Castaway Colt Read online

  Babe’s practiced sarcasm didn’t keep an involuntary shudder from shaking her shoulders.

  Aunt Babe was kind of stuck-up and phony, but Darby felt a little sorry for the girl she’d been. Still, the only thing that she could think of to say was, “Yuck.”

  “Yuck, indeed,” Babe Borden said. Her manicured nails glittered as her hands swept over the steering wheel, bringing them into a gated resort.

  The sparkling hotel might have been molded out of sugar. It rose from a pristine white beach to stand silhouetted against the bright blue waters beyond.

  It was a different kind of beautiful than ‘Iolani Ranch, Darby thought, but still pretty amazing.

  “Welcome to Sugar Sands Cove Resort,” Babe said. “Let me introduce you to Flight.”

  Chapter 12

  When the Escalade pulled up in front of Sugar Sands Cove Resort’s stable and paddock, Darby noticed Babe’s fence was identical to the one surrounding ‘Iolani Ranch.

  That made her smile, as she thought Aunt Babe and Jonah might not be so different after all.

  Darby’s smile turned into awe when she saw the cremellos.

  Six glossy, well-tended white horses—no, seven—waited in the paddock, looking eager for a ride.

  Were these the horses Babe planned to give Jonah as the start of a dude string? Was she generous enough to allow tourists to ride her prized horses for a fee?

  Most of the horses ranged from stark white to cream, but one had a tawny coat. Darby might have guessed his coat was just washed with sunlight, if his white blaze hadn’t set it off.

  All seven cremellos had flaxen manes and tails and slim, leggy conformation.

  The most beautiful horse of the bunch stood apart from the others, close to the fence.

  “This is Flight,” Babe told Darby.

  Until now, Darby had felt anxious about heading in the opposite direction from ‘Iolani Ranch. She’d been polite to her great-aunt, of course, and she was intrigued by the resort, but impatience had gnawed at her, urging her to get back to the ranch, saddle up Navigator, and find Stormbird.

  All that vanished when Darby saw the grieving mare.

  Flight’s white coat was spotless. Her pale gold mane and tail had been brushed free of tangles. But she didn’t prance with pride. Her silken mane and forelock drifted across her face like a mourning veil as she paced the fence, ignoring the extra food set out for her.

  Every few strides, she paused to give long nickers.

  How long has she been doing this? Darby wondered, noticing the huskiness of the mare’s cries.

  Flight stopped just feet away from Darby. Raising her head and pricking her ears, the mare stared into the distance, listening for an answer from her lost foal.

  Babe gravitated to the mare, as if she had no choice, and the horse came to her, shoving urgently against the fence.

  Babe made a helpless gesture.

  “I don’t know what she expects. I’m doing all I can. Everyone I know is out looking for Stormbird. I’d be out there myself if I weren’t here working for your feed, wouldn’t I, baby?”

  Babe reached through the fence to pet the horse, then cleared her throat.

  “You’re just a drab-coated bag of bones, aren’t you, girl?”

  Babe’s way of pairing harsh words with gentle actions reminded Darby of Jonah, too.

  Darby remembered how he’d sworn at Hoku even as he dove into sharp strands of barbed wire to cut her free.

  “Did the other horses edge her out of the herd, or is she a loner?” Darby asked.

  “A little of both,” Babe told her. “She was gone for a while, being trained on Maui, and since her return, Flight’s been so sad, I think the herd bonds are sort of strained.”

  Being trained? Flight’s jutting ribs and the hollows above her eyes made her look too old for special training.

  “She’s only five,” Babe said, following the direction of Darby’s gaze. “I have to find her colt or she’s not going to make it.”

  Darby had been eager to track down Stormbird before, but now she was desperate, and her desperation had nothing to do with money.

  It was hard not to tell Babe that she’d seen the colt, but Darby decided she’d wait until there was no chance of disappointing her great-aunt. That would be like losing him twice.

  “I’d better go,” Darby said, “but you can just drop me off at school. I mean, it was so nice of you to show me your horses, and the resort,” Darby said as they got back into the Escalade. When she spotted the car clock, Darby added, “It is getting late and I’m sure you don’t want to keep D—”

  Darby swallowed hard. She’d come so close to saying Duckie that she became tongue-tied and was unable to pronounce her cousin’s real name.

  “She’ll be fine,” Babe said.

  They’d passed the turnoff to Lehua High School and gone a few miles farther when Babe raised her dark glasses, looked at Darby, and asked, “Did you hear about my plan for a riding stable at ‘Iolani?”

  “Yes,” Darby answered, and though she didn’t mean to set her jaw and go silent, that’s just what she did.

  “Not you, too.” Babe sounded surprised. “You absolutely echoed Jonah’s tone of voice. Next you’ll be saying it’s a betrayal of our native heritage.”

  Babe didn’t sound disappointed, just resigned to the fact that it would take them both a while to come around to her way of thinking.

  “Your mother would see the beauty of my plan,” Babe said.

  Darby didn’t tell her that the idea had already won over Aunty Cathy and Megan.

  “In fact,” Babe said, shaking her index finger toward the windshield, “perhaps Ellen Kealoha Carter, my famous niece, should stay at Sugar Sands Cove with some of her celebrity friends.”

  Babe nodded and her lips curved in amusement, as if her imagination was spinning her idea into a star-studded fantasy.

  Darby decided it would be mean to tell Aunt Babe that Mom’s friends weren’t celebrities, but struggling actors like she was. In fact, one of her best friends chuckled that his biggest claim to fame was when a fan magazine had dubbed him “dog walker to the stars.”

  Aunt Babe cleared her throat before saying, “Jonah should consider the future.”

  There was something morbid in Babe’s tone.

  “I think he does,” Darby told her great-aunt. “Maybe too much. He’s always—” Darby closed her mouth. It felt like a betrayal, revealing how Jonah fretted over who’d run the ranch after he was gone.

  “He’s always what?” Babe turned down the dirt road to the ranch.

  “Considering the future,” Darby repeated her great-aunt’s words.

  Darby was surprised when Babe braked hard at the cattle guard in front of the ranch gate and asked, “Is this close enough?”

  “Sure,” Darby said.

  It took her a minute to grab her backpack and open the door. She was barely clear of the vehicle before Babe slammed the gear shift into reverse and left.

  An hour later, Cade and Megan were following Darby’s directions back to the spot where she’d seen the lost colt. This time they wore maile leis for luck.

  “I might like them even more than the flower ones,” Darby had said when Cade hung the strand of leaves in a horseshoe around her neck.

  Leathery pointed leaves ran in pairs along a vine, which hung down to her elbows. Its fragrance struck Darby as a combination of vanilla and pine.

  “You made these?” Darby asked.

  “They’re traditional for paniolos, just twisted together,” Cade said. He fiddled absently with the keeper on his rope as if Darby were making too much of the simple lei. “But I was thinking the colt might be more comfortable with us if we smell, uh, not just human, but natural.”

  “Good idea,” Megan told him.

  “Thanks, Cade,” Darby said, but she wished Cade hadn’t brought his rifle.

  Your reaction is totally irrational, Darby told herself.

  A dangerous wild boar had pro
ven that just last week. A weapon could be vital in rough country, and parts of Wild Horse Island still counted as wilderness. If Cade hadn’t put the rabid animal down, it might have hurt Hoku, Navigator, or Tango.

  As they rode through the forest, heading for Night Digger Point Beach, something fell out of the trees and struck the ground off to their right.

  Cade twisted in his saddle to face the sound.

  “Relax, Lone Ranger,” Megan joked, “it was just a candlenut falling.”

  Despite Megan’s crack about Cade acting like a gunslinger, he rode on with one hand holding his reins and the other on his rifle scabbard.

  A gust of salty wind blew at them from Night Digger Point Beach, and Darby knew they were getting close.

  Megan turned toward Darby and mused, “I wonder if you’re the only one who’s seen him.”

  “Me too,” Darby admitted. “When I met Aunt Babe, she didn’t say anyone else had reported seeing him.”

  “You didn’t tell her you had,” Cade said.

  “No.” Darby wondered why Cade sounded as sure as if he’d been there.

  “Probably not, then,” Megan said, but she didn’t catch Cade’s superior look.

  What’s that about? Darby asked herself, but the others rode quickly, trying to beat the night, and she had all she could do to match their pace.

  As they rode onto Night Digger Point Beach, Darby was struck again by its lack of greenness.

  If she’d been any place besides Wild Horse Island, that might not have seemed remarkable, but in Hawaii it was rare to see a place where you’d only need three colors to paint a landscape: blue, white, and black.

  Blue water, black sand, and white-capped waves, that is.

  “It’s a good thing we rode out tonight,” Megan told them. “My mom says a storm’s on its way.”

  Blue sky shadowed with black clouds made a background for white birds winging inland.

  “He needs to take shelter,” Darby said, and suddenly the three colors of the place rang like an alarm. “If there’s nothing green here, what he’s been eating?”

  “He’ll be hungry,” Cade said.

  All at once Darby wondered if she’d been naive about the colt’s chance for survival without his mother to give him milk.

  When were foals weaned from milk to grass? In the back of her mind, she thought Sam Forster had said that her filly, Tempest, hadn’t been weaned until she was six months old!

  “If he’s really only three or four months old, has he been weaned?” Darby asked gingerly.

  “He has now,” Cade said.

  “Don’t be mean,” Megan said to Cade. Then, standing in her stirrups as she looked out to sea, Megan said, “Hey, Darby, I think I saw a mermaid.”

  Darby brushed aside Megan’s silly attempt to distract her. “There’s not much to eat around here, is there? You don’t think he starved, do you?”

  “Didn’t you say he was playful?” Cade asked.

  “Yes, but that was two days ago.”

  “Obviously he’d been eating something if he was having a good time with Navigator,” Megan said.

  Wild horses were pretty resourceful, Darby thought. But this colt wasn’t wild; just alone.

  Chapter 13

  “I’m sure Stormbird’s okay,” Megan said. “It’s a small island and everyone talks. If someone else had spotted him—dead or alive—my mom would have heard about it at the post office or grocery store.”

  Darby glanced at Cade again, and this time so did Megan.

  “Why are you looking like that? Don’t you think we would have heard?” Megan demanded.

  “Of course not,” Cade said. “There’s money involved.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Darby said. For her, this was about saving two horses. Of course she’d take the money, but she’d be searching for Stormbird even if there was no reward.

  But Cade was right. They couldn’t count on everyone feeling that way.

  The beach was empty, stripped bare by low tide. They would have seen something as big as a horse.

  Darby’s mood sank as they spread out, looking for hoofprints.

  With the sun submerged, the beach turned evening blue. The retreating waves had left the sand shrouded in white foam. Overhead, a black bird hovered.

  It’s huge, Darby thought, looking up so high that her ponytail touched the back of her belt.

  And the bird was watching something.

  Darby scanned the beach, but didn’t see anything. She figured the bird must be interested in something that meant nothing to her—maybe a bubble signaling a tasty sand creature.

  And then there were two black birds. No, three.

  They looked like big black Xs, Darby thought, with the top bars slightly bent and the bottom bars shrunken.

  As the threesome wheeled closer, Darby saw that the top of the X was formed by huge wings. She’d bet they were six or seven feet across. And the bottom of the X was a fanned tail with longer feathers at each side.

  “What kind of birds are those?” Darby shouted down the beach to Megan.

  “I can’t remember,” Megan yelled back, then rode Tango toward Navigator as she continued, “We usually see them in summer. After the baby turtles hatch, while they’re scurrying toward the water, they”—Megan pointed upward—“eat them, or snatch them up to carry them back to their nests.”

  The flock lifted at the human voices, but not for long. The next time they lowered, the birds let out a raucous chorus of discovery.

  What had they found? Darby wondered. Then, over the birds’ excited shrieking, she heard something else.

  A slap and a splash almost made her think she’d heard a seal, but Navigator told her otherwise.

  His deep-chested neigh drew nickers from Tango and Joker.

  On the other side of the volcanic rock with the tide pool on top, there was a scoop, like maybe another ancient bubble had popped there. Nestled into its shelter was Stormbird.

  “I found him!” Darby hissed at Megan, even though the older girl was too far away to hear.

  Darby pointed, and then she, Cade, and Megan jostled for the best views of the colt.

  When Cade didn’t reach for his rope, Darby asked, “Now what?” Even those two words, spoken in a normal voice, startled the colt.

  Stormbird bolted to his feet.

  We can’t lose him now, Darby thought.

  The colt wobbled on long legs, then leaned against the rock as if he yearned to run, but couldn’t.

  Cade and Megan looked at each other and exchanged some silent sign that Darby didn’t understand.

  Megan dismounted. Her boots hit the wet beach with a splat. When Darby started to get off Navigator, Megan shook her head, then threw her reins to Cade.

  Megan hummed and sang as she approached the colt. Darby couldn’t hear the lyrics at first, but all four horses listened.

  Eventually Darby picked up enough words to understand that Megan sang of a woman wading in a lagoon and scooping up tiny fish; and of a goddess wading across the sky scooping up silver stars.

  Whatever it meant, the colt was soothed. Megan repeated her lullaby, as she slipped the maile lei inch by inch off her own neck, and eased it over Stormbird’s.

  At last, Megan edged back toward the other horses, and Stormbird came with her.

  He seems hypnotized, Darby thought. And weak.

  Was Stormbird sick? Had he run out of food? Was he missing Flight as much as she missed him?

  Darby was barely able to hold back her questions, but she did, afraid another sound would make the colt jerk against the slender vine and break it.

  Cade lifted his canteen off his saddle. He extended it, along with a bandanna, toward Megan.

  Megan shrugged, but Darby understood.

  They all knew that the colt needed water. After all, how could a barn-raised baby find his own fresh water when he was surrounded by an ocean?

  Silently begging Navigator not to wander away, Darby slipped off the big horse, snagged the canteen
and bandanna from Megan, and started toward the colt.

  Stormbird’s head jerked up.

  Even in twilight, his eyes shone turquoise. They stared at her with alarm and then looked past her.

  Darby heard Navigator’s hooves. The gelding wasn’t deserting her, he was following, and that should make her task much easier.

  Yes! she thought. Just as before, the colt was enchanted with Navigator.

  Darby held her hands low, unscrewed the top of the canteen, and poured a tiny pool of water in her hand.

  Sidetracked by the wonderful smell, the colt butted at her hands and spilled the water.

  If he wanted it, why didn’t he lick it from her hands? Darby poured more water into her palm and held it under the colt’s mouth.

  His impossibly soft lips rubbed over her hand. Then, he took a step back, and he shook his head in frustration when Megan’s hand snaked the bandanna slowly from Darby’s belt. Then Megan dipped one end into the canteen.

  Of course! Darby thought. The colt hadn’t been trained to drink from a bucket or lick from someone’s hand. He’d still been nursing when he was separated from his mother.

  Megan wiped the wet cloth over the colt’s mouth. He licked his lips and immediately understood.

  He’s a smart little guy, Darby thought as Stormbird pulled noisily on the end of the wet bandanna.

  In seconds, the colt was sucking for water. Megan couldn’t get the bandanna away from him to rewet it until it tickled his throat and Stormbird coughed.

  With flying fingers, Megan dipped the bandanna again. She’d hardly withdrawn it when the cremello colt lurched forward, ready for more.

  “He’s too big to put over my saddle,” Cade said quietly, but Darby could tell he didn’t want to scare the colt by roping him.

  The colt looked at him from under white eyelashes, but he was too thirsty to care about the creature atop the Appaloosa horse.

  Darby nodded toward Navigator and raised her eyebrows. Cade considered the gelding.

  Navigator was the biggest and calmest of the three saddle horses. If any of the horses could carry a live load, it would be him.

  But Cade gave a skeptical head shake, and so did Megan.