something, boy? Let’s take this outside!” The battered old cowboy and the struggling eleven-year-old would charge through the door, tumbling down into the dirt to rassle around furiously until, eventually, whatever was boiling inside Harrison’s mind had eased and disappeared. Together, Hal and Harrison worked through their heartache. Running helped, and by the time Harrison reached high school, he’d become a phenomenon. “Harrison is now running varsity track,” Hal would proudly report. “He runs the 400, the 800, the 1600, and the 3200 all in one meet. No other kids do this.” Harrison puts on a big pair of noise-canceling headphones so he isn’t triggered by spectator sounds, and since he can’t hear the starter’s gun, he watches the front foot of the runner beside him. Off the track, his teammates are fiercely protective. “There’s a senior named Kyleigh Martin who raises steers, really quite the cowgirl,” Hal told me. “No one would ever bully Harrison for fear she’d stomp their ass.” Hal himself had become so adept at guiding Harrison through the stresses of a track meet, he was hired as head coach, and soon other neurodiverse students were following Harrison’s lead and joining the team. Harrison can still be a volcano—recently, a track teammate had to talk him out from under a desk—but Hal can’t get over the way his life has changed. “Community, goals, friendships, a social life,” Hal marvels. “Who knew that running would be his ticket to belonging to something?”
Hal and Harrison during a track meet
Between the stories and the gorgeous trail ride, Tanya and I were having a great morning—
Until I told her about the day that Sherman’s owner came looking for him.
I was working in the back field one afternoon when I got a glimpse between the trees of someone who’d appeared behind the house and was up to something at the fence. I took my time going down, figuring it was one of the local kids who’d stopped by to see the goats, but as I got closer, I suddenly felt a stab of apprehension: the hoarder was here. He and his wife and daughter were leaning over the fence, snapping their fingers and calling out to Sherman. I quickly counted back over the months; was it two years already? No, not for a while—but for someone who was obsessed, that would be a technicality.
“Shaggy!” they called. “Don’t you want to come say hello?”
Sherman stood his ground, tucked between Flower and Matilda some fifty feet from the fence. The hoarder looked around when he heard me coming through the gate. There was no way in hell that Sherman was leaving our care, so I knew this wasn’t going to be pretty. The hoarder’s wife spoke up first and told me that because her husband loved animals so much, they’d taken him to a small zoo in Maryland for his birthday. On the way back, they realized they were passing the home of a church member who’d negotiated Sherman’s liberation and remembered I lived somewhere just down the road. They drove over and spotted Sherman. As they were talking, they kept looking back at Sherman and trying again to entice him to the fence. Sherman just stared, never moving a muscle.
“He looks so good,” the hoarder’s wife said. “Doesn’t he look good, Dad?”
“I wish he’d come over and say hi,” the hoarder replied. The look on his face was so sad, so genuinely bewildered and bereft, that any blame I’d laid on him for Sherman’s condition instantly disappeared. He was so infatuated with animals and so delighted to be around them, he couldn’t see that his affection had become a disease. He and his family could clearly tell how much better off Sherman was in his new home, though, and they were happy for him. They hadn’t come to take him back. They’d come to say good-bye.
“Lucky I wasn’t there,” muttered Tanya, who’s a lot slower than I am to forgive even well-intentioned sins against the animal kingdom. We finished the last long uphill climb to her house, then slid stiffly out of the saddle, both of us sore to the bone and regretting that we hadn’t shut up a while ago and brought our ridiculously long ride & chat to an end. Neither one of us really had the energy to wrestle Flower into the trailer, but amazingly, she ambled right in as soon as Tanya opened the door.
Back home and waving to a neighbor during a run with Sherman
“Well, well,” Tanya said, impressed. “You must have taught her a thing or two.”
But my secret was blown a few minutes later, when we came over the hill toward home and Flower saw Sherman and Matilda waiting for her at the fence. Flower brayed in excitement, and then they all cut loose, the three of them yodeling a donkey song of love. Tanya smiled and shot me a glance. The only thing I’d really taught Sherman, she knew, was that he’d never be alone again.
Running with Sherman
Acknowledgments
Just as I was pulling into my dentist’s parking lot one afternoon I got a call from Tara Parker-Pope, my editor at The New York Times. Tara was inviting me to speak to her journalism students at Princeton, and before we got off the phone, she asked, “What are you up to these days?” She expected to hear about writing, but what was on my mind was this sick donkey we were struggling to keep alive. “That’s going to be a great book,” Tara said, and when I told her no, there’s nothing to write about because I didn’t even know if it was going to survive, she replied, “That’s why it’s a great story.” She went on to suggest I write a weekly column for her about animal-human partnerships, and that’s how “Running with Sherman” began. It’s also where I got the title: I kept peppering Tara with alternative names, and she just shushed me and said, “Trust your editor. Call it ‘Running with Sherman.’ ”
I still wasn’t sure how a book would work out until I spoke with Richard Pine, my agent at Inkwell Management. Richard is a nice guy, but he ain’t too nice to pull his punches. He doesn’t mind telling me when I’m wrong—I’m pretty sure he actually enjoys it—and he not only perked up about the thought of a donkey book but also came up with the subtitle: “The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero.”
Perfect.
We floated the idea by Edward Kastenmeier, my editor at Knopf who has now guided me through three projects over the course of thirteen (!) years, and, as usual, he saw the possibilities immediately. This might be the strangest endeavor we’ve tackled together because the story travels in so many directions and involves so many people close to my heart, and I’ll always be grateful for the brilliant guidance Edward gave me along the way. He was also clever enough to hire Caitlin Landuyt, the point person at Knopf who had to handle all my last-minute changes and corrections and photo additions. Whatever Knopf is doing to attract such cool, intelligent people, it’s working.
Somehow, I lucked into the same professional romance on the other side of the Atlantic. I’ve been with Profile Books since before anyone had ever heard of Born to Run, and I couldn’t dream of a better partnership. Andrew Franklin and his team treat me like family, which means they’re warm and encouraging but also ruthless about working me to the bone when it’s time to hit the pavement and sell some books. I’ll miss Profile master publicist Anna-Marie Fitzgerald while she’s off having a baby (hooray!), but I’m sure by the time you read this, they’ll already have found another h
uman cyclone to step in.
I’ve tried to make sure that everyone who rallied to help Sherman is reflected in these pages, but behind the scenes there are still many quiet heroes who deserve special applause. Like Don Korenkiewicz and Ruby Rublesky and Steve Farrah, who came to the rescue when Zeke and I were busy breaking various body parts and we needed emergency substitutes to help us train the donkeys. Our neighbors have made the Southern End a magical place to live for nearly twenty years and never blinked when they suddenly began spotting us running down the road every morning with the Gang of Three. The Boomsma family and the Metzler clan are always there for us when we need help, and somehow we always do. Gini Woy not only took the magnificent cover photo of Sherman, but her daughter, Stella, should seriously consider dropping out of high school to pursue a career in professional burro racing. She’d be a superstar.
I’ve told you a lot in here about Curtis Imrie, but that’s only a slice of the appreciation he deserves. When we lost him, it was like a portion of the Earth had fallen away. To Curtis and all the members of the burro racing community, Sherman and I can never thank you enough.
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
The photographs in this book are used by permission and courtesy of the following:
1 Amber Canterbury
2Courtesy of Amos King
3Andrea Cook
4Andrea Cook
5Chancey Bush/Evergreen Newspapers
6Christopher McDougall
7Christopher McDougall
8Christopher McDougall
9Christopher McDougall
10Christopher McDougall
11Christopher McDougall
12Christopher McDougall
13Christopher McDougall
14Christopher McDougall
15Christopher McDougall
16Dana McDougall
17Dave Epper
18Ed Kosmicki/photosourcewest.com
19Hal Walter
20Jennifer Russ
21Julie Angel
22Julie Angel
23Kelly Doke
24Luis Escobar
25Matt Roth
26Matt Roth
27Matt Roth
28Matt Roth
29Mika McDougall
30Mika McDougall
31Mika McDougall
32Mika McDougall
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher McDougall covered wars in Rwanda and Angola as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press before writing his best-selling books Born to Run and Natural Born Heroes. His fascination with the limits of human potential led him to create the Outside magazine Web series Art of the Hero. He currently lives with his wife, two daughters, and a farmyard menagerie in rural Pennsylvania.
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Running with Sherman Page 34