Socks nosed Lightning, who put up a bleeding paw. Then he peered into the hollow. There was a wriggling mass of puppies, and Miss Dingo proudly licking them, but she was also obviously very tired. She growled a little at the sight of Socks, and snapped at Lightning, but soon welcomed them both in — but not too close.
Socks was almost horrified. What sort of a family was this? He tried to work it out and later, as Miss Dingo moved a bit, he saw there were only two puppies.
By morning she was proud and happy and had got over the fright of being chased by the two big horses. Lightning went off to hunt. He caught a rabbit which he proudly put beside Miss Dingo’s nose. Then he helped her skin a hind leg. She gobbled it down and suddenly Lightning was happy. Socks went off grazing.
Once Miss Dingo ceased to hunt Lightning away from the pups, he began to feel pleasure and pride in them.
Three
For a while, when the pups had grown a bit, they all continued hunting and playing as a pack. Miss Dingo’s pups were very pretty … a faint blue tinge in their ruff, showing their blue heeler inheritance from Lightning, and their hunting ability telling of their dingo forebears.
Socks moved his family to the cave near the Cascades. There was room for them all, and good hunting, so they lived there for a while, Socks proudly hunting with them, and driving away any brumby chasers.
After a while Socks began to recognise two men who came more than most — realised that they were watching his ‘family’. Lightning was disturbed too, feeling that those men kept looking for them. One of the men carried a lasso. One horse had an unusual offside hoof print. Lightning watched for it closely.
One day, after light rain, he saw hoof marks quite near the hidden mouth of the cave. He made sure Socks saw them too, by keeping on sniffing at them. When Socks sniffed at the queerly-shaped hoof mark, Lightning gave a low growl to indicate his anxiety. Then he gathered up little Miss Dingo and her pups and stood ready to go, wherever Socks thought best. Obviously the men would find them sooner or later.
Socks knew he had to take his family somewhere else, but where would he find a good hiding place? There were lots of rocky tors in the Ramshead Range, but too much open country between them. Then he wondered about the grassy ridge down off the North Ramshead — could there be a hollow to one side of that ridge? There must be the head of a little creek. This would be the way to go, up, now, on to the Ramshead Range and then over the edge into the Leatherbarrel, keeping above the thick scrub. There might not, of course, be much for the dingo family or Lightning to hunt.
Anyway, Socks thought, let’s go!
He gave Lightning a friendly tug on one ear, and led off upwards and upwards till they reached the old cattle track over Dead Horse Gap. Lightning showed his pleasure in being on the move again by jumping up and licking Socks’ nose. Miss Dingo showed her excitement by rolling over on her back in front of Socks. The pups were galloping about and rolling in the snowgrass.
Both Socks and Lightning stopped often to listen for anything following them and to hear any message told by the birds.
There was a strange silence.
The snow gum leaves were moving slightly above the old hut at Dead Horse Gap; the Bogong Creek rippled over stones with the lovely song of a mountain creek. All was well.
Feeling happier, Lightning and Socks led Miss Dingo and her pups up the faint track above the hut. Socks looked back occasionally and felt a sense of pride in his family. The pups were splashing water off their coats from a plunge into the Bogong Creek, and madly galloping along behind, or racing through the leafy bossiaea scrub and the wide leaves of the blue flax lily, dodging round granite tors until Miss Dingo called them.
The ridge was steep and the pups got breathless and were glad to cool off in a large swamp that was one of the heads of the Bogong Creek. Socks looked at the swamp with care. There was indeed a dry-looking cave at the top of it, and big enough to hold him and his family if they didn’t find anything further on, but he knew that he had a sort of longing for the spur into the Leatherbarrel Creek.
When they found the big snowgrass basin below the rocky tor of the South Ramshead, and looked over the edge into the Leatherbarrel, Lightning was prancing with joy.
Socks wondered if Lightning had been in this country with his dead master, the dog seemed so happy. Lightning was happy as he ran down the snowgrass spur, but suddenly he wanted Socks and Miss Dingo and the pups, but mostly Socks, and went racing back to where they were carefully examining a hollow at the head of the gully to one side of the ridge.
Socks saw him coming and went to meet him.
Lightning barked a greeting and stopped still, putting up one front paw to Socks’ nose, and Socks knew exactly what his old friend was feeling, saw the tears in Lightning’s eyes. Socks nudged his friend’s ears, rubbed his head against Lightning’s, and was pleased to see the dog cheer up and wag his tail. Socks rubbed his head all the harder, then proudly led him to look at the new cave for the family. Lightning walked in beside him and looked around, then lay down and put up his paw to Socks and gave a small, inviting whimper.
Socks put his nose down to receive a loving lick, and he lay down beside his beloved friend. Just then came Miss Dingo, followed by her pups, to give Socks and their father a tumultuous greeting in what was now, obviously, a new family cave, then they, too, curled themselves up for a brief sleep — only brief because their energy was enormous.
There was a nice smell of prosanthera from the mint bush that grew around the cave.
Food, of course, was the immediate problem, but Socks had already seen a few rat tracks going across the snowgrass into the low-growing heath bushes. He had no doubt that little Miss Dingo and Lightning would soon take the pups hunting.
They would sleep now, till evening.
Evening brought the first piece of good luck. A very curious young rat came right to the entrance of the cave. Miss Dingo heard it, or smelt it, before even Lightning, and she sprang up and killed it for her two pups. After they had eaten it she must have thought it was time to stop sleeping and see what else they could hunt, so she stirred Lightning from his sleep and made him come. Socks came out and lay on the snowgrass spur and watched.
Miss Dingo could teach Lightning a good deal about hunting, good, efficient hunter though he was. Miss Dingo knew how to track rats through the horizontal grevillea that grew on the banks of the creek and could pounce so quickly that the rat never knew what had hit it. Miss Dingo brought it to her pups, but Lightning proudly brought his catch back to Socks.
Socks did not care for rats, but he realised by the way that Lightning presented it to him that it was given with pride and pleasure, so he rubbed his head on Lightning, put one forefoot on the rat and tore off a hind leg, giving it to the drooling Lightning.
It was the correct thing to do; Lightning was delighted, and licked Socks’ nose before he finished the rest of the rat.
It was then that Socks heard dogs barking in the darkness, and he hastily gathered up his family into the cave and said to Lightning, ‘lie down, and be quiet’. Lightning ordered Miss Dingo — and the pups — to lie still and be quiet.
So they huddled together till the night grew dark and there were no more worrying noises.
Four
During the days that followed they travelled further into the mountains. They only saw an occasional bushwalker, none that offered any danger.
But bushwalkers did, of course, spread the story in Jindabyne of a black brumby with white socks and a family of dog and dingoes, and that story got people out looking for them for that family was a little unusual.
Only a few people had seen the black horse, Socks, shepherding his family across the Snowy River. Just a few had reported seeing this big horse breaking the force of the river’s current while the dingo mother and pups swam across, and pulling the smallest pup out of the water by the scruff of her neck.
There was one story told, round the rodeo at Jindabyne, of this ‘Socks’ g
oing for another stallion who had attacked the part-blue heeler dog.
Socks remembered that day clearly. The family had worked their way back to the Tin Mine country and the Ingegoodbee, which they regarded as really ‘home’, when this big chestnut stallion suddenly went for Lightning.
Socks was standing on the edge of the forest looking at Lightning watching over the pups, when this big stallion crept up on him.
Socks saw the chestnut strike at Lightning and suddenly his vision was suffused with red as he raced to save Lightning, and he felt as he had never felt before, that Lightning was his, and desperately loved.
He leapt between the stallion and the dog, open-mouthed, teeth bared, and grabbed the stallion by the wither, shaking him with all his strength. Then he dropped him and struck him on the side of his head. He saw Lightning unhurt and aiming to get the stallion by the nose, but he should grab him by the wither again, kill him, anything, to drive him away, forever.
It was the same stallion from Suggan Buggan. He did drive him away, and Lightning chased that chestnut too, but Socks stood and waited for Lightning … to rub his head on Lightning, and have Lightning lick his nose.
It was time, then, to check on Miss Dingo and her pups and when they were found and unhurt they, all four, went together and found the hollow tree where the pups had been born and there they all curled up together and slept.
Socks slept very lightly, waking quite often, and listening for any strange sounds. Then suddenly through the night there came echoing dingo howls. There were so many dingoes, and the howls were echoing all around, that Socks got up without disturbing Lightning and went to the opening of the hollow to listen, wondering what had disturbed them.
He could hear the rising sound of wind.
He looked around, his body blocking the wind from entering the hollow. Lightning was stirring; maybe a thunderstorm was coming.
Poor Lightning still hated a thunderstorm even though he was very happy in his family. Socks took a step further in and put a comforting nose down to the dog’s head. Lightning put up a paw to his horse to make a loving contact. The branches of the candlebark were beginning to creak and groan in the wind.
As Socks listened he heard a dingo howl from much closer. Lightning growled. Then the shape of a big dingo showed faintly in the opening. Far away a mopoke said: ‘Beware. Beware.’
The big dingo took a few creeping steps in, towards the smallest pup, the little female.
Socks took a swipe at the dingo and it growled fiercely, which alerted Lightning and also Miss Dingo. Lightning sprang at the marauding dingo, as did Miss Dingo. Suddenly there was a snarling mass of dog and dingoes and a furious Socks. Lightning, knowing that little Miss was desperate to save her pup, and quite desperate himself, grabbed the fierce dingo by one ear and hung on. The marauder had a great mouthful of the little pup’s neck and was trying to drag her away.
Socks awaited his opportunity in that maelstrom of moving dog and dingoes, and when the way was suddenly clear, he bent his neck and grabbed an enormous mouthful of skin and flesh down the backbone of the mad, bad dingo.
That strategy worked. The furious dingo yelled with pain and had to let go the pup, who scrambled behind her mother.
Socks threw his mouthful of dingo out of the hollow. Lightning went too, still attached to the dingo’s ear, but the dingo was severely damaged and Lightning intended to finish him off well away from the tree.
Lightning did indeed finish him off, and the mopoke had another story to tell of the ferocity of Socks’ family.
Plovers called their sad dirge down by the river where the casuarinas dipped to the water, but the dingoes and Socks slept secure in the knowledge of another danger overcome.
The bronze cuckoo sounded his call once more in the night, though there was no moon. Lightning cocked his ears and put his head on one side, then threw a joyous bark towards the bird. Suddenly Socks felt impelled to throw his happy neigh towards the bird, too, to tell that bronze cuckoo — perhaps for the bronze cuckoo to relay a message to that old dead stockman — ‘All is well.’
Socks was glad that Lightning had killed that marauding dingo, so that he would not be a menace to Miss Dingo’s female pup.
That was one menace to life and limb that no longer existed.
Socks heard a flight of black cockatoos settling for the night in a big candlebark that was near their tree. He was glad to hear them because they would have known if there were any strange animals about, or they would not have settled. He knew there were emus further upstream, but emus were unlikely to harm Miss Dingo or her pups. Socks went into their hollow tree, received his lick on the nose from Lightning, and settled down to sleep with his family.
It was the next night that his sleep was so disturbed by dreams of all that Ramshead Range, all the rock tors of that country and the strange little soaks that lay in the flat ground in between. Surely there would be rock caverns where he and his family could shelter?
He dreamed of going over Dead Horse Gap again, crossing the cattle track, passing the old yards and the old hut.
So in the morning they set forth — restless, eager — along the Ingegoodbee River and up the old track to the Cascades. They aimed to sleep that night in their old cave, or maybe go further still, up Dead Horse Ridge to that swamp above Bogong Creek.
Before they even reached the Cascades, and in amongst the enormous alpine ash near Packsaddle Gap, there was a herd of brumbies and three men on horses trying to muster them and drive them down the Cascades Spur to Tom Groggin.
Socks and Lightning saw them well before they were seen themselves. Lightning saw the stockhorses and the mob of brumbies spreading on either side of the track ahead of them, and felt in his whole self the joy of chasing horses, men and brumbies, as he had felt it down the Leatherbarrel Spur.
He began to dance a little, and then suddenly shot out from behind Socks and went around the mob of brumbies, swinging them back on to the track, hurrying them on their way.
Socks was not sure what to do.
For a moment there was no sound from the men, then there was a rather surprised shout of, ‘Come ’ere be’ind,’ but Lightning was enjoying himself and, really, hoping to start a stampede.
Then Lightning did come behind, but not before he had the leading brumbies going out of control. Then he came behind the stockhorses.
Socks knew exactly what Lightning was doing. He was going to try to repeat the Leatherbarrel Spur stampede and it looked as if he might succeed.
Socks joined in at a thundering gallop, straight for the stockhorses, his mouth open, screaming.
The brumbies were galloping all across the mountainside above and through the alpine ash into little tea tree bush creeks, and presently, one of the stockmen, his horse virtually bolting out of control, began to gallop up above them. They would need two to swing that mob down the Cascade Spur on to the Murray River.
‘Swing ’em, swing ’em,’ one man shouted, and ahead the two men were cracking whips and turning the leading brumbies down the wide Cascade Spur.
‘River’ll steady ’em,’ another shouted, but Socks never saw if they steadied or not. The mob were stampeding down that precipitous spur. He neighed to Lightning and Lightning dropped back to him and they joined Miss Dingo and her rather nervous pups.
Lightning had enjoyed himself, but was pleased to come back to Socks and was glad to get praise. Miss Dingo and her pups joined in for the praise and head rubbing from Socks.
Also, Lightning knew that they were still heading for the high country and had communicated his excitement to the dingo family. So when Socks turned upwards toward the Cascades Valley, they all came leaping and bounding along. Everyone was happy. Socks knew he had been part of one of the funniest musters he had ever seen.
He was also aware that he had never seen those men and horses and dogs before, which was just as well, because those men might not forget Lightning’s mustering act in a hurry. Anyway, he and Lightning and his family we
re heading for the Ramsheads. These men must have come across the border for the brumbies, and if they got that lot home they would be busy for a while.
They crossed the Cascades Creek near the end of the valley and hurried along till they reached the track up to Bob’s Garden, and then on to Dead Horse Ridge, the Gap and the old hut. By this time even the pups knew they were on an exciting journey and they happily rolled in the snowgrass tussocks on the Gap.
Socks hurried them on across the open Gap. The only danger might be from brumbies, but Socks would feel better if there were more cover so they hurried up behind the hut and into the few trees.
There was a faint track to follow and the purple hovea was still in flower all through the bush. Socks nibbled on the ripening buds of the golden bossiaea. A scent of the mingled wildflowers rose around, and as they reached the flat part of the ridge there was a sudden sweetness to the scent. Socks raised his head and smelt the air. One or two of the snow gums were flowering; after all, it must be midsummer.
The track went round the big rock and through a few bushes and they trotted on to the flatter part of the ridge, the broad stretch of snowgrass and wide-spaced snow gums and creamy blossoms coming into flower with their honey scent.
The family edged their way over to the cave above the swamp.
Lightning was quite glad to curl up peacefully. Socks kept watch, and the dingo family played, rolling in the snowgrass. There was a tall candlebark flowering in the swamp. The pups had great fun hiding from each other and pouncing out from behind a big clump. Then Miss Dingo saw a rat and pounced on it. It was on for the three dingoes, and, finally, Lightning couldn’t resist joining in the hunt, until he had caught three rats and brought them to Socks.
With each one, Socks pulled off a hind leg and offered it to a glad and grateful Lightning.