The Silver Brumby

by Elyne Mitchell

  By midnight snow was falling. They sheltered under some great rocks until the first grey streaks of dawn came, and then went cautiously downwards, keeping in amongst the trees.

  They were right at the northern-most end of the Cascades — where the creek turned towards its great waterfall and the Indi River. This had been part of Yarraman’s grazing-ground, and, in a valley which they avoided, his scattered, bleached bones might still be lying. The memory of that night, and the nearness to that place, made them nervous and very careful. Thus it was that they saw the group of horsemen, again led by that same splendid black horse, before they themselves were spotted. If they had kept going, they would have met head-on. As it was, Thowra and Storm stopped dead and tried to sneak off further into the timber; but once again that black horse neighed.

  Quivering with fear, the two colts still crept as quietly as they could through the bush, but as soon as they heard the black horse and his rider following them, they broke into a wild gallop, heading for the roughest country they knew.

  Soon they were tearing down a precipitous slope of big, loose boulders. This checked their pursuers, who dared not risk laming their horses.

  Thowra and Storm watched them for a second, trying to get around below them. There were three others besides the man on the black horse, each one on a good, full-grown mount; each wearing a hat pulled down over his eyes, jodhpurs and leather coat that were soaked by falling snow.

  As he stood for that one second, Thowra realized it was getting colder and the snow was falling more thickly. Perhaps it would turn into a real blizzard, and he would be blotted from sight — just fade into the atmosphere. But he would have to see he was not caught before there was enough snow on the ground and in the air to hide him. Then he thought of Storm — his colour would show up unless snow and mist and clouds really enfolded them both.

  The men had got around below them, so Thowra began to climb steadily back up the loose, rolling boulders. He saw the horsemen split into two groups. It was time to make a dash for it across the boulders, over the timbered ridge, down on to the creek.

  They had a good start on the men, and they went fast across the valley towards the forest near the Cascade hut. The snow fell cold on their steaming coats, thick-falling snow that was beginning to be hurtled, stinging, on the wind.

  ‘We’ll play hide-and-seek with them for a while, in the trees,’ Thowra said. ‘Then, if the snow gets heavier, you can dodge into the timber, and I’ll make out into the open and lose them.’

  Snow was already starting to coat the leaves and fill the forks of trees. White rosettes were plastered by the wind against the jig-saw puzzle markings on the snowgum trunks. The ground was becoming white. It would not be long, Thowra knew, before he would be able to give his pursuers the slip . . . but he could hear them galloping. Then suddenly clouds of swirling snow began to fill the forest.

  ‘It’s almost thick enough, now,’ Storm said. ‘I’ll go crashing off downwards, into the mountain ash, making enough noise for two, if you take to the open.’

  ‘Right,’ said Thowra. ‘Unless we’re caught, we’ll meet at the mouth of Yarraman’s valley tonight.’

  Storm took off, thundering and crashing through the trees and the wild-blowing snow, breaking branches, kicking stones out behind him, giving a snorting neigh. Thowra stood dead quiet in a thick clump of tea-tree and hop scrub while the snowstorm grew densely white; then, he, too, gave a joyous neigh and set off for the open valley.

  He didn’t hear the man on the black horse swear and say, ‘That brumby is getting too cunning.’ But it was from that day on that a legend began to grow up about the cream brumby, cunning as a fox. Stockmen talked of him round their summer camp-fires, or sung songs about him as they rode around a restless mob of cattle at night, and the cattle told the brumbies, so that they too knew, all over the mountains, the tales of the wild cream brumby.

  And Thowra? Thowra galloped down through the trees into the Cascades Valley, felt the good, springy snowgrass under the snow, listened to make sure that he was being followed, neighed again in gay triumph and set off as fast as he could go. He led them just the sort of dance he had often led Arrow, leaping creeks where they were narrow, hoping they would blunder in, skirting round deep holes that might throw them, tearing out on to rocky promontories and jumping off where he knew he had a good landing-place — and neighing if he thought the blizzard had got so thick that they might lose him.

  Sometimes he looked back and could just make out the four other horses and their riders, like shadows, galloping, galloping, through the snow.

  When he started to get tired, he turned back and quietly let the driving curtain of snow hide him from their sight.

  The men had followed at first the crashing, dashing bay — that they did not want to catch. Then they had chased a mocking ghost that sometimes showed up as a pale, galloping outline in the snow-filled air, sometimes as a rearing, playing colt on a rock, but was, most often, only the sound of a neigh that echoed through the storm. Now they found themselves in the silence of the snowstorm, with only the distant rush and roar of the blizzard in the trees or round the rocky ridges. There was no sign nor sound of the cream brumby colt.

  Thowra heard their voices getting smaller and more distant as they rode back towards the track to Groggin. He had found himself shelter in a few trees up a side valley, and, as the day wore on, he went back to meet Storm.

  The coming of spring

  Spring comes to the Australian Alps like an invisible spirit. There is not the tremendous surge of upthrust life that there is in the lowland valleys, and no wild flowers bloom in the snow mountains till the early summer, but there is an immense stirring of excitement. A bright red and blue lowrie flits through the trees; snow thaws, and the streams become full of foaming water; the grey, flattened grass grows upwards again and becomes greener; wild horses start to lose their winter coats and find new energy; wombats sit, round and fat, blinking in the evening sunshine; at night there is the cry of a dingo to its mate.

  Thowra and Storm greeted the first warm, scent-laden breeze off the wattle on the foothills by wandering up towards the Ramshead, where the snow still lay. They were deeply restless and they soon came back nearer the Cascades, where they found that in the few days they had been away other young colts had appeared, and that the fillies, among them some of the grey daughters of The Brolga, were galloping skittishly about away from the herd.

  Thowra and Storm skirted round on the ridges above the main valley, watching.

  They had had a rough winter, in a way, finding the other colts unfriendly and against them for being lone wolves. Thowra and Arrow had had only one fight and Arrow could still win, but in snowy weather Thowra had managed to be the invisible gadfly leading them all into trouble, even once daring to dash right through The Brolga’s herd.

  The Brolga was still very much king of the Cascade brumbies, but now it was clear that he was taking no notice of the young colts and fillies, just lording it over his own herd in the valley below.

  Filled with restlessness and a longing for the company of the other young horses, Thowra and Storm went down a ridge to where there was a little group of fillies chasing each other in the sunshine.

  Down they went to join in the play and found, to their surprise, that the fillies were just as likely to bite or kick them as to play. But before long Thowra realized they were pleased that he and Storm had joined them, even if they did put up a show of driving them off. So they galloped with them all that day; it was not until evening that they found themselves anywhere near other horses, and that was by mistake.

  Thowra simply had not realized that The Brolga’s herd was so near. When he saw them, he could not go away, for there, amongst the herd, were two more grey fillies like one they had been galloping with, and Thowra, suddenly knowing that he must gather together a herd of his own, decided that in it there must be the grey daughters of The Brolga.

  In the heady springtime feeling of super
strength, this did not seem in any way a silly thing to decide — not even when he saw Arrow standing with a few fillies behind him, some distance off, on a little hill.

  Thowra noticed that The Brolga himself was not near the two grey fillies, so he squealed and started rearing and prancing in the broad band of an oblique evening sun ray that came between two shoulders of hill, his long mane and tail streaming, streaming, like silver pennons.

  The two grey fillies neighed in answer and came cantering across. The Brolga turned and stared, lifted his head and roared angrily, then came trotting towards Thowra.

  ‘Clear out quick,’ said Storm. ‘The fillies will come.’

  Thowra watched only long enough to see the two fillies coming close to them before he cantered away. The Brolga made a swift sally at them all, driving colts and fillies in front of him, roared his annoyance, and then turned back to his own herd, stopping every so often to look back, roar, and paw the ground.

  Thowra and Storm cantered on with six fillies, the three greys, two browns, and a bay. They went steadily on, heading for the upland country. They did not see Arrow looking after them and then following with his own herd — one golden chestnut colt with four fillies stringing along behind him.

  Arrow had grown into a very handsome colt, still like his father, but his eyes showed their whites, and there was a mean, pinched look about his head, just as there was about Brownie’s. The other colts were all afraid of him, not so much because he was far stronger, and a cunning fighter besides, but because of his meanness. He would be friendly with a horse for a while and then turn on him viciously, and all the young colts with whom he had been running had scars and blemishes on them from his kicks and bites.

  Thowra was not afraid of him, but he knew that Arrow would try to maim him if he got a chance. Perhaps at the back of his head he knew that Arrow would sooner or later want to kill him, and he knew it was better to keep away.

  Storm hated Arrow, but Storm, too, could gallop faster and farther and knew every yard of the country better than the big chestnut did. He knew instinctively that there would be trouble sometime, too, because he could see that Thowra had become so proud and beautiful as he grew up, and the other horse was beautiful too. Though the mountains were vast and wide, Arrow and Thowra might find there was not room for them both as they grew into mature stallions.

  But neither Storm nor Thowra were thinking of Arrow now. They went on upwards, feeling proud and gay, stepping lightly on the springy tussocks of snowgrass.

  Sunset turned every ridge and hill-top into molten gold, and the valleys below them into long fingers of blue shadow. They stopped to drink at cold, rushing streams, shying away from the floating foam, but the instinct to get further away from the great, grey Brolga kept them moving on till all the light had gone from the hills.

  They camped that night in a little grove of snowgums that shielded them from the sneaking cold breeze. Arrow and his herd had not travelled so late into the evening, so they were quite a long way off.

  There was still snow below the Ramshead, so Thowra only went as far as the lovely open fields of snowgrass on The Ridge above the Dead Horse Gap. It was here, at midday, that Arrow caught up with them.

  Heedless, and filled with an unbounded pride in his own strength and beauty, Arrow came trotting out of the trees towards the two grey fillies whom he had been admiring in The Brolga’s herd. His golden mane rippled as he tossed his head: he carried his tail high. All the sunlight seemed to concentrate on the glittering, golden colt.

  The fillies knew he was there before Thowra and Storm did, and watched, fascinated and afraid. Then both the colts saw him at once, and, both roaring with rage, galloped towards him, their teeth bared.

  Arrow had never seen Storm enraged before and had not expected him to rush into the attack too. He turned and galloped away with the screaming, angry colts driving him back to his own fillies. The fillies fled too. Storm and Thowra drove the whole little herd away towards the Cascades, then feeling very pleased with themselves they returned to their group of waiting fillies.

  It was three years now since Bel Bel and Mirri had nodded their heads wisely over their two foals, knowing they would be mates, knowing they would fulfil the way of the brumbies and run as colts together after they had left their mothers and until they had to fight for a herd of their own. Now had come the time when each one wished to take his herd off on his own, so Storm, with his browns and bay, and Thowra, with his grey fillies, drifted apart, grazing in different directions every day, till each young stallion was left alone with his own mares.

  They had weeks, yet, before the cattle mobs — and the men — would come to the mountains, and this year the snow was lying late on the main tops. Thowra, with his love of the high, rocky places, often took his mares right up between the Ramsheads, where there were great drifts of snow in which to roll, and they might spend days grazing on the sweet upland grass. It was most unlikely that any enemies would be there to worry him, and he did not feel he had to take his usual care to keep hidden. The lovely bright days were spent roaming in the sunshine, leaping from rock to rock up in the tors, galloping down the long grass slopes or the lanes between the different Ramsheads. But one day Arrow came.

  Arrow was not adventurous, and ordinarily nothing would have made him go alone with his mares into the higher mountains, but he was in a jealous fury with Thowra for having taken the grey fillies.

  He came in the morning, quite early, and Thowra and his mares were all four standing up in the bright sunlight on the slabs of a tor, the spring breeze gently lifting their manes, when they saw Arrow below.

  Thowra was just going to fly down and chase him but he remembered that this time Storm was not there, and Arrow would fight.

  ‘He can come up here,’ he thought, and looked around for the best position. He put the mares behind him, with unclimbable cliffs around them, and then stood facing Arrow.

  Arrow did not even stop to think that his superior strength would not be much advantage from below: he came leaping and prancing up the rocks, completely confident of himself — only to get a deadly blow on the head from Thowra’s forefoot as he came within striking distance.

  He was knocked back and downwards, and was very shaken. He could feel blood trickling between his eyes, but he still did not imagine that he could be beaten. He came up again, angrily — and received the same treatment. This time he stopped to think, realizing that he could hardly expect anything else, with Thowra in such an impregnable position above him. He decided then that if he waited, just below, where there was a pool of water from which he could drink, Thowra and his mares would have to come down some time; on level ground he could easily win a fight. So he had a drink and then stood and waited in the shade of a rock, while the sun beat down on the four that were on the tor.

  It did not take Thowra long to see through his plan, and he could only hope that Arrow would get tired of waiting, but after an hour or so had gone by, he began to get thirsty. Arrow seemed to be making a great show of drinking at the little pool.

  ‘Trust him to be mean-spirited if he could be,’ thought Thowra bitterly. Then in a fury he decided it was better to go down and fight before he got too thirsty and too stiff from standing on the rocks. At least he would have the advantage of a downhill gallop, straight at Arrow, but he must not go too fast or Arrow would easily sidestep him.

  Telling the mares to stay where they were, Thowra sprang lightly down from rock to rock, muscles rippling under his gleaming cream coat, eyes keen, nostrils quivering, ears pricked.

  Arrow strutted out into the open to meet him, but Thowra could see he was alert, ready to dodge to one side. Thowra started to gallop straight for him, but slackened speed just a little as he drew close — knowing that he was much more nimble on his feet than Arrow.

  Arrow leapt aside, but Thowra swung round, pivoting magnificently on his quarters, and struck him furiously with his forelegs. He saw blood spurt again above Arrow’s eyes, but then
Arrow was coming for him with open mouth and his lips drawn back. Thowra jumped and struck again, and leapt forward too, to try to get first hold on Arrow’s wither. He had him for a short time, but his hold was not good enough, and Arrow fought free.

  Thowra knew his only chance of success lay in his quickness, so he danced round Arrow, darting in with a strike, a bite, or a kick — dancing, dancing, rearing, plunging, pivoting, swinging round like a flash. The effort was tremendous, and he was very thirsty, but he could see that the pace was tiring the heavier horse. Sweat was turning Arrow’s coat dark, and Thowra could hear his heavy breathing.

  On and on they fought, the grass churned to mud underfoot, the smell of blood and sweat all round them, and the sun beating down, then sinking so that its rays sometimes blinded them.

  Thowra occasionally saw that same red film of exhaustion in front of his eyes that he remembered when he had had to gallop for his life from the man on the black horse, but he knew Arrow must be even more exhausted because he was making more and more desperate efforts to get a hold or to place a solid strike, so he kept on dancing, and plunging, and pivoting, trying to wear him out as quickly as he could.

  There were great bites on Thowra’s withers, and he had a gash over one shoulder from a vicious strike — if he kept moving that wouldn’t stiffen — but he was tired, so tired, aching in the legs, in the shoulders, in the quarters. His heart was pounding, and he could hear his own breath sobbing now, but Arrow’s breathing was louder still.

  And so they fought until they were both completely exhausted, and neither could beat the other. Arrow had certainly given Thowra more serious wounds, but Arrow was unable to fight any more. When he backed off, Thowra followed him, trying to make a pretence of driving him, but he was too tired even to bite.

  Arrow went, and Thowra dropped his nose into the pool of water and drank and drank. Presently there was a soft whinnying from the mares who came to drink too and to be with their young stallion. And as the sun sank below the mountains, the light faded and died. Slowly the stars came into the sky and soon, in the deep blue darkness above the mountains and the horses, the Southern Cross burned.