Fire Maiden (13 page)

D
arby's surprise must have traveled all the way down the tangerine-and-white-striped lead rope to Hoku, because the filly began skittering and shying.

“No big deal, you guys,” Megan said, and when both younger girls stayed silent, she added jokingly, “Listen to your big sister. Obviously, it was the wind.”

Darby felt the same little bounce of pleasure she had when Megan proposed sisterhood before, but she just nodded.

About half of the blossoms blew away as the girls set up the horses' highline.

They tied each end of a long rope to the ohia trees.

It looked like a clothesline, Darby thought.

They watered and hand-grazed the horses, then put neck ropes on them and tied each one individually to the long rope, making sure the horses were spaced apart and didn't have enough slack to get a leg over the rope.

Hands on her hips, Megan surveyed their work.

“That should hold them, unless all four work together to pull down the trees,” she said.

“Or a herd of wild horses charges through,” Darby said.

“I've seen tracks up here, but no horses,” Megan said. “And since no one around here shoes their horses, the tracks could have been from domestic ones.”

Darby watched Hoku. Quiet again, the filly ignored her neck rope to survey the area. She didn't act like there was a wild herd nearby.

“Remember, though,” Darby said to Megan, “when Black Lava showed up on ‘Iolani and Kit chased him off? He said he headed them through the fold, in this direction, so that they wouldn't go back toward Crimson Vale and Manny.”

Ann made a disapproving noise.

“Yeah, and Kimo said there used to be wild horses up here,” Megan said.

“The stories had to come from somewhere,” Darby said.

“Hey!” Ann clapped her hands to get the other girls' attention. “I need one of my mom's candy-bar
brownies to build up my energy for exploring. Wanna share?”

Ann burrowed into her backpack and unwrapped the sweets. Darby and Ann leaned against the stone trees, eating, while Megan searched the area for a twig to use as a pencil. Then she drew a diagram in the dirt while the other girls watched.

First, Megan drew a wild flow of lines descending from a volcano.

“This is pahoehoe lava,” Megan said, “the kind that looks more…”

“Smooth,” Darby said, “not the spiky
a'a'
stuff.”

One of the first things Darby had learned about Hawaii was its two kinds of lava—smooth pahoehoe and rough
a'a'
.

“Right,” Megan said, like an approving teacher. “Well, pahoehoe hardens on top, but lava underneath keeps running for a while, and makes it to the beach, over on the north shore where the water is rough and cold. And then…ker-splash!”—Megan slashed geyser-shaped lines sprouting up from the waves she'd drawn—“All the hot lava goes into the sea, leaving this kind of lava shell that you can walk through. That's a lava tube.”

“The only thing I'm worried about is it gets wet in there sometimes,” Ann said.

Megan's gaze darted to Ann's injured knee.

“The flashlights should pick up the shine of any
water. We'll be careful. Promise.”

Darby watched the horses as she packed her fanny pack with her flashlight, water, inhaler, and a granola bar.

Hoku seemed strangely at ease.

Could the cone-shaped volcanoes remind the mustang of the Calico Mountains? Samantha Forster had mentioned that the Phantom's herd of wild horses had galloped into a tunnel through the mountains.

Darby didn't know much about Nevada geography and geology, but she supposed it could be something like this.

The lava tube turned out to be an hour hike from camp.

“Stay on the path,” Megan reminded them as they walked toward the lava tube, but she also pointed out interesting landmarks, like a lava formation that looked like lions' paws, but was really lava that had hardened before it got very far.

“That's Pele's hair and tears,” Megan said, pointing to the right side of the path. “Don't step on them.”

When lava was flung into the air, tiny beads of it became glassy comets. Most shattered when they hit the ground, Megan explained, but some broke apart and the “comets'” heads became Pele's tears, while the tails became Pele's hair.

“When we get inside, I'll show you Pele's tears,”
Megan said. “Shine your flashlights up on the ceiling, and you'll see them. They look like baby stalactites, but they're hollow, made by the river of lava melting the ceiling.”

“Our big sister knows everything,” Darby teased, and then Ann grabbed her hand and they skipped after Megan as if they were kindergartners.

“You guys”—Megan was laughing as she looked over her shoulder at them—“be sure—”

“To stay on the path,” the girls chanted together.

Darby felt giddy with delight. This new part of her Hawaiian home was amazing.

The girls kept walking until they came to a steam vent.

“I've seen one of these before,” Darby said. “Not far from the
kipuka
.”

A crack in the earth yawned open, its lips powdered with yellow sulphur, like the mouth of a messy eater.

“That's Pigtail Fault, isn't it?” Ann asked.

“It is? Cade told me about it, but I thought it was just like a crack.” Darby peered into the opening. The bright yellow at the surface shaded to a peachy color the deeper she looked, and heat snakes wavered everywhere.

Megan was strangely silent, surveying the terrain around them until Ann asked again, “Is it Pigtail Fault?”

“It is,” she admitted.

“It was closed, just a crack, when I saw it before,” Ann said.

“They change,” Megan said, walking on, but Darby would bet they were all three wondering if the earthquake had shaken it open wider.

When they reached the opening of the lava tube, Darby's bravery had wilted a bit. It was a good thing Ann and Megan couldn't see inside her imagination, because it held a fearful image of them running down the lava tube with a scalding flood of molten rock chasing after them.

“I'll go first,” Ann offered. She whirled her flashlight over her head like she was wielding a cutlass, advancing into battle.

As soon as she disappeared, Darby felt the urge to follow, and it wasn't fear of being left alone. She didn't want to be left out.

“Me next?” she asked. Megan made an after-you gesture, and Darby followed her flashlight's beam into the dark.

As soon as they stepped inside, the coolness and scent reminded Darby of Black Lava's hiding place behind the Crimson Vale waterfall.

She smelled wet stone and animals, and something else.

“Don't you love this?” Ann's voice echoed.

“Yeah,” Darby said. “I really do!”

She stepped along carefully behind Ann, engulfed by the elation of being in a secret place. She heard the
whisper of far-off waves. Leaning her head back, she spotlighted smooth globes that had once dripped like wax.

“I would have named them Pele's pearls,” Darby said.

And Megan murmured, “Nice.”

“Water's dripped from the roof.” Ann's echo came back to them from farther down the tunnel.

“Watch your step,” Megan called.

“I will,” Ann shouted back, but just then she yelped.

For an instant, Darby held her ears against the echo, but then she let her hands drop and she could hear Ann breathing heavily.

“What's wrong?” Darby saw whirling brightness. It must be Ann's flashlight making crazy shadows all around them.

“What was that about?” Megan asked, stepping past Darby to hurry after Ann.

Darby lengthened her stride. She wasn't really afraid, but there was something about being the last one in line that gave her the creeps.

Ann had slipped on a smooth, wet piece of the lava-rock floor, but she was already back on her feet when Darby saw something black sweep through the air.

Or maybe she'd just blinked. Darby wasn't sure.

“Are there bats in here?” she asked.

“What do I look like, the Discovery Channel?”
Megan grumbled, but there was a hint of worry in her tone as she said, “My dad always said Hawaii had no cave bats, only tree bats.”

“Bats don't really dive into your hair,” Ann protested.

“Who said they did?” Megan still sounded edgy.

“And they're mammals,” Darby put in, “like dogs and—”

“I like my mammals without wings, thank you,” Megan said.

They giggled as all three flashlight beams joined together, searching cracks in the lava around them, but they didn't see anything on the rock ceiling except trailing roots that had forced through from the surface.

 

Navigator neighed a welcome when he saw the girls coming back to camp.

Sugarfoot came as close to Ann as his tie rope would allow.

Hoku vibrated with alertness, ears pricked toward the summit of Two Sisters.

Biscuit looked like a giraffe. His neck strained against his rope, and when he looked back guiltily, he was chewing, his usually black muzzle purple.

“What have you got?” Megan asked, stepping ahead of Ann and Darby.

Dozens of berries that looked like a cross between cranberries and coffee beans were scattered around
him. Some rolled in reach of the other horses, but they weren't interested.

“‘Ohelo berries?” Ann said.

“Of course,” Megan said, “although I thought only goats ate them.” Megan took Biscuit's muzzle in her hands and looked into his brown eyes. “Not a good idea, Biscuit.”

The buckskin swished his tail, pulled his head away from Megan, and looked around for more berries.

Darby squatted to examine them.

“Tutu told me they're Pele's favorites,” Darby said. She could see her reflection in the berries' reddish sheen. “Just hope he offered some to Pele before he ate them.”

Bending from the waist, Megan plucked off a few ‘ohelo berries and placed them on a nearby rock.

“He has now,” she said. Then she looked at Darby. “You should try one. They're good.”

Darby hesitated.

“Maybe later,” she said.

“We've got plenty of food,” Ann added.

While Megan moved Biscuit away from the berries, but still only a few yards from the other horses, Darby and Ann finished setting up their camp. They spread out a ground cloth, then took the rolled sleeping bags from behind the saddles they'd already stripped from the horses.

“Are we going to arrange rocks in a circle for a
fire ring?” Ann asked.

“We don't have anything that needs to be cooked,” Megan said, “and if our main goal is to see the wild horses, I don't think it's a good idea. It seems like the smell of smoke would drift farther than our human scent, don't you think?”

Ann nodded.

“Now I kind of wish we'd brought the lantern,” Darby said.

“We have our flashlights, and plenty of batteries,” Ann told her.

“Yeah, and if we see the horses, we'll have a cool connection to the Fire Maiden story that Tutu told me,” Darby agreed.

“Let's eat now,” Megan said. “When the sun goes down, it's like someone turned off the lights. It's way dark,” Ann said.

Darby measured out grain they'd brought for the horses, Megan fed them, and Ann set out dinner for humans—a feast of cashews, plums, salami, cheese, and water.

They were in their sleeping bags by the time darkness fell. No insects buzzed or birds called. Wind strummed the branches, and the horses shifted drowsily.

Lulled by bedding down near the horses, Darby was almost asleep when Ann said, “In the morning, we'd better make some notes.”

“Umm-hmm,” Darby said.

“And then let's hike up the cold sister and look for mustangs,” Ann added.

“Okay,” Darby answered through a yawn.

“I think we should leave our horses here, don't you?”

“Sure,” Darby said.

She heard her friend turn in her sleeping bag and say, “I've never been up here at night.”

But Darby didn't have the strength to raise her eyelids.

 

Darby woke once during the night, unsure of where she was. She'd been dreaming that she was staring into a campfire, hypnotized by a face she saw there.

She turned over in her sleeping bag and Hoku must have heard her stir, because the filly gave a gentle nicker.

Darby smiled into the darkness. Warm and comfortable, she was surprised when she was able to distinguish the volcano from the blackness all around.

Veins of gold glimmered near the top.

“What do you think? Is it lit from inside? Or are those streams of lava?”

Darby heard herself speak, but she wasn't sure whether she was talking to the other girls or to Hoku.

Finally, her pounding heart slowed down.

She must be dreaming.

I
n the morning, Ann's leg reminded her of all the hiking she'd done yesterday, and her fall in the lava tube.

Darby wasn't surprised when Ann grumbled about the holdup, but agreed with the other girls that it made more sense to make their notes now and delay their hike to look for wild horses until later.

“I guess you guys are right. I don't want my parents grounding me from something else fun,” Ann said, but then she surprised Darby by asking, “Is your asthma okay?”

“Fine.”

Smoke hung in the air, and she'd taken a precautionary spray from her inhaler, but she didn't
think Ann had noticed.

“Hey,” Darby said, then, “What if we take Navigator for you to ride? Even if we see wild horses, I think he'll be okay.”

“Sure, we'll walk and lead,” Megan said.

“No way,” Ann told them.

Darby crossed her arms and gave Ann a serious look.

“If I tweaked my leg, would you let me ride while you walked?” Darby was pretty sure she had Ann in a corner.

“No, we'd ride double,” Ann said smugly.

When the time came to give it a try, Megan set off on foot, letting Darby and Ann have the first turn on Navigator.

Darby went along with Ann's idea to save Navigator the extra weight of the saddle by riding bareback.

“I don't think I can stay on, though,” Darby said. “I might pull you off with me, and then your leg will be even worse.”

“You'll get used to it really fast,” Ann promised. “I'll sit in front and hold the reins, and you just hang on around my waist. You have great balance. It'll be easy.”

“I don't know,” Darby said, but after they'd convinced Navigator to stop prancing and showing off because they'd taken him and left Hoku, Biscuit, and Sugarfoot behind, riding double was really pretty fun.

 

They'd cut the distance from camp to the quiet volcano's crater in half when Darby spotted something moving behind a screen of ohia trees.

It was Megan, finger held in front of her lips, so the other girls would be quiet. Then Darby saw why.

Horses!

Ann must have felt Darby's reaction, because she turned a few inches before Darby clamped her right hand over her friend's mouth. Wild-eyed, Ann turned even farther, trying to jerk her head away, until she saw Darby mouth the word
horses
.

The herd was still about a mile away, but they had to be mustangs. This land belonged to Babe and neither she nor Jonah let horses run free up here.

Ann pointed to a bulge of rock up higher, above the horses. Megan nodded and began scaling the approach to it, while Ann reined Navigator closer.

Before they got far, Black Lava appeared.

Ann sat back so quickly, Darby was afraid that they'd both tumble off backward.

The stallion was in a dangerous mood. Dark and dusty, he struck at the dirt with one feathered front leg. He was insulted by the invasion of the girls and gelding. He exposed his teeth and tossed his head with flattened ears, telling them so.

Navigator didn't need a second warning. He was taller than the stallion. He outweighed him by hundreds of pounds. Just the same, it would not be a
fight of equals. Primitive entitlement—to the mares, to this spot, to this island—shone in Black Lava's eyes.

Navigator backed away from the stallion so quickly, he misjudged the slope and stumbled.

Ann slumped forward, holding onto Navigator's neck, and Darby held on to her as the huge gelding planted his hooves and managed to stay upright.

Once he was out of sight of the stallion, Navigator answered Ann's reining, carrying the girls up behind the lava outcropping she'd spotted before. Megan crouched up there, as still as part of the rock.

A pulpit of pahoehoe, Darby thought. It would be perfect for looking down on the wild herd if they stuck around.

The girls dismounted, signaling their awe and excitement with widened eyes, but staying quiet as Megan gestured for them to come on up.

Ann tied Navigator with patient, careful knots. Then Ann and Darby climbed the lava formation and hid.

Looking down, they had a good view of the wild horses.

Megan held up all of her fingers, folded them down, then held up her index finger.

Darby was puzzled until she saw that Black Lava had eleven herd members. Ann verified the count with her own fingers. There were at least three foals, maybe a fourth.

They were a rainbow of colors. One dun was the bright yellow of the sulphur at the edge of Pigtail Fault, and a small bay looked like satiny mahogany. Three grays, from charcoal to nearly white, grazed side by side, and if their leader's pacing made them nervous, they gave no sign of it.

On the outskirts of the herd stood the lead mare, and she was magnificent.

Ann leaned close to Darby and whispered, “Steeldust.” Megan gave a faint nod.

Darby guessed that was the mare's color—a pewter gray flecked with black—but her coat wasn't the mare's most outstanding quality. Her black tail almost reached the ground. Her mane rippled in ringlets down to her shoulder. Her forelock hung between her eyes, making twirling black snakes down to her nostrils.

Like the stallion and many of the other horses, wispy hair showed on her trim legs, indicating that she had draft blood. Her attention was fixed on two young horses—a putty-colored dun with a dorsal stripe and barred front legs and a bay with four white stockings.

They were definitely in time-out, Darby thought. While the mare watched, the young horses didn't dare move.

Darby thought that if the mare was hers to name, she'd call her Medusa, for the mythological Gorgon who'd had snakes in place of hair and a gaze
so fearful, it transformed people to stone.

The mare turned her tail on the two colts, but each time they made a move to rejoin the herd or wander off the slope, she whirled to glare at them and they froze.

Darby wondered what the two horses could have done to deserve confinement in the lead mare's invisible penalty box.

All at once, Darby realized the sky had darkened. Had they watched the wild horses for so long, dusk was falling?

It couldn't be, Darby thought. It was still so hot. Getting hotter all the time, actually.

She looked skyward, wondering if the smoke from Kilauea had blown in and blotted out the sun, just making it feel like night was approaching.

Suddenly, Black Lava and his lead mare threw their heads high, testing the air. It wasn't smoke that had caught their attention.

Megan pointed.

A white stallion was picking his way down from the crater top of the dead volcano, right toward the herd.

“Oh my gosh,” Ann gasped.

Darby expected the stallion to race in and try to steal some of Black Lava's mares, but he didn't. When Black Lava trotted out to meet him with his neck arched, the two stallions made what seemed like a civilized greeting, prancing parallel to each other,
then turning and repeating the dance back in the other direction.

The four-stockinged bay slipped past the lead mare and headed toward the two stallions. He was closer now and Darby could see that the bay was marked up with bites. He was probably about to be kicked out of the herd to become a bachelor.

But that didn't mean his father would let him join up with a challenger.

Distracted by the bay's audacity, Black Lava swung on him with bared teeth.

Seeing his opening, the white stallion ran toward the herd, head swinging from side to side in a herding gesture. He was clearly intent on the lead mare.

With the bay colt in retreat, Black Lava spun around, ears flat, neck arched. He bolted toward the white stallion and stopped about ten feet away from him. Standing in a dust cloud made by his own sudden stop, the white stallion struck out with a raised foreleg.

Black Lava did the same. They each threatened, but neither wanted to fight.

Seeing the bay colt returning, the white stallion tossed his head, as if urging the youngster to defy his leader and come along. Black Lava wasn't having it. His rear was spectacular, like something you'd see in a circus, Darby thought, and then he lashed out his hind legs, nearly knocking the colt off his feet.

A black-and-white mare, brindled by shadows,
saw her chance to make a break for it. While her sisters grazed, she darted downhill.

“Where did she come from?” Ann whispered.

Medusa was after her, giving her a savage bite just above the tail, and the brindled mare stopped, ears pricked toward the other volcano.

For a second the stallions stopped their posturing, and looked in the same direction. But the lead mare bullied the black-and-white horse back, and Black Lava began pacing the boundaries of his herd. His blue eye glittered as he made a barricade with his body.

The white stallion wasn't impressed. Briefly, he flattened his ears and head, looking like a snake ready to strike. When Black Lava stopped to consider what he should do next, the white circled around and touched noses with Medusa.

Outraged, Black Lava pursued the white stallion. Mouth open, black nose stretching for the white tail, he chased the other stallion around the band until a loud explosion rocked the horses, girls, and lava-rock pulpit.

Ohia trees snapped from side to side. One even toppled to the ground.

The girls saw a crack fracture the face of the volcano directly across from them.

Before they could move, the crack grew wider. Lava welled up through it, making a red-orange fountain, and then it went down and vanished as if it
had sealed itself back up.

“We've gotta get out of here!” Ann clambered down ahead of Darby, and Megan followed.

“Navigator—”

“Still there, but he's—”

“—going crazy!”

Megan jumped the last few yards to the ground, landing ahead of Darby and Ann, in front of the brown gelding. He rolled his eyes white and snorted, and Megan had just grabbed his reins below the bit when there was a tumult of hooves.

Black Lava and the steeldust mare stampeded down the slope, as if they were heading for the road.

The white stallion galloped uphill, found no escape, and now he was headed back down, right at them.

Navigator screamed. Did he want to join the white stallion's headlong run? Far in the distance, did he hear other horses answer?

“Get down!” Darby shrieked, because she'd just figured out the white stallion's plan.

Running full out, he touched on the edge of the lava pulpit and launched himself at the path they'd taken up. Darby and Ann ducked, tumbling and falling with their arms crossed over their heads, but the stallion's leap cleared them easily.

Stabbing his forelegs at the earth for balance, he shook a torrent of white mane, gathered himself, and ran past Navigator, crossing the volcano's face.

In the few seconds of quiet, Megan jerked her
knot loose on Navigator's neck rope.

“Shh, what a good boy,” she said.

One horse. Three girls. How would they escape the volcano?

Smoke billowed without ceasing from the crater above. But maybe it was just spouting off. This could be as bad as it was going to get.

“Navigator, you're the best,” Darby told him.

With their hands and voices, all three girls soothed the big horse.

“Get on,” Megan told Ann.

Suddenly, it was silent. The air around them was still and fragile as glass.

“I think it's stopped,” Darby said, nodding toward the volcano.

“Can't trust it,” Megan said, then she turned to Ann and her expression showed she was not up for an argument. “Go.”

Ann flung herself at Navigator's back, hung there for a second, and then swung herself astride before reaching down for Darby's hand.

“He can carry all of us,” Ann said, and she was probably right, but Darby couldn't climb on this way.

Hands shaking, Darby said, “I need a rock, or sidehill—”

“Quit fooling around!” Megan snapped. “Get on and meet me at camp!”

“Megan!” Darby yelled, but the older girl was already running, shouting something about the
horses, over her shoulder.

A sound like the biggest tire in the world going flat hissed all around them.

“I thought that was a quiet volcano!” Darby yelled, and with a big jump, she made it onto the gelding's back.

“Moisture,” Ann said. She didn't sound calm, but her hands were steady on the reins, letting Navigator pick the best path back down, letting him think everything was under control. “If they told us the truth, there'll be belches pretty soon. All the boys loved that,” Ann said with a harsh laugh. “Yeah, these gassy explosions send hot rocks into the air”—Pele pelting her sister, Darby thought—“and then liquid rock, and then everything from inside that volcano just goes gushing every—”

The crack in the volcano's face reopened. This time a line of lava fountains appeared, sending a neon-orange spray up into the sky.

It was dark, and getting darker, Darby thought suddenly, and there was Megan, jogging and climbing parallel to them, taking a shorter route that was too cluttered with rocks for a horse.

A pop sounded. They looked back to see a single boulder arc into the sky, hang there like a planet, and then land in grass, leaving a comet's trail of fire in its wake.

“Hoku!” Darby yelled, and then she slammed her mouth closed.

Don't call her into danger, you idiot,
she told herself.

“We have time,” Ann said over her shoulder. She kept Navigator to a controlled pace, and Darby admired her levelheadedness. She knew galloping full out would panic the gelding further.

“Time?” Darby asked, squinting into the smoky gray world around her.

“There's no lava yet, and remember, when it comes, it's supposed to be slow, so we have time to get the horses and our packs.”

Of course there was time to get the horses! What did Ann think, that she'd leave her filly tied up amid this nightmare?