Galloping Gold (18 page)

 

Honi—
Cade's mom's gray pony. Her name means “kiss” and she really does kiss. Cade jokes that his mom likes Honi best. He also says Honi is “half Arab and half Welsh and all bossy.” And, she likes to eat water lilies!

 

Snowfire—
an amazing mustang from Sky Mountain. He reminds me of Tutu's story about Moho, the god of steam—Pele's brother, too, I think—who could take the form of a powerful white stallion. Snowfire's conformation is like Black Lava's. He looks just as wild and primitive, and though they're about the same size, Snowfire just seems wiser.

PLACES

Lehua High School
—the school Megan and I go to. School colors are red and gold.

 

Crimson Vale
—it's an amazing and magical place, and once I learn my way around, I bet I'll love it. It's like a maze, though. Here's what I know: From town you can
go through the valley or take the ridge road—valley has lily pads, waterfalls, wild horses, and rainbows. The ridge route (Pali?) has sweeping turns that almost made me sick. There are black rock teeter-totter-looking things that are really ancient altars and a SUDDEN drop-off down to a white sand beach. Hawaiian royalty are supposedly buried in the cliffs.

 

Moku Lio Hihiu
—Wild Horse Island, of course!

 

Sky Mountain
—goes up to five thousand feet, sometimes snow-capped, sometimes called Mountain to the Sky by most of the older folks, and it's supposed to be the home of a white stallion named Snowfire.

 

Two Sisters
—cone-shaped “mountains”—a borderline between them divides Babe's land from Jonah's, one of them is an active volcano.

 

Sun House
—our family place. They call it plantation style, but it's like a sugar plantation, not a Southern mansion. It has an incredible lanai that overlooks pastures all the way to Mountain to the Sky and Two Sisters. Upstairs is this little apartment Jonah built for my mom, but she's never lived in it.

 

Hapuna—
biggest town on island, has airport, flagpole, public and private schools, etc., palm trees, and coconut trees. It also has the Hapuna Animal Rescue barn.

 

‘Iolani
Ranch—our home ranch. 2,000 acres, the most beautiful place in the world.

 

Pigtail Fault
—near the active volcano. It looks more like a steam vent to me, but I'm no expert. According to Cade, it got its name because a poor wild pig ended up head down in it and all you could see was his tail. Too sad!

 

Sugar Sands Cove Resort
—Aunt Babe and her polo-player husband, Phillipe, own this resort on the island. It has sparkling white buildings and beaches and a four-star hotel. The most important thing to me is that Sugar Sands Cove Resort has the perfect water-schooling beach for me and Hoku.

 

The Old Sugar Plantation
—Tutu says it's a dangerous place. Really, it's just the ruins of A-Z sugar plantation, half of which belonged to Patrick's family. Now it's mostly covered with moss and vines and ferns, but you can still see what used to be train tracks, some stone steps leading nowhere, a chimney, and rickety wooden structures that are hard to identify.

ON THE RANCH, THERE
ARE PASTURES WITH NAMES LIKE
:

Sugar Mill and Upper Sugar Mill
—for cattle

 

Two Sisters
—for young horses, one- and two-year-olds they pretty much leave alone

 

Flatland—
mares and foals

 

Pearl Pasture
—borders the rain forest, mostly two-and three-year-olds in training

 

Borderlands—
saddle herd and Luna's compound

 

I guess I should also add me…

 

Darby Leilani Kealoha Carter
—I love horses more than anything, but books come in second. I'm thirteen, and one-quarter Hawaiian, with blue eyes and black hair down to about the middle of my back. On a good day, my hair is my best feature. I'm still kind of skinny, but I don't look as sickly as I did before I moved here. I think Hawaii's curing my asthma. Fingers crossed.

I have no idea what I did to land on Wild Horse Island, but I want to stay here forever.

 

Cover art © 2009 by John Rowe