Snowfire (5 page)

At last she tucked her diary away, turned over on one side, and dreamed of horses.

M
egan, Darby, and Cade were waiting outside Sun House when Cricket arrived in her beat-up Jeep, pulling an open horse trailer.

The girls had been finishing breakfast when they'd heard Medusa's neighs.

Fighting the trailer and overwhelmed by the bewildering experience of moving without running, Medusa screamed at the humans who'd caused her confinement.

Kit appeared farther down the road leading into the ranch yard and motioned with both hands, telling Cricket to keep driving until she reached Hoku's corral.

It almost worked.

Darby and Megan jogged behind the trailer until Cricket came to a stop just before she reached the tack shed.

Darby had to admit the horse was magnificent in her fiery steeldust beauty, but her heart ached for the mare. A leader of her own kind, the horse used fury to hide her fear. Darby could see why Cricket was eager to end the mare's imprisonment.

“The ride really freaked her out,” Megan sympathized. As Cricket turned off the Jeep, got out, and closed the door softly behind her, Megan stepped forward, waiting for instructions.

“We'll see,” Cricket said softly, and then focused her attention on Medusa.

Cricket was a native Hawaiian, and today, as usual, her long black hair was caught up in a messy bun skewered in place by an ivory chopstick. At least, it
had
been.

Though she was almost always cool under pressure, Cricket's bun had started to slip, and her thick glasses were askew.

“What a ride. My guess was wrong,” she said, studying the mare. “I kept weighing the differences between an open trailer and a closed one, and finally Luke—our vet—flipped a coin and we went with the open trailer.”

“She woulda hated it either way.” Kit sounded hypnotized, and he still hadn't greeted his girlfriend. He watched Medusa.

The mare's coat was nearly black with sweat. Clots of foam coated her mouth and muzzle.

“Let's get her outta there,” Kit said.

The mare wore a lightweight halter, and ropes came away from it on each side.

“If we hadn't cross-tied her, she would've climbed out,” Cricket said.

Kit gestured for Cade to take the far rope while he untied the near one.

Without Kit's instructions, Cricket moved to the critical position behind the mare to open the trailer door. Darby and Megan stood by, but they backed up to give the others room.

Since the mare's kicks were already resounding against the metal, Cricket didn't get too close until Cade and Kit had dodged Medusa's teeth and grabbed the ropes on either side of her halter.

“Poor girl,” Darby murmured.

“I don't even want to see her legs.” Megan winced, then noticed Jonah walking in their direction from the tack shed. “Here comes Jonah with the first-aid kit, but I don't know how they're going to get close enough to use it.”

Medusa's neck curved toward Cade. She stood for a moment, then lunged with bared teeth for his hand. As he jumped back, Cade inadvertently gave the mare a little more rope. Instantly she took up the slack by bending like a dog after its tail.

“She's trying to turn,” Cade said. He shortened the
length of rope once more, but Medusa was determined to leave the trailer headfirst instead of backing out.

“She just doesn't get it,” Darby said.

“Can she make it if I slack off on this side? It looks like she can.” Kit kept his voice level.

Cade bobbed into range of the mare, checking to see whether there was space enough for her to escape the trailer frontward.

The mare's open mouth went for his head.

Cade's hala hat spun off as he ducked and said, “Think so.”

Cricket nodded at Kit, who gave Medusa the rope she needed to turn around. Holding the trailer door open, Cricket dodged behind it, shielding herself from Medusa.

“I'm okay,” Cricket reassured Kit.

With the way clear before her, the mare charged out toward Sun House.

Her legs
were
bleeding. Darby heard Cricket's frustrated grunt. Even as Medusa hit the end of the twin ropes restraining her, Cricket was walking around the mare, trying to study her legs.

Megan gasped at Cricket's bravery, then said, “She totally trusts those guys to hold on.”

Shining with sweat, the gray mare gave short dolphin leaps forward, dragging Cade and Kit.

“She's reopened some stitches.” Cricket sounded both sad and disgusted.

During the tsunami, Darby had watched on
horseback with Kit and Cade as Black Lava and Medusa swam their herd out to a lava spit for safety. But once the storm was over, the horses had been coaxed back to land. Only Medusa had refused to follow.

Kit had used his bronc-riding skills to climb onto the mare's back and stuff cotton into her ears to dull the roar of helicopters overhead. Only when the mare had swum ashore and stood shivering beneath a sodden black mane had they noticed her legs, bleeding from cuts on the lava rock.

“She's all yours,” Cricket joked feebly.

“Ideas?” Kit grunted as the mare made another hop, pulling his boot heels through the dirt.

“Let her up.”

Darby sucked in a breath, pretty sure Cricket wanted to calm the mare with fewer restrictions. But they couldn't let her get away. Running with trailing ropes and bleeding legs would be disastrous.

As Medusa reared, pawing the air with outrage, Kit and Cade let out the ropes. Confused by her head's freedom, the mare touched her front hooves down, tossed her mane and forelock from her face, then reared again.

Foam flew from her lips, and for a single instant her eyes rolled until they showed a bit of red rim.

Darby stepped back so quickly her boot crunched down on Jonah's.

“Remember that,” he said quietly. He pointed, but
the mare's eyes had already returned to normal.

“Can we tranquilize her?” Cade asked.

Darby looked at Kit, then Cricket and Jonah. None of them answered him, but Darby guessed they didn't want to traumatize the mare any further.

“I have some of Tutu's concoction left,” Cade said. “The stuff she made up for Honi.”

“Sounds good,” Kit said, but his voice was so quiet Darby didn't know whether Cade heard.

“Is it still in your poncho?” Megan asked, and when Cade nodded, she darted for the bunkhouse.

Medusa couldn't maintain her rearing balance much longer. The mare's back legs trembled. One hoof stepped forward. Finally she stood on all fours again, front legs spread wide. Her head hung low, and her forelock veiled her face, down to her nostrils.

Just as Megan returned, Aunty Cathy came out of the office. Face flushed with exertion, she carried a bucket that sloshed water over its sides.

“I couldn't stay away,” Aunty Cathy said. “Look at her. She's exhausted.”

Medusa stumbled backward a step, and though her head still hung low, she moved it up slowly, watching all the humans staring at her.

Looking sweaty and spent, Cade sighted across the horse's back. He raised his eyebrows at Megan. She held up a packet wrapped in waxed paper. It must be the herbs Tutu had left for Honi.

Cade nodded, and Megan sprinkled the herbs over
the surface of the water in the bucket.

“I thought you were supposed to let her eat it, or rub it on her gums or something,” Darby whispered to Megan.

Megan looked up. Her mocking smile wrinkled her nose a little as she said, “You go first.”

Darby laughed at herself. “Yeah, I guess that's not going to happen.”

Even though the mare was exhausted, Darby doubted anyone could get close enough to touch her mouth, and the steeldust wasn't trusting enough to take food from their hands.

As Megan finished stirring the herbs around with her fingers, Cricket crouched beside her.

“We'll let it steep a few minutes, like tea. Then, since she's most familiar with me, I'll bring her the bucket. She must be thirsty, and even if it doesn't sedate her much—” Cricket broke off and turned to Darby and asked, “Body weight?”

“Uhh…”

“Compare Honi the pony and Medusa,” Cricket explained. “I haven't seen Honi for a while, and we need to be cautious. Medusa was hard bodied and lean when she came into the rescue barn, and she's even thinner now. Dosage, even with herbal remedies, is based on body weight. So, what do you think?”

“I'd say they're close to the same,” Darby ventured. “Honi's fit, but a little, you know, round.”

Cricket nodded and stared into the bucket carefully.
She might have been reading tea leaves.

Jonah, Aunty Cathy, and Megan were standing right there. Why hadn't she asked one of them? Darby wondered. Still, she felt proud knowing Cricket trusted her skills of observation.

Darby's gaze was on Kit as Cricket approached with the bucket. Kit's hands didn't tighten on the rope. He didn't dig in his boots for more traction, and he didn't caution the young woman as she set the bucket near enough to Medusa that she could drink. Or bite. Or kick.

Kit's face was the only part of him that showed his tension, and his relief as Cricket backed away.

Medusa tried to ignore the bucket. She took a few steps past it until the ropes were taut once more. She stood at the apex of a triangle, with the ropes leading back to Cade on one side and Kit on the other.

But she was thirsty. Her mouth opened and closed. Her lips moved. Her head lifted and her nostrils quivered as she smelled the water.

“She knows buckets now. She's not afraid. And there's no reason to stay silent. She's being stubborn.” Cricket whispered, but Medusa pinned her ears at the human voice.

I don't know how Kit's going to gentle her,
Darby thought.
From the first, Hoku liked the sound of my storytelling.
And then she remembered something Jonah had said.

“What did you mean before when you said, ‘Remember that'?” Darby asked her grandfather.

“Did you catch the way she rolled her eyes so you could almost see the rims?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“I've
never
seen a mare act that way. Not even your tomboy.”

Kit nodded in agreement as Jonah went on. “Warring stallions will do that. It's threatenin' body language. The strongest. When a stallion rolls his eyes like that, he's promising a fight to the death.”

“She sees us as attackers, not rescuers.” Kit said it matter-of-factly to the others, but the corners of his mouth drooped, as if he'd just realized how long it would take to show the mare that he was on her side.

Medusa fought her thirst as long as she could, then lowered her head to the bucket and drank deeply. An hour later, she allowed herself to be half-dragged, half-chased down to Hoku's corral.

“Leave the ropes on,” Jonah said. “She's still gotta be doctored, and I don't see those plants knocking her out.”

They had closed the mare in, with all the humans outside, when Kimo rode Biscuit in from the fold at the end of the road.

Medusa snorted, tossed her forelock away from her eyes, and stumbled closer to the fence.

Sizing up the situation, Kimo ordered the dogs to stay, then rode a bit closer and ground-tied the buckskin horse near the corral.

Biscuit's ears twitched in all directions, and he returned Medusa's snort. He dragged his reins a few feet and extended his nose toward the fence before glancing at Aunty Cathy.

“You're fine, boy,” Aunty Cathy said, and Darby remembered the horse had belonged to her husband, Ben. “Just keep Medusa company.”

Biscuit lipped a weed that had grown up near the corral since Hoku's absence, and Medusa snapped at him. Even though she was clumsy from the effect of the herbs, she let him know she was still a lead mare.

“Not a real promisin' start,” Kit said warily. “I'm inclined to set her free.”

Darby was surprised, but it took her only a second to realize that Black Lava and his band couldn't have gone far. Medusa could rejoin her herd!

“This is something you can't do halfway,” Cricket said. She sounded highly professional, as if she were addressing any other wild horse adopter. “We brought her in injured, stitched her up, and now she's opened the wounds and has to heal all over again. In the wild…”

Cricket stopped. Maybe she was tired, but Darby thought Cricket didn't want to harass Kit by pointing out that Medusa's injuries would, at best, handicap her.

At worst, she could bleed to death or get an infection.

“She's not going to be the lead mare again like she
was,” Darby said, and the idea brought a lump to her throat.

“That'd be hard for her,” Kit said.

Aunty Cathy turned from exchanging a look with Jonah and said, “Let's keep her here for a couple weeks.”

A couple weeks!
Darby thought, in despair, of Hoku. But she saw Jonah's slight nod.

Jonah had no use for any animal that didn't earn its keep. He didn't have lots of loose cash around to pay for Medusa's feed, either. But he valued Kit and trusted him to make the right decision, so he was letting the steeldust stay. He was even ready to risk injury to himself to treat hers.

“After that,” Aunty Cathy went on, “she should be pretty much healed. And she should be starting to adjust. If you don't feel like she's fitting in by then…”

Aunty Cathy left the sentence dangling, but Kimo finished it.

“Aloha.”

 

That night before bed, Darby phoned Ann.

“We have to come up with
something
for English,” Darby said, getting right to the point when Ann answered.

“I know!” Ann replied. “Let me get the sheet Ms. Day gave us at the beginning of the year. It lists what we can do for our second-semester final presentation.” Ann rustled some papers and came back on the line.
“Well, we're down to two bad choices, but at least we can do these together.”