Castaway Colt Read online

  Phantom Stallion

  Wild Horse Island 4

  Castaway Colt

  Terri Farley

  Contents

  Disclaimer

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Black sand muffled the sound of Navigator’s hooves as he…

  Chapter 2

  Darby and Navigator searched the seashore, the nearby ohia trees,…

  Chapter 3

  “That’s him!” she gasped.

  Chapter 4

  Darby stared at the inside of her eyelids. She felt…

  Chapter 5

  “English, history, ecology, Sports P.E., Creative Writing, algebra,” Ann read…

  Chapter 6

  Darby was counting the minutes until she could be around…

  Chapter 7

  “Pretend you’re riding away from me,” Megan told Darby.

  Chapter 8

  The dogs, Jill and Peach, bounded ahead of the horses.

  Chapter 9

  “Cade, of course.”

  Chapter 10

  In her rush to get ready for school the next…

  Chapter 11

  During lunch, Darby stood by in uncomfortable silence as Megan…

  Chapter 12

  When the Escalade pulled up in front of Sugar Sands…

  Chapter 13

  “I’m sure Stormbird’s okay,” Megan said. “It’s a small island…

  Chapter 14

  It was dark when they got back to the ranch,…

  Chapter 15

  By the time Darby got home, she knew what obsessed…

  Chapter 16

  Happy that the cowboys refused her help with washing dishes…

  Chapter 17

  “It’s okay, Hoku. Good girl. You’re fine.” Darby babbled assurance…

  Chapter 18

  The only open lane in the swimming pool was the…

  Darby’s Dictionary

  Darby’s Diary

  About the Author

  Other Books by Terri Farley

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Disclaimer

  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.

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Black sand muffled the sound of Navigator’s hooves as he trotted toward the ocean.

  Head flung high, the brown gelding breathed the salt of waves lapping up on Night Digger Point Beach.

  Darby Carter could hardly believe her eyes. She’d grown up near the beach in California, but she’d never seen black sand. Did people who’d been raised on Hawaiian islands look at a dark coastline as an everyday thing?

  “Just another day in paradise,” Darby joked to her horse. “And you’re already barefooted.”

  As she gazed out at the ocean, Darby couldn’t wait to take off her riding boots and feel the millions of dark crystals work up between her toes.

  Ever since Megan, Darby’s first friend in Hawaii, had described Night Digger Point Beach, Darby had been eager to see it.

  Today, the last day before starting her new school, was the perfect occasion to explore this black-sand beach.

  The only thing that would have made the day even better was if she could have brought Hoku, her mustang, along with her. Darby had just spent a week in the rain forest with Hoku, and now she couldn’t bear being away from the filly.

  Begging to bring Hoku along because she loved her would not convince her grandfather, Jonah, to allow it. So she instead tried a more sensible approach.

  “Wouldn’t it be good training for me to pony Hoku to the beach? And if we had any little adventures”—Darby drew a quick breath, hoping Jonah wouldn’t mention the strange stallions and wild pigs they’d encountered since they’d arrived on this wild island—“Hoku could learn from Navigator how to act.”

  To Darby, it had sounded like an excellent proposal, but Jonah hadn’t seen it her way.

  “What you call adventure, I call bad planning,” Jonah had answered. “And the filly’s too green to be mixed up in more of it.”

  “But—”

  “You and Navigator have a good time, because there’s work waiting for you when you get back,” Jonah had said. “Unless you want to start working right now.”

  Darby had been about to protest that she’d finished all her chores when she caught the direction of Jonah’s gaze.

  He’d squinted pointedly toward Hoku’s corral. There, the sorrel filly had touched noses over the fence with an old bay gelding named Judge.

  Darby had known what Jonah’s look meant, so she’d ridden away on Navigator.

  Only now, on the beach, did she confide in her horse. “I don’t know if what he wants is possible. Hoku lived as a wild horse. What do you think?” she asked, absently working her fingers through Navigator’s black mane while she gazed at the ocean. “Can I make her loyal to me over you horses?”

  Darby smiled as Navigator feinted a nip at her stirrup.

  “Does that mean you’re not into scenery?” she asked her horse, but Navigator turned back toward the waves with pricked ears.

  The magical realm named for the night-digging sea turtles that used it as a nursery looked like another world.

  Megan had had to go to school today, but she’d promised Darby that they’d pack a picnic supper on the Fourth of July, trek to this beach, and spend the night watching mother turtles dig black-sand cradles for their eggs.

  Darby sighed. It sounded like fun, but this was April. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be on Wild Horse Island. The Fourth of July seemed a long way off.

  Navigator neighed, pawed up a shower of sand, then pulled at his bit, telling Darby he wanted to lope into the waves.

  “No, the tide’s coming in,” Darby told her horse.

  She could bodysurf and swim. She could spot riptides and escape their attempts to drag her out to sea, but she’d climbed onto a horse for the very first time just a few weeks ago. Riding waves on a boogie board was one thing; riding them on a horse was a test she wasn’t ready for. Yet.

  But then Darby noticed a foam-filled depression on top of a big rock. The rock was about five or six horse lengths away and only as high as Navigator’s back.

  As the foam turned into a mirror-clear surface, Darby longed to explore a Hawaiian tide pool and see if it had anemones, mussels, and little fish, like the tide pools in Southern California.

  “If I ground-tie you, you’ll stay put, right?” Darby asked Navigator.

  She imagined dismounting, tugging off her boots, and picking her way up that slippery, truck-sized rock to the tide pool.

  Waves rolled in and splashed over the boulder. Seawater filled the pool and overflowed in bubbly streamers.

  As spray drifted on the breeze, misting Darby’s face, she told herself the waves’ impact wouldn’t be enough to knock her off her feet.

  Darby stood in her stirrups for a better view of the tide pool.

  It was perfectly round.

  “Either it was made with a giant ice-cream scoop,” Darby told Navigator, “or a bubble popped there when the lava was cooling.”

  The big gelding stood still, his muscles tensed beneath the saddle, but Darby didn’t think he was listening to her.

  “Do you smell something interesting? Or see—” Darby stopped whispering.

  She saw it, too.

  Something moved. The creature must have been balanced on a ledge in the seaward side of the rock. It was as white as the sea foam. Maybe a giant bird?

  But wait. That wasn’t a wing.

  No, a feathery tail switched ov
er there. And it was followed by a colt-sized bottom.

  Darby gave a surprised laugh. She’d only lived on ‘Iolani Ranch for a few weeks, but she knew horses pulled themselves up with their front legs first.

  Not this little horse, she corrected herself.

  The foal obviously did things his own way. And his way of standing up wasn’t the most startling difference about him.

  Wind blew tufts of mane into curls as the colt turned toward Darby. He studied her with wide, turquoise eyes.

  Navigator made a determined yank at the bit, and this time Darby let him move closer.

  Hey, little guy. Darby aimed her silent words toward the colt, but she didn’t speak. If he was a wild horse, born into the herd in Crimson Vale, he might spook at her human sounds. She didn’t want him to bolt into the ocean.

  Navigator’s strides stopped at the edge of the truck-sized rock.

  Excitement switched Darby’s senses on high. She saw the colt wasn’t a new baby. At a guess, he was three or four months old, and his coat was a color not found in a box of crayons.

  A blush of palomino shimmered among the colt’s white hairs, reminding her of waxy white honeycomb.

  His blue eyes were flecked with green.

  So that’s why they look turquoise, Darby thought. And though she’d read that many white mammals were blind at birth, the colt stared at her through a fringe of white eyelashes, telling her he could see her just fine.

  The colt’s narrow face reminded her of a Thoroughbred’s. His rotating ears were the size of Darby’s cupped hands, telling her that he’d be a towering stallion someday.

  But now he whisked his feather-duster tail from side to side and picked his sure-footed way around the volcanic rock.

  Stopping just a few yards away, he pointed his pink nose up at Navigator and sniffed, considering horse and rider from this new angle.

  “Hi, baby,” Darby whispered, since he seemed unafraid.

  Suddenly Navigator backed up. The colt might be fearless, but Navigator’s move slammed Darby against the saddle’s cantle. Her free arm swung behind her and she flattened her palm against the gelding’s rump to steady herself.

  “What’s up?” she asked Navigator as he kept retreating from the colt.

  The little creature followed, making jabs with its nose.

  Navigator sidestepped the lips fluttering toward him.

  “Are you hungry, baby?” Darby asked.

  The white colt was searching for a meal. Navigator’s nicker was gentle, but it was definitely a refusal.

  “I’m afraid Navigator can’t feed you,” Darby said, but the white colt wasn’t discouraged. He trotted after the gelding.

  Darby surveyed the shore. Where was the colt’s mother? She saw no mare and heard no worried whinny over the rushing waves.

  When the colt’s spindly legs brought him near enough, he nudged Navigator’s ticklish flank. The gelding snorted.

  The colt was so close, Darby could have leaned down and moved him away with a push.

  Instead, she touched her heels to Navigator’s sides and the relieved gelding jogged off a few strides.

  Darby looked over her shoulder in time to see the colt give a frisky buck before he trotted after Navigator. Then he nipped at the gelding’s tail.

  “You’re in awfully good spirits for an orphan,” Darby said. She patted Navigator’s neck. “And you’re a good boy for putting up with him.”

  The colt kept following them.

  This is great, Darby thought. If he trailed after them all the way back to the ranch, someone might recognize him. Or Aunty Cathy, the ranch manager, could phone their neighbors.

  Who wouldn’t notice if they’d lost a cream-colored colt with turquoise eyes?

  Darby gave a celebratory bounce in her saddle.

  She’d almost ruled out the possibility that the colt was the offspring of the wild horses in Crimson Vale. It wasn’t impossible, but in Nevada, Hoku’s rangeland home, Darby had learned that wild horses knew that safety was with the herd. Maybe this little colt had been separated from his band long enough that he’d decided Navigator and he could be a two-horse herd.

  Darby shrugged, trying to figure out another reason for the colt to be alone. Maybe he was tame. He could have been wading in the shallows with his mother when a strong wave knocked him off his hooves.

  After all, she’d just been thinking the waves might knock her down.

  Too small to win against the currents, the colt could have been washed ashore here, on Night Digger Point Beach.

  Or maybe he belonged to ‘Iolani Ranch. He might have slipped out of the broodmare pasture. But that didn’t make sense. She’d ridden those pastures for hours, memorizing the horses and their names. She’d remember a blue-eyed colt.

  “Keep tagging along,” Darby called back to the colt, and he did. For about ten minutes.

  When Darby heard a thump in the sand, she looked back. The colt had stopped, folded his legs, and curled up in the sea grass. His head nodded until his whiskers touched his bent knees. Then he fell asleep.

  Darby waited, and Navigator took the time to swing his head around to study this new annoyance.

  Darby looked the colt over, too. He wasn’t the cutest baby ever born, but once he grew into his head and hooves, he’d be a sleek, white beauty.

  “You’ll turn into a swan,” Darby whispered, and the sound was enough to wake the colt from his nap.

  “Let’s go,” Darby said.

  Navigator moved into a swinging walk, but the colt was rested from his nap. He was even friskier now, and more of a bother to the big horse. Openmouthed, he darted after the gelding.

  Darby clucked to her horse, but the colt had already grabbed Navigator’s tail.

  “Your mom hasn’t taught you any manners yet, has she?” Darby asked.

  Navigator stomped and whisked his black tail away from the colt’s mouth.

  “He’s telling you that’s a good way to get kicked,” Darby warned as Navigator moved on.

  To judge by his pretty prancing, the colt’s feelings weren’t hurt. Darby would have laughed if the colt’s milk teeth hadn’t clamped down hard on Navigator’s tail again.

  This time the gelding couldn’t flick his tail loose.

  Navigator’s head swung around. Eyes narrowed, he clacked his teeth within an inch of the colt’s face and the colt gave up his hold.

  Darby did her best to settle into the calm state of mind that helped her to read horses.

  Letting her eyelids sag and shoulders soften, Darby tried to be receptive.

  What’s wrong, little one? Like a flower opening to the sun, she was taking in all she could about the colt when he let loose a whinny so shrill, it soared over the rushing waves and fluttering of leaves.

  The pale foal cried out in victory, not fear, and Darby decided that though he might be hungry and lonely, he might also be a bit of a brat.

  “Don’t pull so hard,” Darby scolded the colt, but when he zoomed in an excited circle around Navigator, she couldn’t be mad at him.

  Please don’t belong to anyone else, Darby thought.

  Of course it was greedy to hope Navigator, Hoku, and this white sea-fairy of a foal could make up her own personal herd of horses, but Darby imagined that very thing.

  Her daydreams were interrupted by a squeaky sound. She quickly recognized it as just a loose board in the old plantation house that was falling into ruins in the jungle. But when she looked back to speak a reassuring word to the colt, he was gone.

  Chapter 2

  Darby and Navigator searched the seashore, the nearby ohia trees, and the clumps of rocks and lichen-covered boulders, but they found nothing.

  Disgusted with her inability to find a single hoof-print, Darby finally gave up and headed back to ‘Iolani Ranch.

  With each of Navigator’s long strides, Darby became more worried.

  How long could a colt go without food? At his age, did he need mare’s milk? Could he nibble grass? What
had frightened him away?

  Darby sucked in her stomach as if she could vanish from the sight of anything lurking unseen in the foliage around her.

  “It’s possible,” she teased Navigator, “that he gave up following us because you told him your tail wasn’t a toy.”

  Darby looked at the sun shining through the trees. It was just early afternoon, but if she planned to ride back to the ranch and get help finding the colt, she’d better hurry.

  When she clucked to Navigator, he understood she was asking him to head for home, and settled into a long-reaching lope.

  Darby spotted the shape of a horseman on the horizon. It was Kimo, one of her grandfather’s cowboys. She remembered when she’d first met Kimo in the Hapuna Airport. She’d thought he was built as sturdy and square as a stone house. He was a burly young guy, but it turned out there was nothing rock-hard about Kimo except his muscles. His white smile and friendliness always made her feel at home.

  Kimo didn’t consider himself a real paniolo—as the best Hawaiian cowboys were called—but Darby didn’t see why.

  Now, for instance, she hadn’t seen his hands move Conch’s reins, but he’d invisibly signaled the grulla gelding into a dusty cow-horse stop that ended with Conch standing nose to tail beside Navigator.

  “You tired out already?” Kimo asked.

  His question might have hurt if it hadn’t been for his grin, and the secret Darby knew.

  Last week, Megan had overheard Kimo and Kit, the ranch foreman, refer to Darby as “one smart, can-do keiki,” or the “can-do kid.”

  “I’m not tired. I found this amazing white colt. He’s following me—” Darby paused when Kimo peered past her. “I mean, he was. Really, just like ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ but he took off.”

  “Yeah?”