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It didn’t seem like a piece of tack he’d just have sitting around.
    â€œYou want me to put this on Hoku. And ride her?” Darby gasped.
    â€œOr you can wear it,” Jonah said.
    How could he joke about this? She’d never ridden her mustang with a real saddle.
    â€œNow, watch.” Jonah squatted and used the point of a stick to sketch out the hillside on which she was to ride Hoku.
    He’d changed the subject, Darby thought. Did he think riding her horse with a saddle for the first timewas just a step along the way of gentling the filly?
    â€œYou know where I’m talkin’ about?” Jonah asked, tapping the stick on the diagram he’d etched in the dirt.
    â€œYeah,” Darby told him. “It’s not too steep.”
    â€œBut definitely a sharp slope. You keep your wits about you. If the saddle slips toward her tail, next time we’ll put on a breast collar.”
    â€œOkay,” Darby said. Because of the hilly terrain, most horses on the ranch were fitted with sheepskin-lined breast collars that lay flat against their chests and buckled to the saddle on each side.
    Jonah drew a series of switchbacks ascending in continuous S ’s.
    â€œYour filly will get bored with this. She’ll get it into her head that it’s faster to go in a straight line, to just leap on up the hillside instead of following the path. But you won’t let her.”
    â€œOkay,” Darby said again.
    â€œToday there’s no real reason for it—a bit easier on her legs, yeah?—but someday there will be a reason she has to trust you over her muddled mustang mind. Today’s practice for that day.”
    â€œRight,” Darby said, just as if she was taking Jonah’s directions—including the part about riding Hoku with a saddle for the first time—in stride.
    â€œWork her through the hills first, to drain off a little energy. Then ride her back up here,” Jonah said. With a swing of his arm, he indicated the ranch yard.“And make her stop and stand.”
    â€œWhere, exactly?” Darby asked.
    â€œAt the foreman’s house, the tack shed, next to the goat, the pig, the candlenut tree, next to all that hammering.”
    Although the construction racket grated on her nerves, the scent of freshly sawed boards made Darby smile. Three local guys were building a house on ‘Iolani Ranch property. She and her mother would live there when it was finished.
    â€œGot it,” Darby said before Jonah could accuse her of daydreaming. “I’m making her stop and stand because I say so.”
    Jonah pointed his finger at her as if she’d correctly guessed the answer to a riddle.
    Â 
    There really was nothing to worry about. She’d ridden Hoku lots of times. A couple times she’d even done it with a leather strap, like a cinch, around the filly’s middle. Hoku already knew the feeling.
    Balancing the load in her arms against herself as she walked the path down to the pastures, Darby still felt surprised that Jonah expected her to do this alone, but she was happy she wouldn’t have an audience.
    Almost there. In a few more steps, fields full of horses would appear below her. The sight never grew old.
    There. The green unrolled in hills and dips, all sprinkled with horses.
    Hoku stood statue stiff, staring into Kanaka Luna’s pasture, until she spotted Darby. Then a streak of red-gold, bright as a chip of sunset, came hurtling Darby’s way.
    Darby tried to jog to meet her. In boots, with an armload of gear, it wasn’t easy. Darby’s heart went out to meet her horse before her own feet stopped at the pasture gate.
    Pulling together, Darby thought. It was the name of the Potters’ therapeutic riding program, but it fit her and Hoku, too.
    Hoku made the happy grumbling noises Darby had taken for hunger when the filly was in her corral up in the ranch yard. But now Darby knew it as a greeting.
    Wait,