Rain Forest Rose (4 page)

At the same time, she heard something crash through low branches in the rain forest below.

She held a finger to her lips for quiet, and made a quick, fruitless survey of what lay below, before trying to jerk her boot's toe out from under Hoku's hoof.

Her foot was trapped, but luckily Megan's hand-me-down boots were a little too big. Most of Hoku's weight rested on empty leather.

Darby pushed her palm against the filly's shoulder.

“Hoku, get off. Why do you pick
now
not to shy when I touch you?”

But the wild filly's attention was fixed on something in the rain forest.

For a creature that looked so weightless in motion, Hoku's single hoof was heavy. Darby imagined herself with cracked toe bones, limping to her destination.

“That's not going to happen,” Darby told the filly.

Darby wrapped the striped lead rope around her hand, then leaned her shoulder against the filly's. She pushed with all her weight until finally, looking insulted, Hoku stepped away.

Darby would have grabbed her crushed foot and
groaned in relief if Hoku hadn't slipped past her, stalking whatever she'd sensed ahead.

“Is this it?” Darby asked. The unexpected sight transfixed her, too.

Steam came wavering up through a crack in the bottom of an indentation. She didn't know what it was called, but it looked like someone had dropped something big and heavy—like a truck—on the ground.

It was like something she'd see on the Discovery Channel, Darby marveled. Logically, it had something to do with volcanoes, but the Two Sisters were far off on the horizon.

Darby veered around it, and kept going downhill toward the rushing of water. Once the ground leveled out, Darby kept Hoku from eating some yellow flowers Auntie Cathy called Madagascar daisies, and then led the filly over hardened black lava.

Some of the lava had cooled in waves, but most of it had broken into shards. Still, Hoku picked her way over it, following Darby, as if she trusted her.

Then, there were trees crowded side by side, with branches poking out from ground level, instead of up on the trunk like Darby would have expected. And, finally, a clearing.

Someone had cut back trees growing around the corral and wooden lean-to, and the flat patch was overrun with grass, vines, and creeping plants.

Darby heard a splash. Her gaze followed the trail
of longer, greener grass. It showed where water pooled, became a rivulet, and wandered, losing its sense of direction, then going off on a tangent before it gathered enough water to become a real stream.

Head bobbing up and down, mane flowing in the waves, Hoku pulled Darby along.

At last, almost by accident, they both saw the place where the trickling water turned into a silvery moss brook, and a creature that almost had to be a mythical beast.

Not a unicorn. There was no such thing. But Darby decided it was a creature just as rare.

Drinking with her muzzle thrust into her rosy reflection, a pink horse stood.

D
arby placed her hand over Hoku's nose, forming a grip of gentle dominance so the filly would stay quiet. Without looking, she knew the filly was about to greet the strange horse. She'd heard Hoku's lips move in the beginning of a nicker.

Puzzled by her human's use of horse sign language, Hoku lowered her head a little, but still watched the pink horse.

They both had a pretty good view, though the horse was about a quarter-mile downhill, in the center of the forest.

As the horse raised her head from drinking and backed away from the water, Darby saw she had large, wide-set eyes that suited her dished, Arab
head. But her resemblance to an Arabian ended there.

The mare's black tail was low-set. Her black-maned neck wasn't high flung. Though she wasn't tall, her hooves looked nearly as big as Navigator's.

A different kind of beautiful from you,
Darby thought. Her fingers tousled Hoku's mane as the filly nudged her knee, trying to pull Darby's attention away from the strange horse.

Sturdy and intelligent looking, the mare would be a horse you could count on in rough country. Or going over slick rocks near waterfalls.

Could she be a wild horse from Crimson Vale?

If she was, why had she wandered to a campsite with a corral and lean-to that must smell strongly of humans?

The mare had come for the water, of course. Jonah had said the stream ran pure and sweet. But the horse didn't take quick sips, then glance around warily as you'd expect a mustang to do.

She could be feral—once owned, then free—as Hoku had been.

Darby tried to think like a horse, but she didn't have much luck. She was too busy wondering if Manny, Cade's cruel stepfather, had managed to drive the entire wild herd from Crimson Vale. If the horses had split up, this could be one of them.

Or maybe the mare had wandered off on her own. Darby had read that wild stallions drove their male
offspring away to live in little herds called bachelor bands. Could this mare have left with her girlfriends to explore the island?

Darby was thinking so hard, she wasn't ready for Hoku's whinny.

The pink mare looked right at them and trembled. When Hoku lifted her front hooves from the ground and gave a bad-tempered neigh, the roan backed through a thin spot in the foliage, which closed over the place where she'd been.

Darby released a sigh.

“Thanks, Miss Cranky Mouth,” Darby said.

Hoku's unapologetic snort made Darby rub the sorrel's withers. She didn't have to be a horse charmer to understand that.

I'm not supposed to be petting you for no reason,
Darby thought, but jealousy translated easily in any language. She wanted Hoku to know she had nothing to worry about.

All at once, Hoku's expression changed. She stepped forward, nostrils quivering with a longing that Darby recognized right away. As clearly as if she'd spelled it in the dirt with her hoof, Hoku had said “hay.”

Darby sighed at her mistake.

Cade must have left some down there in the corral or lean-to. The filly loved hay above all other foods.

“So you weren't jealously guarding me,” Darby said, but Hoku was in no mood to be teased. She
stared at the lean-to, refusing to turn her head at Darby's tug on the lead rope. “You were worried that horse would get your hay, weren't you? Well, we have a way to go before we get to it.”

They had to trek downhill, cross the lava rock, and walk through the rain forest before they reached the campsite.

You can't miss it,
Cade had told her, but Darby still wanted to get going. If they hurried, they could get there before the sun set.

Just then, Darby spotted the perfect shortcut. A log had fallen in the rain forest and spanned the lava rock underneath.
Not quite perfect,
Darby realized as she took a closer look. It might be wide enough for Hoku to walk across, but the log was coated with moss. One misstep would send them both plummeting to the sharp lava rock below.

“C'mon, girl,” Darby said, and Hoku must have understood her urgency, because she obeyed at once.

As soon as she and Hoku began picking their way down the hillside, they lost their overhead view of the campsite. At ground level, the trees formed a brown-and-green hump before them on the other side of the black lava rock.

Placing their steps carefully, they didn't make a single slip. Once they'd crossed the hard surface, Darby decided to pick up the pace.

It wouldn't be long before the sun sunk too low to penetrate the canopy of leaves.

“Let's hurry,” she told her horse, but Hoku tossed her head, eyeing the wall of trees warily. Then the filly stopped.

Darby stroked Hoku's sweaty neck and looked at the forest as she would if she, like Hoku, had lived most of her life in Nevada. Even when Shan Stonerow had held her captive, the filly had been able to see open rangeland.

“I don't blame you, girl,” Darby said.

Hoku had been in the forest before, but it had been with Navigator and the young geldings, so she'd felt the safety of a herd.

And sure, she and Hoku had walked through a forest in darkness, but it had been at the end of a day of fighting the sea and trotting over beach. Hoku had to have been as dazed as Darby was by the strangeness of their island initiation.

But she wasn't dazed now.

Twilight hung lavender in the sky, but there was still enough light for Hoku to know she shouldn't enter a place where she'd be surrounded. A prey animal wouldn't willingly walk into a trap.

Darby considered the forest through Hoku's eyes. There was nothing to her right or left but trees. Together, Darby and the filly looked over their shoulders.

Behind them, open space looked far away. Its brightness shrank with each step they took.

Overhead, there was a ceiling of leaves, branches,
and suddenly quiet birds, but no sky.

Chills prickled down Darby's arms. As soon as they were encircled by trees, Hoku would expect trouble.

And Darby was pretty sure she wasn't up to leading a paranoid horse.

“We have to use our other senses, like Tutu said.” Darby tried to sound sympathetic.

Hoku didn't care what Tutu had said. She kept her hooves planted in place.

“When did you start balking?” Darby asked. Then, thinking her voice sounded too loud for the forest, she whispered, “This is Wild Horse Island, girl!”

Hoku wouldn't even look at her, until she tried to say the name in Hawaiian: “Moku Lio Hihiu.”

Hoku's muzzle swung toward her so quickly, Darby had to duck out of her way.

“Moe-coo Lee-oh He-he-oo,” she repeated, pretty sure she was pronouncing it right.

Of course horses couldn't skip, but Hoku made a skipping movement of delight just the same.

“Moe-coo Lee-oh He-he-oo,” Darby said again, and when she continued walking, Hoku followed her.

The ground crunched. Hoku sniffed the forest floor, which was littered with round, penny-colored leaves. When the filly tried to nibble some purplish-black berries that were so shiny Darby could see the sorrel reflected in them, Darby pulled her away.

Even if Hawaiian plants had lost their poison and prickles, Darby wasn't sure they were safe for horses.

To distract the filly, Darby took a noisy breath, swelling out her chest, then exhaled just as loudly.

“I smell hay,” she told her horse. “Don't you?”

Hoku's ears pricked up. Her eyes widened. Jogging, she towed Darby into the rain forest, to their temporary home.

Ferns grazed Darby's shoulders as she ducked to look into the wooden shelter. A sleeping bag, supplies, and hay were stacked inside a lean-to made of flat boards. They met at the top to make a triangular hut about four feet tall.

“I dub you the House of Ferns,” Darby said melodramatically, but Hoku wasn't interested. The filly was thirsty, and once she saw that no other horse was munching her hay, Hoku tugged Darby toward the stream.

Even if Tutu hadn't told her the camp was rarely used, Darby would have known. Only a few hoofprints marked the damp dirt around the stream. She guessed they'd been stamped there by the roan, Cade's Appaloosa Joker, and some smaller animal with split hooves.

Maybe a fawn, she thought, smiling.

Holding the lead rope tightly, Darby knelt a few feet upstream from her horse. Once they'd finished drinking, Darby stood up to watch Hoku.

The filly surveyed this new place. Darby could
tell Hoku felt better with a little open space around her, but the filly's ears flashed in all directions, then pointed toward the corral.

Despite the comforting aroma of hay, Hoku didn't like the look of those fences.

“Hey, Hoku girl, let's see if I can lead you, carry hay, and open that gate, all at the same time,” Darby said.

It didn't seem likely, so Darby decided to put Hoku in the corral first. Darby fumbled with the gate's lock, trying to peel off the tendrils of morning-glory vines that held it closed. Once the gate opened, Hoku shied, almost jerking the rope from Darby's hand.

“No problem, beauty,” Darby said. With dusk closing in, she couldn't take the chance that the filly would break away. “Let's go get some food first.”

Once they were close enough, Hoku nosed Darby out of the way, trying to grab a mouthful of hay.

“Don't be rude,” Darby ordered the filly. Hoku blinked as if she had no idea what Darby was talking about, but she let Darby grab a flake of hay and hold it against her chest.

Sweet rumbling came from the filly as they returned to the corral. She walked fast now that she knew the hay was hers. Standing on tiptoe, Darby thrust the flake up, balanced it for a second on the top rail, and blinked against the hay dust sifting into her eyes, then tipped it over and inside the corral.

Hoku lowered her head, flattened her cheek to the ground, and slid her nose under the bottom rail. Darby laughed as the filly extended her tongue, tried to catch a stem of hay, and failed.

“Ready to go inside for some dinner?” Darby asked. Sighing, the sorrel followed Darby into the corral.

“Good girl,” Darby said. She unclipped the lead rope to let the filly eat.

While Hoku ate, Darby returned to the lean-to and made the most of the remaining daylight. First, she shook out her sleeping bag, just as Megan had suggested. Next, she pumped fuel into a lantern as Jonah had taught her. Once she had the lantern glowing in the twilight, Darby sorted through the food Auntie Cathy had packed.

Since Darby hadn't trusted herself to use a camp stove—she had visions of burning down the forest—most of her food was snack stuff. Besides the fresh ham and cheese sandwich for dinner, there were six coconut cookies, a big packet of jerky, a smaller one of macadamia nuts, crunchy granola, three apples, a freeze-dried fruit-and-cinnamon-crumb mixture called Peach Pie Pak, and envelopes of powdered drink mix that she'd add to water.

Under it all, she found a huge bar of milk chocolate. The slab of candy was as thick as her hand and about twice as long.

“Oh, yeah. Thank you, Auntie Cathy,” Darby
said, but she decided to save the candy for an emergency boost of energy, and hid it from herself.

“I'm set,” Darby said with a nod.

Even though she was sure Auntie Cathy would send more food with the first person who came to check on her, she felt prepared to stay here alone. In fact, looking around the clearing, Darby felt a little territorial.

For company, she had Hoku and that other horse. Tutu was only fifteen minutes away. Maybe less, if she crossed on that log over the lava field.

Darby felt almost at home. She could live off her few provisions and never miss the company of other people.

Before she started thinking like her great-grandmother, Darby decided she wouldn't mind a visit from Megan, or Heather. Or Samantha Forster.

“Yes!” Darby said, and Hoku's head jerked up. “It's okay, girl.”

She'd love for the Nevada cowgirl to see that the Phantom's sister wasn't the frightened, desperate horse she'd been in the winter.

Right now, for instance, Hoku was sniffing around for a last bit of dinner. Sam wouldn't be surprised at proof of the mustang's ability to adapt, but Darby would bet she'd be proud.

Darby crawled into her sleeping bag and turned off the lantern. Blackness surrounded her, but she immediately blotted out all forest sounds with a
yawn. Her hours of riding and hiking caught up with her, and she fell asleep.

In her dream, Darby sat on the Sun House lanai, telling her mother of her Hawaiian adventures. As she did, a voice boomed out like a movie ad for coming attractions, saying, “Season of the cave spider!”

Darby woke kicking. She tried to pull her legs clear of the sleeping bag, but only managed to hit her knees against her chin before rolling out of the lean-to and knocking the lantern over.

“Fire,” she gasped, but she'd turned off the lantern before she'd fallen asleep. And she couldn't have dozed for more than a few minutes, because the lantern's wick hadn't lost all of its glow.

Darby wiggled free of her sleeping bag, then stood and listened.

What had wakened her?

Not Hoku. Darby could just pick out her filly's silhouette by the glint of her eyes. The mustang watched her, but she didn't seem agitated.

Branches creaked in a warm wind.

The spilled lantern fuel smelled like gasoline.

Leaves crunched and pricked her heels. Darby could not believe she'd gone to sleep barefoot.

Maybe her brain had been trying to remind her of happy-face spiders or cane spiders or tarantulas—did Hawaii have tarantulas?—because she'd heard of a dance called the tarantella that people did to flush out
tarantula venom, and the way she was hopping around now, trying to tug her socks back on so that nothing crawled between her toes and bit her, she was probably doing it!

Mud. Darby held her breath at the sound of something walking in mud.