The warm sun and good food made the horses sleek and shiny. The little foals romped just as Thowra and Storm had romped, four years ago. Kunama grew every day, and grew beautiful, too. Instead of Golden teaching her the wisdom of the bush, Thowra, who knew his silver daughter would have to grow up as wise as Bel Bel, taught her himself; taught her to leave no track with her tiny, neat hooves; to hide herself in tree and shrub; taught her to read the spoor of other horses; to know how old it was, how fast they were going. He showed her the tracks of the sleepy wombats and the dark wallabies, the sweet grey kangaroos — showed her where the wedge-tail eagles nest.
It was Thowra who taught her to recognize all the weather signs, just as Bel Bel had told him — how to understand the voice of the wind and the story of the clouds in the sky, how a strange, fermenting green heart to storm clouds meant wind-driven ice that could cut through a horse’s hide.
He was surprised to find Kunama far easier to teach than Golden had been. Golden’s mother and father had both been tame horses, living with men, and he supposed that, having been brought up by men, her instincts were not developed.
Kunama reminded him of Bel Bel, with her inborn wisdom. Perhaps, like Bel Bel, she would be given an even greater wisdom than the wisdom of mares, because she, too, being cream, would lead a hunted life, and must be wise in order to survive. Mares, Thowra knew, with foals to look after as well as themselves, often had a special understanding of the bush and weather. If, like Bel Bel and Mirri, they were ‘lone wolves’, their wisdom, knowledge and cunning could become very great — that was why Bel Bel had been almost as much leader of the herd as Yarraman; that was why he, Thowra, having learned from Bel Bel, seemed magic to the other horses and to the men. Anyway, he knew — as soon as he saw Kunama prick her small ears, then shiver, as seven black cockatoos passed overhead, flying, crying, that she would need everything he could teach her and all her own inborn wisdom, too, if she were to remain free and wild, and live her life in the mountains.
Boon Boon, who had become fast friends with Golden, took the little foal in hand sometimes, and Golden was very pleased to see her leggy filly cantering after the big grey mare.
There was one other thing in which Kunama took after Bel Bel and Thowra — she loved to wander, and this was dangerous in a foal, unless, like Thowra and Storm, it had a wandering mother. Boon Boon watched her carefully. Later, when she was weaned and could gallop faster, she would be able to go off with Thowra on his travels, but not now.
That spring the rivers were kept high for a long time, simply because there was never a great spring flood. No actual rain fell in the high mountains; there was either a snowstorm or frost and bright sunshine. The bright sun melted the snow and kept the rivers high, but if warm rain had fallen, the snow would have been washed off in a big rush and caused an enormous flood, and after that the level of the rivers would have dropped.
Thowra and Storm, when they decided to leave the Cascades, crossed their herds so near the source of the Crackenback that they did not realize how high the river really was. They were surprised when they were quite some time on Paddy Rush’s Bogong before they saw the first mobs of cattle, but once they had seen the red and white beasts dotting the grassy slopes of the Ramshead Thowra, at least, became doubly watchful. Though it was a great safeguard for all the mares to have Storm near, it meant a large number of horses were very close together — and the more horses, the more difficult it was to keep them hidden.
Among the yearlings in Storm’s herd was a beautiful spirited black colt with two white feet and an unusual splash of white on his flank. Thowra noticed him, and noticed his mother, too, a coal black mare. He studied her closely, thinking that she did not look like a wild horse, so he asked Storm about her.
Storm seemed worried by the question.
‘The black one,’ he said. ‘Yes. I call her Lubra, but she tells me her name is Highland Lass. I’m afraid she and her yearling colt may bring trouble, too. She’s an escaped tame horse. I did not steal her from the men. I took her from a dolt of a stallion, way up past the tin mine, near the headwaters of the Indi River. I only found out later that she had escaped, or maybe I would have left her alone. I thought that by the time I got her back here we would be far enough away for her owners never to follow us — now I’m not so sure.’
‘It’s a long way,’ said Thowra.
‘Mm! But I’ve since found out that she used to run in races, with a man on her back, a man wearing a bright striped coat. I think the men may value her, just like they value Golden.’
‘She’s not bad to look at,’ Thowra said, ‘and the colt is really rather a fine young thing.’
‘Oh, she looks well,’ said Storm, ‘and she can go like the wind, but I’ve never been able to teach her any sense the way you’ve taught Golden. Of course, being black, she’s not so difficult to hide, but as for making her take care to leave no track — it’s impossible! The colt, Tambo, isn’t bad at all — very intelligent in fact.’
It was a lovely morning, this morning, a bright, bright dawn with pink wisps of cloud streaking the sky. Thowra left Storm and was returning to his herd when he was seized with the longing to be on his own, galloping through the cool air, up as high as he could get. So he swung round and headed off for the topmost tor on Paddy Rush’s Bogong, galloping through the sharp-scented eucalyptus, galloping over silver banks of snow-daisy leaves where soon the big white flowers would star the slopes.
He leapt from rock to rock to the top of the tor and stood there in all his glorious strength and beauty, gilded by the eastern sun, silver tail and mane streaming in the breeze. He looked out over the land that was his kingdom — right out to the Main Range which he loved best of all, the Range where a horse could roam, wild and free. He wondered suddenly whether he would be allowed to let his bones bleach up there, or whether his burial place would not be chosen for him by some younger stallion, just as he had forced The Brolga out from cover to fight under the three great candlebarks. He could think of no very promising colt in the herds except Tambo. His own handsome, dun-coloured sons and the one creamy, who had grown darker as he got older, would probably wander far away.
He leapt down off the rock and started to gallop for joy, back towards his herd, when suddenly he saw a mark on the wet earth. He pulled up short on his haunches and looked again. There, straight across the damp ground, a shod horse had walked.
To his astonishment he could find no continuous track. Whoever was riding the horse was almost as cunning as himself. Without wasting time he went straight back to the herd. He found the mares very disquieted.
Boon Boon trotted over to him as she saw him coming.
‘There was a man on a horse watching us,’ she said, ‘a black man, black as that mare, Lubra.’
Golden had joined her, and Thowra saw that she was deeply troubled.
‘I have heard the men talk of the cleverness of the black trackers if cattle are stolen,’ said Golden. ‘Perhaps he has come because of Lubra. I am sure she is a valuable mare. Let’s go and ask her if there were any black men where she came from.’
Thowra had become more troubled as Golden spoke. The very fact that the shod horse had been ridden so that he left practically no tracks, made what she had said sound like the truth. Anyway, there were all the stories that Bel Bel had told him about the aborigines. The aborigines were wild, too, and really belonged to the bush even more than the brumbies, they belonged to it like the possums did and the kangaroos.
He made the herd disperse in amongst the snowgums and went off himself, silently, through the trees and scrub, to find Storm and to go with him to question the black mare, Lubra.
Storm was surprised to see him again so soon.
‘What is it, brother?’ he asked anxiously.
‘A black man on a shod horse is on the mountain,’ Thowra answered. ‘Golden suggests we should ask Lubra if there were any black trackers where she came from.’
Lubra, with Tambo, was by a pool i
n a little stream when they found her.
‘A black man,’ she said, looking fearful. ‘Yes, there was. He was clever at finding any beasts that had wandered. I think he will be looking for me.’
‘She’s a foolish mare,’ said Storm, as they went off, ‘but I think she knows there was a black man all right.’
‘I had better take a good look around late this evening,’ Thowra muttered. He was troubled. It was not only Golden it seemed who was going to bring danger to them.
All day the brumbies remained under cover of the trees. Thowra felt a little better by the end of the day because all the bush animals and birds behaved quite normally — which they would not have done if there had been men about. He saw a dingo go slowly along a track as though he had no thought in the world except his next meal. Even the jays gave no warning sounds, only chattered at a poor, inoffensive porcupine.
Then just before sunset, Storm apeared.
‘I have seen the black man,’ he said, ‘and he has seen Lubra. He appeared just like a shadow between the trees — his horse dark brown, his own clothes grey, or green, or dirty, so that they did not show up.’
‘You look after the herds,’ Thowra suggested, very worried, ‘and I’ll go off now and see if there are any other men about.’
The bush was quite quiet as he went on his scouting expedition. The only sounds were the normal rustlings and movements of evening, as the wombats came out to sun themselves in the last pleasant rays, as the animals who fed by day went off to their homes, and those that fed by night started to stir. No possums would come, he knew, till that strange moment that belongs to no time at all, when it is neither dark nor light. Then their pointed faces, that are both curious and wistful, would peer down on him from the gumtrees, and he would smell the queer possum smell, more pungent than eucalyptus, but very like it.
Though Thowra searched and searched through the country that he knew so well, he could find no sign of the black stockman, or of anyone else. All was quiet. Down by the Crackenback crossing the river moved, black and silver in the starlight, the sand unmarked by anything except the bush animals and the receding flood levels. A tawny owl hooted softly. It seemed that all the bush was at peace except he, Thowra, with the unquiet mind and the skin that prickled.
He went back to the herd, still feeling that somewhere in that peaceful bush there had been eyes watching him.
The next day everything was absolutely quiet and the bush creatures moved about just as usual. Thowra wandered around several times, and again at dusk and during the early part of the evening. He saw nothing strange, heard nothing strange, and this time he felt nothing strange. He was less worried by the time he got back to the herd.
The night was very calm, very still. The Southern Cross hung, bright and clear, above all the country around the head-waters of the Indi. It was not possible even to imagine any lurking danger in the friendly bush.
Thowra and Golden went to drink together from a moss-fringed pool at the head of a long glade. The water in this particular pool was very good and they were drinking it slowly, relishing its flavour, sucking it through their teeth, letting it lap gently into their nostrils. A puff of wind came from the south. Thowra lifted his head. All at once he became tense. There was a sound borne on the wind, a sound he had never heard before — as if wood was knocking against wood, but he could not guess what it was. Following the sound, the wind carried a scent to them. Thowra sniffed and listened, listened and sniffed.
‘It is the scent of Man,’ he whispered. ‘They are close, and I don’t know what they are doing.’
Thowra and Golden moved silently back to the trees where Kunama was sleeping. Boon Boon was nearby, her head up, smelling the air, ears pricked forward.
The leap from the cliff
‘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 aft
ernoon 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.’
The Silver Brumby Page 15