Up the three climbed, passing the rocky tor where the last of the snowgrass grew.
Snow was still falling quietly, and except for the wild calls of a flock of currawongs, high above, there was no sound.
They climbed up to the South Ramshead, and the higher they reached, the thicker the snow on the ground became. Thowra trotted almost printlessly over the fresh snow. Socks also knew it was important to leave as few hoofmarks as possible.
With a break in the clouds, the moon appeared, silvering the whole of the main range, and the dingo howls began in the forest below them. Lightning cocked his ears, listening. Socks looked around, just to make sure Miss Dingo and her pups were not following, though he knew that her call was not blended in with the others.
Suddenly he became transfixed with something he saw on the opposite slopes — above the Leatherbarrel Valley — two shadow horses and perhaps a shadow dog; moon shadows. Socks stared at those shadows as he trotted along behind Thowra. He did not realise that they were his shadow, Thowra’s and Lightning’s — shadows thrown by the now-strong moon. Then, as he looked, he saw the shadow of a third horse — and rider — coming up behind.
He heard Lightning give a low growl and looked quite sharply behind. There, just near enough to throw a moon shadow behind their own, the Brumby Hunter must have worked out that Thowra would make for his own country.
Socks began to feel terrible. Thowra must be quite certain that he was not followed. Lightning should do more than growl. Socks turned round, but Lightning was already running towards the Brumby Hunter, and Thowra had looked around and seen his danger.
Socks saw the Brumby Hunter swing his arm and knew he was getting ready to use his whip — use it on Lightning — and in blinding fury he turned and galloped back through the moonlit rock tors. Behind him he heard a stallion’s scream of rage and thundering hooves. Thowra was coming, too.
The Brumby Hunter stopped in uttermost surprise; the Silver Horse whom he was hunting was now charging him, and the black horse with white socks was leading him on. Lightning began to bark as he went, flat out, towards the horse and rider, and the dog with the same bark gave a very menacing growl.
That growl was too much for Lightning. Instead of going for the Hunter’s horse, he headed straight for the dog, like a hurricane.
The dog dodged to one side but Lightning guessed which way he would go, and hurled himself at him with such force that he knocked the Hunter’s dog endways.
Socks heard the whip crack and saw the Hunter sitting on his horse, raising his whip arm. That was too much for Socks. He charged the Brumby Hunter, throwing up his head at the last moment, and hitting him chest-on. The horse winded, it rocked on its feet, and fell, throwing the Brumby Hunter off.
Just then Thowra came galloping back. The Brumby Hunter pulled his horse on to its feet and went to spring into the saddle, but he was still off when Thowra leapt at him and his horse.
The dogs were fighting and got muddled up in the scrum, Socks rushed in to protect Thowra and Lightning. He grabbed the other dog by the scruff and threw him to one side, then he picked up the whip with his teeth and dragged it away from the Hunter’s hand.
Thowra simply stood, with heaving flanks, staring at the Hunter who was without a whip or a dog, then, strangely, he bowed his head and backed away, calling Socks in his quiet little whinny.
Socks gave Lightning’s ear a tug, so Lightning left the fight. Socks picked up the whip again, and gladly followed Thowra up through the thickened snow.
Looking back, Socks saw the dog get up and go for a pat from his master. He thought to himself that the Brumby Hunter would not give up too easily, and had not the Silver Brumby a gleam in his eye when he bowed to the Hunter? In fact, Thowra was almost dancing along into the Ramsheads.
Snow began to fall more steadily; tracks would be covered.
Socks and Lightning both suddenly felt light-hearted and happy, as though they would follow the Silver Brumby forever.
Seven
Thowra looked back through the falling flakes and the intermittently moonlit night. There was no sign of the great Brumby Hunter, but the Silver Brumby knew better than to think that the Hunter would give up so easily. There was a round snow dome ahead of them, just asking to be climbed. He trotted on, Socks and Lightning trotting happily with him, but both aware that the Brumby Hunter was somewhere behind them, invisible in the curtain of falling snow.
As they got higher up the North Ramshead, wind began to swirl the snow in spiralling gusts around them.
Socks noticed that Lightning looked behind them very often. The dog was somehow carrying the Hunter’s stockwhip, but he was having difficulty in climbing steeply. Suddenly he opened his mouth and barked. His open mouth dropped the whip. He had seen the Brumby Hunter not far away.
Socks and Thowra both heard the Brumby Hunter’s horse galloping, and came down a little way to meet him. Lightning ran too, but then he remembered the dropped stockwhip and turned back.
Out of the flailing snow storm came the Brumby Hunter. Lightning knew better than to bark this time.
With his teeth clamped on the whip handle, he rushed at the horse.
Socks came galloping down the lower slopes of the North Ramshead. He was afraid that his beloved Lightning might get hurt and was going to punish the Brumby Hunter, and make sure nothing happened to Lightning.
Socks knew that brumby stallions had gone for bush-walkers before this, and he was well aware that he could frighten off the Brumby Hunter.
Then he heard Lightning bark. ‘If he has opened his mouth to bark, he must have dropped the whip,’ thought Socks.
Socks went faster, but the Brumby Hunter was going faster still. Lightning grabbed the whip, but knew he was powerless to crack it. He went hurtling on towards the horse and rider, and really felt he should turn on a terrifying, screaming bark — which would mean opening his mouth.
He heard a scream behind him, Socks’s stallion scream, and saw the Brumby Hunter check his pace.
Lightning felt comforted — knowing that Socks was coming in support. He was getting very close to the Hunter’s horse. He opened his mouth and barked — and the whip fell!
Lightning picked up the whip by the handle and made a great rush at the horse. The Brumby Hunter sprang off his horse and made a run at Lightning’s mouthful of whip handle. Lightning dodged and bit the Hunter’s hand.
‘You bugger,’ the Hunter yelled, and pulled out his handkerchief to mop up the bleeding hand. Then he seized on the whip again, and pulled hard.
Lightning dug in his toes and hung on. Socks was coming, so he hung on.
A wild, stallion call rang out from further up the North Ramshead. Thowra had seen what was happening and he was going to join in, too.
Socks was a heavy horse, and anything that got the full force of his charge would find it difficult to keep on its feet.
The Brumby Hunter was knocked flat in the snow, but he still wanted his whip, and hung onto it for grim death.
Lightning hung on, too.
Socks circled around to line up for another charge, and saw out of one corner of his eye that Thowra was quite close. He was glad. Support was coming.
‘Drop it, you mongrel!’ the Brumby Hunter shouted at Lightning, and gave a tremendous tug at the whip, twisting the handle so that it hurt the dog’s mouth.
Then Socks charged again, and this time sent the Brumby Hunter flying. When he could clear the snow out of his eyes, the Hunter saw Thowra rearing up over the top of him.
Then the rearing image of a silver horse became a whirlwind willy-willy of snow — something that could not be caught with a lasso, or hit with a whip.
The willy-willy died down, and there was the Silver Horse again.
‘Good God,’ the Brumby Hunter swore, ‘am I chasing a horse or a ghost?’ and just then Socks knocked him flat again. But Socks and Lightning and the Silver Brumby thought it was now time to go, taking the whip with them.
This time T
howra led them round the North Ramshead and over the rock tors of the Ramshead Range. They chased the Brumby Hunter’s horse off, and could hear him calling it! Socks was amused. He looked back once and saw the Brumby Hunter on his feet, running after Lightning, calling him to come, because he badly wanted his whip. Thowra looked back, too — with a gleam in his eye. The Brumby Hunter was not accustomed to walking, but his horse was standing fairly close, waiting to be caught.
Thowra headed into the granite tor country that he knew so well, and that Socks knew, too, so Socks was happy. Only Lightning was missing Miss Dingo. She had been with them on their last visit, and he kept thinking he should see her, kept thinking he should hear her.
Somehow he was sure she was close. The wind swirled the snow around and a dingo howl came, carried and twisted by a willy-willy, and echoing in the rocks.
Suddenly Lightning barked. He felt he had to let Miss Dingo know where he was and he barked again.
The wind dropped for a moment, and in the eerie silence moonlight came through the falling snow, making the lunar landscape of the Ramshead tors more ghostly still. A dingo howl sounded from fairly close, yet it was as if it rolled round a rocky cavern. Lightning barked again. He was certain that Miss Dingo had come to find him. He even hurried ahead of Thowra, going straight for the opening of the cave where he and Socks had hidden before.
There, in the opening, he saw Miss Dingo who was making excited greeting noises. She had left the older pups with the job of looking after the younger ones while she was away, and asked one of her friends to look in on them now and again. She had learnt from the death of her male pup that it was no longer safe to leave her youngest puppies alone.
Lightning bounded forward, Socks close behind, Thowra, too, and as they all squeezed into the cave in the rocks, Lightning licked all around Miss Dingo’s face.
After a while, Thowra went out to see if there were any signs of the Brumby Hunter, though he knew that his tracks and Socks’s would be snowed over or blown away in the wind.
Socks went out with him and they both stood there staring through the falling snow. Suddenly they saw the shadowy horseman coming slowly along, his horse’s shoes balling up and then the balls of snow breaking down on one hoof so that it trod unevenly.
Thowra crept round the back of the rocks that hid their cave, and then through a rock passage that led out in front of the Brumby Hunter — there he reared up and danced around on his hind legs, half-hidden by falling snow.
The Brumby Hunter’s dog barked. The Brumby Hunter reined in and sat staring at the Silver Horse dancing in the snowflakes.
Ghost or horse? Ghost or horse? The apparition vanished. Even the watchers from the cave could no longer see it, but presently Thowra crept into the cave from a back way.
Eight
Thowra knew it was the start of what was going to be a very heavy winter, and he thought that they should all get going for lower country immediately — not wait for daylight as a big dump of snow might come in the night — so he nudged Socks and nipped Lightning on the ear and led them off into the blizzard.
Thowra found ways through the bush that neither Socks nor Lightning had ever known, and they, with Miss Dingo, followed with implicit trust in that great silver horse.
Both Socks and Lightning still felt that somehow they had been given some of Thowra’s strength and power — some of his magic — when they followed him up the waterfall from the tunnel that led from the Secret Valley. It was as if they, too, possessed magic that would take them safely through the mountains — safely through blizzard and tornado, through flood and fire, and over a frozen land.
Sheet-ice might be beneath their hooves and feet, and there would always be the sound of slithering and sliding, but the magic touch of Thowra would give them strength and balance and speed to cope with all dangers. Feeling this strength, like a gift of magic, Socks and Lightning went on with the Silver Brumby through the half-moonlit, snowy night, and Miss Dingo trotted happily along beside Lightning, asking no more than to be with him again and heading back towards the hollow tree on the Ingegoodbee River and the pups that were waiting for her.
They crossed three creeks before those creeks come together, above the waterfall, to make the big body of water which they could hear crashing below. Were they going to jump into the waterfall and go down that way? If so, how would Miss Dingo manage? Then they were there beside the spray that flew up and all around them.
This was the place where Thowra had hurled himself down, becoming part of the water, part of the spray — a shining silver horse. Lightning and Socks had hurled themselves down, too — somehow filled with the courage and magic of the Silver Brumby.
Would this magic still work?
What about Miss Dingo?
But Thowra was thinking of her, too. He took her by the scruff of her neck, walked a few steps into the spray, then sprang into the centre of the fall.
Lightning watched, horrified for a moment and then became completely trusting as he saw Thowra’s head above the falling water and the little dingo held above the turbulent stream.
They bobbed up and down a few times, but mostly Thowra held Miss Dingo above water. Lightning and Socks kept up with them because they were anxious for Miss Dingo, but, even though anxious, there was certainty of her safety with Thowra. Soon they were all standing together below the waterfall. Thowra was helping Lightning to lick Miss Dingo dry.
There was still the long, dark tunnel to get through, but Miss Dingo would see better in the dark than Lightning or Socks, Socks thought, and realised he did not much like the limestone passage himself.
As Thowra started to move towards the tunnel, Lightning got closer to Miss Dingo.
‘It’s time,’ Socks thought, and found himself wishing that he and Miss Dingo could soon be at the hollow tree on the Ingegoodbee, all warm and snug with the pups.
Thowra looked around once and then began to walk towards the tunnel. He tugged Miss Dingo’s ear to tell her to follow.
The last Socks saw of Thowra, Miss Dingo and Lightning, they were going into the dark tunnel through a curtain of half-lit snowflakes, Miss Dingo right beside the Silver Brumby, and his beloved Lightning beside her.
Then Socks went into the dark himself, and when his eyes got used to the gloom, all he could see was the faint shape of a silver horse and the blur of Miss Dingo. His blue-black Lightning was invisible.
He knew the Secret Valley was ahead, beyond the end of the tunnel that was masked by the grevillea bush. As he followed Thowra, Miss Wild Echoes Ringing Dingo and Lightning round the grevillea bush, Socks could see that snow was barely falling, just a few big rose-petal flakes, and through those flakes, he could see Boon Boon waiting for them, and dear Son of Storm.
Nine
Snow was falling thickly the next morning. Thowra had felt quite rightly that it was the start of a heavy winter. Now Socks thought he and Lightning and Miss Dingo should make for home. The hollow tree on the Ingegoodbee was perhaps low enough not to get too much snow. Anyway, Lightning and the pups would catch rabbits even if there were snow — they had done it before.
So that morning Thowra, knowing they should go, came to see them off round the cliff into Son of Storm’s valley.
A robin redbreast flew along ahead of them, round the cliff, scarlet breast against the snow, it flitted from rock to rock, bush to bush. Once it sang for them — the robin’s song of winter which said, ‘Happiness, Happiness’. They edged around a swamp. A few dried flower heads of candle heath stood up out of the snow, and the robin balanced on one. Socks crept along the track, watching the robin, occasionally giving a little whinny of encouragement to Miss Dingo.
Miss Dingo did not really need any encouragement at all. She knew they were headed for home and it made her think about how much she missed that dog pup, who had been mauled by the Brumby Hunter’s dog. She knew how empty the hollow tree was without him. She had not wanted to stay in the nice warm cave in Thowra’s Valley, but had longe
d to get home, particularly as the snow falling more heavily made travelling difficult. Somehow, subconsciously, she still expected to find her dog pup.
They found the valley of the Cascades full of snow, and that made Socks hurry even more. The three travellers kept close together, even closer when they saw a strange dingo, and when they heard the swiftly repeated staccato bark of a giant glider possum.
Socks knew all the bush birds and animals very well, knew their voices and habits, but even he was disconcerted when he saw an owl sitting beside the Ingegoodbee Pools.
It did not seem to have seen the three travellers, and all of a sudden it gave a call — ‘Mopoke! Mopoke!’ — and another owl answered from some distance off, ‘Beware winter! Beware winter!’
Socks stood quite still, thinking. It is true what the owl says. ‘Beware winter!’
The snow started to fall more heavily. Thowra knew it was going to be a heavy winter. Son of Storm knew it, too. Poor Miss Dingo was going to miss her dog pup even more in the long, dark days ahead.
Socks watched the mopoke take off towards Rawson’s Flat. He would not hear that call again till spring and mating time, but before that he might hear the bronze cuckoo’s mournful whistle, just like Lightning’s master’s whistle. He started on towards the hollow tree, thinking of the mopoke and the old dead stockman and Lightning.
Darkness came in and no promise of moonlight shining through falling flakes. The hollow tree stood out above the river and Socks walked towards it, watching Lightning and Miss Dingo walking together. The other pups came out to greet them. Miss Dingo was pleased to see them, but she obviously felt that the one who was missing should have been there.
When they went into the hollow, there was the round nest that the dog pup had made himself, and in which he had always slept — but no dog pup came, however much Miss Dingo expected him to appear. She went over to the nest and howled once, then came back to the other pups and Lightning.