Silver Brumby Kingdom (10 page)

She stood there, rather huddled in the rain, grumbling to herself, and soon did not even watch the black trotting across the hollow and up the ridge.

Why was one wet, rainy moment different from the moment before? But she felt sure she had heard the faintest call. She raised her head slightly and listened, ears flickering. There it was again, almost beyond hearing, but a call to set the blood racing.

She turned round carefully. There just seemed to be a wall of trees. Then something moved, and — was she dreaming? — there was the head, the crested neck, the shoulders of a silver horse.

The horse’s nose trembled again with that thrilling, half-heard call his eyes were gazing straight at her.

The little round mare gave one quick look back at the black who was still trotting up the ridge, and then, on her toes, went towards the silver horse.

Thowra greeted her softly, and led her away through the thick bush, keeping off all tracks.

After a while the rain slackened: any hoof print made now would show. Thowra tried to persuade the little mare to place her feet carefully, but she thought it was all far too funny, and anyway, if the black came, Thowra would fight for her and beat him easily, so there was no cause for worry.

Thowra made her walk in the water for a little while, when they crossed at the junction, so that her hoof marks would not show on the mud. He thought he would take her up on to the High Plateau by way of the steep, rocky ridges from the river, and then down into Dale’s Creek and around and about, so that he twisted her sense of direction — if she had one — before taking her into the Canyon.

They crossed at the junction only a short time after Yarolala had crossed and gone up onto Quambat Ridge.

Thowra and the mare had not gone far before he realised that it might not be a very fast journey, because the round mare was undoubtedly lazy and inclined to regard everything as a joke. This irritated him rather, because he did not want to waste time. He wanted to put her safely in the Canyon and then go off and find Baringa, so he urged her along with a mixture of cajoling and teasing, beginning to wonder how stupid he was being, to bother about her . . . but in fact she was rather delightful. He was glad, however, that Storm could not see them.

The black stallion had almost reached the place where he had seen the movement in the trees, instead of a young stallion — or even a silver stallion — stepping out of the snow-gums, the great bunches of feathers which were the emus, came swaying and bounding into the open.

At first the black stallion was annoyed because he had been expecting a horse, hoping for some clue to the whereabouts of his mares. Then he wondered if these birds might tell him something — not that he trusted them over much.

At first the birds looked at him in fierce and icy silence.

The black stallion did not possess very courtly manners. He asked most abruptly if they knew where his five roan mares had gone.

The emus, who loved to know everything and loved everybody to know they knew everything, drew themselves up very haughtily.

“
Your
roan mares?” they said. “We know plenty of roan mares, but yours . . . ?”

“Yes mine. I have heard they were stolen as the snow melted, by a silver horse.”

“Those ones! You could have stolen them back a few days ago! Where have you been?”

“I was following a silver horse down the river, but I didn’t find him again, or find any mares.”

“Oh,” said the emus, learning something. “Which silver horse did you follow?”

“I don’t know. How many are there? This horse had had a terrific fight and was all blood-stained. He went down the west bank of the river, but he simply vanished.”

“A-a-h,” said the emus, learning even more, and determined to tease him. “Have you lost all your mares, every one?”

The black stallion felt a wave of uneasiness go over him. He turned his head quickly. There was no sign of the white mare either behind him or under the tree. He swung round and called, but there was no answer.

With a roar of rage, he started down the hill.

The emus fluffed out their feathers, for he had no manners.

It took only a second or so for the black stallion to reach his shelter tree. He looked carefully below it and he searched the bush. There was the scent of a stallion: there were some hoof marks made by his mare, hoof marks that led into dense timber.

He tried to follow, but soon lost the tracks, and then just went on downstream, searching wildly.

It was by great good luck that the black found one mark of his little round mare’s off forefoot, on the other side of the Quambat stream, just at the junction, one hoof mark pointing down the river — this time on the eastern bank.

Further on there were more, where she had loitered and teased Thowra on a muddy patch. He could smell her scent and the scent of the stallion, but never a track of the stallion did he see.

Off he went as hard as he could go, hooves slithering and squelching, picking up her track here and there, and knowing he was going faster than they were.

It was a good thing that Thowra decided to cut up towards the Quambat Ridge a little earlier than he had first intended. He and the white mare were not far up a rocky spur, and only partly hidden in scrub, when the black stallion went pounding past, below.

Thowra watched with interest, so did the white mare.

As soon as the horse had gone well past, Thowra urged the little mare to climb faster and more quietly.

“Why don’t you fight him?” she asked.

“It would be better not to — yet,” was Thowra’s puzzling reply. “And perhaps one of the others will want to.”

This puzzled her still more. She tossed her head and did not move any faster at all. Thowra felt exasperated, but there was no doubt that she was rather fun, and he was so glad that Baringa was alive and he wanted to give him this pert mare.

There was a thudding of hooves again, the black was coming back.

While he rushed back along the river, trying to pick up their tracks, Thowra led his rather maddening companion through some thick trees, across a gully, and on to the next ridge. They had only just reached the ridge when they heard him below again, but he was not coming up yet, just grumbling around, trying to track them.

Thowra gave the mare a little nudge, to start her climbing, but she was watching the black through the trees, watching with far too much amusement to want to move.

Thowra nudged her again, and breathed fiercely down his nose.

All she did was nip him.

So he gave her a gentle bite, but still she would not climb. He began to understand that she thought it would be fine to have him fight for her.

The danger in the whole thing would be if, through her playfulness, they led the black too near to the Canyon.

Thowra suddenly knew what to do.

“I don’t think you are worth the trouble,” he said, and started to climb up the ridge on his own, but not too fast.

The mare took no notice and he went on alone. If she did not come, then, he supposed, it was better to leave her, make down on to the river again, and search for Baringa. He tried not to look back . . . she was rather sweet, there was no doubt of that.

After a while he heard her following, and she was making enough noise to fetch a stallion from miles away. Luckily the black was not right below: he had gone charging on downstream again.

Thowra slowed up a little, to give her the encouragement of getting closer, then he went on.

He reached a rocky place from which be could look out. There was still no sign of the black. This time he waited for the mare.

This time she knew he was not joking.

“If you come,” he said. “You must follow more carefully Don’t leave tracks and don’t make a noise,” and he led her across two gullies, this time, so that if the black did find her tracks, he would be puzzled again.

The mare obeyed.

Thowra increased his pace a little, and though she was blowing, the mare kept up. They heard the crashing of a boulder. Apparently the black had started upwards and dislodged a rock. Thowra decided to cross over on to even another ridge, each time working back towards the south rather than nearer to the High Plateau.

He waited and listened for a while. The black was still coming.

Then Thowra changed his plans. He began to make down again.

When the mare asked him what he was doing, he simply said:

“Wait and see. It will give you a chance to stop puffing. You may need your breath later.”

He led her right out into the open, by the river bank, and there he stood, letting out neigh after neigh. Wild, triumphant, challenging, the cry of the Silver Brumby rang out.

From high up there came a roar of anger, and presently the sound of failing rocks.

Thowra turned towards the Limestone, then, near the junction, hid himself and the mare, to watch what happened.

What happened was quite unexpected, because he had forgotten the emus.

The emus and the black stallion arrived at the junction almost at the same moment. The black was breathless, so the emus had plenty of time to make him uncomfortable with their piercing stare.

The black regained his breath, but, Thowra thought, he probably never did have any manners to regain. Manners or not, he was only intent on finding out if the emus had seen the silver horse and his white mare.

The emus looked astonished.

“
White
mare this time! Forgotten the roans already. No manners, no memory . . .”

Then . . . and Thowra was sure they took a horrible pleasure in upsetting everyone and everything . . . one emu, totally ignoring the black, said to the other:

“It’s amazing that he has never thought to go to Quambat Flat.”

The black seemed to stop in mid-air as he advanced, rather threateningly, towards them. He stood out-staring the fierce-eyed birds.

Thowra knew, by this, that the black had been too occupied following Baringa, to go to Quambat, but he could see that he also had not thought of going there.

Now he was not going to think much: he was going straight there. Thowra watched him heading along the track, and wondered whether to try to catch his attention before he got far, but reflected that, after all, Lightning had asked for it, and if he could not defend himself and his mares now, he should be able to. Also Lightning had had such a bad fright that it was likely he had his mares hidden somewhere.

Thowra determined to get his lazy little companion to the Canyon as fast as she could go.

He led her up Quambat Ridge, and thence to Dale’s Creek, having made sure that the emus did not see them go. On the way he learnt, from hoof marks and scent, that Yarolala had gone ahead of them up the ridge. This made him wonder, but the first necessity was to get the white mare into the Canyon. Then he would have to find Baringa, then see what had happened to Lightning. He felt fairly sure that Yarolala would not find the Canyon, though it was likely that she had discovered that Baringa was not dead, and was now looking for him.

Thowra hurried on, and whenever the mare stayed too far behind, he went on alone, and she managed to go faster.

Dale’s Creek, as evening drew in, was as eerie as it always was. Thowra felt its strange silence the more deeply, knowing that the dun lay dead near the entry to the Canyon. As darkness fell, he made a big circle up on to the side of the High Plateau and then another on to the flank of the Pilot, then smaller circles through teatree and splashing through the stream.

The little mare kept closer now. In the darkness she was lost and, even with her fun-loving nature, had become afraid. At last he led her down the cliff into the Canyon.

Thowra was on his way again with the first grey light. This time he went down the cliffs into the Tin Mine Creek and then down the cliffs of that creek, and along it till he reached the river. There, at last, he found a place where he could swim across the river, and he began searching upstream, on the western bank.

Already the country had become far more springlike. He brushed through the golden and brown of the bitter pea flowers that were just coming into bloom. Many of the wattles were in full flower, and some of their golden, fluffy balls were blowing off in the light breeze, or showering down on his mane, his shoulders and back.

Suddenly he stopped short, Right under an overhanging snowgrass tussock, as though the foot had slipped, a hoof print was pressed deep into the now dry mud, and filled with the wind-blown wattle blooms that had slithered into it. Thowra dropped his head down to sniff at it. It was not a fresh print:

It had been made even before the last rain, but it was Baringa’s print, and it pointed downstream.

Thowra began a careful search. It was hours later, and almost dark, before he found another trace of Baringa, and that was a few silver hairs on an overhanging branch, inland from the river. Here Thowra was forced to spend the night, because darkness was useless for a search.

It was on this night that Lightning crept down from the Cobras where he had hidden his mares, and he came down because he was almost sure he had heard an unknown call echoing among the rocks. He did not go out of the fringe of trees, but stood carefully watching the flat. Even though the night was only lit by starlight, he could just make out a big, black horse moving restlessly about — or perhaps he heard him so clearly that he imagined him. Also there were some of the younger horses of Quambat, hidden in the bush, who told that this horse had rampaged around all the day before, obviously finding track and scent of his mares, and, also obviously, here to stay till he got them.

Perhaps, by the morning light, this ill-tempered black stallion might track the herd up the Cobras. Lightning decided he would stay close to see what the horse did when daylight came.

Also coming closer in, but hidden among the trees, were the two emus, anxious to see what mischief they had caused. Deeper in the bush, Yarolala was walking quietly along.

Yarolala had gone right to the far end of the High Plateau, the day before. She had spent one lonely, frightening night pressed between two rocks, on Quambat Ridge. Then, getting more and more nervous, she had gone up on to that High Plateau where there was rarely a day in which the wind did not move, and where it seemed bad to be alone.

Every golden chestnut hair had stood on end when she found the sunken, washed-out remains of rolling holes that had not been used for months and months. Someone had not come back — and she hastened on. When she finally reached the end of the High Plateau, she had stood with the wind lifting that lovely silver mane, so like Yarraman’s, and looked over the Canyon, over the deep gorge of the Tin Mine Creek, over the wild, blue ridges, right to the Main Range, and she had seen no sign of horses, only a vast depth that seemed to her a place where no horse could go.

She had gazed for a long time over the tangle of mountains and gorges, then, frightened and lonely, she had gone back towards Qoambat, at least to spend the night near other horses before setting off again on her search for Baringa.