Then anger began to rise up inside her. Of course she could protect him with all her strength, and as she thought of it, her trembling with fear turned to a furious shaking with anger.
She began to lead Choopa off across the hillside, through the darkness and the fog. She did not know in which direction Son of Storm had vanished. Just as she was trying to feel his whereabouts, his neigh rang out from further across the side of the ridge and a man loomed up in the fog, right beside Choopa.
Dandaloo’s nose and teeth and shoulder crashed into a body; she pivoted around and kicked furiously with her hind legs, before the man had time to steady himself. Knowing she had knocked him down, she called Choopa, and as he heard her call, Choopa saw, Dancing Brumby through the mist, a hand grabbing at him, then he propelled himself forward in one huge leap and he and his mother galloped towards Son of Storm’s call, Choopa stumbling but not falling over.
They both saw Son of Storm as they burst out of the mist into faintly starlit night.
Dandaloo seemed to fling herself towards the big brown stallion. Then she stopped and waited for Choopa, and Choopa hurried on, feeling as if the man were at his heels, feeling that Dandaloo was the most important thing in all of life and that he must reach her before the man’s hand grabbed him out of the mist. Then he did fall. He fell in a gasping bundle beside Dandaloo.
It took a moment for him to gulp in his breath and pick himself up and, at the same time, he looked back to see if the man’s hand was stretching out towards him, but all he could see was the mist and the dark of the night. There was no sound either, except the dirge of a plover, down the river.
The plover’s cry evoked some deep sadness in the little foal, as though he were longing for everything which he did not have … a noble head that was not too big for his body, perfect legs made for galloping, a smooth, blue roan hide with no strange, white blotches, a deep girth for lung power.
He was there, leaning against his mother, beside Son of Storm. Presently they would lead him off towards the Cascades, but Dandaloo was gently nuzzling his ears as if he were the most valuable thing in the whole world.
Wingilla and Bri Bri had gone ahead, but Son of Storm had waited to help Dandaloo protect her miniature foal. Son of Storm knew that, even though Choopa had barely grown at all, in his self the little colt had developed a force — the power of the wind and the falling snow. Son of Storm had understood Dandaloo’s wish to take Choopa right into the brilliant waters of those lakes.
They joined Wingilla and Bri Bri in a thick clump of trees, and went on slowly together, hoping to find the Cascade herd by morning.
As daylight came slanting through the misty bush, haloed in shining gold, as though part of a miracle there came the little tribe of bush animals — even a pair of slightly breathless wombats. Choopa was filled with joy to see them all. Life was safe. Surely his circle of animals would create a spell to frighten away any hands that came through the mist — frighten away the mist itself.
Young Wombats Warmed him in the Snow
‘The mother is very old.’ A man’s voice filled the hut and was carried up the chimney with the smoke and sparks from the fire. ‘I tell you that the crippled foal will never survive the heavy winter that’s coming.’
There was a long silence while flakes of snow sizzled as they fell into the open fire and against the window. Then the man’s voice went on:
‘I’m going to try to catch that foal before the really heavy snow sets in.’
‘Why?’ Another voice broke the silence.
‘Well, why’ve you come out?’
‘Just because I was curious as to whether it was still surviving. It’s a game little bugger.’
‘Well if I catch it and take it home, it will survive.’
No words sounded for a while, nothing to cover the whisper and patter of the falling snow.
At last the quiet voice said: ‘I’d leave it with its old mother,’ and somehow the idea of the old blue roan entered the hut. The wind was rising and it cried around the slab corners, the snow gathered against the windows, and an old mare seemed to be in the shadows.
Snow stuck to the rough-barked trees in the bush, slid off the smooth-barked snow gums, slid off leaves, until so much snow had fallen that it built up on twigs and branches. In the dark, the possums, the wombats, and the dingoes and kangaroos saw the steady blanketing of the bush. All the animals and the birds knew that it was the start of a heavy winter.
Dandaloo had seen many winters, and she knew, too, that this one would bring a lot of snow. Relating everything, as she did, to how it would affect her efforts to protect Choopa, she wondered how a foal that was barely tall enough to reach up to her flank would ever struggle through deep snow.
When morning came and the snow had begun to beat on the wind, pellets stinging their hides, Dandaloo thought that perhaps she should try to take Choopa to Baringa’s secret canyon. Surely it dropped down into lower country where the snow might not get so deep. But if a lot of snow fell at Quambat Flat, it might fall deeply there, too, and anyway, was it already too late? A shiver travelled all down Dandaloo’s spine. Somehow she must protect her ‘little lizard’. That morning, before half-light, while the snow poured down, she knew that she would have to wait till this first heavy fall thawed before she could think of trying to make for lower country. Anyway, one could get caught by that canyon of Baringa’s having its escape routes blocked by deep drifts.
When there was sufficient light for the foals of the Quambat herd to see how the world had been transformed, they were uneasy and quite frightened by the white world surrounding them. Choopa and Bri Bri were the only ones of the young foals who knew what they were looking at, for they had experienced that blizzard in the high country, but they were keyed up and nervous too.
Choopa moved out from under the sheltering trees, and stood gazing. The wind was stronger at that moment, blowing a great cloud of snow, and the cloud and the wind gathered up the other foals and drove them towards Choopa. He stood paralysed. Fear engulfed him as the mob of young foals galloped straight at him, sweeping him along, the leaders beating a wide track.
For once Dandaloo had not been watching him, and as the mob — galloping hooves soundless on the snow — seemed to vanish in the white, whirling mass, she realised she had lost sight of him, and did not know where he had gone. She had no idea that he had been hurtled along by the mob, and their track was already obliterated by the huge cloud of cold, wind-blown snow.
Choopa felt his legs beginning to give way, but he made an immense effort to keep going with the others. He knew that if he tried to stop, he would be knocked over and trampled by the madly galloping foals. He could feel himself falling in his imagination, but he kept on his feet and kept moving and, because he was moving along with them, the foals seemed to part around him, pushing him but not knocking him over.
The trees through which they were going were becoming thicker so that the mob had to dodge and turn, and twist this way and that. Tree trunks loomed, branches whipped faces, eyes.
Choopa, sobbing for breath, was going far too fast to be able to control his direction. Snow beat in his eyes and into his open, gasping mouth.
He must not fall, he must not fall, he must keep going. He saw his own short, blue legs trying to stretch out in front of him, but swinging to the sides. Surely the foals would not crash into him … but he could feel their mad fear, and in this beating snow and the roaring wind, they might do anything at all. Choopa was afraid of the wind too, but not of the snow. He was much more afraid of the wildfire terror — mob terror — burning in the foals.
Most of these foals had, at some time, formed the circle around Choopa and would not wish to hurt him, but all of them together — and mad with fear — were entirely different.
Choopa tried so hard to keep up with them, then all of a sudden his legs were giving way. He was falling, too tired to somersault. He saw a snow-dusted stone sticking up out of the white-carpeted earth that was raci
ng up to meet his face. The stone was the last thing he remembered seeing, and he remembered fear as he knew his head was going to hit it. Actually, the last thing he felt was hooves — hard hooves galloping over his rump, his back, his shoulders, withers, neck. Perhaps he squealed with fright and pain. He did not remember. There was nothing for a while, and he was intensely alone. The snow was cold beneath him, and as it fell on to his bruised, blue hide. He tried moving, but he was too sore. His head ached and throbbed. His body ached all over.
Cold … cold … He was cold and very sore. After a while he slept or fainted.
Something warm and furry crept up to his face, then another nestled up to his shoulder. He forced one bruised eyelid to open, so that he could see a blurred shape. He could just see one of the young wombats. It seemed to give a deep sigh as it saw Choopa’s eye open a bit wider. The wombat plodded forward to rub gently against his head, then two wombats lay together along his neck and withers, and a little warmth crept through him. Somewhere he could hear Dandaloo calling … perhaps he imagined her call … and the snow poured down, covering all tracks, blanketing the world, covering his body and covering the wombats.
Dandaloo’s call really did sound, and he knew he must answer. The sound he managed to make was barely a sound at all, and the falling snow deadened it. Then Dandaloo’s call sounded again, and this time he raised his head just enough to throw a weak neigh into the blizzard.
The wombats listened for Dandaloo’s reply, then one rubbed against Choopa’s face, brushing off the snow, and they both nestled into his neck.
Choopa could feel their warm bodies, and he succeeded in raising his head even more than before, to send a stronger neigh that Dandaloo could surely hear.
A branch cracked, not very far away. Choopa called again, and expected to hear his mother coming, but there was no other sound. Soft snow falling, and lying in a soft blanket all over the ground, made a quiet world except for the rush and roar of the wind.
Then all of a sudden Dandaloo was hurrying through the blizzard, floundering where snow was being blown into deep drifts, brushing snow off branches that were weighed down with it. Choopa heard her gasping for breath before he saw the beloved old blue mare. Then he saw her through the curtain of snow — really saw her, not just as the dream which he had been dreaming.
He had been so longing for her to come to find him that he succeeded in half rising up, in spite of his head spinning, and a terrible dizziness, so that he collapsed back on to the snow.
Dandaloo saw him quite unable to get up, and made a queer sound of misery, then she sprang through the last few feet of snow that separated her from her dwarf foal. She was there, right beside him, running her nose over his head — feeling the lump on his forehead where he had hit the stone — then gently touching all his body, pushing away his covering of cold snow, and snuffling her gratitude at the wombats, too.
No sharp stab of pain went through him, as her nose travelled all over him. Dandaloo knew then, even Choopa knew, that he had no broken bones — that his inability to get up was because of his swimming head. It was quite clear that although his legs were undamaged, he could not stand up, so Dandaloo nudged the little wombats up on to his neck and withers again, and she herself lay down behind him, cradling him with her legs as she had done so often before. She would keep him warm, but instinctively she knew that he must not go into a deep sleep.
The brumby-hunters’ hut was about ten miles away, and lower, where the snow had not yet fallen so thickly, and did not lie so deeply on the ground. The men had saddled up and ridden out once, but had found the going pretty heavy, so they had returned, thrown more logs on the fire, and hung the billy above the flames to make the tea.
‘I’ll try to catch that foal, when this storm is over,’ one man’s voice said. ‘I tell you this will be a heavy winter and the foal may not survive.’
‘Let him be with his mother,’ the Quiet Man said.
The snow did not cease to fall, and when their food began to run out, the men rode out of the mountains.
The Quiet Man was worried. He kept seeing a picture in his mind of the fireball, and the tiny blue roan foal seeming to wear a cap of St Elmo’s fire.
One man did not say that he was going to load up a packhorse with food and blankets and go back into the mountains.
Danger from the Never-Ceasing Snow
Most of the brumbies from the Quambat Flat area kept working their way continually downwards as the snowline became lower and lower, and further south. There was still good grazing to be found in spite of the almost ceaseless snowfalls. Dandaloo and Wingilla, with their foals, roamed about together, seeking grass. One evening Son of Storm and a few more mares and foals — heralded by a big flock of currawongs — arrived to join them.
The wind was talking in the ridges above when Son of Storm and the others came trotting into the frost hollow where Dandaloo and Wingilla were grazing. There was enough grass and shrubs for all of them for a few days and the mares were pleased to have Son of Storm’s company and perhaps his protection — though really there was nothing to fear in that blizzardy weather and freezing wind, except hunger. Yet Dandaloo kept feeling that she had something to fear for Choopa — some violence, not just the slow creeping death of starvation …
They all grazed till dark that night, and then slept close together beneath sheltering, low branches of black sallees. They awoke to an entirely different world.
Slowly, softly, insistently, all through the dark night, snow had fallen in thick curtains of flakes. All the clear green hollow was covered in white snow. The grass had vanished, the shrubs were bowed down and buried.
Each one woke, got up and looked around, shaking the snow off their coats. Then Son of Storm and Dandaloo gathered the small mob together and began urging them southwards, feeling that there must be less snow lower down. The wind was crying and howling in the rocks of the higher peaks, an icy, killing wind, and the snow fell in a thicker and thicker pall.
Cloud and snow bore in on them, matted their eyelashes. Some of them tried digging for the grass that lay underneath, but Son of Storm and Dandaloo urged them on, knowing they had to get out of the snow before it became too deep, and while their hooves made a track that Choopa could follow. Dandaloo knew that brumbies had died in heavy snow years, that even foals far bigger than Choopa failed to get through it, and lay down in the soft white snow and slept … and died.
The blizzard became denser. They could not see at all. Dandaloo grew very nervous as they went further and further on, through the unknown country which they could not see. Even though not one landmark was visible, Dandaloo began to feel more and more strongly that she had been near this place before.
Then suddenly, even when there was no sign of stockyards, she knew they were there, to one side of the long valley down which they were ploughing their way. This was where the men had driven her, with the other brumbies, before the Quiet Man let her go. Now it was all under snow … but she should never have come back here, and Choopa should not be here at all.
She stopped still, but Son of Storm urged her on into the swirling, stinging snow clouds. On they went in those clouds in which there was nothing — just a vast whiteness that moved with the wind. Sometimes the entire world swayed or went round, but mostly the wind was a roaring force which could grab at Choopa, knocking him over.
Choopa was afraid. He struggled up on to his feet.
Occasionally they knew, just in time, that they were going to walk into a snow-covered tree and they would change direction slightly, but always went back onto the line that should take them out of the snow — if they could keep going.
The wind veered briefly, and on that whirl of air came a terrifying smell.
Once more Dandaloo stopped absolutely still, shaking, then the smell was borne away on the wind, but just for that second it had brought to Dandaloo the memory of the rough touch of stockyard rails against her hide, the sound of voices, the burning rasp of a rope, the bite o
f a whip.
Suddenly there was a voice, and a dog barking — the bark coming closer, stronger, definitely telling that they were near. In the wild blizzard there was a shadow dog bounding in the snow — just a shadow, then gone. Suddenly it was more than a shadow, snapping at Choopa’s heels.
A voice called. The dog barked again. Dandaloo urged Choopa to go even faster, but he was already tired from forcing his short legs onwards in the deep snow, and he could not push himself any faster.
The dog bounded again after the little foal and Choopa, having never had to fight a dog off, did not know how to, but it was instinct, when the heeler got hold of one fetlock, to kick him off with all the strength he could gather up.
Again there was a voice, again a veering wind brought the scent of wood smoke.
Dandaloo could not go for the dog herself and call Choopa away, all at the same time. She called Choopa.
It was Son of Storm who was suddenly rearing up — a massive, dark stallion towering up in the cloud and blowing snow.
Son of Storm saw the man and the dog for a brief, clouded-over second, closer, far closer than he had expected, and he crashed his front hooves down, hitting the man a glancing blow. Then the man and the dog vanished in the wind-driven cloud and thick, white flakes.
Dandaloo heard that voice call, but she hurried Choopa along — her mind whirling with the snow. Danger was where there were men, men with their dogs, and fences, and fires, and smoke, but the snowflakes coated her and deepened the covering with every moment, and the deepest danger of all was the never-ceasing snow … and starvation. Without grass or the bushes that bore seed pods, they would all freeze, fade to nothing and die.
Choopa must not die.