Castaway Colt (10 page)

B
y the time Darby got home, she knew what
obsessed
meant. She was a walking definition of it. All she wanted was time with her horse.

When the bell rang, Megan headed for the team bus and yelled, “See you at the game!”, but Darby didn't answer.

She already knew she wouldn't ride to the soccer game in Hapuna with Jonah and Aunty Cathy in Kimo's truck.

She felt muddled and downhearted, and only time with Hoku would help. Even though Hoku had ignored Darby to groom the colt with her teeth and tongue last night, Darby knew things would be better today.

Darby changed into jeans and a gray T-shirt, then ran down to rake out Hoku's corral. The horse was usually frightened of the rake, but today she'd try to show the filly that it meant her no harm.

But once she was inside the corral, Darby gave up before she'd begun. Leaning against her rake, Darby stared at her beautiful sorrel filly.

Yesterday, Hoku had ignored her in favor of Stormbird.

She wasn't going to try training her horse today for the same reason she wouldn't tighten her ponytail in the secret sign Hoku had taught her. What if Hoku still ignored her?

Nope, I just don't have the heart for it,
Darby thought toward her horse.
If you didn't come to me today, I don't think I could take it.

Darby had finished feeding Hoku and Francie the fainting goat, and was calling for the five Aussie dogs when she smelled a delicious aroma coming from the bunkhouse.

Bart, the youngest Australian shepherd, smelled it, too. Wiggling his nose, he jumped up and planted his paws on Darby's shoulders as if she had the food hidden somewhere.

“Get off,” she told him, and he did, but he still stood there with his head tilted to one side, wagging his tail.

Just then, Kit came out onto the porch.

“Didn't go to Megan's game,” he observed.

“No, I wouldn't have been very good company.”

“Some days are like that,” the foreman said. “Finish up with the dogs, then come in for some real Nevada chili if ya want.”

“That's the best thing I've heard all day,” Darby said.

When her attention wandered for those few seconds, Bart jumped up again.

“Fine,” Kit said, “if Bart don't knock you down and devour you, come on in.”

Darby had never been inside the bunkhouse, but she instantly felt at home.

As she washed her hands at the kitchen sink, she glanced around.

The house was designed for a bigger staff of paniolos. Bunk beds filled about half the house while the other half had a kitchen and sitting room.

Cade was clearly surprised to see her sitting at the table, but he only nodded, and then he went to the sink to wash up, too.

“Scraped those knuckles,” Kit observed as Cade winced at the sting of soap on his hand.

“Yeah,” Cade said, but he didn't elaborate.

Remembering that she'd only had a granola bar for breakfast, had spilled most of her Nutrition Break orange juice, and skipped lunch, Darby decided that conversation could wait.

Kit set four bowls, a cast-iron pot of cubed beef covered with a dark red sauce, and a ladle on the
table. He added a basket of hot bread, just as Kimo came in with a six-pack of sodas.

He gave her a wink and handed her one.

“I thought you went to Hapuna with Aunty Cathy and Jonah,” Darby said.

“Call me crazy, but I loaned 'em my truck,” Kimo said.

After that, they were all quiet. Kit's chili was incredible, and though it was spicy enough to make Darby's eyes water and nose run, she'd been raised in Southern California, where Mexican food was common, and she thought it tasted delicious.

So did the others, judging by communication that was limited to the refilling of bowls and a few appreciative nods toward Kit.

Darby leaned back in her chair and was feeling almost sleepy. Her eyes were closed when she heard Cade ask Kit if he was going to the feed store first thing tomorrow morning.

“Nope,” Kit said.

Darby heard him pour coffee, and opened her eyes to see that he'd placed a cup of it, rich with cream and sugar, next to her hand.

The men waited for the foreman to explain.

“We're using the big stock trailer so we can take Hoku—”

“Hoku?” Darby interrupted.

“Yep. Been talking to Jonah. Sugar Sands has a perfect beach for water-workin' your filly.”

“I don't know…” Darby began.

“I do,” Kit said. He leaned back in his chair and half-closed his eyes, holding his coffee cup in one hand. “Water training's the best for horse and rider, and if Hawaiians
and
my people do it, how can you think it won't work?”

“Hawaiians and Native Americans both work horses in water?” Darby asked.

Kit nodded. “Takes too much energy to buck in water up to your chest, so it usually doesn't last long, and if you fall off into the water, it's nothing compared to hittin' the ground.”

“The way my dad tells it,” Kimo said, “in the old days, all the horses were trained in the water because that's how they shipped out cattle—roped 'em up to a draft horse and swum them out to the ships.”

“Amazing.” Darby sighed. “But can't we try someplace else? I don't want to go over to the Sugar Sands.”

“Up to you,” Cade said. “'Course, Duckie'll be expecting you to hide your head and act ashamed even though you didn't do nothing.”

“What?” Darby demanded. “How did you find out about that?” But the men only laughed again.

“We have our sources, yeah?” Kimo said, but it wasn't really a question.

H
appy that the cowboys refused her help with washing dishes and clearing up, Darby strolled across the ranch yard toward Sun House.

Jonah, Aunty Cathy, and Megan must have stopped at a restaurant for dinner, she thought, but she'd match Kit's chili against anything they were having in town.

Darby smiled into the darkening ranch yard as Francie greeted her with a shivering
naa
sound. Otherwise, the night was still.

It was so quiet, she heard the whisper of wings, and looked up to see pueo, the owl, coasting toward his favorite tree next to Hoku's corral.

Even though Sun House was empty except for her, Darby didn't stay up to watch television or investigate Jonah's library.

She'd go to bed early so that she'd be strong for tomorrow. It was one thing to daydream about riding Hoku and another to attempt it.

Darby left a note propped up on the kitchen table for Megan—then added Jonah and Aunty Cathy—asking if anyone would like to go with her and Kit to Sugar Sands Cove Resort in the morning to introduce Hoku to the Native American and Hawaiian method of horse training.

Because she liked to draw horses and hadn't for a while, Darby sketched a surprised Hoku with wide-open eyes and long eyelashes, surging through waves. She hesitated to add herself as the rider.

In the end she didn't do it, because she didn't think tomorrow would really be the day. When she finally rode Hoku, she wanted it to be like a pact between them.

Having Kit there would be okay, but the resort…Darby shook her head. She just couldn't picture it.

What if guests or gardeners were watching? Darby didn't want to put Hoku through those first bewildering moments in front of an audience.

Besides, the hotel and its grounds were Duckie's home territory. Something could go wrong.

Darby wrote in her diary and added a few words
to her dictionary before she fell asleep. She roused slightly when she heard Aunty Cathy and Megan laughing, walking from Kimo's truck, passing under the candlenut tree, and climbing the staircase to their upstairs apartment.

Darby sighed and cuddled back down under her blankets. She was fast asleep by the time Jonah opened the front door and replaced the note on the kitchen table with a package from her mother.

 

“What will it be like, riding Hoku for the first time?” Darby asked Kit the next morning.

It wasn't as early as it had been when they'd gone to Sugar Sands yesterday, but silvery fog still veiled the island as they rolled toward the resort.

Hoku had loaded so easily in the big trailer, Darby was astounded. She couldn't guess why neither Kit nor Cade gave the filly proper admiration for it. Kit had talked more about the perfection of the newly welded hitch than the mustang.

“Getting on her for the first time, ya mean?” Kit asked as if he'd been mulling over her question.

“Yes,” she said, realizing the difference with a smile. “I keep wondering if she's going to just dance around, or will she fight me? I couldn't stand that.”

“I don't think you'll have to,” Kit said. “She's a runner. I'm thinkin' she might try to bolt out from under you.”

“That wouldn't be so bad,” Darby said, because Hoku couldn't run that fast in the water.

“Just keep her headed away from the beach,” Kit said.

Darby nodded as her pulse pounded hard in her wrists. She imagined leaning on her filly's salty neck, swimming out to sea.

“She won't explode like a bucking bronco?” Darby asked.

“I can't promise she won't,” Kit said, “but I
can
tell you it ain't all bad when it happens.”

Darby remembered Sam Forster mentioning the foreman's happy wolf smile, and she'd bet that was what she was seeing right now.

“You're a bronc rider,” Darby pointed out, “and I've only been riding for a month. I'm pretty sure riding a bucking horse wouldn't be that fun for me.”

“It'll be okay,” Kit assured her. “It's natural to be a little anxious, a little scared, even, but it'll just make you more alert. If you treat today like an ordinary day of training, odds are Hoku will, too.”

Spikes of black lava flanked the road, and Darby twisted in her seat to make sure her horse was riding as quietly as she seemed to be.

She was.

“You know, if you get out there and change your mind in trying to get on her back, there's no shame in it,” Kit said.

“I know,” Darby said. “I only get one first chance, and I want to get it right.”

“I hear ya,” Kit said, and drove on.

 

They'd just rolled into the corral area and parked, then waved at Babe, who was in with the cremellos, when Darby heard a shrill voice.

“Take your dog!”

Darby recognized Duckie's tone before the door on one of the resort's cottages opened.

Duckie slipped out, pushing an old dog in front of her.

“It's my Pumpkin,” Babe said. She ignored Duckie and leaned forward to cluck at the dog.

He was old, gray-muzzled, and panting, even though the hotel courtyard was still covered in shade.

“He's so sweet,” Darby said. He reminded her of Peach.

Wearing an oversize hot-pink sweatshirt that fell to her knees, Duckie regarded the dog with disgust.

“I agree with Phillipe.” She addressed Babe, as if she hadn't noticed Darby or Kit. “That's a disgusting, smelly animal. It doesn't fit in here.”

“Duxelles, Phillipe said no such thing,” Babe said, pretending to tease. “He knows what Pumpkin means to me.”

Duckie shrugged and walked off.

Without telling us if she's off to get a latte or a lobotomy,
Darby thought.

“This one of Jonah's Aussies?” Kit asked as he kneaded the old dog's ears.

“He was,” Babe said. “Lucky for both of them I'm the softhearted member of the family.”

Darby didn't say anything, but Babe's short, sleek haircut and deft, professional attitude didn't make her seem softhearted.

“What happened?” Darby asked.

“One afternoon before our…falling out…I was afoot in the Upper Sugar Mill pasture—the cattle pasture,” Babe clarified, “and Pumpkin was with me. He wasn't much more than a pup and he'd never been very cowy, but I babied him and, I admit, made him worse.”

Darby shrugged her shoulders almost up to her ears. As soon as Babe noticed, she chuckled. “So you've had that lecture, too, have you? About horses, I guess?”

Darby nodded, thinking of Jonah's shout not to touch the horses on the first day they'd met.

“Anyway,” Babe went on, “Pumpkin spooked a cow with long horns. They were three or four feet long, jutting straight out from her forehead. And, cows being animals of very poor judgment, she charged me.” Babe's hands gestured to her ribs as she explained, “Her horns slammed me into a tree and pinned me there until she got tired of my screaming and Pumpkin's barking.

“When Jonah got to us, once he saw I was alive,
he said Pumpkin had to get off his ranch one way or the other. He's lived here ever since,” Babe said.

The old dog rubbed cloudy eyes against Babe's silk dress, and the woman didn't seem to mind. In fact, she just rumpled the dog's ears.

“Shall we get this filly into the water?” Kit suggested then.

Darby rushed into a changing hut and pulled on the perfect red bathing suit her mom had sent her. Earlier that morning, she had found the package that Jonah had left for her on the kitchen table.

“Could Mom's timing be any better?” Darby asked Pumpkin, since he'd followed her.

He thumped his tail as she gathered her hair up into a ponytail—just in case she had to use it to “call” Hoku.

Next, she pulled her long-sleeved chambray shirt back on over her bathing suit. Then, carrying her jeans and slippers, Darby headed back toward Hoku.

With a twinge of surprise, she saw that for a woman who didn't believe in the family horse-charming talent, Babe was having great success with Hoku.

“Hello,
Ipo
, my sweetheart,” Babe cooed to the filly, and Hoku nickered from inside the trailer. “You are a beauty, aren't you? And so friendly.”

“It's just men she hates,” Kit muttered.

Hoku flattened her ears at the sound of his voice, but when the back of the trailer was lowered and
Darby picked up the ten-foot lead rope, the filly turned and followed her.

“Like I told you in the truck,” Kit reminded Darby, “keep her faced away from shore. Let her get used to the water before you try anything. Then, use your head.”

Darby hurried, hoping no more morning joggers would hit the beach and stop to stare as one already had.

Darby felt self-conscious as she led Hoku toward the shallow waves, but she kept going.

At seven o'clock in the morning, the beach was still cool. Fog lay on the water, drifting up in skeins of white and pewter.

Chills rose on Darby's arms and legs, but they had nothing to do with the temperature.

“You've worked horses in the water before, Mr. Ely?” Babe asked.

“Yes, ma'am,” Kit replied, “and if I could mention just one thing about Stormbird…”

“Of course,” Babe said.

“Well, I been thinkin' about it since the kids brought 'im back. That colt's smart. He knows he got away once before by swimming. I'd keep him far away from the water, 'least 'til he's a yearling.”

“That's a good suggestion,” Babe replied, but Darby wasn't so sure she even heard, because she simply smoothed a hand over her black hair and said,
Now let's see if my grand-niece can swim with her wild Nevada mustang.”

Darby smiled, because she knew already that she could.

Leading Hoku across the sugar-white sands, into the wavelets, then deeper, until water lapped her knees, and then her hips, made Darby so breathless, she couldn't talk to her horse.

Hoku took one look at the ocean, spreading before her like a blue-gray range, and leaped.

Holding the rope with both hands, Darby got a mouthful of seawater as the filly towed her out, then under, then back to the surface.

Breathe. Swallow. Cough. Sneeze.

Darby got the order of things all mixed up, but she had an instant to rub at her nose with one hand before they were off again.

With a joyous neigh, Hoku swam on. Darby fell in beside her. Together they rose up the face of a white-veined wave, then slid down its gray back.

When they finally reached a lull, a wondrous flat place that waves left calm, Darby looked into her horse's eyes. They flashed, igniting with the thrill of going where she wanted, as fast as she wanted.

And then Hoku turned around. Her slender legs struck out and the churning currents that the horse created swirled around Darby's legs.

Keep her headed out to sea,
Kit had told her. Far off on the beach, like a tiny model man constructed of
bits of toothpick, stood Kit. She could barely see him. He must be worried that she was so far out.

Next to Kit was a dab of yellow. Babe.

Where was Duckie?

“Who knows or cares?” Darby asked Hoku, and then the filly pounced through the center of a wave as it streaked toward the shore.

Darby held on and followed.

Tail floating, mane spreading on the ocean's surface, Hoku swam openmouthed, catching satiny water on her lips, daring Darby to do the same.

Head level with Hoku's, Darby clung to the lead rope and let her legs trail behind, making kicks that were enough to propel her forward, side by side with Hoku.

They'd gone out far enough. Darby had just swung back around, heading the filly back to the beach, when she saw something.

Darby's eyes caught the flash of something pale and missile-shaped below the waves.

Was it a shark? Darby's panic telegraphed down the rope.

Hoku's head snapped right, then left. Together, they lost sight of whatever zinged along the filly's belly.

She couldn't see it, but she felt it.

Hoku launched into the air with such power that Darby, at the end of the rope, became airborne.