Elyne Mitchell - The Silver Brumby

All the watching horses were trembling and sweating with fear and excitement. Those from The Brolga’s herd had drawn a little down the valley. Sometimes their neighs could be heard above the noise of the two stallions.

“Listen! They are calling the foolish one away,” said Bel Bel, and added softly, “it grows dark.”

Soon they could barely see the two horses.

“See! They are backing off, looking at each other,” Mirri murmured. “It is too dark, and Yarraman has punished him enough.”

Bel Bel could just distinguish the grey shadow of The Brolga, risen on his hind legs again, but backing down the valley. Then it was night.

Yarraman, snorting, whinnying, and tossing his fine head, a dark stain of blood on his shoulder and neck, came trotting up the valley.

NOT LONG AFTER this, when the weather was becoming much warmer, Yarraman suddenly led his herd off, away from the Cascades towards the rough range that the mares had pointed out to the foals on the other side of the Crackenback River. When they got there, there was a whole new world to be discovered – not the wide valleys and spacious grassland of the Cascades, with large snowgums and sometimes candlebarks, but rough, rocky ridges and stunted trees, tiny threads of streams, and hidden pockets of snowgrass.

The foals enjoyed it. They played hide-and-seek in among the rocky tors and challenged each other to races down the steep hillsides where the stones broke away from under their hooves and went clattering down, down, even faster than they could go. Best of all were the bathing parties in the Crackenback, when the days grew really hot, and they could splash and blow bubbles in the water where it ran over the cool, brown stones and the shining mica; and then they would chase each other and roll in the sand.

The foals were two months old, and Mirri and Bel Bel had lost no opportunity of teaching them their way around the new country. None of the other mares wandered so far off on their own and, when it came to a really good game of hide-and-seek, none of the other foals knew the country as well as Thowra and Storm did.

Brownie was a lazy mare. She stayed around near Yarraman, queening it, as Mirri had guessed she would, and Arrow learnt little else than to be a nuisance – in fact, what else could Brownie teach him, Bel Bel said – but he was still the biggest and strongest foal in the herd. Several times he had given Thowra or Storm vicious bites, and once Thowra was lamed for a week by a kick on the hock.

Then, one hot, sultry day, with big thunder clouds sitting lazily along the mountain tops, Arrow was stung, it seemed, to thorough nastiness by the great March flies, and he chased Thowra, biting him unmercifully.

Thowra called Storm:

“Come on!” he said. “He won’t catch us!” And away they galloped with Arrow and half the other foals after them.

“We’ll lead them a dance,” Thowra said to Storm, as they galloped side by side down into a steep ravine. “If we can lose Arrow, we will!”

They went crashing down, Arrow and his followers not far behind, down, down the rocky slope and then into some very thick scrub. Here, Thowra pulled up sharply on his haunches, and swung on to a tiny narrow track that led towards the head of the ravine.

They heard the other foals go thundering by straight on down, while they went trotting quietly on, making as little sound as possible. The track turned upwards, and they knew they would be quite a height above the other foals when they got out of the scrub.

Thowra led the way on to the rocky hillside again and, sure-footed as a wild goat, cantered across it upwards to the tumbled mass of rock that formed the headwall of the ravine. He and Storm had found a track through, but he was pretty certain Arrow would not know it. He looked down once and saw the other foals far below, but already starting in pursuit.

They had to let their pace drop to a walk when they reached the rocks, and for a moment it was hard to find the start of their track; then they picked their way carefully through, and round and over the great rough rocks with almost a sheer wall of rock up on one side of them and a tremendous drop on the other.

They could hear the other foals crashing and stumbling across the side of the hill, but they didn’t stop or look back: they had to watch every step they took on their precipice or they might find themselves hurtling down through space to the floor of the ravine, far below. Thowra felt his coat prickling with fear, and then the sweat running on his neck and flanks. How foolish it would be to fall! But at last they were over, and there, safe on the other side, they neighed and mocked at Arrow who was still looking for a way across the headwall.

At this, Arrow became so angry that he started to climb right round over the top. Thowra and Storm could afford to rest before galloping off. Then they were off again, through very broken country of granite tors, rough scrub, and low snowgums, directly away from where the mares had been grazing. There was no grass here, and Thowra guessed that the other foals had never bothered to explore this way.

Both foals noticed how hot it had become. Thowra’s cream coat was all dark with sweat. They stopped for a moment to get their breath and watched black clouds massing over the sky.

“We may be glad we know our way,” Thowra said.

The others were drawing nearer, so they led them on, up a little hill. Already the grey mist was sitting on top of it.

As soon as they saw the other foals following up the hill, they went through the mist and quickly down the other side, then jumped down into a sharp-sided creek bed that cut straight across the foot of the hill. They turned east up the creek and trotted along, presently stopping for a drink.

There was no sound of pursuit, although once Thowra thought he heard a neigh.

“This creek will take us nearly all the way home,” he said.

“Yes,” Storm answered. “Come!”

“I’m wondering about the others.”

They both looked around. Clouds had boiled up and poured right over the mountains, and it was impossible to see more than a few yards.

“It’s all very well to get Arrow lost on a fine day,” Thowra said, “but the weather is changing. Also,” he added, “the mothers of the other foals will be wild with us, even if they do think Arrow deserves all he gets.”

“That is quite true,” Storm said. “Perhaps we had better go and find them.”

They went back along the creek, and scrambled up on to the hillside again. Now, they could hear neighing coming from the top of the hill.

Storm threw up his head to listen:

“I expect they are wandering round in circles,” he said. “Don’t let’s hurry; give them time to get to know what it’s like being lost in a cloud.”

But when they reached the top of the hill they could just make out the group of foals through the cloud, all huddled together in the shelter of some rocks.

Thowra and Storm went up to them, emerging like shadows out of the mist.

“Don’t you know your way home?” Storm asked.

Arrow said nothing, but the other foals came crowding round.

“Can you lead us back even through these clouds?” they asked.

Thowra looked at them without speaking for a moment, then he turned to Arrow.

“Do you want to go home, O swift Arrow?”

Arrow nodded glumly. Just then there was a great roll of thunder, and a whip-like streak of lightning seemed to strike the rocks. Thowra took no notice.

“Are you going to behave yourself and be nicer to everyone else?” he asked Arrow.

There was no answer.

“Oh well,” said Thowra, “Storm and I will go home on our own,” and he moved as if to go back into the cloud and mist. More lightning blazed behind him, and he seemed to be made of silver.