Silver Brumby Echoing

by Elyne Mitchell

  But Thowra was magic.

  Thowra, too, was wondering how he could get a heavy dog down the cliff — even if he risked going round to the top and jumping, how would he get him down?

  In the end, that was what he did. Thowra went round the track to Son of Storm’s Valley and went silently along the top of the cliff, hoping not to meet the Brumby Hunter.

  Lightning saw him, like a shadow between the two candlebarks, all masked by falling snow — and knew what he intended to do.

  Still the question remained — how would he get the dog down — and somehow that big dog had to be helped down!

  Lightning and Socks watched, both realising that it was a perilously anxious moment — Socks anxious for Thowra, Lightning knowing that he desperately wanted Thowra to save the dog.

  Thowra knew that his escape route to the Secret Valley would probably be no secret any longer — not if the Brumby Hunter saw him.

  There was no sign of the Brumby Hunter. Between the candlebark trees for one moment it seemed as though the horse was backing into the scrub, perhaps to enable him to get a run-up for a jump.

  Just then the snowflakes thickened. Lightning’s eyes involuntarily closed against them, so the next thing he saw, through the falling snow, was the Silver Stallion airborne, floating and dropping through the flake-filled air. And it seemed to him that Thowra was flying with great white wings, his legs folded underneath him.

  Lightning closed his eyes, almost praying for that beautiful silver horse and the dog who was stuck on the cliff, but he had to open his eyes again to see what was happening.

  He saw Thowra unfold his legs and land on the ledge beside the dog … but what could he do? Then Thowra was climbing, like a cat, around a faint track to one side of the ledge.

  He heard him give a little whinny to the dog, saw the dog get up, limping, and follow him along the faint track, limping as though he had hurt a leg, or even his back, when he fell.

  Thowra had stopped on a small, flat rock, and was looking carefully around. Occasionally he looked upwards, as did Lightning, but they could see neither hide nor hair of the Brumby Hunter.

  Still watching Thowra, Lightning wondered, ‘What now?’ — then he saw Thowra gather himself together and jump.

  For a moment from below Thowra looked like a great white bird, legs pulled up underneath him. For a moment it seemed to Lightning that he hung or floated in the air directly above him — a huge silver horse with white wings folded along his back and then spread to steady himself. But were they really wings, or was the white hawk there?

  At the moment the Silver Brumby had jumped the dog had given a cry — Lightning had nearly echoed it because he felt — just for a moment — that the poor dog had been deserted on the cliff side. However, Lightning knew immediately that Thowra would not desert the dog, and he gasped as the dog jumped and flew through the air — yelping with fear and pain.

  Lightning felt his muscles become ready and taut as he saw Thowra extending his legs and landing on the soft valley floor, and he gave another sigh as he realised that the dog was going to land in nearly the same place.

  Lightning began to run to the spot where both Thowra and the dog had dropped into the valley. He got there just as the dog gave a sharp cry of pain as it landed. Lightning ran over to it, putting his head down to where it lay whimpering slightly. Then he began to lick away the tears that trickled from its eyes. ‘Poor dog, poor dog,’ Lightning thought, then Socks and Thowra came close by too.

  Lightning looked at the dog’s face. Somewhere he had seen that dog’s face before — reflected in the calm, sunset-coloured water — the Ingegoodbee Pools … not far from home … dear Miss Dingo should have been beside him in that reflection. It was his own face Lightning saw … the poor dog. All animosity forgotten, even if this dog had killed his pup.

  Then Lightning lay down beside his old enemy and licked his sore leg, feeling a sudden tenderness go through him. After a while Thowra nudged both dogs to get up, and he led them to the cave that Socks and Lightning now seemed almost to own.

  He turned back and gave the dog a little tug on the ear to lead him, limping, to the nice dry cave. As soon as the dog saw the cave, he lay down on the sand.

  Lightning lay down beside him and continued licking round his eyes. The dog stopped whimpering and licked lightly in return.

  Snow was still falling as whirling circles but the cave was sheltered and dry, and Miss Dingo, having followed them, was there and had killed two rabbits and laid them on the sandy floor for the dogs.

  Outside, a weak dawn light fell through the snow shower, and Lightning could hear the comforting call of the bronze cuckoo.

  The Silver Brumby was obviously restless; so was Socks. Socks knew that Thowra might be thinking that his secret place might be secret no longer, because the Brumby Hunter would know that he had led the dog down into it.

  Socks heard the bronze cuckoo, too, and got a little closer to Lightning. Somehow he was sure that the Brumby Hunter would not leave them alone.

  The only answer was to get the dog back to his master. The dog seemed to be perfectly happy with Lightning, but he would be better off with his master, and less danger to the Secret Valley.

  Thowra knew he would have to find another way out of his Secret Valley — and a way that the lame dog could manage.

  That night, when the snowflakes began to fall through the moonbeams, the Silver Brumby went like a ghost along the valley floor, below the track that led to Son of Storm’s Valley, and he found a way where he thought he could lead the dog back to his master without leaving any tracks. Thowra left the Brumby Hunter’s dog just away from the edge of the cliff, where he knew the Brumby Hunter was bound to find him. He waited in the trees until the Hunter arrived to collect the wounded animal.

  Thus it was that the Brumby Hunter found his dog was back with him, and he did not know if a ghost horse had brought him there.

  He never knew whether or not he had dreamt that his dog was brought to him in the snowy night, by the ghost of the Silver Brumby.

  Lightning found that the dog had gone, saw Thowra’s hoofmarks leading down the valley floor, and knew that the dog was all right.

  Thirteen

  Socks, Lightning, and Miss Dingo decided to head for home before the Hunter gathered himself together again from his slide right to the very brink of the cliff, which had indeed been a brush with death.

  There would be another legend to add to the legends already told about the Silver Brumby, and still no one, not even the Brumby Hunter, would know if he were a ghost or a living horse.

  The Brumby Hunter might yet claim that he had chased a ghost, and that it had nearly led him over a cliff — or would he feel stupid?

  It would not do to appear to be stupid — after all, he was known to be the greatest of all brumby hunters in the mountains.

  Though Miss Dingo was in a hurry to get home, they did not go very fast. Lightning was pleased to get into the deepest of the Ingegoodbee Pools. Socks drank long and deeply. Miss Dingo just lay at the edge of the pool in which Lightning swam.

  After a while she got up, barked at Lightning, and headed for home. Socks gave her a friendly rub of the ears, and Lightning leapt out of the pool and pounced on a young rabbit which was hidden in a nearby tussock. He brought the kitten rabbit to Miss Dingo, who seemed very hungry because she sat down and ate it.

  Then they all hurried on to the hollow tree. Lightning caught another rabbit on the way and carried it for Miss Dingo, giving it to her when she curled up in what had been the dog pup’s nest. She whimpered as she got the whiff of the pup’s scent again, but Socks noticed that she accepted the rabbit gratefully and was happier when Lightning lay down close to her.

  Socks found himself thinking she would get snappy soon, and suddenly realised that he knew she was going to have a pup or pups.

  Lightning knew what was about to happen when she cleared everyone out of the hollow tree. The time had come for Miss Dingo to gi
ve birth.

  A day or so passed — in which she ate ravenously and drank the Ingegoodbee nearly dry; and dear old, patient Lightning waited to be invited in to see the pups. He almost tiptoed in.

  There in the dead male pup’s nest was just one pup — and both Lightning and Miss Dingo were overjoyed because it was a male pup, to be loved and cherished like the one that was killed by the Brumby Hunter’s dog.

  Socks found himself invited back into the hollow tree, too, and was delighted to find Miss Dingo friendly and loving again, and it seemed as if they would all live happily together in the hollow tree above the Ingegoodbee River.

  Night closed in, and presently the bright stars of a clear winter’s night shone above. Far south of the Ingegoodbee, the Southern Cross shone brilliantly. No snow was falling.

  Lightning did not curl up and sleep all at once. He could sense that lots of little animals were on the move through the bush, as if something were driving them from the north. After a while, he got a faint whiff on the breeze, he found his hackles rising before he even knew what the scent was — or that it was dangerous.

  The image of that dead pup rose in his mind before he realised that the scent was of the dog that had killed the pup, and also of the Brumby Hunter’s horse.

  An echidna scuttled past the hollow tree, and then three wallabies; up in a candlebark, a giant flying phalanger barked. Lightning was too disturbed by the general movement of small animals to even catch a young hare for Miss Dingo. He was also wondering what to do, where to go — if anywhere?

  It was too late to go anywhere.

  There was the Brumby Hunter’s dog at the hollow tree’s opening, and there he was with his hackles up, leaping at the dog in a wild fury. They rolled each other over in the mud outside the hollow tree, growling and biting and struggling.

  Then suddenly the Brumby Hunter had his whip in his hand and was cracking it over both dogs.

  Socks saw Lightning get one crack from the whip, and it was time for him to intervene. He caught a vision of the brilliant stars in the dark sky, and he sprang out of the hollow tree and charged at the Brumby Hunter, knocking him off balance, as he raised his whip again. The horse stumbled on a tree root, the man cursed. Socks charged again and again and got a stallion’s bite in on the Brumby Hunter’s horse’s neck. For a moment there was chaos when Miss Dingo sprang at the strange dog too. Then the man collected himself and called his dog off, and peace reigned.

  Socks lay down across the entrance to the hollow tree to guard his ‘family’, but he felt fairly sure that there would be no more fighting visitors.

  Just once, in that shining night, he woke and saw, against the stars, the silver shape of Thowra. The Silver Brumby simply stood there looking into the hollow, and then he bowed his head down to Socks’s nose and blew him a soft farewell and vanished, back to his Secret Valley. No snow fell that night, and Socks and Lightning remembered forever seeing the noble head of the Silver Brumby against the stars, and remembered having jumped with him down the waterfall, and climbed with him up the ice-coated rocks, ice chips flying from their hooves and feet off the rocks — up into the country that was the Silver Brumby’s forever and forever.

  Afterword

  Let me tell you about my favourite books of all time —Elyne Mitchell’s Brumby books — and how I came to be a devoted fan of these tales.

  In the early 1970s I was given the first four Silver Brumby books for Christmas by my mother, who knew I liked horses. In these stories the horses talk to each other and to other bush creatures, a unique feature of the series. Initially this concept of dialogue between the horses put me off the books as I didn’t really appreciate fantasy, so I only read a few pages of The Silver Brumby before setting all four of the books aside. This was a time in my life when I thought electronic dictionaries were good reading!

  It wasn’t until I found myself in bed with the flu and nothing to do that I looked at the books again, and found, to my surprise, that they were fantastic. I have read the stories of the Silver Brumby series many times, often starting again as soon as I have finished reading them. I have even created lists and family trees for most of the horses that appear in these stories just for the fun of it, which you can find on my website: www.blaze.net.au/~sasami/brumby/

  In each story Elyne Mitchell describes in detail the beauty of the Australian high country in a way that only someone who has lived there could. Even though these books were written for children, if you love horses I recommend you read these stories, no matter what your age.

  I can only say thank you to Elyne Mitchell for sharing with us these beautiful creatures of her imagination, and the bush through which they run.

  Ken Stone, 2002

  To many people the name Elyne Mitchell is synonymous with The Silver Brumby, the timeless classic that has captivated the hearts and imaginations of young readers since it was first published in 1958.

  This special edition commemorates the centenary of Elyne Mitchell’s birth and contains The Silver Brumby and three other favourites: Silver Brumby’s Daughter, Silver Brumbies of the South and Silver Brumby Kingdom. These much-loved classics tell the story of Thowra, the magnificent silver stallion, king of the brumbies. Whether you are enjoying the Silver Brumby series for the first time or rediscovering it after many years, this is a book to be treasured.

  Also included in this beautiful edition is a specially commissioned biographical note of Elyne Mitchell, who was born in 1913 and went on to become one of Australia’s most successful and popular authors. The biographical note also contains photographs that depict Elyne in many other areas of her long and distinguished life, including that of daughter, wife, mother, athlete, horsewoman, farmer and environmentalist.

  Buy Now

  The first Silver Brumby book was published in 1958 to great acclaim, and the continuing success of the Silver Brumby series has ensured Elyne Mitchell as one of Australia’s best-loved children’s authors.

  This edition contains

  Moon Filly

  Silver Brumby Whirlwind

  Son of the Whirlwind and

  Silver Brumby, Silver Dingo.

  It is the second volume to enjoy after The Silver Brumby Centenary Edition and continues the story of Thowra, the silver stallion, king of the brumbies, and how his mysterious legend weaves itself in his extended herd of brumbies.

  Buy Now

  Books by Elyne Mitchell

  SILVER BRUMBY SERIES

  The Silver Brumby (1958)

  Silver Brumby’s Daughter (1960)

  Silver Brumbies of the South (1965)

  Silver Brumby Kingdom (1966)

  Moon Filly (1968)

  Silver Brumby Whirlwind (1973)

  Son of the Whirlwind (1979)

  Silver Brumby, Silver Dingo (1993)

  Dancing Brumby (1995)

  Brumbies of the Night (1996)

  Dancing Brumby’s Rainbow (1998)

  The Thousandth Brumby (1999)

  Wild Echoes Ringing (2003)

  OTHER CHILDREN’S FICTION

  Kingfisher Feather (1962)

  Winged Skis (1964)

  Jinki Dingo of the Snows (1970)

  Light Horse to Damascus (1971)

  The Colt at Taparoo (1975)

  The Colt from Snowy River (1979)

  Snowy River Brumby (1980)

  Brumby Racer (1981)

  The Man from Snowy River (1982)

  Copyright

  Angus&Robertson

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia

  Dancing Brumby first published in 1995

  Brumbies of the Night first published in 1996

  Dancing Brumby’s Rainbow first published in 1998

  The Thousandth Brumby first published in 1999

  Wild Echoes Ringing first published in 2003

  This edition published in Australia in 2013

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harperco
llins.com.au

  Dancing Brumby copyright © Elyne Mitchell 1995

  Brumbies of the Night copyright © Elyne Mitchell 1996

  Dancing Brumby’s Rainbow copyright © Elyne Mitchell 1998

  The Thousandth Brumby copyright © Elyne Mitchell 1999

  Wild Echoes Ringing copyright © Elyne Mitchell 2003

  Family trees copyright © Ken Stone

  The right of Elyne Mitchell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Mitchell, Elyne, 1913–2002, author.

  Silver brumby echoing / Elyne Mitchell.

  Centenary edition.

  ISBN: 978 0 7322 9790 9 (pbk)

  ISBN: 978 1 4607 0067 9 (epub)

  For primary school age.

  Wild horses—Australia—Juvenile fiction.

  Other Authors/Contributors:

  Mitchell, Elyne, 1913–2002. Dancing brumby.

  Mitchell, Elyne, 1913–2002. Brumbies of the night.

  Mitchell, Elyne, 1913–2002. Dancing brumby’s rainbow.

  Mitchell, Elyne, 1913–2002. Thousandth brumby.

  Mitchell, Elyne, 1913–2002. Wild echoes ringing.