Elyne Mitchell - The Silver Brumby

All of a sudden, the bush seemed dreadfully still and hot, so hot, and the scent of the turpentine bush was all around. Bel Bel leapt to one side sharply as a big copperhead snake slid across some warm, bare earth almost under her feet, and she felt the sweat break out behind her ears.

Coming up the hill towards her she saw a pair of brown wallabies.

“Yes, we’re being driven,” she whispered to herself.

Further on they met more brumbies, panting and sweating. The leader only stopped for a second to say to them:“You’ll meet stockmen if you keep going that way. They’re not far behind. Better follow us.”

“There are men everywhere,” said Bel Bel. “The only thing to do is to try and get back between them.”

But the other horses just went on upwards, their flanks heaving and the smell of their sweat heavy on the air.

Bel Bel led off again, faster, threading through thick snowgums, even breaking into a fast canter when they reached a grass glade. As much as possible she avoided rocks on which their hooves would make a noise. If only they could reach the ravine …

Then she saw the first of the men, sitting easily on a neat grey horse, a Queensland blue cattle dog padding along beside him.

She doubled back quickly, driving Thowra and Storm in front of her. Perhaps he had not seen her. Perhaps he would not hear them. If they went back a few hundred yards, and then turned downwards, they might just get through the cordon of men and dogs… but when she turned down, there, galloping across in front of her, was the same man and his dog.

The dog saw the wild horses and rushed to head them, snapping not at her or Mirri, who might have kicked, but at Thowra.

Thowra, who had never seen a dog in his life, turned in a frenzy of fear. Bel Bel galloped after him, trying to swing him back to make another effort to beat the man and the dog downhill, but the dog knew his game too well and kept heeling Thowra. Thowra was soon beyond being able to hear anything his mother neighed to him, and all that Bel Bel could do was to go with him in his mad gallop up the hill, trying to strike or kick at the dog. At last she quietened the blue heeler by galloping at him when he snapped at Thowra’s heel and giving him a nasty bite on the back.

Bel Bel then galloped shoulder to shoulder with Thowra, speaking to him, trying to steady him, and all the time wondering what they should do next. In a few quick, backward glances she could see no sign of Mirri and Storm. The man was a good way behind and had called off his dog. Anyway, the dog had done his job of heading them uphill only too well.

She gave Thowra a gentle nip on the shoulder.

“Slow down!” she said. “They are not following.”

Thowra, who was blowing frightfully, slackened his pace and at last dropped to a walk.

“We will have a little rest in that thick belt of snowgums,” Bel Bel said, “and, from there, try and cut across to the ravine again.” But the time had gone for escape. The men and their dogs were closing in.

Bel Bel found herself and her foal driven relentlessly uphill. Each time she hoped to cut across she saw a man. Presently they came up with several trembling mares and foals, and they could hear others moving on ahead. Bel Bel made one more bid to break away south to the ravine, but just then she heard a whip crack, and another, from the direction of the ravine, and some more brumbies came galloping towards her.

“Don’t try to go that way,” they said. “Lots of men and dogs there. Quick, quick!” and they galloped on in terror.

Bel Bel realised that they were all being swung round in the direction of their main camping ground.

“The men will have made a yard somewhere,” she thought, because this was not the first time she had been caught up in a big hunt when the stockmen came after the brumbies. She wished Mirri was still with her. Mirri was a good friend, and she understood more about the habits of men. Mirri would know where they would build a yard in which to catch wild horses. As for Bel Bel she could think of no place more likely than in the narrow mouth of the valley at its farthest end.

She tried to talk to Thowra before he got completely infected with the panic that was gripping all the other horses.

“Son,” she said, “you must stay absolutely beside me. Somewhere these men will have put up fences with which to stop us escaping. If you stay right with me, I may be able just to miss going into their yard and we might escape.”

Thowra thought he would never forget all that happened after that. First he heard sticks and branches breaking as though hundreds of men and horses were chasing them, then he heard the unknown ring of a shod horse’s hoof on stone, and then whips cracking, many whips, cracking and cracking, right behind them.

The brumbies really started to gallop, and he and his mother with them.

The little foal stretched his legs out beside his mother, stretched his neck too. He could feel his heart thundering unevenly in his chest. They were right in the centre of the mob. It was Brownie’s shoulder that touched him on his near side, and he felt her hot breath. Everything was bound up with the tremendous pounding, thundering of hooves on hard ground, the pounding and thundering of his own heart, the blowing of breath, the gasping of all the horses.

A snowgum branch whipped him across the eyes, and brought stinging tears. He could hear his own breath sob and felt as though his pounding heart would burst. His legs and hooves seemed no longer to belong to him.

Then they were out of the trees and they spread apart a little in the open valley of the camping ground. The men forced them together again into a mob that moved almost as one horse, but, while they were spread out, Thowra had felt Bel Bel pushing him over to the left wing, not quite on the outside of the mob, because their colour would be too noticeable there, but just near the edge. He heard his mother give a gasping sort of whinny, and, through the tired haze that was over his eyes, recognised Mirri and Storm on the wing.

The noise of whips never ceased now, as the men drove them faster and faster. The horses were in a frenzy of fear. Thowra wanted to cry out with the terror that seemed to run like a flame through the mob, but he had no breath for anything except to keep going. Bel Bel spoke to him several times and he hardly heard. Then he knew she was saying something that mattered.

“In a second we will swing to the left,” she said, “through the gap in the trees.”

With a tremendous effort he focused his eyes on something other than the outstretched noses and heaving flanks beside him, and saw that they were nearly at the end of the valley.

“Now!” said Bel Bel, and edged him out of the mob, neighing to Mirri as they went.

Only a few strides and they would be in the trees. Thowra realised it was Storm beside him and that the two mares were driving them. He felt a searing cut across the face from a whip. A dog fastened on his heel and he heard Bel Bel’s scream of rage, but his mother and Mirri forced him on.

There was a jumble of men’s voices, one calling:“Hold the ones we’ve got!” Another singing out:“No! I swear I’ll have the creamies.”

Then they were in the trees and pounding over rocks, one man and his dog still with them. Bel Bel raced into the lead and Thowra suddenly knew why. There was quite a drop ahead of them, over some rocks. He and Storm had played there often and knew just where to jump. All at once he felt strong enough to go at the faster pace that his mother was setting.

Bel Bel leapt over the edge, jumping on to a little rocky shelf, sliding down from it on her haunches, jumping again, and he was following, legs trembling so much that he could barely stand up when he landed.