- unless he decided that the time had come to take his herd to lower country.
Ilinga waited. The stream moved past her, hour after hour; the day faded away, and the snowflakes still fell outside the cave. She knew that the only time when she could seek Wurring would be at night, when the iron-grey would probably be sleeping - and now it looked as though he might not move. Darkness fell and it was still snowing.
She was beginning to feel desperate when at last she saw the iron-grey walk off. Apparently he did not like snow, he shook himself all the time.
When he did not come back she ventured further along the tunnel, then slowly into the cavern and right to the opening and stood pressed against some dark rock. She looked out over the valley and once more memory sprang alive with pictures, some clear and some much hazier. Undoubtedly she had been here before, but she felt angrily certain that the iron-grey was not her sire.
Her eyes were searching for Wurring - expecting a gleaming horse, even though no horse could gleam in twilight and a snowfall. Then she saw him, and it was as though he knew she had come, because he was standing with his head thrown up, and his ears pricked. He looked so vital, just for that moment, that she did not realize how gaunt he was, nor did she notice, all at once, that he was standing on three legs. She saw all this when he hopped himself around to look in her direction, and the horrifying realization came to her that a horse on three legs could not get over the long stretch of slippery boulders, over one enormous rock that had blocked the tunnel, or up out of the mouth of it.
She would have to wait till dark to go over to Wurring, unless he felt her presence and hopped towards her. She waited, keeping a careful eye out for the iron-grey.
Then she saw that iron-grey walking back towards the cave again. The only thing she could do was to back quickly into the tunnel. She dared not turn. She must watch to see if he noticed her movement. He came walking along without any change of expression, without any sign of interest, a bored, bad-tempered-looking horse. He came on his own, no mare apparently wanted to be with him. Ilinga had a last look at Wurring. Even thin, and gaunt, and very lame, and his lovely mane all matted with snow instead of gleaming and aflame, Wurring still had the power of life. She backed right into her tunnel and could no longer see his upflung head nor the restless lines of his hurt body.
She would have to hide herself, just where she had been before, where she could see the iron-grey and hope he would not smell or hear her. Once Ilinga nearly gave herself away, quite soon after the iron-grey came back, when the bats who must have lived in the roof of the cave decided that, even if the snow were falling, they would go out. As the first soft sound of wings whispered through the cave, she nearly moved, but then a high squeak and the musty smell told her what was above. They streamed past her head but she stood quiet. Perhaps she would learn something from them when they came back. Some of them flew so close to her that she could tell they knew she was there. Bats lived in a different world, not even the wide, high world of birds, but with their great sensitivity, they would learn many secrets.
Luckily for Ilinga there was water to drink. It was quite a long time since she had had time to graze. She began to realize that she was very hungry, as the hours of the night dragged by
- hungry and tired. The iron-grey was asleep, she could tell that from the shape of his body, even though its outlines melted into the dark night and falling snows that showed at the cave opening. She dozed, herself, and every time she opened her eyes she found that stallion’s shadowy shape in exactly the same position, against the patch of night sky.
The night passed slowly. She found herself wishing the bats would come back. Surely they would not flit about out there on the snow. Surely snowflakes would harm their frail wings.
Owl and bat light. They had left the cave just before dark: they would probably return at the first faint light. How much would they know? Would they flit around Wurring and convey to him the urgency of being careful, the urgency of not looking restless, of not letting the iron-grey know that she might be near.
No whisper of wings, no draught of moving air disturbed her through the night. It was just when there was a change in the patch of sky at the cave mouth that she heard them, the high squeaking, and then the wings. They circled her once - not for long enough to make the iron-grey suspect anything - and gentle wings wafted the air around her so that it was as if the little bats of the night air had given her the blessed feeling of confidence in her own self, made her feel her own entity, there in the eroding silence, and also her own belonging to her whole world. She heard the iron-grey snap angrily at the last bat of the flight, and was surprised. If he behaved like that, the help and support of all the other wild creatures would not be for him. For her and for Wurring there would always be help from the birds and the animals.
The bats were gone, and she must move a little further into the tunnel before the light grew stronger.
There might be a niche in the wall, not too far back, from which she could still see the iron-grey... she had to turn and walk away, because it was too dangerous to go backwards. Perhaps she would sidle and keep watching the iron-grey. She would see, then, if he noticed anything, if he appeared to be listening to sounds back in the cave.
She walked so slowly, putting down each hoof on the hard, slippery rock with such care that she was sure there was no sound, and the horse in the cave did not seem to notice anything.
She heard the soft movement of bats behind her and their squeaking. They had not settled down, yet, for their day of sleep. What did they know, these bats; they whose world was dark, and who flew with such delight in the twilit sky?
The bats felt her presence there, further up the cave and came flitting round her, never touching her, but their wings fanning the air all round, gently. And some of the secrets which the bats knew were alive in the cave that night, were whispered by their wingbeats. Into Ilinga’s mind there rose a picture of the valley out beyond the cavern, the valley into which she had looked last night, but in her mind it was as she knew she had seen it in sunshine, and her dam was there with a noble, old stallion standing beside her, a tall brown horse who looked fast, really fast. Though she tried, she could not remember any more.
There was a sudden noise from the cave mouth. Ilinga had been thinking so hard about the sunny valley, trying so hard to remember, that she had not been watching the iron-grey, and now he was getting up from a roll, then moving as though to come further in.
All at once there was a cloud of bats all round his head. Ilinga saw him turn tail and go, go right out of the cave, and she saw the bats wheel against the lightening sky, and come back. Gently their wings fanned all around her, and then they were going up into their sleeping places in the roof.
The iron-grey did not return. Ilinga kept watching the cave mouth. She could see that the snow had stopped falling, but she knew she dared not go out till dark, even though the grey stallion did not come back.
As the hours passed the feeling that Wurring was so close, that this was the place from which she had come and that her search was over, grew so strong that she could not stop herself edging further and further down the tunnel. There was Wurring grazing by the creek... she was hungry too... She saw him lift his head and cautiously look towards the cave. There were two young fillies not far away from him, Ilinga barely noticed them: she was thinking of something else.
The stream flowed at her feet, smooth, dark and silent. Out beyond the cave it had a steely gleam where it caught what light there was in the grey sky. It joined the large creek just near where Wurring grazed. Ilinga dipped a forefoot into the dark water, put her nose down to touch it. The water at the junction of the Yarrangobilly and Tumut Rivers had sung to them once when she had plunged into it, following Wurring, the day they had galloped down from Ravine. Sometimes water held a picture of a horse. Ilinga had seen this as she drank at the Tumut - the older filly who looked over her shoulder.
She walked into the wa
ter now. The creek was deep and cold. It tugged at her legs. Surely the water should tell Wurring to come this way... that she was waiting. Then she saw him move, barely putting his near foreleg on the ground. She got out of the water and took a few more steps towards the wide, sandy mouth of the cave.
The bats must have been listening because several of them came flitting round her head, turning her back into safety.
She stood then, watching Wurring. There was no sunshine coming through that leaden sky, only the strange light that foretells snow, nothing really to flash in the lights of his hair. She had seen Wurring outlined by flames from the sun, but it was only in her eyes and memory that he burned with the sun's fire now.
He moved towards the river, limping, sometimes hopping on three legs. When he reached the water, he dropped his head to drink. Ilinga saw him become quite still just before his nose touched the water. Then up went his head as though he were going to neigh, but no sound came, and he looked in her direction. She moved, hoping he might see the movement, and that no one else would. He stared, stared. Then he looked cautiously all around, and once more back towards her. He gave a little hop in her direction, but stopped and dropped his head to the water again.
Water that had passed by Ilinga was passing him. He held his head down to the stream for some time and then raised it to look searchingly towards the cave again, and his whole bearing was more alive. Then he drank deeply.
Ilinga knew, then, that he would stay quietly and wait, as she was waiting, for darkness. It was at that moment that she took more notice of the other two fillies. It was clear that they had seen that Wurring was excited by something.
The day wore on and on. Twilight came and the bats flew out of the cave, flew off in a little cloud. At last darkness fell, and the slow drift of flakes started again. On the other side of the cliff, the young brown stallion was starting his second night’s long waiting, and Ilinga came out like a shadow, hooves soundless on the sand, and walked towards Wurring through the drifting flakes.
11: Owl and Bat Light
The iron-grey had left precipitately when the bats chased him. He hated bats and was maddened to find that those who lived in his favourite cave had got annoyed with him. There were other caves opening off his valley, but none had such a sandy floor on which to roll, and this sand was dry except when the
creek flooded after a sudden fall of heavy rain, or with melting snow. The iron-grey had not owned the valley for long enough to know about the floods, and the droughts, and the winds of this area, and he had made himself so hated by all the smaller animals and the birds that lived there, that they kept away from him so he did not learn from them what the weather was going to do.
He had spent the night in another cave, a very wide one with a little trickling stream in it. There was indeed more sand here than he remembered seeing before. He walked a little way up and found that it did not smell of bats; decided that it could be a better cave, except that he could not see so much of his valley. Anyway he had spent the night there, and all day he grazed about further and further from Ilinga’s cave, sometimes climbing the hillsides where the snow did not lie so thickly.
That the clouds were ominous, promising danger from heavy snow, was a fact that even he could not fail to notice. It might soon be time to wonder if he should make down the valley. Last winter - his first winter after he had won the valley from that brown stallion - he had not had to go very far down the valley to find enough grass on which to live.
About mid-afternoon he walked upstream, wandering around the small groups of mares and foals. He did not go as far as Wurring, thus not entering into Ilinga’s line of vision. There were those two fillies near Wurring. They were watching the young horse and he did seem to be restless.
The iron-grey watched the three of them. He had stolen Wurring to act as bait for the filly who had escaped him. Why was Wurring continually staring towards the cave?
The cave held bats. The iron-grey gave a disgusted shiver. Once again he saw Wurring throw his head up and look towards the sandy cave. The iron-grey walked a little closer to him. He was still out of Ilinga’s line of sight.
The two fillies that were near Wurring were two of the neatest fillies in the herd, but they were nothing like that filly whom he had lost. She must have been the foal belonging to the strange and beautiful mare who had followed Winganna.
For that foolishness Winganna had died...
The mare, who had seemed to burn with the glow of a moonlight night, had been a most unusual mare, and the iron- grey knew that she had hated him. When he defeated the old stallion and took his herd and this valley, she had tried to escape... galloping away... but she could not escape him. Her foal had been born soon after her mad gallop.
She had, of course, escaped when Winganna came, but then she must have died.
Already almost two years had passed. The iron-grey who had defeated the old brown stallion, owner of the valley, and from whom Winganna had been able to take that mare, had now killed Winganna, but... 'time passes, time passes’ cried the currawongs in the sky above him. He too, would grow old. Perhaps he was already slower and heavier. Perhaps he had never possessed all that was necessary to be king of his surroundings - certainly he had never had the leaping flame of life that had burned in Wurring.
The iron-grey looked at Wurring and gave himself an angry shake. Even though that chestnut colt looked as if he would die before the winter was finished, there were those two fillies, the best of the herd, almost always near him. Obviously even when he was nearly dead he was an attractive horse. Why was he restless? Was it just that he was afraid of winter coming? The iron-grey nosed around for grass beneath the snow but, still out of Ilinga’s sight, he kept a watch on Wurring. Possibly Wurring was only interested in the cave as a shelter.
The twilight came. Everyone seemed tense. Snow started to fall again. Perhaps there was a movement near the mouth of the cave. Then out of the twilight, and just a few minutes before the night closed in, there came a small cloud.
Before he could even push himself under some leafy branches, the cloud of bats was all around him, wings flapping at his face, down his back, and worst of all, flapping at his ears. He tried to get in among the black sallees that grew by the creek, but the bats surrounded him, and their squeaking filled the air. Their wings seemed to be pushing him. One bat even clung to his withers.
Filled with loathing, the iron-grey started to trot downstream, but the bats were thick around him. He broke into a canter, and they still kept with him. In a fury he turned around as though to fight them. This they had not expected, and for a moment they flew past him. Just for a few seconds his vision was clear. He could just make out the group of horses by the stream, then the bats were encircling him again. Perhaps he had only imagined that there was a fourth in the group... the bats were all around his head, thick, horrible, the smell of them fusty. One clung to his ear. He would shake it off, get rid of them, determine whether someone else had really joined that group by the creek. He stood firm, shaking his head, but the bats clung on, and those on the wing whirled around and around till the air seemed thick with them and their smell.
Just for one second the dark cloud in front of him broke. All
was night even without the curtain of wings.... Three... two
half-seen shapes in darkness ... three ... near Wurring? The bats were crowding in again in front of his eyes, settling on him, hooking their claws into him. He began to panic. He screamed with rage and horror, then he could stand it no longer. He could not stay.... Three fillies? But he had to go. His legs began to gallop. He was propelled by fear - and even as he galloped, the bats clung on, and followed, and drove him faster and faster. Nothing he could do would make them leave. He came to a standstill in a few propping strides. He would roll, that might remove them.
The bats that were clinging to his coat and mane freed themselves, but the whole flight of them hovered and waited, coming very close to his waving legs
. The horror of them, and their squeaking, and the feel of them made him nearly mad. He got up and galloped and galloped ... and he imagined that the bats were still there, long after they had left him alone ... long after ... long after the falling snow had covered those tracks that had to be made... long after the snow had hidden a story.
There was trackless snow, when that iron-grey could bear to go back - just the dark night and snow. There was no one to be seen.
For some reason he made straight for the cave mouth. There, he was sure, in the dry cave, out of reach of the snow, he would find something.
All his valley seemed empty, silent, waiting. He hurried to the cave opening.
Eyes watched him in the darkness. Bats waited for him. The only sound was an owl hooting a warning.
* * *
Ilinga had gone out of the cave just on dark, just as the snow began to fall. She went like a shadow across the open grass, barely breathing till she reached the safety of the trees. Then she crept through leaf and branch towards Wurring. She could hear his indrawn breath, knew that his head was up, waiting, wondering. Then her nose was touching his in the darkness.
She felt that there was not a moment to lose. She must lead him to the cave immediately, try to get him over the tumbled boulders, get him away - but he did not move, just stood completely still. The two other fillies came closer, curiously stretching out their own noses to the stranger who had appeared out of the night.
Ilinga waited tensely. If one of them squealed, the iron-grey would probably hear. She did not know where the iron-grey was: he could indeed be quite close. She could feel one of the fillies wrinkling up her nose with excitement. In a moment she would squeal.
Wurring quickly gave the softest nicker to let them know that Ilinga was a friend. Jealousy could still bring great trouble to them. Ilinga felt a swift nip on her shoulder, but there was no sound. Now Wurring must move, but he stood. She touched his nose again and took a few steps towards the cave. Still he did not move. She turned round, urged him on. She had seen him hopping, but irrationally she felt that be- cause she had found him, he must be suddenly better.