Snowfire (13 page)

A
fter nearly a week of hard practices, Darby was glad the day of the rodeo had finally arrived. On foot, she and Ann navigated their way through the crowd, and Darby took in her surroundings.

A rainbow arched over the Hapuna fairgrounds, its colors as vivid as the fluttering flags that decorated the site for the ranch rodeo. Tiny cowgirls in braids, wearing their own chinks and spurs, followed their big-sister cowgirls around. Experienced paniolos watched young riders warm up the mounts they planned to ride in the competition. Booths staffed by local clubs sold bento lunch boxes, mochi rice treats, malasadas, and cold drinks.

Darby was so nervous about her upcoming events
that it felt as though her insides were shivering, but Ann dragged her up into the stands to watch Megan and Cade compete in the Gretna Green race.

“C'mon,” Ann said. “We'll have a better view from up here. We can sit with my family.” She waved. “And here come Jonah and Cathy.”

Jonah and Kimo had been working in the arena, going after loose calves and horses, then hazing them out of the competition area.

Kimo was still down there, and Darby was glad. Not that Megan had needed his help yet.

Megan had aced the barrel racing. She'd kept Conch so close as they wove between the barrels, it looked as if he touched them, but not a single one moved. The grulla didn't waste a step on nerves, and when they reached the end and turned to speed toward the finish line, the gelding lined out like a greyhound, and Megan's hat had flown off at the sudden burst of speed.

Best of all, she'd won first prize and set an arena record.

That was great, and it would certainly draw attention to ‘Iolani Ranch horses, Darby thought, but she was still worried for her friend.

No matter how much Megan and Cade had practiced, the Gretna Green event looked dangerous to her. She was pretty sure it had to do with the whole ball-and-socket joint thing.

Below them, Kimo rode Cash. Kimo's hat was
decorated with flowers, and the cremello gelding glinted in the sun, prancing as if he were proud of the horseshoe-shaped lei that draped his neck.

Kimo glanced up and spotted Darby and Ann crab-stepping down the bleachers. He smiled and waved.

“Hey, Kimo!” Ann shouted down to him. “Cash looks great!”

“Baxter's looking good, too.” Jonah nodded down to the arena, where Cade sat atop the blue gelding.

Darby felt a little tug of jealousy. Since Baxter's amazing calm during the stallions' confrontation, she'd liked the gelding even more.

“He's still green, but Cade's done a lot with him,” Jonah went on. “I hope it's enough to impress a buyer.”

“Conch, too,” Aunty Cathy added. “He was amazing in the barrel race.”

“He turned on a dime,” Ann agreed.

“It wasn't all Conch,” Jonah pointed out. “Mekana's good. Like her parents.

“You and that
pupule
Baxter are doin' okay,” Jonah said, looking at Darby; then he leaned forward so that he could see Ann and her parents. “You, of course, are riding my best mare, so…” He shrugged as if Lady Wong were making Ann look good, and they all laughed.

So far things had gone very well. Besides Megan's first place win in barrel racing, Darby, Cade, Megan, and Ann had taken third in trailer loading and doctoring.

She only had sorting left to go, and Darby hoped Baxter's run in the Gretna Green race would help shake his sillies out. He loved working cattle and it showed, but sometimes he was a little too enthusiastic.

Cade would be riding Hula Girl, Ann would ride Lady Wong again, and Megan would be on Conch.

Jonah must have read her expression and guessed what she was thinking about, because he leaned close to Darby and said, “In the sorting, those two mares are a sure thing. They won't let those yearling calves blink without permission. Conch is doing good, too, and with calm horses all around him, even if he's not cowy, I think Baxter will do okay.”

Just then an air horn blew, and the first contestants in the Gretna Green race sped into action. A brother-and-sister team, both on palominos, made a good start, but then a colorful cardboard box appeared from somewhere and tumbled across the arena. The palominos took off in different directions before reuniting.

When the riders stood up at the end, hand in hand again, and bowed to the grandstands, they got a standing ovation, but were disqualified from the event.

Next came a girl on a black-and-white paint pony and a boy on a taller bay.

“This is not gonna be pretty,” said Ann's dad, and it wasn't. The air horn to start the race scared the children, and they stopped holding hands right after stepping over the starting line.

Then came Megan and Cade. The whole team wore ‘Iolani Ranch colors—turquoise shirts and tan leather chinks over their jeans—but Cade and Megan looked especially great. And when the air horn blew, the horses took off on the same hoof.

From that step on it was clear that Megan had been right: not only did Baxter and Conch look great together, but their similar conformation helped them move in fluid togetherness. Fast and smooth, they made it possible for Megan and Cade to grip each other's hands without looking stressed or pulled.

“They look good together,” Ann said in a teasing whisper.

“The horses or the riders?” Darby asked as the pair crossed the finish line.

“Both,” Ann remarked, and Darby nodded.

In the next moment their time was announced, and they'd clearly won first place!

“Go, ‘Iolani Ranch!” Aunty Cathy shouted, pumping the air with her fist.

From the arena Cade and Megan waved, but then Aunty Cathy and Ramona, Ann's mother, were pushing Ann and Darby.

“Only one more event until the sorting,” Ramona said.

“You'd better hustle down there and help Cade check Baxter over. We want all our
keiki
and horses to look good,” Aunty Cathy said.

Jonah stood and followed them. “Better than a
front-row seat, yeah?” he said as they walked down to the arena, but Darby wasn't so sure she wanted her grandfather watching her that closely. Their team was now tied for first place. Darby climbed onto Baxter just as she heard the announcer's voice.

“Since the time the first paniolo vaulted onto the first horse, working with cattle was transformed,” it boomed over the loudspeaker.

“From the horses that swam the
pipi
, or cattle, out to the ships, to the horses that carry today's working rider, sorting one calf out of a herd has always been a primary responsibility.

“Cattle sorting requires skill, speed, and team-work, and that's why we've saved this event for last.”

Darby's fingers shook on Baxter's reins, but the blue roan didn't seem to notice. Although he still regarded the excitement around him with interest, it was clear the exertion of the games had settled him down.

Ann and Megan were joking around, but Darby listened intently as the announcer explained that the yearling cattle had numbers on their backs because one mounted team member after another would be required to move cattle in numerical order from the herd at one end of the arena across the line at the opposite end.

As the riders took turns sorting out their calf, the other riders would hold the herd at the line and keep the sorted animals from rejoining the herd.

“The team that sorts the most cattle in the allotted
time will win the event and, in this case, the
keiki
rodeo!”

 

They'd decided that Ann and Lady Wong would go first, then Darby on Baxter, followed by Megan on Conch, and finally Cade on Hula Girl. They didn't really expect to make such good time that they would be able to repeat the order, but they were ready to do it if they could.

Again they went last. A new group of yearlings was brought in for each team, and their small herd had the biggest variety of coat colors. Instead of all red calves, there were two black Angus, a cow that had markings like an Oreo cookie—at least that was how Darby saw him—and a kind of roan one.

This herd had been penned and waiting the longest. Their eyes rolled white as the wind kicked up and the flags fluttered crazily.

Everything started out perfectly, and Baxter took his turn as if he'd been working cattle his whole life.

“No biggie, huh?” Darby whispered to the gelding as soon as he'd moved the number two calf over the line, but Baxter just kept his eyes on the cattle. All at once he stiffened up and his ears pointed at the number six calf.

At first Darby was too busy watching Cade and Hula Girl perform to realize what Baxter had noticed.

Number six had a buckskin-and-gray coat, but the
two colors were intermingled like a milk shake in a blender.

“No way,” she whispered to Baxter, jiggling the snaffle in his mouth to redirect his attention. “You can't think he looks like that cow with the crumpled horn.”

Whatever he thought, Baxter couldn't keep his eyes off the calf, so when Cade's turn was over and they still had two minutes left on the clock, Darby was in the strange position of hoping Ann used every last second of their time. But she didn't.

“Like a hot knife through butter,” the announcer boomed as Lady Wong sorted out calf number five in one minute. “Now let's see that little blue horse show us his stuff!”

“Go, Darby!” Ann shouted.

Darby set Baxter toward the herd at a controlled jog, but his head was lowered like a cheetah's as he headed for the buckskin calf. He wouldn't have gone after another calf no matter what the number on its back.

Luckily, the calf left his friends and moved ahead of Baxter at a fatalistic trot until Cade, staring at the clock, yelled, “Faster!”

Baxter and number six burst into a run at the same time, and because the air horn blew and their time ended as the calf crossed the line into the herd Megan and Cade were holding, their team won.

But that wasn't enough for Baxter. The blue roan
gelding had his heart set on catching the calf. While her teammates celebrated, Darby gathered her reins in tighter and tighter.

She was half-afraid Baxter would start bucking, and half-afraid he wouldn't. He had to stop! Instead he pressed forward even faster.

The calf looked back at him with wide eyes, spooked, and cut across the arena. Once he found an open spot in the fence, he darted through.

Baxter stopped, staring after the calf. Then, he sneezed. It was only then that Darby heard the laughter in the arena.

“Oh, well,” she said, patting the gelding's hot neck. “At least they can't say you're not cowy.”

 

Packed up and victorious, Jonah, Aunty Cathy, Megan, and Darby went with the Potters to a local steakhouse for dinner, while Kimo and Cade trailered the horses back to the ranch.

“I'll miss Hula Girl,” Megan said as soon as they'd ordered. “Conch, too,” she said with a sigh.

Hula Girl had been sold to a woman looking for a horse to use in competition. She'd been impressed by the chestnut's performance during the events, and by her sweet temper when she'd examined her later. Hula Girl showed none of the nerves or anxiety the woman expected from a mare who'd left her colt at the home ranch for the first time, so she paid for her on the spot and made plans to pick her up later that weekend.

Conch had gone to a polo coach from Hapuna Prep. The coach had been interested in Baxter as well, but ultimately decided that the blue gelding needed a little more work.

“He was right about that,” Jonah said while the others laughed. “But he might make a cow horse yet.”

As Darby ate her French fries, she heard Aunty Cathy talking to Ramona. “We did a lot of good for the ranch today, thank goodness. A man approached Kimo about buying Lady Wong, but Kimo's got him coming to see her foal, Black Cat, next weekend instead.”

“And what did I hear about some Girl Scouts?” Megan asked her mother.

“Oh, yes! I spoke to a troop leader,” Aunty Cathy told them. “Her girls want to work on a horsemanship badge, and I told her to think about coming to the ranch for lessons.”

“The whole troop?” Darby asked.

“It's a small group, about seven,” Aunty Cathy told her. “We can use Judge and the cremellos, maybe Navigator and Biscuit. They'd pay us, of course. The sooner those
free
cremellos can start earning their keep, the better.”

“You've got that right,” Jonah said.

After dinner, Jonah treated everyone to ice-cream sundaes. Darby was savoring her last bite of hot fudge when she realized how tired she was. But it was a good sort of tired, and she'd made a deal with herself to go down and visit Hoku the minute they got home.

They said good-night to the Potters outside the restaurant.

“It's strange that I won't see you in school on Monday,” Ann said. “Come by next week and we can make a batch of malasadas, now that we're experts.”

 

When they climbed into the truck, Darby and Megan slumped against each other, exhausted but satisfied with the day. At times like this Darby was so happy with her new life she could almost burst.

“You did good, sis,” Megan said.

“You, too, sis,” Darby replied.

 

Kit was waiting for them at the cattle guard.

The sun was just starting to go down, but Jonah had turned on the truck's headlights, and they spotlighted the foreman.

Darby's pulse had sprung into panic mode—she thought of Inky, Medusa, Hoku—but then she saw Kit's smile and she let out the breath she'd been holding.

“That was some sigh,” Aunty Cathy said, looking back at her.

“Yeah, she woke me up,” Megan said, yawning.

Jonah lowered his window, and Kit stepped up to talk to him.

“I think it'd be worth your while to walk the rest of the way in.”

“I'm an old man,” Jonah complained, but he'd already turned off the truck and was opening the door.