Brumbies in the Snow

by Paula Boer

  “I see you didn’t get Honey either. So what’s the big rush? Mum is really worried about you. She had me come out and look for you, and now Snip is exhausted from working in all that snow.” He turned away from her and continued brushing down his horse.

  Louise straightened up and led Ned closer to the rails. “I know. I’m sorry. It was really stupid of me to go off like that. But…”

  “Yes, it was. You could have hurt Ned, or got lost, or…”

  “I know, I know. But listen to me! I raced home because I saw a horse with a broken leg. I think it’s the stallion we saw when we first spotted Brandy, you know, the big black one. We have to help him.”

  Chapter 4

  Ben had been relieved to see Louise arrive home on Ned, despite being annoyed at how fast she rode him. Ready with a head full of angry words to say to her, the news about the brumby having a broken leg changed his attitude. “That’s terrible. He’s a great looking beast. Not as nice as Brandy of course, but a lovely horse.”

  Ben rugged up Snip before opening the yard for him to head off to the paddock. “I’d better turn Brandy out then we’ll go and find Dad. Give Ned a feed and a rub down. He can go in the middle stable for now.”

  Not bothering to watch Louise tend her horse, Ben slipped a halter on Brandy. The liver chestnut had been calmly eating hay by the time Ben had returned home the second time on Snip. He led him across to the stallion paddock where the double fencing allowed the brumby to see others of his kind while preventing him from reaching across to them.

  Ben undid the headcollar. “There you go. No trying to join Honey back out in the wild.”

  The three year old stallion kicked up his heels as he raced across the boggy paddock. Mud flew as he cavorted in high spirits. Ben watched his antics for a few moments before joining Louise back at the stables.

  “I think Dad’s working on the tractor. Let’s go and find him.”

  The large machinery shed housed the emergency generator which could be very noisy so it was located on the other side of the house to the stables, a little way from the homestead.

  Mr Naylor’s tools lay higgledy-piggledy across workbenches and on the floor. Ben loved the smell of diesel and grease that hung in the air. The motor that ran the welder throbbed in the corner of the dark space. Ben approached the pair of legs that protruded from underneath the four-wheel-drive tractor. “Dad!”

  The noise of metal on metal covered up Ben’s voice. “Dad!” With no response, Ben used the toe of his boot against his father’s shin to gain his attention.

  Mr Naylor slid out from under the vehicle, his navy overalls covered in muck. He crossed to the welder and turned off the engine. “What do you want? Can’t it wait until I’ve finished?”

  Ben could feel Louise shift from foot to foot beside him. “Dad, Louise has seen a horse in the park with a broken leg. Can we go and do something about it?”

  “Shoot it, you mean? I can’t take a gun into the park. You’ll have to get the ranger.” He turned to Louise. “How far away is it? Can someone get to it in a vehicle?”

  Louise looked deathly pale. It occurred to Ben that Louise had probably thought they could save the brumby.

  “The stallion is near the Information Centre. I could find it again easily enough. I thought we could get it in a truck perhaps, and bring it back. We could say we caught it last summer when we mustered Honey and Brandy.” Pain crossed her face as she mentioned her buckskin mare.

  Although Ben felt sorry for Louise, he knew his father was right. “A broken leg is too hard to fix, even if we could get the horse home. Anyway, we can’t have another stallion on the place. The only thing we can do is put it out of its misery.”

  Mr Naylor wiped his hands on a rag that hung from his pocket. “Sorry, there’s no other option. Go and ring the ranger. I need to finish up here.” Without waiting for an answer, he switched the welder back on, drowning out any chance of further talk.

  Louise ran ahead of Ben to the house though waited at the back door before going in.

  “Why don’t you go and finish grooming Ned? When he’s finished his feed, he can be rugged and go out with Snip. I’ll ring Mr Cartwright.” Ben removed his boots and went inside, quickly closing the door against the cold.

  A tatty piece of paper hung next to the phone listing the number for the ranger’s headquarters along with other emergency contacts. Being a crew leader for the volunteer fire brigade, Mr Naylor kept them readily to hand.

  Ben picked up the handset and rang the number. A recorded message told him that no-one manned the headquarters on Saturday afternoons or Sundays. The caller could leave a message or, in the event of an emergency, ring the Information Centre. Ben hung up and re-dialled.

  After what seemed like forever, a female voice answered. Ben asked for the ranger.

  “Sorry, he’s not here. We have an emergency on.”

  “So have I! There’s a horse…”

  “I won’t be able to contact him. He’s out looking for two people lost in the park. You’ll have to ring back tomorrow.” The voice sounded like taking the call had been a nuisance.

  Ben quickly spoke before the woman hung up. “There’s an injured horse in the park. It’s got a broken leg. Someone needs to put it down.”

  “I can’t help you with that. Ring back tomorrow.”

  “Wait! If the ranger can’t help, can my Dad shoot the horse? The animal is suffering.” Ben’s frustration grew. He couldn’t believe the volunteer didn’t seem to care about the brumby.

  “The public aren’t allowed to take guns into the park. You’ll have to wait for the ranger. Good-bye.”

  The phone went dead in Ben’s hand. He slammed the receiver down. After pulling his boots back on he went outside and found Louise throwing a rug on Ned. “The ranger is out of contact. We have to wait until tomorrow.”

  Louise gaped at him. “But the horse is in trouble. We can’t leave him there like that.”

  “We can, and we have to. If you hadn’t found him, he’d still be there just the same. There’s nothing we can do for now.”

  Louise turned away and fondled Ned’s ears. “What am I going to do about Honey? She still has the headcollar and rope on. What if she breaks a leg too?”

  Ben sighed. “We can’t look for her while the weather is this bad. We’ll have to see what it’s like tomorrow. Turn Ned out then come and have a hot chocolate before you go home.”

  Ben didn’t sleep well. Although more snow fell overnight, a cloudless sky greeted him when he struggled out of bed. Shrugging into his heavy outdoor clothes, he went and checked on the animals. Snifter greeted him with his usual crazy bounds and rushed in mad circles when let off his chain. “Let’s go and feed the horses.”

  Breaking open a new bale of meadow hay, Ben stuffed the twine into his pocket and wrapped a few biscuits up into a hessian sack. Slinging the load over his shoulder, he plodded out to the paddock, lifting his feet high to cross the snow drifts. The horses whinnied as they saw him approach.

  “Here you go.” He slung the hay into the feeder before returning to the hay shed for another load. This one he gave to Brandy. He ran his eyes over all the horses’ legs and adjusted Snip’s rug where it had slipped to one side.

  Returning to the house, Ben looked at his watch. Was it too early to ring the ranger? Deciding it was worth a try, Ben dialled the Information Centre. A couple of clicks transferred him to a mobile phone.

  “Adam Cartwright. How can I help you?” His voice sounded tired.

  With relief Ben introduced himself and explained about the black stallion with the broken leg.

  “Sorry, I can’t do anything about it right now. Two people have been missing overnight. But I could use your father’s help if he’s there. We need to get a search party out again as soon as possible.”

  Ben knew that people had to take
precedence over an injured horse. “Yeh, I’ll get him for you. Do you want searchers on horseback too? Louise and I can go where you won’t get vehicles.”

  “Let me talk to your father about that.”

  Ben handed the phone to Mr Naylor who had come in for breakfast.

  He talked for a while to find out what was going on. The ranger obviously mentioned Ben’s suggestion. “Ben’s fifteen, he’ll be alright. They can take the hand-held radio.”

  Mr Naylor made arrangements to meet. Grumbling, he hung up the phone. “Tourists. Who’d try and walk to Mt. Evans in this weather? They must be stark raving nuts.”

  Sipping at the scalding mug of tea that his mother put in front of him, Ben nodded. “I wouldn’t want to go there on foot in summer. Is that where they are?”

  “Who knows. They’re family of Smythe-Waters, visiting from overseas apparently. They’ll have no idea of how to behave in the bush. What a waste of a day, looking for idiots. Who’s going to feed the stock?”

  Mrs Naylor joined her men at the table. “You know I’ll do that. You can’t expect foreigners to understand how weather can change so quickly in the mountains. You both go and help. I can look after things around here.”

  Ben had the horses in and had started tacking them up when a car pulled in to the stable yard.

  Louise said goodbye to her father and joined Ben. “Am I riding Lady today?”

  The part-Arabian mare pulled on the hay net and chewed on a large mouthful. Ben finished doing up her girth. “Yeh, Snip and Ned did enough yesterday. I’ll take Jake. We’re not looking for Honey or helping that brumby though. We’ve got to search for lost hikers.”

  “Are we helping with that too? That’s why Dad dropped me off. He’s going out in one of the search parties. What about the horses? They need us.”

  “It’s not up to me. Dad and the ranger arranged it, though I did offer our help. Come on, we’d better get moving.”

  Ben left Louise to bridle Lady and went to tack up his father’s stockhorse. The bay gelding’s hogged mane had grown out since summer and stuck up like the bristles of a stable broom. He led him into the yard where Louise waited. “We’d better brush Stockholm tar on their soles and frogs. It’ll stop the snow from balling up in their feet.”

  Once he’d applied the sticky black goo to the underside of Jake’s hooves, he handed the brush to Louise. “Dad’s already gone in the ute. He’s meeting the others at the Information Centre. Another crew is heading out from Mr Smythe-Waters’ farm. We’ve been asked to follow the Dalrymple River and see if we can see signs of anyone. That puts us between the two search parties.”

  Louise finished using the tar and tightened Lady’s girth. She walked her round in circles before mounting to make sure that her tack was alright and that the mare was paying attention to her. “Thank goodness the wind has dropped off and the sun is out today. Surely they won’t get far in vehicles with all this snow?”

  “No. They’ll go as far as they can then follow the trails on cross-country skis to the old cattlemen’s huts. There’s no point looking anywhere else. I think a chopper is going up too.” Ben vaulted onto Jake and headed out of the gate. The horses pranced up the road, keen to get moving.

  Looking at ease on the feisty mare, Louise kept her distance from Jake. She shouted across to Ben. “What about the brumby with the broken leg?”

  Ben checked Jake and came alongside Lady. “As soon as the people are found, Mr Cartwright will deal with it.”

  “I hope they’re found soon. I’d rather be looking for Honey. Do you think she’s alright?” Louise sat tight on Lady as she shied at a robin that flew up under her nose. The mare tossed her head and champed on the bit.

  Ben tried to put on a cheery face for Louise’s sake. “Of course. She’s a brumby, remember? Don’t worry, we’ll find her. But we won’t be backing either her or Brandy today. So much for our plans for the weekend.”

  Ben hoped they'd get a radio message that the tourists had been found. Then he and Louise could try and find Honey; he knew he'd get no peace with the mare running wild.

  Chapter 5

  The icy crust on top of the snow crackled under the horses’ hooves as Louise and Ben trotted through the old homestead and headed for the Dalrymple River. Fog hung in the bottom of the valleys and frozen ice crystals sparkled in the air. At one point, Ben pulled up and pointed. “Look!”

  Louise stared. Not sure what she was looking at to start with, realisation dawned on her. “Awesome! I’ve never seen a white rainbow before.”

  “Yeh, it’s frozen ice crystals rather than rain drops.”

  As they rode on, the fog cleared. Sunlight twinkled on the frosted hillsides making everything look like a European Christmas card. Even a few birds seemed cheered by the bright day, singing from branches laden with snow, bent almost to breaking point.

  Louise heard the burble of the river well before she could see it. The noise grew louder as they rode nearer. The rushing water made cold air rise and swirl around the riders. “Look how high it is. I’m glad we don’t have to cross the ford today.”

  Tumbling foam covered the bed of rounded stones that provided a safe crossing point during summer. Ben pulled Jake up well before the riverbank. “Yeh, not like when we came back from the site of the fire in the holidays. Don’t get too close unless you want to go for a swim; the drifts might hide washouts.”

  Lady had no intention of going near the raging water. She lowered her head and snorted loudly before backing up.

  “Relax, girl. I’m not going to ask you to go in.” Louise stroked the mare’s neck and turned her away.

  “I’m not sure what we’re supposed to be looking for, but we’d better get moving.” Ben side-stepped Jake around Lady and headed upstream.

  Louise admired Ben’s skill of performing dressage moves out in the bush. She hadn’t even been able to get the riding school horses to do half-passes or shoulder-ins in an arena. Ben made riding look so easy. His relationship with his horse made them seem like a single animal. She hoped one day she could ride as well as him.

  That reminded her of Honey, the horse that was to be her own. She couldn’t help scanning the horizon in the hope of seeing her. Although Louise had no problems with helping to look for the lost hikers, she’d rather be searching for her escaped brumby.

  “Why don’t we try and find Old Harry? He might have seen tracks or something.” Ben had visited the old hermit’s cabin when he had been bucked off Snip and gouged by pigs. Harry had found the gelding and stitched Ben’s leg.

  “Great idea. I really like him. We’d never have caught the brumbies without his help.” The memories of the summer came back to Louise. “But how can I tell him I’ve lost Honey? After all his help.”

  Ben shook his head. “He’ll understand. Maybe he’s seen her. That’s another good reason to find him.”

  That idea dispelled any worries Louise had about seeing their friend. Ben was right. There was a good chance Harry might have seen Honey, or at least her tracks. He’d understand what had happened if he saw the snake marks made by the dangling rope.

  The further up the valley they travelled, the deeper the snow became. The clearer paths near the river became covered so that the horses were forced to walk. A thin film of clouds built up in the sky, obscuring the sun and making the uneven ground hard to navigate. The grey shapes had no shadows to provide distinction. The horses blundered through drifts or stumbled when they encountered rocks hidden beneath the snow.

  A tributary of the main river appeared ahead. Water swirled between the steep banks. Louise stopped and watched as chunks of ice broke free from the sides and spun away. “We’d better head up the hill and find a place to cross.”

  Ben shortened Jake’s reins. “No, we haven’t got time. The horses can go through this. Follow me and hang on.” Before the words were out of his mouth, J
ake plunged down the slippery mud into the water which rose above his knees. In two bounds he crossed the creek and scrambled up the other side.

  Louise watched in fear. She had never done anything like this before. There was a large drop into the water. Lady didn’t seem at all keen to follow Jake. She propped and baulked whenever Louise pushed her close to the bank before spinning away.

  “What do I do? She won’t go near.”

  Despite not wanting to cross the creek, the chestnut mare started to fret from being separated from the old stockhorse.

  Ben waved his arms from the other side. “Take her back and trot her up to it, then kick her hard. You’ve got to want to cross it yourself. She’s only playing up because she can feel your hesitation.”

  Gathering her courage, Louise tried to do as Ben suggested. She took a deep breath and told herself to relax. She knew she could trust her horse. Pushing hard with her legs, she trotted up to the bank and shouted the mare on.

  Lady took an almighty leap and cleared the creek in a single bound, catching Louise unawares. As the horse landed on the other side, Louise caught up with her and dropped across her neck, almost sliding down her shoulder. Elation at the massive jump surged through her, although she felt bad that she hadn’t been able to go with her horse. “Wow! That did it.”

  Ben laughed at her as she re-found her seat. “That’s one way to cross over.”

  Settling back in to her saddle, Louise collected up her reins and patted Lady. “Well done, girl. Maybe not quite such a big leap next time, please?”

  Ben turned Jake and led the way. “Come on, we need to get a move on. The next creek is the one where I saw the snake. Harry’s hut isn’t far from there and the weather’s closing in again.”

  Louise looked at the sky. The bellies of the clouds had turned dark and she could feel a cold breeze on her face.