by Terri Farley
The first time she and her mother had encountered the paint, they’d thought she was a wild horse. They’d realized their mistake when Mistwalker came to greet them. Clearly friendly and tame, the mare had nuzzled Navigator and nosed Ellen’s arm, but now the paint mare kept her distance.
Darby clucked softly to the horse, then called, “Come here, girl.”
Mistwalker threw back her forelock, neighed, and pawed the ground.
Hoku answered the mare’s summons by trotting forward.
Riding along the roadside hadn’t been one of her best ideas, Darby decided. Hoku ignored the impact of asphalt on her unshod hooves as she followed Mistwalker along the edge of the street.
Mistwalker looked back at Hoku, snorting and urging the filly to come closer, but each time they drew near, Mistwalker moved faster.
What did she want?
Then, Darby saw Patrick.
Sprawled in a folding chair next to a beach umbrella, he sat at the edge of the driveway. His eyes were shut beneath his round black-rimmed glasses. His face was an unnatural shade of pink that made the freckles across his nose and cheeks stand out. His khaki pants were cut short on the right to accommodate his cast, but the full-length left pant leg was smeared with mud. His pith helmet lay nearby, on the ground.
What have you been up to? Darby wondered.
Patrick had a reputation for being clumsy and accident-prone, but wouldn’t his parents be more watchful because of his injury?
Darby felt a quick flash of guilt. The last time she’d talked to Patrick, he’d told her how bored he was and how he longed to meet Hoku. She’d promised to ride over and visit, but that had been almost a week ago.
“Patrick?” Darby leaned forward, cheek resting against Hoku’s vanilla silk mane.
She spoke softly, afraid to spook either of the horses.
Patrick didn’t move. Was he breathing? Logically, she knew he was. Still, his accident had been serious, and it was fresh in her memory.
Darby dismounted slowly, keeping her hold on Hoku’s rein as she walked to Patrick’s side. The front of his faded green T-shirt rose and fell. Of course he was breathing.
“Patrick,” she said, “wake up.”
She shook his shoulders but he didn’t rouse.
She looked at Hoku, as if the wild filly could help, and Patrick chose that moment to sit up with a snort.
Both horses threw their heads high and widened their eyes in alarm, but neither bolted.
“Hey! Darby, hi!” Patrick said, groggy but ecstatic.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Sure,” Patrick answered. “How about you?”
“I think my heart stopped, but other than that, I’m fine,” Darby told him.
“Wow, this is your Hoku!”
“Yep, my Hoku,” Darby echoed proudly, but she was amazed at her filly’s reaction to Patrick. Hoku was watchful and braced to bolt, but she didn’t flatten her ears and glare as she did with most males.
“That white marking on her chest is just as you described it, like a white sea star.” Patrick’s voice was gruffer than usual. As if a few cobwebs of sleep still hung on, he cleared his throat loudly and addressed the horse. “I’m overjoyed to meet you, Hoku, but I won’t look into your beautiful wild eyes….” Patrick purposely switched his gaze to Darby.
Could Hoku trust Patrick because he was seated? Or had she received some sort of equine endorsement from Mistwalker?
“What are you doing out here?” Darby asked.
“This is the best place to get some company, since I couldn’t go to school and now, of course, it’s closed.”
“You are keeping up on the news,” Darby congratulated him.
“I do my best, since my parents won’t drive me anyplace. They order me to rest, but that’s not easy when I’m not allowed to do anything to get tired. I saw Tutu, though.”
“Out here?” Darby asked.
Patrick nodded. “She rode Prettypaint over, because she needed a book she’d loaned me.”
“I didn’t know you were friends with Tutu,” Darby said.
“I think everyone is,” Patrick said.
He was right. Her great-grandmother was an honored elder, a wisewoman, and a skilled herbalist.
Darby hadn’t met anyone who didn’t call her Tutu, as though she was great-grandmother to everyone on the island.
“I was talking to her when Kimo drove up this morning, on his way to work at your place,” Patrick went on. “And you know what happened? He pulled the truck over, got out, and before he said anything, passed out right there.”
Patrick pointed a few feet away, where Mistwalker stood, nibbling the sparse roadside grass.
“Kimo passed out?” Darby gasped.
Kimo was a big, tough cowboy. Since her first day on the island, she’d thought of him as square and hard as a stone house. How could something, especially something invisible, like a germ, knock him down and out?
“It’s difficult to imagine, isn’t it?” Patrick sympathized.
“But Tutu helped him?”
“Of course,” Patrick said, but then Mistwalker nuzzled the nape of his neck. He shivered and almost tipped over his chair before he went on. “When Kimo regained consciousness, she gave him something from that cloth sack. You know, the one she carries in front of her, when she rides Prettypaint? Then she shooed Kimo back into his truck and told him to go back home and let his father take care of him.”
“They’re both sick,” Darby said. “Kimo called the ranch and talked to Megan.”
Darby thought of the students collapsing in the school office, of Blue Moon, and now Kimo and his father.
“What are you thinking about?” Patrick asked.
Because she admired his clever mind full of facts, Darby told him what she and Ann had seen at school. Then, she asked, “Do you think everyone on the island has the same thing?”
“It’s rare for illnesses to jump from one species to the other,” Patrick mused.
“Tutu mentioned that she’d seen stomach upset accompanied by a high fever after flooding before. She blamed it on bad water. Possibly animals have different, but equally negative, reactions to post-storm pollution.”
While Patrick was lost in his thoughts, Darby compared his opinion—and Tutu’s—to those of her Ecology teacher, Mr. Silva; Mr. Nomi; and Mr. Klaus.
“Hey, I didn’t even ask how you’re feeling.” Darby squatted in the shade of the beach umbrella, still holding Hoku’s rein.
“Pretty well, thanks. I had a terrible night though. I believe the skin is regenerating. Tutu discussed it with me, and she’s sure the discomfort will pass soon,” he said, then smiled. “What a kind woman she is.”
“Very kind,” Darby agreed.
She fought down the urge to smile. Something about Patrick amused her, but in a good way. He spoke a little like she imagined a college professor would, and he was interested in everything. She felt lucky to have him as a friend.
“What was the book you borrowed from Tutu?” she asked.
“The Complete Treasury of Herbal Medicine,” Patrick said. “It’s fascinating. It’s thick as a loaf of bread, with a cracked leather cover and no copyright date. It looks very old.”
“Hey! While you’ve been sitting here watching the world go by, have you seen Cade’s mother?”
“No, though I’m not certain I’d recognize her,” Patrick said. “Was she lost in the tsunami?”
“Lost, but not, you know, drowned or anything,” Darby said, and then she told Patrick how she and Cade had gone to find Dee. She described Dee’s beloved pony and Cade’s certainty that Dee was still on the island even before his hunch was verified by Aunty Cathy.
“Half Welsh, half Arab, and she’s named Honi the pony.” He chuckled at the rhyme, but then his expression sharpened, and Darby sensed Patrick was going into junior detective mode. “Was she all right?”
“She was perky and plump, but that was no thanks to Dee.”
; Darby stopped, scolding herself for being critical of a woman she didn’t know. But she’d gone this far, she thought, so she told Patrick about Honi’s taste for water lilies.
“She can’t seem to get enough of them,” Darby said. “She kept one in her mouth even when she was galloping up to the house.”
Darby was smiling at the memory, when Patrick asked, “Wait, she was eating water lilies straight out of the pond? In the area they won’t allow the wild horses back into?”
Darby closed her eyes and pictured sunlight illuminating the muddy waters full of death and debris. Then, she pictured the serene pond where the pony had stood. Was the altitude the same? Had tsunami waters washed over that pond?
Think hard, she told herself, because a lot could depend on the ugly memory, including Honi’s life.
Chapter Nine
“How did the pond look?” Patrick insisted.
“Pretty,” Darby said. “Like a pond. Don’t get frustrated with me, Patrick,” she said when he rolled his eyes. “I don’t come from a place where there are lots of ponds. But I did see something interesting there. My first ever mongoose. Even if he was dead—”
“If you’d grown up here, you’d have seen plenty of them,” Patrick assured her. “Even though they’re not native. In fact, they weren’t brought to Hawaii until the 1800s. A Hawaiian sugar farmer heard the boast of a Cuban sugar plantation owner that the mongoose could successfully control his rodent population, but it turned out, as with so many other non-native species, they had no natural enemies here.”
Patrick stopped. He didn’t seem to have run out of breath. He looked more like he was waiting for her to say something.
“So you see my point?” he encouraged her.
“No.”
“What would kill a mongoose?”
“Cade and I assumed it drowned.”
“Perhaps,” Patrick said, “but the mongoose is descended from the early civet. It swims.”
“Nothing could swim in that wall of water,” Darby pointed out.
“Of course you’re right,” he agreed. “Still, it would be worthwhile to have the water in that pond tested for contaminants.”
“Honi.”
Darby didn’t need to say more.
“If she was eating water lilies there, she was ingesting the water, too. Directly or via the plants,” Patrick said. His hands fidgeted and his left knee jiggled with contained energy. “If only we could go up and get her out of there.”
“Cade and I thought of doing that,” Darby said, “but just in case Honi was sick, we didn’t want to bring her back to the ranch.”
Why hadn’t she told Mr. Klaus and Mr. Nomi? They’d been right there at the ranch. They would have been able to test the pony, the water, and if there was trouble, they would have known what to do about it.
Why had it taken Patrick to make her realize the danger was real?
She must have looked scared.
“It’s only a theory,” Patrick said. “It’s not sound science to jump to any conclusions. Still, if she were my pony…”
Feeling Darby’s agitation even before she bolted to her feet, Hoku stepped back, eyes wide.
“Can I get you anything before I leave?” Darby offered, but she was thinking, Please don’t say yes.
“No. I’m fine. Do you have to go right now?”
“I think so,” she replied. “I’d better find Cade or someone who can help me catch Honi.”
“And then—?” Patrick broke off and Darby was glad. He didn’t have to be a mind reader to know she didn’t have a plan beyond saving the pony from dying alone.
Thirty minutes later, Darby wished more than anything that she wasn’t riding Hoku. In another second, she would have turned left toward Sun House, but Dee’s dusky pony picked that instant to bound out of the clearing she’d been grazing in and head toward the taro fields.
“You little beast,” she muttered, but she gave Hoku her head and rode high on the filly’s neck as the mustang chased after the curiously small horse.
A leaf with sawtooth edges slapped across Darby’s brow.
This was such a bad idea. Almost any horse on the island would have stronger immunities than Hoku.
On the other hand, Honi wasn’t acting like a sick animal.
Probably I’m imagining it, Darby thought, but Honi seems to be delighted by this wild pony chase.
Before she knew it, they were at the pond.
But Honi wasn’t.
Hoku snorted. Her hooves stuttered in place as she waited for the pony to rematerialize, but Honi didn’t. And when Hoku started toward the pond, Darby fought her.
“No way!” Darby pulled her rope rein tight enough that her filly was even more confused.
Hoku couldn’t be very thirsty. Darby had filled her trough and watched her drink from it only a few hours ago. Just the same, Darby hoped it wouldn’t come to a struggle. Without a bit, she couldn’t win, so she’d have to depend on the filly’s desire to please her.
Hoku came to something that was almost a stop. She seemed to be making up her mind, so Darby helped her.
“Hey, baby,” she said, placing her hand on the filly’s sorrel neck. “I’m doing this for your own good.” Hoku’s snort rocked them both. “Yeah, that argument doesn’t work for me, either,” she told her horse. “But you’re barely warm, and I don’t know what’s in that water, so you can forget about having any of it.”
As if she wanted to remove temptation from her view, Hoku lifted her front hooves and pivoted away from the pond.
As she did, Darby saw Manny’s truck in front of the house perched above the taro field.
Manny was in jail, but before he’d been sent there he’d claimed that Dee had stolen his truck. So, that meant Dee was there.
If she could report to Cade that she’d seen his mother with her own eyes…
“Let’s go,” Darby said, and Hoku didn’t hesitate.
As they drew closer Darby saw why Hoku was willing to trot toward a place that had to hold bad memories from the tsunami.
Joker was tied to a post supporting the roof over the front porch.
Darby let Hoku advance to touch noses with Joker, but she didn’t call out to Cade.
“Well, what do you want from me?” a woman’s voice asked. “I figured you were fine. You live on that big fancy ranch now. You have everything you need over there, don’t you?”
Cade might have welcomed an interruption, but Darby didn’t know how to break into the argument.
“You could have let me know you were—” Cade broke off and revised what he’d been about to say. “Where you were. I haven’t heard a single word from you since the tsunami.”
“Yeah, well, in case you haven’t heard, my husband’s in jail. Jail. I’ve had my hands full taking care of this place alone. Look at this house! It’s all busted up from the quake. Oh, what do you care.”
Darby rolled her eyes. Poor Cade! Dee was clearly trying to guilt-trip him.
Cade stepped out of the house. Arms folded in anger, he didn’t look surprised to see Darby.
Exhaling forcefully, Cade let her know he hated the smell of cigarette smoke that had followed him out. He also looked wary, as if he was waiting for her to say the wrong thing.
“Want to go?” Darby asked.
Before he could answer, the door behind him opened, revealing a woman Darby recognized from the awards ceremony. Dee stood leaning in the doorway, clutching her cigarette. She had straggly, unwashed blond hair and was surprisingly tall and broad-shouldered for a woman who had been too afraid of her husband to stand up to him. Back before hard living and disappointment had etched unhappy lines in her face and blotted the light from her eyes, she might have had the good looks Cade had now.
“You gonna introduce me to your girlfriend?” she asked.
“Darby is Jonah’s granddaughter,” he told her.
“We saw Honi and I—” Darby began.
“How do you know Honi?” Dee interrupted.
“Cade and I saw her the other day, and I’ve been thinking it might not be such a good idea for her to be eating the water lilies and drinking out of the pond.”
As Darby explained what she knew about the polluted water, Dee’s face took on an unreadable expression. Did she resent Darby’s interest in her pony or was Darby adding one more worry to Dee’s endless list?
“Honi is fine,” Dee said.
Cade and Darby exchanged glances. No one could know that just by looking at the pony.
“Maybe a vet could take a look at her,” Darby suggested.
“Right,” Dee said. “No vet’s going to come out here. Even if one did, tests are expensive, and a vet couldn’t just eyeball Honi and see if something’s wrong inside.”
Worry marked deep lines between Dee’s brows, but talk of Honi seemed to have changed the atmosphere and made Dee less defensive.
A smile flicked across her face and just as quickly disappeared. “Listen, Cade. I’m glad you’re here. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“I can go,” Darby offered. Dee made it sound like a family matter.
“Stay,” Cade insisted.
Maybe he didn’t want to be alone if Dee was about to confide some illegal thing Manny had done or how she might be involved in it.
A look of annoyance flashed over Dee’s face, but she chased it away with another quick smile.
“I guess there’s no reason she can’t hear this,” she said. “All right, here’s the thing: If you leave Jonah and come back here to live with me, I’ll put half the land in your name when you’re sixteen.”
Darby stared at the toes of her faded maroon boots. Cade loved his mother. Didn’t Dee know that? Why did she think she had to use bribery to make him come home?
Cade stayed quiet, and Dee must have thought her offer hadn’t been good enough, because she continued. “As soon as I get back on my feet, we can get cattle and horses.”
“Mom.” Cade’s voice was dull, emotionless.
“Think of it,” Dee urged him. “You could have your own ranch.”
Cade kept his expression blank, but when he glanced over his shoulder, past the ruined taro field to the green grass and soaring sea cliffs beyond, Darby saw the dreams he was trying to ignore.