by Terri Farley
“I’m glad you remembered,” Megan said as Darby burst through Sun House’s front door and shucked off her boots.
“Of course I did,” Darby said, but they almost hadn’t made it in time, because Cade, at her urging, had stopped to bury the dead mongoose.
“Wow, give us a bath, why don’t you!”
“Sorry,” Darby said. She hadn’t meant to turn on the water full blast.
Megan watched as Darby began scrubbing from fingertips to elbows, trying to wash off all remnants of the sad house in Crimson Vale.
“Was it pretty gross out at Cade’s place?” Megan whispered. “Never mind, you don’t have to tell me.”
Ten minutes later, they were serving dinner on the lanai, just as they’d promised Aunty Cathy they would. And Jonah actually rubbed his hands together in anticipation at the smell of the garlic bread they served with the salad.
Darby’s gloom had lifted and both girls were feeling pretty proud of themselves by the time the evening news came on the living room TV with an announcement that made them even happier.
All schools would be closed until the Health Department could make inspections to determine the cause of an outbreak of flulike symptoms among students.
Darby wasn’t surprised, and she wasn’t feeling sick, but she didn’t stop worrying about the horses until Megan bounced up, grabbed Darby’s wrists, and dragged her to her feet, then began dancing in delight.
She couldn’t resist Megan’s gladness, even when Jonah shouted, “Hey! That just means I’ve got me two more workers for tomorrow!”
“Killjoy,” Megan called after Jonah as he left the living room for the lanai.
“For sure,” Jonah said, but once he was outside, Darby watched her grandfather look skyward. Then he turned west, as though he could foretell the weather by the breeze on his face.
Jonah was known as a horse charmer, and there were some—including her, at times—who thought he’d passed his intuition for horse communication on to Darby.
But he had more than a knack with horses, Darby thought. Jonah’s sensitivity to the world around him was so precise, sometimes it was spooky.
“That’s a wet wind,” he said, just loud enough to be heard.
Darby realized that she’d rarely thought about the weather before coming to Moku Lio Hihiu. Of course they had weather back in Pacific Pinnacles, where she’d lived before coming here. But it was usually just sunny weather, filtered through layers of smoke and fog. Unless there was an actual smog alert, since bad air triggered her asthma, weather wasn’t as important.
“You didn’t listen to the rest of the news story, did you?” Aunty Cathy’s low voice distracted Darby. She and Megan dropped hands. “The ARC is coming around checking wells for contamination. Until then, they want ranchers and farmers to reduce water use by ten percent.”
“The ark?” Darby asked. “Like Noah?”
Megan laughed and shook her head. “No, it’s A—R—C.” She paused between each letter. “It’s the Agricultural—what is it, Mom?”
“Agricultural Resource Conservation division,” Aunty Cathy supplied.
Before she explained the agency, Jonah strode back into the house, muttering, “State bureaucrats, but they’ve been all over the island in their slickers and hip boots, inspecting flumes, pipes, and reservoirs ever since the first earthquake. Gotta give ’em credit for that.”
“So, you’ll go along with the cutback?” Megan asked.
“What do you think, I’m an outlaw?” Jonah looked annoyed rather than insulted. “Besides, there’s no reason not to go along. There’s another storm coming, I’ve got two sturdy girls to roll out rain barrels,” he said, counting on his fingers, “and they can pour the caught water into the tack-room trough, Hoku’s trough, and the dogs’ dishes.”
Darby was pretty sure that didn’t amount to ten percent, but she didn’t say so.
“Sure, I’ll go along. But I know my well. When the ARC checks, it’ll be sweet and pure as the year my father and grandfather dug it.”
“Girls, you ought to go get those barrels out now,” Aunty Cathy said.
“I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain until morning,” Megan said, stretching lazily.
“If you have so much faith in the weatherman that you won’t mind getting out of bed and running out there in your nightie to roll out the barrels if he’s wrong…” Aunty Cathy let her voice trail off.
“Mom,” Megan moaned. “That’s not funny.”
Darby and Megan went outside and right away Darby felt the Kona winds. As soon as she realized the breeze carried no ash to make her wheeze, Darby squared her shoulders and remembered what Jonah had just said. He had two sturdy girls to help him.
Her? Sturdy? Darby’s friend Heather, back in Pacific Pinnacles, would laugh at that.
So many things had changed since she came to live in Hawaii. She’d arrived skinny, with a droopy black ponytail, and often sick with asthma. Though she loved horses with all her heart, she’d never ridden one, and she’d shown up at the ranch with an armful of books and her pockets stuffed with pills and inhalers.
Now she rarely needed her inhaler, and she felt stronger. She spent every minute she wasn’t at school working with animals, exploring the island on horseback, or caring for Hoku, her mustang filly.
Both girls had paused to inspect the sky for rain clouds, so they’d only gone a few steps when two of the five ranch dogs trotted over to meet them. Peach licked their hands while Bart bounded around them.
The rising wind ruffled the dogs’ fur, and even when they were petted, the dogs’ ears stayed upright and alert. They knew a storm was coming.
“Meg?” Aunty Cathy called from the kitchen window, but her face was hidden by flapping curtains. “If you see Cade, tell him I’ve got to go into town tomorrow for my final doctor’s appointment and I’ll check for word about Dee.”
“Okay,” Megan called back, but a boom of thunder, followed by thudding hooves, stopped her from saying more.
Darby and Megan exchanged wide-eyed glances.
“The cremellos,” Darby said. “There’s no water trough in the round pen, is there?”
“No. Horses almost never stay loose in there. Usually, it’s just for training.”
They watched the pale horses move together like a flight of gulls in the round pen.
The cremello horses had been a gift with strings from Darby’s great-aunt, Babe Borden. She owned Sugar Sands Cove, a luxury resort, and had worked out an arrangement with Jonah to allow her guests to come ride at ‘Iolani Ranch. But the cremellos’ five-acre pasture, which would include a picturesque hill just to the right of the gravel driveway, was still being fenced by Kit, Kimo, and Cade.
Eventually, the pasture would have a trough of its own, but now the horses had to be led to water.
“Is that why he said we had to fill the trough by the tack shed?” Darby asked.
Leading each of the cremellos to water several times a day was a small chore when the trough had an automatic flow valve that kept it full. But if the trough had to be filled by bucket, the job would be a big one.
“Horses drink five to twelve gallons each day,” Darby said. “Multiply that by six cremellos, plus any horses that have a drink after they’ve been out working, and that’s—”
“—a whole lotta haulin’,” Megan complained. “Jonah should pretend that we’re not here. If school wasn’t closed that’s where we’d be: not here.”
Darby laughed. “I don’t think Jonah pretends much.”
“I’d say not even when he was a little kid, if it weren’t for that wooden horse in his library,” Megan agreed.
A raindrop plopped on Darby’s nose. “Here it comes,” she said.
“And the barrels are under cover down by the pigpen, and we haven’t even started,” Megan said. “I guess we should grab a couple slickers out of the tack room.”
“It’s too hot,” Darby said, “and it’ll scare Hoku.”
“Do
what you want, but I’m going to be modeling banana yellow for the next half hour,” Megan said.
While Megan searched for a slicker, Darby ran on ahead and stopped next to Hoku’s corral fence. Since that first raindrop, the sky seemed to be holding its breath. Tension charged every molecule of air, as if they were just waiting for lightning to set loose the rain.
Hoku trotted back and forth, agitated by the weather. At least Darby thought that was what was wrong. Hoku had eaten every wisp of her dinnertime hay, but even in the dim light, her sorrel coat glistened with sweat as her brown eyes watched her human.
Darby loved Hoku completely. They had bonded when the wild filly had been hit by a bus back on War Drum Flats in Nevada. She’d lain beside the injured horse in the snow for a long time until help finally arrived. During that vigil, Darby had talked to the horse and sung to her, and somehow attachments had grown between them, mind to mind, heart to heart.
But Hoku was still wild, and Darby was still new to the world of horses. They were learning together.
“I know you lived through thunderstorms in Nevada,” Darby scolded softly. “And you didn’t have any soft-hearted humans to talk you out of worrying.”
But she’d had her herd, Darby thought. Mustangs learned when they were shaky-legged foals that safety is always with the herd.
“I’m a pretty sad substitute for a herd, is that what you’re thinking?”
The filly’s lips and nostrils quivered with a silent neigh as she looked over Darby’s head. Hoku knew ‘Iolani’s saddle horses and broodmares weren’t far away, and no matter how much she loved Darby, Hoku longed to run with others of her kind.
The filly shied, rolling her eyes white as Megan came rustling up to Darby in her bright yellow slicker.
“Should I do anything?” Darby asked Megan. “She’s scared in there alone but it’s not a big-enough emergency—not like the earthquake—to let her out to be with the others.”
Jonah had told Darby that isolating Hoku much of the time would help cement the bond between girl and horse. So far, he was right.
Suddenly, Hoku rocked onto her hind legs, then brought both front hooves down together.
“What does that mean?” Darby asked.
“It’s—” Megan frowned in concentration as the filly repeated the movement. “I have no idea. Does it look to you like she’s smashing something?”
“Yeah, but there’s nothing there,” Darby said.
“And you’re not picking up any horse charmer vibes?”
“None,” Darby said flatly.
They watched the horse until Megan shrugged. “You’re going to get wet anyway. Go in and be her buddy. Here, I got a carrot from the tack room for Pigolo, but it might distract Hoku. I’ll wait for you, but we should get going with those barrels.”
Darby took the carrot intended for the rescued piglet and stuck it in her pocket. She unlatched the corral gate, slipped inside, and fixed the gate closed behind her.
“What’s this?” Darby murmured to her horse.
Rather than calming Hoku, Darby’s approach made the mustang even more nervous. She circled the corral at a strange gait. Darby had never watched five-gaited horses like American saddlebreds in action, but such energy went into every one of Hoku’s high-stepping moves, she thought this looked something like that gait called a rack.
The splash of white on the filly’s chest—the mark that had earned her the name Hoku, “star” in Hawaiian—came right at Darby each time Hoku passed.
Darby tightened her ponytail and finally the filly slid to a stop. The gesture was a secret between them.
“Hey, baby, don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
Hoku’s pinned-back ears flicked forward at the sound of Darby’s voice.
“It’s okay.” Darby forgot Megan, the weather, everything but this little patch of earth and the calm she hoped Hoku could draw from her.
“Good girl.” She moved close enough to stroke Hoku’s side. “You’re such a good girl.”
Thunder clapped once again and Hoku shied, bumping Darby almost off her feet. But Darby didn’t move away. She kept talking.
“It’s a little thunder, no big deal.”
The filly paced along the fence and Darby stayed with her, humming a medieval-sounding song her mother liked. She didn’t know why it popped into her mind. It could be because it mentioned parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. If she could drift the rangeland smell of sage to her filly’s nostrils, she would have, but even the melody made the filly stop with a lowered head.
Still humming, Darby listened as the filly’s breathing slowed. Darby rested her forehead on Hoku’s neck. Could she really feel the mustang’s coursing blood begin to slow? Were they both hypnotized by the melody?
Hoku sniffed the feathery top of the carrot in Darby’s pocket, then nudged it.
Darby broke off a piece and let the filly eat. Then Darby walked and Hoku followed. Smiling, Darby stopped and gave Hoku a second piece of carrot. They moved together until they reached the gate.
“One more.” Darby balanced the last piece of carrot on her flattened palm.
Hoku drooled carrot juice on Darby’s arm, took the final offering, and chewed calmly, watching as Darby slipped outside the corral to rejoin Megan.
“Nice work,” she praised Darby, giving her a little shove to urge her into a jog. “You really settled her down.”
Darby glanced back over her shoulder. “Will she worry if I’m out of sight and there’s more thunder?”
“I’m not sure,” Megan admitted. “But I doubt you’ll have such an easy time settling Jonah down, if we don’t get to work.”
The next clap of thunder came when Darby was halfway to the pigpen. She heard Hoku bolt around her corral and called back, “It’s okay, girl. No big deal.”
She tried to keep her voice reassuring despite Megan’s impatience. Without speaking, Megan made a quick jerk of her chin, hinting they should keep creeping away, and they did.
Darby recalled seeing her dad’s new wife, Angel, slowly easing out of the room when one of her fussy babies was finally starting to fall asleep. Something in this silent departure reminded her of that.
The rainstorm arrived just as Megan and Darby rolled the last of the large barrels into position near the tack room and stood it up.
Since they hadn’t asked for details on how they’d get the water from the barrels to the troughs, they set them near the dog kennel, Hoku’s corral, and the tack room, figuring they could siphon the water into the troughs.
“This ought to do it,” Megan shouted to be heard over the drumming rain.
The downpour took only seconds to soak Darby’s hair. Streams coursed down her ponytail and into the neck of her shirt while rain dripped daintily off Megan’s yellow hood.
Darby’s jeans clung like a coarse second skin, making her step stiff-legged as she and Megan walked past the bunkhouse.
Kit and Cade must have been inside, because lamplight and the sound of Kit strumming a guitar floated into the night, making the bunkhouse feel warm and cozy.
Darby was shivering, hoping she could commandeer Sun House’s only bathroom for a warm, deep bath, when she heard Sass barking in the lower pasture.
The bunkhouse door opened. A rectangle of light turned the raindrops gold and made Darby and Megan squint up at Cade.
“Sounds like Sass has something cornered,” he said.
“Can you hear in the dark, too?” Megan teased Cade, since he was known for his ability to see in almost nonexistent light.
“When it goes on without letup like that, who couldn’t?” Cade asked.
He’d already pulled on his dark green poncho and tugged his hala hat down to cover his hair by the time Darby realized he planned to go see what had the dog so excited.
He stepped outside into the darkness and rain, then whistled.
Chapter Four
“You’re not really going down there, are you?” Megan asked.
Cade’s smile
said he planned to do just that.
“Kit ’n’ me drew lots and I lost,” Cade said, “but I’m hopin’ Sass comes to me with the rest of the dogs, so I don’t have to go down there.”
“I know Sass is good with horses,” Megan said, “but he’ll also hunt anything that lives in a burrow.”
Whatever Sass was after didn’t fascinate the other dogs. His barking went on in the lower pasture, as three other Australian shepherds—Peach, Jack, and Jill—came skittering through the mud, swirling around Cade’s legs in answer to his whistle.
“Oh!” Megan blurted, remembering her mother’s message. “Mom said to tell you she’ll check for news of Dee when she goes into town tomorrow.” Megan pulled the sides of the yellow hood away from her eyes as though she wanted a better view of how her words affected Cade.
But Cade didn’t look at Megan and his expression was blank when he glanced at Darby. She gave her head a faint shake, assuring him she hadn’t been gossiping about him, his mother, or the state of their house, before Cade had had a chance to talk to Jonah.
Megan shifted, waiting for Cade to respond.
Say something, Darby silently willed him. But Cade didn’t.
“Hey,” Megan began.
“Did you hear that?” Cade asked.
“Did you hear me?” Megan insisted.
Just then Bart pulled himself up the grassy hillside and into the light. Panting, he rolled on the ground in front of Cade.
“I’m not scratching that muddy belly,” Cade said.
Megan turned toward Darby with an expression that said she thought both Cade and Bart were adorable, but she didn’t want them to know it.
Darby liked Cade fine. He’d proven he’d be there for her if things got tough, and she tried to be there for him, since she considered him half brother and half friend.
But Megan liked Cade in a different way. They weren’t quite boyfriend and girlfriend, but Darby figured they were headed in that direction.
“I heard,” Cade said finally. “Please tell your mom thanks.” Cade looked away from them both, toward the incessant barking. “I’ll give him a few more minutes.”