Water Lily (3 page)

“Sorry,” she said, then tidied her ponytail as if it mattered.

Maybe it was all wishful thinking, but maybe she was right. She was feeling pretty optimistic, until Cade muttered something she couldn't understand.

“What?”

“I said, what if she takes him back?” Cade asked.

“Why would she? Are you kidding?”

“Why did they get together in the first place? I mean, I know what she says, but lots of single mothers do okay.” Cade stopped, as if he felt disloyal, then stood up and paced around the room.

Cade's right. Dee could have found child care and a job. Lots of single mothers do that,
Darby thought.
My mom did. Dee didn't have to live with a criminal who beat her son.
It was getting harder to keep her opinion to herself, but Cade was upset enough without her piling on his mother.

“I can't just abandon her, you know. Even though Manny was a creep, he fed her and stuff.”

“I know,” Darby said.

“But I can't let her keep on this way, either.”

Darby barely heard him, because she'd thought of something worse. What if there really was a plague?
Dee could be out in the forest, alone and sick. But Darby didn't need to add to Cade's scary thoughts.

A heavy silence fell between them.

They must have waited an hour when Cade finally gave up.

“I wish her cell phone worked. If she hasn't paid the bill it means she's broke,” Cade grumbled.

He found a pen and stood ready to write a note on the back of an envelope, but then he looked at Darby. “What should we do with Honi? There's rainwater in the trough”—he nodded toward the corral behind the house—“but is it enough? And if I leave her loose, she'll go back to the pond and, well, that mongoose…”

“Uh-huh,” Darby said. “That worries me, too.”

Cade tapped the pen on the paper. He looked so confused, Darby tried to help him decide what to do next.

“You've got a rope. Catch Honi and bring her home with us. Write your mom a note letting her know Honi is with you,” she said, pointing at the paper. “So she won't worry.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Cade said, in a pretty good imitation of a western drawl.

With a smile, Cade wrote quickly and lightly until he jabbed the pen point down in what looked like a final period. He picked up the paper and reread the note.

He was clearing a space on the kitchen counter,
when something big—probably Navigator—bumped the back of the house.

Then, before Darby could make sense of Cade's change in expression, he wadded the note into a ball and threw it against the wall.

“W
hat's wrong?” Darby asked.

“I can't bring Honi back to the ranch. What if she's already sick? And contagious?”

Cade decided the best he could do for the pony was hook open the corral gate, so that she could drink from the trough. He put out the last of the hay, then said, “I've got to find my mom. I hate to ask Jonah for time off, but I don't know what else to do.”

Darby didn't, either, not right then, but she'd think hard on the ride back to the ranch. Maybe she'd come up with something.

They rode away from the tilted house. Honi walked as far as the edge of the ruined taro patch, but then she stopped. She stayed behind, waiting for Dee.

 

Darby made it home in time to help Megan put together a big shrimp salad. That was a good thing, because the two of them were in charge of dinner that night.

“I'm glad you remembered,” Megan said as Darby burst through Sun House's front door and shucked off her boots.

“Of course I did,” Darby said, but they almost hadn't made it in time, because Cade, at her urging, had stopped to bury the dead mongoose.

“Wow, give us a bath, why don't you!”

“Sorry,” Darby said. She hadn't meant to turn on the water full blast.

Megan watched as Darby began scrubbing from fingertips to elbows, trying to wash off all remnants of the sad house in Crimson Vale.

“Was it pretty gross out at Cade's place?” Megan whispered. “Never mind, you don't have to tell me.”

Ten minutes later, they were serving dinner on the lanai, just as they'd promised Aunty Cathy they would. And Jonah actually rubbed his hands together in anticipation at the smell of the garlic bread they served with the salad.

Darby's gloom had lifted and both girls were feeling pretty proud of themselves by the time the evening news came on the living room TV with an announcement that made them even happier.

All schools would be closed until the Health Department could make inspections to determine the
cause of an outbreak of flulike symptoms among students.

Darby wasn't surprised, and she wasn't feeling sick, but she didn't stop worrying about the horses until Megan bounced up, grabbed Darby's wrists, and dragged her to her feet, then began dancing in delight.

She couldn't resist Megan's gladness, even when Jonah shouted, “Hey! That just means I've got me two more workers for tomorrow!”

“Killjoy,” Megan called after Jonah as he left the living room for the lanai.

“For sure,” Jonah said, but once he was outside, Darby watched her grandfather look skyward. Then he turned west, as though he could foretell the weather by the breeze on his face.

Jonah was known as a horse charmer, and there were some—including her, at times—who thought he'd passed his intuition for horse communication on to Darby.

But he had more than a knack with horses, Darby thought. Jonah's sensitivity to the world around him was so precise, sometimes it was spooky.

“That's a wet wind,” he said, just loud enough to be heard.

Darby realized that she'd rarely thought about the weather before coming to Moku Lio Hihiu. Of course they
had
weather back in Pacific Pinnacles, where she'd lived before coming here. But it was usually just sunny weather, filtered through layers of smoke and fog. Unless
there was an actual smog alert, since bad air triggered her asthma, weather wasn't as important.

“You didn't listen to the rest of the news story, did you?” Aunty Cathy's low voice distracted Darby. She and Megan dropped hands. “The ARC is coming around checking wells for contamination. Until then, they want ranchers and farmers to reduce water use by ten percent.”

“The ark?” Darby asked. “Like Noah?”

Megan laughed and shook her head. “No, it's A—R—C.” She paused between each letter. “It's the Agricultural—what is it, Mom?”

“Agricultural Resource Conservation division,” Aunty Cathy supplied.

Before she explained the agency, Jonah strode back into the house, muttering, “State bureaucrats, but they've been all over the island in their slickers and hip boots, inspecting flumes, pipes, and reservoirs ever since the first earthquake. Gotta give 'em credit for that.”

“So, you'll go along with the cutback?” Megan asked.

“What do you think, I'm an outlaw?” Jonah looked annoyed rather than insulted. “Besides, there's no reason not to go along. There's another storm coming, I've got two sturdy girls to roll out rain barrels,” he said, counting on his fingers, “and they can pour the caught water into the tack-room trough, Hoku's trough, and the dogs' dishes.”

Darby was pretty sure that didn't amount to ten percent, but she didn't say so.

“Sure, I'll go along. But I know my well. When the ARC checks, it'll be sweet and pure as the year my father and grandfather dug it.”

“Girls, you ought to go get those barrels out now,” Aunty Cathy said.

“I thought it wasn't supposed to rain until morning,” Megan said, stretching lazily.

“If you have so much faith in the weatherman that you won't mind getting out of bed and running out there in your nightie to roll out the barrels if he's wrong…” Aunty Cathy let her voice trail off.

“Mom,” Megan moaned. “That's not funny.”

Darby and Megan went outside and right away Darby felt the Kona winds. As soon as she realized the breeze carried no ash to make her wheeze, Darby squared her shoulders and remembered what Jonah had just said. He had two sturdy girls to help him.

Her?
Sturdy? Darby's friend Heather, back in Pacific Pinnacles, would laugh at that.

So many things had changed since she came to live in Hawaii. She'd arrived skinny, with a droopy black ponytail, and often sick with asthma. Though she loved horses with all her heart, she'd never ridden one, and she'd shown up at the ranch with an armful of books and her pockets stuffed with pills and inhalers.

Now she rarely needed her inhaler, and she felt stronger. She spent every minute she wasn't at school
working with animals, exploring the island on horseback, or caring for Hoku, her mustang filly.

Both girls had paused to inspect the sky for rain clouds, so they'd only gone a few steps when two of the five ranch dogs trotted over to meet them. Peach licked their hands while Bart bounded around them.

The rising wind ruffled the dogs' fur, and even when they were petted, the dogs' ears stayed upright and alert. They knew a storm was coming.

“Meg?” Aunty Cathy called from the kitchen window, but her face was hidden by flapping curtains. “If you see Cade, tell him I've got to go into town tomorrow for my final doctor's appointment and I'll check for word about Dee.”

“Okay,” Megan called back, but a boom of thunder, followed by thudding hooves, stopped her from saying more.

Darby and Megan exchanged wide-eyed glances.

“The cremellos,” Darby said. “There's no water trough in the round pen, is there?”

“No. Horses almost never stay loose in there. Usually, it's just for training.”

They watched the pale horses move together like a flight of gulls in the round pen.

The cremello horses had been a gift with strings from Darby's great-aunt, Babe Borden. She owned Sugar Sands Cove, a luxury resort, and had worked out an arrangement with Jonah to allow her guests to come ride at ‘Iolani Ranch. But the cremellos' five-acre
pasture, which would include a picturesque hill just to the right of the gravel driveway, was still being fenced by Kit, Kimo, and Cade.

Eventually, the pasture would have a trough of its own, but now the horses had to be led to water.

“Is that why he said we had to fill the trough by the tack shed?” Darby asked.

Leading each of the cremellos to water several times a day was a small chore when the trough had an automatic flow valve that kept it full. But if the trough had to be filled by bucket, the job would be a big one.

“Horses drink five to twelve gallons each day,” Darby said. “Multiply that by six cremellos, plus any horses that have a drink after they've been out working, and that's—”

“—a whole lotta haulin',” Megan complained. “Jonah should pretend that we're not here. If school wasn't closed that's where we'd be:
not here
.”

Darby laughed. “I don't think Jonah pretends much.”

“I'd say not even when he was a little kid, if it weren't for that wooden horse in his library,” Megan agreed.

A raindrop plopped on Darby's nose. “Here it comes,” she said.

“And the barrels are under cover down by the pigpen, and we haven't even started,” Megan said. “I guess we should grab a couple slickers out of the tack room.”

“It's too hot,” Darby said, “and it'll scare Hoku.”

“Do what you want, but I'm going to be modeling banana yellow for the next half hour,” Megan said.

 

While Megan searched for a slicker, Darby ran on ahead and stopped next to Hoku's corral fence. Since that first raindrop, the sky seemed to be holding its breath. Tension charged every molecule of air, as if they were just waiting for lightning to set loose the rain.

Hoku trotted back and forth, agitated by the weather. At least Darby thought that was what was wrong. Hoku had eaten every wisp of her dinnertime hay, but even in the dim light, her sorrel coat glistened with sweat as her brown eyes watched her human.

Darby loved Hoku completely. They had bonded when the wild filly had been hit by a bus back on War Drum Flats in Nevada. She'd lain beside the injured horse in the snow for a long time until help finally arrived. During that vigil, Darby had talked to the horse and sung to her, and somehow attachments had grown between them, mind to mind, heart to heart.

But Hoku was still wild, and Darby was still new to the world of horses. They were learning together.

“I know you lived through thunderstorms in Nevada,” Darby scolded softly. “And you didn't have any soft-hearted humans to talk you out of worrying.”

But she'd had her herd, Darby thought. Mustangs learned when they were shaky-legged foals that safety is always with the herd.

“I'm a pretty sad substitute for a herd, is that what you're thinking?”

The filly's lips and nostrils quivered with a silent neigh as she looked over Darby's head. Hoku knew ‘Iolani's saddle horses and broodmares weren't far away, and no matter how much she loved Darby, Hoku longed to run with others of her kind.

The filly shied, rolling her eyes white as Megan came rustling up to Darby in her bright yellow slicker.

“Should I do anything?” Darby asked Megan. “She's scared in there alone but it's not a big-enough emergency—not like the earthquake—to let her out to be with the others.”

Jonah had told Darby that isolating Hoku much of the time would help cement the bond between girl and horse. So far, he was right.

Suddenly, Hoku rocked onto her hind legs, then brought both front hooves down together.

“What does that mean?” Darby asked.

“It's—” Megan frowned in concentration as the filly repeated the movement. “I have no idea. Does it look to you like she's smashing something?”

“Yeah, but there's nothing there,” Darby said.

“And you're not picking up any horse charmer vibes?”

“None,” Darby said flatly.

They watched the horse until Megan shrugged. “You're going to get wet anyway. Go in and be her buddy. Here, I got a carrot from the tack room for Pigolo, but it might distract Hoku. I'll wait for you, but we should get going with those barrels.”

Darby took the carrot intended for the rescued piglet and stuck it in her pocket. She unlatched the corral gate, slipped inside, and fixed the gate closed behind her.

“What's this?” Darby murmured to her horse.

Rather than calming Hoku, Darby's approach made the mustang even more nervous. She circled the corral at a strange gait. Darby had never watched five-gaited horses like American saddlebreds in action, but such energy went into every one of Hoku's high-stepping moves, she thought this looked something like that gait called a rack.

The splash of white on the filly's chest—the mark that had earned her the name Hoku, “star” in Hawaiian—came right at Darby each time Hoku passed.

Darby tightened her ponytail and finally the filly slid to a stop. The gesture was a secret between them.

“Hey, baby, don't be afraid. I'm here.”

Hoku's pinned-back ears flicked forward at the sound of Darby's voice.

“It's okay.” Darby forgot Megan, the weather, everything but this little patch of earth and the calm she hoped Hoku could draw from her.

“Good girl.” She moved close enough to stroke Hoku's side. “You're such a good girl.”

Thunder clapped once again and Hoku shied, bumping Darby almost off her feet. But Darby didn't move away. She kept talking.

“It's a little thunder, no big deal.”

The filly paced along the fence and Darby stayed with her, humming a medieval-sounding song her mother liked. She didn't know why it popped into her mind. It could be because it mentioned parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. If she could drift the rangeland smell of sage to her filly's nostrils, she would have, but even the melody made the filly stop with a lowered head.

Still humming, Darby listened as the filly's breathing slowed. Darby rested her forehead on Hoku's neck. Could she really feel the mustang's coursing blood begin to slow? Were they both hypnotized by the melody?

Hoku sniffed the feathery top of the carrot in Darby's pocket, then nudged it.

Darby broke off a piece and let the filly eat. Then Darby walked and Hoku followed. Smiling, Darby stopped and gave Hoku a second piece of carrot. They moved together until they reached the gate.

“One more.” Darby balanced the last piece of carrot on her flattened palm.