The Silver Brumby (3 page)

On very clear days the wild horses could see the cattle grazing on the other side of the Crackenback River. Sometimes they might meet an odd beast down drinking, but the horses mostly kept to drinking places where the cattle never came, because where there were cattle there could be men.

One day Bel Bel and Mirri and the two foals were climbing up behind a particularly high granite tor. They were still in the trees, and out of sight themselves, when they saw a man standing upon the top of the tor, gazing over the country.

The wild horses came to a dead stop, nostrils quivering. There the man stood, a wide hat shading his eyes, a red scarf round his neck, wearing faded riding-trousers, and with a coiled whip in his hand.

‘Stockman,’ whispered Bel Bel. ‘His tame horse must be somewhere, and maybe a mate or two. Our scent must be blowing straight to him.’

‘
He
won’t smell it,’ said Mirri scornfully.

‘His horse may, though.’

Sure enough, there came the sound of neighing and stamping, and even the jingle of a bit.

‘It’s not very far away. We must go!’ Bel Bel turned to Thowra: ‘Look well at the man, my son. He is your greatest enemy.’

Thowra could not really remember the man who had tried to catch him as he slept on the slopes of the Ramshead Range, but that day had planted the fear of Man deeply in him. All he said now was:

‘Let’s go!’

They moved away quietly, and that evening, as they grazed with the herd by a wide creek bed, where good grass grew, Bel Bel and Mirri told Yarraman and the gathered mares and yearlings what they had seen.

‘I don’t like it,’ said Bel Bel. ‘He was a mountain man and he will have come here for some purpose, not just curiosity.’

‘They are sure to know that many of us always spend the summer here,’ Mirri said. ‘It wouldn’t be good if they came back to hunt us.’

‘We know this country too well,’ boasted Yarraman, but he did not look overpleased.

The two mares kept an even more careful watch on their foals, and would never let them go down to the river except very early and very late when men who live in huts or tents are always busy with their queer cans of water that bubble by their smoking fires.

Once again, the man was seen, this time by Yarraman himself as he and the herd were in their customary grazing ground. The man was standing right above them as though he were cut out of rock.

The news of this was very disquieting to Bel Bel and Mirri, and they kept an even stricter watch.

There were many hot, sleepy days that summer, but though the foals lay in the grass, flat out, their switching tails their only sign of life, the two mothers kept watch in turns, never, during the day, sleeping at the same time. Even so, they were both sleepy enough, standing in the shade of a low snowgum, to get badly frightened when they heard an unusual noise far below them.

What was it? Something was moving through dead timber the way no wild animal would move! Perhaps a tame horse with a man on its back?

They could not smell anything. Nostrils to the wind, they listened. There was the sound again, something unusual going through the bush, they were sure. They roused the sleeping foals and began to move quietly upwards.

When Thowra made to jump up on a large rocky outcrop, Bel Bel nipped him and pushed him back.

‘Don’t be so silly,’ she said, ‘making yourself a clear mark for anyone to see! Keep in the trees and keep quiet.’

Sometimes they stopped to listen, but for a while there was no sound except that of a kurrawong and the chatter of gang gangs in the trees. Then, during one such stop, they heard a faint sound of movement, so faint that no one except those who lived in the bush would have heard it, and they knew it was something wild like themselves. Presently three silver-grey kangaroos went hopping by.

Thowra and Storm were delighted to see them, but both Bel Bel and Mirri looked worried. Not long afterwards, they saw four young colts making up the hill too.

They came to a small clear stream where the foals wanted to play.

‘Have a drink, but not too much, and come on,’ said Bel Bel. Three black cockatoos flew out of the trees by the water, with their weird, wild crying, and the foals jumped back, startled.

Mirri looked back fearfully.

‘Something’s happening, I’m sure,’ she muttered.

Even a gust of wind rustling the shiny leaves made the mares start nervously, then they saw some of their own herd heading towards their main camping ground which was in an unexpected hanging valley not far from the top of the range. They caught up to these mares and foals, and Bel Bel said:

‘Have you seen anything strange as you travelled homewards at midday?’

One was Star’s dam, and she answered fearfully:

‘No, but we heard the sound of horsemen and a faint whip crack. What business have men here?’

Then through the bush, some distance off, they saw several more kangaroos flitting between the trees, upwards, upwards.

Bel Bel turned to Mirri.

‘We’re being driven uphill,’ she said. ‘There must be a great many men.’

‘Well, we’re going,’ said Star’s mother. ‘We’ll be safer with Yarraman and the others.’

Bel Bel looked at Mirri.

‘It must be us wild horses they’re after, not kangaroos,’ she said.

‘Good luck!’ said Mirri to the others, as they jogged away, then to Bel Bel, ‘Shall we try to go across the hill and escape the men?’

‘That’s the best thing I can think of. We might make the ravine and hide there, but the men will probably have dogs and though we might race them, it’s not going to be so easy with the foals — but we must go.’ And, as usual, the creamy mare led off, the two foals following her, and Mirri close behind them.

All of a sudden, the bush seemed dreadfully still and hot, so hot, and the scent of the turpentine bush was all around. Bel Bel leapt to one side sharply as a big copperhead snake slid across some warm, bare earth almost under her feet, and she felt the sweat break out behind her ears.

Coming up the hill towards her she saw a pair of brown wallabies.

‘Yes, we’re being driven,’ she whispered to herself.

Further on they met more brumbies, panting and sweating. The leader only stopped for a second to say to them:

‘You’ll meet stockmen if you keep going that way. They’re not far behind. Better follow us.’

‘There are men everywhere,’ said Bel Bel. ‘The only thing to do is to try and get back between them.’

But the other horses just went on upwards, their flanks heaving and the smell of their sweat heavy on the air.

Bel Bel led off again, faster, threading through thick snow-gums, even breaking into a fast canter when they reached a grass glade. As much as possible she avoided rocks on which their hooves would make a noise. If only they could reach the ravine. . . .

Then she saw the first of the men, sitting easily on a neat grey horse, a Queensland blue cattle dog padding along beside him.

She doubled back quickly, driving Thowra and Storm in front of her. Perhaps he had not seen her. Perhaps he would not hear them. If they went back a few hundred yards, and then turned downwards, they might just get through the cordon of men and dogs . . . but when she turned down, there, galloping across in front of her, was the same man and his dog.

The dog saw the wild horses and rushed to head them, snapping not at her or Mirri, who might have kicked, but at Thowra.

Thowra, who had never seen a dog in his life, turned in a frenzy of fear. Bel Bel galloped after him, trying to swing him back to make another effort to beat the man and the dog downhill, but the dog knew his game too well and kept heeling Thowra. Thowra was soon beyond being able to hear anything his mother neighed to him, and all that Bel Bel could do was to go with him in his mad gallop up the hill, trying to strike or kick at the dog. At last she quietened the blue heeler by galloping at him when he snapped at Thowra’s heel and giving him a nasty bite on the back.

Bel Bel then galloped shoulder to shoulder with Thowra, speaking to him, trying to steady him, and all the time wondering what they should do next. In a few quick, backward glances she could see no sign of Mirri and Storm. The man was a good way behind and had called off his dog. Anyway, the dog had done his job of heading them uphill only too well.

She gave Thowra a gentle nip on the shoulder.

‘Slow down!’ she said. ‘They are not following.’

Thowra, who was blowing frightfully, slackened his pace and at last dropped to a walk.

‘We will have a little rest in that thick belt of snowgums,’ Bel Bel said, ‘and, from there, try and cut across to the ravine again.’ But the time had gone for escape. The men and their dogs were closing in.

Bel Bel found herself and her foal driven relentlessly uphill. Each time she hoped to cut across she saw a man. Presently they came up with several trembling mares and foals, and they could hear others moving on ahead. Bel Bel made one more bid to break away south to the ravine, but just then she heard a whip crack, and another, from the direction of the ravine, and some more brumbies came galloping towards her.

‘Don’t try to go that way,’ they said. ‘Lots of men and dogs there. Quick, quick!’ and they galloped on in terror.

Bel Bel realized that they were all being swung round in the direction of their main camping ground.

‘The men will have made a yard somewhere,’ she thought, because this was not the first time she had been caught up in a big hunt when the stockmen came after the brumbies. She wished Mirri was still with her. Mirri was a good friend, and she understood more about the habits of men. Mirri would know where they would build a yard in which to catch wild horses. As for Bel Bel she could think of no place more likely than in the narrow mouth of the valley at its farthest end.

She tried to talk to Thowra before he got completely infected with the panic that was gripping all the other horses.

‘Son,’ she said, ‘you must stay absolutely beside me. Somewhere these men will have put up fences with which to stop us escaping. If you stay right with me, I may be able just to miss going into their yard and we might escape.’

Thowra thought he would never forget all that happened after that. First he heard sticks and branches breaking as though hundreds of men and horses were chasing them, then he heard the unknown ring of a shod horse’s hoof on stone, and
then
whips cracking, many whips, cracking and cracking, right behind them.

The brumbies really started to gallop, and he and his mother with them.

The little foal stretched his legs out beside his mother, stretched his neck too. He could feel his heart thundering unevenly in his chest. They were right in the centre of the mob. It was Brownie’s shoulder that touched him on his near side, and he felt her hot breath. Everything was bound up with the tremendous pounding, thundering of hooves on hard ground, the pounding and thundering of his own heart, the blowing of breath, the gasping of all the horses.

A snowgum branch whipped him across the eyes, and brought stinging tears. He could hear his own breath sob and felt as though his pounding heart would burst. His legs and hooves seemed no longer to belong to him.

Then they were out of the trees and they spread apart a little in the open valley of the camping ground. The men forced them together again into a mob that moved almost as one horse, but, while they were spread out, Thowra had felt Bel Bel pushing him over to the left wing, not quite on the outside of the mob, because their colour would be too noticeable there, but just near the edge. He heard his mother give a gasping sort of whinny, and, through the tired haze that was over his eyes, recognized Mirri and Storm on the wing.

The noise of whips never ceased now, as the men drove them faster and faster. The horses were in a frenzy of fear. Thowra wanted to cry out with the terror that seemed to run like a flame through the mob, but he had no breath for anything except to keep going. Bel Bel spoke to him several times and he hardly heard. Then he knew she was saying something that mattered.

‘In a second we will swing to the left,’ she said, ‘through the gap in the trees.’

With a tremendous effort he focused his eyes on something other than the outstretched noses and heaving flanks beside him, and saw that they were nearly at the end of the valley.

‘Now!’ said Bel Bel, and edged him out of the mob, neighing to Mirri as they went.

Only a few strides and they would be in the trees. Thowra realized it was Storm beside him and that the two mares were driving them. He felt a searing cut across the face from a whip. A dog fastened on his heel and he heard Bel Bel’s scream of rage, but his mother and Mirri forced him on.

There was a jumble of men’s voices, one calling:

‘Hold the ones we’ve got!’ Another singing out: ‘No! I swear I’ll have the creamies.’

Then they were in the trees and pounding over rocks, one man and his dog still with them. Bel Bel raced into the lead and Thowra suddenly knew why. There was quite a drop ahead of them, over some rocks. He and Storm had played there often and knew just where to jump. All at once he felt strong enough to go at the faster pace that his mother was setting.

Bel Bel leapt over the edge, jumping on to a little rocky shelf, sliding down from it on her haunches, jumping again, and he was following, legs trembling so much that he could barely stand up when he landed.

Standing at the foot of the little cliff, legs apart, shaking, shaking, he looked up. Mirri and Storm were nearly safely down, but the man had reined in on the top and was left behind.

‘Come on,’ said Bel Bel, and the four brumbies vanished into the trees.