Mistwalker
Page 15
ANIMALS!
Hoku—my wonderful sorrel filly! She’s about two and a half years old, a full sister to the Phantom, and boy, does she show it! She’s fierce (hates men) but smart, and a one-girl (ME!) horse for sure. She is definitely a herd girl, and when it comes to choosing between me and other horses, it’s a real toss-up. Not that I blame her. She’s run free for a long time, and I don’t want to take away what makes her special.
She loves hay, but she’s really HEAD-SHY due to Shan Stonerow’s early “training,” which, according to Sam, was beating her.
Hoku means “star.” Her dam is Princess Kitty, but her sire is a mustang named Smoke and he’s mustang all the way back to a “white renegade with murder in his eye” (Mrs. Allen).
Navigator—my riding horse is a big, heavy Quarter Horse that reminds me of a knight’s charger. He has Three Bars breeding (that’s a big deal), but when he picked me, Jonah let him keep me! He’s black with rusty rings around his eyes and a rusty muzzle. (Even though he looks black, the proper description is brown, they tell me.) He can find his way home from any place on the island. He’s sweet, but no pushover. Just when I think he’s sort of a safety net for my beginning riding skills, he tests me.
Joker—Cade’s Appaloosa gelding is gray splattered with black spots and has a black mane and tail. He climbs like a mountain goat and always looks like he’s having a good time. I think he and Cade have a history; maybe Jonah took them in together?
Biscuit—buckskin gelding, one of Ben’s horses, a dependable cow pony. Kit rides him a lot.
Hula Girl—chestnut cutter
Blue Ginger—blue roan mare with tan foal
Honolulu Lulu—bay mare
Tail Afire (Koko)—fudge brown mare with silver mane and tail
Blue Moon—Blue Ginger’s baby
Moonfire—Tail Afire’s baby
Black Cat—Lady Wong’s black foal
Luna Dancer—Hula Girl’s bay baby
Honolulu Half Moon
Conch—grulla cow pony, gelding, needs work. Megan rides him sometimes.
Kona—big gray, Jonah’s cow horse
Luna—beautiful, full-maned bay stallion is king of ‘Iolani Ranch. He and Jonah seem to have a bond.
Lady Wong—dappled gray mare and Kona’s dam. Her current foal is Black Cat.
Australian shepherds—pack of five: Bart, Jack, Jill, Peach, and Sass
Pipsqueak/Pip—little shaggy white dog that runs with the big dogs, belongs to Megan and Cathy
Tango—Megan’s once-wild rose roan mare. I think she and Hoku are going to be pals.
Sugarfoot—Ann Potter’s horse is a beautiful Morab (half Morgan and half Arabian, she told me). He’s a caramel-and-white paint with one white foot. He can’t be used with “clients” at the Potters’ because he’s a chaser. Though Ann and her mother, Ramona, have pretty much schooled it out of him, he’s still not quite trustworthy. If he ever chases me, I’m supposed to stand my ground, whoop, and holler. Hope I never have to do it!
Flight—this cremello mare belongs to Aunt Babe (she has a whole herd of cremellos) and nearly died of longing for her foal. She was a totally different horse—beautiful and spirited—once she got him back!
Stormbird—Flight’s cream-colored (with a blush of palomino) foal with turquoise eyes has had an exciting life for a four-month-old. He’s been shipwrecked, washed ashore, fended for himself, and rescued.
Medusa—Black Lava’s lead mare—with the heart of a lion—just might be Kit’s new horse.
Black Lava—stallion from Crimson Vale, and the wildest thing I’ve ever seen in my life! He just vibrates with it. He’s always showing his teeth, flashing his eyes (one brown and one blue), rearing, and usually thorns and twigs are snarled in his mane and tail. He killed Kanaka Luna’s sire and Jonah almost shot him for it. He gave him a second chance by cutting an X on the bottom of Black Lava’s hoof wall, so he’d know if he came around again. Wouldn’t you know he likes Hoku?
Soda—Ann’s blue-black horse. Unlike Sugarfoot, he’s a good therapy horse when he’s had enough exercise.
Buckin’ Baxter—blue roan in training as a cow horse and I can stay on him!
Prettypaint—used to be my mom’s horse, but now she lives with Tutu. She’s pale gray with bluish spots on her heels, and silky feathers on her fetlocks. She kneels for Tutu to get on and off, not like she’s doing a trick, but as if she’s carrying a queen.
Mistwalker—is Patrick’s horse. She’s a beautiful black-and-white paint—bred by Jonah! He could hardly stand to admit she was born on ‘Iolani Ranch, which is silly. Her conformation is almost pure Quarter Horse and you can see that beyond her coloring. And what he doesn’t know about Mistwalker’s grandfather (probably) won’t hurt him!
PLACES
Lehua High School—the school Megan and I go to. School colors are red and gold.
Crimson Vale—it’s an amazing and magical place, and once I learn my way around, I bet I’ll love it. It’s like a maze, though. Here’s what I know: From town you can go through the valley or take the ridge road—valley has lily pads, waterfalls, wild horses, and rainbows. The ridge route (Pali?) has sweeping turns that almost made me sick. There are black rock teeter-totter-looking things that are really ancient altars and a SUDDEN drop-off down to a white sand beach. Hawaiian royalty are supposedly buried in the cliffs.
Moku Lio Hihiu—Wild Horse Island, of course!
Sky Mountain—goes up to five thousand feet, sometimes snow-capped, sometimes called Mountain to the Sky by most of the older folks, and it’s supposed to be the home of a white stallion named Snowfire.
Two Sisters—cone-shaped “mountains”—a borderline between them divides Babe’s land from Jonah’s, one of them is an active volcano.
Sun House—our family place. They call it plantation style, but it’s like a sugar plantation, not a Southern mansion. It has an incredible lanai that overlooks pastures all the way to Mountain to the Sky and Two Sisters. Upstairs is this little apartment Jonah built for my mom, but she’s never lived in it.
Hapuna—biggest town on island, has airport, flagpole, public and private schools, etc., palm trees, and coconut trees
‘Iolani Ranch—our home ranch. 2,000 acres, the most beautiful place in the world.
Pigtail Fault—Near the active volcano. It looks more like a steam vent to me, but I’m no expert. According to Cade, it got its name because a poor wild pig ended up head down in it and all you could see was his tail. Too sad!
Sugar Sands Cove Resort—Aunt Babe and her polo-player husband, Phillipe, own this resort on the island. It has sparkling white buildings and beaches and a four-star hotel. The most important thing to me is that Sugar Sands Cove Resort has the perfect water-schooling beach for me and Hoku.
The Old Sugar Plantation—Tutu says it’s a dangerous place. Really, it’s just the ruins of A-Z sugar plantation, half of which belonged to Patrick’s family. Now it’s mostly covered with moss and vines and ferns, but you can still see what used to be train tracks, some stone steps leading nowhere, a chimney, and rickety wooden structures which are hard to identify.
ON THE RANCH, THERE ARE PASTURES WITH NAMES LIKE:
Sugar Mill and Upper Sugar Mill—for cattle
Two Sisters—for young horses, one- and two-year-olds they pretty much leave alone
Flatland—mares and foals
Pearl Pasture—borders the rain forest, mostly two-and three-year-olds in training
Borderlands—saddle herd and Luna’s compound
I guess I should also add me…
Darby Leilani Kealoha Carter—I love horses more than anything, but books come in second. I’m thirteen, and one-quarter Hawaiian, with blue eyes and black hair down to about the middle of my back. On a good day, my hair is my best feature. I’m still kind of skinny, but I don’t look as sickly as I did before I moved here. I think Hawaii’s curing my asthma. Fingers crossed. I have no idea what I did to land on Wild Horse Island, but I want to
stay here forever.
About the Author
Terri Farley is the author of the wildly popular Phantom Stallion series, which has sold one million copies. For her new series, Wild Horse Island, Terri volunteered on a horse ranch in Hawaii for three weeks. After much coaxing, she returned to her husband in Verdi, Nevada, where she lives and writes.
To learn more about Terri’s books and the wild horses of Nevada and Hawaii, visit her online at www.phantomstallion.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Check out the
Phantom Stallion
series, also by Terri Farley!
1
THE WILD ONE
2
MUSTANG MOON
3
DARK SUNSHINE
4
THE RENEGADE
5
FREE AGAIN
6
THE CHALLENGER
7
DESERT DANCER
8
GOLDEN GHOST
9
GIFT HORSE
10
RED FEATHER FILLY
11
UNTAMED
12
RAIN DANCE
13
HEARTBREAK BRONCO
14
MOONRISE
15
KIDNAPPED COLT
16
THE WILDEST HEART
17
MOUNTAIN MARE
18
FIREFLY
19
SECRET STAR
20
BLUE WINGS
21
DAWN RUNNER
22
WILD HONEY
23
GYPSY GOLD
24
RUN AWAY HOME
Read all of Darby’s adventures!
Phantom Stallion WILD HORSE ISLAND
1
THE HORSE CHARMER
2
THE SHINING STALLION
3
RAIN FOREST ROSE
4
CASTAWAY COLT
5
FIRE MAIDEN
6
SEA SHADOW
7
MISTWALKER
Credits
Cover art © 2008 by John Rowe
Copyright
PHANTOM STALLION: WILD HORSE ISLAND #7: MISTWALKER. Copyright © 2008 by Terri Sprenger-Farley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition February 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-188895-3
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