Fire Maiden (4 page)

“Got it, boss,” Kit said. He touched the brim of his black felt hat and turned to leave.

“Kimo should be along to help,” Aunty Cathy put in, as if the job Kit had been given was too much for one.

“Gotta do something with this adrenaline rush,” Kit told her.

Then, as he passed Darby, Kit winked.

As if it's no big deal that Jonah put the safety of every person on this ranch into his hands,
Darby thought, looking after the foreman.
As if he didn't mind that he couldn't go
check on the girlfriend Megan said he had in town.

Just then, scratching and whining came from overhead.

“Pip,” Aunty Cathy and Megan said together.

“I don't even remember putting her down!” Megan gasped.

Aunty Cathy lowered the bag of frozen peas from her cheek and said, “I'll just run up there and—”

“Let Megan do it,” Jonah said. “You can, yeah?”

“Sure.” Megan lifted her chin, ignored her mother's wordless protest, and left.

“Bring me some horses,” Jonah told Darby.

“Sure.” Darby responded as confidently as Megan had, until she realized she still wore her pink nightgown in place of a shirt. “I'll just go change. And I should call my mom and let her know I'm okay.”

“Do what you like, but don't give your filly a chance to reach the highway.” Jonah considered the disordered kitchen, then said, “Who knows what it's like in town.”

“Okay,” Darby replied.

Looking ridiculous was nothing compared with putting her horse in danger.

She grabbed a hair elastic she'd left on the entrance hall table, and was gathering a ponytail, when Jonah's low voice reached her.

“Cathy, how does it look?”

“The can bounced off my cheekbone. It's swollen and red.”

“Your forehead?”

“Is fine.”

Why would Jonah needle Aunty Cathy like that, asking her to describe what he could see with his own eyes?

When his voice turned even quieter, Darby held her breath to listen.

“Just rule out a concussion. Do me that favor, can't you?”

“Yes, Jonah,” Aunty Cathy said.

As Darby ran from Sun House to grab Hoku's lead rope, she decided Aunty Cathy must be in shock. Despite her protests that she felt just fine, there'd been something soft in Aunty Cathy's voice that Darby had never heard before.

At the bawl of a siren in the distance, Darby forgot everything but her horse.

D
arby still felt a little shaky as she walked down the path to the lower pastures. She was determined to catch Hoku and a saddle horse for Jonah, but she wished she'd called her mother before she'd left the house.

Oh well, she'd do it when she got back.

When she heard footsteps, she glanced back and saw Cade following her.

One glance told her the young paniolo was up to something. Cade was the most unpredictable person she'd ever met. Reading horses' minds was a million times easier than figuring him out.

As soon as Darby reached the trailhead, she searched the cluster of horses below. Although there
were at least thirty horses crowded together, she picked out Hoku and Tango right away.

Weak with thankfulness, Darby leaned forward with her hands on her thighs. Then, she took a deep breath and started down the uneven path.

Even though it meant Cade caught up with her, Darby didn't run. Tripping would cost her more time than walking fast. Still, his expression was getting on her nerves. What in the world was he smiling about?

“Nice outfit,” Cade said.

“Shut up,” Darby requested. She glanced up from the rough footing at Cade. There wasn't much she could criticize about his clothes. He wore the same dark green poncho he always did.

Though he hadn't cracked a real smile, she could tell he was in a good mood. “Why are you so happy?”

“I'm not. Just glad no one's hurt bad,” he said.

Darby matched Cade's steps, then noticed his blond braid. Most days, it was tucked up, out of sight. “Where's your hat?”

“Don't know.” Cade clipped off the two words as if he didn't care, but Darby knew he did. Cade had told her he'd bought his hala hat with the very first paycheck he'd earned from Jonah. She was about to sympathize when he said, “Walk faster.”

She did, but that meant ignoring her nightgown's tendency to come untucked. Instead of stopping to adjust it, Darby gave a huff of frustration.

The horses heard her. Although they were half a
mile away, two dozen concerned faces turned to see what was wrong.

“Don't spook 'em,” Cade warned.

It was a definite possibility, Darby thought. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the horses were grazing when she looked at them. But not now.

Instead, they were milling together, still uneasy from the earthquake.

“You're the one carrying a rifle,” Darby muttered. Her arms swung at her sides and she'd left her hands empty by tying Hoku's orange-and-white-striped lead rope around her waist.

“I wasn't talking about the rope. I meant your snorting.”

Darby didn't reply. If she opened her mouth, she'd end up yelling at Cade and really scaring the horses.

Besides, he was probably only teasing her because he was relieved.

Aunty Cathy's reaction to the quake had been to kick the pumpkin can.

Kit had stood by, ready to tackle any job with his adrenaline buildup.

Jonah had shown unusual concern—for her and Megan, and for Aunty Cathy.

Darby shrugged. She guessed her own answer to being out of control of the world around her was to prove she could catch Hoku and bring back the saddle herd.

A blast of hot wind made the trees around her sway, and for a moment Darby felt dizzy again. It wouldn't hurt to show Jonah that falling off Navigator didn't mean she'd lost her touch with horses. But she'd better hurry up and do it, before a second earthquake or aftershock made Wild Horse Island sink back into the sea.

Cade looked pointedly at Darby's feet as if she'd been stomping as she walked.

“What?” she demanded quietly.

“I'm taking the rifle—”

“Did I ask?” Darby whispered.

“—because of what happened last time…”

“…in the rain forest,” Darby finished, admitting to herself that Cade's skill with a rifle had saved a rabid pig from suffering or hurting her horse, when Cade corrected her.

“No, the last time we had an earthquake,” he said, but he didn't go on.

Cade was baiting her. If he was trying to make her beg to hear what had happened during the last earthquake, he had a long wait ahead of him.

Darby turned her attention back to the horses. They were much more interesting and Jonah was counting on her to bring them—or at least some of them—back to the main ranch. And she didn't know how much time she had before she'd have to start getting ready for school.

They looked like a wild herd, Darby thought.

Luna, the big bay Quarter Horse stallion, stood on a knoll, overlooking the mares, foals, and geldings, alert and on guard.

“Pigtail Fault,” Cade said under his breath.

Darby couldn't help giving him a side glance.

“You haven't been up to Two Sisters yet, so you wouldn't know,” he said, lording it over her. “But just as the ground really starts getting steep, there's a fracture in the earth—a fissure I guess they call it—and it slid open big enough that a herd of pigs, running from the quake, were jumping over it—”

“You saw this?” Darby asked.

“—and one didn't make it. He went head down into the crack—”

“I don't like this story,” Darby said, picking up her pace.

“And then an aftershock came along,” Cade said, bringing his hands together in a muffled clap. “And slammed the fissure closed. Left only the pig's tail sticking up.”

“That's disgusting,” Darby said.

“All the same, it happened,” Cade said. “You'll see it—not the tail, but the crack—when you go up to the volcanoes.”

“
Shh
,” Darby hushed him.

Navigator, Conch, Biscuit, and Joker moved away from the other horses toward Darby and Cade. The horses moved side by side, a gaudy team suitable for a circus.

Look at them!
Darby wanted to say, but she didn't want to spook the geldings. Their bay, grulla, buckskin, and Appaloosa coats caught the sun as they held their heads high. They studied Cade and Darby, weighing the safety of approaching even familiar humans on a day like this.

Kona, Jonah's big gray, started to follow them, but he stumbled. At the sound, the other geldings scattered. For a few seconds, Kona stopped, holding one hoof off the ground. But then Joker stood alone, frayed neck rope dangling, the only one that hadn't pivoted back toward the herd.

Just when Darby was telling herself she couldn't blame Cade because his horse loved him, Cade pretended not to notice. He was still talking about Pigtail whatever.

“And if you don't want to look, just ask Jonah.”

“I will,” Darby promised, though there'd be nothing left to prove it might be true.

Ten minutes later, Joker had ventured close enough to hear his master's voice.

“Here, brother.”

The Appaloosa crossed the pasture, lowered his head, and all but begged for Cade's touch. Cade kept talking, persuading his horse to forget the earthquake.

“That's it, look at me.” Cade extended his arm and caught a loose bridle rein. Joker took up the slack by moving a few steps away. “Around,” Cade said, then
made a clucking sound and Joker circled him at a walk.

Cade looked the gelding over for injuries, watching for pulled tendons or muscle damage as the horse moved.

Brother.
Darby had never heard Cade call Joker by that nickname, and she admitted, but only to herself, that she envied the two.

During their best moments, she thought of Hoku as her sister, but she and the filly had a long way to go before they had the kind of relationship she saw before her.

“Halt,” Cade said.

Joker did. Cade stepped close enough to push aside the gelding's black mane and stroke his crest. Joker closed his eyes, and Darby gasped.

“He'll be fine,” Cade assured her, preparing to mount bareback.

“Don't rope anything,” Darby said. “It'll hurt Joker's neck.”

Cade stared at her. “Where'd you come up with that?”

“Won't it? I mean, it's pretty basic physiology,” Darby told him, but the truth was, well, hard to believe.

“I guess,” Cade said, sounding a little insulted.

He threw himself at Joker's back, then swung his legs up to fork the gelding. His hands rested on Joker's withers, waiting.

In the minutes Cade stayed quiet, letting Joker
settle down, Darby tried to analyze what had just passed between her and the Appaloosa.

When Joker had closed his freckled eyelids, she'd seen them twitch, showing the soreness under his mane, beneath Cade's hand.

Anyone could have guessed that, but muscles had actually stiffened in her own neck. She'd felt dizzy as she imagined a taut lariat running away from her. The whine of tightening rope fibers filled her ears, and she winced, afraid the impact of the horse's weight would wrench her neck.

His neck,
she corrected herself.

After about five minutes, Joker's head drooped a few inches. He shifted his weight off a rear hoof and blew through his lips.

The Appaloosa had gotten over his scare. Darby wasn't so sure about herself.

Cade leaned forward, patted his horse's shoulder, then shot Darby a look of puzzled respect.

“We'll be careful,” Cade said.

“Sure,” Darby said. She lifted one shoulder as if his promise was no big deal, then turned her attention to the other horses, hoping they wouldn't follow the bouncing spots on the Appaloosa's hindquarters.

They didn't, but she was still left with the problem of catching Hoku. And, wait, if the other horses hadn't followed Joker, why should she believe they'd follow her filly?

Darby shrugged. It didn't matter what she
thought. Jonah thought they'd follow Hoku, so she'd give it a try.

She walked closer to the horses. They all watched her, Hoku most of all.

Darby stopped when Lady Wong and Blue Ginger snapped at their babies, making them back away from Darby instead of going to her as they usually did. The other horses swept their heads from side to side, looking somehow embarrassed as they backed away, too.

Only Tango remained beside Hoku. The rose roan mustang fretted and stamped, but she stayed, watching Hoku dip her head like a swan, before raising her muzzle to point at Darby. Hoku arched her golden neck again and repeated the movements, using her chin to draw long ovals in the air.

It almost looked like a dance.

“What's that, pretty girl?” Darby asked as she took a step closer.

In a tangle of legs and switching tails, the other horses scattered.

“You guys,” Darby scoffed softly, “don't roll your eyes like you don't see me every day. I know the earthquake was scary, but I didn't do it.”

Darby knew she couldn't just walk right up to Hoku and slip the rope around her neck. The rest of the horses acted like they were about to stampede. This wasn't going to work, but she had an idea of something else that might.

Darby looked back over her shoulder. She didn't see Jonah standing on the lanai or the cliff, looking down to make sure she didn't do anything dangerous. That was a good thing, too, because what she wanted to try was a little risky.

She sat down cross-legged in the middle of the pasture and pretended to be fascinated by her own hands. She only remembered a couple of finger games from her childhood.

Putting the knuckles of each hand together, she whispered, “Here's the church….”

Interlacing her fingers, she pointed her index fingers up, tips touching.

“Here's the steeple….”

She let her thumbs escape, pressed them side to side, then pulled them apart.

“Open the doors….”

Darby lifted her eyelashes a fraction of a millimeter to see all the horses were watching her.

But then she turned her hands, fingers laced, upside down, and wiggled them wildly as she said, “And see all the people!”

Koko and her silver-maned colt bolted. Luna pawed impatiently.

“I'm not leaving,” Darby told him. At the same time, Hoku looked back at the big bay stallion and shivered her skin, as if his stare was a pesky insect crawling on her.

This little piggy went to market. This little
—Wait.
That was a toe game you played with babies. Not that the horses would know the difference.

Darby didn't look up again until she heard teeth clipping grass.

The horses were relaxing. At least, Judge was. Darby dared to look up again and saw that the old horse had been joined by the brown bird that rode on his withers. The bird flared its wings to show white bars against the brown, then returned to harvesting minuscule bugs from the gelding's back.

Darby smiled as four horses eased away from the herd. Navigator, Judge, Tango, and Hoku grazed in her direction. Slowly, so slowly, but it was progress and she was excited. Until Luna decided to round them up.

At least, that's what she thought he was doing at first.

As Luna pranced toward the group of four, Tango and Hoku flattened their ears, but the geldings moved out of his path. The king was coming and they would not block him.

Hoku did. She stood beside Tango, but Luna looked past her, regarding Tango as if he'd never seen her before.

Luna reared. His arched neck shone like mahogany and his forelegs curved. His display was enough to send the walking geldings into a trot, leaving him with the two fillies.

Luna tucked his chin and gave a snort so loud it
made Darby jump. He was showing off, and he looked great doing it, Darby thought.

Tango's ears flattened, but the big bay didn't take the hint. He kept jogging forward.

Tango's eyes narrowed and even though her hooves didn't change position, she bared her teeth and her pink head snapped out like a snake's.

Not so impressed, Darby thought.

Luna strode on toward the fillies, planting each hoof with determination. He looked pretty serious about teaching Hoku and Tango a lesson in obedience.