The snow began to fall faster. Her longing to go home to Numeramang would have to be forgotten. There was too much high country to cross. Her bones would bleach up there. How should she get down lower?
She turned up the ridge on the opposite side to that which she had slipped down.
13: Wraiths in the Blizzard
The snow lay thickly and unmarked. Ilinga slipped and slid her way up the steep side of the valley. The wild raspberry was already getting covered with snow, wattle trees were bowed down. White snow and trees bounded her vision, and when she reached the top of the ridge all she could see were the blowing snow and the trees. Then suddenly she stopped in mid-stride. There was something, marks, disturbed snow... signs of a horse and fresh tracks leading up the ridge.
She stood for a minute, her eyes searching for the shape of this horse in among the trees - but there were only the hoofmarks, and the snow falling into them, filling them up, covering them over. She moved forward, head down, sniffing at the tracks.
Had he waited all that time? But after all she had only been in that tunnel for two nights. It was the young brown stallion, of that she was sure, and he was on his own. The bay from Ravine must have gone back.
Ilinga was too lonely and too afraid to feel anything but a sudden warmth of friendship for that young brown horse, and she followed his tracks quite fast. She must not let the tracks get covered by the fast-falling snow. While she could see them, she did not feel so alone. Also it was possible that he knew the way to warmer, low country where there would be grass. She was very hungry.
She had not been following for more than ten minutes when she saw him ahead, jogging along through the trees. He did look as if he knew where he was going, yet he had first appeared, days ago now, somewhere near Ravine, so he must be quite a long way from his own country. Ilinga slowed her pace. As long as she did not lose sight of him, all would be well. She was not at all sure that she wanted to catch up with him right away - not even in the depths of a snow storm.
The brown horse ahead of her threaded his way through the tall tree trunks - brown horse cloaked by the clouds of falling snow; young beautiful horse, young beautiful filly following him, the two of them like wraiths passing through the storm. The brown stallion did not know that Ilinga was behind him, though she, and she alone, had held him waiting there, above the vanishing river.
If it had been Wurring ahead he would have felt her pres- ence, for some flashing sympathy existed between those two.
The snow fell down, thick and fast. Tracks were covered soon. A stronger gust of wind whirled the flakes in a twisting cloud. Ilinga lost sight of the brown horse for a few seconds, and his tracks were barely visible. She broke into a canter, swishing past some low wattles, so that the snow exploded off their branches. She must not lose him. For a while she had not been alone, and now she was alone again, while she could not see him.
It was completely urgent not to lose him.
Snow beat in her eyes. Then she saw him moving ahead, and she hurried, going even a little closer this time, so that she would not lose him again.
The snow fell thicker and thicker. The brown horse vanished again. Ilinga shot forward, afraid, so afraid that this time she might be blown off course and not find him at all. It was so easy to get lost in snow, in great white clouds of beating snowflakes.
There he was, and she trotted closer and closer, so that only the wildest of blizzards could make him become invisible.
In forest country, a blizzard cannot become as dense, as suffocating, as twisting as it does on the open mountain tops, but this storm eventually became a tremendous blizzard through which it was nearly impossible to keep going.
The two browns became white with snow, so that there was never the full outline of two horses trotting on through the trees, Ilinga came up almost head to quarters with the young horse. She thought he must have known, then, that she was there, but his whole mind and effort was on one thing, on getting safely out of the blizzard. When he did not turn round to look at her, she began to wonder if he did know she was there, or if he thought he were dreaming.
In this ghostly companionship they trotted on and on, along the top of a narrow ridge which went for miles, and where, even though there were trees, the wind came with a hurtle and crash, and the snow whirled thick and fast. They passed shadowy trees that were plastered with snow - or through trees that they could not see at all. They went on and on, snow beating in their eyes, wind pushing them off the ridge in stronger and stronger gusts, snow falling, falling, making them dizzy.
Ilinga stumbled. Her nose nearly touched the off side of the young brown stallion’s quarters, actually brushed some of the snow off it. This time he did turn his head, and his eyes, all fringed with snow, looked unbelieving. He kept on trotting, but he turned his head again, looked once more. This time he stopped, sniffed at her head, still unbelieving. To Ilinga it was almost as though she were not there.
For days she had thought of nothing but how to find Wurring, and then how to get him away from the iron-grey. The young brown stallion had only thought how he might win Ilinga’s attention: now this was all changed. The most important thing for both young horses was to get out of the snow and survive.
Slowly Ilinga began to feel that she really existed for the young horse. Then the blizzard did not seem to blow so strongly, because there were the two of them to fight their way through it.
Then the ridge began to drop a little. The trees got thinner. The wind seemed almost strong enough to lift them and carry them away. The trees ended, and ahead there was just swirling snow, no solid world in which to set their hooves, nothing to tell them which way they should go. Open country and the wild blizzard would engulf them.
Ilinga began to wonder if the brown stallion really did know where he was travelling. He stopped on the edge of the trees, looking at the white world beyond. The sound of the wind filled the air, and yet there seemed to be a sort of silence. Not a bird cried. Every other living creature except the two young horses must have been huddled in safety, in thick trees, or hollows. Their aloneness was immense. Even the cry of a currawong would have made the world less vast and unfriendly.
The snow would surely be falling in the iron-grey’s valley, too, and how would Wurring make for lower country fast enough?
The brown stallion started off through the whirling clouds of snow. Ilinga had to keep her head right to his flank, or she would have lost him. The battle for her own safely was too great to allow her to wonder much about how Wurring would stay alive.
Snow filled the air they breathed. The bitter, snow-filled wind drove them, buffeted them, blew them always in one direction - off the course which the brown horse tried to keep.
If the wind blew them apart for even a second, Ilinga’s fear became blind terror. The force of the blizzard had become too great for them to trot across it. They walked, and she kept her shoulder pressed to his flank. The journey was endless. The beating, twisting, wind-swivelled snow was their world, world without end. Once, the young brown horse stopped and flung an agonized neigh to the snow-filled sky. The snow muffled the sound that would usually have carried for miles. No one would have heard it, there was none to answer.
They went on, leaning against the blizzard, blinded and breathless - and perhaps lost. On they went - one brown leg, all spattered with snow, after the other, one hoof stepping into white space and then another, step after step into cold snow, step after step.
There was something darker ahead.
They passed under one lone tree and then there were trees on either side and soon they were going down hill. The young brown stallion quickened his pace, and Ilinga kept beside him, shoulder to flank. She could tell by the way he relaxed that he must be fairly certain that they were coming to safety.
She was so tired. She just kept on trotting with her head to his flank. Sometime this white, whirling world must come to an end, and they would have grass underfoot again. Slowly it all became a vast, moving bl
ur of falling snow.
They began to drop downwards more steeply, and soon they were becoming sheltered from the worst of the wind. Some of the snow fell off their coats. They were horses again, not ghosts in a blizzard, and they could see out of their eyes.
It was necessary to keep going, though, in case the blizzard
increased and the snow became deep, far down the mountains.
Ilinga was quite exhausted by the time they had gone down to that level where the snow became pouring rain.
It was almost dark when the young brown stallion stopped trotting, and dropped his head to graze. Ilinga no longer felt hungry, only deeply tired. She went to sleep on her feet beside him, and, if he moved, woke up only enough to move close to him. Soon he slept too.
* * *
The young brown stallion looked at her curiously. She was hollow-flanked, exhausted. She had obviously been looking for someone... where had she vanished to when she fell? What had happened, and how had she come back?
He shook the rain out of his coat. Winter had really come, and winter was a time of straggle. It was also a time to hear of great mysteries.
The valley into which he had led Ilinga held a number of horses. There was fairly good grass. It was the valley in which his sire’s herd had always wintered. His sire and dam were there, and other stallions, other mares, many young horses. There was room for them all. In spring they would part up into smaller herds. Then there might be a fight or so for mares, but now all was peaceful. There were other things to think about than fighting. Food and shelter would be most important during all the winter months.
The young brown horse knew that Ilinga would run with him all winter, but he had a strong feeling that she was possessed by someone else, absolutely possessed, or else why had she run from him?
14: Hop, Hop or Die
Wurring and the two fillies left the mouth of the cave very quickly, but Wurring did not want to go far away. Only if the iron-grey came out again, alone, would he be sure that Ilinga had got away. So he waited and waited, knowing that if the iron-grey came out disappointed, and found him standing there, he would probably be killed. He pressed himself right into thick branches and leaves and hoped that he would not be seen. The fillies were afraid and, for the first time, left him.
He waited and waited.
He waited and the cold snow fell. If only he had had the strength to go off with Ilinga. Suddenly it seemed that he must gallop off through the snow, feel strong again, and young, and race the blizzard with his beautiful filly - the lovely one who had run with him from the time she was a motherless foal.
As the snow fell, ceaselessly, like an ever-moving curtain, he remembered some of the strange tales that had sounded through the bush ever since that night when Ilinga’s dam had followed Winganna and the other two mares into the great flat at Numeramang - the tales of something that had happened years and years ago, or something that absolutely had to happen. And, as he stood in the falling snow, the air seemed electric, thrilling. He was tingling, like he tingled when his hair and Ilinga’s touched, and the stories were alive in the air around him - a mare of the moonlight breed, a stallion that was full of the fire of the sun... the impossible union of sun and moon over glittering snow. Even as the excitement shook him, so that he had forgotten where he was, forgotten that there was anything but glory, that which had been in the brolga’s dance came to him - a warning - of danger, danger, and of the almost complete vanishing of the sun. Then, indeed, the snow fell cold on his back.
Wurring waited, and all night long the wind would spiral the snow around and sigh: ‘Vanish, vanish, the sun may vanish.’
At last there seemed to be faint shreds of light in the sky - snowflakes bearing light danced in front of his eyes. If the iron-grey did not soon come... Fear for Ilinga was like a fox creeping through the bushes.
If the iron-grey did catch her, he would certainly bring her back to his own valley. Wurring would know what had happened.
Just before the dawn really came, some bats flew out, seemed to search around for something, and then came towards Wurring’s hiding place. They fluttered in among the leaves, quietly around his head, A feeling of well-being went through him. All was not lost....
Far away a dingo howled and its mate answered. The world went on. All was not lost.
Daylight had become stronger, and Wurring could see how heavily the snow was falling. Then the iron-grey appeared in the sandy cave.
He, too, was on three legs - and he was alone.
Wurring looked at him in amazement. It did not really matter how he had got hurt. Ilinga had got away and somehow the iron-grey had been lamed, and Wurring had nothing really to fear from him for a while.
The iron-grey stood in the sandy cave. He stood and he stood, and he watched the snow. Wurring suddenly knew, as the snow poured down around him too, that what he had to fear, now, was just the snow.
In case it kept on falling, and did not melt all winter, he should start to go down lower. It would take him a long time to get far, particularly if the snow got very deep. The iron-grey still stood there. Wurring did not wish to be seen so he waited a minute or so, then the iron-grey hopped a few yards: he was very lame. It was obvious he was no danger at present, but he might be some use, he might know where grass for the winter would be found.
A big gust of wind lifted the snow off the ground, and swirled the falling snow densely. Everything was blotted out in a blinding white cloud. Wurring quickly backed away, putting quite a number of trees between him and the iron-grey while the cloud hid him. When the cloud cleared, the iron-grey had moved too. It was time to follow him downstream, and Wurring could just see him, hopping down the valley; see his tracks being quickly filled with snow.
Wurring crossed the creek and began to hop down on the opposite side from the iron-grey, a little behind him and hidden in trees.
As the snow storm got heavier and heavier, the situation was becoming desperate for both lame horses. They had to beat the snow or die. The grass would all be buried, and no horse on three legs could hop far through very deep snow. They must beat the snow now, before it lay too thickly.
Hop, hop, hop, or die. Hop, hop, hop, or die. Blinding cold snow beat in Wurring’s eyes, plastered his back.
Great danger ... There had been great danger from the iron- grey. Now there was great danger from the winter’s snow, but the strange thing was that very soon the snowflakes that slid past his ears only whispered of a moonlight-coloured mare - not of the extinguished sun’s light, nor of death and danger. Wurring may have started off feeling that every hop was an effort, and that if he did not get away from the heavy snow he would die, but before he had been going for long, the future seemed to be thrilling. He remembered last winter, when he and Ilinga and the other young horses had galloped so gaily through the snow. Did he remember all the legends too, or were they going to sound all this winter as they had last winter
- in the tinkle of ice on snowgum leaves, in the cry of the wind?
Wurring was suddenly in another world, a world where the iron-grey was no longer of such importance. As the falling snow whispered to him, he did not mind that he was on three legs. Before the snow was gone he would race over it, flinging up the silver spray behind him. He would assuredly go to Ilinga, when the blizzards allowed him to. He tossed his head, suddenly wild with joy - even though he still hopped, even though the first heavy snows fell and there was all the winter still ahead. Joy made the fire of the invisible sun burn through him.
Ilinga had come, had found him - this was all that mattered. Pain did not matter. He would be better before the snows had gone.
The wind cried of the sun and the moon. The wind’s winter cry that could mean death was full of an old story of life.
Wurring did not realize that he had started going faster till he saw he had caught up with the iron-grey, who was just across the creek from him. He had better slow down. He was counting on the older horse leading him to
a place of safety where there would be grass to eat while the blizzards raged.
The iron-grey had not noticed him.
Wurring suddenly saw that there were quite a few tracks in the snow in front of the other stallion. The herd must have gone ahead. He wondered if the two fillies were with them, or behind.
All over the mountains there would be horses making down, and kangaroos and wallabies - if they had not already gone. For a while the roar of the wind, the cry of black cockatoos, and the song of the currawongs would be all that sounded over the white mountain-tops. When the blizzard ceased to blow and the sun shone again there would be the curve of snow against the sky and no moving animal to track it except perhaps a hare - and nobody knows where the hare goes.
The day was growing later, darker. They were hopping on and on down the river. There was still snow falling and much snow underfoot. Wurring knew he was getting tired. He had crossed two or three little creeks, and others had come in from the opposite side. The stream was becoming quite large, the valley wide.
The iron-grey stopped underneath a big tree and started nosing around for grass. Wurring stopped too. Perhaps the older stallion knew it was safe to stop here and rest... but that big, heavy horse looked exhausted.... Wurring decided he would not stop, but keep going down the river - and just hope that the valley did not become a gorge. The tracks of the rest of the herd still went on. He would cross the stream presently, on to the iron-grey’s side, and go where the herd had gone: their tracks would be company.
He was very tired, but a burning desire for life kept him going. If he could get to good grass for the winter, the future would blaze ahead - there would be no death in darkness and deep snow.
Sometimes he was so burning with a feeling of urgency, that he put his lame leg to the ground and barely noticed the pain. Wurring was starting to recover, even though by late at night, when he found the herd down where the snow barely lay at all, he was totally exhausted,