Castaway Colt Read Free

Darby turned Navigator to follow.
    â€œNope,” Kimo said, shaking his head. “Cathy told me to send you home to try on gym clothes.”
    Darby was grateful that Aunty Cathy, the ranch manager and sort of her stand-in mother at ‘Iolani Ranch, was handy with a needle and willing to alter her daughter Megan’s outgrown gym clothes. Darby had already spent the money her mother had sent on new boots, so she was glad her gym uniform would be free.
    But why should she quit riding and go back now? It couldn’t take longer than five minutes to try on shorts and a T-shirt.
    â€œThat is, if I saw you,” Kimo said.
    Darby caught Kimo’s shrug as he squinted into a breeze scented with ferns and flowers.
    â€œToo bad you didn’t see me,” Darby said with an answering shrug.
    Then she sent Navigator off at a jog, leading Kimo to the spot where she’d last seen the white colt.
    Together, Darby and Kimo searched a stand of ohia trees that looked different from others she’d seen. Sparse as wizards’ staffs thrust into the ground, they provided a promising hiding place, but the colt wasn’t there.
    They followed hoofprints to a stretch of black-sand beach covered with multicolored rocks. From pewter gray to salt white and coppery brown, they’d been pounded by the ocean until they were smooth and round as cobblestones. Neither Darby nor Kimo thought the colt would try to cross that loose surface if he had a chance to walk elsewhere.
    At the edge of a damp forest, Darby saw shell-shaped fungus clinging to tree trunks. She mistook white globs on some rocks as far-flung sea foam until she rode close enough to see that it was some sort of lichen.
    After hours of searching, Kimo finally told her to ride on back to the ranch.
    â€œI’ll keep looking until dark,” he promised.
    Darby knew he would, but if tomorrow hadn’tbeen her first day at a new school, she wouldn’t have ridden back alone.
    Sweaty and frustrated, Darby rode up from the broodmare pastures to the ranch yard.
    Megan was already home from soccer practice. She could tell because the brown Land Rover with the ‘Iolani Ranch owl painted on the door was parked in front of Sun House, and Peach, the Australian shepherd who rode shotgun each time anyone drove into town, wasn’t waiting in his usual seat. The next time the Land Rover goes to town, I’ll be riding shotgun, Darby thought.
    Her stomach gave a nervous twist. Darby knew she was silly not to be looking forward to school.
    She was a good student, so it shouldn’t matter if eighth grade was part of the high school here.
    â€œI’ll do fine,” Darby muttered to Navigator.
    Navigator’s coffee-colored head bobbed along with his steps. He’d enjoyed the workout, Darby thought. She patted his neck in thanks for his good-natured energy in searching for the white colt. She wished they’d found him, but she had faith that Kimo would.
    Darby unsaddled Navigator and started brushing the dried sweat from his coat. She looked down the road, past the fox cages. Judge was still standing at Hoku’s corral fence.
    The old bay horse belonged to Mrs. Allen, the owner of Blind Faith Mustang Sanctuary and theDream Catcher Wild Horse Camp in Nevada.
    When the ranch horse had been born, who would have guessed he’d end up in Hawaii? But Darby had adopted Hoku and brought her to Wild Horse Island, and Mrs. Allen had sent Judge along so that Hoku had a stablemate for her voyage.
    On their arrival at the ranch, Jonah had told Darby not to let Hoku choose Judge—or any other horse—over her.
    Since then, Judge had been grazing with other horses in one of the lower pastures.
    According to Kit and Kimo, though, while Darby and Hoku had been in the rain forest last week, Judge’s longing neighs had been endless. Somehow he’d known Hoku was gone.
    Since their return, Judge had plodded up the hill to visit the mustang