Fire Maiden

by Terri Farley

  Finally, her pounding heart slowed down.

  She must be dreaming.

  Chapter 17

  In the morning, Ann’s leg reminded her of all the hiking she’d done yesterday, and her fall in the lava tube.

  Darby wasn’t surprised when Ann grumbled about the holdup, but agreed with the other girls that it made more sense to make their notes now and delay their hike to look for wild horses until later.

  “I guess you guys are right. I don’t want my parents grounding me from something else fun,” Ann said, but then she surprised Darby by asking, “Is your asthma okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Smoke hung in the air, and she’d taken a precautionary spray from her inhaler, but she didn’t think Ann had noticed.

  “Hey,” Darby said, then, “What if we take Navigator for you to ride? Even if we see wild horses, I think he’ll be okay.”

  “Sure, we’ll walk and lead,” Megan said.

  “No way,” Ann told them.

  Darby crossed her arms and gave Ann a serious look.

  “If I tweaked my leg, would you let me ride while you walked?” Darby was pretty sure she had Ann in a corner.

  “No, we’d ride double,” Ann said smugly.

  When the time came to give it a try, Megan set off on foot, letting Darby and Ann have the first turn on Navigator.

  Darby went along with Ann’s idea to save Navigator the extra weight of the saddle by riding bareback.

  “I don’t think I can stay on, though,” Darby said. “I might pull you off with me, and then your leg will be even worse.”

  “You’ll get used to it really fast,” Ann promised. “I’ll sit in front and hold the reins, and you just hang on around my waist. You have great balance. It’ll be easy.”

  “I don’t know,” Darby said, but after they’d convinced Navigator to stop prancing and showing off because they’d taken him and left Hoku, Biscuit, and Sugarfoot behind, riding double was really pretty fun.

  They’d cut the distance from camp to the quiet volcano’s crater in half when Darby spotted something moving behind a screen of ohia trees.

  It was Megan, finger held in front of her lips, so the other girls would be quiet. Then Darby saw why.

  Horses!

  Ann must have felt Darby’s reaction, because she turned a few inches before Darby clamped her right hand over her friend’s mouth. Wild-eyed, Ann turned even farther, trying to jerk her head away, until she saw Darby mouth the word horses.

  The herd was still about a mile away, but they had to be mustangs. This land belonged to Babe and neither she nor Jonah let horses run free up here.

  Ann pointed to a bulge of rock up higher, above the horses. Megan nodded and began scaling the approach to it, while Ann reined Navigator closer.

  Before they got far, Black Lava appeared.

  Ann sat back so quickly, Darby was afraid that they’d both tumble off backward.

  The stallion was in a dangerous mood. Dark and dusty, he struck at the dirt with one feathered front leg. He was insulted by the invasion of the girls and gelding. He exposed his teeth and tossed his head with flattened ears, telling them so.

  Navigator didn’t need a second warning. He was taller than the stallion. He outweighed him by hundreds of pounds. Just the same, it would not be a fight of equals. Primitive entitlement—to the mares, to this spot, to this island—shone in Black Lava’s eyes.

  Navigator backed away from the stallion so quickly, he misjudged the slope and stumbled.

  Ann slumped forward, holding onto Navigator’s neck, and Darby held on to her as the huge gelding planted his hooves and managed to stay upright.

  Once he was out of sight of the stallion, Navigator answered Ann’s reining, carrying the girls up behind the lava outcropping she’d spotted before. Megan crouched up there, as still as part of the rock.

  A pulpit of pahoehoe, Darby thought. It would be perfect for looking down on the wild herd if they stuck around.

  The girls dismounted, signaling their awe and excitement with widened eyes, but staying quiet as Megan gestured for them to come on up.

  Ann tied Navigator with patient, careful knots. Then Ann and Darby climbed the lava formation and hid.

  Looking down, they had a good view of the wild horses.

  Megan held up all of her fingers, folded them down, then held up her index finger.

  Darby was puzzled until she saw that Black Lava had eleven herd members. Ann verified the count with her own fingers. There were at least three foals, maybe a fourth.

  They were a rainbow of colors. One dun was the bright yellow of the sulphur at the edge of Pigtail Fault, and a small bay looked like satiny mahogany. Three grays, from charcoal to nearly white, grazed side by side, and if their leader’s pacing made them nervous, they gave no sign of it.

  On the outskirts of the herd stood the lead mare, and she was magnificent.

  Ann leaned close to Darby and whispered, “Steeldust.” Megan gave a faint nod.

  Darby guessed that was the mare’s color—a pewter gray flecked with black—but her coat wasn’t the mare’s most outstanding quality. Her black tail almost reached the ground. Her mane rippled in ringlets down to her shoulder. Her forelock hung between her eyes, making twirling black snakes down to her nostrils.

  Like the stallion and many of the other horses, wispy hair showed on her trim legs, indicating that she had draft blood. Her attention was fixed on two young horses—a putty-colored dun with a dorsal stripe and barred front legs and a bay with four white stockings.

  They were definitely in time-out, Darby thought. While the mare watched, the young horses didn’t dare move.

  Darby thought that if the mare was hers to name, she’d call her Medusa, for the mythological Gorgon who’d had snakes in place of hair and a gaze so fearful, it transformed people to stone.

  The mare turned her tail on the two colts, but each time they made a move to rejoin the herd or wander off the slope, she whirled to glare at them and they froze.

  Darby wondered what the two horses could have done to deserve confinement in the lead mare’s invisible penalty box.

  All at once, Darby realized the sky had darkened. Had they watched the wild horses for so long, dusk was falling?

  It couldn’t be, Darby thought. It was still so hot. Getting hotter all the time, actually.

  She looked skyward, wondering if the smoke from Kilauea had blown in and blotted out the sun, just making it feel like night was approaching.

  Suddenly, Black Lava and his lead mare threw their heads high, testing the air. It wasn’t smoke that had caught their attention.

  Megan pointed.

  A white stallion was picking his way down from the crater top of the dead volcano, right toward the herd.

  “Oh my gosh,” Ann gasped.

  Darby expected the stallion to race in and try to steal some of Black Lava’s mares, but he didn’t. When Black Lava trotted out to meet him with his neck arched, the two stallions made what seemed like a civilized greeting, prancing parallel to each other, then turning and repeating the dance back in the other direction.

  The four-stockinged bay slipped past the lead mare and headed toward the two stallions. He was closer now and Darby could see that the bay was marked up with bites. He was probably about to be kicked out of the herd to become a bachelor.

  But that didn’t mean his father would let him join up with a challenger.

  Distracted by the bay’s audacity, Black Lava swung on him with bared teeth.

  Seeing his opening, the white stallion ran toward the herd, head swinging from side to side in a herding gesture. He was clearly intent on the lead mare.

  With the bay colt in retreat, Black Lava spun around, ears flat, neck arched. He bolted toward the white stallion and stopped about ten feet away from him. Standing in a dust cloud made by his own sudden stop, the white stallion struck out with a raised foreleg.

  Black Lava did the same. They each threatened, but neither wanted to
fight.

  Seeing the bay colt returning, the white stallion tossed his head, as if urging the youngster to defy his leader and come along. Black Lava wasn’t having it. His rear was spectacular, like something you’d see in a circus, Darby thought, and then he lashed out his hind legs, nearly knocking the colt off his feet.

  A black-and-white mare, brindled by shadows, saw her chance to make a break for it. While her sisters grazed, she darted downhill.

  “Where did she come from?” Ann whispered.

  Medusa was after her, giving her a savage bite just above the tail, and the brindled mare stopped, ears pricked toward the other volcano.

  For a second the stallions stopped their posturing, and looked in the same direction. But the lead mare bullied the black-and-white horse back, and Black Lava began pacing the boundaries of his herd. His blue eye glittered as he made a barricade with his body.

  The white stallion wasn’t impressed. Briefly, he flattened his ears and head, looking like a snake ready to strike. When Black Lava stopped to consider what he should do next, the white circled around and touched noses with Medusa.

  Outraged, Black Lava pursued the white stallion. Mouth open, black nose stretching for the white tail, he chased the other stallion around the band until a loud explosion rocked the horses, girls, and lava-rock pulpit.

  Ohia trees snapped from side to side. One even toppled to the ground.

  The girls saw a crack fracture the face of the volcano directly across from them.

  Before they could move, the crack grew wider. Lava welled up through it, making a red-orange fountain, and then it went down and vanished as if it had sealed itself back up.

  “We’ve gotta get out of here!” Ann clambered down ahead of Darby, and Megan followed.

  “Navigator—”

  “Still there, but he’s—”

  “—going crazy!”

  Megan jumped the last few yards to the ground, landing ahead of Darby and Ann, in front of the brown gelding. He rolled his eyes white and snorted, and Megan had just grabbed his reins below the bit when there was a tumult of hooves.

  Black Lava and the steeldust mare stampeded down the slope, as if they were heading for the road.

  The white stallion galloped uphill, found no escape, and now he was headed back down, right at them.

  Navigator screamed. Did he want to join the white stallion’s headlong run? Far in the distance, did he hear other horses answer?

  “Get down!” Darby shrieked, because she’d just figured out the white stallion’s plan.

  Running full out, he touched on the edge of the lava pulpit and launched himself at the path they’d taken up. Darby and Ann ducked, tumbling and falling with their arms crossed over their heads, but the stallion’s leap cleared them easily.

  Stabbing his forelegs at the earth for balance, he shook a torrent of white mane, gathered himself, and ran past Navigator, crossing the volcano’s face.

  In the few seconds of quiet, Megan jerked her knot loose on Navigator’s neck rope.

  “Shh, what a good boy,” she said.

  One horse. Three girls. How would they escape the volcano?

  Smoke billowed without ceasing from the crater above. But maybe it was just spouting off. This could be as bad as it was going to get.

  “Navigator, you’re the best,” Darby told him.

  With their hands and voices, all three girls soothed the big horse.

  “Get on,” Megan told Ann.

  Suddenly, it was silent. The air around them was still and fragile as glass.

  “I think it’s stopped,” Darby said, nodding toward the volcano.

  “Can’t trust it,” Megan said, then she turned to Ann and her expression showed she was not up for an argument. “Go.”

  Ann flung herself at Navigator’s back, hung there for a second, and then swung herself astride before reaching down for Darby’s hand.

  “He can carry all of us,” Ann said, and she was probably right, but Darby couldn’t climb on this way.

  Hands shaking, Darby said, “I need a rock, or sidehill—”

  “Quit fooling around!” Megan snapped. “Get on and meet me at camp!”

  “Megan!” Darby yelled, but the older girl was already running, shouting something about the horses, over her shoulder.

  A sound like the biggest tire in the world going flat hissed all around them.

  “I thought that was a quiet volcano!” Darby yelled, and with a big jump, she made it onto the gelding’s back.

  “Moisture,” Ann said. She didn’t sound calm, but her hands were steady on the reins, letting Navigator pick the best path back down, letting him think everything was under control. “If they told us the truth, there’ll be belches pretty soon. All the boys loved that,” Ann said with a harsh laugh. “Yeah, these gassy explosions send hot rocks into the air”—Pele pelting her sister, Darby thought—“and then liquid rock, and then everything from inside that volcano just goes gushing every—”

  The crack in the volcano’s face reopened. This time a line of lava fountains appeared, sending a neon-orange spray up into the sky.

  It was dark, and getting darker, Darby thought suddenly, and there was Megan, jogging and climbing parallel to them, taking a shorter route that was too cluttered with rocks for a horse.

  A pop sounded. They looked back to see a single boulder arc into the sky, hang there like a planet, and then land in grass, leaving a comet’s trail of fire in its wake.

  “Hoku!” Darby yelled, and then she slammed her mouth closed.

  Don’t call her into danger, you idiot, she told herself.

  “We have time,” Ann said over her shoulder. She kept Navigator to a controlled pace, and Darby admired her levelheadedness. She knew galloping full out would panic the gelding further.

  “Time?” Darby asked, squinting into the smoky gray world around her.

  “There’s no lava yet, and remember, when it comes, it’s supposed to be slow, so we have time to get the horses and our packs.”

  Of course there was time to get the horses! What did Ann think, that she’d leave her filly tied up amid this nightmare?

  “Yeah, but who cares about our packs?”

  “Flashlights and food,” Ann snapped. “We might be out here for a while.”

  Darby looked over her shoulder. Ann was right. She didn’t see lava, but the two sisters wore halos of murky red. And there, jetting up from another crack, burned a bright and steady flame, consuming a small tree.

  Darby was pretty sure they wouldn’t need their flashlights. The world was lit with bright red light.

  Chapter 18

  Once Ann loosened the reins and let Navigator settle into his ground-eating lope, they reached camp in about three minutes.

  “They’re gone!” Darby gasped.

  “They’re here,” Ann insisted. “It’s just smoky and dark, hard—” Ann broke off, coughing. “Hard to see. There’s Megan!”

  Amazingly, the older girl emerged from the smoke, with a T-shirt tied over her face, leading Biscuit.

  Darby slid off Navigator, even though she heard Ann’s objection.

  Lifting the hem of her own shirt to cover her nose and mouth, Darby blundered through the smoke.

  There! She made out the rope line, but it lay on the ground, torn free of a fallen ohia tree.

  Why hadn’t they tied the horses to the stone trees? Then Hoku and Sugarfoot wouldn’t be gone.

  Darby heard Ann shout her name a second before Navigator charged past, clipping her shoulder and knocking her down.

  Navigator was even more upset than they were at the horses’ disappearance. Plunging and wheeling, he searched and snorted. Darby jumped out of the way, seeing it was all Ann could do not to fall off.

  Biscuit screamed nearby, and Darby felt Megan grab her forearm and haul her to her feet.

  “—going after Hoku and—” Megan shouted, but rumbling covered half her words.

  Darby nodded frantically. At least Hoku was saf
e. Gone, but out of the volcano’s reach, with Megan on the way to help her.

  Megan faced the buckskin, grabbed black mane, and vaulted aboard.

  “—Navigator?” Megan yelled as the gelding lifted his front hooves, ready to flee.

  “Yeah!” Darby called back, and then Megan and Biscuit were gone, and Navigator was right beside her.

  “He wants to rear,” Ann said levelly. “I think I can stop him, but give me a minute before you get on.”

  Darby squinted back uphill at the volcano’s fiery glare.

  “Get our packs,” Ann said. “I’d do it, but I’m not sure my leg can take the drop.”

  “Okay,” Darby said, and she tried to concentrate on finding their packs, but she couldn’t help staring at the top of Two Sisters. She tripped over a sleeping bag, fell to one knee, and looked uphill again.

  The volcano had changed. There was a stream of orange, red, and yellow, mottled with black. And a smoke plume.

  Or was it ash? Something moved down the slope, towering over her. Three stories high, it was shaped like gigantic gray broccoli and so huge, she lost her balance and had to look away. And then she laughed.

  But there was something else within the broccoli form: a face with high cheekbones that looked furious.

  Darby’s laugh stopped as if someone had tied a gag over her mouth.

  “Do you see that?” Darby asked, pointing.

  “How could I not see it?” Ann demanded. “Don’t get hysterical on me!”

  “I won’t.” Darby snatched up Ann’s backpack and looked around for hers.

  “One is okay,” Ann yelled over Navigator’s loud snorting.

  Somewhere, my mom is freaking out, Darby thought. She felt disconnected, as if she were floating above the campsite, watching. When had she felt that way before? She should know the answer to that question, but she couldn’t remember.

  Darby concentrated long enough to hand Ann’s pack up to her.

  Navigator misted her with his frantic breath and Darby felt guilty for bringing him into this nightmare.

  Ann shrugged on the pack and gave the big bay a pat on the neck. “This is an amazing horse. Sugarfoot would’ve—”