Rain Forest Rose (10 page)

H
er lips felt stiff, so they were probably caked with mud, but it didn't matter. People would pay plenty for a bath of healthy Hawaiian minerals, she thought, smiling weakly.

And it didn't matter that her clothes were soaked and dirty. She had others.

What mattered was that Hoku hadn't left her.

The wild filly had trusted Darby to get them out of the corral, away from the boar. And she hadn't taken the chance to escape!

As happy as she was, Darby couldn't push away another sickening surge of dizziness. She closed her eyes and gloried in the fact that she hadn't schooled the instincts out of Hoku. Jonah would be proud, if
she ever got up the nerve to tell him.

Darby didn't know how long she lay there, hiding behind the darkness of her eyelids, listening while Hoku grazed.

When she was finally feeling better, Darby gathered her strength to open her eyes again. Before she did, something brushed her fingertips.

It felt warm, but it was as coarse as the bristles on her hairbrush. She heard a small gumping sound and something round as a puppy's belly bumped her face, then moved away.

Darby opened her eyes to see the slick, black nose of a piglet. It studied her with tiny, eager eyes, and Darby felt a smile begin on her mud-smeared face.

Then she stopped. It was cute, all right, but a piglet like this one had caused Ben Kato's death.

Crazy, rabid pigs might not travel in family groups, but she'd bet this little piggy had a mother, and maybe even a father, nearby.

Sun baked Darby's back and Hoku's teeth made a vigorous snatching sound.

Don't panic.
Darby scoffed at her cowardice. She had to be exaggerating the danger she was in. She simply wasn't the kind of person who faced mortal peril twice in one day.

Trying to dredge up some of the hidden courage Jonah thought she possessed, Darby raised her head and looked around until her neck trembled. She made her eyes sweep so far to the right they burned.
Then, she did the same thing in the other direction.

Tutu had said this was a good place to practice using other senses besides sight, so she let her head down and tried her best.

The piglet snuffled. Mud splattered her hand, so he must be rolling. Wallowing, Cade had called it. The grass smelled freshly mown, like a Saturday afternoon on the lawn in front of her Pacific Pinnacles apartment, but the smell of the piglet kept Darby from drifting off. She'd already wasted too much time waiting for its parents to show up.

Darby sat up slowly, saw no other pigs, then stood. No tide of dizziness took her back down, so she glanced up the hill at Hoku.

Between her and her horse stood a black pig the size of a Labrador retriever. Two wiggling piglets were there, too.

The sow snorted and the piglet next to Darby scooted away. As he joined the others, Darby noticed he was the smallest.

When the sow led her family trotting away, Darby couldn't help but watch Hoku. Switching her tail lazily, Hoku gazed after the pigs, but she didn't look scared, just interested.

What a totally different reaction than the filly had had to the pig in the corral, Darby thought.

She hadn't imagined it, then. The boar in her camp was a sick animal. Healthy pigs like this bunch moved away from strangers.

As Darby took her first step toward Hoku, the sow stopped and stared.

Does she have eyes in the back of her head? Darby wondered.

The sow had to be at least a quarter-mile away, but Darby heard her grunt a warning to her piglets.

They weren't the least bit worried by Darby or her horse. In fact, the small one was leading a rollicking romp through the grass. At last, their mother trotted after them.

 

Darby had to get back before Jonah or someone else saw the empty corral and sent out a search party.

Although she had no idea how to return to camp, Hoku did.

So Darby followed along, watching all the while for a clear spring so she could bathe. She knew Hoku would share the stream she drank from in camp, but she wanted to keep it clean for her horse. Besides, the idea of bathing in the stream where the pig had been, and the specter of him lurking nearby to ambush her, wasn't very appealing.

Holding Hoku's lead rope while she washed off didn't make for a very complete bath, but before they crossed the
kipuka
, Darby was pretty much free of mud. Heat waves radiating up from the lava rock provided warmth to counter the wet patches that were left all over her shirt and shoulders from her long hair.

“Would you let me give you a bath?” Darby asked Hoku, but the horse only flicked one ear her way. She was so determined to get back to the corral—and hay—Darby probably could have released the lead rope again and just tagged along. But she wasn't about to try it.

Their camp appeared undamaged and the pig had gone. The only signs he'd ever been there was the ripped-up wallow under the fence and the open gate, blowing and creaking in the breeze.

Hoku wandered around her corral while Darby snagged Jonah's wildlife book off the ground. It was untouched, as if she'd set it carefully on the little knoll, instead of dropping it when she was under attack.

Next, she used a cup from her supplies to bring damp dirt from the streambed. It wouldn't help much if the pig was determined to get under the bottom rail again, but Darby packed mud into the low spot until it was level with the dirt around it.

“That should slow him down,” she told Hoku.

Darby brushed her hands against each other, then said, “Let's go see Tutu.”

Hoku's head jerked up. Her eyes blinked as she'd come out of a doze, but when Darby tried to lead her, the filly wouldn't move.

“C'mon, girl,” Darby coaxed, “we've got to tell her about the pig, and I'm not leaving you here.”

Everything Darby had observed made her believe
the black boar was rabid, and horses could get rabies, too.

“We'll walk over to Tutu's, tell her what happened, then go home and tell Jonah. We really don't want Megan to show up tomorrow morning to look for Tango and run into trouble with a boar,” she said.

“Hoku!” Darby gave the rope a firm tug. “I can't leave you here alone.”

She wouldn't
go
alone, either.

If she were Tutu, she'd insist her great-granddaughter stay safe in the cottage rather than return to territory roamed by a rabid pig, whether there was a horse waiting for her or not.

Darby tried sweet-talking the filly. She tried striding out to the end of the lead rope as if she just assumed the mustang would follow. Hoku didn't move.

She didn't say it aloud, but Darby thought Hoku was acting like horses she'd read about, which stayed in the “safety” of their stalls, refusing to leave even when fire roared around them.

Finally, Darby gave up. They'd leave at first light. By then, Hoku would have recovered.

Darby found a stout branch that had fallen on the rain-forest floor and stripped the leaves from it. That would make a passable club. She'd protect herself and Hoku from the pig if she had to.

I only have to make it through the night,
Darby thought. Even a rabid pig must have learned a lesson
today. Wouldn't he avoid a place where he'd been stuck under a fence, yelled at by an insane human, and practically trampled by a horse?

 

The pig didn't come to the stream at dusk. He didn't show up at midnight, either.

Afraid her camping lantern could be dangerous because the boar could stagger into it, spill lantern fuel, and cause a fire, Darby read a book by the beam of her flashlight.

Exhausted and sore, Darby thought she'd have to fight to stay awake, but the opposite was true. She couldn't fall asleep.

Darby flipped through Jonah's book and learned about Hawaii's endangered nene goose. She read the section on feral pigs, too, and one fact kept rising to the surface of her mind long after she'd finished the chapter.

Because of their tough hide and the scar tissue on shoulders, feral pigs can only be killed with bullets,
the passage had said.

Megan had been afraid of Cade because he carried a rifle everywhere he went. That's what she'd said. So if Cade had had a rifle that day in the rain forest, why hadn't he used it to save Ben Kato?

 

The black boar still hadn't shown up at dawn, but Megan, Cade, and Kit did.

Darby heard their approach and struggled into
jeans to cover her skinned knees. Tears filled her eyes by the time she pulled up her zipper and made it into her only wearable shirt.

Yesterday, she'd been surprised that her muscles only ached a little from her smash-and-tear, stumble-and-drag journey at the end of Hoku's rope. But today she ached everywhere. Even her fingernails hurt.

Darby limped to the edge of the clearing. The first thing she noticed was that Megan rode Navigator. Darby didn't have even a second to feel jealous, though. The instant he spotted her, the big gelding tossed his head and gave a short, happy neigh.

Darby blew the Quarter Horse a kiss, then she looked closely at Megan and Cade. The two rode into the clearing side by side. Even though they weren't talking, the silence that had been like a wall of ice between them was clearly melting.

Kit jogged Conch past the others.

“Hey there, cowgirl,” said the foreman.

Darby felt a thrill of pride at the greeting and she waved.

Kit Ely held his reins in his right hand, while his left rested on the thigh of his short leather chaps. With his night-black hair and dark skin, he might be mistaken for a Hawaiian, though he was really half Shoshone. But that wasn't what made Kit remarkable.

Darby admired the way he kept Conch quiet. The
grulla gelding was a challenge to Megan, and she was a good rider, but Conch obeyed Kit without question.

Kit rode with such ease, Darby wouldn't have believed he'd been badly injured riding rodeo broncs if she hadn't heard about the accident from a good source.

Kit's left wrist was “dust,” according to Sam Forster, and Sam had heard the description from Kit's brother Jake.

“Filly looks fine,” Kit said.

He gave Darby a conspiratorial wink. They shared an admiration for mustangs that Jonah didn't have. Her grandfather had said it would take Hoku at least a year to become fit enough to ride, but Kit had believed Hoku's wild-horse toughness would cut the recovery time needed after her voyage and relocation in half.

“'Course,” Kit added, smiling at Hoku's excited neighs to the other horses, “she sounds a mite lonesome.”

“She's fibbing,” Darby said. “She's had Tango for company.”

“Has she?” Kit sounded surprised.

Darby wished she hadn't revealed that quite so soon. She didn't want to tell Kit everything that had happened with the pig. At least not yet.

But Kit was an expert tracker. In fact, if she'd given his presence just two minutes of thought, she would have realized he was here to help find Tango.

Kit rode around the outside of the corral, eyes fixed on the ground, then widened his search while Darby went to the others.

Although Megan and Cade had joined forces to recapture Tango, there was still an awkwardness between them.

“You rode,” Darby said suddenly.

“Only because Tutu gave us permission,” Megan said. “We're allowed to come in on horseback and catch Tango, but Tutu made us promise we wouldn't gallop after her until we'd tried plan A,” Megan said.

But then Megan detailed plan B instead.

Joker and Navigator were both good roping horses, Megan explained, and since she and Cade threw lucky loops most of the time, Cade would send Joker galloping after Tango, then put a loop over her head.

“I'll lag behind, so she knows I'm still her friend,” Megan said.

“Or you'll be there with a second rope, if I miss my throw,” Cade said.

“You won't,” Megan said. Then, seeing Darby glance toward Kit, Megan added, “Jonah wants Kit to track that crazy pig you saw. Then, after we catch Tango and all ‘us kids' are gone, Jonah expects Kit to come back and kill it.”

The idea would have horrified Darby yesterday, but after facing the pig, she wasn't so sure.

“I don't know if he's crazy,” Darby said. “But I saw that boar yesterday, and I think it does have rabies.”

Cade straightened in his saddle, watching intently as Kit jogged up on Conch.

Right then, Darby noticed Cade wasn't the only one with a scabbard on his saddle.

“Judgin' by tracks, we got one sick hog,” Kit said. “Let's get your plan rollin'.” He nodded toward Megan. “Horses are our first priority. I want them outta here until I take care of that boar.”

Kit's opinion meant she'd had a good reason to be scared yesterday, Darby thought. Then she swallowed and asked Megan, “What's plan A?”

“Bubbles.” Megan dismounted with a smile, unbuckled her saddlebag, and took out a plastic jar.

She winked at Darby, confirming that she'd believed what Darby had said: Bubbles had lured Tango here in the first place.

Darby heard Hoku's hooves and looked over to see the filly pacing. The mustang was all lathered up, as if she'd been running.

What's wrong, girl?
Darby sent her thoughts toward the sorrel.
Too many people? Too much commotion? Or do you smell trouble?

“Let's do it.” Kit's resolute voice brought Darby's attention back to plans A and B as the foreman scanned the woods around them. “You three can talk
while you loosen cinches and tie up the horses. Megan, how about you get out there by the stream in ten minutes?”

“Got it,” Megan agreed.

“I'll give you until noon to coax Tango to you. If she doesn't come, then we'll try something else. I want all these horses out of here before dark.”

“Then,” Megan said carefully, “no offense to anyone, but I think my best chance to catch her is if I'm out there alone.”