Mistwalker

by Terri Farley

  But Hoku had stopped playing. She sniffed, nostrils sucking in scents from Darby’s ankles to her collarbone. Then she stamped, looked away, and swished her tail.

  “Ready to ride?” Darby asked her horse.

  Hoku yawned, but her boredom disappeared when Darby offered the halter. Hoku shoved her muzzle toward the nosepiece. Once the halter was buckled, she bumped her rump against Darby, asking why she didn’t use the fence to climb on.

  “I’m taking you to the round pen,” she told the filly. “Then I’ll get on.”

  Frustrated with the delay, Hoku lunged to the end of her striped rope and led the way.

  Cade held the gate open.

  “Do you remember what set her off last time you tried that one-rein stop?” Cade asked. His voice made Hoku flash her ears backward in a token warning, but she didn’t pause to threaten him.

  “Sure, it was the farrier’s stupid truck backfiring and me not paying attention,” Darby said. She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice as she mounted Hoku.

  Once Darby had positioned herself on the filly’s back, holding the lead rope rein, Hoku lowered her head, then sighed in contentment as if she’d been thrown a forkful of hay.

  “I’m glad to be back,” Darby whispered to her horse.

  “Just ride her around the fence line, nice and easy,” Cade said as he climbed the outside of the round pen, “while I tell you what me and Kit figured out.

  “A horse likes to travel straight. That’s how she’s balanced and safe. When she’s bent like you had her the other day, only one idea’s poundin’ through her brain. ‘I gotta get straight. If I run in circles, something will eat me.’”

  Darby rode Hoku around the corral at a smooth walk. Riding bareback, she felt no tension in the filly’s muscles, so she listened to Cade and tried to memorize every word.

  “But the rider’s thinking, ‘I’ve gotta stop her and show her I’ve got control.’ Now, folks have been doing that with one rein for a long time, but they’ve also found that lots of horses keep going, and they get fallen on.

  “And if you depend on that one-rein stop, what happens on a skinny mountain trail? If Hoku scents something prowling and she’s scared enough when you bend her, you’re both going off the edge.”

  Kimo walked up to the pen, shovel over his shoulder, with the grulla gelding following.

  “Tell you what else,” Kimo said. “You pull her around like that too often, it gets just like weight lifting, yeah? Pretty soon Hoku’s got strong muscles in her neck and she pulls back. Or spooks every time you jiggle a rein, afraid you’re going to spin her.”

  Hoku picked her hooves up in a perfect cow-horse jog.

  “So what do I do instead?” Darby asked. “If Pip came yapping into the corral and Hoku started acting up? And what does this have to do with ‘broncs’?”

  “It’s real simple,” Cade said. “Listen first; then you can try it, if you’re real gentle.”

  “I always am,” Darby insisted, and she felt good when Cade nodded in agreement.

  “This is what you’ll do: Pull one side of the rein back toward your belt buckle, not hard, now, and lift the other up toward your breastbone. It’d be easier for her to understand if you had split reins, but we’ll start with what she’s used to.”

  Darby watched Hoku’s ears. They didn’t flatten in irritation, just stayed where they were as she lifted her head. She slowed, but made no jerky, panicky movements.

  “Good girl,” Darby told her horse.

  “Now here comes Jonah. How’s she feel about the ATV?” Cade asked.

  Darby didn’t answer. Instead she read Hoku’s body language. The filly’s sides heated under Darby’s knees. A trot lengthened into an unruly half lope as Hoku veered to the far side of the round pen.

  “Now,” Cade urged softly.

  Darby drew one side of the rope back to her belt buckle and lifted the other toward her sternum. Hoku’s front hooves lifted an inch or so off the ground before she continued to jog around the pen.

  “Yes!” Cade shouted, and his yell meant Darby had to go through the maneuver again, because Hoku objected to his noise. “How simple is that! You gave her the chance to do right, and she did!”

  Darby worked with her horse until dark, letting her know she was home.

  “For good, I hope,” she told Hoku. And when she confessed that she’d left the sugar in her suitcase, Hoku didn’t mind.

  Hay and Darby were enough.

  Darby’s legs were weak from exertion. Riding, tennis, rock climbing, and swimming had caught up with her muscles by the time she made it into Sun House. Her ankles ached as she tugged off her boots, then slumped against the wall behind the entrance hall bench.

  Two days away from Hoku had seemed like forever, but it had been nice of her mom to let her return without making her feel guilty.

  Darby smiled to herself as she made it down the hall, threw her riding clothes into the hamper, showered, and then tottered into her room. She laid out school clothes for the next day—what was it? Monday? No, Tuesday—and set her alarm clock to go off a little later than usual.

  It felt good to crawl into her own bed.

  The phone rang. Darby’s eyes popped open. Five thirty.

  Darby closed her eyes and listened. Why wasn’t Jonah hurrying to answer it? Could he already be up and outside? Probably.

  Eyes still closed, Darby rolled out of bed and used the wall to guide herself out of her room and down the hall, until she reached the kitchen. And the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “You didn’t call me back last night.”

  It was Ann.

  “I’m so sorry,” Darby muttered.

  “Not”—Ann interrupted herself with a yawn—“as sorry as you’re going to be.”

  Darby blinked. She opened one eye all the way and asked, “What do you mean?”

  For a second they both yawned, but Ann sounded awake as she said, “You need to do an experiment off that list Mr. Silva gave us before spring break. It’s due today. No excuses. He assigned people to call everyone who was absent. ‘Everyone’ included you.”

  Mr. Silva, the warlock of makeup work. Her only falling grade.

  Mom, the ruler of her future. Part of this decision will be based on your grades, young lady.

  “Darby? Did you go back to sleep?”

  “No. Of course not. Sleeping, I could never dream up such a good friend. You woke up at dawn to call me when—”

  “You can kiss my feet at school. Right now, you’d better get started. You do have that handout, right?”

  “Is it on blue paper?” Darby asked.

  “Yep, and let me give you a tip. Look at the list of experiments titled ‘Includes only ingredients commonly found in home kitchen.’”

  “Perfect.” Darby’s gaze shifted to the kitchen window. A soft rain hissed against the grass outside. Lots of people thought rain was good luck, but she crossed her fingers, just to be safe.

  “There’s a test when class starts. That’s when you write up your results. Now, just do the experiment and observe. Good night.”

  “What do you mean? It’s morning.”

  “Not for me,” Ann said through a yawn. “I can sleep for another hour.”

  “I know how I’m going to repay you!” Darby yelled before Ann could hang up. “You’re going to be a member of the Explorers Club.”

  “I’m not asking what that is. I might have trouble falling asleep.”

  As soon as Ann hung up, Darby retrieved her handout and skimmed the topics. Then, to remind Mr. Silva of the high grade she and Ann had gotten on their volcanic observation, Darby picked a volcano experiment.

  Good old Mr. Silva, Darby thought as she searched out a large plastic soda bottle, dish-washing soap, baking soda, vinegar, and red food coloring. He really tried to make science fun.

  She couldn’t find a pan like the one in the picture, but she could probably do without it, since she wasn’t carrying the experiment
to school.

  Darby tipped over the plastic bottle with her elbow. After setting it upright, she spilled the last tablespoon of baking soda she was measuring into the bottle.

  Wake up, Darby ordered herself.

  Darby added a pinch more baking soda to make up for what she’d spilled.

  Next, she added a few squirts of detergent and a drop of food coloring, and poured in enough vinegar to cover the stuff in the bottom of the bottle.

  Darby was rolling the stiffness from her shoulders and wondering how Patrick Zink’s centipede bite felt, when she realized she should have read all of the directions before she started.

  The baking soda and detergent had just been sitting there innocently until she’d added the vinegar. Now that the vinegar had mixed with soda, fizzing bubbles of gas forced suds up the bottle’s neck.

  “And this is when the pan would have been handy,” Darby muttered.

  The foamy mess overflowed onto the kitchen counter. And beyond. Would the bottle ever stop streaming pretend pink lava?

  Darby tried to enjoy the overflowing ooze, since she couldn’t look away. She had to let the experiment trash the kitchen, understand what was happening, and hope there was still time to clean up.

  After all, she had to do an A-level job of documenting this on her test. She was determined to stay on ‘Iolani Ranch, so she’d leave nothing to chance.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Darby planned to introduce Patrick and Ann before school that day. They’d arranged to meet on the Link, a bridge that vaulted high over the center of the school, giving everyone who stood there a view of the complete campus.

  “I’ve seen him, of course, but I’ve never had a class with Patrick Zink,” Ann said as she and Darby headed for the Link. When Ann lowered her voice, Darby could tell she was a bit ashamed to ask, “He’s…is he weird?”

  “It depends,” Darby said, shrugging. “Maybe a little, but he’s got an amazing paint horse, Mistwalker. He changed her name from Mofongo—”

  “That’s a plus,” Ann said.

  “And he knows the ruins of the old sugar plantation like it’s his personal playground, which it pretty much is—”

  “Because his parents own it,” Ann finished for her. “So, he’s rich?”

  “I try not to hold that against him, since my best friend is rich,” Darby teased.

  “No, we’re not,” Ann said. “Just last night my dad was saying we’re right back where we were when we lived in Nevada. Land and horse rich, but money poor.”

  “Anyway,” Darby went on, “I get the feeling he’s so smart he makes both of us look like slackers.”

  Patrick and Ann hit it off immediately. In fact, Darby was almost late to class because of them. Darby realized the two had become instant friends when she had to leave them talking.

  As she hurried to class, Darby heard Patrick’s voice saying, “Actually, the centipede’s bite is painful but not deadly.”

  Ann caught up with Darby just outside Miss Day’s English classroom, and Ann agreed she wanted to go exploring with Patrick. They’d decided to meet after school and ride out to the sugar mill. Ann had never been there, and she was eager to meet Mistwalker, too.

  Just before the bell rang, Ann stopped to rub the knee she’d injured playing soccer and asked, “So, all the Band-Aids and casts…?”

  Darby shrugged again. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know whether he’s accident prone or just plain fearless, but I guess we’ll find out.”

  Some days at school are so great, it’s like your brain is Velcro, Darby thought later.

  In English, Miss Day was talking about the author Madeleine L’Engle again, and she wrote her favorite L’Engle quotation on the board.

  “‘Love isn’t what you feel, it’s what you do,’” Miss Day read, and everyone must have immediately gotten it like she did, Darby thought, because they all wrote it down.

  The quotation had to be banished while Darby was hunched over her Ecology test, writing up the results of this morning’s experiment. She glanced up at the clock and caught Mr. Silva looking over her shoulder, reading her analysis and chuckling.

  For an instant she was worried, but he gave her a thumbs-up and continued prowling the rows of desks.

  P.E. was rained out, so Miss Day had the class count off by threes. The “ones” would have a “crunch” competition. The “twos” would act as spotters and record the results.

  “The threes—”

  Darby’s eyes squinched shut. Her muscles would protest almost any task.

  “—will have silent study hall in the library.”

  Darby’s fist shot toward the ceiling, celebrating without her consent before she calmly folded her arms together and tried to look studious.

  That afternoon, Darby took special care grooming Navigator.

  “You’re a muddy mess,” she said, then dragged a mounting block up beside the big gelding so she could reach his back.

  Navigator loved mud puddles, and she had to use a rubber curry comb to loosen slabs and flakes of mud from his hair before she could even think of using a brush.

  “It would have been lots easier to ride Hoku,” she told him, but Darby knew that wouldn’t have been a great idea.

  Mistwalker was young and flighty. Patrick had said the filly allowed him to ride “when she felt like it.”

  Ann’s horse was Sugarfoot. The gelding was beautiful, a caramel-and-white paint, and though his training was coming along, he was still a “chaser.” According to Ann, the best thing to do if Sugarfoot set upon you was “stand your ground and holler.”

  “Not good playmates for Hoku,” Darby told Navigator as she dabbed a damp sponge at the corner of his eye. “But I don’t think you’ll be corrupted.”

  Navigator stared at her. The rust-colored hair circling his eyes gave him a wise look.

  You can depend on me, Navigator seemed to say, and Darby did. The seventeen-hand-high gelding had earned his name by finding his way home from every place on the island.

  “You’re the fastest trail guide around these parts,” she drawled to him.

  “Don’t sweet-talk my horses,” Jonah’s voice pleaded, but Darby could see he was joking.

  “I forgot,” Darby said, although she knew he wouldn’t believe her for a second.

  “Off to ride with Wild Ann and the Zink boy, yeah?”

  “Yep, but I’m running late,” Darby said.

  “Tell ’em since you’re no malihini anymore,” he said, taking the saddle from her arms, “you’re runnin’ on Hawaiian time.”

  Darby shivered with delight. Not because Jonah had relieved her of the burden, but because he’d reclassified her. In his eyes, she wasn’t a newcomer anymore.

  Jonah settled her saddle on the woven saddle blanket and fed the cinch through the buckle without looking.

  “You the one who put him onto this fence deal?” Jonah asked.

  “Patrick? Well, sort of. I just mentioned all I knew about his family was that they used barbed wire,” Darby admitted.

  Jonah didn’t comment on whether or not that was rude. He just nodded and used his boot to move the mounting block next to Navigator.

  Once Darby was in the saddle, he said, “Thought your mother was coming to ride today.”

  Startled, Darby tried to remember exactly what her mother had said. She remembered the discussion of private school and the napkin full of sugar cubes. But for some reason she wasn’t sure if her mother had said they’d ride on Tuesday or Wednesday. Finally, she said, “Tomorrow, I think.”

  Jonah shrugged and turned his wrist in a Shaka.

  “Have fun,” he said. And then, just as she was passing Sun House, he called after her.

  “Granddaughter!”

  “Yes?”

  “Good call not taking your filly.”

  “Thank—”

  “Don’t think she’d care much for those train tracks.”

  Darby rode on, smiling, until Navigator hopped over the cattle gua
rd at the ranch’s front gate. Only then did it occur to her that Jonah knew exactly where she was going.

  Her smile faltered briefly until a second revelation hit her. If Jonah knew where she was going to explore, he’d probably known about her mom’s explorations, too.

  Darby heard Patrick and Ann chattering as she approached the neighbor’s laundry line, where they’d agreed to meet.

  “But see, when I moved here, people told me the Zinks were lazy.”

  Darby gasped at Ann’s remark, but Patrick didn’t sound like he’d taken offense.

  “To a certain extent they are—not me, because I’m going to school—but my parents are both just doing their own things while they wait for the land to return to its original state. Their ancestors ruined the land, but sometimes you have to break with the ancestors and do what’s right.”

  By the time Darby rode Navigator into sight, Ann and Patrick had progressed from Patrick’s theory on ancestor reverence to Ann’s wondering which undiscovered species of wildlife would have remained if the burning of the forest and realignment of traditional water courses hadn’t happened.

  Instead of Sugarfoot, Ann rode Soda, a blackish-blue roan, which startled at the sight of Navigator. Patrick sat with bare legs dangling astride Mistwalker.

  “Don’t mind me,” Darby said as she halted her dark gelding near her friends.

  “Aloha!” Patrick said, and Mistwalker surged forward. By nibbling his mane she reminded Navigator they’d met before.

  “She looks beautiful,” Darby said.

  “My mom bought the bridle and I had to cut it down to fit, but it hardly shows, does it?”

  “Not at all,” Darby said.

  The black leather headstall was a single strap polished to a high shine, attached to a silver D-ring bit.

  Soda mouthed his own bit, loudly and nervously. The gelding had been kept in a stall “no bigger than a bathtub” for most of his life, according to Ann, who’d been with her parents when they rescued the horse from his neglectful owner on the island of Kauai.

  “And you look pretty, too, Soda,” Darby said, smooching at the horse. He looked up at her, surprised, but not scared.