Rain Forest Rose Read online

Darby couldn’t contradict him, because sometimes she thought the same thing. She was working at giving Hoku the best life a captive mustang could have. But sometimes Hoku stared west for motionless minutes, only to turn back to Darby with unforgiving eyes.

  The filly was learning to trust, but she still yearned for the boundless range of home.

  Darby looked back over her shoulder. Hoku raised her head to return the girl’s gaze.

  Maybe someday, Darby told Hoku silently, you’ll run as far and fast as you want, and still come back to me.

  But they had a long way to go before that happened. As Darby thought of schooling Hoku, she remembered the bag Megan had slipped into her backpack. Then she recalled what Megan had said about her own horse.

  “Which horse is Megan’s?” Darby asked.

  “What do you mean?” Jonah replied, without looking at her.

  “She told me she was training a horse with her dad. Was it Biscuit?” Darby knew Megan’s dad, Ben, had ridden the buckskin named Biscuit.

  “No, Megan had a wild horse. A pink one.”

  “Pink?” Darby was surprised such a thing existed.

  “A rose roan, they call ’em, but yeah, Tango pretty much looked pink.”

  Tango. Darby pictured Megan on a high-stepping mare with hooves clattering like castanets.

  “Was she sold?” Darby asked, but Jonah was shaking his head before she finished.

  “Megan’s horse was in a bad accident.”

  “What happened?” Darby pressed him.

  “You know on the map, it shows the kipuka? It’s sort of an island within an island, yeah? Lava flows around a piece of earth and a rain forest grows up on that earth in the middle. This kipuka you’re going to,” Jonah explained, “you’ve got to cross some ‘a’a—the rough kind of lava. After the accident, she took off that way. We found blood,” he said grimly.

  “Why didn’t someone go after her?” Darby gasped.

  “It was the same day Ben died. We kinda had our hands full,” Jonah said.

  Darby sucked in a breath, glad that Jonah hadn’t let her rattle on thoughtlessly.

  “After things settled down, Mekana said to let the mare go back to the wild. She didn’t want to ride ever again, she told everyone.”

  Jonah gave her a grateful smile after he said that, crediting Darby with Megan’s return to riding, so Darby didn’t say what she was thinking.

  You let her have her way? Jonah must be leaving something out.

  If Megan didn’t want to ride, if she’d lost her nerve after her father died in a horseback accident, okay. But finding the horse—especially if it was injured—was the humane thing to do. Besides, every animal on the ranch was valued in dollars. There must be more to Tango’s escape and Ben’s death than Jonah was telling her.

  They rode in silence until Jonah muttered, “Look at that.” He pointed out a haphazard gouge through the grass, cut through to the damp earth. “Pigs. Like Cathy told you, be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “And if you think you hear them, you probably do.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But I’m not such a city girl that I wouldn’t recognize a pig.”

  “These are different from pigs in kids’ books,” Jonah said. “They’re not cute. They gobble up birds. They’re bristly and black. They go rooting day or night.”

  The gash through the grass had looked like a furrow dug by a drunken plowman. Swiveling in her saddle, Darby looked back and asked, “Why do they do that?”

  “Looking for food, like the rest of us,” Jonah said, “but they’re a menace. How’d you like to be on a running horse when he stepped in a rip like that?”

  Darby didn’t want to think about it. She was still awkward riding a horse at any gait. It would be bad news if Navigator stepped into a hole that deep.

  “I’ll watch the ground,” Darby promised.

  “You watch the space between your horses’ ears,” Jonah corrected. “He’ll keep watch of the ground.” Jonah looked over his shoulder as Hoku shied at a swooping yellow bird.

  When Hoku felt his eyes on her, she flattened her ears.

  She pays such close attention, Darby thought. Even a beginner like me should be able to teach her.

  Jonah squinted toward the rain forest ahead. “I wouldn’t let you go out here if I thought there was any danger. Much safer than crossing a street in Pacific Pinnacles.” He pronounced the name of Darby’s hometown in California in a pointed way. “You won’t get run down by some movie star’s limousine.”

  “It’s not that kind of a neighborhood—” Darby began, but Jonah cut her off.

  “Just stay back, out of their way, and they’ll leave you be. Don’t let that filly go after one, either.”

  “Would a horse chase a pig?” she asked incredulously.

  “It’s in her nature to protect you.”

  “I thought you said she hadn’t forgiven me for trying to tame her,” Darby said.

  “All animals are walking contradictions. Horses and humans are born that way. Fierce and gentle. Wild and protective. Not many have the brains to back up their actions.” Jonah studied Hoku. When the filly snorted, one side of Jonah’s black mustache lifted with his smile. “That’s why they need us.”

  “I think she knows more about the wild than—”

  “No.” Jonah halted Kona across the path and pointed his index finger at Darby as she stopped Navigator. “You know more, and this is why you’re going out here.” He shook the finger three or four times, then drew a deep breath, and when he talked again, the irritation in his voice had faded.

  “Remember I told you about mana?” Jonah asked.

  Darby remembered when Jonah had made the strong stallion Luna behave for the farrier, just by sheer force of will. Jonah had said that was mana versus mana, but it hadn’t meant much more to her than any of his other Hawaiian teachings. She was interested, of course, but he expected her to keep track of so much.

  Still, Darby nodded.

  “Well, there are two kinds of mana. One’s your own power, a strength of spirit you’re born with. The other mana is what you’ve learned from the mouths of others.”

  Jonah let her mull that over for a few seconds before he asked, “Which mana is stronger in you?”

  Self-conscious and not really sure what he wanted from her, Darby shrugged her shoulders up until they almost touched her earlobes. Her mother had once told her she looked like a turtle withdrawing into its shell when she did that. Now, that’s how she felt.

  “I don’t know.”

  “The learning from others—you’re good at that, and you know it,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re particular about who you believe. That’s good,” Jonah said, and then he glanced down at her wrist. “But that ancient necklace you found. No one told you it had power, and yet you sensed it.”

  “I only wore it as a good-luck charm,” Darby protested.

  “And once you learned it belonged in the ali’i’s cave, how did you feel?”

  “I wanted to put it back—”

  “Because you felt superstitious? Or you were afraid you’d get in trouble?” Jonah asked her.

  “No! Because it was the right thing to do.”

  “That’s your own mana,” Jonah said, as if it was obvious. “Like the way you bonded with the filly.”

  Darby opened her mouth to remind him, again, that he thought the filly still held a grudge.

  “Who does that, Darby? Lies down in the snow with a wild horse, and stands up its best friend. You have a lot of pals, yeah, in California, who do that all the time?”

  “No, but it’s not like magic—”

  “Mana’s not magic. It’s an instinct, a silent power, an understanding. You have it for horses, and so do I. But you don’t trust your mana. I do.”

  Once more, Darby remembered the stallion Luna facing Jonah. Like silent thunder, the man’s will had rolled over the horse. And Luna had obeyed without hesitation. />
  “So, when I come back from the rain forest,” Darby spoke slowly, thinking before each word, “how are you going to tell if I figured out my two manas?”

  “This isn’t school. There’s no test.” Jonah smiled. “Or if there is, you’ll be the one to recognize it. Not me.”

  My “instinctive” mana and my “what I’ve learned from others” mana, Darby thought as they rode on. Okay, that shouldn’t be too hard.

  “When you get where you’re going,” Jonah said over his shoulder, “put Navigator’s reins up and turn him loose with a slap on the rump. He’ll head for home. And Cade will be bringing you more food and checking on you.”

  “Okay,” Darby said. But as the vegetation narrowed the path, she realized Jonah’s instructions probably meant they’d reached the spot where he’d turn around and go back to the ranch.

  They hadn’t ridden that far. Surely, she thought, as her mind darted back to Megan’s lost horse, someone should have seen Tango in almost two years. And even in wild Hawaii, shouldn’t the police have looked over the scene of a sudden death? Maybe they had. Maybe Jonah didn’t want her to hear the grisly details of a paniolo’s death, when she was still just learning to ride.

  “This is where I leave you,” Jonah said, halting Kona at the gate out of the broodmare pasture.

  “Okay.” Darby heard the faintness of her own voice as she pictured herself riding on with the two horses. Then walking on, with one.

  “Thanks, Grandpa.” Darby surprised even herself by saying it, and she would have hugged him if she could have done so without falling off her horse. “I’ll do my best.”

  Jonah made a hmphing noise, before he said, “There’s mostly geldings in Pearl Pasture.”

  A twitch of reins made Kona sidestep until Jonah could open the gate for Darby to ride through. “Being the tomboy she is, Hoku won’t likely flirt with ’em, but she might want to join in a run. Don’t let her. Stop her before she jerks you off Navigator’s back, yeah?”

  “I will,” Darby said. She gave a quiet cluck to encourage Hoku to follow Navigator through the gate. Hoku came along, but her narrowed eyes said she did it because Darby asked her to, not because she trusted Jonah enough to turn her tail on him.

  “Gonna be one strong mare,” Jonah said approvingly, and then he made the one-handed gesture with three fingers folded inside and waggled it from side to side. Megan had told her it was called shaka and it meant “hi” or “good-bye” or any kind of greeting in between.

  Holding Hoku’s rope tight in her right hand, Darby returned the gesture with her left and made Jonah chuckle.

  Jonah’s laughter still echoed in Darby’s ears long after the gate to Pearl Pasture was locked behind her.

  Chapter 2

  When Darby first noticed she was wheezing, she was glad there was no way for her mom to give her one of the stinging injections she’d learned to administer. There’d be no late-night trip to the urgent-care clinic, either, and though she probably shouldn’t have felt relieved by that, Darby did.

  Besides, she had the medihaler in her pocket, just in case. The tight feeling in Darby’s chest vanished as a beautiful troop of horses, led by a palomino, suddenly appeared.

  Hoku gave a neigh. Her head bobbed and she pulled at the rope as snorts answered her.

  “Oh my gosh,” Darby whispered to Navigator, though the gelding didn’t act as awed as she was or as curious as Hoku. “Who are you guys?” she whispered to the new herd.

  Darby knew the answer. They were in Pearl Pasture, so these were two- and three-year-olds in training, but she kept talking to keep the horses’ attention.

  “They’re just about your age,” Darby told Hoku.

  With her brown eyes fixed on the other horses, Hoku weaved from one side of the path to the other at a shifting gait.

  The horses of Pearl Pasture pranced with exuberance. Delighted to have visitors, they pressed close to Navigator and Hoku.

  Careful, Darby reminded herself. Jonah had warned her not to let Hoku jerk her out of the saddle.

  Steadiness on horseback wasn’t something she could always count on, and she had the bruises to prove it.

  Darby watched Hoku for signs that she might lunge. At the same time, she imitated Jonah’s matter-of-fact way of talking to horses.

  “Get back, guys,” Darby told the young geldings. “We’re following this path to a clearing. Then we’re turning right and going to the kipuka. Just passing through.”

  The horses took no notice of the directions she’d memorized from Jonah’s map, but they didn’t correct her pronunciation, either.

  She admired their wet, healthy coats. Bays, a black, and a blue roan she recognized as Buckin’ Baxter surrounded them, but the palomino kept forging to the front.

  All at once, Darby’s back twisted, then snapped up straight, and her teeth clacked together. As the faint, red trail widened, Navigator burst from a walk into a full lope.

  “How’d you skip over a trot?” Darby yelped, and then she gasped.

  For a few strides, Hoku had kept up with Navigator, but now the filly had noticed the young geldings falling in behind. She wanted the comfort of the herd.

  Hoku balked.

  Navigator kept moving.

  Between them, the horses stretched Darby’s arm. She pictured a cartoon character’s arm lengthening like rubber.

  “Whoa!” she shouted, and then, tightening her reins with her other hand, she yelled, “Hoku!”

  Darby figured it was her commanding voice, or the suddenly narrowing trail—not any kind of mana—that made the horses obey. Whatever caused it, Darby was relieved that Navigator didn’t bolt into a gallop, but slowed to a hammering trot, and Hoku mirrored his gait.

  “Good boy,” she congratulated the coffee-colored gelding. As the young horses caught up, he stayed in the lead, changing his trot into a floating gait she didn’t recognize. “Really good boy.”

  Navigator’s hooves sounded like faint applause on the forest floor. And Hoku’s hooves were their echo. Darby sighed and forgot about her arm as she drifted along.

  She might have been riding in a dream, until Hoku gave a pleased buck and Darby lost her left stirrup.

  “No,” Darby snapped. Scuffing her boot back into place broke the spell, and Navigator returned to his uneasy jog.

  The other horses’ glossy shoulders jostled them, but Darby heard something beyond the hoofbeats and rushing leaves.

  What was that sound? Darby wished she could prick her ears up like the horses. Was someone talking?

  Voices on the wind spoke to Darby.

  I’ve been here before, she thought.

  The jungle left just a single-file passageway for the horses. The geldings took their cues from Navigator, but even as they settled into a flat-footed walk, their tails twitched and their forelocks flew. They snuffled, testing the air currents.

  The horses’ multicolored backs moved so slowly, Darby counted them.

  “One, two, three—” Darby broke off when Navigator crowded past the black horse and pinned Darby’s left leg between the two warm bodies.

  Alarm made her pulse speed up and the tightness in her chest grew worse, but only for a second. Hoku mirrored Navigator’s free-striding walk and Darby felt like one of the herd. She lowered her head from drooping branches as Navigator shoved ahead of the black, a bay, then forced the blue roan to give way.

  Scarlet blooms like those she’d seen in the waterfall valley whipped Darby’s hair. She ducked as they rushed past.

  Wind kept the tunnel of trees in motion. Maybe a storm was brewing, she thought, watching green stems bend under leaves that looked like inside-out umbrellas.

  Hoku and I came this way, finding our way home from Crescent Beach, Darby realized.

  Ahead, leaves streaked with salmon-orange stroked the palomino’s flanks.

  He kicked, then nipped at the spot the leaf had tickled, and Darby, Navigator, and Hoku went ahead.

  All at once, the wind stopped. T
he forest seemed to hold its breath.

  Darby tightened her reins. Navigator halted. He arched his neck, stamped, and blew, but Hoku didn’t make a sound.

  Darby glanced over her shoulder. The filly looked hypnotized.

  By what? Darby wondered, until she followed the mustang’s gaze. A dazzling sunbeam stabbed through the trees. It shone on a cottage.

  Navigator bowed his head three times, asking her to loosen the reins.

  “Sorry, boy.” Darby’s voice might have boomed from a loudspeaker.

  It had rained more here than at the ranch, she noticed. A falling leaf plopped onto a deep puddle.

  A metallic ping made Darby look back to the clearing.

  How many times had she had dreamed of rain dropping from that rust-red roof? As many times as she’d seen that white curtain billowing out that window. But she’d only dreamed of the cottage in the clearing, and now she was wide awake.

  Darby tapped Navigator’s sides with her heels. She had to know what waited behind that door!

  When it opened, not creaking, but swinging wide on well-oiled hinges, Darby had already slid down from Navigator, still clinging to Hoku’s lead rope.

  Silhouetted in the doorway, the woman in the long dress could have been any age, but when she stepped into the sunlight, Darby felt like she’d ridden into the future.

  The oval face, heavy brows, scarf-bound hair, and startling smile could have belonged to her mother, grown old.

  Or me! Darby jerked back in recognition. Though the eyes watching her were brown, not blue, the face before Darby looked an awful lot like the one she saw in the mirror.

  “Aloha, Darby.”

  The melodious voice should have come from someone big and jolly, but the arms that swooped around Darby were thin inside the floating pink dress.

  “Aloha,” the woman repeated as she kissed Darby’s cheeks. “I’m your tutu.”

  As she held Darby out at arm’s length to look at her, Darby felt at home, as if she’d always known this woman everyone called Tutu, as if she were their great-grandmother as well. People on ‘Iolani Ranch spoke of Tutu with reverence, mentioning her healing skills and insight, acting as if living in the jungle, alone, was the way of such wise women.