The Silver Brumby (14 page)

The winter snows came in a wild and tremendous blizzard. Thowra knew the storm was coming and he moved his herd down to his end of the Cascades.

As he led them through the wind-moving snowgums — hearing the continual tree murmur, the word of a storm coming — he thought that this might be as heavy a winter as the one when he was a foal, and Yarraman had had to take his herd farther south. If he, Thowra, had to go south for grazing country, he would have trouble with The Brolga. Bel Bel’s warning was still strong in his mind. He must not fight The Brolga till next spring, so, when he had to go lower, he took them down into the Western foothills, finding little patches of grass country.

It was an unusual winter. Snow fell deeply, in almost every storm, but on the lower levels, it was often followed by warm rain that melted the snow, and all the foothills were filled with the sound of roaring streams. Up on the Range, snow lay thick and white, drifting across the mouth of the cave, covering in a blanket the place where Thowra had been born.

Thowra had expected Golden’s owner to come looking for her when the snow kept the wild horses low in the mountains, but as the rivers rose and stayed high because of frequent rain, he knew there were uncrossable barriers on every side — either rivers in flood, or deep snow. He remembered the story of the four people with long narrow boards on their feet that carried them over the snow, but these people had come so long ago . . . and Golden’s stockman had not looked as if he could even walk far; perhaps he could only ride a horse. Untroubled, Thowra found plenty of patches of grazing country for his hungry herd over towards the stockman’s track from Groggin to the Dead Horse hut.

For months the great winds of winter blew, the rivers roared, the snow fell in silent flakes. Trees, bowed with the white blanket, sometimes snapped and broke in the night. The Black cockatoos flew crying through the mountain ash forests and up where the snowgums beat and twisted in the wind.

Once, when the snow was packed hard by the wind, Thowra left his herd and went up and up into that great world of white, where even the rocks were plastered with glittering ice patterns, and the leaves on the snowgum branches were encased in ice so that they rang together, as the wind blew, and played wild music to which a silver stallion could dance on the snow.

Golden had wanted to go with him but he had refused fiercely to take her. He knew that she was getting restless — but, after all, had not Bel Bel and Mirri always got restless and gone off from the herd before their foals were born?

All the same he did begin to worry about the way she had started to wander; for he knew she was not sufficiently bush-wise to be alone — also she was too beautiful, and his greatest prize.

Thowra knew he would not be able to bear to let her be far from the herd, or far from him. He had still no understanding of how Golden was often torn between all the training and security of her former life, and the freedom of the wild life with him. Nor did he understand that, as the time for the birth of her first foal drew close, Golden began to think of her old master and his kindness of the food he had given her, and the safety of yards and well-grassed paddocks.

Gradually the long, roaring blizzards of winter, the wailing winds, and the short days, the bright frosts, and the bitter cold, changed to the swift-swinging spring storms, a hotter sun, and daylight remaining longer on the hills. The sky, on a fine day, was a deeper colour, and no longer had that glass-blue, brittle look. There was the first faint upthrust of growth on grass and shrub, the first soft, scent-laden breeze from the lower slopes. It was getting near the time for the young animals to be born. Two little dun-coloured foals arrived. Then one morning Golden had gone.

Thowra called the rest of his herd together and led them off on her tracks — amazed and pleased to find how little track she had left. She had not got the printless hooves of Bel Bel, but she had learnt her lessons in bush wisdom better than he thought.

Golden was heading for the high country, and after a while her track led them on to the stock route to Dead Horse hut. Then Thowra saw the clear spoor of two shod horses and, in sudden, unbelieving panic, knew this spoor was a little older than Golden’s. The men were ahead of her and she was following them.

He hardly stopped to wonder how the men had crossed the deep, rushing snow-waters in the river. He could not know that this year Golden’s owner had left horses in a paddock on the mountain side of the river and that the men had constructed little wire bridges over which they could walk. Golden’s master had got across on foot to his horses and come out to the mountains earlier than ever before.

The little foals made the herd’s pace slow. At last, Thowra became so disturbed that he decided to hide his mares right off the track and go on quickly to find her.

Soon after he had left them it began to rain very hard, and in a short time all tracks were washed away — even the spoor of the shod horses. No scent lingered either. By the time that Thowra, dripping wet and muddy, was near Dead Horse hut, he knew that Golden could have left the track in many places, and he set out to try and find her near the hut.

There was no sign of her, no sign at all, and, when he got too close to the hut, both the man’s stock horse and pack-horse neighed wildly and raced in excitement. Twice, Thowra saw the man come to the door, but probably the driving rain kept him from coming farther.

Thowra searched all day, taking care not to go so close to the tame horses again, but never a track nor a sign of Golden did he find.

After midday he went back down the stock route, looking for her on either side. Just at evening, the rain stopped and a queer mixture of watery blue and pink appeared in the grey sky. The track still ran like a little creek, the bush dripped dismally and there was no trace of Golden. Thowra was feeling both worried and miserable when he went back to Dead Horse Gap.

All through the night he searched near the hut. Once he felt sure that Golden’s scent came to him on the light breeze, but though he went in the direction from which it came, he found nothing. Every time he got near the yards the other horses neighed, and he knew the man came out several times to see what was upsetting them.

At last dawn broke and as the light came Thowra was standing, hidden by trees, on a little knoll not far from the hut. Suddenly he was sure he heard a faint, nickering whinny. The man came out of the hut and stood looking up the Dead Horse Ridge. Then Thowra saw a movement in the trees above the hut.

In a tiny clearing he could just make out Golden standing with a little cream foal at her feet.

The whinny sounded again — this time he was sure of it. He saw the man walk slowly and quietly towards Golden. Then Thowra could keep silent no longer. He threw up his head and gave the great cry of a stallion to his mate.

The man hesitated once and then kept walking slowly forward, extended his hand towards the lovely cream mare. Thowra watched in bitter silence. The man drew closer and finally put his hand on Golden’s neck, petting and stroking her. Golden seemed to be nuzzling him with her soft nose. Then she bent and nuzzled the foal as though showing it off, and the man bent down to it but did not touch it. Presently she nosed the foal on to its trembling legs.

As the man put his arm round her neck and started leading her towards the hut, Thowra gave another despairing cry. Golden raised her head and looked once in his direction, and then let herself be led on by her old master, the little foal wobbling beside her.

In the greatest anguish, Thowra saw her go with the man into the high-fenced yard in which she had been that first night, and heard her grateful whinnying as the man came out of the hut with a tin of food.

Thowra took one long look at the lovely mare with her foal — his foal — and went off quickly, silently back to the herd. Through the bush he went, a proud-stepping, beautiful stallion, in the prime of his life, cream and silver, dappled by light and shade as pale shafts of sunlight from the cloudy sky fell on to him through the grey-green gum leaves.

He found the herd where he had left it, the mares rather troubled at the length of time he had been away — and astounded when he told them what he had seen. But at the end of his story, Boon Boon nodded wisely and said:

‘She might want to go to her old master out of care for herself and her new-born foal, but she’ll want to come back in a very few days. Let us find some grazing on a sunny slope not too far from the Gap, and you can go back and see.’

Thowra nodded, but all he could think of was the high fence. Aloud he said:

‘She might be able to jump out again, but she’ll never leave her foal.’

Realizing that the man knew he was about and that he would be trying to get Golden again, Thowra understood that his usual great care to leave no trail must be doubled. But he could not bear to stay away from the hut for long in case the man tried to lead Golden and her foal straight to the lower country.

He found some better grazing for his herd, lower down, because he felt sure bad weather was coming, and facing the sun so that the grass was already getting its spring sweetness.

At dark he went back to the hut. Golden was still in the yard. He did not go up to the fence, but simply waited until morning to see if the man was making preparations for going out of the mountains.

The man only caught his stock horse, not the pack, and Thowra saw him fix a lasso to his saddle. So that was the day’s plan — a hunt for the silver stallion! Thowra knew that he must now really act like a ghost horse. He moved away, leaving no trace to tell that he had ever been there.

Each night he went back, hoping Golden would show some sign of wanting to escape, but Golden only noticed her foal or, when the man appeared, showed gratitude to him for food and water. Her coat was beginning to shine; the foal was getting stronger.

Then, out of a fair and sunny afternoon, the black clouds began to roll up with speed and force. Thowra went up to the hut to see what was happening. Would the man forget he wanted to catch the silver brumby and take his mare and foal and race the storm to the lowlands?

But the storm was going to race everyone. A lashing wind was already bringing snow, when Thowra hid himself in the trees above the Gap and watched. The man came on his horse, hurrying down from the direction of Bob’s Ridge where he must have been watching for him. Suddenly great swirls of snow almost blotted him from sight. The wind began to roar through the Gap, and the sound of it in the trees higher up was ugly, menacing.

Thowra shivered. This was going to be a bad storm. He saw the man stand looking in the wind direction, saw him glance back to Golden and the foal who were racing nervously round the little yard. Then the man walked over to the yard and turned Golden and the foal through the gate into the horse paddock where there was shelter.

All at once, the noise of the storm filled the air completely. It was as if nothing was left but its enormous roar, for the wild-driven snow hit the ground and the groaning trees hid all the world, blotted out everything but the immense noise.

‘For the wind I have named you,’ Bel Bel had said, and Thowra, buffeted and torn at by the great storm, moved out of the trees and felt his way to the horse-paddock fence. Just as he reached it it seemed that he was going to be blown from his feet; he knew then that he would not possibly be able to jump the fence in this blinding storm. The wind with wild force lifted him and dashed him against a strainer, and the roar was louder still and filled with a new sound of crashing trees and branches.

Thowra felt choked with terror, but he heard Golden’s scream of fear quite close and he answered her and started moving towards the sound of her cry. He went slowly, afraid to let himself be borne on the wind in case he was lifted again and thrown against a tree.

For just a moment, the snow cleared enough for him to see a tree down across the fence and the fence flat on the ground. Then the blizzard closed in again. He felt his way across the fence and was in the horse paddock.

He neighed to Golden to come, but she was there already, almost beside him, with her little foal.

‘Come!’ said Thowra, and with the foal sheltering between them, they went out over the fence.

Thowra led them a few yards into a little scrubby gully where they were safe from falling trees, and protected from the main force of the wind. There, the trembling little foal had a long drink, getting from its mother comfort and warmth, and relief from fear. Thowra saw that it was a filly, with mane and tail as silver as his own, neat-limbed and lovely.

‘What have you named our foal?’ he asked. ‘She should be Kunama, which means “snow”.’

‘Kunama,’ said Golden, nuzzling the foal and then nuzzling Thowra. ‘Kunama.’ And the sweet filly wagged her furry wisk of a tail.

By then the willy-willy had passed over them and there was only the steady roar of the storm — no more trees were uprooted, and the day became lighter again. For a horse that knew the country well it was safe to move.

‘Come!’ said Thowra, and his word was a command.

Golden looked at her little foal and then in the direction of the storm-enfolded hut; she gave Thowra a playful nip on the shoulder and followed him up the gully and away around the back of the hut. It was wisdom to choose the safe care of her old master when a first foal was going to be born, but when Thowra’s great call came through the spiralling storm, her only wish was to follow him.

Thus Thowra returned to his herd with his creamy mare and his lovely silver daughter. Thowra had won his prize for the second time, but a faint idea flitted through his head that perhaps something had to be won three times over before it was freely owned.