Rain Forest Rose

by Terri Farley

  Tango bolted forward. She looked back as Cade and Megan closed the gate together, but the pink mare didn’t seem to mind. She shouldered past Conch and Joker, then stretched her rosy neck to touch noses with Hoku.

  Once the lively horses were inside the fence and the humans were outside, Megan and Darby stared at the horses, discussing every move they made.

  “She’s pretty peppy, but not wild,” Darby said.

  “Those scars.” Megan winced. “And she’s got to smell pig all over this place, but she still let me walk right up to her.”

  There was no way Darby could say what she was thinking. It was too embarrassing, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  Love could be stronger than fear.

  By the look in Megan’s eyes, she already knew that.

  “Change of plans,” Kit said, startling them both. “We’re staying put ’til morning.”

  No one protested or asked questions as Kit explained. “This boar’s still moving around. If he has rabies—and it’s not a sure thing—he’s in the furious stage. What they do then, mostly, is roam. And lose fear. They get real irritable, too. Want to attack anything that moves. Jonah was hoping—”

  Kit broke off and Darby wasn’t surprised. The foreman rarely said as much as he already had.

  “Point is, with it getting dark, those horses”—he nodded toward Hoku and Tango—“would be too fractious to take through the woods, even on lead lines.”

  “Fractious? What’s fractious?” Megan asked.

  “Restless?” Kit suggested.

  “So we’ll leave them all in the corral together,” Cade said, “and hope the boar’s not crazed enough to try to get in.”

  “Yep,” Kit agreed.

  With Tango, Navigator, Joker, and Conch for roommates, Hoku would be in heaven, Darby thought. She just hoped the filly didn’t remember she preferred the tight crush of horses to her human herd of one.

  Megan clapped her hands. She looked excited by the unexpected night of camping. “We didn’t really plan this as a slumber party, so we didn’t bring that much food,” she said. “But we can pool what’s in our saddlebags with Darby’s supplies!”

  “Ain’t no slumber party,” Kit mumbled, looking surprised by Megan’s enthusiasm.

  “I’ll stand watch,” Cade volunteered.

  “We’ll take shifts,” Kit said.

  “I’m sure we can make a decent dinner, even if”—Megan put her hands on her hips and looked pointedly at Cade and Kit—“the diners are touchy.”

  Megan was giddy with joy at the reunion with her horse, Darby thought, and she refused to let the grim situation depress her.

  Darby shared her jerky and the freeze-dried Peach Pie Pak but kept enough food to last her the rest of the week when she saw Kit breaking two protein bars into halves and Megan mixing up envelopes of powdered drink mix with water from their canteens.

  The biggest surprise came from Cade’s saddlebags. He’d brought mochi, a dessert he said was made with sweet bean paste and fruit.

  “These don’t taste like any beans I’ve ever had,” Darby told him. “They’re delicious. If strawberry ice cream wasn’t cold, this is what it would taste like.”

  “You’re weird,” Megan told her.

  “They’re better when they’re just made,” Cade said.

  Kit stood and prowled around the camp with his rifle, but before Cade could join him, Megan said, “We’re like a team of superheroes,” she looked at their faces in the brassy light of the lantern.

  “Right,” Darby said.

  “Really,” Megan insisted. “You’re a horse charmer. Cade can see in the dark—”

  “Night vision isn’t a superpower,” Cade said, lowering his voice as if the praise embarrassed him. “It’s mostly hereditary, like my pupils dilate more than some people’s, and there’s stuff I’ve learned to do.”

  “Kit can track anything on four feet, or two, or—have you tried snakes?” Megan called to him.

  “Not lately,” he said.

  “What’s your superpower?” Cade asked Megan.

  “I’m a superior athlete, of course,” Megan said, yawning.

  Then she sagged against Darby’s shoulder.

  Looking down at her friend, Darby thought it was like someone had blown out a candle. Megan was already asleep.

  But Darby felt totally awake.

  Kit must have noticed, because he assigned her and Cade to take first watch.

  “Wake me at midnight,” Kit said, then looked down at Megan. “And I’ll wake her at four. Hey, Wonder Woman”—Kit jostled Megan’s shoulder—“that okay with you?”

  Megan mumbled agreement, then squirmed into her sleeping bag.

  Left alone, Cade and Darby were quiet until he said, “Do you care if I turn out the lantern?”

  “No, but why?” Darby asked.

  “To help my night vision. The longer it is since I’ve looked into light, the better accustomed I am to seein’ in the dark.”

  “Will it work for me, too?” Darby asked, turning the key on the lantern to Off.

  “For anybody,” Cade said. “Besides, then we can watch for firebugs.”

  “Like, fireflies?” Darby asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one, but Jonah says he used to see them all the time when he was a kid.”

  Cade gazed silently into the night for so long, Darby felt compelled to ask, “Cade, if the pig comes, what are you going to do? I mean, in the old days—well, according to Jonah, you’re not supposed to kill anything in this forest, right?”

  “Your tutu already thought of that,” Cade said. Despite the darkness, Darby heard a smile in his voice.

  “She did?”

  “She told me there’s an old Hawaiian saying about the wrongs done by man being atoned for by a pig.”

  “Atoned for? Like a scapegoat or something?” Darby asked. “That’s not fair.”

  “It’s supposed to be like a sacrifice,” Cade told her.

  The wrongs done by man, Darby repeated silently. What wrongs? Darby wondered, but she didn’t ask Cade. What if he thought she blamed him, too, for Ben’s death?

  Then Darby’s attention returned to her great-grandmother. “Do you think she’s like a medicine woman?” Darby felt her elbow, with its ti leaf bandage, again.

  “I’d call her an herbalist,” Cade answered, without asking who Darby was talking about.

  “Or a wise woman,” Megan piped up drowsily.

  As the night deepened, Darby looked up through the trees. Multicolored stars showed between the leaves. Blue, red, and gold lights shone among those that were diamond white. She knew the color differences had something to do with temperature, but right now, it looked to her like someone had tossed a handful of jewels against black velvet.

  “If that pig is rabid,” Cade said, breaking the quiet again, “it’s suffering.”

  “I know,” Darby said. “Yesterday, it wasn’t trying to be ferocious. He looked…” She drew a breath, glad it was Cade listening. He might not make fun of her for trying to read a pig’s feelings from its wrinkled face. “Disoriented. Confused, but like he couldn’t stop himself from crashing into the fence and stuff.”

  Cade shifted. Holding his rifle across his lap, he turned away from Darby, but she could still hear him say, “And if Kit’s right, soon the pig won’t be able to swallow water.”

  Darby shivered. If that was true, the pig’s death wouldn’t be a sacrifice. It would be a mercy.

  The boar came at midnight.

  Though the horses’ worried whinnies said they’d heard him approaching, all four humans were startled by the pig crashing through the rain forest.

  Darby hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the breaking brush was what made her eyes pop open.

  “I see him,” Cade said quietly.

  Except for the feverish huffing of the pig, they were all quiet, until Kit said, “You sure belong in this owl clan, Cade. I can only hear ’im.”

  He s
tarted pumping up the lantern, then said, “Forget it. That’s a bad idea for keeping our eyes sharp, right?”

  Even though Cade was staring toward the corral, with his rifle raised to his shoulder, he nodded.

  Darby couldn’t make out the boar’s color or shape, but she sensed movement.

  “It’s at that fence again, isn’t it?” Darby said.

  “Why are you whispering?” Megan asked in a startlingly loud voice. “Give me a spoon and a pan to pound on. We want to scare it away, don’t we?”

  The pig swung around to face them, but it moved so quickly, its lack of coordination made it fall. They heard it grunting and struggling, and Megan didn’t ask again.

  “I’d put an end to it, if I could see well enough.” Kit sounded frustrated. “But if it’s still where you say”—he watched the back of Cade’s head, made visible by the pale braid, and saw him nod—“it’s already too close to the horses to take a shot.”

  A shot in the dark, Darby thought, and for the first time she really knew what it meant.

  “If he gets in with the horses—” Darby broke off. For all her tenderhearted feelings toward wildlife, and Megan’s, too, they were all thinking of the same thing. They’d seen Tango’s scars. The boar’s curved tusks could inflict terrible damage on silken legs and tendons.

  Hearing the boar stagger closer, the horses began a captive stampede, circling their corral at a gallop. Darby couldn’t see them, but she heard their hooves running, and their shoulders ramming against the fence.

  “They’re gonna try to break out,” Cade said. “I don’t think we have much choice.”

  Hoku’s fierce neigh, the one she’d used on Black Lava, soared over the whinnies of the other horses. Then another neigh joined hers.

  “That’s Tango,” Megan said breathlessly. “I can’t tell if she’s mad or scared, but—”

  They heard hooves hit the fence.

  Kit crouched next to Cade and asked, “Are they trying to kick their way out?”

  “No,” Cade said. “It’s Tango and Hoku. They’re—” Cade stopped.

  “What?” Darby demanded.

  “They’re going after the pig.”

  One of the horses screamed in fury, then horseflesh hit horseflesh. Teeth clacked. Darby imagined her mustang filly and the once-wild mare shoving past the geldings to get to the bristled menace coming after them.

  Hooves battered against wood.

  “Aw.” Cade made a pitying sound just before the pig began to shriek.

  He pressed his rifle tighter against his shoulder.

  The horses’ hooves had found their target. The piercing squeals raised gooseflesh on Darby’s arms, but the pig was still shoving against the fence. She heard the wood creak.

  “What do you want me to do?” Cade asked sternly.

  “If you can see to make a shot, take it,” Kit said.

  “Darby?” Cade snapped.

  “Take it,” Kit repeated, “before he gets among the horses.”

  Darby’s mind cast around for a different solution.

  If Hoku was in the line of fire, Cade wouldn’t shoot, would he? Unless the pig was about to slip under as it had before and attack Navigator, or Joker, or—

  “Okay,” Darby said.

  “Megan.” Cade said her name in a steely tone.

  If anything went wrong, he wanted her on his side this time, Darby thought.

  “Okay. Of course. Do it,” Megan said.

  Kit’s faith in Cade’s skill was so great, he was already reaching for the lantern when Cade put the pig out of its misery with a single shot.

  The horses stood silent. The only sound was Kit, pumping up the lantern and lighting it.

  “Stay here,” Kit said, standing up. “You too,” he told Cade. “I’m pretty sure he’s done for, but I’d feel better if you covered me from here.”

  Cade nodded, and Kit walked toward the pig.

  Chapter 14

  Darby didn’t watch while Kit made sure the sick boar was dead, but she listened.

  For a few minutes, there was no other sound except for Kit’s boots, but then the quiet was split by Hoku’s longing neigh.

  “Kit!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I go to Hoku?” Darby shouted to him.

  “Sure. She’s fine, though. The boar didn’t get in.”

  Then, as Darby started toward Hoku, Kit corrected himself. “You know, could you wait just a second while Cade helps me with this?”

  “This” would be the boar’s body, Darby thought, so she stayed where she was.

  Cade stood, but Megan was so fast getting to her feet and grabbing his sleeve, she stopped him from going.

  “I apologize for being such a jerk,” Megan said.

  “It’s okay,” Cade told her.

  “It’s not okay,” Megan insisted. “That day, you would have shot that boar, and my dad would still be alive—”

  “I could have missed. And even shot, he still could’ve charged Tango and the same thing woulda happened.”

  “No. I came out of the forest after you and Dad did, and when I saw you with your gun raised, but I didn’t see the boar…”

  “And you screamed for me to stop. But how could you think something like that about me? That I’d do something like that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always been weird about little animals…”

  “Little animals.” Cade repeated the words as if he’d never heard them before.

  “Well, it—I know. I know, looking back it’s stupid, but I didn’t see the boar and I thought you were going to shoot that baby pig Tango was shying away from.” Megan gave a heartsick sigh, then spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t know why.”

  Darby tried to picture what Cade and Megan had described.

  Megan had come into the clearing after the others. She’d seen Cade—a guy she was afraid of because her mother had told her he’d had violence pounded into him—raise his rifle against a baby pig. But she hadn’t seen the boar charging Tango. She hadn’t guessed her father was in danger. Still, her scream had stopped Cade from shooting.

  Cade’s shaky voice broke the silence. “You didn’t think I was going to shoot your dad?”

  “No! Oh my gosh, Cade, no! I’d never think something like that!”

  Then Darby walked away. She headed for her horse, though her head was spinning.

  All this time, Megan had blamed herself for shouting, for worrying about a piglet instead of her father.

  All this time, Cade had thought Megan, for at least a moment, believed he was aiming at Ben Kato.

  Darby circled to the far side of the corral. All of the horses crowded toward her as if she, the hay-bringer, could do something about the chaos that had invaded their world.

  “It’s okay, you guys,” she said quietly. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”

  At first light, Cade and Megan rode out, ponying Tango behind them.

  Kit was still worried. He lagged behind, arguing with Darby.

  “That pig got rabies from somewhere,” he pointed out, but Darby could tell she was wearing him down. “Still, I know what Jonah would say. He’d tell you there’s no reason you can’t spend the last couple days out here with your horse, now that the boar’s been taken care of. So have a good time,” he said, and loped Conch after the others.

  When the rain forest fell quiet again, Darby joined Hoku in the corral.

  She watched her filly eat the hay meant to distract Hoku from the departure of her temporary herd. She smiled as Hoku rolled in the dirt, then rubbed her coat on the grass, removing all of those troubling scents.

  Finally, when Hoku was ready to play, Darby tightened her black ponytail.

  Hoku came to her, holding her head up high so that Darby couldn’t reach her halter, but when Darby didn’t try, the mustang lowered her head over Darby’s shoulder and bumped her chin against her shoulder blade in a horse hug.

  “I’ve got something to read to you, girl,” Darby s
aid. She wiggled her fingers into her jeans pocket to retrieve the postcard she’d found in the book Jonah had packed for her. It was from her mother.

  “‘Don’t stay in your room studying,’ it says, and then, ‘Get out and have some fun!’”

  Darby laughed, and she decided Hoku was amused, too, because she dusted her prickly whiskers across Darby’s face.

  “She has no idea,” Darby told Hoku. “And she wouldn’t believe me if I told her!”

  Hoku tilted her head to one side, trying to puzzle out Darby’s words. When she couldn’t, the filly shook all over.

  A flurry of ivory mane covered Hoku’s eyes before she gave Darby a sisterly nudge that knocked her off her feet. And then, head held high and bright tail streaming, the golden mustang ran circles around her human.

  Darby’s Dictionary

  In case anybody reads this besides me, which it’s too late to tell you not to do if you’ve gotten this far, I know this isn’t a real dictionary. For one thing, it’s not all correct, and for another, it’s not alphabetized because I’m just adding things as I hear them. Besides, this dictionary is just to help me remember. Even though I’m pretty self-conscious about pronouncing Hawaiian words, it seems to me if I live here (and since I’m part Hawaiian), I should at least try to say things right.

  ‘aumakua—OW MA KOO AH—these are family guardians from ancient times. I think ancestors are supposed to come back and look out for their family members. Our ‘aumakua are owls and Megan’s is a sea turtle.

  chicken skin—goose bumps

  da kine—DAH KYNE—“that sort of thing” or “stuff like that”

  hanai—HA NYE E—a foster or adopted child, like Cade is Jonah’s, but I don’t know if it’s permanent

  ‘iolani—EE OH LAWN EE—this is a hawk that brings messages from the gods, but Jonah has it painted on his trucks as an owl bursting through the clouds

  hiapo—HIGH AH PO—a firstborn child, like me, and it’s apparently tradition for grandparents, if they feel like it, to just take hiapo to raise!

  hoku—HO COO—star