It was a hard winter, snow fell often and the great winds roared down from the higher mountains. There was very little food.
Sometimes Thowra and Storm found a stream that danced and bubbled under its shimmering cover of ice; sometimes hoar frost fringed grass and leaves and made the lovely ice flowers on the frozen pools. Sometimes they heard the song the wind played on the ice-encased snowgum leaves.
Bel Bel and Mirri would not let them wander far away for fear of meeting the other herd, even they themselves wandered less than usual, afraid of bringing trouble on themselves and Yarraman. But when some instinct told Bel Bel that a great deal of the snow must have gone from the Cascades, she and Mirri and their foals set off for home without waiting for the others.
It was far from being springtime and the grass was flattened and lifeless, but the two mares and Thowra and Storm felt very gay to be home again. There was still a lot of snow in the Cascades, but it was patchy and plum-duffed with earth and grass. Their usual end of the valley was more heavily snowed than the southern end in which the foals had first seen The Brolga, so they mostly grazed there in The Brolga’s country.
Plenty of sunny days came and nights of heavy frost. Once, in a deep cleft in the hills, they found the rustling leaf snow, like Lux flakes, and Thowra and Storm descended the cleft magnificently, rolling and wriggling on their backs, the separate, shining icy leaves tossing over them, rising in spume.
‘You, who are nearly yearlings, play like babies,’ snorted Bel Bel, and lay down and rolled herself.
Sometimes the mares’ wanderlust would take them far up into the snow on Bob’s Ridge and they would all four chase each other downwards, ploughing through the snow, galloping and falling. Then one day they arrived back in the Cascades to find that the herd had returned. Thowra and Storm were not even sure they were pleased to see them — it had been such fun on their own.
Brownie gave Bel Bel a spiteful look when she saw them.
‘You two’ll turn your foals into lone wolves like yourselves,’ she said. ‘And you’ll each one of you probably meet a bad end.’
‘We’ll have had a good life, though.’ Bel Bel bared her teeth at Brownie.
It was only a few days after that that Thowra and Arrow had their first real fight and finished bruised and cut, with neither victorious. Thowra came away a little wiser; he knew his mother had been right, that he had made a vindictive enemy in Arrow and that maybe there would be many fights.
‘Spring will be late this year,’ Bel Bel said, on one of the many days when cold winds swept the valley. ‘I am glad I am not having a foal this time.’
As it was, only one foal had been born. Then on a day when the breeze was soft and warm, and the sun shone brightly, then did the mares realize that Yarraman’s coat, and their own, were beginning to get a gloss on them again — that spring had come.
Spring had come and the robin redbreasts were up in the snow, hunting the black insects; the dingoes howled to their mates in the full moon at nights. Then one day there was the sound of a wild stallion screaming, farther to the south.
Yarraman pricked up his ears and listened and when the scream came again, unmistakably, he threw up his head with the lovely cream and gold mane and roared his wild answer. As the sun got higher, he trotted a little way up on to a ridge to watch The Brolga, standing with his head well in the air, and the sunlight glinting on his coat. Sometimes he would call out a challenge, but The Brolga did not come. Yarraman would reign, that spring, undisputed king of the Cascade brumbies.
So the foals became yearlings and, in the good spring and summer that followed the snowy winter, they grew large and strong, and learnt to gallop much faster. It took Arrow a long time to realize that though he was the biggest of them all, and the strongest, Thowra was living up to his name and could travel like the wind, faster than himself or any of the others.
There were no organized brumby hunts that summer, but Thowra learnt to recognize — and dread — the whistling sound of a rope flying through the air, and once felt the rough blow of it as it glanced off his shoulder. As Bel Bel had known he would, the beautiful cream colt attracted any man that saw him, and, in his strength and gay courage, he did not seek to hide himself in the same way as she did.
She tried to teach him all her cunning, but realized she could not expect him to learn everything in one short year.
Storm became a faster mover, too, and the mares were proud of them both — watched them grow more and more independent throughout the summer and autumn; watched with pleasure how the friendship between the two remained as staunch as ever. They saw, too, the enmity increase between Arrow and Thowra, and wondered what the outcome would be.
In the two colts’ second winter the snow did not fall heavily or continuously in the Cascades, and the herd were able to stay there.
Both Thowra and Storm saw The Brolga several times and knew that he was now a superb horse. Thowra told Bel Bel, once, that he had seen him and she said:
‘With the spring grass and sunshine, and the mating season, he will reach the height of his strength and agility,’ but she said no more, and left the young horse wondering.
Towards the end of the winter, Thowra saw less and less of his mother, and he and Storm ran more with the other young colts, biting and fighting, galloping, feeling a sudden restlessness. Spring was coming once again and they were almost two-year-olds. Now, Bel Bel and Mirri were both in foal, and they went off to higher slopes where they could have their foals undisturbed. The young colts went wandering farther and farther afield, sometimes returning to the herd, sometimes spending a night in other country.
There were about six or eight two-year-olds rapidly becoming independent of the herd. Sometimes Thowra and Storm ran with them. Sometimes they, the lone wolves, went off on their own, but they were all together and grazing not far from the main herd up a narrow valley the evening Bel Bel came back with her chestnut foal.
Thowra was beginning to move inquisitively nearer when he heard a clamour that made the sweat break out on his gleaming coat, and he knew that it was the challenge to the leader of the brumbies which, in a way, he had expected.
The Brolga came high-stepping up the valley.
Fight to the death
Yarraman screamed his wild answer to The Brolga’s challenge, the rock and hillside echoing it until it rolled in the gullies. Again, in a spring evening, he went galloping, with streaming golden mane and tail, to meet the grey Brolga, but this time The Brolga was no immature young horse, but a magnificent stallion, just at his prime.
For the third time — and perhaps the last — Thowra watched the grey and the chestnut advancing to within striking distance, watched their swirling, whirling, purposeful dance, saw the bared teeth, heard the screams of rage. In each fight The Brolga had had the advantage of seeming to melt into the oncoming night or the snowstorm.
The noise of the fight echoed in a terrible way so that the screams of the two horses were doubled or trebled, and only the closest of the watchers could hear the tremendous pounding of their hooves on the ground.
Thowra and Storm had drawn apart from the other young colts, watching fearfully while the two stallions struggled for mastery. There would be no mercy given by either, and, as night drew on, they knew darkness would not part them.
Yarraman was the first to get a deadly grip above The Brolga’s withers but the younger horse managed at last to free himself and at the same time strike Yarraman in the eyes. They fought on and on, not screaming so often now, but their breath snorting through red, dilated nostrils. And all the time the darkness was coming up the valley.
Then suddenly the watchers saw The Brolga, in turn, get his grip on Yarraman; they saw Yarraman’s valiant struggles repeated and repeated; they saw that he could not free himself, and, as night fell, they could just see him beaten to his knees.
Suddenly there was a scream of triumph from The Brolga as he struck blow after blow with his forefeet at the stallion on the ground
. Then, in the darkness, they could see the pale shadow of The Brolga and the dark shadow on the ground, hear the pounding of hooves on flesh.
Shuddering, the young horses drew back; the mares, snorting their terror, took their foals away. Down in the broader valley, by the first faint light of a rising moon, Thowra could see the pale form of Bel Bel. Then there was a thunder of galloping hooves and The Brolga was among them. They could smell his sweat, see his pale outline, all stained with dark. Thowra watched him go straight up to Bel Bel, nickering out the greeting of a victorious stallion. To every man and beast her colour — and his — must be attractive. He felt himself sweating with fear again.
Thowra, and the other colts, turned away and left the herd, heading towards the edge of the tall timber, with no idea where to go, but urgently wanting to escape. They stopped in a little field of snowgrass, just inside the first fringe of trees, and there they spent the night, no longer playing at being independent, but young colts without a herd.
When the moon was high, without even disturbing Storm, Thowra slid away through the trees. The moonlight was very bright in the main valley; he looked carefully around before he moved out of the sheltering trees, then he walked into the bright, cold light that made his coat as silver as his mane and tail. A mopoke called mournfully; he jumped, but did not draw back. On he went till he was going up the narrow valley in which they had all been that evening. Presently he climbed on to a high rock and looked round the bend of the valley below him. There lay the great bulk of Yarraman, dark on the ground.
Suddenly there was a noise beside him and another horse came out of the shadows and joined him on his rock.
‘Thowra, my son,’ said Bel Bel’s voice softly, as she climbed up alongside, herself silver in the moonlight, and gazed down on the dead horse, ‘what are you doing here? Did you think to gain some of his strength and courage?’ And she turned to look at her son and then back at Yarraman. ‘You should have it in your blood and bones already; he was, after all, your father. Use his courage and strength, son, and all the cunning and knowledge I have taught you. Come, we will leave him.’
They jumped down and walked away together and at the mouth of the big valley she gave him a playful nip on the shoulder.
‘I must get back to my foal. Good-bye!’ but Thowra knew that their real ‘good-bye’ had been said as they left the rock above the dead stallion.
Thowra went down the valley, left the cold, clear moonlight, crept through the trees, and back to Storm and the other colts.
At dawn they set off, towards the headwaters of the Crackenback River, a small mob of colts bound together only by habit and a common desire to put some distance between themselves and the dead stallion — their father — and to get away from possible trouble with The Brolga, who would now be the leader of the main sections of both herds.
Thowra had led off — really not bothering about any of the others following him except Storm, yet glad, in a way, of their company. However, even one day of travelling showed them that no mob can have two leaders, and Arrow, who had the size and strength to win any fight, would not peacefully let Thowra, the fastest and the one who knew the country best, become the acknowledged leader. He bit at Thowra and kicked him whenever they stopped to graze and drink, but when Thowra, tired of his behaviour, went off at the gallop with Storm, the other colts followed, so Arrow had to go too.
Thowra and Storm had often been in the Ramshead country since they were born there two years ago, and Mirri and Bel Bel had taught them all the good grazing places round the head of the Crackenback. They knew, too, where they could get up and down granite cliffs, where there were tunnels through what seemed impenetrable snowgum thickets, where there were deep holes in the creeks that a young horse could swim in, and easy crossing places in the rough-flowing river.
They led their young mob about, up on the high country among the snowdrifts, and right down in the great mountain ash gullies, where the lyre birds mimicked their neighing, or sent them galloping off in a frenzy by imitating the sound of a whip cracking or a man whistling.
After the first feeling of being left alone in a very large world had worn off, Thowra would have enjoyed everything if Arrow had not been such a bully. Arrow could not spoil it all because he could not go fast enough, but so often when they were grazing he would lash out savagely with his heels, or strike. Thowra was not afraid to fight him, though he always got the worst of it, but, except for Storm, the others would not take Arrow on, nor would they stay behind with him.
Once, Thowra, remembering the time when he had tricked Arrow and ‘lost’ him, tried the same trick again. This time Arrow was missing for three days and he was much chastened when he joined them again.
It was then that Thowra began to think they should move over to Paddy Rush’s Bogong because the men would be bringing their mobs of cattle again. He started off, early one morning, jogging down through the sun-glistening snowgums, through the mountain ash thickets and tangled woods of the little creeks, to the Crackenback, over it and up the rough country on the other side.
In the weeks that followed Thowra began to understand all his mother’s warnings about Arrow making a bad enemy. The fights which Arrow forced on him were never half in fun, like most young colts’ battles — an exuberance of strength and half-conscious wish to test and train themselves.
Arrow became more and more vindictive, and Thowra knew that his lovely silver mane hid some bite scars that he would carry to the end of his life. Also it became apparent that Arrow was trying to lame him, for Thowra, if lamed, could no longer be their half-acknowledged leader. Try though he did, Thowra could never worst Arrow in a fight, and, as the summer went on, Arrow became stronger and heavier, and more arrogant.
At last Thowra could stand him no longer.
‘Let’s go,’ he said to Storm, ‘next time there is a mist. Let’s clear for the Brindle Bull country. Maybe The Brolga spends summer there, but if we keep away we’ll come to no harm.’
Two or three evenings later there were black clouds rolling up from the north and the following day came with rain and drifting cloud that hid everything. Thowra gave Storm a nip and, without waiting a moment, they melted quietly off.
There was a long, open glade of snowgrass up which they could canter, barely making a sound, then a little creek running over a sand and mica bed which they walked down, the water quickly filling in the tracks they made. While they were in the creek they heard a whinny through the cold mist, the thunder of hooves on stony ground, and then the crash of a rolling rock. The two colts drew right in under some blanket-woods that overhung the little stream and waited, breathlessly listening. They heard Arrow’s imperious neigh, another rock falling, and the crack of a bough. Then the sound of hooves grew muffled in the cloud and Thowra and Storm went back up the stream and cut across country towards the Brindle Bull.
They were determined to stay on their own, now, and keep away from Arrow, and, they were suddenly filled with excitement. They had never been on the mountain called the Brindle Bull and they would have a whole new world to explore. Even the touch of the cold, wet clouds, or the sting of a wet branch across the eyes, could not cool their excitement.
They did not stop except for an occasional drink, and they kept off any of the usual tracks in case, by any chance, the others had doubled back in the clouds. Finally they slithered down a smooth, wet rock face into the Crackenback River and stood, tired and trembling, while the water tugged at their legs.
By the time they were clambering up the steep, stony slopes of the Brindle Bull, the wet clouds had turned to rain, heavy, cold rain that felt as if it might become one of those swift flurries of snow in summer that leave the mountains gleaming white in a hot summer sky for a brief hour or two. It was hardly a good day for the start of an adventure, but the colts had been well taught by their mothers to find their way whatever the weather, and they kept on, scrambling up the steep slopes, pulling themselves up on rocky cliffs, forcing their way throu
gh shoulder-high heather till they were nearly at the top.
There they stopped where some snowgums grew thickly below a rock buttress, providing some shelter from the driving rain. As they stood there the clouds suddenly blew a few feet apart on the top of the mountain. Trembling with an excitement he did not understand, Thowra saw against the pale rift of sky, as though against a faintly lighted window, a herd of horses pass in ones and twos; like shadows — and they were led by a grey horse who seemed to melt into the clouds.
Man on a black horse
Thowra and Storm were very careful where they went on the Brindle Bull, watching for tracks of The Brolga’s herd, listening, smelling. It took them some days to find out the herd’s grazing place, and after that they kept well away, down the sides of the mountain, in snowgum woods where there was only enough grass to make a picking for two colts.
There were one or two tiny hanging valleys on the southern slope, where the snow-daisies’ leaves made a silver carpet and presently the daisies themselves, large and white, starred the ground. In one of these valleys the colts often grazed. There were rocky gorges off either side, and a quick getaway if they needed one.
The Brolga and his herd probably knew they were there, and were unworried by the presence of two young colts. Bel Bel may have recognized Thowra’s spoor and been glad to know that he and Storm were close. Thowra being the only creamy foal she had borne, she had not forgotten him as a mare usually forgets a foal after it has become independent and left her. And because she often spoke of Thowra and Storm, Mirri remembered Storm, too.