Snowfire

by Terri Farley

  “Were you up all night?” asked Ann. Her wild red curls bounced as she blocked an avalanche of books plummeting from Darby’s locker.

  “Almost all night. When I finally fell asleep I had the worst dreams.”

  As they walked to Ecology, Darby told Ann about the wild horses’ reunion.

  “It’s kind of romantic,” Ann said, tilting her head toward Darby. “How did Black Lava even know she was there?”

  Darby shook her head. “Smell? Sixth sense? I don’t know.”

  “That’s why I love horses so much,” Ann said. “Just when you start thinking it’s all about picking up poop and digging dirt out of their feet, they do something magical and spooky. Like this.”

  Darby would have agreed, except that they’d reached the doorway to Ecology and a boy named Tyson was blocking their way.

  Darby stiffened. For some reason Tyson loved to tease her. No, she corrected herself, it had gone beyond teasing. One day he’d make fun of her because she’d embraced her new culture with excitement. The next day he’d act like she had no right to island customs, since she wasn’t one hundred percent Hawaiian.

  Whatever the reason, he was a real pain. Ann shoved past him, careful not to touch him with her armload of books, but he made a huge uproar by pretending to fall over a trash can.

  Darby asked, “Why are you so awful all the time?”

  “Because he has the brains of a mongoose,” Ann suggested.

  “That’s being generous,” Darby snapped.

  Tyson gave a self-satisfied laugh and headed for his desk in the back of the room.

  When Darby and Ann sat down, Ann began brushing at the front of her blouse.

  “Sugar,” she mumbled. “All over the…”

  At her friend’s sudden silence, Darby looked up from her book.

  “I know what we’re going to cook,” Ann said. She picked a single crystal of sugar from her shirt and held it so close to Darby’s face that her eyes crossed.

  “What?” Darby asked, sitting back before Ann made her dizzy.

  “Malasadas!” Ann crowed. “That’s what this is from,” she said, brushing the front of her shirt again. “Mom stopped at a malasada truck on the way in, but hers are even better.”

  “We could demonstrate how to make malasadas?” Darby asked, but she was already picturing the sugar-coated, deep-fried pastry.

  “Aunty Cathy makes them so well you can hardly believe it. Come over after school and we’ll get her recipe….”

  Before they could celebrate their anticipated A’s in English, their Ecology teacher entered wearing a flapping white lab coat. As he passed out the tests, they forgot everything else.

  Ann finished the final exam early and started writing their Food Network–style script.

  “I can finish this next period,” Ann promised Darby as they filed out of Ecology. “Since I’m an office aide, I won’t be taking a test. But how are we going to make them in class without a stove?”

  “Aunty Cathy makes them in an electric frying pan,” Darby said. “At least, I think so. I’m always too busy eating to really pay attention to how she does it.”

  “We’ll work it out. I’ll call my mom and tell her I’m going home with you to study,” Ann said. “Okay? And while we work on the malasadas, we can talk about the rodeo!”

  “Definitely,” Darby agreed, and then she ran down the hall toward the gym, hoping her P.E. test really was the “piece of cake” Megan had promised.

  It turned out that Ann had to go home and help put Sugarfoot in his corral before she could come over to ‘Iolani Ranch.

  The caramel-and-white pinto was a problem horse, Ann admitted, but since she and her mother had been working with him he was improving, and Ann’s mother promised she’d bring Ann over to practice making malasadas as soon as she could.

  Darby wasn’t entirely sad about the change in plans.

  On the drive to ‘Iolani Ranch, Aunty Cathy had agreed to help with the malasada project. She’d make sure they had all the ingredients, set up the electric frying pan, and simplify the recipe—even though, she’d said pointedly, it was a pretty last-minute arrangement.

  As soon as she got home, Darby changed into her old jeans and her red sweatshirt with the cutoff sleeves. She was going down to visit Hoku no matter what.

  She was nearly out the front door when the kitchen phone rang.

  She made a growling noise, since she knew she was alone.

  Jonah was down by Hoku’s corral with Kit checking on Medusa. Aunty Cathy and Megan had just gone upstairs, so Darby gave in and grabbed the phone.

  “Darby, I’m glad I caught you,” Cricket said. “Would you and Megan be willing to join a group of volunteers who are riding rain-forest and grasslands paths, trying to keep Black Lava and his herd from returning to Crimson Vale? They’ve been seen in the area and seem to be trying to get back.”

  Impatient to reach Hoku, Darby didn’t tell Cricket how much she’d seen of Black Lava the last few days. She simply asked, “Why not just let them return?”

  “The water hasn’t been certified potable yet,” Cricket replied.

  Potable equaled drinkable, Darby was pretty sure, but Cricket took the gap in conversation as confusion.

  “That’s why we drove them up Sky Mountain in the first place, remember? Of course you do,” Cricket answered herself.

  Maybe if Darby hadn’t seen Black Lava’s wild desperation with her own eyes, she would have agreed to help. But she had.

  Still, she respected Cricket too much to argue with her, so she made an excuse.

  “I’ll have to ask Jonah,” Darby said. “I’ll tell Megan about it, too.”

  “Okay,” Cricket said, but she knew she was being put off. “Kit told me what happened last night with Black Lava.”

  “Oh.”

  “Seems to me we’d be doing a good deed for the horses and your grandfather.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Darby promised. Then, feeling a little weird, she said good-bye to Cricket, hung up the phone, and sat on the bench to put on her boots.

  Because she didn’t want to make Hoku jealous, Darby walked toward the broodmare pasture instead of riding. She hadn’t gone far when Jonah came out from the tack room.

  “You ever going to change the shavings in that Pigolo’s pen?” Jonah asked.

  Darby nodded. She couldn’t utter a word of complaint, since she’d been the one to lecture the family about pigs being as clean as people allowed them to be.

  “And Francie?” Jonah said, gesturing toward the black-and-white goat dozing by Sun House. “That goat doesn’t like her new hay. Better ask Cathy what Cricket said to do about it.”

  Darby agreed to do everything, especially since Jonah hadn’t mentioned his plans for barbecuing one of the animals on Fourth of July, and then she told him about her conversation with Cricket.

  He shrugged. “I think Kit scared him good.”

  “I hope so,” Darby said. “Do you think he went back to Sky Mountain?”

  “He’d be a fool to do that if Snowfire’s taken his pick of his mares.”

  Darby was just about to head down the hill to her horse when Jonah put his rough hand on her shoulder. “Cathy’s going back into town. Said she had to pick up a big jug of cooking oil—”

  That would be for the malasadas, Darby thought guiltily. “—and stop in at the feed store. Cricket talked to her about some special hay cubes for your goat, but she forgot them when she was picking you girls up. I guess the test schedule threw her off.”

  Darby didn’t ask how Francie had turned into her goat. She just said, “I was going down to work with Hoku.”

  “I’ll help you with that later,” Kit shouted across the ranch yard.

  Great, Darby thought.

  Jonah crossed his arms. “Cathy needs your help.”

  Darby knew better than to object. Cathy was helping her, so she had to help Cathy. “Okay,” Darby said, heading toward the ranch truck.

  “There
she is,” Aunty Cathy said to Megan, who was apparently coming, too. “Just in time to go back into town.”

  As they drove, Darby recounted Cricket’s request that they join other volunteers in blocking Black Lava and his herd’s return to Crimson Vale.

  “I hope Jonah’s right that he’s taken his herd back up to Sky Mountain,” she said. “I hate to say no to Cricket, but it just doesn’t feel right to keep blocking Black Lava like that.”

  “It’s for the good of the horses,” Aunty Cathy reminded her.

  “But they don’t like Sky Mountain,” Darby said. “I think Snowfire…Well, I’m not sure what’s happening up there, but I know Black Lava had three foals before, and now he only has one.”

  When Aunty Cathy looked up in the rearview mirror to meet Darby’s eyes, she was frowning.

  Aunty Cathy parked outside the feed store, and they hurried inside.

  The store smelled like some kind of exotic breakfast food. They wended their way through aisles stacked to the ceiling with burlap bags, but when they reached Cricket’s office, in the back, they learned she’d left early.

  According to a clerk, Cricket had to make arrangements for an animal rescue, but she had left a sample bag of goat chow for Francie.

  Darby didn’t say a word about Cricket’s absence, but she was a little relieved. She didn’t want to defend her reluctance to frighten Black Lava off the trails to Crimson Vale.

  Aunty Cathy ran across the street to the grocery store for malasada supplies, while Darby and Megan loaded the dog food and Francie’s new goat chow on a handcart and wheeled it out to the truck.

  Darby and Megan pitched the heavy sacks into the back of the vehicle.

  “Thank you, ladies,” Aunty Cathy said as they all climbed back inside.

  Traffic was heavier than usual when they reached the road. “The tourist season is starting,” Aunty Cathy noted. “And there’ll be even more people in time for the rodeo.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Darby replied.

  “I’ve been thinking about Black Lava’s foals,” Aunty Cathy said. This time when she met Darby’s eyes in the mirror, she looked sympathetic. “In fact, I bumped into Cricket at the market, picking up a sandwich for her dinner, and told her about the herd.”

  They were nearly out of the small downtown area, and Aunty Cathy picked up speed as she turned onto the main road leading toward the ranch.

  “And what did she say?” Megan asked.

  “Does she think the trip to Sky Mountain was just too much for them?” Darby suggested.

  “Nothing like that,” Aunty Cathy said carefully. “Apparently wild stallions…Well, sometimes when they steal each other’s mares, they kill their foals.”

  “No way!” Megan said. “Why?”

  But Darby had already figured it out, or maybe Samantha, back in Nevada, had once hinted at the awful behavior. “Survival of the fittest?” Darby asked.

  Aunty Cathy nodded. “The strongest stallion wants his babies to live, so when he steals a mare, he does away with her foal. Sometimes he even injures mares who are expecting foals, so that the old stallion’s young won’t be born.”

  “That’s awful,” Megan said.

  “Here we go.” Aunty Cathy accelerated, maybe as a distraction, or because she was relieved that the pace of the cars around them had picked up.

  One of the feed sacks in the back slid off the pile and crashed down to the side.

  Startled, Aunty Cathy swiveled a half turn in her seat to see what had happened. “What was—”

  “Mom! Look out!” Megan shouted.

  Chapter Seven

  Darby barely believed what she saw through the front windshield.

  Black Lava’s herd was running across the road!

  Aunty Cathy jammed to an abrupt stop. Darby lurched forward. The feed sacks slammed behind her, and for a moment she was afraid she’d be folded in half by the seat back. Her seat belt jerked tight across her shoulder and chest.

  The vehicle fishtailed. Brakes squealed. A horn blared from somewhere outside. And then they stopped.

  The truck was filled with feed dust. Darby batted at the powder swirling in front of her eyes.

  The horses were still right in front of them. A screech made Darby turn and stare through the back window. A silver car—

  “Don’t hit us!” Darby shouted. Could a collision push them into the horses?

  When the car behind them stopped clear of them, Darby unsnapped her seat belt and leaned forward to get a better look at the horses.

  Terrified by the squealing, smoking tires and machines, the small black foal had crashed into the back of the mare in front of him. She wasn’t his mother, and she was angry. She turned and clacked her teeth at him so loudly, Darby could hear the sound inside the car.

  Seeing her colt in trouble, his bay mother ran between the chestnut mare and the colt. The chestnut bumped the bay, sending her into a panicked slide before she fell to her knees.

  “Everybody okay?” Aunty Cathy’s question sounded more like a demand. Once Megan and Darby both said yes, Aunty Cathy was out of the vehicle, heading toward the horses.

  “Mom! What do you think you’re doing!” Megan shouted.

  Black Lava snorted. The bay’s hooves scrambled on asphalt as she pulled herself upright, then led her foal off the street and into the forest, following the other mares.

  For a few crazy heartbeats, Darby watched Black Lava stand guard at the pavement’s edge, giving his herd time to escape. And then he must have stepped backward into the foliage, because suddenly he was gone.

  When Darby and Megan joined Aunty Cathy outside the truck, a vehicle two cars back from theirs had begun honking its horn, not realizing what was causing the delay.

  Aunty Cathy quickly made sure that the driver who had nearly collided with her—an elderly man in khaki shorts and a colorful Hawaiian shirt—was not injured, and then rushed back to the girls.

  Darby and Megan were shaking feed dust out of their hair and rubbing their watery eyes. Aunty Cathy asked again if they were hurt.

  “No. We’ve just got all this dust in our eyes,” Darby said.

  “Okay, then let’s go. We’re blocking traffic.”

  “Why was that idiot horse bringing his herd across the road?” Megan yelled.

  “Megan—” Aunty Cathy began.

  “Every safe path he wants to take is blocked!” Darby snapped.

  “Girls—”

  “That’s the idea!” Megan shouted at Darby. “So he can’t go drink poison water!”

  “Yeah, look what it’s doing! If your mom hadn’t stopped in time, they’d be dead anyway!”

  Aunty Cathy placed her thumb and a finger in the corners of her mouth, and gave a shrill whistle.

  Darby and Megan stared at her.

  “That’s better,” she said gently. “We’re all safe. The horses weren’t hurt, and neither was the truck. You’re not mad at each other. Not really. You’re just a little bit scared.”

  “I’m not…” Both girls started to deny the statement, then stopped.

  Darby thought of Medusa, covering up fear with fury. Darby met Megan’s brown eyes. They both shrugged.

  Aunty Cathy hustled them back into the truck, restarted it, and drove straight down the proper lane, even though her hands were shaking on the wheel.

  Even though she rode in silence with Megan and Aunty Cathy, Darby’s mind was anything but quiet.

  Black Lava would not stay on Sky Mountain. She was sure of it now. No wild stallion walked across a busy highway if he had another choice.

  Snowfire couldn’t be blamed for driving a younger stallion off his territory, but the white stallion was the problem. She’d seen him chasing Black Lava and his herd off the ridge. The chase had lasted for only a moment, but she’d known what it meant.

  Back when she’d lived in Pacific Pinnacles Darby hadn’t known about listening to what her heart told her. But coming to Hawaii had changed things.

&nb
sp; Both Jonah and Tutu had told her to trust her mana—that which she’d learned from books, people, and experience—and her māna—the truth she was born knowing.

  Both were telling her that Black Lava and his herd should be allowed to go home.

  Several times in the past Cricket had asked Darby her opinions about horses.

  Darby really hoped Cricket would trust her this time.

  When they arrived back at Sun House, Darby immediately phoned the rescue barn and asked for Cricket.

  While she waited, Darby realized that dinner was being prepared around her.

  “I’ll take my turn,” she promised quietly. “And oh! We’re going to be practicing making malasadas, so we’ll need some volunteer tasters.”

  Aunty Cathy and Megan laughed way too much at her offer, and Darby was wondering if it was some kind of reaction to the near accident when she thought of Ann.

  Oh, my gosh! Ann was supposed to have come over after she’d gotten Sugarfoot back in his pen. Had Ann and her mother driven all the way over to ‘Iolani Ranch, only to find it deserted?

  But then Cricket was on the phone, and Darby told her, carefully and calmly and in front of two witnesses—neither of whom contradicted her—what had happened.

  Over the phone, Darby heard the clash of metal buckets and a door closing at the rescue barn.

  “That’s why I hesitated when you asked me to join the volunteers on the paths,” Darby admitted when Cricket said nothing. “If he’s, uh, crossing streets and, well, trying to go between cars to get home…I don’t know. Do you…” Darby swallowed hard. She wasn’t a know-it-all, and she didn’t want to sound like one, but she had to ask. “Do you really think we’ll keep those horses out of Crimson Vale?”

  Cricket released a long sigh. There was a rustling sound against the telephone receiver, and Darby pictured Cricket rewinding her bun and stabbing it through with something to hold it in place.

  “Some riders are already pushing the herd back toward Sky Mountain.”

  “Oh, no,” Darby said.

  “I’ll call the conservancy and see if I can get in touch with the wildlife biologist,” she said at last. “I’ll tell him what happened and ask if he can do an emergency water test.”