Fire Maiden (11 page)

“This morning helped a lot,” Darby said, “but how do you think I'm doing?”

She waited for Jonah to mention she'd ridden Joker through an aftershock. Wouldn't that be a big deal to anyone?

“Fine,” he said. “But you have one more horse to go.”

“Tomorrow,” she reminded him.

“Why wait?” Jonah asked. “In the old days, they'd hire bronc busters who'd work through ten or fifteen colts in a day. Pretty soon, they just depended on muscle memory.”

“And cruelty,” Darby said. “Besides, I'm—”

She stopped short of saying she was too tired and sweaty to ride Baxter. Maybe Jonah was right. Hours of riding, reacting instead of listing steps one,
two, and three, might make her responses automatic.

Still, she made one more weak protest. “Really, I think tomorrow would be better, don't you?”

“No.” Jonah gave her a buddy-buddy punch in the shoulder and activated the office walkie-talkie.

“Yes, sir,” Kit's voice crackled to them from someplace on the ranch.

“Bring Baxter up. I got you a bronc buster,” Jonah said.

“Yes, boss. You want me to help 'er out?”

“You better. I can't bear to watch,” Jonah joked. “Just let me know if we need an ambulance.”

 

Buckin' Baxter trembled with anticipation. He sniffed Darby's boots, jeans, and hands, and Kit didn't object when she stroked the horse's blueberry-and cream-colored neck.

He shook like a big dog, allowing her to lead him around the pen as if the reins were a leash.

“What should I do?” Darby asked Kit when they rounded the last bit of the corral and stopped in front of him.

Arms crossed, Kit leaned against the fence.

“I'm more of an expert on the business of makin' 'em buck, not stoppin' 'em,” Kit said. “But if I were you, I'd just get on and put him through his paces the way you did the other two.”

“But I'm not one-hundredth as good a rider as Kimo,” Darby said in a high-pitched whisper that
caught Baxter's attention. “And Baxter bucks with him.”

“Kimo'll be the first one to tell you he let Baxter get away with it too many times. You're going to catch Baxter and not give him a chance to buck with you even once,” Kit told her. He stood next to the roan's head, watching her prepare to mount.

“If I get bucked off and break something, and I can't go do this project, it won't be my fault if I fail my Ecology class,” Darby said.

She rested a few ounces of her weight in Baxter's left stirrup, then a little more, and slowly lifted her leg over Baxter's back. She winced at the ache in her legs before settling in the saddle.

“I don't think Jonah sets much importance on grades,” Kit said, hiding his smile.

“But I do,” Darby said. She let the reins flow in straight lines from her fingers to the snaffle bit rings, waiting for clues to Baxter's feelings.

“Then I guess you better not get bucked off,” Kit said, and he took a step back to let her put the horse into a walk.

Twenty minutes later, Baxter still hadn't bucked. He'd been edgy, breaking a sweat instantly. He'd thrust his tongue at his bit while he moved from a walk to a jog to a lope, and Darby never stopped watching for something that might make him shy, but she didn't let herself be distracted. Finally, when Kit said “Whoa,” she was amazed to
see that Kimo, Jonah, and Megan all stood around the pen, watching.

“Do you know what that is?” Jonah asked.

Darby looked around before getting off Baxter. Was Jonah talking to her?

“Dumb luck?” Megan joked.

“Looks like horse mastery to me,” Kit said.

“Looks like I better find a new job,” Kimo complained.

As Darby dismounted, Jonah kept watching.

“That colt wanted a boss and you told him you were it. He's not going to give you any trouble because he can tell you're ready for it. No need to blush about it.”

“Thank you,” Darby said. She'd concentrated so hard on each sound and move of Baxter's, she felt like she'd just woken up.

“A horse can't buck, kick, or rear when he's moving forward. All bets are off if you decide to ride an outlaw, but if you keep him moving ahead, you'll usually be fine. Most horses don't want to hurt humans. If they did, we wouldn't stand a chance.”

“Thank you,” Darby said again.

“Come tell Mom about it,” Megan encouraged Darby. “She's going nuts up there.”

“She's only been in bed for a day,” Jonah pointed out.

“It seems more like a week.” Megan rolled her eyes. “She's sick of television, bored with magazines,
and she's finished reading all of her library books.”

“Okay, go visit,” Jonah told Darby, “but cool this horse out and untack him first.” Jonah waited until Darby nodded, then said, “Think you might want to take him instead of Navigator?”

Darby thought of Pele, of Ann's rowdy Sugarfoot, and Hoku. Trying to pony Hoku with Baxter would be insane. They'd be wrapped up in rope like bugs in a spider's web.

“No thanks.” Darby barely pronounced the words before yawning. She lifted her hand in a wave and began walking.

I did it,
Darby thought as she led Baxter to the tack shed.

Now, if she could just walk back to the house without doing a face plant into the dirt, it would've been a really good day.

T
he Two Sisters wore leis of smoke on the morning the Potters were due to arrive with a four-horse trailer to pick up Darby, Megan, Hoku, and Navigator. There was no denying that the earthquake had disturbed the more active of the volcanoes, and this upset in nature only scraped nerves already made raw by the girls' plans to leave the ranch.

Jonah stood on Sun House's lanai when Darby emerged from her bedroom.

“News says our smoky skies are coming from Kilauea. It's as much from ‘atmospheric conditions' as volcanic activity. The earthquake may have shaken things up, but there's no sulphur smell.”

“That's good to know,” Darby told him. She was
relieved to hear that the smoke was drifting from a volcano on the Big Island. “I'm about finished packing.”

Jonah watched Darby with the same intensity that had made her afraid of him the day she'd arrived on Wild Horse Island. She remembered thinking that if she'd met him in the city, she would have crossed to the other side of the street.

But now he just looked like her grandfather, not some stranger with a concealed weapon, and his heavy black eyebrows, so much like her own, were lowered with…she wasn't sure what.

Jonah pushed away from the rail of the lanai and shook his index finger at her, but he just said, “You can breathe fine, yeah?”

“I can, but I packed my medicine just in case,” Darby said.

“Okay then,” Jonah said. “You better eat up and get out there. Those horses won't groom themselves.”

Darby was on her way to the tack shed when Megan pounded down the stairs from her apartment. Her cherry Coke–colored ponytail bounced out the back of her baseball cap, her white T-shirt was tucked without a wrinkle into her jeans, and her full saddlebags were slung over her shoulder.

She smiled as she fell into step beside Darby, then announced, “My mom's gone nuts.”

“She probably just—” Darby began.

“Totally crazy,” Megan interrupted. “She told me
to go ride with you and Ann, and quit ‘hovering' over her. She says she'll rest more if she's not trying to prove to me that she's fine. Tell me,” Megan pleaded with melodramatic gestures, “does that make sense?”

Darby knew Megan wouldn't be chattering like this if her mother's condition was really serious, but she wasn't sure what to say.

It didn't matter, because Bart, sensing the girls' excitement, raced up and threw himself at Megan's legs.

“Bart, no.” Megan dodged the Australian shepherd when he tried for a second collision, and then she went on, “And then, once I agreed to go—which I wanted to, but I was trying to be, you know, responsible—she told me not to ride Tango, because there are wild horses up there, supposedly, and they might get Tango to ‘revert.'”

When Megan made quotation marks in the air, Bart hurled himself, snapping, toward her fingers.

“Bart!” Cade shouted from the tack room.

The dog wagged his stumpy tail in apology, but stayed with Megan.

“So I say, ‘Fine, I'll ride Biscuit,'” Megan continued, “but when I look up from packing my stuff, Mom is staring out the window at the smoke, steam, whatever, saying she won't sleep until I get back, because there could be an eruption!”

“I bet she—”

“And I say, ‘Mom, just tell me what you want me
to do,' and you know what she said?”

Darby shook her head, trying not to smile at her friend's frustration.

“She told me”—Megan paused to put her hands on her hips and lean toward Darby—“that it wasn't very nice to be rude to her when she wasn't feeling well!”

Megan whipped off her cap and threw it on the ground.

“Don't even think about it!” she threatened Bart.

Instead of retrieving the cap, the dog sat and stared at Megan with the concentration of an obedience champion.

“That's better,” Megan said. “Go to Cade.”

As the dog trotted off, Megan sighed, picked up her cap and shook the dust from it, and asked, “So, what are you doing?”

“Grooming Hoku and Navigator,” Darby said.

“Great,” Megan said, and she walked a bit faster.

“The Potters are supposed to be here in about twenty minutes,” Darby added.

“The sooner, the better,” Megan said.

Navigator, Hoku, and Biscuit shone from brushing by the time Jonah showed up at the tack room.

Darby and Megan met each other's eyes, hoping they weren't in for more advice.

Jonah considered the horses as he said, “You're only spending two nights. The Potters will take you to the drop-off on the road below the Two Sisters. It's
about a six-mile climb to the very top. You can go as high as you like on Babe's volcano, because it's stone cold—”

“We can? I thought…,” Darby began, but Megan was nodding.

“But it's
kapu
past the stone trees.”

Kapu.
This time, the Hawaiian word gave Darby chills. It sounded less like breaking a rule and more like an unforgivable sin.

“That's only two miles away and that's close enough. Don't go up and look into the crater. It's tempting—”

“No, it's terrifying,” Darby said, but when she glanced at Megan, she saw that the older girl's arms were crossed.

Megan looked totally confident, but Darby remembered that even when Tutu had told her about the Fire Maiden becoming a horse the color of flames that danced on the lava pool, she'd thought not about the spirit horse, but about the lake of molten rock.

She would not go up and look into the active volcano. No way would she expose herself or her horses to that kind of danger.

“Wouldn't it be too hot?” Darby asked suddenly. “I'm not going up there,” she added, when Jonah's head snapped around and his eyes locked on her. “But don't scientists need special suits and stuff to get close enough to study a—”

Jonah didn't wait for her to finish. “I'm not crazy
about those two standing so close together,” he said.

Those two…?
Darby thought. Even Jonah didn't have the kind of authority to make volcanoes scoot away from each other.

But Jonah jerked on Navigator's tie rope to release him and lead him away from Hoku.

The bay stepped back at his urging, and Hoku flattened her ears at Jonah.

“You keep your opinions to yourself,” he told the filly.

But Darby could see Hoku was improving. A simple flicker of her ears was pretty good for a filly that hated men.

Finally, after Darby and Megan had kissed Aunty Cathy—who'd come downstairs despite Jonah's grumbling—good-bye, Darby and Jonah stood on the knoll she often used to help her mount.

Her grandfather had given her so much volcano advice, she was beginning to feel a little scared.

“If you don't think we should go,” Darby blurted, “I don't have to. I've got a whole week to do something else for this project.”

“Naw,” Jonah made a dismissing gesture. “You've got your thick-soled boots to protect you from hot ground, and you can ride in them—besides, our lava is pretty tame, and you can depend on Megan.”

The older girl flashed a shaka sign their way, but Jonah went on talking.

“The only way you get in trouble is letting its
beauty tempt you too close. Our lava's so slow-flowing, you can get mesmerized and not notice you've been cut off from the path you want to take. But you're smart. You won't stand and watch it. You'll get away while you can.”

“That's right,” Darby assured her grandfather.

But even when the sound of a heavy vehicle turning onto ‘Iolani Ranch road made them both look up, Jonah hadn't finished.

“You'll ride up the slope from the drop-off. If there's trouble, just go back down the same way. In an emergency, if you're cut off from the road, take the lava tube down to the beach. The Boy Scouts do it every August, so it's no big secret. From that beach, you can look up and see Sun House.”

Dogs barked. Truck doors slammed.

Brown skin crinkled at the corner of Jonah's eyes. He pulled Darby into a hug.

“You take it all in, then tell me about it,” Jonah said.

Darby returned her grandfather's warmhearted hug, but she wasn't surprised when he let her go and looked embarrassed by his kindness.

He squeezed her arm with a work-callused hand, and said, “Don't let that
pupule
mustang get you into trouble.”

When he strode over to greet the Potters, Darby tagged along behind him, still grinning.

 

An hour later, they'd almost reached the drop-off where the Potters would help the girls unload their gear and horses.

Darby liked Ann's parents. Mr. Potter had red hair sprinkled with gray, and Mrs. Potter wore her sparrow-brown hair in a braid. Tanned, middle-aged, and happy, the Potters told Darby to call them Ed and Ramona.

Besides Ann, they had a shy seven-year-old named Toby and a baby called Buck. Both boys were strapped into the extended cab of their truck. Darby, Megan, and Ann had had to fit themselves in where they could.

“Hey, Megan, how's the team going to do this season?” Mr. Potter asked, reminding Darby that Ann and Megan had been soccer teammates.

“It'll do,” Megan said, “but we miss Ann.”

“Yeah,” Ann huffed, as if she blamed her parents, not her injury, for her removal from the team.

Darby didn't blame her. Ann's soccer skills were so excellent, she'd been the only eighth grader ever to compete on the Lehua High School team.

Ann's mother didn't let her dwell on the injustice of her accident.

“Ann, can you distract Toby from sucking his thumb? I don't know why he's back at it.”

Toby pressed his face into Ann's shoulder. She stroked his head and planted a kiss on the nape of his neck.

“And Darby, if Buck is bothering you, just tell him no,” Mrs. Potter said when she noticed the little boy cooing as he threaded his finger through Darby's long black hair.

“He's fine,” Darby told her. As an only child, she'd never felt the chubby, exploring hand of a baby, and she kind of liked it.

“I should mention that his real name is Buchanan. That's my maiden name,” she said.

“Buck is a good old Nevada name,” Mr. Potter protested.

“I just can't get over the fact that your little mustang's a Nevadan, too,” Mrs. Potter said. “I do miss seeing the Calico Mountains from my kitchen window.” She patted her husband's shoulder before adding, “But I don't miss deep snow or pushing hay bales off a flatbed truck while Ed sat in the cozy truck cab with the heater on full blast.”

“It was never that way,” Mr. Potter assured Darby, then added, “Well, almost never.”

Then the smile faded from his face. “You say Shan Stonerow had your filly.” Mr. Potter pronounced the name as if it was bitter in his mouth. “That good-for-nothing—”

“Dear,” Mrs. Potter cautioned her husband.

“Some folks don't deserve good horses.”

“
Any
horses,” Ann put in.

“Sam Forster faxed me his phone number, in case I wanted to get in touch with him,” Darby said.

“Don't waste your time. If Hoku was his, you're lucky she's not ruined. He rode all his stock young. Yearlings, I'm talkin' about, and he beat the devil out of them. At least that's how he put it.”

They drove for about five minutes before Mr. Potter said, “I don't know if I've ever been so mad at my dad as I was the day he sold this grulla colt of ours to Stonerow. Dad got it into his head that the colt was bad luck. He was a jumper. And fast? Let me tell you, kids, he could punch a hole in the wind and run right through it.”

Mr. Potter looked up into his rearview mirror and Darby met his eyes as he asked, “She have scars on her face? No? Well then, maybe she got the better of him. Wouldn't that be something.”

Mr. Potter's grin got bigger as he mulled over the possibility.

A few miles later, as the road turned steep, Mr. Potter chuckled and shook his head. “Still hard for me to believe Wyatt married a woman from the Bureau of Land Management. The Wyatt Forster I remember had no use for the bureau or wild horses, but I guess times do change. Hey now, we should give this lady a hand.”

The girls leaned around Buck and Toby, seeking a better view out the windows.

“I don't recognize her, do you?” Mrs. Potter asked. “Ann?”

“Nope,” Ann said.

“Megan?”

Megan removed her cap as if it obscured her view, then said, “Me either.”

Darby's eyes tracked the dotted yellow line down the center of the street until she saw the woman at the roadside. She wore a stylish red dress and red high heels, but somehow managed to look at home in this desolate place.

As Mr. Potter steered the truck and trailer carefully off the road, stopping out of traffic, Darby saw the woman push a cloud of curly black hair back from her face. Her features were those of a warrior queen, and she stood in a column of smoke.

Darby's chest went tight, and it had nothing to do with asthma.

Red is her color, black is her hair. Respect Fire Maiden, or I warn you: beware.

“Car must've overheated coming up this hill,” Mr. Potter said.

Darby saw the red Miata convertible the woman leaned against. Of course it was steam, not a column of smoke, that rolled out from under the car's propped-up hood.

As Mr. Potter left the truck and offered to help the stranded motorist, Darby kicked herself for being so gullible. Her imagination had rarely conjured up magical people and situations when she lived in Pacific Pinnacles.

So what if she was in Hawaii now? Pele did not drive a red convertible.

As they lowered the windows to listen, they heard Mr. Potter say, “Let me get a rag or something to take this cap off so we can add some water. No, ma'am, you don't want to do that with your bare hands. It's over two hundred degrees. I'll be right back.”