When Thowra made to jump up on a large rocky outcrop, Bel Bel nipped him and pushed him back.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ she said, ‘making yourself a clear mark for anyone to see! Keep in the trees and keep quiet.’
Sometimes they stopped to listen, but for a while there was no sound except that of a kurrawong and the chatter of gang gangs in the trees. Then, during one such stop, they heard a faint sound of movement, so faint that no one except those who lived in the bush would have heard it, and they knew it was something wild like themselves. Presently three silver-grey kangaroos went hopping by.
Thowra and Storm were delighted to see them, but both Bel Bel and Mirri looked worried. Not long afterwards, they saw four young colts making up the hill too.
They came to a small clear stream where the foals wanted to play.
‘Have a drink, but not too much, and come on,’ said Bel Bel. Three black cockatoos flew out of the trees by the water, with their weird, wild crying, and the foals jumped back, startled.
Mirri looked back fearfully.
‘Something’s happening, I’m sure,’ she muttered.
Even a gust of wind rustling the shiny leaves made the mares start nervously, then they saw some of their own herd heading towards their main camping ground which was in an unexpected hanging valley not far from the top of the range. They caught up to these mares and foals, and Bel Bel said:
‘Have you seen anything strange as you travelled homewards at midday?’
One was Star’s dam, and she answered fearfully:
‘No, but we heard the sound of horsemen and a faint whip crack. What business have men here?’
Then through the bush, some distance off, they saw several more kangaroos flitting between the trees, upwards, upwards.
Bel Bel turned to Mirri.
‘We’re being driven uphill,’ she said. ‘There must be a great many men.’
‘Well, we’re going,’ said Star’s mother. ‘We’ll be safer with Yarraman and the others.’
Bel Bel looked at Mirri.
‘It must be us wild horses they’re after, not kangaroos,’ she said.
‘Good luck!’ said Mirri to the others, as they jogged away, then to Bel Bel, ‘Shall we try to go across the hill and escape the men?’
‘That’s the best thing I can think of. We might make the ravine and hide there, but the men will probably have dogs and though we might race them, it’s not going to be so easy with the foals — but we must go.’ And, as usual, the creamy mare led off, the two foals following her, and Mirri close behind them.
All of a sudden, the bush seemed dreadfully still and hot, so hot, and the scent of the turpentine bush was all around. Bel Bel leapt to one side sharply as a big copperhead snake slid across some warm, bare earth almost under her feet, and she felt the sweat break out behind her ears.
Coming up the hill towards her she saw a pair of brown wallabies.
‘Yes, we’re being driven,’ she whispered to herself.
Further on they met more brumbies, panting and sweating. The leader only stopped for a second to say to them:
‘You’ll meet stockmen if you keep going that way. They’re not far behind. Better follow us.’
‘There are men everywhere,’ said Bel Bel. ‘The only thing to do is to try and get back between them.’
But the other horses just went on upwards, their flanks heaving and the smell of their sweat heavy on the air.
Bel Bel led off again, faster, threading through thick snow-gums, even breaking into a fast canter when they reached a grass glade. As much as possible she avoided rocks on which their hooves would make a noise. If only they could reach the ravine. . . .
Then she saw the first of the men, sitting easily on a neat grey horse, a Queensland blue cattle dog padding along beside him.
She doubled back quickly, driving Thowra and Storm in front of her. Perhaps he had not seen her. Perhaps he would not hear them. If they went back a few hundred yards, and then turned downwards, they might just get through the cordon of men and dogs . . . but when she turned down, there, galloping across in front of her, was the same man and his dog.
The dog saw the wild horses and rushed to head them, snapping not at her or Mirri, who might have kicked, but at Thowra.
Thowra, who had never seen a dog in his life, turned in a frenzy of fear. Bel Bel galloped after him, trying to swing him back to make another effort to beat the man and the dog downhill, but the dog knew his game too well and kept heeling Thowra. Thowra was soon beyond being able to hear anything his mother neighed to him, and all that Bel Bel could do was to go with him in his mad gallop up the hill, trying to strike or kick at the dog. At last she quietened the blue heeler by galloping at him when he snapped at Thowra’s heel and giving him a nasty bite on the back.
Bel Bel then galloped shoulder to shoulder with Thowra, speaking to him, trying to steady him, and all the time wondering what they should do next. In a few quick, backward glances she could see no sign of Mirri and Storm. The man was a good way behind and had called off his dog. Anyway, the dog had done his job of heading them uphill only too well.
She gave Thowra a gentle nip on the shoulder.
‘Slow down!’ she said. ‘They are not following.’
Thowra, who was blowing frightfully, slackened his pace and at last dropped to a walk.
‘We will have a little rest in that thick belt of snowgums,’ Bel Bel said, ‘and, from there, try and cut across to the ravine again.’ But the time had gone for escape. The men and their dogs were closing in.
Bel Bel found herself and her foal driven relentlessly uphill. Each time she hoped to cut across she saw a man. Presently they came up with several trembling mares and foals, and they could hear others moving on ahead. Bel Bel made one more bid to break away south to the ravine, but just then she heard a whip crack, and another, from the direction of the ravine, and some more brumbies came galloping towards her.
‘Don’t try to go that way,’ they said. ‘Lots of men and dogs there. Quick, quick!’ and they galloped on in terror.
Bel Bel realized that they were all being swung round in the direction of their main camping ground.
‘The men will have made a yard somewhere,’ she thought, because this was not the first time she had been caught up in a big hunt when the stockmen came after the brumbies. She wished Mirri was still with her. Mirri was a good friend, and she understood more about the habits of men. Mirri would know where they would build a yard in which to catch wild horses. As for Bel Bel she could think of no place more likely than in the narrow mouth of the valley at its farthest end.
She tried to talk to Thowra before he got completely infected with the panic that was gripping all the other horses.
‘Son,’ she said, ‘you must stay absolutely beside me. Somewhere these men will have put up fences with which to stop us escaping. If you stay right with me, I may be able just to miss going into their yard and we might escape.’
Thowra thought he would never forget all that happened after that. First he heard sticks and branches breaking as though hundreds of men and horses were chasing them, then he heard the unknown ring of a shod horse’s hoof on stone, and then whips cracking, many whips, cracking and cracking, right behind them.
The brumbies really started to gallop, and he and his mother with them.
The little foal stretched his legs out beside his mother, stretched his neck too. He could feel his heart thundering unevenly in his chest. They were right in the centre of the mob. It was Brownie’s shoulder that touched him on his near side, and he felt her hot breath. Everything was bound up with the tremendous pounding, thundering of hooves on hard ground, the pounding and thundering of his own heart, the blowing of breath, the gasping of all the horses.
A snowgum branch whipped him across the eyes, and brought stinging tears. He could hear his own breath sob and felt as though his pounding heart would burst. His legs and hooves seemed no longer to belong to him.
Then they were out of the trees and they spread apart a little in the open valley of the camping ground. The men forced them together again into a mob that moved almost as one horse, but, while they were spread out, Thowra had felt Bel Bel pushing him over to the left wing, not quite on the outside of the mob, because their colour would be too noticeable there, but just near the edge. He heard his mother give a gasping sort of whinny, and, through the tired haze that was over his eyes, recognized Mirri and Storm on the wing.
The noise of whips never ceased now, as the men drove them faster and faster. The horses were in a frenzy of fear. Thowra wanted to cry out with the terror that seemed to run like a flame through the mob, but he had no breath for anything except to keep going. Bel Bel spoke to him several times and he hardly heard. Then he knew she was saying something that mattered.
‘In a second we will swing to the left,’ she said, ‘through the gap in the trees.’
With a tremendous effort he focused his eyes on something other than the outstretched noses and heaving flanks beside him, and saw that they were nearly at the end of the valley.
‘Now!’ said Bel Bel, and edged him out of the mob, neighing to Mirri as they went.
Only a few strides and they would be in the trees. Thowra realized it was Storm beside him and that the two mares were driving them. He felt a searing cut across the face from a whip. A dog fastened on his heel and he heard Bel Bel’s scream of rage, but his mother and Mirri forced him on.
There was a jumble of men’s voices, one calling:
‘Hold the ones we’ve got!’ Another singing out: ‘No! I swear I’ll have the creamies.’
Then they were in the trees and pounding over rocks, one man and his dog still with them. Bel Bel raced into the lead and Thowra suddenly knew why. There was quite a drop ahead of them, over some rocks. He and Storm had played there often and knew just where to jump. All at once he felt strong enough to go at the faster pace that his mother was setting.
Bel Bel leapt over the edge, jumping on to a little rocky shelf, sliding down from it on her haunches, jumping again, and he was following, legs trembling so much that he could barely stand up when he landed.
Standing at the foot of the little cliff, legs apart, shaking, shaking, he looked up. Mirri and Storm were nearly safely down, but the man had reined in on the top and was left behind.
‘Come on,’ said Bel Bel, and the four brumbies vanished into the trees.
Man, the invader
That night the weather changed suddenly. Stars faded under cloud, a whining wind crept around the rock tors and down the grassy lanes between the snowgums. Far up on the range, the dingoes howled.
Where Mirri and Bel Bel and their two foals lay, there was no other sound except the whining wind and the dingoes, but nearer the top of the range there were rustlings and stealthy movements. Kangaroos that had been driven from their usual haunts were carefully looking around and starting home again. Birds were disturbed and anxious, unable to settle for the night. Brumbies who had escaped the hunt or broken out of the yard, footsore and exhausted, moved fearfully into the back country.
A large camp fire blazed in the grassy valley and nearly a dozen men slept around it. In the rough yard they had built, there were about fifteen brumbies. There would have been more, but a great heavy colt, in trying to jump out, had smashed one corner of the yard, and quite a few, including Brownie and Arrow, had escaped. Yarrarnan and others of the herd had never been in the original round-up.
All night long the brumbies trapped in the yard neighed and called, walked and walked, and neighed. Rain came in fitful showers, hissing in the fire, steaming on the brumbies’ sweating coats. Raindrops woke Bel Bel and Mirri, who were barely sleeping anyway, but no raindrop could have disturbed the two exhausted foals. They slept deeply, occasionally half-neighing at the ugliness of a dream.
During the next day they lay quietly hidden in thick snow-gums and hop scrub by a water soak where the wombats and shy brown wallabies came to drink. They could hear the noise of whips and voices, but knew that it was only the sound of the preparations the men were now making to take the brumbies away with them. It was very unlikely that there would be any more hunting unless the creamies were seen, so it was better to lie low till the men had gone.
Before midday, the sounds of whip cracks had become far distant and by afternoon the, bush had returned to its usual silence — silence that is not silence but the blend of water music, the sound of wind, of moving branches and moving soft-footed animals, and the song of birds. All that was different was the hanging smell of smoke; and there, in the camping valley was the trampled, spoiled grass, the dead fire, and the hidden remains of the trap-yard.
Bel Bel and Mirri did not go to see what was left; they took their foals and skirted round the valley to the north and east, searching till they found brumby tracks, and the tracks of Yarraman himself.
Yarraman’s tracks were over a day old, but there were fresher ones — Thowra gave a squeal as he found Brownie’s and Arrow’s — and they followed along the tracks for some miles till Yarraman had apparently deliberately gone over a great rough cliff of rock and stone, where no track would remain.
‘I know where he’s gone,’ said Bel Bel. ‘He will have headed for the Hidden Flat,’ and she struck off across the cliff.
It was evening when they reached a narrow, grassy flat deep down in a gorge. Since the walls of the gorge were so steep, and the trees on its side so tall, no one approaching could see down into the Hidden Flat, and they did not know if the others were still there till they reached the grass. Then they heard a welcoming neigh from Yarraman as he came trotting to meet them.
The herd stayed around the Hidden Flat till the days grew shorter, the nights frosty and bright; till the rivers were stilled with the cold, and shining so that one could see each stone clearly in the bottom, and every reflection infinitely clear and yet deep, so deep. Then the wild things in the mountains knew that the snow must be coming soon and the stockmen would be too busy mustering their cattle to have any more brumby hunts. It was safe to go back to Paddy Rush’s Bogong and listen and watch over the other side of the Crackenback for the going of the herds, when they could return to the Cascades for the winter and spring.
Thowra and Storm had both grown a lot, but Arrow was still the biggest of all the foals. He was arrogant and mean-minded, but, since Thowra and Storm had so easily lost him in the clouds and brought him ignominiously home again, he had left them in peace from petty bites and kicks.
The other foals had learnt to hate him and yet rather to admire him, but, while Thowra and Storm knew the country better than he, and knew all the signs and sounds of the bush, Arrow, even though he was bigger, stronger, and faster, could never be acknowledged leader of the foals. Also it was well known among the mares that Yarraman admired Bel Bel and Mirri and never bossed them around like he did the others: after all, mares that could fend for themselves and who knew the mountains better than he did could hardly be bossed by a stallion.
Autumn was a happy time for Thowra and Storm and their mothers.
The brumbies listened to the sounds of herds of cattle being mustered above the Crackenback, and finally saw that the last bullock and the last man had left the mountains, and there was no more smoke coming from the chimneys of the huts. Thowra and Storm were as eager as any of them to cross the shining Crackenback and climb back upwards to return to their barely remembered old home at the Cascades — to find again the great wide valley of springy snowgrass where one could gallop and gallop.
Invisible in snow
Thowra and Storm were naturally very frightened of men and dogs since they had been hunted, but they were also very curious.
After they had been some weeks in the Cascades, they gathered up their courage and climbed on to the little knoll where the slab and shingle stockman’s hut stood above the creek. Though it had been empty for a long time now, there were still strange smells lurking round it, and some salt spilt on the g
round, which they licked up. Salt was good. There were natural salt-licks in the bush, but not many of them, and sometimes one could find a little left round the places where the men salted their cattle.
Thowra sniffed all round the hut looking — looking for something, he didn’t know what. The cold wind blew a tin billy that had been left hanging under the eaves of the hut. He jumped backwards and Storm snorted with amusement.
‘Come away,’ he said. ‘There is nothing here. The sky looks very queer, and the others are a long way off.’
The wind rustled the golden everlastings that grew in the grass about their feet, and in the trees close by its low moaning sounded.
‘The clouds seem heavy,’ said Storm, ‘as though they are pressing down. I never remember a day like this before.’
‘O stupid one,’ said Thowra with a toss of his head. ‘You’ve never lived through a winter before. Mother said we must not go too far today because of the weather, but let us just go and listen to the sound the wind is making in the big trees.’
There were some tall trees, candlebarks and the first of the great mountain ash, near the Cascades hut, and the two foals had already discovered the fun of playing ‘Tug-you-last’ around the great tree-trunks and up and down the clear glades. Now, as soon as they were in the timber, they could hear the wail of the wind in the tree-tops, far above, and the soughing and sighing of streamers of bark that hung down the trunks.
They felt very small and alone — and very excited.
‘What was that?’ asked Thowra nervously, as something white and feathery floated down from the dark sky and landed, freezing cold, on his nose.
Storm jumped to one side and shook his head as another cold white feather fell on his ear. They cantered away under a big tree, but, even there, floating so slowly and lightly on the air, the white feathers came, in ones and twos at first, but thicker and thicker till the air was filled with floating whiteness.