Snowfire Page 5

  Just as Megan returned, Aunty Cathy came out of the office. Face flushed with exertion, she carried a bucket that sloshed water over its sides.

  “I couldn’t stay away,” Aunty Cathy said. “Look at her. She’s exhausted.”

  Medusa stumbled backward a step, and though her head still hung low, she moved it up slowly, watching all the humans staring at her.

  Looking sweaty and spent, Cade sighted across the horse’s back. He raised his eyebrows at Megan. She held up a packet wrapped in waxed paper. It must be the herbs Tutu had left for Honi.

  Cade nodded, and Megan sprinkled the herbs over the surface of the water in the bucket.

  “I thought you were supposed to let her eat it, or rub it on her gums or something,” Darby whispered to Megan.

  Megan looked up. Her mocking smile wrinkled her nose a little as she said, “You go first.”

  Darby laughed at herself. “Yeah, I guess that’s not going to happen.”

  Even though the mare was exhausted, Darby doubted anyone could get close enough to touch her mouth, and the steeldust wasn’t trusting enough to take food from their hands.

  As Megan finished stirring the herbs around with her fingers, Cricket crouched beside her.

  “We’ll let it steep a few minutes, like tea. Then, since she’s most familiar with me, I’ll bring her the bucket. She must be thirsty, and even if it doesn’t sedate her much—” Cricket broke off and turned to Darby and asked, “Body weight?”

  “Uhh…”

  “Compare Honi the pony and Medusa,” Cricket explained. “I haven’t seen Honi for a while, and we need to be cautious. Medusa was hard bodied and lean when she came into the rescue barn, and she’s even thinner now. Dosage, even with herbal remedies, is based on body weight. So, what do you think?”

  “I’d say they’re close to the same,” Darby ventured. “Honi’s fit, but a little, you know, round.”

  Cricket nodded and stared into the bucket carefully. She might have been reading tea leaves.

  Jonah, Aunty Cathy, and Megan were standing right there. Why hadn’t she asked one of them? Darby wondered. Still, she felt proud knowing Cricket trusted her skills of observation.

  Darby’s gaze was on Kit as Cricket approached with the bucket. Kit’s hands didn’t tighten on the rope. He didn’t dig in his boots for more traction, and he didn’t caution the young woman as she set the bucket near enough to Medusa that she could drink. Or bite. Or kick.

  Kit’s face was the only part of him that showed his tension, and his relief as Cricket backed away.

  Medusa tried to ignore the bucket. She took a few steps past it until the ropes were taut once more. She stood at the apex of a triangle, with the ropes leading back to Cade on one side and Kit on the other.

  But she was thirsty. Her mouth opened and closed. Her lips moved. Her head lifted and her nostrils quivered as she smelled the water.

  “She knows buckets now. She’s not afraid. And there’s no reason to stay silent. She’s being stubborn.” Cricket whispered, but Medusa pinned her ears at the human voice.

  I don’t know how Kit’s going to gentle her, Darby thought. From the first, Hoku liked the sound of my storytelling. And then she remembered something Jonah had said.

  “What did you mean before when you said, ‘Remember that’?” Darby asked her grandfather.

  “Did you catch the way she rolled her eyes so you could almost see the rims?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ve never seen a mare act that way. Not even your tomboy.”

  Kit nodded in agreement as Jonah went on. “Warring stallions will do that. It’s threatenin’ body language. The strongest. When a stallion rolls his eyes like that, he’s promising a fight to the death.”

  “She sees us as attackers, not rescuers.” Kit said it matter-of-factly to the others, but the corners of his mouth drooped, as if he’d just realized how long it would take to show the mare that he was on her side.

  Medusa fought her thirst as long as she could, then lowered her head to the bucket and drank deeply. An hour later, she allowed herself to be half-dragged, half-chased down to Hoku’s corral.

  “Leave the ropes on,” Jonah said. “She’s still gotta be doctored, and I don’t see those plants knocking her out.”

  They had closed the mare in, with all the humans outside, when Kimo rode Biscuit in from the fold at the end of the road.

  Medusa snorted, tossed her forelock away from her eyes, and stumbled closer to the fence.

  Sizing up the situation, Kimo ordered the dogs to stay, then rode a bit closer and ground-tied the buckskin horse near the corral.

  Biscuit’s ears twitched in all directions, and he returned Medusa’s snort. He dragged his reins a few feet and extended his nose toward the fence before glancing at Aunty Cathy.

  “You’re fine, boy,” Aunty Cathy said, and Darby remembered the horse had belonged to her husband, Ben. “Just keep Medusa company.”

  Biscuit lipped a weed that had grown up near the corral since Hoku’s absence, and Medusa snapped at him. Even though she was clumsy from the effect of the herbs, she let him know she was still a lead mare.

  “Not a real promisin’ start,” Kit said warily. “I’m inclined to set her free.”

  Darby was surprised, but it took her only a second to realize that Black Lava and his band couldn’t have gone far. Medusa could rejoin her herd!

  “This is something you can’t do halfway,” Cricket said. She sounded highly professional, as if she were addressing any other wild horse adopter. “We brought her in injured, stitched her up, and now she’s opened the wounds and has to heal all over again. In the wild…”

  Cricket stopped. Maybe she was tired, but Darby thought Cricket didn’t want to harass Kit by pointing out that Medusa’s injuries would, at best, handicap her.

  At worst, she could bleed to death or get an infection.

  “She’s not going to be the lead mare again like she was,” Darby said, and the idea brought a lump to her throat.

  “That’d be hard for her,” Kit said.

  Aunty Cathy turned from exchanging a look with Jonah and said, “Let’s keep her here for a couple weeks.”

  A couple weeks! Darby thought, in despair, of Hoku. But she saw Jonah’s slight nod.

  Jonah had no use for any animal that didn’t earn its keep. He didn’t have lots of loose cash around to pay for Medusa’s feed, either. But he valued Kit and trusted him to make the right decision, so he was letting the steeldust stay. He was even ready to risk injury to himself to treat hers.

  “After that,” Aunty Cathy went on, “she should be pretty much healed. And she should be starting to adjust. If you don’t feel like she’s fitting in by then…”

  Aunty Cathy left the sentence dangling, but Kimo finished it.

  “Aloha.”

  That night before bed, Darby phoned Ann.

  “We have to come up with something for English,” Darby said, getting right to the point when Ann answered.

  “I know!” Ann replied. “Let me get the sheet Ms. Day gave us at the beginning of the year. It lists what we can do for our second-semester final presentation.” Ann rustled some papers and came back on the line. “Well, we’re down to two bad choices, but at least we can do these together.”

  “I’m bracing myself,” Darby said.

  “We can do a Food Channel–style cooking demonstration…”

  “Can’t cook at all,” Darby remarked.

  “…or compose an original song and perform it in front of the class.”

  “That’s all?” Darby asked. “We’re in big trouble.”

  “No, we’re not.” Ann sounded as if she were chiding a child.

  “You can get a new partner if it’s not too late,” Darby offered, “because the only thing I’m worse at than cooking is singing.”

  “Everybody can sing,” Ann insisted.

  “That’s what you think,” Darby said.

  There was silence on th
e line for a moment before Ann asked, “Which rodeo events does Jonah want us to enter?”

  “No!” Darby cried. “Don’t distract me! We can’t talk about the rodeo until we pick a project! If I’m ever going to get my mother to move to Hawaii I need an A.”

  “I knew that would work,” Ann said, laughing. “Now, I’m up for singing or cooking. I don’t care which. You pick.”

  “I guess cooking is less horrible,” Darby said.

  “Okay!”

  “You don’t have to sound so”—Darby fumbled for a word—“peppy about it.”

  “I am peppy! I’ve got all A’s going into finals, and I’m excited about the rodeo! Life is sweet!”

  “Well, I’m really tired, and I’ve still got to study some more for Ecology.”

  “I’ll quiz you,” Ann said, since she was in the same class.

  Twenty minutes later, as she was saying good-bye to Ann, Darby felt pretty confident.

  Finals were just big tests. She could do this.

  She assembled all of the books, pens, pencils, and paper she’d need for her first day of finals and put them on the bench by the front door.

  Before trying to sleep, she got out her diary and wrote about Medusa.

  She has the heart of a lion, and I wonder if it’s too late to ever tame her. I know Kit loves her, but I’m pretty certain he’d let her go if he thought it was best for her. Could I do that for Hoku? I don’t think so. Forget that—I know I couldn’t. Does that mean I love Hoku less than Kit loves Medusa? That can’t possibly be true. Except, oh, my gosh.

  Darby dropped her pencil. It slipped off the bed and rolled across her bedroom floor.

  She hadn’t gone down to the pasture to see Hoku today! With studying, Medusa, and everything else, she’d put it off until it was too late to go.

  Her heart thudded against the inside of her chest like something trying to get out.

  How could she have left Hoku down there, listening to the cries of a wild horse? What if Black Lava had kidnapped her yesterday and she wasn’t even on the ranch anymore?

  She would have guessed her thoughts couldn’t have gotten any darker, but then they did.

  Kanaka Luna’s threatening neigh was carried on the breeze through her open bedroom window. Thread thin and faraway, it still sounded ferocious, and it gave Darby chills, especially since it was followed by a troubled whinny from one of the mares.

  Why weren’t the dogs barking? If a strange person or a predator had come onto the ranch they’d be raising a commotion. But they had been well trained to leave the horses alone.

  Did that mean that the threat Kanaka Luna was warning against was another horse? A memory leaped into Darby’s mind. It was of the night, not long after she’d first arrived, when she saw the fabled Shining Stallion out her window, under the candlenut tree.

  She perched on her knees to look out the window. Starlight painted the candlenut tree’s leaves silver, but that was all.

  Swinging her legs to the floor, she stuck her diary into its drawer and pulled on a sweatshirt. She’d nearly made it to the front door when Jonah opened it.

  From the outside.

  “What’s up?” she asked him.

  “That stud’s got rocks in his head, is all,” Jonah told her. “Carrying on about nothing. I walked all the way down to his pasture and back.”

  Something had to be wrong, Darby thought. Her guilt about Hoku hadn’t made that neigh sound distressed. And Jonah’s night vision wasn’t the best.

  Darby didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t been able to shake off her uneasiness with Jonah since yesterday. She’d been careful, because she didn’t want to make him mad, and sympathetic because of his failing eyesight. It wasn’t a good combination.

  Jonah was watching her shift from one bare foot to the other.

  “Put on some slippers”—he spotted a pair of Megan’s, under the bench, and nudged them toward Darby—“and go check things out.”

  One thing Darby loved about life on the ranch was the way Jonah treated her like any other working member. He relied on her to make sensible decisions, and trusted her almost like another adult.

  Darby was sliding her feet into the slippers—she would have called them flip-flops if she still lived in California—when Jonah planted a quick kiss on her hair.

  She looked up in surprise and Jonah scowled at her.

  “Come get me if you need me. I never get eight hours of sleep, anyway,” he grumbled. “Why should tonight be any different?”

  Darby paused on the front steps and listened to the night.

  Other than an ocean breeze that rustled the leaves of the candlenut tree, everything was silent. In fact, it seemed unusually still, as if she’d stepped into a room where people had been talking about her, and they’d stopped when she entered.

  She thought of the crazy owl that had scared her yesterday, and curled one arm over her head as she walked toward the tack room.

  Just then a light inside the foreman’s house blinked on. Kit or Cade must have heard Luna, too.

  Inside the corral, Medusa was illuminated by the light from the front window. The mare stood at the corral fence. The bandages on her legs showed, and her ears pricked forward to catch the slightest sound.

  Darby headed toward the corral. No moonlight lit her way and the brightness falling from the foreman’s house window didn’t reach this far. Rushing through the darkness, she stepped right out of Megan’s too-big slippers, then crashed the bare arch of her foot on a rock in her path. She staggered but managed not to yelp.

  Both slippers on, or both off? Darby decided flimsy protection was better than none. Then, as soon as she’d jammed her feet into the slippers, she remembered a night-vision trick Cade had taught her. Standing still, she closed her eyes and covered them with both hands.

  Out in the rain forest, waiting for the appearance of a rabid boar, he’d told her, The longer it is since I’ve looked into the light, the better I can see in the dark.

  When she took her hands away, she saw something move. Beyond the fox cages and past the corral, at the end of the road, a shadow wavered.

  She hardly dared to breathe.

  It had to be Black Lava. He’d discovered Medusa was at the ranch and had come back for her. He didn’t know she couldn’t jump the fence or run beside him. He didn’t know that tempting her to follow was cruel.

  With silent steps, Black Lava approached the corral.

  There was no mistaking the touching of noses over the fence and the low nickers. They had missed each other. They were delighted in this reunion.

  Medusa pushed against the fence, and the stallion pushed back. Medusa shoved her chest against the fence again, and Black Lava did, too. It was a strong fence, reinforced for Hoku, but could two horses working together break it down?

  Kit burst from the foreman’s house and the dogs began barking.

  Black Lava shied, and Darby heard the dirt and gravel slip under his churning hooves. He disappeared, though Medusa ran around the corral, trying to build up speed. The white bandages on her front legs went up and down as she charged at the fence.

  Darby drew in a sharp breath, sure Medusa would jump.

  Could her injured legs carry her? Darby didn’t think so.

  At the last second Medusa veered away from the fence, not daring to go over.

  Black Lava whinnied. From where? Darby couldn’t see the stallion calling for Medusa to try again.

  Kit grabbed the pitchfork leaning against one wall of the tack shed and stormed forward.

  “You get!” he shouted, waving the pitchfork.

  The dogs barked even louder, and Darby heard them hit the side of their kennel as they followed the stallion’s movement. Closer now, Darby saw that Black Lava had retreated to the other side of the corral, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Medusa battered her chest against the corral gate, sensing where it should give.

  Black Lava circled the corral at a run. Even when he faced Kit a
nd the pitchfork, the stallion didn’t falter. In an onslaught of hooves and horsehide, he forced the foreman to let him pass.

  Kit could have jabbed the horse, but he didn’t, and Darby guessed Kit had sized up the situation just as she had. Black Lava understood Medusa must be left behind. Without hesitating, the black mustang raced alone into the darkness.

  Medusa called after him, frantic for her mate to return. Her neigh rose and fell, again and again.

  After such chaos, the stallion wouldn’t come back, Darby thought. Didn’t Medusa know that?

  Kit replaced the pitchfork, then faced Medusa. The mare crossed the corral, stopped to listen, then made her way to the other side and listened again.

  Kit held out a hand, but he was invisible to her. Medusa’s hopeless prowling went on after Kit turned back to the bunkhouse, after Cade returned from the broodmare pasture to say all the horses, including Hoku, were safe. Long after Darby had gone inside Sun House, the sounds of searching carried on the breeze through her window.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, Darby stared blankly into her school locker and yawned. After she’d gone back inside and talked about Medusa with Jonah, she’d tried to sleep.

  But she couldn’t.

  Medusa had trotted back and forth in the corral all night, neighing for Black Lava to come back. Even after Darby got up and shut the window, she could still hear the wild mare’s distressed cries. When fitful sleep finally came, she dreamed that Hoku was in trouble.

  In the dream, Darby wandered the ranch, searching for Hoku in empty pastures, in vine-choked Crimson Vale, and on barren, windswept beaches. She could hear Hoku in the dream, but she never found her.

  She awoke frustrated and exhausted. Only when she’d leaned out on the lanai, staring over the pastures for a glimpse of Hoku, and saw her, did Darby start getting ready for school.

  Megan had groaned at Darby’s slowness, saying she’d strangle her if Darby made them late for their first final, but they’d not only made it on time, they were fifteen minutes early.