The Silver Brumby. Elyne Mitchell
hungry herself, decided it was time the foal should drink and that the day would be fair enough for a newborn colt to go with his mother to some better pastures.
“I will call you Thowra,” she said, waking him with her nose, “because that means wind. In wind were you born, and fleet as the wind must you be if you will live.”
On that first day, while the storm blew itself out, Bel Bel did not take Thowra far, only down through the snowgums to a long glade that led to a heather-banked creek where she could drink. That night they went back to the opening of the cave and the foal slept on the dry sand curled up against his mother’s flank.
The next day she decided to take him farther, to a wide, open field in the snowgum forest, where the grass grew very sweetly, even as early in the spring as this, and where the creek ran shallow over a sand and mica bottom.
The storm had died in the night and there was warm spring sunshine. Bel Bel noticed with pride how the foal trotted more strongly by her side. She did not hurry him, often stopping to graze as they moved under the snowgums or in the long glades. She never left the shelter of the trees without first pausing and looking carefully into the open country ahead. Thus it was through a curtain of the leathery snowgum leaves that she looked out on to the wide, sunny field, and saw a bay brumby grazing in the distance by the creek.
Bel Bel became completely still, watching: then she recognised the bay as a mare of her own herd, Mirri, who had been caught by a stockman as a yearling, and managed to get free. Mirri, for this reason, was very nervous of men, and she and Bel Bel had often run together, away from the herd, when they thought the others were too close to the stockmen’s huts.
Now Bel Bel made out a dark shape on the ground near Mirri and knew that the bay mare, too, had her foal. Unafraid, she led Thowra out to join them.
When Mirri saw them coming she gave a whinny of greeting, and Bel Bel arched her neck a little and stepped proudly beside her creamy son, thinking how his mane and tail were silver and would someday look like spray from a waterfall as he galloped.
Mirri was pleased to see her.
“Well met, Bel Bel,” she said, “and what a fine foal you have – creamy too! I must stir my sleepy-head to show him off!” And she nosed the bright bay at her feet.
The bay raised his head sleepily, but, seeing strangers, he became wide awake and struggled to his feet.
“A fine intelligent head,” Bel Bel said. “What do you call him?”
“Storm,” Mirri answered. “He was born in the worst of the weather, two nights ago. And yours?”
“Thowra, for the wind. He was born then too. They will be great mates for a year or so,” and both mothers nodded wisely, for was it not the way of the wild horses that the young colts should run together, after they left their dams, until they had reached the age and strength to fight for a mare or two of their own and start their own herd.
Storm and Thowra sniffed at each other curiously and then both turned back to their mothers for a drink.
Sunny spring days came, day after day, and the grass grew fresh, and green, and sweet. The two mares stayed in Snowgrass Plain, eating, basking in the sun, drinking the cold, clear water, growing strong and sleek after the hard winter, and giving their foals plenty of milk. The foals grew strong too, and romped and galloped, and rolled in the sun.
Soon they learned to recognise the great wedge-tail eagles floating in the blue arch of sky above them, knew the call of kurrawongs, and were unafraid of the friendly grey kangaroos or little brown wallabies.
The two foals were equal in strength and size, and when they were able to follow their mothers for quite a long distance, Bel Bel and Mirri, who had become restless to rejoin the herd, started moving off to the south.
For an hour or so they travelled across the ridge tops, in the fringe of the snowgums, and by mid-morning they came out on an immense open hillside, which was half of a great basin in the hills. Bel Bel and Mirri checked the foals at the edge of the tree line.
“Never run out into clear country without first taking a very good look,” they warned.
The foals could see nothing except steep snowgrass and rocks dropping down, down beyond their sight, and away over opposite, a rough, timbered hillside.
“That’s where we will spend some of the summer,” Bel Bel said. “It is too rough for the men and their cattle, but we get a good picking there.”
Neither Thowra nor Storm knew what she meant.
“Down there,” said Mirri, “is the Crackenback River. A nice, cool stream to drink at on hot days, and good sandy beaches, in places, for young ones to roll on.”
They moved out on to the clear hillside, but never went far from the shelter of the trees. Thowra and Storm were too pleasantly tired to want to play and soon dropped to sleep in the sunshine. Bel Bel and Mirri grazed contentedly, a little distance off. All was quiet. There was the far-off sound of the river, running full and strong with water from the melted snows, and the sound of kurrawongs, but otherwise a profound silence. Even the mares had grown sleepy, when all of a sudden there was a shrill whinny of fear from Thowra.
Bel Bel whipped round in time to see Thowra and Storm leaping up from their sleep, and there, grabbing at Thowra as he leapt, was a man. She neighed, calling her foal to come quickly, and started galloping towards them, ready to strike at the man. The foals, with long legs flailing, were racing towards her, wild with fear.
She heard Mirri scream with rage behind her. Then the man turned and ran into the trees.
The mares stopped in their headlong chase to snuff their trembling foals all over and make sure they were unhurt.
Bel Bel was all for chasing the man.
“He was no stockman, he had no rope or whip,” she said.
“No,” answered Mirri, “but even a man alone, walking through the mountains, sometimes has a gun. No, we will thankfully take our foals and go.” She turned to Storm. “See, my son, that was a man. Never go near Man, nor his huts, nor his yards where he fences in cattle and his own tame horse. Man will hurt you and capture you; put straps of leather rope upon your head, tie you up, fence you in, beat you if you bite or kick…” She was sweating with fear as she spoke, and the two foals’ trembling increased.
“And you, Thowra,” said Bel Bel, “I told you you would have to be as fleet as the wind. For your creamy coat and your silver mane and tail they will hunt you, so that they may ride astride your back over your own mountains. Beware of Man!”
Still sweating with fear, the two mares led their foals away, slipping like wraiths between the trees, trotting steeply down, trotting, trotting.
After quite a long way they were getting near the head of the stream. Here the mares went more slowly, stopping to sniff the air.
“It is from this hut he must have come, but he is not back yet,” Bel Bel said.
“There may be others.” Mirri’s nostrils were quivering.
“I can smell no fresh smoke.”
“But, still, let us drop much lower down and cross the stream there, rather than follow the track near the hut.”
Bel Bel rubbed one ear on a foreleg.
“The foals are very tired,” she said. “We had better spend the night near water. A drink for us will make more milk for them too.”
They slept that evening well below the head of the Crackenback, with the singing stream beside them, but occasionally when the north wind blew, the two mares would wrinkle their nostrils and mutter between their teeth, “Smoke!” So when the moon rose, they nosed the foals up on their tired legs and started the long climb up the Dead Horse Ridge. Once up on top, they could afford to rest again, but it took the poor foals hours to climb it, and when they found a soak of water to drink, just beyond the top, the mares let the little ones drop down on the soft ground