Fire Maiden (2 page)

Darby swung Navigator away from Jonah, and urged the dark brown gelding into a jog around the open-air arena.

She was bouncing more than usual in her saddle, so she tried not to watch as Hoku followed Navigator.

“It's not the horse,” Jonah said as Darby rode past.

But it was. Maybe it was the muggy weather, or Hoku dogging his steps, but Darby knew Navigator's stiffness and the way he sawed his mouth against the bit was not her fault.

“I trained that gelding myself. It's either you or that broomtail,” Jonah said, pointing.

“No way,” Darby said. Trying to believe Jonah was joking, Darby smooched at Hoku as she and Navigator jogged past.

But Navigator wasn't joking. The Quarter Horse
moved from a walk, to a jog, then a lope, at her command, but every gait felt as if his legs were jointless wood.

Jonah studied her riding position.

“He thinks he's bound for the racetrack, the way you're up on his neck like a jockey,” Jonah told Darby. “Sit back.”

“Okay,” Darby said, and for a few seconds, she felt at home in the smooth leather seat. Maybe it had been her fault after all.

“Now, jog.”

At once, Darby's teeth slammed together.

It was like Navigator's muscles resisted the movement of his bones.

Darby fought to relax. Maybe her tension was telegraphing down the reins to Navigator.

You're a good horse,
she thought to the gelding.
And riding is my favorite thing. Hawaii is my favorite place. I can see green grass growing right up to the arena fence and an old bay horse named Judge is grazing so peacefully, a mynah bird is perching on his withers. Past him, I can see mountain peaks wearing halos of clouds, and…

Navigator extended his stride, then veered toward the center of the ring.

Darby swiped at the sweat on her forehead. Neither she nor Navigator could relax, and the April afternoon felt like it was holding its breath.

“Keep him on the fence,” Jonah ordered.

Navigator's ears flicked back as Darby adjusted her reins.

“Good boy,” Darby told him.

Hoku neighed and rushed from one side of the round pen to the other.

“Get centered. You're leaning left. Sit back.” Jonah's voice was charged with frustration. “Ignore that filly.”

She tried. She stared at the space between Navigator's ears instead of turning toward the thump of Hoku's hooves.

The next time she and Navigator swept by Jonah, her grandfather frowned.

“Stop,” he said.

Darby's fingers flexed. Navigator halted.

Sunstruck dust motes turned gold all around them, but they only made Darby sneeze.

Jonah's black hair glinted silver at the temples and his stride was certain as he approached.

Navigator danced in place. He swung his head so that Darby could see the froth on his lips.

Jonah held up a hand and the gelding lowered his head.

Jonah walked around the horse. Starting at the hooves, moving up over fetlocks, bone, and sinew, his analytical eyes examined each bulge and dip beneath glossy horse hide. He considered bridle straps and saddle buckles, and finally said, “Try holding a rein in each hand. Look down at your saddle horn.”

“Okay.”

Darby waited for Jonah to return to his place by the gate.

Her grandfather's back was as straight as if a steel rod lay along his spine. She wasn't sure what he was thinking. That she was the only Kealoha on earth not born to be a rider? That he shouldn't have gone along with Kit's idea to turn Hoku out into the round pen while they rode?

Or was he, just maybe, silently agreeing with her that something was disturbing the dependable Quarter Horse?

“Don't keep him going in circles. Pick a post across the arena and ride to it. Then do it again. Not the same place, though. Mix it up.”

Darby tried, but the very first time she sighted a fence post and rode for it, the gelding wrenched his head to the right and came in sideways to the fence.

“Why'd you let him do that?” Jonah said incredulously.

Before Darby could answer, Navigator froze in place, ears pitched so far forward, Darby listened for whatever he heard.

Hoku was doing the same thing, and both horses shivered as if flies crawled over every inch of their skins.

“He's shaking,” she told Jonah.

“Cluck him up. Put him into a lope and keep him there.”

Navigator bounded forward, pretending he was about to lope, before breaking into a gallop.

Hoku joined him, running alongside so closely, her shoulder bumped Darby's stirrup. They were running too fast, slanting like motorcycles on a track.

Faintly, she heard Jonah's warning tone repeat, “Lope.”

Head level, teeth ringing on the bit, Navigator began to buck.

Darby grabbed on to the saddle horn. The gelding's ragged breath was all around her when she fell forward on his neck. She didn't release her grip on the horn, even when it jabbed her ribs.

She stayed on long enough that Navigator stopped bucking, but he was running again, this time at a reeling, unsteady gait.

As the gelding homed in on a section of fence, she thought he was going to try to jump out of the round pen.

Then, Darby saw that she was wrong.

Good, steady Navigator was about to rub her off on the fence.

“W
hoa!” Darby shouted.

At the word, Navigator stopped. It was that stop, so sudden a brick wall might have materialized in front of him, that sent Darby somersaulting over his shoulder into the dust.

The first thing she heard was Hoku's curious nicker, but Darby didn't move to look at her horse.

Head. Neck. Shoulders. Back. Knees. Ankles.

Darby reviewed her shaken body and decided she wasn't hurt.

But she was embarrassed, so when she saw Jonah start toward her, she scrambled up and began brushing at her jeans. She blinked grit from her eyes, trying to understand why Navigator still
stood fretting beside her.

Jonah eased a hand under Navigator's saddle and tugged the corners of the saddle blanket before ordering, “Get back on.”

A wrinkle in his blanket wouldn't make Navigator act like this, Darby thought, and she opened her mouth to tell Jonah that when he said, “Back on, now.”

“Could he be afraid of something?” Darby asked, almost whispering.

“Let him be afraid while you're on his back. He's never pulled that”—Jonah indicated the fence Navigator had charged—“before.” Jonah held Navigator's reins while Darby climbed back on. “I don't want this horse to think he can throw people.”

“You're some role model,” Darby told Navigator. “What if Hoku thinks—”

Darby stopped. She wasn't amusing anyone, not even herself.

Shaking a little, Darby climbed back onto Navigator. As soon as she did, she felt how his mood had changed. Not improved, exactly, she thought as he followed the fence line at a flat-footed walk. Loud exhalations made the gelding sound weary, though he let Darby prod him into a jog and, finally, a lope.

When her grandfather signaled her to stop and dismount, Darby led Navigator behind her. The gelding's head drooped and he hung back at the end of his reins.

“Are we taking a break?” Darby asked.

Jonah rubbed his eyes, then said, “I don't have a safer horse on the place.”

Darby stopped. What did Jonah mean?

“Navigator's just having a bad day,” Darby suggested.

They couldn't quit now.
It's a small step,
Kit had said,
but tomorrow we'll move on.
So, they couldn't end this small step early, or riding Hoku would be delayed, too.

Jonah kept walking toward the gate, until it seemed he couldn't stand the ringing of her last statement in his ears.

“Navigator's having a bad day?” Jonah mumbled. “Granddaughter, I wash my hands of you.”

Hoku stood pressed against the farthest fence until Jonah left the corral. Then she trotted to the gate and lingered there, eager to leave the round pen.

Great,
Darby thought, as she led Hoku back to her own corral. Now her filly was afraid of the round pen, where she'd get her first lessons in carrying a rider.

When she returned for Navigator, the gelding—for some reason she couldn't imagine—wanted to remain just outside the round pen.

Trying to stop the endless tape that ran through her brain saying
Granddaughter, I wash my hands of you,
Darby let Navigator have his way. She hand-grazed the gelding for so long, dusk crept in. At last,
Navigator's nerves calmed enough that his teeth clipped the grass around her boots and he gave her knee a nudge.

“I know you're sorry.”

Wind moaned through the telephone wires. She heard a far-off moo and a horse scratching its neck on a fence.

A skylark's silhouette swooped across the sky, reminding her that it was getting late. She should hurry back to the tack room, strip off Navigator's gear, and turn him loose for the evening.

Jonah was disappointed in her, but it really wasn't her fault.

She hadn't ridden any worse today than she usually did.

When they reached the tack shed, Darby put a neck rope on Navigator, slipped off his bridle, and asked, “What had you so spooked?”

Navigator backed against his neck rope.

Maybe he wanted to escape her question, Darby thought as she looped the bridle over the horn, and carried the saddle into the tack room. When she returned, Navigator's ears were pricked to attention.

Darby didn't hear anything unusual. More than likely, the gelding had just focused on the click of grazing teeth. All around them, animals were eating. Navigator had already forgotten whatever had scared him in the round pen. Dinner was what really interested him.

The gelding had backed as far as his neck rope would allow when Kimo, one of the ‘Iolani Ranch cowboys, drove up on a sputtering ATV. Navigator jumped forward as if it wasn't a sound he heard every day.

“I was about to turn you loose, but I know Jonah would make you settle down first,” Darby told the gelding as he rolled his eyes.

Kimo climbed off and stretched the kinks out of his back. “Tomorrow's your last day before school's out for spring break, yeah? And then your trip is all planned.”

“Yeah,” Darby said.

Yesterday she could have matched Kimo's smile, because she was so excited about the overnight ride and camping trip she was going on with Megan and her new friend Ann. A school assignment had triggered the idea of riding up the slope of Two Sisters, but that wouldn't keep them from having fun.

Apparently Jonah had allowed educational field trips and scientific research on his half of the Two Sisters volcanoes for years. His sister, Babe Borden, hadn't been so generous because she was afraid she and Sugar Sands Cove Resort would be sued if someone was injured.

“Yeah, it's all planned,” Darby repeated, but she was worried that Jonah might change his mind now, and she couldn't shake her uneasiness over Navigator.

Maybe Kimo could help her figure out what was bothering the big gelding.

“I'm a little worried about 'Gator. He's not sick or hurt,” she put in quickly. “He's just not acting right.”

Kimo made a sound of agreement. He didn't look a bit surprised.

“Been happening with all the animals all day,” he said.

“Really?”

“This morning, before work, I went fishing. Why, I wonder, are the fish out in the middle, in the sun, instead of under the bank?” He shrugged. “And some with no business jumping? They're leaping like the water's too hot for 'em. Weirder still, the chickens at our house? They're roosting up in the tree. Won't come down to their coop, even to eat.”

“What's going on?” Darby asked.

“Change in the weather,” Kimo guessed. “Cade was having trouble with cattle, too.”

Darby looked around. She didn't see Cade, the fifteen-year-old ranch hand and Jonah's unofficially adopted grandson. And Kit hadn't yet returned from the feed store. Not that that meant anything. Once in a while, the foreman stayed in town for dinner at a Mexican restaurant he liked.

Still, the ranch yard was quiet, but she felt the tense atmosphere, too.

Trying to tease her out of her troubled mood, Kimo said, “Maybe a storm's on the way and your
vacation will be all rainy, yeah?” He looked pleased when she rolled her eyes at him.

As Kimo drove off toward the home he shared with his father, Darby took a final look at Navigator, then gave him a pat and turned him out.

The horse almost fell in his eagerness to escape. He ran between two of the dogs, Sass and Jill. The blue merle Australian shepherd just wagged his tail, but Jill gave a cranky yap and glared at Navigator as he bolted down the road, swung right, and disappeared toward the pastures below.

Although she was almost afraid to check on Hoku, worried the horse wouldn't be glad to see her because of the round pen uproar, Darby couldn't stay away.

As she walked to Hoku's corral, the two dogs fell in on each side of her. Jill, usually the least affectionate of the dogs, leaned her head against Darby's knee, making her wobble as they walked.

Even though it had been less than an hour since she'd touched her horse, Darby felt the same wonder she did each time she looked at Hoku. The filly's image always went straight from Darby's eyes to her heart.

Backlit by the sunset, the filly's mane shone yellow gold and her coat was coppery, but she looked as nervous as a zoo animal as she paced, halting at each fence as if she'd never seen it before.

Hoku greeted Darby with a worried whinny. Sass
closed his eyes and sniffed, and the horse snapped her teeth on the fleeting breeze.

What did the animals sense?

Darby stayed quiet, trying to read her filly's body language, but Hoku felt her watching. For the first time in weeks, the mustang was unsettled by Darby's stare.

“Do you blame me for all that stuff?” Darby asked, nodding toward the round pen.

Hoku licked her lips and champed her jaws. She looked young and a bit frightened.

“I don't get it,” Darby told her horse. Then she released a heavy sigh. “But I'm not helping, am I?”

Darby took a few experimental steps away from her horse. Hoku lowered her head and blew through her lips, relaxing as Darby moved away.

She didn't have to be a horse charmer to see that Hoku didn't want anyone around.

As she walked away, Darby heard Hoku pacing again. The filly moved as if she had no choice, as if her hooves had to measure off the minutes to something she dreaded.

Although she heard birds chirping good night to the setting sun, and knew she should rush to wash the dirt and horse hair off her hands before helping with dinner, Darby made one more quick detour.

She wanted to talk to her friend Megan.

Darby didn't know when Megan and Aunty Cathy had stopped watching at the round pen fence,
but they'd seen part of what had happened. Maybe Megan, who'd grown up with horses, would have some insight into Navigator's meltdown.

Darby was climbing the steps up to Megan's apartment, which had been built atop Sun House, when a step seemed to bow away from her boot. Darby grabbed the handrail for balance and wished her stomach would rejoin the rest of her.

What was that?

Feeling dizzy, Darby looked across the ranch yard. The bird on Judge's withers flew away. The dogs began barking. Then Aunty Cathy burst out of the house yelling.

“Megan! Help me catch the goat!”

Darby jumped back as the apartment door opened. Megan gasped in surprise at Darby's nearness, said hi, and laughed as Darby flattened herself to one side to keep the other girl from running her down.

A trim athlete who smelled of coconut suntan lotion, Megan was a head taller than Darby and usually pretty sensible. Because Aunty Cathy was shouting for Megan to hurry, Darby didn't grill her friend about Navigator, but she couldn't help asking, “Did you feel anything just now?”

“Just the earth moving—”

“Really?”

“—from my mom screaming for me,” Megan finished as Aunty Cathy started up again.

“Megan! I need you down here!” Aunty Cathy sounded sharp and impatient. The stairs rocked beneath Darby as Megan pounded down the steps to join her mother.

“Do you want me to help?” Darby called after them.

“Watch dinner,” Aunty Cathy said, pointing toward the house, and then she and Megan were running.