Silver Brumby Echoing

by Elyne Mitchell

  There was something hard beneath the snow, hard and more utterly slippery than anything she knew, though she did remember sliding once, on a frozen swamp.

  Ice was under the snow.

  She tried to throw herself sideways. For one moment the ice beside her was bare of snow. She heard her hooves scrabbling on it. There was nothing funny about the situation any longer. She and Burra were sliding faster and faster.

  Then it looked as if Burra struck a flat surface and, in a moment, Coolawyn was hurtling down the last steep pitch, and landing beside him, breathless and afraid.

  They were on the snow-thick, flat surface of a pool of solid ice — a pool at the foot of a frozen waterfall.

  Yarra’s neigh sounded close, and then, calling him, came the voice of that unnamed foal.

  Quickly Coolawyn gave an urgent neigh, a commanding neigh. She had to get his obedience, had to make him come to her and not follow that identical foal. Oh, who was that foal for whom she had no name? She sometimes even mistook him for Yarra. Who was he?

  Burra knew that the only way he could take them all to safety would be to capture the mother of that foal, and drive them all around the mountains and through the forests until they reached the Cascades.

  From much nearer than before came the call of the sunset-eyed stallion, the stallion who galloped by night, and who was making his way through this dense, dark blizzard.

  His Magic Carpet Began to Go Faster and Faster

  Ringaroo had kept climbing, forcing himself to go on and on through the blizzard. Because there was no break in the clouds, no shafts of light at all, he felt no fear of the burning reflection off the snow by day. He, the midnight galloper, would forge his way through the dark blizzard, and find his mare and her foal …

  It was a lonely journey. Sometimes he saw kangaroos and wallabies as they made their way down to lower country, but possums stayed in their hollows and wombats rarely ventured from their burrows. All was quiet except for the wind-howl and the occasional swish of a bough springing up as it dropped its load of snow.

  He seemed to have to travel further than he expected, endlessly further, and he had no idea where he was. After long, dragging hours he felt sure he heard a neigh. Wirrilinga, his beautiful mare, must be somewhere close. If he called, she could come to him, and he dreamt of her walking towards him through the storm.

  Highly-strung stallion, he became more nervous the further he went. He shied violently as a limb cracked under its weight of snow. He leapt into a gallop on a stretch of gently rising ridge when a black, giant flying phalanger, all dusted white, came gliding down off the high branches of a ribbon gum and landed near him.

  He closed his eyes in very fear when an oblique beam of light broke through the clouds, and he pressed against the woolly butt of an alpine ash, so that he would have some anchor if vision failed.

  The beam of light was extinguished, and the day seemed to be darker. He did see a robin amongst some eucalypt leaves. A little ground dove peered out from under a fallen leafy branch.

  If only he could hear the hoofbeats of his herd, he would not feel so alone. He called into the storm, but called Wirrilinga.

  Burra listened to Ringaroo’s neigh, then he peered all around through the dense-falling flakes, trying to make out the shape of the land into which he and Coolawyn had slipped, trying to remember it, as he had seen it in summer … surely something would tell him what they should do, where they should go, but that eerie howl of the wind came, and the wind picked up clouds of snow and all vision was obscured.

  Burra knew he had to find Yarra and that white mare and her foal, or he would never stop Coolawyn wandering off, trying to find Yarra. He must get them all together and keep them together. Of course, if Wirrilinga heard Ringaroo call, she would try to get to him, go with him, take the foal. Maybe she would take Yarra, and Coolawyn would go …

  They were in a hollow: the shape of it could only be made out if they walked around it. It was, in fact, a round basin. They knew that by their tracks. They had gone right round without seeing Wirrilinga or either foal.

  There was a cleft in one part of the wall of hills, and the wind came crying up through that cleft, and swept willy-willies up as it went across the hollow and whirled up the waterfall down which they had slipped. The howl the wind made was horrifying. Night was coming, and the darkness would become more intense.

  The wind howl increased and another wild screaming blended with it, as it tossed a huge flock of black cockatoos up through the cleft, and around the hollow. Louder and louder came the weird howl, and the clamouring of the birds and the howl were both so loud that Ringaroo’s call could not be distinguished.

  Ringaroo had fought his way through the blizzard until he was very close, till he had gone past the head of the waterfall down which Burra and Coolawyn had slid. From the basin floor no-one could see him, high up above them on the rim of the steep-walled hollow. No-one except the black ghosts who flew and cried, saw him turn back and walk along the rim to where the break came at the head of the waterfall. The top of the hollow was shrouded in cloud and falling snow, so was not visible from below. Neither Burra nor Coolawyn could see Ringaroo, though they were fairly sure he was there.

  Then, in the darkening blizzard, materialising out of nowhere, came Yarra, Wirrilinga and her foal. Wirrilinga was taking no notice of anyone, just gazing intently up towards the rim of the bowl, as if her eyes could pierce the dark blizzard and the clouds. She was trembling with excitement. Coolawyn was nuzzling Yarra, both of them wuffling with relief and delight.

  Burra began to move around them, mustering them together.

  There was no sound, but they all began to look upwards, towards the area of the waterfall. Something was moving up there, something all swathed around and hidden in snow.

  Wirrilinga gave a piercing neigh.

  Ringaroo, hearing his mare call, turned around on the edge of the cliff, just near the waterfall. He felt the small cornice on which he turned begin to crack, but he took no notice. He was not used to the ways of wind-plastered snow. It moved quite slowly in big blocks, but soon he was moving with it, still on his feet, but slowly toppling over, the huge snow blocks breaking up into wind-tossed powder. Then he was rolling down the steep cliff beside the waterfall …

  His magic carpet began to go faster and faster.

  Rolling, sliding, somersaulting, breathing in the stinging, smothering snow particles, Ringaroo went.

  From below, the waiting five could see nothing but a cloud of snow. Then the contour of the cliff flung that huge ball of snow into the icy slide which was the long final drop of the waterfall.

  In an exploding cascade of snow spume, Ringaroo landed on the frozen pool and slid across to the waiting group.

  The last vestiges of daylight faded into the darkness of the blizzard, and the weird howl came carrying willy-willies of snow.

  Ringaroo had given his head a tremendous knock on an ice-covered rock, near the foot of the waterfall, so that when he landed on the frozen pool, his head was spinning and he was hopelessly giddy. He tried to make his legs work, tried to get his breath so that he could call.

  The first call he succeeded in making did sound like the call of the midnight gallopers, but there was no sound of pounding hooves on earth and snowgrass and rocks. Coolawyn and Burra thought they heard that sound, even in their world of snow.

  They backed away from the big ball of snow that slithered to their feet and then remained still. Wirrilinga knew in every tingling nerve that it must be Ringaroo and she must get close to him.

  Suddenly, with a convulsive effort, Ringa made his legs move, lifted his head and managed to shake some sense into it, and snow flew all around him, so that he became part of the beating, streaming blizzard.

  He got his forefeet firmly dug in, his shoulders up, his head up, too, but swinging slightly, from side to side, then he heaved himself on to his feet.

  The watchers, Burra, Coolawyn, Wirrilinga and the foals, could
see this shadow of a stallion, rocking perilously, in the force of the blizzard, barely able to keep his balance. Wirrilinga saw him shake his head, as though to clear pain away, then she stepped up to him, nose to nose. And the wind howled up into the hollow, bringing with it great willy-willies of snow.

  There they stood, two stallions, two mares and two foals — ghosts in the wind-howl and the blasting snow — captives of the blizzard.

  Burra knew that even if this bundle that had arrived at his feet were Ringaroo, no filly was going to be stolen, here in this hollow in the hills. They were, all of them, almost lost; the beautiful stallion and his sunset-eyed mare, and Coolawyn, the pale grey whom the white stallion would like to steal for his herd and the two foals with sunset eyes — but who would live and who would die, in this enormous blizzard?

  It was Burra who noticed the force of the wind strengthening, and knew it was a sign that the blizzard was going to blow itself out, that the snow would cease sometime soon, and the wind blow all the snow that covered the mountains to ice. If it became wind-packed and icy, they would not sink into it, and be able to travel.

  If they were to live and not be frozen to death, they must find shelter. When the night was over, they would have to seek water and grass, or leaves, or seed pods to eat.

  There would be no fighting for mares, or mares fighting for foals in this immense storm. All animals would have to be at peace with each other while the massive snow and the wild wind promised death.

  The only way out of their encircling hills seemed to be where the frozen creek had an opening — but to where did that opening lead?

  Burra began to urge Coolawyn and Yarra across the hollow. His eyes and Coolawyn’s had become more attuned to the darkness in the last half hour. He looked at the blurred bulk that was Ringaroo; the horse was still shaking with pain or fright. Burra pushed the two mares and two foals together, Ringaroo lagged behind.

  The opening in the hills was narrow and slippery, for the creek was frozen beneath the snow. Burra was urging the foals on when Wirrilinga dropped back to Ringaroo. Burra turned back to get Wirrilinga and Ringaroo and push them through that slippery opening.

  They had disappeared.

  Fading Into the Night and the Snow

  The gentle touch of Wirrilinga’s nose on his, her breath mingling with his — the scent of her — had given life and energy back to Ringaroo. Suddenly he knew what they must do.

  There was lower country where no dazzling reflection off snow would blind them by day. There was the night and the thrilling gallop through the dark.

  When they reached the opening in the hills, Burra was having trouble getting that unnamed foal through, and while his attention was on the foal, Ringa took Wirrilinga, fading off through the night and the snow.

  The wind came rushing and crying through the narrow cleft, blowing the white mare and her beautiful white stallion back into the centre of the hollow. Wirrilinga stumbled and was blown over. Ringaroo stood above her, protecting her from the wind and the snow. In that time Burra had driven Coolawyn and the two foals down the other side towards a band of snow-covered rocks. There was protection, in those rocks, from the storm.

  In the night the force of the wind grew till it was stronger than a hurricane. Perhaps snow was no longer falling, but the wind gathered it up in such huge clouds that the horses could barely breathe. Burra and Coolawyn were in some shelter, under an overhanging rock and with big rocks all around them.

  Ringaroo and Wirrilinga were out in that basin with death very close.

  Burra made the two foals lie down with Coolawyn and himself. He had a horrible feeling of tragedy pending. Somehow he must protect Coolawyn from freezing to death, and he knew, grudgingly, that he would have to protect that foal whom the flood had given her, and which meant so much to her.

  The wind screamed among the rocks, and Burra pushed the foals closer together. Then from far away came a neigh, all muffled by snow and wind. It was Wirrilinga calling her foal. Then, strangely, from far higher up, there came stronger calls.

  Burra shook his head, trying to dispel sounds of clamouring voices.

  It was Wirrilinga, during the endless walking which she and Ringaroo did so that they would stay alive during the freezing night, who realised that the wild wind was blowing the snow to ice and, in places, blown to a blistered ice on which hooves could get a grip. It was Wirrilinga who stepped out of the track they had made, round that hollow, and found that she did not sink.

  She urged Ringaroo out of their beaten track and heading in the direction from whence the calls of their herd had come. Just there the side of the hollow was not so very steep. They might succeed in getting up and right out without slipping back …

  It was as they climbed over the rim of the hollow that the calls of the night gallopers rang out again — just when the first faint light came into the sky. Ringaroo took command then. He knew they must reach cover before the light could get bright.

  Suddenly he was afraid. He had Wirrilinga safely with him, now, and he only had time to wonder how they were going to get out of the snow. He must not think of those two identical foals, nor of the beautiful pale grey mare. He must keep struggling on, and get Wirrilinga into the shelter of trees. Wirrilinga did not appear to be worrying about her foal. In fact, she knew that he was safe with the bush-wise Coolawyn. Had not Coolawyn saved them in the first night of the blizzard?

  A great blast of wind had hurled over the mountains before first light. It roared through every crevice in the rocks where Burra and his little herd were lying.

  Wirrilinga’s foal leapt to its feet, and it seemed as if he were blown out of the shelter of the rocks. Yarra sprang up too, and Coolawyn after him, with Burra scrambling from under the overhanging rock. Into the wind and the clouds of blowing snow they went. Dawn was coming, and with the dawn the wind might drop for one fine day in the middle of a long blizzard — for one brilliant, blinding day. As the sun came up, the snow prisms were blue and gold, brilliant, diamond-faceted — unbearable to those sunset-coloured eyes.

  As Burra had expected, the wind had blown the snow to ice, with velvet-filled gullies, down which the foals loved to roll. He did not let them stop much, but kept them head to flank with Coolawyn, travelling south.

  Ringaroo and Wirrilinga found a grove of snow gums growing around what was probably a swamp when it was not frozen and covered with snow. There, Wirrilinga led Ringaroo in under snow-bowed branches — just as Coolawyn had led her and the two foals — and there they could rest their eyes from the glare, stay completely still, and just listen to the silence of the world of snow.

  After a long time there was a sound — just a neigh from high up on a ridge — and Wirrilinga knew that it was the voice of a young colt belonging to their herd … the one they had heard calling out of the night. She and Ringaroo would have to try to join them.

  The brumbies who galloped by night had seemed, to Burra, to have upset the order of life whenever they had invaded the high country. This time they seemed to have been appearing for one whole spring and summer. Now winter had come.

  For all this time Burra had been anxious and he was a little afraid. He was afraid that he might lose Coolawyn. There had been so much thunder. Burra felt that the big flood, when last winter’s snow melted, had forced Ringaroo and his herd out of their usual territory. Always at the back of his mind was the memory of that mysterious red eye, or red star, gleaming through the mint bushes over on the other side of the Indi River while the flood had raged by. There was, too, the uneasy feeling that Yarra brought trouble — Yarra with his obsession with Wirrilinga’s half-blind foal.

  As his hooves chipped into the wind-blown ice, and while he tried to keep both Yarra and the unnamed foal head to flank with Coolawyn, on ahead, Burra felt certain that Ringaroo and Wirrilinga had joined up with some young colts, and were battling their way towards lower country on a parallel course.

  There and then, Burra made up his mind that once they got below the
snow, he would drive Ringaroo of the red eyes down the river and far away. The foals …? Coolawyn had borne a black foal like all the other foals in his herd — black, who would finally become grey. That foal whom Coolawyn had brought back from the flood, who was he?

  Burra could barely tell which was which of the two foals that he was driving along. Which was Yarra? He realised, now, that Yarra had always clung close to Coolawyn. Was he half-blind, too?

  Burra seemed to hear clamouring voices again. There was nothing else to do except keep walking on and on over the wind-packed, icy snow. They must get lower while the snow remained hard.

  At last they were in among trees. Black shadows of trunks and branches were like a jigsaw puzzle on the glittering snow. Burra let the foals rest for a while, in a big clump of snow gums. Half the bright, sunny day was past. The foals were tired. They had reached a place not very far above the Cascades. Burra was half-asleep on his feet. Tree shadows on snow; ghost shadows of huge animals; black shadows, and always voices. Burra stretched out his nose to Coolawyn’s. He did not see that her ears were cocked as though she were disturbed by some sound.

  Surely Burra knew that none of the big animal shadows was real. But the whole world of trees and shadows and dream animals, of blizzards and blinding light, foals and floods, a white stallion and mares, had become dangerous.

  A faint haze in the sky told Burra that there would only be one fine day. More snow was coming. This might be a second heavy snow year.

  He must drive that big white stallion with the strange eyes right back to his own country before the melting snow in spring created another flood. Let the flood force him to stay there.

  By morning, dark clouds had gathered, and thunder in winter means snow.

  A Black Foal Again

  Some tussocks of grass still showed above the snow in the Cascades — even though the snow kept falling. Burra’s herd were grazing there, and food would last a little while. There was a familiar happiness about the valley, and Burra decided to stay there until snow pushed them to look further down for feed.