Shaking all over, she walked out till she was quite close to the dead horse, right at the place where she had been standing when the iron-grey first stared at her.
Yes! There was a track of Wurring’s. She followed the rather indistinct marks of several galloping strides, then there were blurred markings, and dragged-out lines of a scuffle, and the milling around of several horses. Yarran’s hoofmarks were particularly clear.
Ilinga searched and searched, but she could not piece together any information out of all these hoofmarks. It seemed that Wurring and Yarran and several others might have spent some time near the creek. A number of horses had moved to and fro there, but it was almost impossible to pick out any individual tracks.
She felt intensely uncomfortable, as though unknown eyes were watching her, but she had to go on looking for some clear tracks of Wurring’s to tell her where he had gone.
In fact there were no other horses near - none of Winganna’s herd wanted to be close to where he had been killed - there was just the feeling of eyes, eyes, eyes watching, so that her skin prickled. Oh fear - what was fear? But fear was there, and real - fear in the whisper of the candlebark leaves, fear in the blocks of shadow cast by the trees around the moonlit plain. She almost turned and galloped away, senselessly.
At last she realized she was never going to find any clear tracks, and the terror of her aloneness was getting too great. She crept among the trees. There she stood, irresolute, for she had no idea where to go.
Perhaps she would make down into the forest country. At least she would be safe there. So she started to go along ridges they had travelled last winter. For the rest of that day she wandered through forests, and not one hoofmark did she find. By night time she felt that she could not bear to be alone any longer, but she simply did not know where any of her herd had gone.
She was trembling with fear of the night, so she hid herself in some thick black sallees. At first the silence oppressed her, then the night sounds seemed to become more noticeable, the quark of a possum, the hoot of a mopoke, the snuffling and. grubbing sound of a wombat, the repeated quarks of the giant glider, and then the mournful howl of a dingo and an answering cry from far away. Ilinga knew all these wild creatures, and felt safer, happier, less alone. If she listened carefully she might hear some news of the wandering herd. She might get some idea of where she should search, or even of why Wurring had vanished?
The dingo howled to the moon of loss and sorrow.
The moon seemed to weave light through the thick, dark leaves. A beam of its light fell straight on to her - cold, a shaft of moonlight. She pawed restlessly, and saw her own foreleg silvered by the moon.
The moon, the moon, this was all that the night voices seemed to say, but, as the moon’s shaft passed over her, she felt as though she had known something a long time ago and forgotten it, and that now she must remember, walk along old, old tracks, play out an old, old story.
Without knowing why, barely knowing that she was moving, she began to walk eastward, eastward through the night, eastward into memory, eastward into an old legend.
Dawn was breaking when she reached the Tumut River - and there she smelt the familiar comforting smell of Yarran. She searched around for tracks and found several hoofmarks of Yarran’s, heading downstream, but there was absolutely no sign of Wurring’s track with hers. She followed for quite a distance, but the rising sun seemed to call her ‘east, east’, and at last, when she had gone about a mile, she was quite certain that she was not going to find any sign of Wurring and not going to catch up with Yarran, she answered the call of the sun and turned back. Then she struck east again, towards Ravine.
As she reached the top of the ridge, the sun shone dazzlingly in her eyes, blindingly, so that she kept seeing a chestnut horse galloping towards her, with the sun burning in his mane. Gol- den horse - but he was not there.
She went along the ridge above Ravine rather slowly, wondering whether she should go down into the valley or cut around the top of it. But perhaps the horses that lived there
might have seen something ... heard something.... What was
it that had so frightened them?
Standing there, thinking, she remembered that older grey mare who had called so loudly of loss and sorrow, that first time they had visited Ravine. If she could find that mare, or even another young filly... She began to go down very slowly.
There was silence below her. Even for a moment the dawn birds were not singing. The solitude seemed to be endless.
The cliffs opposite were dark, not yet touched by the sun. She looked at them often, as she went quietly downwards. She was sure a horse was standing on top of one. Also she became sure that someone was near her, someone had moved. Then, as she stepped into an almost open patch, a neigh rang out from the opposite cliff. She stopped, as though made of that dark rock herself. The neigh was warning other horses that she was coming. Had the Ravine herd posted sentries like those of the flocks of white cockatoos?
Fear! Her hide felt as though ants were crawling all over it. She would roll when she was on flatter ground, but one cannot roll fear away even if the hide stops crawling. Her sweat began to run in spite of the fact that the morning was fresh and cold. There was a movement on the cliffs opposite. Yes: a light-coloured horse was walking across the top of them. It must have been watching very carefully, because her dark brown coat would not show up much in timber. She shivered as though the sun had gone under a cloud for a moment, but she kept on walking down.
The herd were on the top grassy flat where Wurring and she had galloped and played. Ilinga watched them from the trees, but they had heard the warning neigh, and were all uneasy. Then another young colt joined the group, from the forest quite close to her, and she knew that the whole herd would soon know that she was standing there.
She walked out into the open.
The herd stood stock still and looked at her, then the stallion began to come towards her. He was a big strong bay, strong, very strong. What he if would not let her go on her way to find Wurring? Her only safety lay in play.
She cantered gaily towards the herd, keeping going even when the old grey mare threw up her head and neighed a queer call, the call that was a lament for the dangers that the last of the breed of the Moon would have to try to survive, if ever that which was said to be going to happen would come true. This high, crying neigh filled Ilinga with dread, though she really did not know what it was all about.
She had been seen now, by them all, so she must play the gay filly, have no cares, let no one see that for her the sun was not shining. She must canter with rhythm and joy. After all she had been gay and happy only a few days ago. She would dance, and rear, and gallop... and perhaps she would learn what had made this herd so nervous, perhaps hear news of Wurring.
Then, as she got nearer, she nearly stopped in mid-rear, nearly dropped to her feet and stared.
There, with this herd, were three fillies from Winganna’s herd - the three who had been most jealous of her friendship with Wurring, and one of them had been a foal whose mother had arrived at Numeramang on the same night as Ilinga and her dam.
Even though they had bitten and kicked at her all this summer, Ilinga was overjoyed to see them. However, perhaps she should not let the stallion know that they had belonged to the same herd, and as she pivotted, and leapt, and reared - with that stallion following her - she suddenly thought how jealous they had been of her. She must be careful.
When she joined them, they did not snap at her. She tried to lead them all off in play and dance, but, until the stallion started to leap and pivot, they seemed to be too nervous for such games. Even when he played, the mares and young ones took a while to be anything but half-hearted, and they kept looking up at the cliffs, as though they were afraid of something or someone coming from up above.
All that day Ilinga learnt nothing except that every mare and young one was afraid. At night the three fillies from her own herd let her stand wi
th them for warmth, but she was no nearer to finding Wurring. Before sunrise, in heavy darkness, she moved silently away, climbed up the eastern side of the valley. Once up on top she would go steadily towards the lightening sky - east, east, east.
No one seemed to notice her going, which was good, because the heavy bay stallion would certainly not have let her leave, had he been awake.
She was half way up the long climb when a neigh rang out from below, and the sound rolled all around the cliffs. The grey mare had woken and she called and called - called a warning of a stallion. Ilinga stopped. Was this what had frightened the herd - a fierce stallion? She listened to every sound and its echo. As she stood listening, the old legend seemed to wrap itself around her. The vanishing sun... a young horse ... a fierce stallion... the sun... the moon ... a strange night... a strange light... but she must not stand still because soon they would discover that she had gone, and the stallion would come after her.
Then a mopoke called above her head. Ilinga dared not wait another moment.
She climbed as quickly as she could, and as silently.
The mopoke did not follow for long. He would know that he could give her whereabouts away, but the mopoke knew that the iron-grey had lost Ilinga and taken Wurring. He knew, too, in his wisdom, that if Ilinga went searching she might be recaptured by that fierce iron-grey. So the mopoke’s calls only gave Ilinga a feeling of danger, a feeling that she was going in the right direction for Wurring, but that she was being warned against going. And all the time she had the sensation of having done all this before - or perhaps of having to do it because it all had to happen.
Then she was in sunlight again, blinded by the oblique sun- shafts. She trotted on, with the sun in her eyes, in the direction which she knew she must go. .. only because she knew it.
There was a small plain encircled by silver snowgums. It was so familiar to her that she stopped there, trying to remember, trying to remember where she had come from. She had been sure that the iron-grey was going to take her back there. Had he taken Wurring there instead of her? And, if so, where?
East? All her instincts told her to go east.
The further she went, the stronger became the feeling that she knew this land, that she had been this way before. There were tracks, and her hooves seemed to know them. It was as though a voice called her, but it was only the sun, and, as the sun climbed higher overhead and sank in the west, she still kept going eastward. On she went, till night fell, and she slept among some thick snowgums.
The rising sun called her, and she started on again. She stopped once to drink at a still pool and saw, mirrored there, a filly that was no longer a gangling, leggy yearling. Just as Wurring had thought his father was looking at him from the Tumut River, she thought an older filly was near her. She could not know that in these last few days, when she had seen Winganna killed, been captured herself, by the iron-grey, and escaped from him, and then searched alone for Wurring, she had grown up. She could not know that the strange quality which some of the horses had seen in her, even when she was a foal, was now becoming more apparent - the irradiant glow of her coat, the deeply lit eyes, the rhythm of movement.
Twice, that morning, she heard a stallion neigh, somewhere quite close.
8: Young Brown Stallion
A strange stallion, never showing himself, followed Ilinga for miles. She could hear him: sometimes she could smell him. He made no effort to go quietly. Often he called her, a soft attractive call, but she could never see him.
He must have seen her, or else how would he be following her?... Why?
How? Why? The snowgums moving in a cool wind did not answer these questions. The sparrow hawk hovering above for most of the day told nothing, but its far-seeing eyes were watching all the time.
Would she stand still, and wait to see what that horse would do - what he looked like?
She stopped in a small glade where a clear stream ran.... She waited, she drank, she waited.
The horse called softly. Once she thought she saw his eyes, perhaps the dark brown of his forehead. It was silly of her to have stopped in a glade, even in so small a glade. She could be seen, and the watcher remain invisible. She pressed herself backwards into the trees and waited again, peering out through the thick leaves. Perhaps the horse might show himself?
She waited and waited. The trees all around her were very thick, so she would hear him if he came round behind or to either side. Complete silence closed in. The sparrow hawk hovered, but no bird made any sound and no animal stirred.
Ilinga was tired, and her eyes closed occasionally. She opened them - and there, standing as though unaware of his strength and his own youth and beauty, and yet supremely happy because of all these things, was a brown horse, almost as dark as herself. Half-shy, half-confident, he reared before her. His strong muscles rippled, his mane and tail shone.
Ilinga looked, and her eyes opened wider and wider, but she kept perfectly still. Here was a most beautiful young horse, inviting her to go with him. Would he allow her to escape and continue her search for Wurring?
She remained quite still.
The handsome young brown looked disappointed. Then, after a few soft neighs, he walked towards the thick leaves and branches where she was hidden.
She pressed backwards, managed to turn and force her way through the next clump into less thick timber. Then she turned east again, and kept going.
The young horse followed.
What would happen when they came to open country? But how did she know so certainly that they must come to great, rolling snowgrass hills and plains? Her one anxiety was how she would get away from that brown horse.
His eyes were kind... perhaps he would not try to hold her... but Ilinga felt sure he wanted her for his herd.
Presently there was another soft neigh, asking her to go with him. She began to canter, wherever the ground allowed it. The horse cantered too.
The glades in the valleys were becoming more open, the valley floors were wider. The whole character of the country was changing. They would soon be out on those high, wide plains.
The valleys became wider and wider: the trees got less. Now Ilinga was cantering in the open.
A horse when alone feels the touch of the wind so much. The wind’s touch may be a challenge, offering a race, it may be life and the whole tempestuous fury and glory of life for a stallion and his mares, or for young animals just leaving the herd, but for one alone, the wind’s touch is the touch of fear.
Ilinga had been very afraid, but while she kept moving the fear had not eaten into her like it did at Numeramang. Now there was this fear seeming to enfold her, coming on the air of the wide spaces, the air that moved over rolling grey-green hills, moved up open, treeless valleys where the water glinted cold... fear on the cold wind.
Just then, from behind and not very far off, came another stallion’s neigh.
Ilinga heard the hoofbeat behind her check and stop, as the brown listened. She guessed that he would stand for a moment, looking around, and she would have time to hide in the last of the trees.
That second stallion called again. She was almost certain that it was the horse from Ravine.
The brown stallion looked round for her and, being unable to see her, seemed to forget everything but the necessity of finding her. He searched around for her tracks and began to follow them. Just then the big bay came into sight.
Ilinga watched the brown. He heard the other horse: he swung round. She felt a flutter of hope that the nice-looking brown would win, and she crept away, while neither of them were looking, and trotted on.
Presently she heard the sound of fighting behind her, but all her hair was standing on end already, and with the aloneness of the high, wild country, for she had passed through the last of the trees and now there was nowhere to hide at all.
If it had not been that she longed so deeply to find Wurring, she could never have forced herself over the open plains where the wind cried of winter and sorrow
, and she was just one filly, utterly alone, seeking the horse who had been the sun, and life itself, to her, ever since she had been a foal.
She still had no clear picture of where she was going, just that certainty that she was trotting towards the country from which she had come, and that she must find this country if she were to find Wurring. The thought of Wurring, standing against the sun, his mane and forelock on fire with light, seemed to call her on and on, on and on over that cold, open country.
Then, beyond the sound of her own hoofbeats, it seemed to her that she heard another beat. Her heart lurched within her chest. She cast a wild look over her shoulder. The bay from Ravine was following some way behind, galloping fast, and, behind him, was the brown.
She began to race desperately.
Unending miles of open country seemed to stretch ahead of her, but to the north there might be cover. She swung that way and the horses followed.
Ilinga was surprised to find that the bay was not gaining on her, and the realization came to her that she, herself, might be very fast. Another glance behind told her that the brown was catching up to the bay. They would fight again, and while they were fighting she would be able to get her breath, perhaps get right away.
She heard a furious scream. The bay was refusing to stop to fight properly. The brown was trying to force him. Then suddenly the brown darted ahead of the bay and after Ilinga.
This time Ilinga did not hurry. It might be better if they both almost caught up with her. The bay would have to stop and fight... She had to find Wurring ... Wurring with the sunlight in his free-flowing mane... Wurring.
Both horses were getting closer. The brown was coming up on one side of her, the bay on the other. Perhaps they were not going to stop and fight. She felt desperate and angry. She dug in her toes and, with a few proppy strides, managed to stop. The stallions almost crashed into each other. Surely they might fight now, and she get away. But they only watched her.