Galloping Gold (14 page)

“I'll have Dad call anyway,” Ann said. “And you know what I think? Really? Shug and Tyson are a better match than he was with Jewel.”

Darby had to agree. Sugarfoot was spirited and Jewel was gentle. Sugarfoot tested his riders and Jewel tried to understand what they wanted. That was okay with an experienced rider, but Tyson was too new at riding to know what he wanted.

“Say good night, Annie.”

“Is that your mom?” Darby asked about the voice that cut across their conversation.

“Yes, it's my mom. She's been playing Nancy Nurse to me ever since I got home—kidding,” Ann said suddenly, and her tone changed. “She's been taking really good care of me and she's going to allow me to come to the race, but only if I spend the next two days doing exactly what she says. Right, Mom?”

But Ramona Potter didn't exactly answer her daughter. She took the phone away from her and said, “Good night, Darby.”

“Good—”

But Ann's mother had already hung up.

A
nn was right. Tyson and Sugarfoot took to each other at once: They were both competitive, they'd both learned to play the ride-and-tie game, and they both loved running.

Maybe all the similarities made Darby notice that Tyson and the paint had the same habit of jerking their chins up. And once she noticed, she couldn't help telling Tyson.

“It makes you both look full of yourselves,” Darby said as they led Sugarfoot toward the fold.

It was seven o'clock in the morning, forty-nine hours before the race began, and they were heading for the fold because most of the ride-and-tie teams that
had camped at the ranch the previous night had gone in the other direction, past Sun House, and down the trail that crossed between the broodmare pasture and Kanaka Luna's compound.

Darby was pretty sure that's what had Hoku stirred up. Her filly and Luna had begun neighing before sunrise. She pushed aside worries about Hoku being disturbed. Instead, she concentrated on being grateful that Ann's dad had not only brought Sugarfoot over to stay until the race, he'd stopped by Tyson's house, too. “We aren't full of ourselves, but we are gonna win,” Tyson said.

“Just finish the race,” Darby told him, “and don't let Sugarfoot run amok. I mean, it's not like the insurance guy will be here watching, but you know how gossip travels on this island.”

As usual, Tyson didn't respond to what she'd said, but he didn't sneer, either.

“You're riding the start, yeah?” he asked.

Darby nodded. She didn't admit that she wished Ann was riding the start. Dr. Luke had stressed that the beginning of a ride-and-tie race could be crazy.

“Good,” Tyson said. “If I got thrown at the start, I'd never see him again.”

If Tyson the fleet-footed couldn't catch up with Sugarfoot, then she certainly couldn't, Darby thought. She had to stick like a burr in Sugarfoot's mane, as her friend Sam had said once.

A sudden snapping from the branches overhead made Sugarfoot shy into Tyson.

“What was that about?” Tyson asked. “It was just a twig.”

Darby had seen a yellow bird jumping along an ohia branch, probably pursuing a breakfast bug, when the twig broke. Now she saw Tyson regarding Sugarfoot as if the horse wasn't as smart as he'd thought.

“I guess you can't learn horse psychology overnight,” Darby said, “but you'll be happier if you just remember three things—and all three relate to horses thinking like prey animals.”

“Three things.” Tyson's face twisted in mock concentration. “I think I can do that.”

“They look for danger everywhere,” Darby said, holding up her index finger. “Their eyes are on the sides of their heads, so they see danger everywhere,” she said, counting off another finger. “And safety is with the herd. So if a horse has a choice, he'll stay with his buddies.”

“Not very good race thinkin',” Tyson said, then, turning to Sugarfoot, he said, “Hope you like going fast more than you like other horses.”

Tyson accepted her minilecture so well, Darby decided to ask what she'd wanted to since the first day he'd shown up.

“Before we get going, want to give me some running tips?”

“It's too late,” he said.

“Fine,” Darby said. She held her breath to keep from saying anything worse. That's what she got for treating the guy like a human being.

He shrugged, then said, “Tips would be like conditioning stuff, yeah? With only two days left before the race—and one of 'em has to be a day off—I can only tell you tricks.”

Darby's first impulse was to tell him she wouldn't do anything underhanded, but then she'd be assuming the worst, just like his father, so she just said, “That'd be great. The only kind of competition I've done before is swimming.”

It turned out that some of it was the same. Tyson told her to load up on carbohydrates the night before and eat lightly on race morning. He told her to listen to her body and reconsider her speed if her muscles burned or she couldn't breathe.

“Yeah, I know, you never would have thought of that on your own,” he joked.

Darby laughed, and it might have been the first time Tyson had said something she thought was genuinely funny.

Encouraged, he said, “You've gotta worry about hydration and foot placement more, too.”

“I thought maybe that was the case,” Darby said, and then Tyson's expression turned serious.

“And since I don't want our guy to get sold off for glue”—Tyson turned toward the paint with exaggerated casualness—“I'll tell you the chant I use while I run.”

Tyson looked back over his shoulder with raised eyebrows, as if he expected her to mock him.

“That would be cool,” she said. “So far I've been using songs.”

“It's better than that, at least,” Tyson told her, then cleared his throat and recited, “The only barrier is in my brain.”

The only barrier
—that must be to speed, or winning, Darby thought—
is in my brain
.

She nodded with satisfaction, then said, “I can remember that.”

 

On race day, Darby woke to the smell of wood smoke. Jonah had allowed the visiting riders to camp on his land and Kit had built a central fire ring for use on the night before and the morning of the ride.

Before she went out to Sugarfoot, Darby walked through the silent living room and onto the lanai.

She looked down on the broodmare pasture and smiled. Like sunflowers, all the horses faced toward dawn's golden glow. She looked for Hoku next to Tango, but her filly wasn't there.

Changing her position slightly, Darby spotted Lady Wong. Sometimes the gray mare, undisputed queen of the pasture, permitted Hoku to graze alongside her. But not this morning.

“Change your mind?” Jonah asked as he bustled down the hall from his bedroom.

“No way!” Darby said.

“Could be a pretty tough ride.”

“We'll make it,” Darby answered vaguely.

“What are you looking at?” Jonah asked. Darby tried to hold on to the tranquility of grazing horses as she reached for Jonah's arm and hung on.

“Do you see Hoku?”

“Don't you?” Jonah asked.

When Darby shook her head, Jonah grabbed the binoculars he kept on the lanai and lifted them to his eyes.

Darby tried to feel excited. She tried to believe that any second now, Jonah would point out her horse. She wanted him to prove her wrong, to say she was blinder than he was.

Grumbling, he adjusted the binoculars for a second scan of the broodmare pasture.

“Checking the fences,” Jonah said. “They all look fine.”

A sharp whinny floated up to them and the thump of hooves followed.

“That sounds like Hoku,” Darby said, “but not as sweet.”

“Got her,” Jonah said. He shoved the binoculars at Darby. “That crow bait's about to cost me my livelihood.”

“Where?” Darby asked, blinking. She tried not to sweep the binoculars around so fast that she only saw green blurs.

“Check Luna's pasture,” Jonah said as he stopped
to tug on his boots.

“Luna?” Darby gasped.

Oh, no—if Hoku had jumped her own and Kanaka Luna's fences so she could turn her tomboy rage on the stallion, the filly's life on ‘Iolani Ranch was over.

Not only was the Quarter Horse stallion the biggest moneymaker on the place, but Jonah loved him.

There. Darby saw a circle of chocolate-brown hide. The visiting mare. Then…

“Oh, my gosh!”

Ears flat and teeth bared, Hoku chased the other mare into the corner of two fences.

“What is wrong with you?” Darby yelled.

“Pretty sure she's not in the mood to answer,” Jonah said as he stormed from the house. “If you're going with me, better hurry.”

Trying to make sense of what she'd just seen, Darby sprinted after Jonah. She almost collided with the vehicle that was parked next to the Land Rover.

“Shall I go get her halter and—”

“In back.” Jonah jerked his thumb toward the ATV's small cargo area, indicating the plain rope halter and lead rope. “Get on, or step back.”

Darby jumped up behind her grandfather and held on tight.

Jonah shouted “Aloha!” as he swerved to miss a race entrant who'd camped overnight at ‘Iolani.

There were thirty entrants, and she should be
relaxing with them, gathering around a campfire with cups of coffee, tea, and hot chocolate before they fed their horses.

She'd promised Ann that Sugarfoot would be eating by seven
A.M
., so she still had a little time, but—

Jonah hit a bump that almost launched Darby off of the ATV. She held on, wishing she could see around the next corner.

“I'll just catch her and put her back in with the broodmares,” Darby said.

“Might be easier to move Banshee,” Jonah said.

“Okay.” Darby didn't know what her grandfather was thinking. Jonah understood how savage Hoku could be with men and stallions. But it wouldn't hurt to remind him, so she said, “I just don't want her to hurt Luna.”

As they came around the last corner, green pastures unrolled before them.

Darby couldn't believe the scene before her.

“I think he'll be okay,” Jonah said, and Darby was pretty sure he was right.

Hoku stood beside Kanaka Luna. Her slim sorrel body mirrored his muscled bay one. Necks cloaked with heavy manes—one black, one ivory—they grazed, shoulders touching.

“Hoku,” Darby said in soft surprise.

Jonah didn't joke that Hoku had gotten over her tomboy phase. He didn't say anything, in fact, and Darby was glad. She tried to feel happy that Hoku
had adjusted to ranch life, but all she felt was sad.

It's selfish,
Darby thought,
but I liked being her best friend
.

Jonah turned off the ATV. He'd stopped halfway down the hillside on the trail that ran between the broodmare pasture and Kanaka Luna's compound.

Darby didn't want to move, but she felt the pressure of time pushing against her back. Every minute she stayed here was a minute she should be spending with Sugarfoot.

“She's safe, Granddaughter.”

Jonah sounded totally unfamiliar, like a kindly grandfather from a fairy tale, instead of his usual gruff self, and tears stung Darby's eyes.

“What are you waiting for?” he snapped. “Go get that paint horse fed and ready.”

“But—”

“I'll get Banshee out of there so your
pupule
mustang doesn't eat her alive. You can put her back where she belongs later.”

“Okay,” Darby said. She climbed out of the ATV and took a step up the trail, back to the ranch yard. She looked back at Hoku shining fire gold beside Luna, still unable to believe her eyes, said “Okay” again, and broke into a run.

She'd almost made it to Sugarfoot's corral when something loomed up in her way.

“Morning.”

Darby startled, because she'd noticed the brown
velvety ears of a Maui mule named Lark before she noticed Clint, the man who was bucket-feeding him.

“Aloha,” Darby greeted the man.

Still dazed, Darby smiled at other people she'd met yesterday when the course had opened. Although they weren't allowed to ride it, at least one team member from each pair had walked it.

Darby wondered if there'd ever been this many people on the ranch before and if there'd ever be this many again.

Minutes later, Dr. Luke's sister Sheila stood beside Darby, feeding Samba, her black Thoroughbred, as Darby fed Sugarfoot.

Neither of them said much as their horses ate from their buckets of grain mixed with beet pulp, water, and shaved apples.

Like Sheila, Darby ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich she'd made and stuffed in her pocket the night before.

I'm befuddled,
Darby thought as her eyes followed Sugarfoot's lightning-bolt blaze over and over again.
I feel bewildered, bemused, and befuddled.

Couldn't Hoku have chosen some other morning to surprise me this way?

Darby swallowed the last bite of her sandwich, and Sugarfoot looked up from his bucket just as Kit came striding toward them.

“What's up?” she asked.

“War paint,” Kit reminded her. “I'll brush him and
dude him up before you come down.”

Darby had totally forgotten Kit's offer to decorate Sugarfoot so that he'd stand out from the other horses, but she said, “Okay.”

Kit frowned. “Bring the other two when they get here.”

“Other two?” Darby asked.

“I'm talking about Tyson and Ann.”

“Oh,” Darby said, nodding.

“You feelin' a little fuzzy-minded?” Kit asked as he took Sugarfoot's lead rope.

Darby sighed. “Hoku's in Luna's pasture,” she told him.

“Hmm,” Kit said, then grinned. “She picked her time and she picked her fella.”

“I guess,” Darby said.

The Nevada cowboy's words lightened her mood and Darby was feeling eager to get started when she saw Tyson walking down the dirt road past Sun House. She strode toward him, but right off she had to jump back and suck in her stomach to keep from being bowled over by a girl on a pony.

Biggy Nuff, she thought, remembering the pony's name first. His rider was Carrie. She wore braids and a Hapuna Prep School sweatshirt. Her teammate was her mother.

And then Darby saw Ann. Although she was limping, Ann had caught up with Tyson by the time he reached Darby.

“You guys look so cute,” Ann said, indicating their shirts.

They both wore old Hawaiian shirts of Jonah's. Tyson had cut the short sleeves off his so it looked more like a racing singlet, and Darby had tied hers up at the waist, but both shirts were patterned with huge red hibiscus flowers, which should make it easy for them to spot each other.