Castaway Colt Read online

  “Pineapple chicken with sticky rice, stir-fried red and yellow peppers, broccoli, and—”

  “Mom, we’ve got to go right now!”

  “It’s dinnertime.”

  “So?” Megan’s gestures were huge with frustration, and Darby could see Jonah’s amusement. “I’ll be able to buy you dinner every night for a month, two months—”

  “Simmer down, Megan,” Aunty Cathy said. “It will be dark soon.”

  Megan’s eyes beseeched Darby to help, and Darby would have, except that Aunty Cathy caught Megan’s silent plea for reinforcements. She pointed at Jonah and Darby, and snapped, “You two, sit down.”

  Darby did as she was told. Jonah pretended to flinch, then settled at his place.

  “You knew about this,” Aunty Cathy said to Jonah as he began to eat.

  “About the colt and reward,” he admitted. “But I never guessed he was alive. Or nearby.”

  Darby ate, but her right foot jiggled back and forth with barely controlled energy. She was glad no one could see, because she couldn’t seem to stop it.

  “Babe was going to offer a week at the resort, instead of money,” Jonah told them. “But she’s afraid…How did she put it? That ‘someone unsavory might win.’”

  Aunty Cathy put down her fork and sat back in her chair. “You know what that means.”

  Darby didn’t think it was very hard to figure out. What if a kid like her found the colt? She’d never been to a luxury hotel and she wouldn’t know how to act there. Besides, she’d rather have the money.

  Taking Hoku back to the mainland—she winced at the thought—would be awfully expensive. And boarding her…

  One thing at a time, Darby told herself, and tried not to think about going back.

  “What are you guys thinking about that you’re not saying?” Megan asked, looking between Jonah and her mother.

  “You’re not going out after dark,” Aunty Cathy said, in a tone that put off any discussion.

  Megan poked at a chunk of chicken and looked sideways at Darby. What should they do? Wait until tomorrow, after school?

  There was too much to think about. Her classes, the “surprise” student Megan couldn’t wait to introduce her to, remembering her locker combination, finding her way around the campus…

  She really hoped Kimo found the colt tonight.

  Only five minutes later, Kimo knocked on the door, opened it, and leaned his head inside.

  “Couldn’t find your little sea horse. Sorry,” he called in apology, and Darby’s heart fell.

  “Come in, Kimo. Eat something,” Cathy encouraged him.

  The cowboy clomped in, but stopped at the edge of the lanai and shook his head. “Gotta have dinner with my dad. Not that it will be anything that looks as good as that.”

  “You can take some with you,” Cathy persisted, but she stopped when the phone began ringing.

  Jonah stood up, but he turned to Kimo. “No sign of it?”

  “Plenty of signs,” Kimo said. “But no colt. I’m guessing it has a little hidey-hole somewhere, a little spit of land, yeah? The freshest tracks I saw led into the water.”

  The phone was still ringing, and though Megan usually jumped up to answer it, this time she leaned forward with her elbows on the table, eager to hear everything Kimo said.

  When Kimo paused, Megan slapped her palms on the table and said, “I’m going down to Night Digger Point Beach. Right now.”

  “You’re staying here to help Darby decide what to wear to school tomorrow,” her mother corrected her.

  “No way!” Megan said, but when her sharp tone made the others turn from the mother-daughter argument as if they were embarrassed, Megan apologized. “I’m sorry, Mom, but Darby can try on clothes after dark. Right now Stormbird is probably starving!”

  “Is anyone going to answer that phone?” Jonah asked.

  “He was nudging Navigator like he wanted to nurse,” Darby said, darting a quick glance at Aunty Cathy. “I guess that means he’s hungry.”

  See? Megan’s expression said, but she had the good judgment not to push her point.

  “If Kimo couldn’t find him, what makes you think you can?” Aunty Cathy asked.

  “Aloha, folks,” Kimo said, edging back toward the front door. “Headin’ for home now.”

  As Jonah walked out with Kimo, Darby’s stomach knotted with frustration. If she were having this argument with her own mother, she’d jump in and fight, but she didn’t know Aunty Cathy quite that well yet.

  Instead, she took a long drink of water and wondered why the caller was letting the phone ring for so long.

  “I’ll find the colt, because I’m taking a real horse charmer with me,” Megan answered her mother.

  Darby tried to swallow her water, but she ended up choking. Not that anyone noticed.

  Aunty Cathy crossed her arms, looking as stubborn as Megan did hopeful.

  “I’ll get the phone,” Darby said when she could draw a breath, but just then Jonah strode back indoors and beat her to it.

  Aunty Cathy and Megan settled into a cranky silence. Though Darby felt uneasy, she didn’t go hide in her room, because it felt like there might still be a chance to go after Stormbird.

  “If he thinks that gives him a passport to cross my borders and come onto my land…” Jonah’s voice boomed from the kitchen.

  Then he snorted.

  “Sure. Sure he does,” Jonah said. He was quiet for a full minute before he said, “Yeah, okay. Aloha.”

  They heard him moving around in the kitchen, slamming a pan in the sink, running water, and muttering in Hawaiian.

  Darby heard only one word she understood: pupule, which she was pretty sure meant “crazy.”

  No one moved until Jonah came back out on the lanai.

  “It’s sad to say when you haven’t even met her yet,” Jonah told Darby, “but your aunty Babe is deranged.”

  “She is?” Darby asked.

  “Not really,” Cathy said. “Babe is my friend as well as Jonah’s sister, and though they’re as different as siblings can be, she is not deranged.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Jonah said, and Darby would have laughed, but there was no humor in her grandfather’s voice as he added, “She talked to Manny. He’s promised to locate the colt.”

  Aunty Cathy drew in a loud breath, then said, “Maternal instinct.” She shook her finger at the girls and said, “I knew there was a reason you weren’t going out tonight.”

  Megan looked down and so did Darby. Manny was Cade’s stepfather. A cruel man who trafficked in stolen Hawaiian treasures, he had no qualms about breaking the law.

  No matter how determined they were to find Stormbird, neither Megan nor Darby was eager to stumble upon Manny in the dark.

  “You know what she said, your friend Babe?” Jonah asked Cathy. “She told me the colt’s story, and how the reward meant free publicity for the resort, even though money could bring out the worst in people. Then she said, about Manny, ‘He is violent; I don’t like that about him, but he’ll get the job done.’”

  Maybe it was just the cold way Jonah delivered the words, but Babe didn’t sound very nice, Darby thought.

  Darby’s worries were underlined by Jonah’s silence as he stared off the lanai and into the dusk falling over ‘Iolani Ranch.

  Talking about clothes didn’t hold either girl’s attention even though they’d gone to Darby’s bedroom so that she could model her next day’s wardrobe. Neither of them could help talking about Stormbird instead.

  “If Aunt Babe likes Stormbird enough to offer a huge reward for him, why isn’t she out looking for him herself?” Darby asked.

  “She can’t leave the resort, I guess,” Megan told her.

  “If she’s rich, it seems like she’d have a manager or something to run things,” Darby said. “Or her husband. She’s married, right?”

  “Yeah.” Megan drew the word out as if she wasn’t quite convinced it was true.

  “So?”
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  “I’m not sure how much I should fill you in on your Hawaiian family,” Megan said.

  Darby waited patiently. Turning away from Megan so the older girl wouldn’t feel like she was being cross-examined, Darby picked a brown leaf off her lucky bamboo plant.

  “See, Babe’s husband Phillipe is a polo player, and he keeps most of his horses on Oahu and, uh, someplace in Argentina, I think, because those are the places where he plays polo….”

  Wow, who married a polo player? Darby wondered. It sounded so glamorous.

  “Babe used to go with him, sometimes,” Megan said, “but not anymore, since your cousins came to live with her.”

  Darby pivoted away from the lucky bamboo to face Megan.

  “I have a cousin?”

  “Two,” Megan said, holding up two fingers.

  “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this?”

  “I just did.”

  “I know, but…” Darby paused, waiting for her mind to stop spinning. “This is so weird. I lived in Pacific Pinnacles, in Los Angeles County, where there are thousands, maybe millions of people I could be related to; I mean, the odds are better—but it was just my mom, my dad, and…” Darby shook her head. “Then I come to this dinky little island—which I love,” she rushed to assure Megan, “and I’m related to everyone.”

  “Not me,” Megan chirped.

  “No, but just about. I call your mom aunty.”

  Megan laughed until Darby stopped her with another question. “So why do my cousins live with Babe? Does their whole family?”

  “Just them, right now,” Megan said. “It’s just, Babe’s daughter did the same thing she did—”

  “Their mom. My other aunt. Or second cousin, or whatever,” Darby said, changing back into jeans and a T-shirt.

  “She married a guy known as White Water Willie, a kayaker who started surfing, and he competes all over the world. But the kids needed a home base, a place to go to school, so Babe took them in. Although one’s away at college on the mainland.”

  “Amazing. And the other one is one of my surprises for tomorrow?” Darby guessed.

  “Yep,” Megan said.

  “That will be really fun,” Darby said.

  Megan shifted uncomfortably on the edge of Darby’s bed as if she was about to say something else, but then the phone rang again. And this time, Megan made a dash for it.

  The call was for Darby.

  Ellen Kealoha Carter, Darby’s mother, had phoned to tell her daughter that the film she was shooting in Tahiti was running behind schedule.

  “We’ve been having these fierce tropical storms,” Ellen shouted, and even though she was inside her trailer on the film set when she added, “They’re brutal,” Darby could barely hear her over the hammering rain.

  “I just wanted you to know.” Her mother sounded melancholy. “It could mean a few extra weeks.”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Darby said. “But I do miss you. A lot.”

  A sudden thought bobbed to the surface of Darby’s mind. Because she had to give it a minute to take shape, she said, “Mom, cover your other ear and just listen for a minute. I have something cool to tell you.”

  For ten full minutes, Darby described Night Digger Point Beach—which her mother remembered with a longing sigh—and the white colt she’d found there. She told her mother that the colt belonged to Babe Borden’s mare, and then she announced the reward.

  Darby only detoured from her story to answer, as well as she could, her mother’s questions about her aunt Babe.

  Her mother said, “Sounds like you’re getting a lot more excitement than you did in Pacific Pinnacles. I hope home won’t be too tame for you.” It was then that Darby knew what she’d do with the reward money.

  “When I get the reward, I’ll fly you over for a visit,” Darby said.

  “That’s great, honey.” Her mother sounded like she was just humoring her.

  “Mom, I am going to catch him,” Darby insisted.

  “Your grandfather must be doing something right. You’re getting quite the imagination over there. I hope you’re writing all this down.”

  “I am,” Darby said slowly. But why wasn’t her mother taking her seriously?

  “Darby, I believe you,” her mother said. As usual, she was pretty good at reading Darby’s silence. “It’s just that—how are you going to catch a colt? Sure, it’s a small island, but it could run you ragged along the coastline and you’d be wheezing….”

  “My asthma is so much better,” Darby protested, but her mother didn’t seem to hear.

  “Let’s say the colt isn’t wild. You haven’t learned to rope, have you? Honey, you’ve only been riding a short time, and even newborn colts can be hard to handle.”

  Ellen had spent years hiding her ranch upbringing from her daughter, and Darby hadn’t stopped being surprised when her mother said something like that, indicating that she knew a lot more about horses than she let on for twelve and a half years.

  “I know. You’re right,” Darby told her mother.

  But Darby knew she could do it. That night she wrote out plans on a piece of notebook paper. She’d just made a note to learn how much it would cost to fly her mother from Tahiti to Wild Horse Island, when Darby realized she wasn’t just hoping for a visit.

  At heart, she wanted her mother and Jonah to set aside their problems and have a warm reunion.

  Darby stared up at the black rectangle of window over her bed.

  If her mother and Jonah got along, maybe they could all live here! ‘Iolani Ranch belonged to the Kealoha family. Jonah had built the little tree house atop Sun House just so that her mother would have separate quarters if she ever came back home.

  Darby waggled her pencil between her pointer and middle fingers, and bit her lip.

  Would Mom agree to live this far away from Hollywood? Probably not.

  Feeling a quick stab of guilt as she thought of Heather, her best friend in Pacific Pinnacles, Darby realized she wasn’t even sure that was what she wanted.

  But here there were rainbows and waterfalls, rain forests and green rolling hills for Hoku to gallop over….

  Darby shook her head free of those images. She folded the list and slipped it into the diary stashed under her bed. Then she turned off her light and told herself that what she really wanted now was to grab as much sleep as she could so that tomorrow, at her new school, she would be brilliant.

  Chapter 4

  Darby stared at the inside of her eyelids. She felt like she’d been mulling over her first day at Lehua High School forever.

  Should she wear her hair up in a ponytail, or down loose? Should she get up now so that she’d have plenty of time to decide?

  Her room was dark, but the glowing numbers on her bedside clock said 4:22. The clock, which had an awful, squawking alarm, was a gift from Megan. “Misery loves company,” she’d teased, adding that she was glad she’d have Darby’s company on the drive to school now.

  She and Megan were getting to be good friends, but what if Megan’s school friends hated Darby Carter and Megan pretended she barely knew this geeky new girl?

  Sun House was silent.

  Lehua High School couldn’t be as big as her old school, but what if she got lost? Or couldn’t open her locker?

  Darby rolled over on her back. She made her muscles go floppy, let her hands curl at her sides as she drew a gentle breath, then exhaled twice. She did it four times, because her mother, who was totally devoted to yoga, swore that such breathing smoothed out the most tangled thoughts.

  Darby opened one eye. The clock said four thirty.

  This was stupid. She might as well get up and go feed Hoku and Francie the fainting goat. But if she went outside now, she’d disturb the dogs. They’d bark and wake Kit and Cade.

  Or she could go shower, but she’d probably wake Jonah. And later, she’d get hay all over her clothes and in her hair.

  At last, she pulled on some work clothes and tiptoed down the hall. She opened
the front door and held her breath, but she only heard the humming of the refrigerator. She slipped outside.

  As she passed the dogs’ kennel, Jack came out to stare at her. He clawed halfheartedly at the chain-link fence, then turned around and settled back to sleep with a grunt.

  Good dog, Darby thought, and kept walking.

  It soothed her to go inside Hoku’s corral with an armload of hay and feed her filly that way.

  The sweet nudges and gentle whuffling of horse lips over her arms and neck weren’t all for the food. Some of them were affectionate gestures just for her.

  By the time Hoku had eaten all of her hay, Darby was feeling happy and optimistic about the day ahead.

  Animals just make me happy, Darby thought. Hoku doesn’t notice how I walk or talk or wear my hair. Why can’t everyone be as kind and accepting as horses and dogs?

  And goats, she remembered with a start.

  She forced herself to leave Hoku, bolted the corral gate behind her, and filled a bucket with Francie’s breakfast. Once she’d done her morning dance with the playful black-and-white goat, Darby ran toward the house.

  Time was slipping away.

  As soon as she was back inside Sun House, Jonah called to her from the lanai.

  “Granddaughter,” he said.

  Jonah gestured her out onto the wooden deck that overlooked the ranch, but he didn’t ask if she’d fed Hoku, or if she was up early because she was nervous. He just stood beside her. Together they watched a searing gold edge of sun peek over the hills.

  Darby let out a long breath and leaned against the lanai’s rail. Whatever happened at school, at least she’d come home to this.

  “If you want to go looking for this colt, take Jill and Peach with you.”

  Darby nodded. Jill and Peach were two of the ranch’s five Australian shepherds. She’d memorized their names along with those of Jack, Sass, and Bart, with help from Kit. The Nevada cowboy had told her he found it easier to remember the dogs by their talents.

  Jack and Jill were both black and helped gather and drive cattle, but Jill was suspicious of strangers. Sass’s coat was a combination of black and white called blue merle, and because he was especially good with adult horses, he trotted out with Kit and Kimo more than the other dogs.