Elyne Mitchell - The Silver Brumby

Standing at the foot of the little cliff, legs apart, shaking, shaking, he looked up. Mirri and Storm were nearly safely down, but the man had reined in on the top and was left behind.

“Come on,” said Bel Bel, and the four brumbies vanished into the trees.

THAT NIGHT THE weather changed suddenly. Stars faded under cloud, a whining wind crept around the rock tors and down the grassy lanes between the snowgums. Far up on the range, the dingoes howled.

Where Mirri and Bel Bel and their two foals lay, there was no other sound except the whining wind and the dingoes, but nearer the top of the range there were rustlings and stealthy movements. Kangaroos that had been driven from their usual haunts were carefully looking around and starting home again. Birds were disturbed and anxious, unable to settle for the night. Brumbies who had escaped the hunt or broken out of the yard, footsore and exhausted, moved fearfully into the back country.

A large camp fire blazed in the grassy valley and nearly a dozen men slept around it. In the rough yard they had built, there were about fifteen brumbies. There would have been more, but a great heavy colt, in trying to jump out, had smashed one corner of the yard, and quite a few, including Brownie and Arrow, had escaped. Yarraman and others of the herd had never been in the original round-up.

All night long the brumbies trapped in the yard neighed and called, walked and walked, and neighed. Rain came in fitful showers, hissing in the fire, steaming on the brumbies’ sweating coats. Raindrops woke Bel Bel and Mirri, who were barely sleeping anyway, but no raindrop could have disturbed the two exhausted foals. They slept deeply, occasionally half-neighing at the ugliness of a dream.

During the next day they lay quietly hidden in thick snowgums and hop scrub by a water soak where the wombats and shy brown wallabies came to drink. They could hear the noise of whips and voices, but knew that it was only the sound of the preparations the men were now making to take the brumbies away with them. It was very unlikely that there would be any more hunting unless the creamies were seen, so it was better to lie low till the men had gone.

Before midday, the sounds of whip cracks had become far distant and by afternoon the bush had returned to its usual silence – silence that is not silence but the blend of water music, the sound of wind, of moving branches and moving soft-footed animals, and the song of birds. All that was different was the hanging smell of smoke; and there, in the camping valley was the trampled, spoiled grass, the dead fire, and the hidden remains of the trap-yard.

Bel Bel and Mirri did not go to see what was left; they took their foals and skirted round the valley to the north and east, searching till they found brumby tracks, and the tracks of Yarraman himself.

Yarraman’s tracks were over a day old, but there were fresher ones – Thowra gave a squeal as he found Brownie’s and Arrow’s – and they followed along the tracks for some miles till Yarraman had apparently deliberately gone over a great rough cliff of rock and stone, where no track would remain.

“I know where he’s gone,” said Bel Bel. “He will have headed for the Hidden Flat,” and she struck off across the cliff.

It was evening when they reached a narrow, grassy flat deep down in a gorge. Since the walls of the gorge were so steep, and the trees on its side so tall, no one approaching could see down into the Hidden Flat, and they did not know if the others were still there till they reached the grass. Then they heard a welcoming neigh from Yarraman as he came trotting to meet them.

The herd stayed around the Hidden Flat till the days grew shorter, the nights frosty and bright; till the rivers were stilled with the cold, and shining so that one could see each stone clearly in the bottom, and every reflection infinitely clear and yet deep, so deep. Then the wild things in the mountains knew that the snow must be coming soon and the stockmen would be too busy mustering their cattle to have any more brumby hunts. It was safe to go back to Paddy Rush’s Bogong and listen and watch over the other side of the Crackenback for the going of the herds, when they could return to the Cascades for the winter and spring.

Thowra and Storm had both grown a lot, but Arrow was still the biggest of all the foals. He was arrogant and mean- minded, but, since Thowra and Storm had so easily lost him in the clouds and brought him ignominiously home again, he had left them in peace from petty bites and kicks.

The other foals had learnt to hate him and yet rather to admire him, but, while Thowra and Storm knew the country better than he, and knew all the signs and sounds of the bush, Arrow, even though he was bigger, stronger, and faster, could never be acknowledged leader of the foals. Also it was well known among the mares that Yarraman admired Bel Bel and Mirri and never bossed them around like he did the others: after all, mares that could fend for themselves and who knew the mountains better than he did could hardly be bossed by a stallion.

Autumn was a happy time for Thowra and Storm and their mothers.

The brumbies listened to the sounds of herds of cattle being mustered above the Crackenback, and finally saw that the last bullock and the last man had left the mountains, and there was no more smoke coming from the chimneys of the huts. Thowra and Storm were as eager as any of them to cross the shining Crackenback and climb back upwards to return to their barely remembered old home at the Cascades – to find again the great wide valley of springy snowgrass where one could gallop and gallop.

THOWRA AND STORM were naturally very frightened of men and dogs since they had been hunted, but they were also very curious.

After they had been some weeks in the Cascades, they gathered up their courage and climbed on to the little knoll where the slab and shingle stockman’s hut stood above the creek. Though it had been empty for a long time now, there were still strange smells lurking round it, and some salt spilt on the ground, which they licked up. Salt was good. There were natural salt-licks in the bush, but not many of them, and sometimes one could find a little left round the places where the men salted their cattle.

Thowra sniffed all round the hut looking – looking for something, he didn’t know what. The cold wind blew a tin billy that had been left hanging under the eaves of the hut. He jumped backwards and Storm snorted with amusement.

“Come away,” he said. “There is nothing here. The sky looks very queer, and the others are a long way off.”

The wind rustled the golden everlastings that grew in the grass about their feet, and in the trees close by its low moaning sounded.

“The clouds seem heavy,” said Storm, “as though they are pressing down. I never remember a day like this before.”

“O stupid one,” said Thowra with a toss of his head. “You’ve never lived through a winter before. Mother said we must not go too far today because of the weather, but let us just go and listen to the sound the wind is making in the big trees.”

There were some tall trees, candlebarks and the first of the great mountain ash, near the Cascades hut, and the two foals had already discovered the fun of playing “Tug-you- last” around the great tree-trunks and up and down the clear glades. Now, as soon as they were in the timber, they could hear the wail of the wind in the tree-tops, far above, and the soughing and sighing of streamers of bark that hung down the trunks.

They felt very small and alone – and very excited.

“What was that?” asked Thowra nervously, as something white and feathery floated down from the dark sky and landed, freezing cold, on his nose.