Water Lily
Authors: Terri Farley
Phantom Stallion
Wild Horse Island 8
Terri Farley
To Dianne and Ted Nelson and their amazing staff and volunteersâespecially Patti and Palominoâfor making the Wild Horse Sanctuary in Shingletown, California, the home of the real Phantomâ¦
To Bonnie Matton and the Wild Horse Preservation League for putting their heads where their hearts areâ¦
And to Lacy J. Dalton, whose songs lift up wild horses and the West. We're all with you when you sing, “Let 'em run!”
Darby Carter lay belly down, as level to the groundâ¦
Darby's worries over water pollution floated away as soon asâ¦
“What's wrong?” Darby asked.
“You're not really going down there, are you?” Megan asked.
In a flurry of hooves, Blue Moon lurched up, thenâ¦
Darby didn't realize she'd pressed her hands against her heartâ¦
Kids playing cowgirl!
The Zink family owned the acreage that adjoined âIolani Ranchâ¦
“How did the pond look?” Patrick insisted.
Riding home, they didn't talk much.
The next morning was Friday, but Darby woke up toâ¦
“Hey there, Miss Horse Charmer Junior!” Dee's voice sounded cheerful,â¦
That evening after the dinner dishes had been cleared, everyoneâ¦
There were just the two vehiclesâKimo's and the Jeepâso whenâ¦
“It's not a trap, baby.”
Wild Horse Island is imaginary. Its history, legends, people, and ecology echo Hawaii's, but my stories and reality are like leaves on the rain-forest floor. They may overlap, but their edges never really match.
D
arby Carter lay belly down, as level to the ground as she could make herself. Her chin rested on red dirt. The grass of the Lehua High School football field tickled her nose, but everything about her remained still.
Except for her eyes.
They tracked the wild horses' steps as they followed the early-morning sun.
Without raising her head, Darby could only see the black stallion from hooves to chest. He stood that close.
Darby's best friend, Ann Potter, lay beside her. Ann was supposed to be equally still and silent. Though her unruly red curls didn't move, Ann whispered an imitation of a documentary film narrator.
“While stalking the crafty colts of Wild Horse Islandâ”
“Shh.” Darby tried not to smile.
“âtwo intrepid naturalists were unable to conceal themselves from a pack of slobbering sophomores, with the end result that they were trampled quiteâ”
“Ann!” Darby scolded. She elbowed her friend in the ribs, even though the black mustang hadn't bolted.
They weren't stalking crafty colts, or concealing themselves from other studentsâsophomores or otherwiseâbut after two frustrating weeks, she and Ann had given up following the rules.
Fearing the stallion would charge some student, the parents, teachers, Department of Agriculture, and the school's principal, Ms. Cooke, had all been taking turns patrolling the horses' temporary pasture at the school to keep the kids away.
They've been pretty good at it, too,
Darby thought. Each time she and Ann had come out to the field to check on the wild horses they'd helped rescue from the tsunami, they were shooed away “for their own safety.”
This morning they'd finally crept close enough to really watch the horses, because they'd persuaded Ann's dad to drop them off an hour before classes began.
Darby had expected it to be cold this early in the day, but it hadn't rained since the tsunami. The earth was drying out and felt almost warm beneath her. Sunshine heated the denim of her jeans, too, but Darby didn't close her eyes and bask.
Who knew when she'd get this close to the horses
again? She took in every detail of Black Lava, studying the sloping pasterns and wispy feathers on the black stallion's legs.
He could run forever,
Darby thought. She sighed, and the stallion lowered his head to investigate the sound. Equine eyesâone brown and one blue as her ownâfixed on her.
“He's watching us.” At Ann's voice, a bay mare gave a low nicker and moved farther away.
Nine horses remained in Black Lava's band. Before the tsunami, there'd been eleven.
Snorting, the night-black stallion moved far enough away that Darby saw all of him. Head high, he trotted a circle around his herd. He seemed to count each of themâthe bay mare and her black foal, a yellow dun with matching foal, a gray mare with a blue roan foal, and a putty-colored dun, chestnut, and black mare standing off to one side.
The stallion stopped beside the dun mare and lifted his muzzle as if pointing out the girls. He stood half a football field away, but Darby heard wind sing through his tail.
He and the dun sniffed, nostrils widened to take in the smell of the humans.
The horses had been forced to call this place home, but they didn't welcome visitors.
A squeal from one of the mares sent the herd off at a run, to the far side of the field. What had startled them?
Before Darby could roll up on her side to investigate, a voice told her it was a
who
, not a
what
.
“You don't mind standing up and coming with me, do you?”
Darby closed her eyes. She knew they were caught but didn't want to face it.
“Girls?”
Darby and Ann pushed themselves onto their knees, then stood, brushing at the grass and dirt on their clothes as they looked at each other and tried to think of something to say.
“No surf this morning?” Ann asked finally.
“I could find bigger waves in my bathtub,” the principal said.
Ms. Cooke was a world-class surfer. Most mornings she arrived at school with her sun-bleached hair still wet. But the moment she stashed her teal-blue surfboard behind her office door, Ms. Cooke turned into a no-nonsense principal.
“Let's go.” Ms. Cooke strode off.
She clearly expected them to follow, and though excuses swirled through Darby's mind, she couldn't find the nerve to say anything. She'd seen Ms. Cooke around campus, but they'd never met.
Ann was less intimidated by the principal. As the girls caught up with her, Ann pointed in the opposite direction. “Our first class is this way, Ms. Cooke.”
Ms. Cooke's smile crinkled the skin around her eyes. “We're headed for the office. You two knew the
field was off-limits. You took a chance and lost.”
“What's going to happen?” Darby knew she sounded chicken.
“A citation,” Ms. Cooke's voice floated back to them as she continued walking. “And Nutrition Break detention for the rest of the week.”
“A citation?” Darby gasped.
That was bad. Really bad. Short term, it might mean she couldn't ride out with her friend Cade to Crimson Vale today after school. Long term, it could be a disaster.
One of her mother's ground rules for remaining in Hawaii and on âIolani Ranch with her grandfather was: Darby must earn good grades. Of course that meant citizenship grades, too. Her mother said perfect behavior didn't take much brainpower.
Although Darby had been in Hawaii for only two and a half months, she'd already been in trouble more than she had during her entire life in Southern California.
Megan Kato, the daughter of the business manager on âIolani Ranch and one of Darby's best friends, had told Darby it was because she was actually doing thingsâriding the grasslands of wild Hawaii, for a startâinstead of sitting in her room reading.
Darby had used that explanation when her mother, Ellen Kealoha Carter, had visited last week. An actress, Ellen was shooting a pilot for a TV series in Tahiti. Early reviews of the new series were great, and Ellen had said
that since her time would be divided between Southern California and Tahiti, Darby's plea that the two of them live in Hawaii was a possibility.
Since Ellen had grown up on Wild Horse Island, she'd been somewhat understanding about Darby's adventures and mishaps.
But no excuse would do if a formal reprimand was placed in Darby's school file.
Darby's mind raced, searching for some way out of this. She concentrated on her honey-brown boots. They moved in step with Ann's blue-gray ones as they crossed the campus behind the principal. Curious looks and a few laughs followed them.
She must have swallowed audibly as she got ready to negotiate with Ms. Cooke, because Ann gave a quick shake of her head. Her expression said things could be a lot worse, so Darby didn't protest. She just hurried to keep up.
The bell for first period was ringing when Darby and Ann finished signing their names to forms detailing their punishment. The girls were sprinting, hoping to get to class on time when Megan Kato waved her hand and shouted to get their attention from across the hall.
“Hey! You get to see the horses?”
“We did, but oh my gosh, Meggie, you'll never guess what kind of troubleâ”
Darby tugged at Ann's sleeve. Ann and Megan had been soccer teammates and were friends. If Ann
stopped to explain, in her usual dramatic detail, they'd be tardy to English.
“We'll tell you at lunch, okay?” Darby said.
“Keep letting Crusher get you in trouble, and you'll make me look like the angel of the family,” Megan said. She formed her fingers in a halo above her cherry-Coke-colored hair before hurrying toward her own class.
Darby hitched her backpack up higher and vowed she wouldn't let Megan's prediction come true.
Â
After English and History, Ann and Darby pulled off their sweatshirts, glad to be rid of them as the day heated up, and trudged back to the office.
Darby's stomach growled as they passed one of the snack carts that rolled out during Nutrition Break.
“Will we just have to sit in the office until break is over?” Darby asked.
Ann should know. Since the soccer accident that had broken her kneecap, she'd worked in the office instead of having P.E.
“No, Ms. Cooke will think of something productive for us to do,” Ann said.
“Like clear this crowd?” Darby said as they tried to get into the office building.
Ann and Darby squeezed through the doorway past a line of students snaking out of the nurse's office.
“I've got to go home,” said a girl hunched over the attendance counter.
“Can you call my mom?” asked a boy slumped in a counselor's office doorway.
“What's going on?” Ann sidestepped a girl seated on the office floor.
Wrapped in a white sweater and shivering even though it had to be eighty degrees outside, the girl moaned, “I'm going to be sick!”
Her shaky voice lent the claim enough credibility that Ann and Darby gave her some space.
“There's Ms. Cooke,” Ann said.
The principal and her secretary both held phones. They were both talking, but Ms. Cooke still spotted them. She nodded toward the office door as if they should leave.
No way,
Darby thought, remembering the form she'd signed. Maybe Ms. Cooke had forgotten but Darby hadn't, and she didn't want to get into even worse trouble by skipping her punishment.
“We're supposed to have detention,” Darby reminded the principal. She said it quietly, not wanting to announce her disgrace to the entire school.
The principal must have heard, because she swung the receiver away from her mouth without moving the earpiece. “Wiki wiki,” she said, waving them toward the exit again.
“That means âhurry up'â” Ann said.
The principal, talking right over her, added, “You don't want to get sick, too.”
“Okay.” Ann grabbed Darby's elbow, even though
she wasn't lagging behind.
The principal's insistence convinced them to move so quickly, they were actually early for their next class.
“Mr. Silva, I think we've got a plague,” Ann told their Ecology teacher as she slammed her books down on her desk.
“A plague?” Mr. Silva rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
“No, really,” Ann said.
Darby smiled. Mr. Silva's billowing white lab coat, long, gray-streaked black hair, and passion for science set him apart from other teachers at Lehua High School. He was definitely one of her favorites.
As Ann described the scene in the office, more students came in and the bell rang, but Mr. Silva still listened intently, tapping an index finger against his lips. Then he asked Ann to tell the class what she and Darby had seen in the office.
“Students,” Mr. Silva said, once Ann stopped for breath. “What sorts of environmental complications from a tsunami might cause illness?”
“Mosquitoes!”
“Mud!”
Mr. Silva wrote each suggestion on the white board with a red marker.
“Rashes!”
“Malaria!”
The first thing to pop into Darby's mind was gross,
but Mr. Silva created such an open atmosphere, she said it anyway.
“Corpses!”
Everyone turned to look at her. Most of the hands that were raised faltered, then fell, but Mr. Silva wrote it on the white board with the others.
“Man,” said a disgusted voice. “Corpses?”
Few students turned around. Everyone knew the perpetually scornful voice came from the guy in a hooded gray sweatshirt who sat in the back of the room.
“â¦such a jerk,” someone muttered.
Darby knew she should ignore Tyson, knew she shouldn't care that he didn't like her, but curiosity won out over logic.
She couldn't help looking over her shoulder to search his face for some clue as to
why
he disliked her, why, when he did lower himself to talk with her, it was to say something rude. Just a couple weeks ago he'd called her a haole crab.
“What's wrong with corpses?” Darby said, and then everyone laughed and she felt her face go hot with a blush. “I mean”âshe turned to face Mr. Silvaâ“don't they pollute the water?”
“They don't improve it, certainly,” Mr. Silva said, and that made Darby laugh, too. “And though corpses are a concern in cases of tuberculosis and cholera, they rarely cause epidemics.”
“Like there even were corpses,” Tyson grumbled.
“I saw some. Floating! A horse, some pigsâ”
Darby broke off when other students chimed in with their own sightings of dead birds, mongooses, and giant moths.
With a nod, as if they'd pretty much covered that topic, Mr. Silva circled back to mud.
Students groaned when he talked about tsunami victims in Asia who'd had mud drained from their lungs or had wounds scoured open to clean out contamination from mud.
“So, what about all the sick people in the office?” Ann asked.
“Malaria and West Nile virus don't usually come until six to eight weeks after flooding,” Mr. Silva explained.
“So, it's probably like, mass hysteria,” scoffed Tyson.
“That's possible,” Mr. Silva said. “But my bet's on pollutants getting into the water supply through cracked pipes.” Mr. Silva's voice grew excited as he reached for a shallow glass container on a shelf. “Still, we can check for airborne pollutants if you take this petri dish over to the office and leave it open on the attendance counter for twenty-four hours. Then we'll close it up and see what grows.”
“All right!”
“Yeah!”
Darby guessed everyone else was imagining the creepy bacteria they'd be able to catch and grow, but she was picturing cracked pipes.
A slab of Sheetrock had sheered off the wall at
Cade's house near Crimson Vale. A refrigerator had tipped over. Either of those could crack underground pipes.
