That unknown filly had looked so lovely, during the only fleeting moment in which he had seen her. She was just like Dawn, and Dawn was the most glorious mare he had ever seen.
What if Yarolala did not come back? If anyone could find Baringa, she might.
Yarolala’s track was easy to pick up — easy even for Lightning — because she had jumped on a very sharp rock, two days ago, and made a triangular nick in her near fore hoof.
“I am going to find Yarolala,” Lightning told Goonda, and, barely hearing Goonda’s rather tart reply that Yarolala had no wish to be found by anyone but Baringa, he set off in the direction of the Pilot ridge.
He would have kept going that way if he had not suddenly got the fresh scent of Yarolala, and then seen her spoor on some bare earth, and he followed her onto the Tin Mine track. For a long way he trotted along unthinkingly, then her scent seemed to have vanished. He looked for her spoor, and it had gone.
Annoyed, Lightning turned back till he found it again — and found, to his surprise, that she had turned left off the track, north and westward.
This was rough country, and it needed more than Lightning’s cunning to follow her spoor over the stony forest floor and the patches of snowgrass, but he persisted, and, more by luck than skill, he found himself where her scent lingered and where a footmark told that she had passed, just on the gap where Dale’s Creek headed, on the north, and the Pilot Creek on the south.
Yarolala was going towards the north.
Lightning stopped and wondered. He had only once been any distance down Dale’s Creek, and that was the day in which the whole bush had burst alight. He had seen the filly whom they called the Hidden Filly then, and had started to fight the stallion with whom she ran, the Ugly One, but the fire had come. There was, he knew, snowgrass nearly all the way down the creek, so that no hoof mark would show, and there was thick teatree which could hide Yarolala or hide another stallion.
He stood there, undecided whether to go on or not. The moon shadows were growing longer as the night passed. There was no sound of Yarolala, perhaps he should go home. He put his nose to the ground and sniffed. Her scent still lingered.
She was a strange mare, and lovely. She seemed to be one always to graze on her own, seeking no company — except Baringa’s. He sniffed the scent of her again — strange and lovely — and if anyone found Baringa, she would.
Lightning began to move slowly down into the valley of Dale’s Creek.
He walked past the hanging valley where Baringa had found him blinded by smoke and fire, not letting himself think of it. He walked slowly over the moon-blanched snowgrass, across the shadows, step by step, along Dale’s Creek. A wind whispered, the shadows moved and wove together. He stepped nervously over them, through them, stepped nearer, nearer, nearer — nearer to what? Yarolala? Baringa? The filly who had once run there — charred bones and hide, or lovely shape of life?
On he walked down Dale’s Creek, on and on, nearer, nearer. After a while he realised that there had been no sign nor scent of Yarolala for at least a mile. He cast around, but there was not enough bare earth for a hoof print, and he could not find her scent. He wondered whether he should go back till he found trace of her again, or whether he should keep going. Feeling more and more doubtful, he kept on.
The moon shadows grew longer and they slowly paled as light filtered up the eastern sky. Lightning found himself going slower and slower. There was still nothing to say that Yarolala had come so far. He felt less and less inclined to go on. Perhaps she had already returned to Quambat.
He turned round to start back, felt sure there was someone close to him, looked this way and that, and then saw her. She was just a shadow in the half-light of the moon and the day — Yarolala and no one else. But what were the things walking towards her, weird shadows of grass trees?
Lightning felt suddenly muddled, puzzled, twisted. Who was coming from which direction? What were those strange things that walked and trembled like the fronds of grass trees? Half-lit by the waning moon and the first creeping light of day, and here, near where he had found the Ugly One, the moving grass trees filled him with terror. He stood shaking, so frightened that he could almost feel himself galloping through the bush, anywhere, anywhere to get away. But Yarolala was there.
“Come, Yarolala, come!” he called, but it was as though she did not hear him.
He saw that she had turned to the moving bunches of fronds and was walking towards them. Then he saw, in that faint light, that they were not covered with fronds, but with feathers, and he saw the beaks, the immensely strong birds’ legs and feet, and, as they got closer, the fierce, darting eyes. The emus!
Lightning should have remembered the emus. Once, when he was only a two-year-old, and being chased by Steel, they had called to him to go to Cloud for safety. They liked to be too wise, the emus, that was all.
Lightning’s fears calmed down, but because he had been very frightened, he now became angry.
“You come back with me,” he said to Yarolala, and walked towards her to give her a little nip and show her that he was master.
She was taking absolutely no notice of him, not even looking at him, but very respectfully saying to those queer-looking birds:
“Greetings, O noble birds,” just as though she had been trained in manners by Thowra, “I know that there is no secret of the bush which you do not understand, and there is something I would very much like to ask you.”
A pleased expression came over the two fierce and rather silly faces.
“Ask, O beautiful Yarolala. The secrets of the bush are indeed ours.”
Lightning drew closer, so greatly interested that his anger sank.
“I would know,” said Yarolala, who never dreamt that Lightning himself did not know, “where the silver stallion, Baringa, runs?”
Lightning came closer still, and the emus shot him a quick, fierce glance. They did not wish Yarolala to lose any of her belief in their wisdom, and must not let her, or Lightning, know that they simply had no idea where Baringa hid.
The male bird answered:
“That is a dangerous secret, Yarolala, too dangerous for one as gentle as you.”
“I am not gentle,” said Yarolala, and she spoke fiercely. “Do you know where Baringa runs?” Almost immediately she tried to cover her lapse from manners by adding: “I am sure you do, for what secrets are hidden from you?”
The emus had begun to flutter their feathers with annoyance, but her covering remark smoothed them down. The female emu looked sharply at her.
Yarolala pleaded:
“Wise and noble birds,” she said, “please could you let me into just this one of your secrets.”
“Perhaps we might lead you there in the dark of the night,” the female bird said.
“No,” said the male, “not yet. She would have to be wise enough to keep a secret. Come, it is time we walked on, if we are to graze at Quambat Flat during this day that is breaking now.”
“I will not allow you to be at Quambat unless you tell me where Baringa hides,” said Lightning.
Yarolala looked at him in surprise, but even then she was too taken up with her own wishes to realise that there might be enmity or jealousy between the silver stallions.
The emu sneered, and when he sneered he looked nasty.
“It is not for you to stop us,” he said, and he and his mate strode off through the bush.
“Come!” said Lightning, and this time Yarolala followed him.
It was quite due. Lightning, unless he really savaged the emus — if he could — had no way of stopping them from visiting Quambat.
He was glad to be back at Quambat, glad to be with his mares. The day was warm and pleasant. Yarolala seemed to settle down quite happily, grazing in the sun, cantering round with the foals or other young mares.
“You are very fast,” he said to her once.
“My name means ‘to fly’,” she answered proudly, and did a quick gallop round him.
She could go fast. Next time he noticed her, she was over near the emus.
The warm sun and good grass had made him sleepy, and one of the blue roans was telling him a tale of the far south and of a strange, lone stallion, a killer, whip-thin, nimble and fast . . . He supposed that if Yarolala did find out where Baringa hid he would be able to follow her, but he really thought that those two over-wise birds would not tell her — or that they simply did not know.
It was Goonda who overheard the emu saying sharply to Yarolala:
“Stay with the stallion who wants you, and seek not Baringa. He has mares of his own who are the sun and the moon to him,” for they had seen Baringa once with Dawn and Moon.
Goonda felt sorry for Yarolala, as she watched her walk away from the emus, then she looked across the flat at Lightning. She remembered that when Baringa freed Lightning and the mares from their yard of ice walls, Lightning had promised him to leave his mares alone. She looked at Lightning and she wondered if he would keep his promise. Goonda was fond of Baringa.
One lovely, peaceful, sunny day followed another: grass and leaves began to grow. Yarolala had apparently quietened down, then a cloudy night came, at the dark of the moon, and she was gone.
Lightning was very angry. None of his mares had noticed her go, though Goonda seemed uncomfortable about her and did not say much.
“I will go and find her,” said Lightning, who thought she might have learnt of Baringa’s hiding place from the emus.
“The emus told her not to seek Baringa,” Goonda said, hoping to put him off, but Lightning went away into the night.
All the way up Pilot Creek, he got an occasional trace of Yarolala’s scent, enough for him to know for certain that she had come this way, enough to keep him jogging purposefully along.
He reached the gap. There was a faint movement of wind in the trees, taking away scent. He dropped his nose to the ground. Yes, her scent still hung there. Then be went over the other side.
He was out of the wind soon, and almost immediately he realised there was no scent there. He went hither and thither to either side, but he found no trace of Yarolala. At last he went back to the gap. The wind had become stronger, and the most noticeable smell was that of bruised eucalypt leaves, but just once he knew he was on the track of Yarolala, going a little towards the Quambat Ridge — then there was absolutely nothing more.
Search though he did, he could pick up no trace of her. At last he went home, thinking she must have turned back, but she was not there. In the morning she did not return, nor did she come back in the afternoon.
Six
Baringa’s back had improved enough for him to be able to climb up on to the High Plateau, and for him to be sure he could cross the river. It was the time of the dark nights when there was no moon.
He left the mares with Benni in the Canyon, and climbed up the cliff one night. This time he was not worried about them. Already there was a little grass to eat. Each day the sun was warmer and there was the feeling that the whole world was bursting into life — blade, leaf, flower, animal, insect and bird, On one sunny rock he had seen the purple splash of sarsaparilla: soon there would be more food than they could all eat.
In the Canyon, Moon would be safe, and Koora safe for Thowra, when he came. Baringa knew he need not worry about them. This time he could search and search till he found Dawn.
He would go along the High Plateau and follow Quambat Ridge down to the river, go up the Limestone a little way before crossing, in case she had made her way upstream, then explore all the western bank of the river, far down it and even inland. However long it took him, however far he had to go, he would seek Dawn till he found her, and always, as he climbed the cliff and went along the High Plateau, it was as though Dawn were ahead, a white and silver ghost, so strongly did she fill his mind.
He went quite fast, and as he went the remaining pain in his back eased away. The night was warm. The scent of eucalypt leaves filled the air. No scent of horses was on the whole long ridge. He walked with pride, for he felt strong again, and to be alive in the soft spring darkness was high magnificence.
He also held himself in readiness for anything that might come out of the dark net of night.
As the ridge began to drop down to the river there was the fragrance of lightwood flowering. A mare neighed near by, as though she knew that the most wonderful stallion in all the southern mountains was going past in the thrilling night.
Soundless, Baringa moved on and on through the bush.
It was only chance that made Yarolala turn west from the gap between the head of Dale’s Creek and the Pilot Creek She had been down Dale’s Creek before and found no tracks, nothing but those supercilious emus. She really had no fixed plan for where she would search, and she had no idea where Baringa might run; She might just as easily have turned towards the Pilot, but she turned west and upwards towards Quambat Ridge.
It was just chance, too, that she started her journeying much later in the night than Baringa did.
She climbed up onto the ridge.
If it had not been for a faint south wind starting up then, Yarolala would have turned up on to the High Plateau, but on that south wind there came . . . something.
Yarolala stopped. Her nose trembled. She lifted her head to the breeze and drew it in, and a tingling went through her, right to her hooves and through every hair. Then she turned into the breeze — walked into it as though it held her — and the breeze that lifted her silver mane and forelock carried the scent of Baringa.
Yarolala kept on walking, head up to the wind, never losing that scent, even when the ridge dropped down in among the flowering lightwoods. She simply followed the scent as though she were led on an invisible string by the horse ahead, over on to the banks of the Limestone, along and along the track. Sometime he would stop to graze, then she would find him.
There was no sound of hoofbeat ahead, but Yarolala, of course, was not soundless. She could have been heard by any horse who was close enough, but not by Baringa, because the wind bore the sounds away.
The darkness before dawn grew heavier, then there seemed to be a faint movement through it. Yarolala felt, almost more than saw, a shiver of grey — and still there was the scent, drawing and drawing her.
Faint blue illumined the dark. The trees were thinning and the scent grew stronger. Yorolala slackened her pace. Baringa might have stopped. She felt less sure of herself. She walked more quietly.
As she came to the edge of the trees, she paused. Ahead were rocks, heaped up rocks and flat rocks looming through the strange half-darkness, and below them seemed to be empty space, probably a grassy glade, perhaps a small creek.
Just as she made out the shape of Baringa between two great rocks, she heard a sound behind her and knew that she, too, was being followed.
“Lightning!” she thought, and stepped swiftly to one side, amongst thick trees.
There was the scent of Baringa still, strong on the breeze, drawing her, and through the thick leaves she could still see him, shadowy and insubstantial because there was no light. Then something hurtled past her along the track, sprang on to the rocks, sprang on to Baringa.
Yarolala gave a little cry and then stood silent. Baringa had leapt forward so that the other horse only crashed down on to his rump. In the resulting mix up of two stallions, and in the blue, shadowy light, Yarolala could only just make out that the attacker was not silver, not Lightning.
Baringa’s quick leap had saved him, but it had also put him in a difficult position for dealing with the other horse. He reared up and swung round in one move. The other horse was already coming in to attack. Yarolala had time to see that he was no horse that she had ever seen before, then there was an interlocked, moving mass of stallions as Baringa leaped upwards on his hindlegs and brought his forelegs smashing down on the advancing head and shoulders.
The horse roared with anger and tried to force him backwards over an edge of the rocks. Yarolala could hardly stop herself n
eighing a warning, but Baringa must have felt the air behind him and known that there was space. He stood firm. There was no room to jump to either side, so Baringa had to force himself against the terrific impact. The horse recoiled. Yarolala drew in her breath as she saw Baringa sway and then gather himself together enough to jump away from the edge.
In the bluish light, everything looked queerly fluid. The attacking horse seemed grey, the rocks were all caverns and hollows. Baringa faded into the atmosphere. The horse was leaping forward again, it twisted in the air, its teeth bared.
This was surely a very nimble horse, almost as nimble as Baringa, and it had the advantage of knowing the rocks in which they were fighting.
Then Yarolala saw Baringa leap on to a flat—topped rock above his opponent, obviously playing for time so that he could see the country over which he had to fight. She saw that other horse spring on to an opposite rock and fly across at Baringa, clearly knowing the distance between rock and rock so well that the queer quality of the ending night and the unstarted day did not make him falter.
Baringa had vanished. For a moment he was invisible in the strange light into which he had blended, but Yarolala saw him again, balanced on a sharp rock.
She looked closely at the other horse. Why had he attacked Baringa? Who was he? She remembered the story that Lighming’s stolen roan mares told of a lone horse, a killer. This could be close to the killer’s country — and the roan’s Country. Perhaps this horse was the killer. She began to sweat with fear, not fear for herself, but for Baringa, who now, fighting, was even more unforgettable than before.
The two stallions were back on the flat rock now, locked together. They freed themselves, they were dodging each other’s blows, they were leaping from rock to rock again. The blue light shimmered over them. Baringa seemed to be disembodied light itself, taking shape and then vanishing, becoming solid as he jumped or struck, then melting into the moving blue again. They were both so nimble that neither succeeded in sinking his teeth into the other, or in striking more than glancing blows as the other dodged.