As the stars faded in the night sky, Socks woke his family and took them to the creek to drink. Then they started the long trek round the base of the Pilot across the Indi River to the Ingegoodbee.
A track went through Buonbar, which they followed for a while, before Socks thought it better just to keep going in the direction which he knew should be right, and would be away from brumby hunters.
Pup got tired and asked for ‘a lift’.
They just kept going on and on, Socks giving the pup a lift sometimes. Even Lightning fulfilled his parental duties and carried the pup, but it was Socks who seemed to be the pup-carrier mostly. Saving the pup from drowning and from the fire seemed to have made a strong bond with the fat roly-poly, and Miss Dingo was always happy when Socks was caring for him.
On and on they went till evening and luckily, Lightning found a big rock which would shelter them all, and they decided to spend part of the night there, because everyone was tired, but they did not rest for long. Socks was anxious about the brumby hunter finding Thowra’s Secret Valley. He did not really know exactly what was worrying him, but something was, and he kept feeling that he should go and see Thowra and warn him.
It had been a summer and now an autumn of thunderstorms — a great deal of clamouring noise, so poor Lightning was constantly on edge, constantly being woken at night.
But one particular night, in between rumbles of thunder, he also heard whips cracking in the distance, and the sound of horses neighing. He got up, stretched himself, and nosed Socks to let him know that it was time to go and look into the commotion.
They were already quite a long way from home, because there had been disturbing movements in the bush, and strange messages in the mountain wind and strange songs in the crystal-clear mountain streams. Whispering winds, and calls as though unusual birds were passing through the mountains. Altogether it was a queer season. Socks was bothered by it, but Lightning was sure something very odd was going to happen.
Brumbies seemed to be on the move, too, and Socks thought there must be men in from the south hunting them, but this was the first time he — or Lightning — had heard the sound of whips quite close.
On he and Lightning went, Socks trying to be as silent as possible. For a while there was no sound ahead, then they heard a distant whip crack in the direction in which they were going.
A great rumble of thunder filled the air, and then sheet lightning blazed through the bush, and they saw one terrified brumby racing past them as though escaping from something, or someone.
Lightning crept closer to Socks.
They stood still together while the sheet lightning lasted. It lit up messmates and candlebarks, making every corner of the forest seem ghostly. At last the sheet lightning faded, then there was just darkened forest.
It should have become a normal bush night, but everything was on the move everywhere. Socks heard a phalanger flying above them, and saw it gliding from the top of a ribbon gum to the ground. Then he and Lightning seemed to be in a hollow through which a straight-sided creek flowed, and the trees became swamp gums, even more ghostly and dark.
Socks felt a shiver go down his backbone. He wished they had not come. They knew, now, that there was a big mob of brumbies ahead of them, and quite a few shod horses. This little hollow clearing must be Buonbar, before they reached the clearer country where the brumby hunters lived.
Suddenly the thunder started to rumble again and a few flashes of lightning lit the sky. Socks’ poor friend Lightning was horrified. Socks stood over him as he cowered under a swamp gum.
Then suddenly they heard the whips again cracking ahead. The brumby mob must have broken there in the Buonbar hollow, and the stockmen were trying to gather them together to drive them along the track to Beloka.
Socks and Lightning stayed quietly hidden till they could hear that the mob was together and moving on.
An occasional sheet of lightning lit the bush, and showed the big mob of brumbies held together on the wings by mounted stockmen. Socks wondered if the time had come to try to cause a stampede, but suddenly it happened without their help.
An enormous crash of thunder reverberated all around the hills, and then the lightning came in a great sheet. Against that wild sheet of lightning there stood that rock tower — rough and rugged — high above the surrounding Beloka hills. MacFarlane’s Lookout, just there for a second, held forever in Socks’ memory and in Lightning’s memory. Then the brumbies began to stampede, sweeping along the stockhorses with them — just a mass of galloping horses.
Socks stood still, stunned by the vision of stampeding horses, only thinking of getting home, getting home before they were seen and recognised by any of the brumby hunters. (Indeed, he had not seen one man whom he recognised.)
There were horses breaking in every direction, and men with whips after them.
It was time to go; time to go while they still had sheltering trees around them.
Socks made a grab at Lightning, and together they turned home. Home was a long way away. And in Socks’ mind was that weird vision, lit by sheet lightning, of the tall, rugged rock tower and a mad, broken mob of galloping brumbies scattered beneath it, and the few stockmen trying to round them up.
To Socks, it was like a nightmare. To Lightning it was a lingering vision of fear, and yet wild excitement as he almost dreamed of himself getting among those horses and driving them crazy. Some day maybe he would chase brumbies and stockhorses again. But he must stay with Socks.
Slowly Socks and the faithful old dog made their way back to the hollow candlebark on the Ingegoodbee River. Neither Socks nor Lightning were ever going to forget that misty scene of the stampeding horses lit by the sheet lightning that blazed around the rugged rock tower.
They crept into the hollow tree with Miss Dingo and her pups, but for both Socks and Lightning that picture still remained like an after-vision, or something that was still to happen; horses galloping madly in moonlight or barely visible in the dark of night, and the great rock tower high, high above the rolling Beloka hills.
Hundreds of brumbies stampeding, the handful of stockmen galloping after them and trying to round them up — and that great rock tower standing out against the sheet lightning. Somehow, Socks felt he had to know what had happened afterwards. There had not been any sounds through the bush of brumbies, in twos or threes, sneaking home.
In the end Socks and Lightning simply had to go out to look for any signs of brumbies, or of the brumby hunters from the south, and see if any were heading towards Thowra’s Secret Valley.
So they went up to the Ingegoodbee Pools, then southward, one evening. Sometimes they found signs of horses passing by — broken branches, hoof marks, torn shrubs — but it was a long time before they came on the mark of a shod horse, and it was heading south. In front of it was a hard-hoofed brumby’s tracks.
Nose to this track, Socks puzzled over it. He knew he had seen it before at some time. He knew he would follow it and find out if the brumbies had been captured and taken down out of the mountains.
Lightning’s coat was bristling as he smelt at the hoof marks.
It was the track of a single-shod horse — the brumby hunter who worked on his own.
Socks felt his own coat creeping. Perhaps it would be better to go home and not find out where those brumbies had gone … but Lightning had his nose to the track. Socks felt that there must be something interesting ahead.
Presently the tracks of that shod horse seemed to go faster … trotting … at last cantering. Then it stopped, seemed to swing around and melt into the bush, into some thick bacon-and-egg scrub.
Socks waited. Lightning sniffed around, but it was obvious that the one shod horse had hidden in the dense scrub for quite a while; the ground was stamped around in a circle where he had stood, and finally a few tracks showed where he had moved on.
Lightning and Socks moved on too, but with more caution, Lightning sometimes walking on tiptoes.
It was when they r
eached the place where the shod horse had turned off to the west, and then back in the direction from which they had come, that Socks really felt anxious.
They saw no sign of anyone — other than hoof marks — and Socks was getting more and more apprehensive, and soon Lightning got nervous, too, but it was too late.
There, half-hidden in hop scrub, sat the lone brumby hunter on his horse.
He sat quite still for a moment, then urged that shod horse to spring forward, shouting:
‘You’ll do for the thousandth, you bugger!’ and it seemed less than a second before he was going for Socks, seemed minutes only before he was chasing that black horse with the four white feet.
Socks swung away more quickly than Lightning thought possible, but Lightning himself was as quick as his name would suggest racing after the big shod horse. Then, as he saw the man’s hand on the lasso, saw the move by his arm to get ready to throw it, he leapt at the shod horse’s fetlock and bit.
The horse sprang upwards and forward — and the arm throwing the lasso could not throw it true. It struck Socks on the side of the head and fell to the ground. Lightning jumped over it, and got in another bite on the horse’s heels, as the brumby hunter gathered the lasso and gathered in his leaping horse.
Then Lightning went after Socks, gladly realising that the man was not following; glad, too, that Socks was now heading home to the hollow tree on the Ingegoodbee.
Then he heard the sad whistle of the bronze cuckoo — out of season — and they made a wide detour round the Ingegoodbee Pools, and kept right away from the river till, finally, they crossed it and made a beeline for their hollow tree.
Socks lay down thankfully. Fright had made him very tired. He knew that he had had a very narrow escape, and that Lightning’s timely bite on the man’s horse’s fetlock had caused the lasso to fall short.
He nuzzled Lightning’s ear by way of thanks. Lightning had saved him from capture. He was not going to be the thousandth brumby caught by that man.
Eleven
Socks’ feeling of unease grew over the two days that they spent in the beloved hollow tree, until one morning he woke very early, tugged Lightning on the ear and off they set. Miss Dingo raised her head and licked Lightning’s nose.
Somehow she had known they would have to go, and for a day or so, the pup would be without his protector.
Socks was anxious.
He had heard the faraway bark of that dog, and he knew, somehow, that this brumby hunter really wanted Thowra (or his ghost) to be his thousandth brumby. So he headed straight across country to Son of Storm’s Hidden Valley, for that was the only way into Thowra’s Secret Valley.
Well before they got there, they heard that dog’s bark again, and closer. They decided to veer a little in the direction of the bark and see, if possible, who was coming.
Lightning knew to be silent, as something seemed to be nearby, and then they could see the man and his dog going through the trees. His lasso was fastened to the saddle.
The air seemed very still and quiet. Socks and Lightning made no sound.
Presently they turned quietly towards Son of Storm’s hiding place.
Once again they were expected. Son of Storm met them and was obviously anxious, and there were several white hawks high in the sky above the two hidden valleys.
Son of Storm took them over the cliff to Thowra’s valley, but Thowra was not there, and his creek seemed to be murmuring strange things, telling of movements of birds of the air.
There again was the out-of-season call of the bronze cuckoo. It contained a message, Lightning knew, but he did not know what, beyond the fact that it was important to stay close to Socks.
Then, in the middle of the night, there was Son of Storm at the mouth of their cave and an owl calling.
Son of Storm nickered softly for them to follow, and off they set round the cliff again.
At last they were out in the bush and they could hear several owls calling. Son of Storm went in the direction of the owl calls and they simply went with him. Lightning began to feel a bit jumpy. The owl calls were eerie, and when a bronze cuckoo called to the moon, even though it was not spring, he felt the presence of his old master very strongly.
Suddenly he felt he must drive that brumby-hunting man away and as the bronze cuckoo called to the moon, he shot ahead barking, and when he got close enough, snapping at the horse’s heels, leaping at his hocks and growling fiercely. The horse took a big leap forward, but the rider kept him under control, cursing slightly.
Socks and Son of Storm both thought it time to join in the harassing, and the man’s dog came in, too, biting indiscriminately.
Noise echoed round the bush. The birds were rather quieter and gathering close, and gradually a hush descended on the bush birds, as though the bush were waiting … Even Lightning was quieter for a second and in that second a silver horse took shape in between the trees.
‘I’ll get you, you bugger,’ shouted the man, kicking his horse’s ribs. But the silver horse was somewhere else, and a white hawk’s wings were beating in the man’s face and blinding the horse. Then that silver horse was rearing and neighing, on ahead. The man swung round, out of the bush and towards the gleam of silver.
The gleam was gone.
Searching and cursing, the man rode hither and thither, and the owls gathered around him.
There was a creek nearby with a little waterfall flying in silver spray, and the spray was like a silver horse.
Owls must drink and they flew to the pool below the falls. The man followed them, or was driven by them. Drinking there, too, was the bronze cuckoo: green-bronze back and cream shirt-front, all striped with bronze.
The man tried to ride up the stream to find the silver horse. There were blackberries and wild raspberries to entangle his horse’s legs. He could not get through, and cursed the silver horse whom he had sworn to catch.
Then the owls rose in a cloud around him again, soft wings brushing his face and he backed out into a mob of brumbies that were all set to chase him, egged on by Lightning and Socks.
In darkness that chase began and in darkness it ended, and the thousandth brumby caught by that hunter was never to be the Silver Brumby, never the Silver Brumby or his ghost; neither would it be Socks, and never again would that hunter lasso a dingo pup.
Socks and Lightning made their way back with Son of Storm, and then on from his valley to Miss Dingo and the pups in the hollow tree beside the Ingegoodbee River.
They slept before the stars faded in the dawn sky and then hurried on, dreaming of Miss Dingo and the pups. Socks realised that as protector of the youngest pup, he had become very fond of it, and Miss Dingo really looked to him to save her youngest from any misadventure.
When they reached the Ingegoodbee Pools, Lightning plunged in with enormous joy. Socks stood there, up to his knees, enjoying the benediction of the Ingegoodbee water.
There were always quite a number of brumbies around the Ingegoodbee Pools, but as the dawn filtered through the trees there started up a clamour of distant neighs. Socks put up his head to listen. Maybe a strange horse might have followed them through the night, and now was disturbing the brumbies who lived around the area.
When Socks saw the strange horse and its rider, he realised neither horse nor man had ever been seen by him before, but it was obviously a man who was after brumbies and, in Socks’ mind, far too close to their Ingegoodbee home for safety.
He gathered himself together and sprang out of the pool, and headed towards the horse and the man whom he could only make out like a flickering spectre moving between trees. He did not realise that he, himself, was partly hidden by messmate tree trunks, and that only his white socks gleamed through the dark forest.
Then he began to scream, and gallop for the stranger.
The noise and the thundering white socks were unbearable for the quite green young horse and, immediately out of control, he turned and galloped. Socks was in full pursuit, and then Lightning, too. br />
The young horse, unused to bolting through forest, was soon in trouble and his rider even more so.
There was the crashing of breaking branches, the thud of legs on timber, the stallion screams and Lightning’s furious barks. Then as yells rang out from the young rider Socks and Lightning began to save their breath.
On and on they went, till at last the young man was swept off by an overhanging branch. Socks and Lightning stopped, but they heard the young man cursing as he walked after his horse.
‘Never again, never again,’ he yelled, as he stumbled on through the forest. Neither Socks nor Lightning understood the words, but the whole appearance of him said he had had enough.
They turned and headed for lower down the Ingegoodbee.
It was full daylight when they reached the hollow tree, but all the family were close by and rather anxious. Miss Dingo gave them a tumultuous welcome and the pup would not leave Socks’ side.
Miss Dingo, feeling sure they must come back, had caught some rabbits for Lightning and soon, even though it was bright daylight, they were all curled up together in their own hollow tree with the music of the Ingegoodbee River singing them to sleep.
Lightning half-woke and put up a paw to Socks’ nose, and the pup burrowed in close. Socks half-opened one eye and surveyed his family, and he heard the whistle of a bronze cuckoo in the tree above where he and his family slept. A bar of sunlight fell on the green-bronze back of the little bird, and on the bronze stripes of its creamy breast and the feathers that went down its legs, making striped trousers.
Socks touched Lightning’s head with his nose. The dog that sat beside the dead master was his dog now.
Wild Echoes Ringing
One