The Silver Brumby (17 page)

‘It’s time that Golden and Kunama should hide,’ Thowra said. ‘You come, too, Boon Boon, and I will show you the track in and out of my secret valley. We must hurry, and I will send your colt to tell Storm we are gone, and that I will come back when you and the foal are safely hidden.’

Golden stirred the little filly and they all four set off in the night, walking silently at first till they were well away from the men, then trotting, trotting, keeping to the snow-grass lanes where they would leave no track. In the starlight each creamy was just a hint of a pale horse moving: Boon Boon was invisible.

They had quite a long way to go, and would have to hurry. Over the top of the mountain and down, along and along on a gently dropping grade, silent-footed over the dead leaves of peppermint forest, they went; sometimes using the rocks of an old watercourse as a road on which they could leave no hoofmark. They trotted, trotted, on, and on, and on.

Suddenly alongside there hopped three silver-grey kangaroos.

‘Hullo!’ Thowra said, startled. ‘Why do you travel at night, and where do you come from?’

“Why, O Silver Horse, we come from the other side of the Crackenback, and we travel at night because there is going to be trouble on the mountains.’

‘Trouble with Man?’ asked Thowra.

‘Yes. In all the lore of the kangaroos — all the tales that pass from kangaroo to kangaroo throughout the country — it is told that when the white men get the black men to help them catch animals, their traps are made with the cunning of both black and white.’

‘Traps!’ said Thowra, thinking of the sound of wood striking wood.

‘We, O Silver Horse, were camped near the Crackenback when you came down last night. We saw you, but we don’t know if the men who slept there did.’

Thowra felt his coat pricking again. After all, eyes had watched him.

‘No one moved,’ the biggest kangaroo went on. ‘They watched for a long time, waiting in case you came, because the black man had not seen you, and they wondered where you were — but they must have gone to sleep by the time you came down to the water, because no one moved.’

‘You heard them talking, then?’ Thowra said. ‘I never smelt or heard their horses.’

‘Their horses were left in a hollow a mile away. Yes, we heard them talking. The man who owned your mare, here,’ he nodded towards Golden, ‘wants her back, and when he and his friends met the black tracker who had come looking for a big black mare, they all got together, planning a big brumby drive into the yard they have made. But they won’t get you!’ he looked knowingly at Golden. ‘Well, so long, we must be going.

The three kangaroos hopped on their way.

‘Come on,’ said Thowra. ‘There’s no time to lose.’

On, through the night they went, cantering, now, wherever possible, and the smell of the peppermints was sweet and strong. At last they reached the Hidden Flat and dropped down into it, then Thowra told them to follow him closely while he led them round into his Secret Valley.

It was a perilous journey in the dark. When Kunama heard a stone start down, knocking against other stones, and then bouncing from rock to rock, down, down, till the sound of its falling was lost in the darkness and the depth, she started back in fear, but Thowra said, ‘Come!’ and Golden said ‘Come!’, and Boon Boon, behind her, said ‘Go!’

Down they went, following Thowra, their rockhard hooves clinging like goats’ feet. At last they were at the bottom, standing by the starlit river, with the looming cliffs above them, and only the memory of their breathless descent.

‘I must go back to the others and warn them,’ Thowra said at last. ‘Hide here. When daylight comes you will see plenty of grass. I should be back here by tonight.’

He turned to go, the pale shape of him showing against the cliff, then swung back again, starlight reflecting in his eyes. ‘If I get caught,’ he said, ‘I will free myself, somehow, and return to you.’

Then up the cliff he went, leaving the two mares and the filly foal behind in the strange Secret Valley.

This time Thowra really hurried. He thought of his mares and of Storm, and the sound he had heard of a trap yard being built. Probably the men would wait till midday or afternoon to start their brumby drive. They would know that the horses went out feeding in the cool early morning, and would be harder to find. At the back of his mind, like a dream, was the faint memory of galloping, galloping beside his mother, one oppressive afternoon, when the men had built a trap yard and were driving all the wild horses through the bush.

On, on he went. Dawn came slowly — silver-coloured and fresh. A little grey thrush burst into song right beside a stream where he stopped to drink. Thowra, sweating and breathless, hurried on.

As he drew near to the top of the mountain he moved with even greater caution, but there was nothing to suggest danger, nothing to suggest the cordon of stockmen and dogs that was already waiting at the foot of the mountain, ready to close on the horses and drive them towards the trap yard.

He hastened first to find Storm, and had he not known his brother of the winds and the blizzards so well, he might have missed him, but as he looked along a band of snowguns, he seemed to see among the leaves and the boughs the shape of a noble horse.

Storm looked in amazement at the sweating Thowra.

‘What has happened?’ he asked.

Thowra told him what he knew, and added:

‘All the horses must try and get through as best they can, and in ones and twos they have more chance.’

Storm nodded.

‘It’s no good going south, though. That’s where Lubra and the black tracker came from.’

‘That’s true,’ Thowra agreed. ‘Better to go, for a while, into all that wild tangle of valleys off the Crackenback, where I hid with my first small herd. And I’ve just come up that way and seen no one.’

‘Lubra is a foolish one,’ said Storm, obviously wondering what trouble she might bring. ‘Well, we must go.’

Thowra stretched his creamy nose forward and nipped him on the neck.

‘I hope we two meet again after today, brother,’ he said.

The two stallions went off through the bush, each to warn their mares — the superb silver horse, and the noble bay with the strong head and the great, kindly eyes.

‘Go!’ they said to each mare with her foal at foot. ‘Go!’ they said to the yearlings. ‘Don’t keep together — a foal with its mother, yes, but otherwise each one has a better chance alone.’

And soon there were flitting shadows moving through the bush, hiding here, hiding there, but all travelling north-eastwards mares with little foals, sometimes two dry mares together, colts, fillies, and, alone but watchful, the bay stallion and the silver one.

The first thing that made Thowra realize they were too late and that the men were closing in already was when he noticed two wallabies hastening nervously towards him, and then a dingo close behind.

‘Man!’ the dingo snapped, and went hurrying on.

Thowra knew it was too late, but seeing his other two grey mares he joined them, and led them to a deep creek bed he knew, and told them to make their way silently along it until they thought the men had gone, and then at nightfall, if all was well, to aim for the Hidden Flat.

Just then a blue heeler cattle dog came trotting up the creek.

Thowra leapt up one of the rocky sides.

‘Keep going,’ he neighed to the mares. ‘The dog will follow me.’

The dog did follow him, but in the long years since the first brumby drive Thowra had learnt how to deal with one dog, and he waited and kicked out at him; The dog knew better than to let himself be hurt, so he kept his distance, and barked.

Thowra went at him with teeth bared and ready to strike. As the dog leapt to one side, Thowra was after it. But the dog’s master had heard the scuffle and was rushing towards them, cracking his whip so that other men and other dogs would come to his assistance.

Suddenly, all was wild movement below the great mountain ash trees. There were men, horses, dogs. Whips were cracking, voices shouting — and Thowra had to turn and head up the mountain again, as almost every other horse in the two herds would shortly have to do. For men were everywhere on the mountain — men from the Murray, after Golden, men from Benambra after Lubra, men from all the Snowy River country who had come to join in the hunt. There were men, too, who were among the very best riders of the mountain land. There were men on blood horses, men on nippy stock horses, men with splendid dogs. And they were all after Golden and Highland Lass whom Storm had named Lubra.

Thowra thought it was worth trying to drop quietly into the top of the deep creek bed and hide himself until the chase had gone by. There was a thicket of snowgum and hop scrub ahead, leading right to the edge of it. He dived into the scrub, pushing through it quickly, and down a rocky crag to the creek. He stopped amongst the scrub and rocks at the bottom, trying to breathe without sound.

There was no escaping! Two dogs came barking madly after him. Thowra stood his ground and struck at them, but again there came the sound of a whip. With a parting slash at the dogs, he leapt out and up the creek. A rope whistled and fell short; the man was quite close. Quick as a thrown knife, Thowra wheeled round in an attempt to get away downstream, while the man coiled his lasso again. The dogs closed in. He bit one and kicked the other — then saw another man and his horse standing in the creek below him. He bounded up a rock rib. There, at the top, was a third man coming towards him.

Thowra went galloping on through the bush — the great creamy horse with his mane and tail foaming out behind, galloping, galloping, and being edged upwards by the men all the time. Now that his freedom might again be lost, he felt more tremendously alive than ever before. He was aware of every cream hair in his coat, as though each one was tingling, feeling, listening. He was aware of his ears pressed back, his nose, his keen eyed. He was, aware of the hardness of his hooves, of the immense strength in the muscles of his legs, his quarters, his shoulders. He was aware of all these things, and of himself as one great, powerful, silver stallion leaping up and up the mountain, harried by dogs and by men.

‘O strength, and power, and all Bel Bel’s cunning, don’t fail now,’ Thowra thought: and once again Bel Bel’s voice seemed to echo through the bush, ringing in his ears above the sound of hooves. ‘
For the wind I have named you.
. . .’

‘Swiftly, swiftly,’ he thought, and all the time the noise of the drumming hooves grew louder, coming from all around, echoing off the rocks, sounding through the snowgums. There were horses galloping up the mountain from every direction, all the wild horses being driven by many mounted men and their dogs. Soon they would be driven along the grazing grounds. In a sudden flash, Thowra thought of the direction from which the sound of the men building their trap yard had come. Yes! they were being driven towards it.

He shot into some thick snowgums, and the touch of the leathery leaves on his hide made him feel the size and strength of himself afresh. There was still one possible line of escape — the craggy ravine in which he and Storm, as foals, had hidden from Arrow. He felt sure the trap yard was just close to it.

A man on a fine black horse was coming up close to him now. He heard the whistle of a rope, and desperately propped and swung away. The rope clipped him on the ear and fell to the ground like a dead snake. The pounding of hooves was greater than ever. Now six horses were running with him, galloping, sweating, straining, blowing, their flanks touching his flanks, their hot breath mingling with is. He could see the wildness of their eyes. The mare he had taken from Arrow’s herd was there — and the foolish mare, Lubra, with Tambo alongside. He wished he could see Storm.

Now they were at the grazing ground and another mob of horses was galloping to join them. The noise of hoof-beats was like the roll of thunder — and as terrifying. Thowra could feel the terror running through the mob.

More horses joined them all the time. Storm must be somewhere, but there were too many, all bunched together, madly galloping, for Thowra to see him.

Suddenly he noticed — with eyes trained to pick out anything unusual — a long fence hidden in trees and bushes. The mob were racing alongside it already. It must be the wing of a yard, like the wings on the yards the men built for their cattle. The horses were, even now, as good as caught. Thowra strained his eyes to see the yard. He guessed it must be hidden by a patch of scrub ahead. The only way of escape was for the whole mob to break when they reached the scrub.

‘Swing west! Swing west!’ he urged. ‘Tell every horse, swing west!’

All the men who were not behind the mob of horses were riding that western flank, shouting and cracking their whips. It would be difficult to break through them.

‘Come on! Come on!’ Thowra called. ‘Swing west and break through them!’ And he swung himself, forcing the others on his flank to swing with him, and led them off at a tremendous pace. The others followed.

The men from the rear immediately galloped towards the flank, trying to head them, and those out on the wing already redoubled their shouts and whip cracking.

Thowra galloped towards them as he had never galloped before, and heard the mob pounding along with him. But the men were racing across, and there were so many men that there seemed to be no space between them.

Thowra suddenly screamed to the mob, and charged one man on a lightweight liver chestnut, knocking him flying. Just then he got a blinding cut across the eyes with a whip, and even if he had succeeded in passing one man, it looked as though there were twenty more closing in on him. He charged again with utter desperation — aware of the hesitation in the mob behind him — but the whips cracked and then two ropes came flying, and he knew that the men wanted him more than any of the other brumbies except Lubra, now that Golden was not there. He turned before another rope could entangle him, and found the mob had turned already.

Despair seized him for a moment, but then hope followed. He was now running straight towards the long fence instead of beside it — and could, therefore, jump it. The ravine was on the other side . . . there was still a chance.

Once more he was almost in the lead, though he was careful not to get right out in front, careful to see that his cream hide was partly hidden by the madly fleeing bays, browns, blacks, and chestnuts. The smell of fear rose all round him. He must keep calm. There was the fence looming ahead. The leading horses had seen it and were trying to slacken speed, and there were men trying to swing them away from it, lest they all crashed through it and into the deep ravine.

Thowra keyed himself to jump, hoping that no horse would dash into him as he took off. He shortened stride, gathered himself together, and sprang with all his great strength. Up, up, forelegs bent close to his body, up, up, he went.

‘Higher, higher!’ he told himself, for it was a very high fence.

He heard a shout ringing out above the thunder of hooves and the general shouting and whip cracking. The men had seen him, but he knew he was clearing the fence. He was away, even though he could see that the landing was rough and bad on the other side.

He landed neatly and safely, and in two paces was at the edge of the ravine. He knew exactly where he was and how to get down. As he jumped over the edge he heard a crash. The brumbies had dashed into the fence and broken it.

How much they had broken of it he did not know because no horses came into the ravine while he was there, and while he hastened away to safety he neither saw nor heard the men trying to force the brumbies away from the lip of the cliff, and round up those who had quickly broken through again.

Thowra went down the ravine a long way, even though it led in the opposite direction from the Secret Valley, until he came to another deep cleft that ran into it from the eastern side. He turned up this, often looking behind to see if he were being followed. When he had gone right up this one to its head, he took off cautiously through the bush. Though he could see no one and heard no unusual sound, he was convinced that he was being followed. He felt that prickling in the coat. . . . Unless he was sure he was safe he did not like to go straight towards the Secret Valley.

An hour passed, and there was still no sign of man. He turned slightly in the direction of the two valleys. Soon it would be evening, but he could not rid himself of the feeling of being watched.

He stood still in a clump of peppermint and blanketwood and waited. After a while he saw, coming quietly, so quietly through the trees and heading for the Hidden Flat, Storm and Tambo!

With a great gladness he greeted Storm, but there was no time to hear anything about the rest of the herd, because Storm said:

‘I hoped we’d find you. Lubra is caught, and Golden’s master saw you escaping and has got the black tracker with him to try and find you. Best to go for your Secret Valley, leaving no tracks. Tambo and I will go much lower down the stream and work our way up into the Hidden Flat. Farewell, brother.’

‘Farewell,’ said Thowra, going off alone, swiftly through the bush.

He could not help wondering if this was the last time he would glide like a shadow through the tall trees, and for a moment he felt as if he were another horse, seeing himself in all his silver magnificence.

He had gone about five miles when he heard a sound. Someone was close! Then he saw them — Golden’s master, the black tracker, and the man on the fine black horse, and with them four dogs.

Thowra stood perfectly still, melting into the scrub, but a dog whined and set him, and he knew he must fly like the wind.

He was determined he would not lead them towards the Secret Valley, but there was no choice really, for that was the way they drove him.

The men were well mounted, but Thowra had no weight at his back and he could go faster. If only he could lead them on till evening. . . . Men could not see in the dark. . . . He kept on trying to dodge and twist, to turn them away from the route to his two valleys, but it was all that he could do to keep ahead of them.

As he galloped, he knew suddenly that he could not bear to let them catch him — he would rather be killed trying to get away. If they drove him on and on towards the Secret Valley he might or might not reach the cliffs. But if the men were close behind he would jump, anyway, not waiting to find his safe way down.

Thowra had barely a chance to look back but he was sure one horse went lame, the big black, and that there were now only two following him.

The light was fading, fading. Soon it would be the possum light, the timeless area between night and day — the light that might be Thowra’s light, too. A wind came from the north, quite suddenly, his wind, and there was the smell of rain. The tiredness from the day’s galloping dropped away from Thowra; he felt renewed. This was his hour as well as the possums’. The light was almost gone and there was rain coming to cover tracks. He galloped and galloped and was well-enough ahead to choose his own line over the cliffs.

There were the two candlebarks that marked the place to jump. Thowra gathered himself together, keen-eyed in the darkness. The wind enfolded him. Came the edge of the cliff and he leapt — leapt through the light that was neither light nor darkness — on to the grassy platform he had tried as a landing place before, felt it firm beneath him as he landed, and took off again instantly for the next leap. And all that the men saw was the pale ghost of a horse hurtling through space and wind, and when they reached the edge, there was nothing to be seen at all; just the sound of a stone falling a long way off.

Even the black tracker saw no way a horse could have got down alive, nor did he imagine that there might be a beautiful valley below, where Golden and Kunama and Boon Boon were hidden. The men turned back through the darkness, saddened by the thought that they had chased a beautiful horse over such a cliff. In the night, there came rain to wash away all signs of tracks, and in the morning the black man took Lubra and left for the south.

Golden’s master looked for her all through that summer, and even in the summers that followed, but not a sign of her did he see. And though, time and again, he told how the silver stallion had hurtled over the cliff, there grew up around the campfires stories of a great silver stallion seen galloping over wind-packed snow way up on the Ramshead Range; of a ghost horse that drank at the Crackenback River; of a horse that all men thought was dead appearing in a blizzard at Dead Horse hut and vanishing again; of the wild stallion’cry that could only be Thowra’s. But no man knew where the son of Bel Bel roamed.