Silver Brumby Kingdom (6 page)

Hidden amongst the trees, Yarolala gave an anguished call. She stood there, shaking, for some minutes, bat the two shapes of horses never moved, and already seemed to be taking on the rigidity of death.

Suddenly, possessed by horror, Yarolala turned and started to gallon away from the smell of dust and blood, and from the two bodies.

Yarolala needed all the courage of the Yarraman breed — all the brains too. Horror and fear must be kept under control. She stopped her mad gallop through the night — stopped dead — then almost stopped breathing. Someone Was galloping along the track towards her. She must get off the track to Quambat and hide.

Her heart was pounding, and she trembled all over, but she stepped carefully to one side of the track, mined in towards the river, and then in the direction of Quanabat again, walking as quietly as possible.

The thundering, galloping horse was coming closer. Yarolala, frightened almost more than she could bear, kept walking, parallel with the Quambat track along which he galloped, but keeping herself well hidden in the trees.

The horse went pounding past.

Yarolala stood still for a moment, shaking violently, then she turned through denser bush towards the Limestone Creek. She would cross it, keeping away from all tracks, find somewhere to hide for the night, and make her way back to Quambat later. Though there had been no other horse with her when she left Quambat Flat, then she had been seeking Baringa. Now she was completely alone. No hope, no scent upheld her. In the end, when she knew this stallion was not returning, she would have to go back to Lightning.

The thud of galloping hooves stopped, and instead of it she heard the sound of rushing water. The night was even emptier than before. Every leaf that touched her hide sent tenor through her. She caine to the stream. Somehow it seemed that if she could cross that, the horse might never find her. She would walk a little downstream in the water so that if he followed her scent right to the edge, and then crossed, there would be no scent on the bank just opposite.

The water was ice-cold, the current strong. Even near the edge, the force of the stream tore at her fine legs, and it was difficult not to fall among the boulders.

A flying phallanger barked somewhere above her. Yarolala jumped and snorted. Fear walked all around her and within her. There was fear In the moving water, as it caught the rather dim starlight and glittered black, fear in the silence, fear in the sound, fear, oh fear in the sudden sigh of a rising wind.

She decided to cross the creek, and immediately found herself floundering in far deeper water than she had expected. It had been a hot day the sky was indeed partly hazed by cloud, and now the wind moaned far away in the hills above. Perhaps the weather was changing again, snow melting higher up. Yarolala forced her way through the bitter stream. She would follow the creek down for a while, till she found a good place, and then hide herself and wait to find out, if the could, what the horse was doing.

There was also fear in the thought that she might lead another stallion to Quambat. Perhaps it was the black, owner of the five roans that Lightning had stolen.

Presently she heard him coming slowly back — so slowly that he must be nose to ground, trying to pick up her scent, but the sound of the water made it difficult to tell exactly where he was. Then she knew he was quite close to the creek, but upstream, where she had first entered it.

She began to tremble so violently that she thought she would give herself away if he came near. The teatree around her moved: she must indeed give off the scent of fear but how could she stop being afraid?

She heard the horse crossing the stream, and heard his hooves clattering on the stones as he shook the water from his coat. Now she must be still, still . . . Yarolala called up all her courage the courage with which generations of her ancestors had galloped over the sunlit mountains by day, the starlit mountains at night, forced their way through the snows of winter, fought, lived and loved.

She quieted her trembling and waited.

The horse moved off further from the creek, and she could only just make out his shape, for he was indeed as black as night. Perhaps he thought she had kept going straight away across country.

The tenseness went out of Yarolala’s muscles. She felt very tired and without hope. She sank down on to the soft ground among the teatree.

In front of her eyes the fight seemed still to be continuing . . . Baringa rearing, striking, Baringa, silver and beautiful, dancing round and round that rangy chestnut . . . Half-sleeping, wholly exhausted, she dreamed of the silver horse, image after image seeming to float in the air before her, and then sometimes she was still following his scent. Once the ghost of a silver horse, blood-stained as he had been, seemed to flit through the teatree, and there was the illusive scent.

She became completely awake as she heard the black returning, smashing around though the bush. He passed fairly close; he went; he came back. All night through he roamed among the trees and scrub around the creek.

Yarolala must have gone to sleep before dawn, for she was woken by the heavy wing beat of a magpie and then its lovely carolling. There was no other sound except the birds. An occasional rustle would only be a possum retiring to sleep, or a wombat going slowly through the undergrowth to his burrow. Once she heard the thump, thump of a kangaroo hopping. She could not hear anything to indicate whether the black stallion were close or not.

She was afraid to move, and yet she wanted to go far away from the bodies of the two horses.

“Wait,” something seemed to say to her, and then she told herself: “Go. There is nothing near.”

She listened and listened. No sound came, other than the bush noises and the rush of the water.

She began to move forward, easing cramped limbs, pressing through the teatree. Then she heard the sound of hooves — not four hooves, but eight. She sank back into her thick covering, but this time in a place from which she could see the stream. There she stood, watching. At last out of the long-leafed black sallee trees there stepped the black stallion followed by a little, round, white mare.

Yarolala stared. Even in the short time that she had been at Quambat Flat she had heard murmurs of Baringa’s beautiful mare, Dawn, and also she had heard the emus say: “He has mares who are the gun and the moon to him.”

Had Baringa lost his mares to the black stallion and come searching for them, only to be killed by Bolder?

Just then the black blew through his nose, a queer, half-fearful snort, almost as though he smelt the horrifying smell of blood, and away he went, followed, more leisurely, by the round, white mare.

He seemed to go off in such a purposeful way that Yarolala decided she would try once more to go to Quambat Flat. She wriggled out of the teatree and went straight into the water without ever wondering what scent the black had found and followed.

The stream was even higher, and she noticed clouds overhead. She crossed with difficulty and rejoined the Quambat crack. It was because she saw the black’s churned-up hoof marks on the track that she went on the grass at the side. It would be better if she left no track.

She hurried along, and as she hurried she began to feel afraid. Perhaps the black stallion might come back; something dreadful must be going to happen; everything seemed wrong; Baringa was dead. Then the rain started to fall.

The day had been warm and now the rain was very cold. It came faster and faster. Yarolala’s forelock and mane were matted and dripping. Her chestnut coat was streaked with water and dirt. For a while she sheltered in a thick grove of wattles, but even if it poured with rain, she knew she would rather keep moving and get to Quambat — the only place where she belonged at all.

She was soaked, tired and miserable when she reached the lower end of Quambat Flat. There was no movement on the clear country. Lightning and his mares were among thick trees. She caught sight of Goonda’s very pale roan foal first and then saw Lightning himself, further back in the trees. Cloud and Mist, and Cirrus were nowhere to be seen.

Yarolala did not know how Lightning might behave towards her. She stood miserably in the rain, gazing up the flat towards him, and only felt the loss of Baringa more strongly.

At last she walked sadly and slowly up the flat because there was nothing else for her to do, and, as she walked, the great drops solidified into wet snow-flakes.

Lightning and his mares were all shivering, with eyes half shut against the flakes, so that no one saw her.

In a very few minutes her chestnut back was covered with wet snow, and snow was thick in her forelock, on her eyelashes. She plodded on.

It was Goonda who saw her first, saw the dejection in her walk.

Had the emus been right — that Baringa wanted no other mares? No other mares except . . . ? She wondered what other mare except Dawn Baringa did have. When Yarolala was temporarily hidden behind a few trees, Goonda moved off, as though wandering aimlessly, and joined her.

Lightning noticed Goonda go drifting down the flat, because Goonda had become so beautiful that he looked at her often, but he did not follow. There was no reason why he should leave the shelter of the trees. No danger would come to Goonda today, in all the rain and snow.

Thus it was that Goonda found Yarolala first — saw her before she expected to be seen, with her head drooping almost to the ground, and the snow, which she had not bothered to shake off, lying thick on her back.

She jumped so violently when she heard Goonda that it was quite clear that she had been very afraid as well as miserable. Goonda walked up and extended her gentle red nose to touch Yarolala’s. Then she rubbed her roan neck over the top of the snow-covered chestnut neck with its silver mane, and presently began scratching and nibbling at the snow which clung to the chestnut hair.

Yarolala moved closer to Goonda for company, and soon began rubbing her head against her. Neither of them noticed Lightning coming through the snow, the big, feather flakes dense around him, but suddenly he was there, a great, silver stallion, and Goonda knew by Yarolala’s trembling and the despair in her eyes that something terrible must have happened.

Lightning had been feeling very angry with Yarolala, perhaps insulted by her obvious preference for Baringa, but what was the use in being angry? If he nipped at her and was cross, she might just vanish again. Also his beautiful Goonda stood right beside her . . .

“Come back to the herd,” he said, and the two mares followed. Only Goonda suspected that Yarolala had nowhere else to go.

The other mares could not help noticing how miserable she looked. It was not just the snow matting her mane and forelock and her silver tail that flew so free when she galloped. They knew that Yarolala was deeply unhappy.

Even when the sun came flashing on the snow the next morning, melted it away, made everything seem to become green and growing, Yarolala did not bother to eat, and her coat only looked rougher.

Goonda felt very sorry for her and stayed close all day. Lightning stayed close too, because he rarely went far from Goonda, and because he felt sure that Yarolala knew some very strange things, and he was extremely curious.

The roan mares were curious too, because they felt fairly sure she had been down to the Limestone.

The next day was sunny again. Cloud and Mist with Cirrus and her silver foal, were back at the top of the flat, basking in the hot sun. Several patches of sarsaparilla were suddenly covered with purple flowers. The grass was sweeter. Lightning felt as though he owned this marvellous, brightening world.

Yarolala neither ate nor moved around much.

She did not seem to notice that the others were all watching her. Slowly, but very definitely, the feeling had grown among the other mares that Yarolala had some frightening secret. They all knew she had gone to find Baringa, and that she had come back dejected and alone. As they saw her coat grow rough and her eyes become duller each day, they began to say to each other:

“What has happened? Perhaps Baringa is dead?” And they waited and wondered, and waited.

Almost the only action Yarolala had taken was to snap at Lightning if he came too close, but after a day or two she even ceased to do that. Lightning thought it might be safe to ask her what had happened down south. Even he had heard the mares whispering. So he asked Yarolala.

The only answer he got was:

“I saw the black stallion who owned the roans. He has a white and silver mare, too.”

Lightning was amazed — a white and silver mare. Had the black beaten Baringa? Then he felt cold fear.

It was Goonda to whom Yarolala at last told the story of the terrible fight she had seen, and when Lightning saw Goonda’s sorrow he felt quite sure that Baringa was dead. At last he could bear it no longer.

“Is it Dawn with the black stallion?” he asked Yarolala. “Is Baringa dead?”

“Bolder and Baringa are both dead,” she answered.

Lightning was standing there in the bright sunshine, his coat gleaming with life. Now his ears trembled, he snorted, and every muscle stiffened. Bolder dead Baringa dead!

Yarolala moved off, pretending to graze. At last Lightning shivered and followed her, presently rubbing his nose against her shoulder with a gentleness which she had not expected.

Lightning felt a horrid sensation of fear and uncertainty. How could Baringa, so full of life — Baringa who had often appeared when he most needed help — be dead? How were Baringa and Bolder both dead? Who had killed them? It must be the black, and he must have Dawn . . . Lightning wanted Dawn more than anything.

All the rest of that warm spring day, he stayed beside Yarolala. Goonda stayed close too. Lightning was kind and gentle, and by nightfall Yarolala was actually eating a little grass.

A cool south wind sprang up with the night: they sheltered among trees, but even then its touch through the coat, through the mane, was disturbing.

Whispering came the wind, cold, ruffling silver hair. And the word of the wind told of far-off places, unknown hills, unknown valleys, and of drumming hooves, and speed. For Lightning the wind seemed also to carry an impression — never really taking form — of the loveliness of Dawn, and of the fury of the black stallion, an impression of death by fighting, and fear, and horror, but always the impression of Dawn, Dawn. At last the certainty that he must have Dawn overpowered fear and horror. The cool wind touched him again and whispered of thrilling galloping on unknown mountains.

Lightning went in the night.

The cool wind blew all night long, so that a horse felt strong, trotting through it, strong enough to go on over the mountains for ever. Lightning went towards the Limestone at a very fast trot, travelling through shadow and black dark, through the fragrance of the bush at night, hearing the call of mopokes, the qua . . . a . . . ark of possums.