In a moment, Burra had galloped right round Yarra, had stopped Yarra’s mad galloping. Burra was looking after whatever had vanished, then he was heading her and Yarra back to the herd.
Something, someone, had tried to capture Coolawyn and her foal. Burra had saved them. Coolawyn watched the flickering forest of trees as they cantered back towards the east. ‘Good or bad, good or bad’ the rhythm beat of her hooves said, and an owl flew overhead.
Two White Foals
There was a bronze cuckoo whistling sadly in the candlebarks along the Ingegoodbee Valley.
Burra knew it was not a man whistling up his dog, because he had heard that call along the Ingegoodbee, spring after spring. Burra was experienced in the sounds of the bush … knew that birds came and went, just as stallions reached their prime and grew old, and younger horses took over their herds. Once upon a time many brumby hunters came and captured even old horses.
Burra felt strong … he also felt anxious. Something very peculiar had entered into his usually calm life when that enormous flood came. In his mind there was the beating rhythm of those gallopers through the night — nothing had been the same since they came. Nothing had been the same since the flood.
There was that queer white foal of Coolawyn’s. Yarra. It was not the black foal to whom she had given birth — and it seemed always to be searching for something, something which was an important part of its life. Burra knew that the white foal’s unexplained loss made Coolawyn restless, too. But had something else happened during the flood?
Coolawyn had never forgotten that her foal had floated away, down the river. And this foal which the river gods had given her was somehow incomplete. She also had a weird half-dream, or half-memory — a fantasy of the night belonging to that fairy hollow below the alpine ash …
She was not surprised when Burra began to move his herd down the Ingegoodbee into new country. New experience could drive away memories that were too deeply felt. Also, because of some memory of a lingering scent in Coolawyn’s secret hollow, Burra seemed to be afraid that the night gallopers’ stallion had seen her. They would probably find themselves in bimbles belonging to other stallions, but Coolawyn knew that Burra was peaceable by nature — also very big and strong.
During the first night, they camped and grazed undisturbed, but Coolawyn was sure that something, someone, was following their tracks. Yarra was very restless, always going back a little way, as though he were expecting someone.
Darkness was sliding through the trees one night when Yarra disappeared. Coolawyn turned back quickly to find him. There was Burra looking for him, too, searching the bush at either side of the wide, gentle valley. Burra was aware that this white foal could be a disruptive element in his herd, and all the time he searched, he was keeping a lookout for whoever, or whatever, was following them.
Then Coolawyn saw something very strange. Burra saw it, too, and both the stallion and the mare stopped as still as statues. There was Yarra, white against a sunset sky, standing, gazing as though lost at another white foal, his exact replica.
A queer, shocked cry came from Coolawyn. Yarra turned his head towards her at the same time as a mare’s neigh called the other foal, and it turned and drifted away, occasionally pausing to look back.
Burra had arrived at Coolawyn’s side and, almost angrily, he collected Yarra and started driving them both towards his other mares and foals. Coolawyn looked back once. The other white foal was no longer there.
That night, faintly, faintly on the breeze, there was occasionally borne a wild rhythm almost beyond hearing, and yet which pulsed in the blood.
Yarra walked off into the darkness — little ghost, lissom and silent, threading his way between trees, ears pricked, eyes wide open. He felt afraid, yet he knew he was being drawn by invisible threads.
Coolawyn, with a cold sweat breaking down her back and all through her grey coat, woke and realised he had gone again. She set off immediately, following his scent. She was listening and feeling with every step she took, and it was obvious to her that he was walking slowly, so he might be listening too.
There it was … or was it? The galloping drumbeat of hooves was so far off that she felt it in her veins rather than heard it. Then an owl called, and, instead of following Yarra’s scent with her nose close to the ground, she raised her head and tried to see through the night. The moon was only hidden behind a thin veil of cloud, and she thought she saw the shape of Yarra, standing statue-still, not far ahead. Then the cloud slid away from a full moon and she saw him clearly. He was standing gazing into the distance, ears pricked as though he were listening intently.
He was in a clearing, and on the opposite side was a wall of lilac hovea bushes.
Through those bushes there stepped his perfect image, coming step after step a little closer, staring at Yarra.
‘Mopoke, mopoke,’ the owl called: ‘Beware, beware,’ and it flew into the little clearing, wings almost touching both foals, seeming to drive them back, each one, in the direction from which it had come.
It was time to call, and Coolawyn called.
From the other side of the clearing she heard a quiet neigh. Both foals turned away from each other and started to walk across the clearing. Each walked slowly, constantly looking around, each one, at his own mirror image.
Coolawyn and Yarra saw the hovea bushes part and let the stranger white foal through, then close behind him.
The clearing was empty. Yarra pressed close to Coolawyn. He looked as though he were dreaming — except his eyes were wider open than she had ever seen them before, and they no longer seemed unusual.
Coolawyn had an unforgettable vision in her mind. It was a vision of two exactly similar white foals — the same-shaped heads, same way of holding heads and necks, same way of flickering one ear, same way of standing. They were the same height, had the same fine legs, same wide-eyed stare. Two white foals faintly illuminated by soft moonlight. A dream vision? Yet Yarra was real, solid flesh and bone as she ran her soft, trembling nose all over his body, while something within her was almost bursting with love for this foal to which another mare had given birth.
Was that second foal real? She was absolutely certain that she had seen it — seen two moonlit foals standing alone, not touching each other, tense, almost trembling. She could feel a tremor going through Yarra now, as he pressed against her.
Who was that other foal and who was the mare who called so quietly?
There was a sound nearby. Suddenly Coolawyn found Burra beside her, Burra who had come to take them back … Burra fearing a nameless disruption to his herd. The midnight gallopers, or the flood, or both had been like a horrible dream. He nosed Coolawyn and Yarra gently, to give them the gift of being his. He brought them back to the herd. Yarra dropped down to sleep, a tired bundle, but twitching all over as dreams possessed him.
Burra half-slept, staying between them and the probable area where the other white foal and its dam were grazing. Coolawyn did not sleep.
She watched Yarra’s restless twitching and moved restlessly herself. There were so many unanswered questions, all of them taking shape or form, or taking flesh and blood in that other white foal. Who was he?
Really and truly, who was her foal, Yarra? Who was he, wide-eyed and sure-footed in the night, and almost blind on a bright day? He was hers; but she stumbled over logs in the dark while he galloped safely. Who was that other foal? Who was the mare?
The questions went on teasing her. Finally, she went to sleep.
No questions were answered in the new country in which they travelled the next day. They crossed over a ridge and then dropped steeply down the Nine Mile, towards the Moyangul River. It was gravelly country, and some of the trees which brushed against their shoulders and flanks had needles on them, instead of eucalypt leaves.
They were aware that they were still probably being followed, hearing sounds, perhaps imagined, in the distance. Old, old legends whispered through the pine-clad slopes. All Burra coul
d think of, as he stopped and tried to hear whatever it was away behind them, was that some other horses were trying to capture his mares — or one mare.
The feeling of being followed was in some way connected with the white foal, Yarra — connected with the two white foals, Yarra and his mirror image.
Darkness was rising up from the Moyangul River valley. Burra was looking for a patch of good grazing where they might stay for the night. Then faintly, from far below, down among the pines, there rose up the sound of horses galloping.
Every mare and foal had stopped when Burra stopped. Coolawyn, standing quite still, backed into a stunted snow gum, wondered if each one of the mares had heard that faint throb and beat? She was becoming very curious about the legendary night travellers.
Burra linked that almost threatening red star — or red eye — with them, and did not know why, but was anxious for Coolawyn. At the same time, he was unable to quell his own curiosity. He felt sure, in his bones, that the story about these night gallopers stealing a mare or a filly, each time they were heard, was really true.
Coolawyn, for her part, had a queer creeping feeling that someone was trying to capture her. Who were these horses of the night, if they existed?
Burra was not going to take his mares down into that deep valley. The best thing to do would be to leave them in a safe place for them to graze and sleep, and go down into the Moyangul alone. He would see if there were horses who galloped in the darkness, and if they stayed hidden there. But was there anyone following? Once again he listened intently. All he heard — or imagined — was that almost whispered rhythm of galloping far, far away below.
He turned the herd back, and found a good camping place away from the shaley gravel and those pine trees. He left them there, and Coolawyn watched him go.
Burra walked back to the edge of that steep drop, and stepped over the edge and went as quietly as possible down the gravel.
The moon was just less than full, and the pine trees stood out against the moonlit clouds, making a fantasy world for a brumby who had lived all his life among eucalypts.
It did not take him very long, slithering and sliding on the loose gravel, to get down to the bottom, even though he took the last few feet more slowly, wondering just what he was going to find. He had indeed stopped in his descent occasionally, to listen, and really he had heard nothing, but he was sure that the scent of strange horses rose up on the warmer valley air.
Once he reached the valley floor, Burra was thinking of that night when the flood had cut him off on the far side of the river. That was the night he had seen one piercing, burning, red star through the prostanthera — or, one calculating, assessing, reddish eye.
Now, if he thought he saw eyes watching him and leaped forward, there was nothing. Surely he would have caught whatever was there, but he felt nothing beneath his leaping hooves. Perhaps the scent of an unknown mare or colt hung there momentarily.
Just occasionally, he was sure there were horses whose eyes shone in the moonbeams.
In the Dark of the Pines
Coolawyn had watched Burra go back towards that valley where the pine trees grow. He was going to search for those horses who might only be a dream. She, too, wanted desperately to know they were real — wanted to see them … as, it seemed, did Yarra.
She would go after Burra, sneak away without the rest of the herd hearing her go. Coolawyn backed quietly into the bush, and went a roundabout way to get onto the track that Burra had taken. There was no sound of anyone following them.
Yarra kept close to her flank and quarters. Perhaps it was surprising that Yarra did not try to get back to where he had seen that white foal. He just followed her, and when they went over the edge to go down into the deep valley, he was as surefooted and quiet as a chamois.
Coolawyn found that she slipped and slithered more than he did, particularly as the night grew darker. Then the moon came from behind a cloud, and that helped her find the easiest way down. She could see where to set each hoof on that loose gravel. It was difficult not to have gravel sliding away, making a loud rustle; difficult not to kick a stone which would keep clattering down until the sound died in the distance. Burra had not worried about any noise: she was trying to be quiet.
As she slid and scrambled down, it seemed that they were searching for horses that became more and more of a fairy tale. She felt that some zephyr of unreality had continued to blow over the mountain world since that vast downpour and flood.
Now, the pointed pines were dark against the moon, making a treescape such as she had never seen before, strange, sinister …
A stone broke away from her hoof and went bounding down the hillside.
Coolawyn would have begun to feel afraid if it were not for her enormous wish to see those horses galloping through the night — if, of course, they existed.
Yarra was nervous, and he kept up against Coolawyn, particularly if she stopped to get her breath and listen. Then Yarra, too, would throw up his head, and listen. He wondered about the other white foal, but in this strange valley he knew he wanted to be with Coolawyn quite desperately.
They were getting near the floor of the valley. Once, through the pines, moonlight could be seen gleaming on water. Coolawyn stopped to listen again. Suddenly a tremor went through Yarra, all along his back, as he heard a sound. She heard that sound, too — a distant neigh, and certainly not a neigh which she had ever heard before.
It was a stallion’s neigh. Coolawyn crept under a very tall pine, and Yarra pressed in against her flank. She peered through the thick needles, but could see nothing. The needles prickling around her nose made her want to sneeze. That neigh had come from a long way off. She wondered if she was going to find out what she had come down into the valley to learn? Or was she making the terrible mistake of letting night gallopers know that she was in the valley, easy to capture? Should she go back quietly?
The needles prickled along her withers and back.
There was no further sound, and, unable to curb her curiosity, she stepped out from under her covering pine tree.
Yarra was extremely nervous now: that stallion’s neigh had made fear come, creeping like a ghost out of the pines to touch hair and hide. He clung to Coolawyn’s flanks, and got in under her neck if she stopped moving to listen.
She, too, began to feel panic. There were no other horses to be seen, and this dark, pine forest held something that was nebulous, printless, terrifying.
They got near to the river and the sound of rushing water through the darkness made Yarra utter a little cry. Coolawyn put her nose down to his head, and led him away from the sound of the stream.
Where was Burra? How far had he gone?
Ahead, there was a small, open area into which moonlight fell, so that it glowed surrounded by dark trees. Coolawyn stood quietly, still hidden in the trees, when into that moonlit space there walked a colt. The colt was white, but made into pewter by the liquid light of the moon.
The colt turned his head enough for Coolawyn to see his face, and a moonbeam flashed into his eyes and they glowed the colour of sunset. Then, as though something called, he turned across the clearing, and vanished into the dark pines.
Surely, Coolawyn thought, that colt was one of the midnight gallopers: then she wondered if she had seen him, if his eyes really had glowed. She felt a longing to be safely back in their Ingegoodbee Valley under one of those beautiful candlebarks, with Yarra safely beside her.
They would go back the way they came, but before she had moved at all, something made the branches part between the pines, and as Burra stepped out into the clearing, there was a pounding of hooves.
Just then, the clouds sailed over the moon, and the whole valley became pitch dark. The drumming of hooves grew closer. Three, then four young horses raced by in the dense dark of the night. Were they light coloured? Were they sure-footed in the dark? Who could tell … they had passed and gone without trace.
Coolawyn would have stayed perfectly quiet, hoping
that Burra did not get her scent, but Yarra gave a frightened neighing sound, neither snuffle, nor scream, and he was shaking all over. In a moment, Burra was standing peering at them through the pine branches.
Burra was anxious. He had meant them to stay with the herd. Now there was no question about what they should do. Burra nudged them, quite gently, towards the big climb out of that dark valley. He rubbed his head down Coolawyn’s neck, and she realised that he was glad to be with her. Curiosity had faded for a moment. All that was important now was to get safely back to the herd, and back into the Ingegoodbee Valley.
The unstable, sliding gravel, the stunted pine trees higher up those stones, moonlight coming and going and time, also, sliding by. There they were, climbing upwards, bound together by some mystery, and the foal, itself part of a mystery — the same mystery or another.
Burra did rest at last, on a small, flat shelf, about two-thirds of the way up out of the valley, and the three stood, half-hidden in a clump of pines. Clouds cleared away from the moon. Suddenly, there was that sound of thundering hooves, quite close. Then, over on the top of the ridge and down the steep gravel slope, there burst six or eight wildly galloping horses.
They looked neither to right nor left, but went at breakneck speed, scattering gravel from their hooves — when their hooves touched ground. They were almost flying.
Three mares with foals followed, only a little more slowly.
Going so fast and in the silvery light of the moon each horse, each mare, each foal, looked like an insubstantial vision. Only the speed and the sound of their hooves was real.
Burra and Coolawyn stood as though petrified. Yarra gave a sudden cry of fear, and from below there came an almost inaudible neigh. It was the two neighs, Yarra’s and that other’s, which brought life and movement back to Burra and Coolawyn. They began to climb rather more quickly — fear, or mystery, on their heels.
Once on top, once they had walked quickly and quietly along the ridge, they merged into the herd without any sound. The only sound was an owl’s call of warning, and the whisper of an owlet-nightjar’s soft wings as it brushed Yarra’s head.