by Terri Farley
“Wow!” Ann exclaimed. “Did you know it would burn like that, Jonah?”
He nodded. “Ancient Hawaiians used papala branches for entertainment. They’d make spears of them, grease them, and then hurl them from the cliffs above the water. The wood was so light the flaming spears got caught by the trade winds and flew all over the place.”
“I’d love to see that,” Darby said. She pictured glowing sticks flying through the air, doing somersaults into the wind.
“If we were closer to the ocean I’d show off, but it’s too dangerous to just throw flaming sticks around near these trees.”
In the campfire’s glow, Jonah’s high cheekbones were shelves above dark hollows. When his heavy black brows lifted as though he’d just been struck with an idea, Darby thought it was a trick of the firelight.
But then her grandfather stood slowly. He looked around, judging his position on this mountain slope.
“If I remember right, there’s a marsh near here. I can toss burning sticks over it, and the water will put out the flames.”
“Awesome!” Ann cheered. “I never expected fireworks tonight.”
Jonah held an already whittled handful of sticks. He handed them to Darby, then took a few uncut branches himself and told the girls to bring their flashlights as he lit their way with his own.
Darby and Ann walked through the darkness, following Jonah with confidence as he led them down a path leading away from their campsite. The girls playfully swung the beams of their flashlights through the darkness, pretending they were bright fairies.
“Ah, here it is. This way,” Jonah said after a ten-minute walk.
They left the path and descended a slope. They’d gone down only maybe three yards before the slant leveled off into a marshy area. Damp earth squished beneath Darby’s boots.
Jonah hung his flashlight lantern on a tree. The marsh turned midnight green.
The night chitter of insects faded.
Jonah looked up. Darby looked, too, seeing that the break in the trees caused by the marsh exposed a sparkling mantle of stars against the night sky. The moon was a silver crescent.
A bird squawked in surprise, and Darby felt prickling along the nape of her neck. They were being watched. She was sure of it.
Let it be horses, Darby thought, not a wild boar and her piglets, or something cranky because they’d roused it from sleep.
Jonah took the malasada from his jacket pocket and used it to grease all the sticks. Then he took a slide-covered box of matches from his pocket. He lit the first match and then the first stick. As he hurled the flame-wrapped stick into the air, it went up, trailing yellow-orange streamers. But it was more dazzling coming down, a falling golden star attended by hundreds of red sparks.
“Better than Fourth of July!” Darby whispered, and the next stick Jonah threw flung off sparks of oil on its way up, then caught an invisible current of air and danced on the breeze.
“Wow,” Ann said.
As the second stick drifted on its fiery course, Jonah launched another flaming stick and another, until three of the light wooden sticks were lifted, making firefly trails on the breeze.
“They’re like balsa wood planes,” Ann said. “Toby and Buck love those things.”
“Same idea,” Jonah agreed, and then, in rapid succession, he launched the first of the smaller sticks.
“Pele’s happy,” Jonah said as the sticks dipped and glided in the darkness.
Better than that, Darby thought, Jonah’s happy.
A rising wind swept one swirling stick off course, away from the others. It sailed to the right, and Ann gasped as it plummeted straight down.
A sudden commotion, a thrashing in the tangle of shrubbery, and then dark forms rose. Darby heard a single, startled neigh.
Ann gripped Darby’s wrist and whispered, “Wild horses!”
Ann was right. The herd had been hiding just yards away. No wonder she’d felt eyes following her.
Snorts and whinnies filled the night as the black forms thundered away.
“Aloha!” Jonah called after the horses. “Papala fireworks and wild horses! A great way to end our show, yeah?”
“You sure took us to the right place at the right time. Did you know they’d be here?” Ann asked.
“I’d like to say yes, but it was only luck.”
Darby gazed at Jonah’s happy face in the lantern light and didn’t believe him. He might not have planned to find the wild horses in this way, not consciously, but his horse charmer’s instinct had been at work from the first moment he set eyes on those papala branches and stopped to cut them.
No, it had started before that, when he told them to make more malasadas and bring them.
Then Jonah had led the girls to water, and, of course, the wild horses were nearby.
“Now that we’ve found what we came to see, let’s go check our campfire and warm up the rest of those malasadas. I’d like to actually eat some,” Jonah said, wiping his hands.
As they walked back to camp, Darby wondered if that had been Black Lava’s herd. She was about to ask Jonah, when it came to her that such a question might crush his good mood. It would obviously remind him of his failing eyesight.
Later, she was glad she hadn’t brought it up. The three of them were sitting by the campfire, eating malasadas, when Jonah said, “Don’t worry, Granddaughter.”
“I’m not worried.”
“You are a little,” he told her. “When I said we’d seen what we’d come to see, I could hear your bones stiffen in disappointment.”
“No,” Darby began, but Jonah laughed.
“Tomorrow we’ll go back to the marsh and track them, see how they look in the sunshine. Now, please pass me another malasada.”
“Okay,” Darby agreed.
As she did, she was pretty sure that Kona’s unhappy snort didn’t mean anything. Neither did the sound of Navigator shifting from hoof to hoof, or Biscuit taking deep drafts of night air.
Chapter Eleven
The first gray rays of dawn woke Darby.
Beside her, Ann was curled down so low in her sleeping bag, only a tuft of curly red hair showed.
Darby fished in her backpack and pulled out clean underwear, socks, jeans, and a T-shirt. She squirmed down into her sleeping bag to change.
When Darby emerged from the tent, she was alone on the misty ridge where they’d set up camp. Last night’s wood smoke scented the air, but that was the only similarity between this place and the site where she’d camped before, with Megan and Ann.
From this ridge she looked through a blanket of fog to see rolling hills and dark swaths of rain forest. Here and there a tree stood tall enough to pierce the densest gray. In the distance, Sky Mountain’s peak rose through clouds.
Rustling in the nearby trees made Darby jump, but it was just her grandfather, arms loaded with wood.
“Good morning,” he greeted her. “I didn’t expect to see you up so early.”
“And I thought you were still asleep,” Darby said.
He shook his head, dropping the wood by the rock circle of last night’s fire. “I wanted to get the fire going to have breakfast ready when you woke up, but since you’re here you can help me start it. I’ll show you how.”
Darby crouched next to her grandfather as he demonstrated how to stack kindling into a little wooden hut. Until it caught, he wouldn’t let her lay the heavier wood on.
“Make sure you stack it so that the air can circulate around it,” he instructed.
“Are we having poi?” Darby asked, remembering what Megan had said.
He looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”
“Megan told us you like to bring it on camping trips,” Darby said.
Brown skin crinkled at the corners of Jonah’s dark eyes as he coaxed the fire into life. “I’ll bet she told you it was delicious, yeah?”
Should she lie or hurt his feelings? She didn’t want to do either. “I don’t remember what she said.”
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“You’re a bad liar, Granddaughter,” he said with a chuckle. “Mekana hates my poi because her mother loads it up with milk and sugar for her, and I make it the traditional way.”
Jonah was right. Aunty Cathy’s mashed taro root tasted a little like the instant oatmeal Darby used to heat in the microwave in California. It was stickier, but mostly she’d noticed its sweetness.
“When I was young, poi was so important to our people that whenever a bowl of poi was uncovered at the table, we believed that the spirits of our ancestors were with us,” Jonah told her. “It was so sacred that any fighting among family members had to come to a stop while the bowl was on the table.”
“That’s a good tradition,” Darby said.
“It is,” Jonah agreed. “And since we were always eating poi, it made for a lot of peaceful meals. I recall times when your aunt Babe and I were fighting, but we had to stop to eat poi. After the meal we often forgot what we’d been fighting about.”
When the fire was strong, Jonah began heating his pot of poi. The smell drew Ann from the tent. With eyebrows raised skeptically, she considered the bubbling white paste, then looked at Darby and asked silently, Poi?
Darby nodded.
“There are some ‘ohelo berries on the bushes over there,” Jonah said, pointing to nearby bushes dotted with berries that looked like a combination of a cranberry and a coffee bean. “Go pick them and you can toss some into the poi. They’re sweet.”
“Remember the last time we went camping and found ‘ohelo berries?” Ann asked as she and Darby headed toward the bushes carrying their empty cups. “The horses went crazy for them.”
“After we eat, let’s pick some extras for them,” Darby suggested. She glanced over at the horses. Kona’s eyes were closed, and a back hoof rested on its point. The wild horses must have moved far enough away that he couldn’t smell them anymore.
Before Darby poured the berries into her bowl, she scooped up a few and arranged them on a flat rock. Tutu had told her that ‘ohelo berries were Pele’s favorites, and though Darby didn’t exactly believe in the volcano goddess, memories of a sky filled with red-hot boulders made her reluctant to skip the tradition.
Jonah’s poi wasn’t terrible, just bland, and adding the ‘ohelo berries helped.
After breakfast they broke camp. Darby and Ann fed the horses and then gave them the berries, which they licked from the girls’ palms before they could put them on the ground.
The girls saddled up, mounted, and watched to see which way Jonah would lead.
Jonah kept Kona at a walk as they moved over smooth pahoehoe. Of course the volcanic rock showed no hoof marks, but when they came to damp grass they took turns watching the ground. Darby still didn’t see signs that horses had passed this way, but she noticed that the grass in the sun stood up straighter than the blades still in the shade.
Jonah gestured for them to follow him toward the marsh, and that was where they spotted the hoofprints of the horses they’d surprised the night before.
“We’ll see if we track them to Sky Mountain,” he explained. “They might’ve climbed higher to get away from us.”
Darby was trying to remember the last time she’d ridden on slippery lava rock like this before, when Jonah slowed and pointed to the ground.
“Fresh tracks,” he said. “Lots of them. Let’s see if we can catch up.” Jonah moved his rein hand just slightly and his gray stepped out, with Biscuit and Navigator right behind him.
Darby had such faith in Navigator’s good sense, even the fast pace over steep terrain didn’t frighten her.
After following the tracks for about a mile, Jonah slowed Kona, then halted. Her grandfather held out his left arm and sighted along it.
“What’s up?” Darby asked.
“The tracks veered off, then just disappeared. They could’ve gone over that slab of rock, but not if they’re headed for Sky Mountain.”
“Maybe Snowfire surprised them,” Darby suggested.
Kona lifted his black-gray muzzle and flattened his ears. Then he danced his front legs forward and back.
Darby and Ann exchanged excited glances, and then looked to Jonah. He pressed Kona’s neck with one hand, telling the horse to settle down, then turned back toward the marsh.
Before they reached it, Jonah took Kona up a trail that overlooked a swath of green grass. Kona neighed again, sounding even more agitated than before.
Darby smothered her gasp. A large herd of horses grazed below them. On a small rise of earth, just high enough to give him a view of the many colored mares and foals, stood Snowfire.
As Jonah motioned for them to move back, he whispered, “If you can see them, they smelled you ten minutes ago.”
Keeping low, they left the trail, dismounted, and led their mounts. Darby planned the placement of her boots, watching for scree that could make her slip, fall, and cause a commotion.
They used trees and bushes for cover, and either they did a good job, or Snowfire didn’t mind their presence.
The majestic, broad-chested white stallion was pure kanaka, a native Hawaiian whose lineage was undiluted by tame horses because his herd had always lived at such a high altitude.
As they watched, Snowfire left his solitary position, following a narrow path, then leaped down to confront a young bay stallion. The bay had lowered his head in a snaking motion, trying to persuade a mare to take directions.
Snowfire snorted, then aimed a kick at the young stallion, and his message was clear: If the young stallion didn’t stop flirting with Snowfire’s mare, he’d be kicked out of the herd.
The bay looked a little surly as he obeyed, then blew through his lips and began to graze with two red dun fillies.
Darby waited for Snowfire to chase him off once again, but this time the lead stallion didn’t seem to care. He gazed at the youngster, but then returned to his grazing.
“He’s not chasing him away from those females. I wonder why,” Ann whispered.
Jonah shook his head. “Those fillies are probably his daughters, or too closely related to make good broodmares for his herd.”
“So, what happens?” Darby barely breathed the words.
“Some rival stallion will steal them,” he answered. “Snowfire will pretend to protest, but he’ll let it happen.”
“Then why hasn’t Black Lava already stolen them?” Ann whispered.
With a slight but precise movement, Jonah pointed out four mares who stood a little apart from the others. One dun was a bright yellow, which reminded Darby of sulfur, and the others were shades of gray, from charcoal to nearly white.
Darby recognized the mares just as Jonah said, “I bet Black Lava was more interested in taking back his own mares, and that’s why Snowfire drove him all the way down to the ranch.”
Chapter Twelve
Later that day, once they were back at the ranch and Ann had gone home, Darby brushed Navigator and Biscuit, cleaned their feet, and turned Biscuit loose.
“Just a little longer,” she told Navigator. “I have to keep trying.”
The big Quarter Horse looked at her with wise eyes, emphasized by the rust-colored circles surrounding them, and yawned as she tied him by his neck rope within reach of a fresh pile of hay.
Darby showered the campfire smoke from her body and hair, then returned to Navigator.
“We’re going to try something new,” she told the horse, then led him over to the side hill. Bouncing on her toes, she managed to launch her middle across Navigator’s bare back, then pull herself on and up.
Using only the gelding’s neck rope to guide him, she rode bareback, carefully, down to see Hoku in the lower pasture. She caught sight of her filly as they got closer.
Hoku grazed with the other horses, but she remained on the outskirts of the group. Somehow, she was still on her own. In the afternoon sun, her coat glinted with a coppery luster.
Darby felt the same jolt of love that she experienced each time she looked at Hoku. She had to win
back the filly’s trust.
Darby rode farther down the trail to the broodmare pasture, shifting from the right side of Navigator’s spine to the left with each of his steps.
“For a big horse, you don’t feel like you have much fat on you,” she told him.
She stopped Navigator outside the gate to the pasture, but she didn’t go inside. She sat on Navigator for two minutes before Hoku lifted her head, ears forward. The mustang’s attentiveness lasted only for a second.
Again Hoku turned her tail in Darby’s direction.
“Why are you so stubborn?” she muttered, but she didn’t give in to her frustration. Hoku had to see her strength if Darby was going to turn this situation around. In her jeans pocket she had a packet of the ‘ohelo berries she’d brought with her, remembering how Hoku had gobbled them up the last time they’d ridden near Two Sisters.
Hoku’s vanilla tail swished as she grazed near a bay mare named Honolulu Lulu.
Had the two become friends? Just as Darby had wanted to fit in when she first arrived at Lehua High, did Hoku want to be part of this horse herd?
But she also loved Darby. Deep down Darby knew it was true.
Hoku never would have challenged a full-grown stallion like Black Lava, with no thought for her own safety, if she hadn’t been devoted to Darby.
“It’s just a big misunderstanding,” Darby told Navigator, but she didn’t tell him that both their hearts were hurting. “Thanks for doing your part, big boy.”
Darby slid off Navigator, removed his neck rope, and gave him a gentle swat, turning him loose as she climbed the fence and made her way past the other horses toward Hoku.
The mares and foals glanced up with mild interest. Maybe they caught the scent of ‘ohelo berries in her pocket, or maybe they just wondered why she’d become such a frequent visitor here.
She spoke to some of them, stroking their manes, recalling a time when Jonah had instructed her to ride Navigator in Hoku’s presence in order to make the filly jealous.
