He was so glad to be back in his own particular country that he might have forgotten his feeling of foreboding about Bel Bel if he had not, very soon after climbing up above the Dead Horse hut, seen one single hoofmark that he knew to be hers. Even so, he did not really go seeking her, feeling that if he visited all his old haunts he would surely find her. So he climbed up the Range, stepping gaily up the steep lane-ways of snowgrass between the tors and then climbing from rock to rock in the tors themselves, to some high rock from which he could survey miles of the lovely country. And his coat shone, in spite of getting thick for winter, and his muscles rippled beneath it.
Everything he saw, every cliff and crag, every rock or grassy glade, he knew of old, and yet he saw them now with a new intensity. He had trained himself never to forget any feature of the country through which he went, and now each tor, each weathered rock, was stamped on his memory like a photograph, and if he had to gallop through that photograph — escaping from either man or horse — he knew exactly where he could place each hard, strong hoof, exactly where he could leap, exactly where he could twist and turn.
All the world was very quiet, high up there on the Range. It was rarely that any other horses, except Storm and his herd, ever came as high, and most animals were already heading lower, anyway, before the snow came.
They saw dingoes, and occasionally a red fox, his pelt thick and good for winter, would show up against the grey-green grass. Thowra noticed how busy the scurrying insects were, from the tiny ants to the great bright blue and red mountain grasshoppers — but he, too, knew that it was going to be a heavy winter. A great deal of snow would fall to cover the bones of an old creamy mare if she chose to die up there among the high-lifted peaks of the Range.
Though the sun was shining, the first day they were up on the Range, a faint, milky haze was spreading over the sky the next morning. Already there was the winter hush of expectancy in the air.
Thowra had still not found Bel Bel, so he headed up yet higher, that second day, leading his herd through the chill dawn. The quietness was intense, there was no bird call, no rustle of leaves, and up there, not even the sound of a creek. Nothing moved except the silent-footed herd.
Into this still, quiet world, through an opening in the rocks, high above and to one side, burst Bel Bel, galloping for her life.
In a flash, Thowra knew that a man, or men, were after her and that she had taken that particular very rough way through the Ramsheads, hoping that she would not lead her hunter to himself.
Quickly, Thowra and his herd made themselves invisible among rocks, and from his hiding-place Thowra watched. He could only see one man, on a big chestnut horse, a well-bred-looking horse, and Bel Bel — Bel Bel galloping like the old mare she was, tired and not so nimble, depending on her own cunning and courage, rather than on her speed.
Then Thowra did something that no wild horse could be expected to do and which all the stockmen for ever afterwards spoke of as just another example of the mysteriousness of Thowra — he left his hidden mares and went off swiftly and silently on a line that would take him just below Bel Bel. He aimed to reach a certain clear snowgrass platform among the rocks before she did.
In the centre of this clear snowgrass, when he knew the man on his galloping chestnut would be able to see him clearly, he reared up and screamed the wild, triumphant scream of a stallion glorying in his own strength.
The man pulled up his horse on its haunches and stared at the gleaming stallion. Then, just as Thowra knew he would, he forgot Bel Bel, dug his spurs into the chestnut’s flanks, and went after him at racing speed.
Thowra switched round and led him right away from Bel Bel — and away from Golden and his own mares, too.
Perhaps that stockman had recognized Bel Bel as the mother of Thowra, but he could not have hoped that Thowra would try to save her as he had, because no man would have believed — till then — that a full-grown brumby stallion would remember his mother. Quite certainly that stockman would not have expected Thowra to draw him off and then lead him such a terrifying gallop as could only have been devised by the most cunning of minds.
Thowra was enjoying himself. This rock and snowgrass world was his world. Not far from here was the great granite overhang under which he had been born. This was the country Bel Bel and Mirri had loved so much, the country in which he and Storm had romped as foals, and later, as irresponsible young colts.
How well he knew it all, the wild, high land, where wedge-tail eagles planed overhead, and dingoes howled to the moon at night, where a silver stallion could leap from rock to rock right to the top of a granite tor, and scream his defiance at the pursuing man.
So Thowra raced ahead of the man — and mocked him — as he had raced with Arrow and mocked him. Up and down the ribbon lanes of snowgrass that lay between the tors, he went leaping through tumbled rocks, or up and up a tor, jumping from block to block. And Bel Bel, who had stopped to watch, saw her son, as she had once known she would, galloping free and wild, with his silver mane and tail foaming in the cold sunlight, like the spray of a gleaming waterfall. She saw him in all his perfection, poised on the top of a tor, noble cream head thrown up, as his defiant cry rang out, a great strong-shouldered, deep-chested stallion, not a fault in him, not in his powerful quarters, nor his strong, clean legs; a silver horse against the sky, free and wild, never marked by saddle, or girth, or spur, his speed never checked by a bit.
For a while she lost sight of them, but after some minutes she saw Thowra galloping along a narrow, rocky ledge below the South Ramshead, then along a ridge against the skyline, mane and tail streaming out like spun silver.
Bel Bel trotted across the mountainside. She lost sight of them again and, tired out, thought she would make towards the sandy cave where she had put her cream foal to shelter from the storm, long ago. On and on she trotted until suddenly, as she was getting near the cave, she heard the thundering of hooves. Quickly she hid herself in among some rocks. Outlined against the milky clouds was the great overhang of granite under which Thowra had been born.
As she watched, Thowra, all cream and silver strength, cleft the air above that granite rock, leapt, and landed twelve feet below, on soft snowgrass that had been his first bed, barely checked, and went galloping on.
Bel Bel saw the man on the rock’s edge, trying to pull his horse back on its haunches and stop, but his speed was too great. The chestnut hurtled over, pecked badly on landing. The man somersaulted off and the horse went madly on. Stirrups flapping, reins trailing, he vanished into the trees below.
The man lay still for a while and then got slowly to his feet and started down the mountain. Bel Bel moved towards the cave, making no sound, leaving no track, and feeling supremely happy. The winter snows would come now, to cover the bones of an old mare. She had seen Thowra as she had always known he would be — a king of mountain horses.
Thowra searched all day
The winter snows came in a wild and tremendous blizzard. Thowra knew the storm was coming and he moved his herd down to his end of the Cascades.
As he led them through the wind-moving snowgums — hearing the continual tree murmur, the word of a storm coming — he thought that this might be as heavy a winter as the one when he was a foal, and Yarraman had had to take his herd farther south. If he, Thowra, had to go south for grazing country, he would have trouble with The Brolga. Bel Bel’s warning was still strong in his mind. He must not fight The Brolga till next spring, so, when he had to go lower, he took them down into the Western foothills, finding little patches of grass country.
It was an unusual winter. Snow fell deeply, in almost every storm, but on the lower levels, it was often followed by warm rain that melted the snow, and all the foothills were filled with the sound of roaring streams. Up on the Range, snow lay thick and white, drifting across the mouth of the cave, covering in a blanket the place where Thowra had been born.
Thowra had expected Golden’s owner to come looking for her when the sno
w kept the wild horses low in the mountains, but as the rivers rose and stayed high because of frequent rain, he knew there were uncrossable barriers on every side — either rivers in flood, or deep snow. He remembered the story of the four people with long narrow boards on their feet that carried them over the snow, but these people had come so long ago . . . and Golden’s stockman had not looked as if he could even walk far; perhaps he could only ride a horse. Untroubled, Thowra found plenty of patches of grazing country for his hungry herd over towards the stockman’s track from Groggin to the Dead Horse hut.
For months the great winds of winter blew, the rivers roared, the snow fell in silent flakes. Trees, bowed with the white blanket, sometimes snapped and broke in the night. The Black cockatoos flew crying through the mountain ash forests and up where the snowgums beat and twisted in the wind.
Once, when the snow was packed hard by the wind, Thowra left his herd and went up and up into that great world of white, where even the rocks were plastered with glittering ice patterns, and the leaves on the snowgum branches were encased in ice so that they rang together, as the wind blew, and played wild music to which a silver stallion could dance on the snow.
Golden had wanted to go with him but he had refused fiercely to take her. He knew that she was getting restless — but, after all, had not Bel Bel and Mirri always got restless and gone off from the herd before their foals were born?
All the same he did begin to worry about the way she had started to wander; for he knew she was not sufficiently bush-wise to be alone — also she was too beautiful, and his greatest prize.
Thowra knew he would not be able to bear to let her be far from the herd, or far from him. He had still no understanding of how Golden was often torn between all the training and security of her former life, and the freedom of the wild life with him. Nor did he understand that, as the time for the birth of her first foal drew close, Golden began to think of her old master and his kindness of the food he had given her, and the safety of yards and well-grassed paddocks.
Gradually the long, roaring blizzards of winter, the wailing winds, and the short days, the bright frosts, and the bitter cold, changed to the swift-swinging spring storms, a hotter sun, and daylight remaining longer on the hills. The sky, on a fine day, was a deeper colour, and no longer had that glass-blue, brittle look. There was the first faint upthrust of growth on grass and shrub, the first soft, scent-laden breeze from the lower slopes. It was getting near the time for the young animals to be born. Two little dun-coloured foals arrived. Then one morning Golden had gone.
Thowra called the rest of his herd together and led them off on her tracks — amazed and pleased to find how little track she had left. She had not got the printless hooves of Bel Bel, but she had learnt her lessons in bush wisdom better than he thought.
Golden was heading for the high country, and after a while her track led them on to the stock route to Dead Horse hut. Then Thowra saw the clear spoor of two shod horses and, in sudden, unbelieving panic, knew this spoor was a little older than Golden’s. The men were ahead of her and she was following them.
He hardly stopped to wonder how the men had crossed the deep, rushing snow-waters in the river. He could not know that this year Golden’s owner had left horses in a paddock on the mountain side of the river and that the men had constructed little wire bridges over which they could walk. Golden’s master had got across on foot to his horses and come out to the mountains earlier than ever before.
The little foals made the herd’s pace slow. At last, Thowra became so disturbed that he decided to hide his mares right off the track and go on quickly to find her.
Soon after he had left them it began to rain very hard, and in a short time all tracks were washed away — even the spoor of the shod horses. No scent lingered either. By the time that Thowra, dripping wet and muddy, was near Dead Horse hut, he knew that Golden could have left the track in many places, and he set out to try and find her near the hut.
There was no sign of her, no sign at all, and, when he got too close to the hut, both the man’s stock horse and pack-horse neighed wildly and raced in excitement. Twice, Thowra saw the man come to the door, but probably the driving rain kept him from coming farther.
Thowra searched all day, taking care not to go so close to the tame horses again, but never a track nor a sign of Golden did he find.
After midday he went back down the stock route, looking for her on either side. Just at evening, the rain stopped and a queer mixture of watery blue and pink appeared in the grey sky. The track still ran like a little creek, the bush dripped dismally and there was no trace of Golden. Thowra was feeling both worried and miserable when he went back to Dead Horse Gap.
All through the night he searched near the hut. Once he felt sure that Golden’s scent came to him on the light breeze, but though he went in the direction from which it came, he found nothing. Every time he got near the yards the other horses neighed, and he knew the man came out several times to see what was upsetting them.
At last dawn broke and as the light came Thowra was standing, hidden by trees, on a little knoll not far from the hut. Suddenly he was sure he heard a faint, nickering whinny. The man came out of the hut and stood looking up the Dead Horse Ridge. Then Thowra saw a movement in the trees above the hut.
In a tiny clearing he could just make out Golden standing with a little cream foal at her feet.
The whinny sounded again — this time he was sure of it. He saw the man walk slowly and quietly towards Golden. Then Thowra could keep silent no longer. He threw up his head and gave the great cry of a stallion to his mate.
The man hesitated once and then kept walking slowly forward, extended his hand towards the lovely cream mare. Thowra watched in bitter silence. The man drew closer and finally put his hand on Golden’s neck, petting and stroking her. Golden seemed to be nuzzling him with her soft nose. Then she bent and nuzzled the foal as though showing it off, and the man bent down to it but did not touch it. Presently she nosed the foal on to its trembling legs.
As the man put his arm round her neck and started leading her towards the hut, Thowra gave another despairing cry. Golden raised her head and looked once in his direction, and then let herself be led on by her old master, the little foal wobbling beside her.
In the greatest anguish, Thowra saw her go with the man into the high-fenced yard in which she had been that first night, and heard her grateful whinnying as the man came out of the hut with a tin of food.
Thowra took one long look at the lovely mare with her foal — his foal — and went off quickly, silently back to the herd. Through the bush he went, a proud-stepping, beautiful stallion, in the prime of his life, cream and silver, dappled by light and shade as pale shafts of sunlight from the cloudy sky fell on to him through the grey-green gum leaves.
He found the herd where he had left it, the mares rather troubled at the length of time he had been away — and astounded when he told them what he had seen. But at the end of his story, Boon Boon nodded wisely and said:
‘She might want to go to her old master out of care for herself and her new-born foal, but she’ll want to come back in a very few days. Let us find some grazing on a sunny slope not too far from the Gap, and you can go back and see.’
Thowra nodded, but all he could think of was the high fence. Aloud he said:
‘She might be able to jump out again, but she’ll never leave her foal.’
Realizing that the man knew he was about and that he would be trying to get Golden again, Thowra understood that his usual great care to leave no trail must be doubled. But he could not bear to stay away from the hut for long in case the man tried to lead Golden and her foal straight to the lower country.
He found some better grazing for his herd, lower down, because he felt sure bad weather was coming, and facing the sun so that the grass was already getting its spring sweetness.
At dark he went back to the hut. Golden was still in the yard. He did not go up to the fence,
but simply waited until morning to see if the man was making preparations for going out of the mountains.
The man only caught his stock horse, not the pack, and Thowra saw him fix a lasso to his saddle. So that was the day’s plan — a hunt for the silver stallion! Thowra knew that he must now really act like a ghost horse. He moved away, leaving no trace to tell that he had ever been there.
Each night he went back, hoping Golden would show some sign of wanting to escape, but Golden only noticed her foal or, when the man appeared, showed gratitude to him for food and water. Her coat was beginning to shine; the foal was getting stronger.
Then, out of a fair and sunny afternoon, the black clouds began to roll up with speed and force. Thowra went up to the hut to see what was happening. Would the man forget he wanted to catch the silver brumby and take his mare and foal and race the storm to the lowlands?
But the storm was going to race everyone. A lashing wind was already bringing snow, when Thowra hid himself in the trees above the Gap and watched. The man came on his horse, hurrying down from the direction of Bob’s Ridge where he must have been watching for him. Suddenly great swirls of snow almost blotted him from sight. The wind began to roar through the Gap, and the sound of it in the trees higher up was ugly, menacing.
Thowra shivered. This was going to be a bad storm. He saw the man stand looking in the wind direction, saw him glance back to Golden and the foal who were racing nervously round the little yard. Then the man walked over to the yard and turned Golden and the foal through the gate into the horse paddock where there was shelter.
All at once, the noise of the storm filled the air completely. It was as if nothing was left but its enormous roar, for the wild-driven snow hit the ground and the groaning trees hid all the world, blotted out everything but the immense noise.