Mistwalker

by Terri Farley

  Phantom Stallion

  Wild Horse Island 7

  Mistwalker

  Terri Farley

  This book is dedicated to Mervina Cash-Kaeo, Esq., whose explanation of ho’oponopono over a great Hawaiian breakfast inspired the salvation of more than one relationship; to Dr. Janet Six who introduced me to the rain-forest ruins of Hawaiian sugar plantations; and to Lisa Harper for emergency medical knowledge and an uncanny ability to enter my world of “what if?”

  Contents

  Disclaimer

  Map

  Chapter One

  Mom loves Hawaii.

  Chapter Two

  For the first time in her shaggy little life, Pipsqueak,…

  Chapter Three

  It figured that on a night when she was preoccupied…

  Chapter Four

  “My father treats me like a slave!”

  Chapter Five

  “It’s beautiful, but it’s not mine,” Darby said, taking the…

  Chapter Six

  Darby’s joyous shout pretty much ended the award ceremony.

  Chapter Seven

  With his deadline looming, Mark Larson finally left the celebration,…

  Chapter Eight

  Darby stared at the photograph of Cade and his mother…

  Chapter Nine

  Darby and her mother walked down to see Hoku after…

  Chapter Ten

  Menehune.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What do you have to tell me?” Darby asked.

  Chapter Twelve

  It didn’t make sense.

  Chapter Thirteen

  With Conch ground-tied nearby, getting used to the sight of…

  Chapter Fourteen

  Darby planned to introduce Patrick and Ann before school that…

  Chapter Fifteen

  The afterimage of Ann following right behind Patrick hung before…

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ten minutes later, Jonah and Ellen, smelling of horse sweat…

  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 One

  Mom loves Hawaii.

  She’s just forgotten.

  The words pounded like a memorized poem. Five syllables matched by five more, they’d drummed a rhythm all day long in Darby Carter’s mind. They wouldn’t stop, even though she was riding her horse.

  Excitement over her mother’s homecoming had crept into her sleep, too. In last night’s dream, Darby’s grandfather Jonah had welcomed her mom home by kissing her cheeks, then slipping a flower lei over her black hair to settle around her neck.

  Mom will forget her feud with Jonah and move back to Wild Horse Island.

  If concentrating could make it so, Darby’s wish would come true.

  Ellen Kealoha Carter had sworn never to return to the Hawaiian island where she’d grown up, but she was doing it for Darby, to see her honored—along with her friends Megan and Cade—for finding a shipwrecked colt called Stormbird.

  The world stood still as Darby watched gold shimmers of sunshine dance over her horse Hoku’s vanilla silk mane. Darby didn’t even blink until she realized Hoku had stopped. The filly reached her nose under the round pen’s fence and flapped her lips, reaching for a clump of grass.

  Darby caught her breath. She’d tumbled so deep into daydreaming, her mind had wandered away from an important fact: The horse she rode—bareback—was barely trained.

  On impulse, her hands tugged at the rope rein leading to Hoku’s halter.

  Bad move. As Hoku backed up in surprise, Darby’s body wavered like a candle flame that someone was trying to blow out.

  Slow and gentle. Everything had to be that way with a young horse, especially a young mustang used to running free on the Nevada range.

  “It’s okay, girl,” Darby told Hoku, but her horse pawed the dust with a forefoot.

  What would Mom think if she saw us right now? Me and my horse…

  Darby shook off the question. She’d find out tomorrow, after the presentation at Sugar Sands Cove Resort. Now, at home on ‘Iolani Ranch, she’d better focus on riding Hoku.

  She let the rein droop, but kept her fingers closed around it. Next, she raised her chin, shrugged her shoulders back, and curved her tailbone toward Hoku’s backbone.

  The filly shuddered from nose to tail. By the time she understood that Hoku was scaring off a fly, not getting ready to buck, Darby’s legs had closed on the sorrel’s sides.

  Naturally, Hoku broke into a trot that made Darby’s teeth clack together and her knees clamp tighter.

  Hoku rocked into a lope and Darby’s mood lifted, even though she’d hoodwinked herself into believing she was a good rider.

  Hoodwinked. Darby imagined riding with her hooded sweatshirt zipped up the back with the hood over her face. She wasn’t much of a rider, but she was the only one Hoku had ever known.

  If she wanted to keep it that way, it was vital for her mom to decide they should move to Hawaii for good.

  She rode with just a halter. For reins, a lead rope was clipped at both ends to the halter ring under Hoku’s chin. But tack wasn’t important. Darby’s body worked with the filly’s, sensing the tension and excitement Hoku reflected back to her.

  Darby felt the bunched-up muscles in the filly’s hindquarters pushing them around the pen. She leaned forward and rested her hands at the base of the filly’s neck. Shoulder blades sculpted by generations of range running slid like polished ivory under her fingers as Hoku’s legs pulled at the earth.

  I love you, she thought as Hoku carried her past the corral fence. The ranch yard, Sun House, and green hills slipped by. And I love this ranch, she thought as tropical breezes sang through her hair.

  Saying that her wild horse was under control made about as much sense as a pirate saying he’d commanded the wind to fill his ship’s sails, but Darby didn’t care. She was happy.

  Hoku settled back to a walk. Her head bobbed from side to side, as if checking each dark-hoofed leg.

  Dark hooves were supposed to indicate hard feet, less susceptible to injury.

  “You’re such a good girl.”

  The filly’s elegant ears pricked forward. They’d swivel back if Hoku was listening to her, Darby thought. Then her horse’s head swung toward the crunch of tires.

  Who was coming down the ranch road? A rooster tail of dust followed the vehicle and a brown cloud surrounded it. It was probably just the ranch manager, Aunty Cathy, bringing her daughter, Megan, home from school.

  Although classes were back in session, school had been chaotic since the mini tsunami. That’s what the rest of the world was calling it, but to Darby, there’d been nothing small about it.

  Now, workers repaired storm damage and talked of dangerous mold growing in the school walls. That could close the school again. So teachers made the most of each classroom moment, shouting over sawing, hammering, and the blasts of nail guns.

  Darby could thank Mr. Potter, her friend Ann’s dad, for taking her away from all the racket and driving her home from Lehua High School. It was four o’clock and she’d been riding for half an hour instead of dawdling around school.

  Actually, she wouldn’t have been dawdling. She would have been trying to sneak past the school security officer keeping Lehua High students away from the herd of wild horses penned on the school�
�s football field. Black Lava and his band had been there since the tsunami struck their Crimson Vale valley home, and though Darby and Ann had tried repeatedly, they’d failed to get a good look at the horses. Turned back by school security, Darby knew she would’ve just ended up doing homework while waiting for Aunty Cathy to pick them up after Megan’s soccer practice.

  Darby’s own practice was important. Tomorrow her mom would arrive on Wild Horse Island. Ellen had never seen her daughter on a horse.

  “We’ve got to be awesome,” Darby told Hoku.

  Now Darby recognized the faded red fenders, streaked with rust. It wasn’t Aunty Cathy and Megan. It was the farrier’s truck.

  Hoku’s steps slowed. Though the filly was only curious, Darby reined her away from the corral fence.

  “No horseshoes for you,” Darby assured Hoku.

  But then the truck backfired, sounding like a gunshot, and everything happened fast.

  Hoku’s jump aimed them at the fence rails.

  Darby heard the farrier yell, “One-rein stop. Catch her before—”

  She knew what he meant, and Darby pulled the left rein toward her knee. She’d done it before, with Navigator, but Hoku didn’t react the same way.

  Hoku resisted. She pulled back until the rein forced her head to follow. Even then, her body kept charging ahead.

  Darby slipped left on Hoku’s back and caught a sickening glimpse of the cindery dirt below. If she held tight with her legs, Hoku would lunge forward even though her head was being pulled in the opposite direction.

  Darby had to keep her legs loose or risk bringing them both down.

  No way I’ll let that happen, Darby promised silently.

  She released the left rein. As Hoku straightened and looked ahead once more, Darby braced on her filly’s withers, then swung her right leg over Hoku’s back. Her feet felt frantically for the ground. Amazing, Darby thought as she dropped and landed on both boots.

  Eyes wide with confusion, nostrils flared to suck in air, Hoku spun around to face Darby.

  “You stopped for me,” Darby whispered to her horse. Puzzled and a bit scared, Hoku might have kept running. But Darby had left the filly’s back unexpectedly, and Hoku was worried about her human.

  Darby held out a hand, cupped gently, hoping Hoku would come close and rest her chin there.

  The white star marking on Hoku’s chest rose with the filly’s breaths and she looked away.

  I’m asking too much, Darby thought.

  “Sorry, girl,” Darby said. “That was kinda spooky, wasn’t it?”

  She eased forward to catch the rein. Then she moved alongside her horse and pressed her cheek against Hoku’s hot neck.

  Together they sighed. For a few seconds, Darby’s eyes almost closed. Through her lashes, she saw nothing but her horse’s hair, shot through with gold one minute and fire-red the next.

  She wanted to stay like this forever. Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel the sun kneading the kinks out of their backs, hear trade winds rustling in the trees.

  “You be careful there, young lady,” the farrier called through the open window of his idling truck. “And get Jonah to show you how to ‘whoa’ before you ‘giddyup.’”

  Chuckling, the farrier drove on toward the horses that were tethered outside the tack room.

  As if he’s not to blame for telling me to make a one-rein stop, Darby thought as she glared after him. Still, it was a good thing she hadn’t snapped a comeback, because Hoku began shifting with uneasiness again.

  Besides, Darby knew she was to blame. She shouldn’t have taken the farrier’s shouted advice when she knew her horse better than he—or anyone!—did.

  Once more, Darby extended her hand toward her filly’s nose, but Hoku’s head jerked up and she backed away a few steps, rolling her eyes until they showed white.

  Darby relaxed her shoulders, letting her body language tell her horse they were safe.

  “What happened to you?” an irritated voice called from behind them.

  Darby glanced over her shoulder to see her grandfather standing outside the round pen. Jonah’s head, black hair graying at his temples, was cocked to one side.

  “Nothing,” she said, looking back to Hoku.

  “So you’re trying to stare that filly into doin’ what you say?”

  “No, I’m just letting her relax. The farrier’s truck backfired, she bolted, and I was losing control….”

  Great, Darby thought. She’d better stop talking before she confessed any more.

  “So you turned her in circles,” Jonah finished her sentence.

  He started nodding, and Darby guessed he was going to tell her she’d done the right thing.

  “No one likes bein’ dizzy, ’specially not a horse,” Jonah said, then shook his finger at the filly. “That Hoku, she knows she’s too big to fall down and get up quick if something’s after her.”

  Darby nodded. “I could feel her trying to keep her balance, but that turning thing? It worked before, when I did it with Navigator.”

  “He’s an experienced horse. He knew goin’ around in circles wasn’t gettin’ him nowhere, so he read your mind and gave you the stop you were after.” Jonah shrugged. “You won’t see no paniolo trying that merry-go-round stuff.”

  “What should I have done?” Darby asked.

  “Talk to Cade or Kit about bronc stoppin’,” Jonah said.

  “Bronc stopping? That doesn’t sound like something I—”

  “Suit yourself,” Jonah said. Then his attention shifted to Hoku. “Good the way she waited for you. Shows some respect.”

  Jonah’s compliments were so rare, Darby wanted to whoop in celebration, but her grandfather was already walking away.

  “I got to go talk to that horseshoein’ thief,” Jonah muttered, “and tell him to keep his riding advice to himself.”

  A bronc stop, Darby repeated silently.

  Kit Ely, foreman of ‘Iolani Ranch, was a former rodeo rider. She knew that much, but she had no interest in riding like a rodeo cowboy.

  And Cade, her grandfather’s adopted grandson, might as well be a centaur. He was so much a part of his horse, he probably wouldn’t know where to begin teaching her to stop a panicked Hoku. Cade’s horse, Joker, never panicked.

  Darby led Hoku to the fence.

  She had to get back on Hoku and replace the scary backfiring memory with a calm one.

  She rode around the corral twice, then managed to open the gate from Hoku’s back. She was latching it behind her when light glared in her eyes, making her squint.

  Some trick of light made Darby think someone stood on the iron staircase leading up to the apartment over Sun House.

  She blinked and no one was there.

  She must be sun-dazzled, because she’d really thought someone had motioned her to come up the stairs.

  Knock it off, Darby told herself.

  Hadn’t she just learned a lesson about daydreaming astride a nearly wild horse?

  But suddenly Darby thought, How many times has Aunty Cathy offered to let me go through that stuff of Mom’s?

  When Ellen Kealoha had left Wild Horse Island, swearing she’d never come back, she’d left some possessions behind.

  Jonah had stored them in old-fashioned striped hatboxes with ribbon handles, and stowed them in the upstairs apartment he’d built, hoping for his daughter’s return.

  For years it had stood empty. And even when Aunty Cathy had moved into the apartment with her daughter, Megan, she’d kept the boxes on a desk in the corner.

  So what if I looked inside them?

  Why shouldn’t I—?

  Nothing was more important than persuading her mother to stay on Wild Horse Island. To do that, maybe Darby needed to know why Ellen had left in the first place. The striped hatboxes might hold important clues.

  Darby smoothed her hand over Hoku’s mane, thinking. The filly’s ears pricked at the whine of wind through the Zinks’ barbed-wire fence.

  Darby balanced her m
other’s privacy against wanting to be prepared. Mom wouldn’t have left that stuff behind if it was super secret, would she?

  She rode Hoku toward the freshly repaired hitching rack, slid off, looped a rope around her filly’s neck, and tied her with a secure knot.

  Then she walked quickly toward the apartment stairs.

  Aunty Cathy wouldn’t mind if she was up there, so why did she feel sneaky?

  Darby broke into a jog. There was no time to analyze why.

  She bounded up the stairs as fast as she could go, and before she even touched the doorknob, she was picturing how she’d run back downstairs, arms loaded with her mom’s stuff, before the white ‘Iolani Ranch truck reached home.

  Chapter Two

  For the first time in her shaggy little life, Pipsqueak, aka Pip, Megan’s white Lhasa Apso dog, didn’t bark to announce she was on guard in the Katos’ apartment.

  So Darby wasn’t thinking about anything except the pink-and-white-striped hatboxes until she opened the door and the dog darted out.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Darby grabbed for Pip, but the dog had already slipped between her ankles. Leaving a whiff of floral doggy shampoo in her wake, Pip headed for the big dogs dozing in the ranch yard.

  The little whirlwind of a dog was trouble. Her newest, favorite victim was the orphan piglet Darby had rescued. Pip wasn’t headed for the pigpen yet, but her barks had already alerted the Australian shepherds.

  Pip incited the big dogs to follow her into all kinds of trouble, from tormenting horses to making Francie, the goat, faint. Because this habit was growing worse instead of better, Jonah had decreed that Pip wasn’t allowed outside alone.

  “I have more important things to do than be your chaperone,” Darby said, but then she saw Pip streaking toward Hoku.