Fire Maiden
Authors: Terri Farley
Phantom Stallion
Wild Horse Island 5
Terri Farley
This book is dedicated to Sharron Faff,
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park ranger
“My foreman tells me Hoku is about ready to startâ¦
“Whoa!” Darby shouted.
Darby burned the rice, but she didn't feel too bad,â¦
The earth still swayed beneath Darby as she ran.
Darby still felt a little shaky as she walked downâ¦
Darby expected Jonah to be angry.
“Pop quiz, pupils!” Mr. Silva was flapping around in hisâ¦
“Did Mr. Silva give you an F?” Megan asked.
Darby followed Jonah into Sun House, where he stood sortingâ¦
Hoku came along as if she remembered that Darby hadâ¦
Daylight lasted until Darby sighted the broodmare pasture and then,â¦
Aftershock!
Darby's lessons in controlling excited mounts began with a rideâ¦
The Two Sisters wore leis of smoke on the morningâ¦
The Potters had driven away from the drop-off point, withâ¦
Darby's surprise must have traveled all the way down theâ¦
In the morning, Ann's leg reminded her of all theâ¦
Once Ann loosened the reins and let Navigator settle intoâ¦
“It's okay, girl!” Darby gasped.
Wild Horse Island is imaginary. Its history, culture, 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.
“M
y foreman tells me Hoku is about ready to start carrying a rider,” Jonah said as Darby Carter climbed out of the âIolani Ranch truck after school.
Although her boots had just now touched the red Hawaiian dirt, and she still held the truck door open, Darby didn't move. If she'd slipped through time molecules into an alternate reality, one in which her grandfather trusted her to start riding her mustang filly, she didn't want to change position and shatter this dream come true.
Darby took in everything around her. It looked just like it had when she'd left for school that morning.
She was still in Hawaii, on Wild Horse Island.
The Australian shepherds were barking their usual welcome, and Sun Houseâin which she had a bedroomâwas still cantilevered over a bluff, looking down on hundreds of emerald acres that made âIolani Ranch heaven for horses.
Across the yard, in one direction, sat the round pen.
Past it, right where it should be, stood the foreman's green house next to the tack shed. Beyond that, a clutter of grayed wooden fox cages rested in the shade of a tree that often provided a hunting perch for a friendly owl. And right on down the path, she could see the corral where her filly Hoku was penned, getting used to the sights, sounds, and smells of ranch life until she wasâ¦
“Kit said Hoku's ready to carry a rider?” Darby finally repeated.
“It's not April Fools' Day, Granddaughter,” Jonah told her. “He said she did fine in the waves over at Sugar Sands and he doesn't think we should waste her curiosity.”
“Wow,” Darby said.
Jonah looked like he was holding in a smile.
As Megan Kato, Darby's best friend on the ranch, slid down from the truck carrying her soccer bag, she gave Darby a thumbs-up.
“Go change your clothes and meet Kit at Hoku's corral,” Jonah said.
Megan flashed Darby an excited look and said, “This is so cool. I'm coming over there to watch.”
“Hurry,” Jonah urged, as if Darby had settled in for a chat instead of shivering with anticipation. Then he glanced at the horizon and added, “This might use up all the daylight we've got left.”
Use up all the daylight? Darby caught her breath.
Was Jonah forgetting that she and Hoku had an unpredictable relationship? Most of the time, they were sisters. Once in a while, though, the mustang filly regarded Darby with the same impatience she had for other clumsy two-legged humans.
With raised eyebrows, Darby looked at Aunty Cathy. Although Cathy Kato was Megan's mom and the ranch manager, and not really related to Darby, the woman was a respected friend that Darby honored in the Hawaiian way by calling her aunty. Besides, Cathy was an experienced horsewoman and Darby always welcomed her advice.
Pushing her brown-blond hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist and balancing a bag of groceries on her hip, Aunty Cathy said, “I wouldn't count on teaching an untrained horse to carry a rider before dinnertime, but that's just me.”
“Hmph,”
Jonah said. “Probably right. That filly's got too much wild horse in her. She'll just run off instead of standing and thinking like her dam.”
Hoku's dam was Princess Kitty, a running
Quarter Horse related to the champion Three Bars. Jonah believed Quarter Horses were royalty in the world of equines.
Jonah gave an approving nod for his own wisdom, then walked away before Darby could speak up for Hoku's mustang bloodlines.
In a mock-Western accent, Megan drawled, “Ya got 'til sundown, Horse Charmer.”
“I really want to do this, but a little warning would have been nice,” Darby muttered as she looked after her grandfather.
“Tell him you want to wait,” Cathy suggested. “At least until after your camping trip.”
Darby's sensible side, the part of her that had ruled her life when she lived in Pacific Pinnacles, California, agreed with Aunty Cathy. She'd only been riding for a month, after all.
But Darby's Hawaiian heart, the part of her that had come to life on Wild Horse Island, overruled her head.
“No way!” Darby said, and she ran inside Sun House, down the hall to her bedroom, to pull on riding clothes.
Ten minutes later, Darby was jogging toward Kit Ely. The ranch foreman, a half-Shoshone Nevadan who was often mistaken for a Hawaiian, stood at the fence of Hoku's corral. In his customary chaps and pressed shirt, Kit looked younger than usual as he gave Darby his happy wolf smile.
This is going to be fun,
Darby thought, and just then, her horse moved out from behind Kit.
Ears pricked at the sound of Darby's approach, the sorrel filly tossed her flaxen forelock from her eyes. Her hooves made a staccato beat as background to her snorts and nickers.
She's glad to see me, but she wants Kit to go away
. Because the filly had been beaten by a man during her colthood, Hoku had good reason to dislike men, but she tolerated Kit better than other males.
“Hi!” Darby heard her own singing tone as she walked up to the pair.
Kit's smile showed white against his dark features. He looked almost as excited as she felt.
“This is just the beginnin',” he cautioned Darby. “Just preparation for the main event, okay?”
“Okay,” Darby said, smooching at Hoku.
The sorrel stopped. She flung her muzzle toward her back, as if urging Darby to come inside the pen.
“Listen up now,” Kit said, more seriously than before.
Darby let the smile fade from her lips. Crossing her arms to keep in her exhilaration, Darby faced him.
“All we're going to do today is show her how it's done. Riding, that is,” Kit said. “Together, we're going to lead her into the round pen and turn her loose, wearing just her halter. Next, you'll go inside, leading Navigator, and I'll bring you your gear and you'll tack him up.”
“What will she do?”
“With luck, she'll be watching, feeling just a little jealous.”
“Okay,” Darby said, and she felt her smile creeping back again.
“Then you'll walk away from Navigator, leaving him ground-tied, and come talk to me. At that point, we hope she'll mosey over to sniff out the dress-up outfit her human has put on another horse. Then you'll get on him and ride around.”
Darby's crazy heartbeat began to slow down.
It was enough of a challenge that it probably would take all afternoon and early evening. But the way Jonah had greeted her, well, she'd thought that someone had swung a magic wand over Hoku's golden back, making her instantly rideable. Of course, such a thing could never happen. The wild filly trusted Darby. For now, that was the best she could hope for.
“It's a small step,” Kit admitted, “but tomorrow we'll move on. We're buildin' on everything you two been puttin' into each other since you met. Got it?”
“Got it!” Darby said, and she was thinking each step would go faster than Kit thought it would, because no one but her knew of the day in the rain-forest corral when Hoku had practically asked Darby to climb on and ride.
She hadn't done it that day because she would have been alone if something had gone wrong.
Now, she had Jonah's approval and Kit's supervision. She wasn't going to waste a minute.
Darby grabbed the tangerine-and-white-striped lead rope that Kit had placed over the fence. Hoku's halter was clipped onto it and the headstall was unbuckled.
As she slid back the gate's bolt to enter Hoku's corral, she noticed that Kit was holding a coiled rope. Hoku noticed, too.
Prancing with high-held knees, the filly peered over the fence and gave a doubtful snort.
Darby clucked her tongue. Hoku ran a single lap around her corral, swinging her head from side to side like a wild stallion, then slid to a cow-pony stop in front of Darby.
“Yeah, you really scared me, didn't you?” Darby smiled. The filly's brown eyes glittered with mischief. “You're just playful because I've been at school instead of giving you my undivided attention, huh, baby?”
Holding the halter open with both hands, she approached Hoku. The filly glanced at Kit, but then took a step forward to meet Darby, and lowered her head. A little.
Darby had to stand on tiptoe to fasten the halter buckle, but Hoku's quick breaths told her the filly was eager to do something.
“Both hands on the rope,” Kit said. “One up near her chin and the other about halfway down.”
“I know,” Darby said.
“I know you do, but she's pretty keyed up. If she decides to take off, she's gotta know you're going to act like an anchor.”
Darby nodded, and Kit waited until she and Hoku had cleared the gate before coming toward her with his rope.
A wind carrying the scents of cinnamon-red dirt, lush grass, and stream-wet rocks blew toward them and Hoku breathed man-smell in with the others.
Hoku flattened her ears for a full minute, but Kit came no closer until the filly noticedâat the same time Darby didâthat Kit was singing. Darby couldn't make out the words, but the foreman sung in a minor key.
The melody was oddly familiar and reminded Darby of a flute song meant to hypnotize cobras.
Hoku wasn't hypnotized, but as soon as her ears pricked up with curiosity, Kit moved in to snap on his rope. The filly allowed it, sniffing at the leather fringe on his chinks before pawing impatiently, telling Kit that he'd better move away from her, out to the very end of the rope. Soon.
Kit did exactly that, then matched his steps to Darby's.
The filly walked between them, neighing at Navigator as they passed. The dark gelding with rust-colored hair around his eyes was tied to a ring by the tack shed.
Though it only took the three of them a few minutes to walk uphill to the round pen, Darby felt hot and sweaty. The air was humid, but the breeze had stopped. She lifted her shoulder to wipe off a bead of sweat that had dropped from her brow to her cheek.
Hoku kept looking back at Navigator and calling to him.
“She knows today's different,” Darby said quietly.
“Mustangs are smart,” Kit agreed.
Darby smiled in agreement. She was so glad Kit felt that way. And he was from Nevada, where most of the world's wild horses lived, so he was an expert.
Not that it changed Jonah's opinion.
Even though her grandfather lectured everyone about the wisdom of saddle horses keeping their wild edge, so that they could think for themselves, he didn't believe mustangs like Hoku were particularly intelligent.
Jonah would stake his life on his belief that Quarter Horses were equine Einsteins.
“I'm gonna run ahead and open the gate. You got her?” Kit asked.
“Sure.”
As soon as Kit dropped his end of the rope, Hoku edged toward Darby, and then she eased into a jog, head lifted.
Darby trotted alongside her, keeping up as she teased, “Are you glad he's gone, you bad girl?”
Hoku blew her warm breath toward Darby.
Once Kit had the gate open, he returned to help Darby lead the filly through.
Hoku rolled her eyes as if something about him had frightened her. As soon as Kit picked up his end of the rope, the filly rose in a half rear, jerking up all the slack.
“Oh, no!” Darby had hoped Hoku would stay calm and playful, despite the hot, still weather and the break in her routine.
“Don't worry.” Kit dodged the filly's flailing hooves as if she were a kitten. “Once we unsnap these ropes, she's gonna forget this part. She'll see you comin' in, leadin' Navigator, fussin' with Navigator, and she's gonna think that's what upset her. She'll come sniffing around to see why you're leaving her out.”
Kit's prediction came pretty close.
Megan and Aunty Cathy were watching, arms crossed atop the fence, as Darby tried to saddle Navigator while Hoku interfered.
When Darby worked on the gelding's left side, Hoku approached from his right. She sniffed his nose and Navigator sniffed hers. Hoku nuzzled the gelding's sleek coffee-colored neck, and his lips brushed her golden mane.
Hoku breathed in the scent of the saddle blanket, but kept moving alongside Navigator. She stayed close enough that he began scratching her back with short, firm bites.
Darby stood holding the heavy Western saddle,
poised to fling it on, when Hoku's teeth closed on the saddle blanket, slid it off the gelding's back, and proceeded to groom the gelding with short, firm bites of her own.
Although she heard Aunty Cathy and Megan laughing, Darby held her amusement in, because she saw Jonah approaching and he didn't look pleased.
“Shhhhhoo!” Darby hissed at Hoku. The snaky sound was one the filly didn't like, and she moved off in time for Darby to put down the saddle, replace the blanket, and swing the saddle onto Navigator's back before Jonah entered the corral.
Hoku squealed a “how dare you” reprimand at Jonah when he slid the bolt closed behind him and stood talking to Kit.
“Go ahead and mount up,” Kit called to Darby.
She did, but she was aware of Hoku aiming betrayed snorts her way.
For a long time, probably twenty minutes, Hoku stood with her tail turned toward Darby and Navigator as Darby rode the gelding at a walk, jog, and lope.
Once, as Darby rode past, Kit said, “Good goin', Darby. See ya later, I'm pickin' up some hay in town.”
It wasn't long after he left that Darby felt Navigator's gait shift from smooth to choppy.
At first she blamed it on herself, but she was pretty sure she hadn't changed the way she was
riding. She glanced at Megan, still standing at the rail, and noticed her friend frowning at the gelding's uneven steps.
When she came abreast of Jonah, Darby stopped the gelding.
“Something's wrong with Navigator,” she told her grandfather.
Navigator nuzzled the front of Jonah's shirt, but he pushed the horse away.
“Keep him at a jog.”