The Silver Brumby (6 page)

Yarraman screamed his wild answer to The Brolga’s challenge, the rock and hillside echoing it until it rolled in the gullies. Again, in a spring evening, he went galloping, with streaming golden mane and tail, to meet the grey Brolga, but this time The Brolga was no immature young horse, but a magnificent stallion, just at his prime.

For the third time — and perhaps the last — Thowra watched the grey and the chestnut advancing to within striking distance, watched their swirling, whirling, purposeful dance, saw the bared teeth, heard the screams of rage. In each fight The Brolga had had the advantage of seeming to melt into the oncoming night or the snowstorm.

The noise of the fight echoed in a terrible way so that the screams of the two horses were doubled or trebled, and only the closest of the watchers could hear the tremendous pounding of their hooves on the ground.

Thowra and Storm had drawn apart from the other young colts, watching fearfully while the two stallions struggled for mastery. There would be no mercy given by either, and, as night drew on, they knew darkness would not part them.

Yarraman was the first to get a deadly grip above The Brolga’s withers but the younger horse managed at last to free himself and at the same time strike Yarraman in the eyes. They fought on and on, not screaming so often now, but their breath snorting through red, dilated nostrils. And all the time the darkness was coming up the valley.

Then suddenly the watchers saw The Brolga, in turn, get his grip on Yarraman; they saw Yarraman’s valiant struggles repeated and repeated; they saw that he could not free himself, and, as night fell, they could just see him beaten to his knees.

Suddenly there was a scream of triumph from The Brolga as he struck blow after blow with his forefeet at the stallion on the ground. Then, in the darkness, they could see the pale shadow of The Brolga and the dark shadow on the ground, hear the pounding of hooves on flesh.

Shuddering, the young horses drew back; the mares, snorting their terror, took their foals away. Down in the broader valley, by the first faint light of a rising moon, Thowra could see the pale form of Bel Bel. Then there was a thunder of galloping hooves and The Brolga was among them. They could smell his sweat, see his pale outline, all stained with dark. Thowra watched him go straight up to Bel Bel, nickering out the greeting of a victorious stallion. To every man and beast her colour — and his — must be attractive. He felt himself sweating with fear again.

Thowra, and the other colts, turned away and left the herd, heading towards the edge of the tall timber, with no idea where to go, but urgently wanting to escape. They stopped in a little field of snowgrass, just inside the first fringe of trees, and there they spent the night, no longer playing at being independent, but young colts without a herd.

When the moon was high, without even disturbing Storm, Thowra slid away through the trees. The moonlight was very bright in the main valley; he looked carefully around before he moved out of the sheltering trees, then he walked into the bright, cold light that made his coat as silver as his mane and tail. A mopoke called mournfully; he jumped, but did not draw back. On he went till he was going up the narrow valley in which they had all been that evening. Presently he climbed on to a high rock and looked round the bend of the valley below him. There lay the great bulk of Yarraman, dark on the ground.

Suddenly there was a noise beside him and another horse came out of the shadows and joined him on his rock.

‘Thowra, my son,’ said Bel Bel’s voice softly, as she climbed up alongside, herself silver in the moonlight, and gazed down on the dead horse, ‘what are you doing here? Did you think to gain some of his strength and courage?’ And she turned to look at her son and then back at Yarraman. ‘You should have it in your blood and bones already; he was, after all, your father. Use his courage and strength, son, and all the cunning and knowledge I have taught you. Come, we will leave him.’

They jumped down and walked away together and at the mouth of the big valley she gave him a playful nip on the shoulder.

‘I must get back to my foal. Good-bye!’ but Thowra knew that their real ‘good-bye’ had been said as they left the rock above the dead stallion.

Thowra went down the valley, left the cold, clear moonlight, crept through the trees, and back to Storm and the other colts.

At dawn they set off, towards the headwaters of the Crackenback River, a small mob of colts bound together only by habit and a common desire to put some distance between themselves and the dead stallion — their father — and to get away from possible trouble with The Brolga, who would now be the leader of the main sections of both herds.

Thowra had led off — really not bothering about any of the others following him except Storm, yet glad, in a way, of their company. However, even one day of travelling showed them that no mob can have two leaders, and Arrow, who had the size and strength to win any fight, would not peacefully let Thowra, the fastest and the one who knew the country best, become the acknowledged leader. He bit at Thowra and kicked him whenever they stopped to graze and drink, but when Thowra, tired of his behaviour, went off at the gallop with Storm, the other colts followed, so Arrow had to go too.

Thowra and Storm had often been in the Ramshead country since they were born there two years ago, and Mirri and Bel Bel had taught them all the good grazing places round the head of the Crackenback. They knew, too, where they could get up and down granite cliffs, where there were tunnels through what seemed impenetrable snowgum thickets, where there were deep holes in the creeks that a young horse could swim in, and easy crossing places in the rough-flowing river.

They led their young mob about, up on the high country among the snowdrifts, and right down in the great mountain ash gullies, where the lyre birds mimicked their neighing, or sent them galloping off in a frenzy by imitating the sound of a whip cracking or a man whistling.

After the first feeling of being left alone in a very large world had worn off, Thowra would have enjoyed everything if Arrow had not been such a bully. Arrow could not spoil it all because he could not go fast enough, but so often when they were grazing he would lash out savagely with his heels, or strike. Thowra was not afraid to fight him, though he always got the worst of it, but, except for Storm, the others would not take Arrow on, nor would they stay behind with him.

Once, Thowra, remembering the time when he had tricked Arrow and ‘lost’ him, tried the same trick again. This time Arrow was missing for three days and he was much chastened when he joined them again.

It was then that Thowra began to think they should move over to Paddy Rush’s Bogong because the men would be bringing their mobs of cattle again. He started off, early one morning, jogging down through the sun-glistening snowgums, through the mountain ash thickets and tangled woods of the little creeks, to the Crackenback, over it and up the rough country on the other side.

In the weeks that followed Thowra began to understand all his mother’s warnings about Arrow making a bad enemy. The fights which Arrow forced on him were never half in fun, like most young colts’ battles — an exuberance of strength and half-conscious wish to test and train themselves.

Arrow became more and more vindictive, and Thowra knew that his lovely silver mane hid some bite scars that he would carry to the end of his life. Also it became apparent that Arrow was trying to lame him, for Thowra, if lamed, could no longer be their half-acknowledged leader. Try though he did, Thowra could never worst Arrow in a fight, and, as the summer went on, Arrow became stronger and heavier, and more arrogant.

At last Thowra could stand him no longer.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to Storm, ‘next time there is a mist. Let’s clear for the Brindle Bull country. Maybe The Brolga spends summer there, but if we keep away we’ll come to no harm.’

Two or three evenings later there were black clouds rolling up from the north and the following day came with rain and drifting cloud that hid everything. Thowra gave Storm a nip and, without waiting a moment, they melted quietly off.

There was a long, open glade of snowgrass up which they could canter, barely making a sound, then a little creek running over a sand and mica bed which they walked down, the water quickly filling in the tracks they made. While they were in the creek they heard a whinny through the cold mist, the thunder of hooves on stony ground, and then the crash of a rolling rock. The two colts drew right in under some blanket-woods that overhung the little stream and waited, breathlessly listening. They heard Arrow’s imperious neigh, another rock falling, and the crack of a bough. Then the sound of hooves grew muffled in the cloud and Thowra and Storm went back up the stream and cut across country towards the Brindle Bull.

They were determined to stay on their own, now, and keep away from Arrow, and, they were suddenly filled with excitement. They had never been on the mountain called the Brindle Bull and they would have a whole new world to explore. Even the touch of the cold, wet clouds, or the sting of a wet branch across the eyes, could not cool their excitement.

They did not stop except for an occasional drink, and they kept off any of the usual tracks in case, by any chance, the others had doubled back in the clouds. Finally they slithered down a smooth, wet rock face into the Crackenback River and stood, tired and trembling, while the water tugged at their legs.

By the time they were clambering up the steep, stony slopes of the Brindle Bull, the wet clouds had turned to rain, heavy, cold rain that felt as if it might become one of those swift flurries of snow in summer that leave the mountains gleaming white in a hot summer sky for a brief hour or two. It was hardly a good day for the start of an adventure, but the colts had been well taught by their mothers to find their way whatever the weather, and they kept on, scrambling up the steep slopes, pulling themselves up on rocky cliffs, forcing their way through shoulder-high heather till they were nearly at the top.

There they stopped where some snowgums grew thickly below a rock buttress, providing some shelter from the driving rain. As they stood there the clouds suddenly blew a few feet apart on the top of the mountain. Trembling with an excitement he did not understand, Thowra saw against the pale rift of sky, as though against a faintly lighted window, a herd of horses pass in ones and twos; like shadows — and they were led by a grey horse who seemed to melt into the clouds.

Thowra and Storm were very careful where they went on the Brindle Bull, watching for tracks of The Brolga’s herd, listening, smelling. It took them some days to find out the herd’s grazing place, and after that they kept well away, down the sides of the mountain, in snowgum woods where there was only enough grass to make a picking for two colts.

There were one or two tiny hanging valleys on the southern slope, where the snow-daisies’ leaves made a silver carpet and presently the daisies themselves, large and white, starred the ground. In one of these valleys the colts often grazed. There were rocky gorges off either side, and a quick getaway if they needed one.

The Brolga and his herd probably knew they were there, and were unworried by the presence of two young colts. Bel Bel may have recognized Thowra’s spoor and been glad to know that he and Storm were close. Thowra being the only creamy foal she had borne, she had not forgotten him as a mare usually forgets a foal after it has become independent and left her. And because she often spoke of Thowra and Storm, Mirri remembered Storm, too.

One day the colts had wandered low enough to see into the Big Boggy Creek. Thowra had learnt now, in The Brolga’s country, to use all the cunning Bel Bel had taught him and keep hidden in the fringe of trees, or in patches of light and shade. Often he had only just remembered in time to check his impulse to leap up on to a high rock before he had looked properly around first.

This time they peered into the valley of the Big Boggy from some hop scrub. There were a few cattle grazing along the grassy floor of the valley, the sight of which made them very cautious, but there was no sign of anything else. All seemed very peaceful, with no movement, other than that of the head-down cattle. Thowra leapt from one granite block to another till he was on top of a great heap of rocks. There was still nothing disquieting to see. Storm came up beside him.

‘It is too open,’ said Thowra regretfully. ‘We would be foolish to go there, though some of that good grass would be nice.’

They stood for quite a while, looking down longingly, and then moved slowly along the southern slopes, keeping the delicious-looking valley in sight. All of a sudden Thowra stopped and raised his head, his nostrils curling as he sniffed the air.

‘Smoke!’ He moved to a steep edge to see.

First he looked at the northern sky to judge if the wind had brought the smoke from a distant fire, then he looked closely into the valley. It was a second or so before he saw anything, then it was just a thin ribbon of smoke winding up through some snowgums, on the other side of the valley where a tiny creek came down. Just at that moment a man walked down the creek a few yards, and stopped to fill something with water.

‘Man!’ he hissed to Storm. ‘We must go before there is any chance of him seeing us.’

They slid — one horse a dark shadow, one a piece of dappled, moving light and shade — through the scrub, heading towards their small hanging valley. And there, in the valley of the Big Boggy, drinking tea from his quart-pot, was a very young man who could think of nothing but the sight of a beautiful cream-coloured colt with flowing silver mane and tail, poised high above him on a heap of granite rock.

The two young horses made their way back to their camping-ground, and the young man, when he had finished his lunch, crossed the Big Boggy and started up the mountain towards the granite rock.

Thowra did not really think he had been seen, or he and Storm would have been far more worried, but he remembered how Bel Bel had shown him how to track other horses, and how not to leave tracks. Instinctively he chose snowgrass or rocks to walk on, wherever possible.

Thus it was that the young man tracked them easily from the granite rocks to the hop scrub, and then had the greatest difficulty in picking up their trail. He lost it so often that he gave up, as evening drew on, and lit his fire, boiled his quartpot, and presently rolled up in the one blanket he had carried in front of his saddle, and went to sleep.

Thowra and Storm smelt the smoke from their hidden valley. Bel Bel and Mirri smelt the smoke, and The Brolga smelt it, too.

The man’s little fire burnt all night long because it was a cold night and he, with only one blanket, kept waking and throwing on another log. His horse, picketed close to him, snuffled and stamped throughout the night.

It was only by luck — bad luck — that the man found Thowra’s and Storm’s hiding-place the next morning. He had failed to find their trail and just happened to ride out on to one of the few places that overlooked their hanging valley. There he sat on his tame black horse, the sleepy-looking, very young man, who suddenly became wide awake as he saw below him, on a carpet of snow-daisies, a good-looking bay colt and the supremely beautiful creamy.

The young man sat perfectly still, only his eyes moving as he looked at the valley, trying to find a way in, trying to see if there would also be a way out for the brumbies to take. Just then — and this was good luck — his horse whinnied.

Thowra, who for a moment or two had experienced a prickly feeling in his hair, knew instantly they were being watched. He threw up his head, the early sunlight like water on his rippling, lovely coat, and saw the man trying hastily to back out of sight.

As though caught in a willy-willy, Thowra whirled round and away, followed by Storm, into the clump of low snowgum and heather that hid the narrow opening into a gorge. But they heard, as they went, the crashing of rocks as the man came straight down the cliff on which he had been standing.

‘If he gets down unhurt, he’ll be after us, pretty close,’ Thowra thought, and strained his ears to hear what was happening behind. The crashing of rocks continued, purposeful crashing, as if someone kept forcing a horse down, not as if he had fallen and gone bouncing down among the boulders.

Thowra and Storm burst out of the scrub and up the rocky gorge. Suddenly Thowra turned right, leaping like a goat from rock to rock up the side of the gorge. He had noticed not long before that there might be a possible place of escape up this way, and now was certainly the time to use it. No ridden horse, he thought, would be able to follow.

He and Storm were blowing and sweating when they reached the top of the wall. They turned and looked down and saw the man already following. He leapt off his tame horse and started leading it up behind him. Thowra did not wait to see how he got on, but picked his way carefully over a great slope of wet and mossy rock.

‘Keep off the moss, if you can,’ he warned Storm. ‘It will show our track. If we leave no track from the top of the cliff it will give us a few minutes extra.’ His feet slipped, then, with a grating clatter, and he went down on his side on the cold rock, but he leapt up and went on, then across some spongy, wet snowgrass, and into the cover of the trees.

There they stopped for a second and listened. There was no sound. Off they went again, as fast as they could up the steep hill, trying not to set hoof on any soft, wet earth. Then, ringing out through the bush came the sound of a shod horse’s hoof on a rock.

‘He must be good, that tame horse,’ thought Thowra, but he did not guess that he was extremely good, nor that he had been fed on oats, and bran, and chaff, on which a horse can gallop much faster than on mountain grass, however sweet and lovely that grass may be.

Thowra began to feel frightened. They were near a great semicircle of rock cliffs that enclosed most evil-seeming bogs — the soft-surfaced, green bogs in which a horse could flounder and sink from sight, black mud bogs that were bottomless, and the squelching sphagnum bogs that no horse really trusted. But both he and Storm knew a track through all this, so, gasping for breath, he made straight for the lower arm of the cliffs.

Thowra stood on the rocks above the great hollow filled with bogs, and then took a flying leap on to a patch that he knew was solid ground. In a minute Storm was beside him — and had left no track to show where they had entered the hollow.

They could not go any faster than a walk, hearing all the time the squelch of water in sphagnum, feeling the awful, unstable surface under their hooves. Behind them, Thowra was sure he could hear a horse galloping. If he tried to go faster he kept imagining himself sinking in the great, treacherous mud holes. He looked up at the dark, water-stained cliff above him, and knew there was no escape there if the man caught up with them. He started to trot in terror, but nearly floundered into an innocent-looking green patch, and had to back out.

The other side was not far away, and they reached it before the man appeared. Ahead of them lay some wide, open country where they would have to gallop as fast as they possibly could. All of a sudden Thowra knew why he had come just this way. Sometimes The Brolga and his herd grazed here; and other wild brumbies — even the stallion that had killed Yarraman — would be better company than a lone man with a lasso. Also, perhaps, if there were numbers of horses, the man would not know which one to chase.

But there was no sign of any other brumbies; they must be in a higher grazing-ground still. With pounding hearts, the two colts galloped across the wide, open snowgrass, leaping the little streams, galloping with all their might for the trees and cover before the man saw them.

Thowra looked back over his shoulder once. There he came, sitting well down in the saddle, leaning forward over the powerful horse’s neck. In that glance, Thowra realized that the tame horse was a four- or five-year-old, and therefore much stronger than he and Storm. He was desperate now, and could think only of reaching the herd.

The great black horse and its rider were gaining and gaining on them, even though they had a long start. Thowra and Storm stretched their legs even farther with each stride, and made tremendous efforts to go faster, faster. The trees were not far away. Thowra could see them through a red mist of exhaustion. The sunlight dancing on the leaves seemed like sparks or waves of light. He must reach that line of trees. He was done; he could not get his breath fast enough. Then he felt the vibration on the ground of the other horse drawing closer.

Hiss-s-s came the sound of the rope through the air.

Thowra shied violently at the sound, and the rope struck him a blow on the shoulder and then fell to the ground. Two more strides and the brumbies were in the trees.

The man would try to head them out into the open, Thowra knew, because he would not be able to rope them in the trees. Somehow they had to stay in timber till they reached the herd’s next grazing-place. A flock of jays sent out warning cries, but the colts, with sweat streaming off them, did not hear.

Thowra realized they could hold their lead in timber, particularly if it was thick and low scrubby stuff. He was almost sure, now, that he was the one the man was after, and his terror drove him on ever faster. He knew this belt of timber went right to the top of the outside rim of a grassy basin. Perhaps the herd would be in the basin. The timber was thinner near the top and the man was gaining on him. Just as he reached the crest of the rim, he gave a wild, sobbing neigh for help. If the herd were not there it would be no use going into the open country, but they might be there. He paused for a second to look down, and saw the startled mob of brumbies below him. Once more he neighed, and then plunged down among them.

There were several shrill answering neighs, and an angry stallion roar, but the man came thundering down right beside him, taking no notice of the mob of brumbies.

Thowra knew that the black horse and rider were coming up almost alongside him now. Soon there would be the sound of the rope. Hiss-s-s! There it was! Again he leapt sideways. Again it struck him on the shoulder.

Then there were horses going everywhere, and Thowra was among them, legs stretching, stretching, breath sobbing . . . and someone was galloping shoulder to shoulder with him, pushing him to one side.

He was too tired, his eyes too blurred to see that it was a creamy mare, but even in his exhaustion he half realized that it was his mother, that somehow this had all happened before and he must just go where she took him. He did not see the leggy chestnut foal at her side.

Among the thunder of hooves and the wild galloping there was the different sound, quite close, of the shod horse, the jingle of his bit, the creak of his saddle. He had almost come up with them, and Thowra could go no faster, but he saw that there was some very thick scrub starting on their right and knew that Bel Bel must have somewhere to hide them and be going to wheel him into it. So he was ready for her when she swung him round and into a low tunnel of prickly scrub. There she pushed ahead of him into the lead. For the first time he saw the leggy foal.

The scrub closed in behind them and they were suddenly surrounded in silence, though they could still hear the black horse crashing on over boulders.

Bel Bel led at quite a smart pace till she stopped abruptly at the steep bank of a creek that flowed in a complete tunnel of wattle, blanket-woods and tree-fern. She jumped down into the water and turned upstream, only letting Thowra stop to drink for a moment, and then urging him on and on.

All sounds of other horses were getting very distant, but Bel Bel did not stop.

Thowra plodded after her up the stream, sometimes snatching a mouthful of the cold water, still panting, still trembling. He wondered where Storm had gone, but he knew he would be all right. It was he, Thowra, that the man on the black horse had been chasing.

The stream became very narrow and Thowra guessed they must be near the top of the mountain.

‘Where we are going, we may find Mirri and Storm,’ Bel Bel said; but when they stopped in a little sandy cove that was completely hidden in scrub, there was no one there.

‘They will come,’ she said again. ‘Lie down to rest.’ And when Thowra woke, hours later, Storm was asleep beside him.

Mirri and Bel Bel were standing looking at them while they placidly let their foals drink. Presently they led the two colts to a little field of snowgrass, and, as they themselves started back to the herd, Bel Bel said to her cream-coloured son:

‘Don’t go back to where you were grazing. That man will remember you, and remember your haunts. Have you forgotten why I named you Thowra? I said then, at the time you were born, that every man would be after you, and you would have to be as fleet as the wind.’