Silver Brumby Kingdom (3 page)

Baringa had noticed a better grazing place, not far up the river, where some of the bushes with leaves that were good to eat grew, so that even if the grass were dead and brown from the snow, they would have food, and this place was well above the height of the flood-waters.

Next morning he took the kangaroos and Moon, Koora and Dilkara, and left them there while he went to cross the river higher up again, and to try once more to find Dawn.

There had not been a frost that night, and still more snow had gone off the hillsides. Baringa thought that it was quite likely that at least the banks of Quambat Creek might be bare . . . even possibly his own Canyon.

He decided to cross above Lightning’s grazing place this time, so he would have to go high through the bush around it if he did not wish to be seen, and he was creeping carefully through flowering wattles when suddenly he realised that there was no one there. He went round it in case he had made any mistake, but the shrubby river point was empty. Then he came on the tracks, Lightning’s tracks and the tracks of a number of mares. He followed them till he saw that they turned up Quambat Creek. So Lightning was going home, and, judging by the tracks, he was hurrying his mares along. Perhaps he had suddenly thought that the other stallion could now come looking for his roans, that most of the snow which held him back must be gone. Lightning was probably right, but what stupidity to leave such a clear trail!

Baringa crossed the Quambat Creek with some difficulty, and then went further up the Limestone before crossing it. It was very high, also he was wondering. . . .

Only patches of snow lay now where he had had to plough through it, following Lightning, not many days before. The hot wind and the rain had certainly melted it. He travelled quite quickly, even though he had to pick his steps very carefully so that he walked on stones, or rocks, or among thick bushes. He had a very strong feeling that the owner of the roan mares would be coming for them, and he did not particularly want his tracks to be found.

The sun was shining. It was hot and the wattles scented the air. Up here there was not the great roar of the flood, just a rushing song of water, and often the swish and slither of snow subsiding into a hollow underneath it.

Baringa did not take very long to reach the same hill from which he had watched Lightning steal the roan mares. As he climbed it, he could see that the opposite slopes no longer glittered with snow, though there were patches still — patches that could even look like a white mare sleeping. Then he was right on top, looking across and down, and . . . He stopped, his coat pricking . . . There was something . . . He stood still amongst the snowgums, but his eyes moved over the whole of the opposite, splayed-out ridge and the one long finger of trees that came halfway down it. He must have seen a movement. That was not snow! Something white in the trees . . . Dawn . . . and it seemed as if he leapt, but actually he stood rockstill.

There was something in the trees. Stepping out of the leaves and the whippy, white branches, came a black stallion. Baringa barely breathed.

The stallion walked forward, head down, sniffing at the ground. The rain would have washed away scent and hoof-marks, but not all the droppings nor the pressed-down places where the mares had camped. Certainly it would be clear that several mares had lived here for months, perhaps clear that they were his own mares.

Baringa was thinking this and yet watching the trees, because he was sure something white had moved there. It could not be Dawn, but what was it? He watched, and out of the trees stepped a small, rather round, white mare.

This time Baringa did jump, but the stallion and mare did not see his movement. He forced himself to remain still but could not stop the sweat breaking out on his coat. It was not Dawn, but for one moment . . .

In fact it was a good thing that the mare was not Dawn, because he could not bear to think of her having been even temporarily captured by another stallion, but he wished that he knew if she were alive and safe.

The black seemed to be getting more and more upset. He trotted everywhere, sniffing, and then would throw up his head and look all around. Once he called.

The white mare followed placidly, cutting corners, while the stallion’s agitation drove him hither and thither.

Baringa watched carefully, so that he would know what that stallion had learned. He was sure there was no chance of Lightning’s and the five mares tracks down the river being still left to lead the stallion after them, and he was right. The black finally stopped rushing about and snuffling, and stood irresolute. He simply had no idea where they had gone.

If the black went down the river anyway, just because it was the easiest thing to do, Baringa knew that Lightning would be in trouble, because, down there, their tracks were so thick, and such a lot of them had obviously gone up the Quambat Creek.

The stallion, however, must have thought that if he stayed where his mares had wintered, they might return. Baringa could see that he had settled down to graze.

At last Baringa went off, crossed the Limestone, and began to search and search for Dawn.

Suddenly there was no sunlight. He looked up at the sky. Great, lazy grey clouds had rolled up and he had been so interested in the black stallion that he had never noticed them. Now he felt a quickening of anxiety. There would be more rain and the rivers would rise again. He must find Dawn. The weather was changing, quicker than even wise old Benni had expected. He must find Dawn. And soon he must take the mares back to the Canyon. He must find Dawn, he must find Dawn.

He searched the bush for her but he was terribly uneasy because of the black stallion. When he was opposite the place where he had left the mares and Benni, he went right to the edge of the swirling water and gazed across, trying to assure himself that they were all right. The bushes were thick, and for quite a long time he could see no movement at all. What if that stallion had come down the river, somehow not seen Lighining’s tracks, and come right down here! But then he saw Benni peacefully grazing, and knew all was well. He went on with his search, desperately trying to find Dawn, but filled with fear for Moon and Koora, so that he knew he was not looking for her properly — though he had been over all this ground before — and knew, at the same time, that he was getting further from the others.

When he had gone quite a long way down the river and was opposite the mouth of the Tin Mine Creek, he could see that the Tin Mine, up which they might have to go to get to the Canyon, was probably bare of snow, and suddenly, definitely, he knew that he must take the mares and the kangaroos back there where they would be safe. He would go a little further down the river now, but though he trotted on, criss-crossing back and forth through the bush, it was so terrible to think he might lose Moon too, because he did not first take her to safety, that he worked himself into a frenzy.

He could not stand the anxiety any longer. He turned and went back, and once he had made up his mind to go, he travelled fast. In daylight, tomorrow, he would take them to the Canyon. Then, when he felt sure they were safe, he would come back and look for Dawn till he found her, if, indeed, she were there to find. Half of Baringa was sure that Dawn was so beautiful that she must be still living, and half of him knew that she may have been swept right down by the river, and drowned in the cold and the flood.

Driven by a nameless fear, he went faster and faster, so that he would still have plenty of daylight in which to see that black stallion and make sure he was still where he had last left him.

The black stallion was not there.

Baringa stood and stared. Even in his hurry up the river he had looked across to make sure that Moon was still safe, and had seen her with Koora, half-hidden in wattles, and there had been no sign of the black stallion then, so he did not really think that, while he was coming up the river, the black had gone down, though it was a gnawing possibility. Then he thought that if the horse had gone downstream he would most surely have found Lightning’s and his herd’s tracks, and followed therm Baringa had reached such a lever-pitch of anxiety during that day that it seemed everything could go wrong.

At last he began to feel certain that no horse was on the splayed-out ridge, and he moved quietly down through the trees. He should be able to pick up the black’s tracks on the soft ground.

The tracks were everywhere. The black stallion had neat, strong hooves. The round, white mare had very small feet, they turned out slightly. Baringa was certain that she was not a daughter of Cloud, the great stallion of Quanibat Flat, sire of Dawn and of Moon. He also thought that she might be sweet, perhaps not very clever, but sweet. He tried to unravel the tracks, but they went everywhere, so then he turned downstream, but there were no tracks there, and he was very relieved. Eventually he found hoof marks leading up the Limestone, and since there was still daylight, and apparently no immediate danger to his herd, he followed.

The pair of tracks were perfectly clear on the wet earth. Baringa was as careful as possible to leave no mark. Occasionally, in boggy places, or where there were yards of bare, black earth, it was not possible, and then he stepped in the black’s hoof mark. The black’s stride was slightly shorter than his. It was also more indented than the mark which he made: the black was considerably heavier.

Baringa had to go rather further than he expected. After the black stallion’s behaviour that morning — not knowing where to go — it would have been more natural for him just to wander. These tracks were purposeful. The stallion knew where he was going now — but why was he going upstream?

Darkness would come before Baringa got back to the others, he was going so far. However, he would be able to travel faster on the way back. Now he had to be cautious, since he did not want to burst out of the trees right on top of the black and his white mare.

He went on and on, and he was beginning to sweat. Any other time he would have been far more awake to the reason why he was sweating, but today he had become so desperate for Dawn, and he had been so afraid that something might happen to Moon while he was away, that he did not notice everything in the way he ordinarily did — such as the fact that it had got hotter towards the end of the day, when it should have got cooler.

He was trotting, now, through thick trees where he left no mark on the leaves and stones, and he was thinking about going to the Canyon and then spending days searching for Dawn — not thinking enough about what he was doing, when the trees ended, and he nearly went trotting out on to a pleasant grassy area. There, in the centre of it, beside a clump of snowgums, stood the black stallion and his round, white mare.

Baringa stopped just in time, thinking to himself that the black looked as if he owned the world, and then realising that this must be one of his usual camping grounds. He must have come back here, hoping the mares would come here too.

Baringa watched for a little while, sure that he was right, because both horse and mare seemed very much at home, then he turned to go back.

Just then the other reason why the black stallion had made upstream was brought sharply to his notice by a heavy drop of rain landing on his nose, then three fell on his back, and then it was raining in wide-spaced, big drops. He should have felt it getting hotter and hotter; he should have seen the clouds getting heavier and heavier.

The rivers would rise again, probably before he could get his herd to his secret Canyon. Once again he was filled with desperation.

He got down near the Limstone, where the water would soon wash away his tracks, and broke into a canter. He must get back to Moon as quickly as he could.

Quambat Flat was only partly free of snow and there was very little to eat, but this was where Lightning and Goonda had grazed for two years, and they were glad to be back. The grey mares whom Lightning had won from Steel seemed to be pleased to be home too.

Lightning saw that Cloud, the grey stallion who had been chief of Quambat for years, was back too, with Mist, his mate, and his sister, Cirrus, whom Thowra owned. It did not mater that they were back first. Cloud must know that he, Lightning, was really the chief stallion of Quambat now, or he should know it, particularly now he could see this fine herd of mares.

Until there was more grass there would be almost too many mares! He had not meant to take all five of the roans, particularly as he had been planning to go over to the Ingegoodbee River to get a lovely chestnut mare whom he had not forgotten seeing when Thowra brought him and Baringa from the Secret Valley to Quambat Flat. This mare, he knew, was a direct throwback to Yarraman, her great-grandsire and Lightning’s own grandsire — chestnut with flowing silver mane and tail, very handsome.

There was also, of course, Dawn, whom Lightning would dearly like to possess: and did Baringa have another white mare? He knew he had seen another white mare: where was she now?

It had been a muddy, slippery journey up the Quambat Creek, and they were all hungry. If the sun would continue to shine, grass must soon grow. Clouds were, in fact, already starting to come over.

Perhaps it would be good manners to greet Cloud and the two grey mares. Lightning left his herd near the chimney that stood as the one remaining sign of a hut which had once been there, and went up the flat, picking his way through patches of snow.

The great grey stallion greeted him and then rather anxiously asked for news of Baringa and Dawn since the heavy snow.

Lightning knew nothing except that Baringa had come like a ghost over the snow in the frost and the moonlight, and freed him and his mares from the pit of snow which they had unwittingly made for themselves.

“I do not know,” he said. “I only saw him once during the winter. He came, a wisp of wind, over the frozen snow. He was well then.”

Lightning did not much care to think of that terrible experience. He would know never again to let his herd stay huddled together in a close mob, stamping around, during a heavy snowfall, so that they allowed walls of snow to grow up around them. It was much more comfortable never to think of it, and never to think of how Baringa had led him hack to Quambat through the black, burnt country, the summer before, when he was blinded by smoke. Not for a moment would he have admitted to himself that it was Baringa who always seemed to get him out of trouble. Baringa had even saved him once by distracting Steel — years ago, when Baringa was only a yearling and Lightning, himself, a two-year-old.

Cloud perhaps knew alt this, and Cloud was shire of Dawn, the mare Baringa owned and Lightning wanted.

“It is going to rain again,” said Cloud. “We will be safe. Here we are too high up in the mountains for any big flood.”

The next rain will wash away nearly all the rest of the snow, Lightning thought, and then it would be possible to get over to the Ingegoodbee to look for that chestnut mare.

The first big drops fell while he was sauntering back to his mares. Those roans were certainly lovely, and here, at Quambat, there was plenty of room for a huge herd. More than likely the stallion who had owned them had perished in the snow.

He forgot the kurrawong’s cry of “Trouble, trouble,” and never even remembered it in the darkness of that rainy night, when he stood close to Goonda, under a candlebark tree.

The rain fell down all over the mountains, beating on the Main Range, washing the snow off Kosciusko into the Wilkinson Valley Creek and Cootapatamba Creek, washing the snow into the Crackenback River, into the Cascades Creek, into the Murray, into the Geehi, into the Ingegoodbee. This time the rivers were over their banks, high, deep and swift when it started, and the snow was even more ready to melt, so the waters rose and rose within an hour or so of the start of the rain.

The heightening of the river was already quite noticeable when Baringa was getting close to the place where he had left the others. He called, and they came into the open to meet him, all looking eagerly to see if he had Dawn, but so glad to welcome him back that he was heartened.

“No sign of her,” he said before they could ask, because the emptiness of each day without her was terrible. He could not imagine that life should continue without Dawn, for she had never left him since that first day Thowra had taken him and Lighting to Quambat Flat.

“I must take you all back to our Canyon, so that I know you are safe,” he went on, “and then I will search for her till I find her.”

Benni tuned his sad face away, and Moon rubbed against him because she could not bear to be left, and she could not bear him to be so hurt.

“It would be safer to wait till the rain stops and the rivers go down,” Benni said at last, “unless we go up on the High Plateau. I should think a lot of snow must have gone from there.”

Baringa looked upwards, but night was settling down. Bare rock, bare earth and patches of snow all blended together into the dark and the heavy clouds and the rain.

“This is not a night for travelling over a steep mountainside which even you and I have never travelled before,” said Benni. “Peace, Baringa. Sleep quietly here.”

Baringa, who bad gone miles and miles that day, but whose strength and energy were almost limitless, was still wide awake.

“I saw Lightning heading for Quambat,” he said. “Goonda has become a beautiful mare. She is far more beautiful than the roans he stole. If the black horse comes . . .”

“Ah. It is a black?” Benni asked.

“Yes. I saw him today too. He could give Lightning plenty of trouble.”

“Lightning has asked for it,” Benni answered, but be was amused.

Before daybreak Baringa was already in a fever to move — but where? The rain was still pouring down, the river still rising.

“Perhaps,” said Benni doubtfully, “we could get on to the High Plateau by going straight up above here. But wait, wait till the light comes.”

A kurrawong called mournfully, somewhere in the just moving darkness.

“Tell me, Baringa,” Benni went on, “have you looked for Dawn down this side of the river, beyond the Tim Mine Creek?”

“No,” said Baringa. “I was so certain that she would have been taken to the other side by the current.”

“You could try it — when you can cross the Tin Mine.” He could look there, Bcnni was thinking, but how could a mare so soon to foal survive the force of that flood and the cold, the terrible cold?”

As the first grey light came, Baringa set off to see what was up above.

“I will not be long,” he said, because he could not bear to leave them in case the black stallion came down the river, even though it was unlikely while the rain still fell in sheets.

He would only go far though to see what sort of climb was above them.

The clouds were so low, hanging over the edge of the High Plateau, that he could learn very little, but it looked as if they could climb it, and he was determined to get Moon away from any chance of being stolen by the black, also it was absolutely necessary to have her safely hidden away so that he could go seeking Dawn without any worry about Moon’s safety.

The first part of the climb seemed quite easy. If there were cliffs above, he would find a way.

He went back and started them all upwards. Once they were on the move, haunches straining as they climbed, and rain spattering on steaming backs, Baringa felt better. He lost the look of dejection and went leaping up, eyes brighter, strength and gaiety in each spring. While he was moving, the future was his, even if the rain did pour down, matting mane and tail, making it constantly necessary to shake his ears.

Benni was thinking that if the gully up which they were climbing ended in cliffs, they might be in difficulty, because the ridges on either side were becoming very rocky. Baringa could already imagine them all safely in the Canyon, as though by magic he would surmount all difficulties. And in his minds picture of them in the Canyon, them was also Dawn.

There were cliffs above, but Baringa and his herd were used to climbing. Once again he told them to wait till he found a way, and he scrambled up the narrowing gully and then went out on to the right-hand ridge of rock. Soon they would be at the top, then along the Plateau and down the other cliff, and then they would be in his Canyon — but there would not be Dawn. It was then, while he was imagining the journey almost finished, that he heard a “wumpf”, felt a shiver go through the rocks under his hooves.

Then the rocks were moving.

For just one second there was no further sound . . . Baringa only felt the strange fluid feeling below his hooves as though a great current were taking the whole ridge. . . . One waiting second, and then the rocks started to rumble and there were the first crashes of stones falling against stone, and the whistle as they flew through the air.

Baririga leapt from a crumbling mass of rocks on to a huge boulder. He felt the boulder tipping over, canting into space, so that he was almost hanging in air before he managed to hurl himself off it, and then he was flying through space, righting himself, getting his hooves on to a rock, then, as it rolled to, twisting to jump once more, each time flinging himself a little further from the centre of the rock-fall. There was nothing firm on which to land. Rock-faces were folding, crumbling, foaming downwards: boulders were bounding past and Baringa was suddenly flying through the air upside down, trying to turn over, mane and tail caught by the wind, trying to get his legs underneath, somehow trying to save himself.

Down below, Benni and the mares had heard the first “wumpf” and the roaring of rocks, the clatter of stones. Then, through the mist and the rain, the stones began to pelt down.

Koora gave a wild neigh to call Dilkara, and leapt for the side of the gully and the left-hand ridge. Benni, usually so quiet, barked in horror. Each animal sprang away from the leaping wave of rocks.

Then through the air a silver horse was somersaulting. He was there and then he was hidden from sight, on the other side of the ridge, and it was impossible to get through the falling rocks to see what had happened to him.

As soon as the rock-fall had almost quietened, Benni went bounding through the last flying stones, across all the loose rubble and over the ridge till he saw Baringa picking his way rather slowly amongst the great scatter of rock. There were only some small splashes of blood blending with the rain on his coat, and though he walked slowly and kept shaking his head, he seemed all right. He was alive and he might not have been.

He raised his head, saw Benni and gave a low nicker. Benni hopped down to him and they touched each other, nose to nose — warm, trembling noses.

Benni watched him as they went on together. “He is not really hurt,” he thought. “If he gets cold he will stiffen, but if he keeps going he should be all right.” To Baringa he said: “Surely the other ridge would not fall too? We will have to go up that because this one may fall still more.”

The other ridge, though steep and difficult, was at least solid.

At last the horses and the two kangaroos scrambled up into the wind and the lashing rain on top of the High Plateau.

Baringa, who was aching all over, turned thankfully towards the north-eastern end, towards the cliff above the Canyon. If he kept on now, he would get there, but if he stopped he might become too sore to move. The rain came down so hard that there was no need to worry about their tracks remaining. They skirted round patches of dirty, granular snow all patterned over with twigs and dead snowgum leaves, pitted with gumnuts. Even up here little runnels of water were everywhere.

When they reached the edge, Baringa and Benni peered anxiously over into the Canyon. If great flood-waters filled it they would have to stay up above, on the Plateau, in the roaring wind and the rain.

The creek was over its banks, but much of the flat was above water.

“It is too high to cross,” said Benni with a sigh. “We will have to go back along the Plateau and into the, creek much higher up.” So wearily they went back along the Plateau and turned down into Dale’s Creek, into the teatree, the silence, the loneliness and mystery of that valley.

They crossed the creek and got into the Canyon down the steep cliffs on its eastern side, hours later than when they had first looked into it.

There were the rocks and the trees they knew so well, under which they could shelter. There was a little food, and there was the sense of well-being and safety engendered by being in their own hidden place which Baringa had found when he and Dawn first ran together and needed somewhere secure to live, where the older stallions could not molest them.

That night Baringa needed comfort and security, for gradually he stiffened so that he could barely move.

For several days the rain poured down. At first Baringa grew stiffer and stiffer, then he began to loosen up, but his back was very sore where it had been twisted as the rocks threw him out into the air. He could not even walk easily. There was no possibility of him going to find Dawn till he could move more freely.

Benni went out one day after the rain had stopped. He hopped along up Dales creek, then towards the track between Quambat and the Tin Mine, to see if any one was about. It was there he saw Lightning — just leaving the track and starting towards Dale’s Creek, nosing about as though he were looking for something. Benni watched for a while, then quietly headed back to the Canyon.

“Baringa,” he said. “Lightning is nosing around in Dale’s Creek. It might be a good thing if you went right round and came down from the Pilot towards him . . . if you can.”

“I’ll have to,” Baringa answered. “I can move more now that it is a little warmer. Perhaps I will make my back better, if I trot about a little, and be able to go to look for Dawn tomorrow — if I make sure that there will be no trouble from Lightning, and see him safely home to Quambat.”

Moving very stiffly still, Baringa climbed out of the Canyon and went along the ridge that divided Dale’s Creek from the Tin Mine. He forced himself to trot along, and after he had been going for a while, though his back ached badly, no other horse just seeing him would have been able to tell that he had been hurt.