Silver Brumby Kingdom (8 page)

For a moment he seemed to be yarded by the interwoven limbs and trunks which were all glittering in an oblique light that shone from a narrow space between the clouds. Lightning bathed out as the strange light died away, and thunder crashed again.

The more he hurried through the forest, the more he seemed to get entangled with the stiff, dead limbs which were vibrating in the wind. He entered another grassy glade and he galloped. At last he was through those ghostly trees, and bounding down the slopes of the Pilot.

Lightning was not a naturally sure-footed horse, but now he was more than half-afraid — afraid of the storm, of the loneliness, of the death that had claimed Baringa, of the lurking menace in the black stallion — so he went leaping down the steep slopes, sending rocks and stones flying, but the thunder was louder than all the noise he made.

Sometimes he was going far faster than he meant to go, quite unable to check his speed on the rolling stones and the loose earth: sometimes he bounded in proppy, stiff-legged jumps from one rock slab to another. And the last shafts of light that often came between the clouds as the sun set, shone in his eyes, made his coat glitter. The gusty wind fanned mane and forelock, dried sweat, as the huge silver horse went madly jumping, sliding, crashing down the hillside.

His heart was pounding, sweat dripped off his neck and belly, and he was gasping for breath when he at last reached the bottom. Once he was back in familiar country, his fears quieted down.

He trotted through the bush towards the track that went between the Tin Mine and Quambat Flat, and was just starting along it, homewards, when he saw two young colts walking in his direction. He knew these two quite well. They were not much more than yearlings, two half-brothers who usually played at the lower end of the flat.

They would know whether all was well at Quambat. If the black stallion had not gone to Quambat before the storm started, it was unlikely that he would come seeking his mares in all this thunder, and, now that he had come so far, Lightning felt that he might as well go to Dale’s Creek, provided all was well with his herd.

He stopped the colts.

“Greetings,” he said. “Is everything peaceful at Quambat Flat, or has a black stallion from Limestone been there?”

“Greetings, O Lightning,” they replied. “Nothing has disturbed us. No black stallion has come. Everyone is restless, that is all, restless because they have heard that Baringa is dead.”

Lightning thanked them and watched them go on their way, then, feeling quite certain of Goonda’s safety, he turned into the bush towards Dale’s Creek.

As he dropped lower, the thunder seemed to reverberate among the mountains all around. He had the feeling that he must hurry, though he knew that his mares were still quite safe, and, anyway, as soon as he was down on to the creek, in that secretive place of teatree and black sallee trees, the same haunting fear began to creep into him, the haunting fear that always came to him when he was in this valley. Now the silence was continually broken by the rolling thunder. Lightning hurried.

So far there was absolutely no sign of any other horses. Daylight would go soon and he must hurry, hurry, hurry.

There was a small patch of bare earth and for a little way he could see a track going down the valley. He went forward quickly, to look for hoof marks, and there was a set of broad, strong prints, there on the bare patch, and leading on down the track.

Lightning should have known the dun’s spoor, but he did not. However, he felt convinced that these prints were his, and he followed them at a canter.

The path faded out, but every now and then it was there for a few yards, faded again, and then reappeared, all the way down the creek, and each time he found it, the hoof marks were on it.

Though he was hurrying so much, Lightning did notice that there were no other tracks about, no fresh droppings.

The evening was closing in with great claps of thunder. Soon darkness would come completely, and as it grew more difficult to see the hoof marks, Lightning began to feel more and more uncomfortable. Without realising that he was doing so, he started to go slower, and he looked around a good deal more, peered into the teatree clumps before going through them, stopped and listened.

The thunder made it almost impossible to hear anything else, but if the rumbling and crashing stopped, the silence was intense and fearful.

At last Lightning could no longer see the hoof prints. He had come a long way, and the wide, soft valley had closed in. On one side there was a high plateau, and on the other side the ridge went up steeply. The thunder continually rolled. The gusty wind moaned in the trees.

Was Dawn nowhere to be found in all the mountains?

Suddenly Lightning propped. There was something lying with its head in the creek.

“Baringa!” he thought, but even in the night the body was too dark to be that of a silver horse.

There was an ear-splitting crack, and the whole sky was lit up with lightning.

The dark heap became a horse, became dun-coloured and never moved.

Lightning turned, and, as the valley was lit with silver light over and over again, and the thunder pealed, cracked, rolled, he galloped for home.

Long drifts of snow still lay on the hills that surrounded the Cascades Valley. They glittered in the early spring sunshine. The silver horse, trotting down between them, often gave a leap and a bound as though from sheer joy. He was a very big horse, and the wedgetail eagles, who had been high in the sky above the Murray, came floating over to see him, and dipped their wings in salute.

Thowra, the great Silver Stallion, sire of Lightning, grandsire of Baringa, had been held prisoner by the snow, in his Secret Valley, for longer than the horses down in the south. Now, just the day Lightning set forth on to the Pilot, he was out in the mountains again, light-footed and gay, intending to see how Baringa and Lightning were, intending to go to his mares, Koora and Cirrus.

He would gallop in the sun, dance and play, gallop and dance by starlight and moonshine. There was only one other horse who seemed to be part of the sunbeam or a flash of moonlight on snow — and that was Baringa.

It was Baringa whom Thowra would visit first, but he might see his beloved half-brother, Storm, on the way.

Thowra had been with Storm more recently than with Baringa. During the winter’s heavy snow the two half-brothers had been caught in the Cascades and forced to make downwards on to the Murray River. There they had seen Baringa and his mares, Lightning and his herd, and even the black stallion, and then they had pushed on and on, round the mountains till they eventually got back to their own herds — a great journey even for those two great horses.

Thowra was rested now, coat gleaming, the vigour of spring and life in every movement. He leapt from one snowgrass bank of a creek to another. The rush of air, the shining water beneath him, the springiness of the snowgrass — all was exciting. He cantered down a sunny slope.

A dead snowgum down the little valley seemed to be flowering, and the huge flowers were white-backed magpies who exploded from the tree, flew up, and sang to the sun, and the sky, and the silver horse.

Thowra greeted them with a neigh, and their song rang out, accompanying his gay canter down to the floor of the Cascade Valley.

Thowra sent another neigh ringing to the birds, and then set off, up the valley, at a purposeful trot, towards the gap on the skyline, and then along the ridges and hill-tops to Stockwhip Gap where he should find Storm. It would be very good to graze for an hour or so with Storm and the main herd — half of which was really his — and perhaps to shake up and frighten the white-faced, blue stallion who now had his bimble below the gap, and whom Thowra had ever teased.

On he trotted. He saw only a very few young horses — some of them just starting to collect their own herds, all swift and vigorous and with no foals at foot to hamper a quick escape if men appeared.

A lovely dun-coloured filly, almost golden, flitted like a shaft from the sunset, through the snowgums. Thowra knew her to be a daughter of his, and he called her.

“Take heed,” he neighed. “If men come, you are too beautiful.”

“I am swift, O Thowra,” came the answer, “and just now I am young and free.”

“Free, free, free,” his hoofs whispered on the soft grass — and then, as he cantered: “Young and free, young and free.” And the sunlight warmed him, the breeze cooled him, a drink from a stream poured the swiftness of the blizzard into his body, for in the blizzards were the streams born.

Thowra trotted and cantered over the kingdom which he had won years ago from the grey stallion, the Brolga.

Storm had been expecting him, and when he saw the flicker of silver, the proud toss of mane, between the big, old snowgums on Stockwhip Gap, he gave a great neigh of welcome, and cantered towards him. In the herd, scattered among the tees, the little flickering whisper went round:

“The Silver Stallion,” and a neat, pale blue roan filly, a daughter of Whiteface’s, who had attached herself to the herd and made up her mind that she would be Thowra’s, began to dance a little through the trees, towards the two huge stallions.

Thowra was far too pleased to see Storm again to take any notice. He saw that Storm looked a little older, perhaps had not completely recovered from their gruelling journey and the shortage of food. It was not just in his own imagination that Thowra was still vigorous and young. Every animal and every bird of the bush simply thought of Thowra as for ever in his prime, for ever filled with spirit.

Now the two stallions were bucking and rearing around each other with pleasure. The pale roan filly waited. Thowra looked very handsome. She was sure he must be more handsome than the silver horse about whom her father’s herd were murmuring.

She started to romp and play with the other fillies, but as soon as Thowra stopped his game with Storm, she went out on her own again to arouse his interest, to be the one beautiful filly dancing apart on the edge of the ridge:

Thowra was too filled with his own longing to travelling the ranges, footloose, by day and by night, even to think of her twice — though of course he noticed her, because he noticed everything.

The filly, feeling annoyed that her beauty had not caught his interest, at last went down the open snowgrass valley that led to the east and towards the Charcoal Range. Her sire’s herd were likely to be there, and from them she might learn more of the other silver horse, for word seemed to have come somehow, borne by the birds, or the flying phallangers, just rumours; perhaps something in the call of a kurrawong which told of the mysterious comings and goings of a silver horse, perhaps something in the sad threnody of a plover, crying of sorrow and death.

It was not because of the filly that Thowra went walking down through the trees. He could not be at Stockwhip Gap without visiting old Whiteface, teasing him a little, and finding out what were the rumours which were borne on the mountain winds, for Whiteface always seemed to hear a great deal.

He saw the filly prancing and gambolling her way down the open snowgrass, and, for the first time, he realised she was lovely, but he still did not take any real notice of her.

She knew he was walking down through the trees and she went more slowly, so that they reached Whiteface’s herd at the same time. Whiteface showed very little pleasure at the sight of Thowra!

His lack of appreciation of Thowra’s visit earned him a rather firm bite on one ear.

“What news flies on the wind?” Thowra asked.

Whiteface looked dumb.

“No news. We have all been too taken up with finding food.”

Thowra began to cast his eye over Whiteface’s herd. It was then that the filly, desperately wanting Thowra to choose her, said:

“What of the rumours of a silver stallion walking on his own? What of the whispers of death? You were all murmuring of these things only a few hours ago.” She moved closer to Thowra because she had given away the news which her sire had refused him, all to get his attention.

Thowra saw another rather good-looking filly give her a spiteful nip as he said:

“Death for whom?”

“One of the young silver horses,” Whiteface answered, and every line of his body said: “You’d better get going,” but he was not fool enough to say it aloud.

“Which?” Thowra was suddenly more fierce and menacing than Whiteface had ever seen him.

“It is only one of those tales that seemed to be whispered by the trees,” Whiteface answered, “but there may be more truth in the story that one of the silver horses was way down on the Murray alone, seeking a white mare who was once owned by the other one.”

Thowra gave no further thought to Whiteface, and not another thought to the filly, but turned uphill again, towards Storm. He told Storm what he had heard, and then went straight on, headed for Baringa’s Canyon.

Close behind him went the filly.

As soon as Thowra was out of sight of the herd, he began to go very fast. However fast he went, he made no sound, but the filly, having to make a great effort to keep up, made quite a noise, and Thowra heard her.

At first, when he looked back and saw her, he thought he would send her straight back, and then the idea came to him that she could look handsome in Baringa’s herd. . . . Baringa could not possibly be dead, perhaps hurt, somewhere far away, and unable to get home, and what could be a better welcome home than a beautiful filly for his herd? He would take the filly with him, if she could keep up.

He waited till she was close behind him, and after that he kept looking back to see if she followed.

He did not even call in on Son of Storm, and avoided being seen by other horses, keeping off all tracks.

It was night, and very dark, when he reached the ridge above the Canyon. There he went round and round in a few circles, then down over the steepest and most rugged part, making sure the filly was close on his heels, making sure that the route he picked was really frightening so that she would be less likely to try to climb out — just as he, with his circles in the dark, had tried to ensure that she did not know where she was going.

In this pitch darkness they went into Baringa’s Canyon, almost as though they were dropping down, and when they were nearly there, Thowra, who, in spite of his efforts to frighten her, was glad that the filly was following fearlessly, said.

“Either tonight, or soon, if you choose to do so, you may join the herd of the most beautiful stallion in all the mountains.”

“Who, O Thowra, do you mean? To me it is you who are the most beautiful stallion.”

The filly could feel the presence of Thowra in the darkness as she heard his answer.

“Not I, but my grandson, Baringa.”

“Was it not for one named Baringa that the plovers cried?”

This time Thowra’s answer seemed to vibrate in the invisible leaves of the ribbon gums and sallee trees:

“Baringa could not be dead.”

They had not once stopped moving down the precipitous hillside. Now there were cliffs just underneath them, and the filly must have felt that something even steeper was ahead, because she pressed close to Thowra, but she never hesitated as he led down the small footholds and little platforms and cracks on the granite cliff.

They were almost at the bottom when Thowra said:

“If Baringa is not here, he will return, for he has the most beautiful herd in all the mountains, and now I am adding you to it. There is surely nothing that would be more likely to draw him back.”

The filly wondered if he were really feeling less worried, or whether he was only just trying to make himself believe that all was well. Could a herd of lovely mares call a horse back from the dead? What was the faint gleam she could see in his eyes in the darkness?

She followed him closely, wondering also what sort of reception she would get from the mares, who must be somewhere quite close, A current of excitement was racing through her, too. At last she was going to run with the most wonderful horse in all the mountains — perhaps Baringa, perhaps Thowra.

All at once they landed on flat ground. She could feel through the darkness that there were others coming close. Did she imagine it, or were there the light-coloured shapes of two mares?

Thowra whinnied softly, then a gentle paw touched his nose. He dropped his great head to the grey kangaroo’s.

“Benni, Benni,” he said. “What has happened? Where is Baringa? Where is Dawn?”

“Dawn was swept downstream in the flood in the Murray,” Benni answered, “half a moon ago, now. Baringa has gone searching for her and has not returned, though he should have been back . . . unless he could not find her and he has kept on and on searching. . . . She was soon to foal. . . .”

Thowra felt suddenly cold.

“I did not hear about Dawn, but I heard that Baringa was missing,” he said, “and I have brought this filly for him, when he returns. She is a half-sister of yours, Koora. She must be tired and hungry now. Could you lead her to where she may find some sweet grass? She will need a drink too,” his nose touched Koora — the sweet mare who had followed him over the mountains, and would follow him anywhere, to death in fire or flood, if needs be, or to perish in the snow.

They fed and drank and, later, all stood close together for company. The little herd was glad of Thowra’s presence. This was the sixth night without Baringa.

Already the weather which had been so fine, was changing, and the same gusty north-west wind that was disturbing Lightning, on the Pilot, moved in the trees above.

As they stood half-sleeping, a sound came — a sound only partly heard, not really breaking the silence of the night. Whatever it was made each animal alert and tensely waiting. Waiting . . . Waiting. . . . Then it came, louder, closer, and this time it was the lonely neigh of a stallion, a stallion whom none of them knew.

The new filly was amazed at the sudden tension in Thowra and the others around her. This place must be far away from any horses because it was obvious that they rarely heard a call, and obvious that this call meant great danger. She had felt the hair of Thowra’s coat rising, as though he were listening with all himself. Then she knew he had moved away — knew that, silent as a fanning breeze, he was going towards that sound.

Thowra had heard that strange call, and all the half-formed rumours which he had heard at Stockwhip Gap, and the story of Baringa’s absence from the Canyon, fitted together, and he knew that it was likely that this was a stallion who had heard Baringa was dead, and had come seeking his mares.

There was no time to lose.

Swiftly — his pounding heart filling his great, silver chest — and without making any sound, Thowra went up the bluff at the head of the Canyon.

Thowra had never been a killer, but something told him that this horse must at least be given such a beating that he would never return . . . and then, if he lived and went limping over the mountains, would every horse know that a silver stallion had risen up out of the Canyon in Dale’s Creek and beaten him? Perhaps this horse should never be left to limp over the mountains . . .

Thowra was nearing the top of the bluff. He heard that neigh ring out again and echo in the Canyon around him. It was not just a cry of loneliness, it was also a call to a beautiful mare — to Dawn perhaps:

“Where are you? Come to me.”

Thowra felt fury rising within him. Baringa, who was light and life, could not be dead, and no stallion should be able to come so close to his mares. He climbed the last few feet of the bluffs, and out over the top.

There, a few feet below him, he could faintly see the lightish coat, the shape of a big horse — a very light chestnut or dun.