Silver Brumby Echoing

by Elyne Mitchell

  Then, through the snow gum branches, Socks saw a stallion standing on a snowgrass spur that came down off the Ramshead. The stallion looked fairly fierce, and a few shadowy mares were melting into the bush behind him.

  Lightning gave a deep growl.

  The stallion seemed to offer a fight. Socks wasn’t really interested in fighting that powerful-looking stallion. He only wanted to clear any brumbies out of the head of the Leatherbarrel Creek, so he trotted up purposefully.

  Lightning knew immediately what he meant to do, and shot past him, barking. The stallion stood for a moment, astonished. Then he turned and galloped away, Lightning nipping at his heels. Socks went after him too, got round him, but then, as the stranger stopped, he realised he could leave Lightning to deal with him because as the strange stallion stood still Lightning sprang and fastened his teeth in his nose. The stallion shook him off, but Socks was there to chase him up the valley, striking at him.

  The stallion stopped once and turned on Socks, striking him sharply above the shoulder. Socks grabbed him on the wither and just then Lightning sprang at his nose again. The stallion shook him off and went tearing up a faint brumby track to one side of the headwall, following his mares.

  Lightning and Socks followed up on their advantage, Lightning getting in some savage bites on the stallion’s heels.

  Socks looked up as he heard a mare neighing, and just saw them on the very edge of the headwall. The next time he looked up he saw the big stallion nearly level with the headwall. Then he heard wild neighing and stood still to watch. The mares barely took time to greet their stallion as he crested the edge of the headwall before they turned and galloped out of sight.

  Lightning had his nose pointing to the west, and the low rumbling in his throat told Socks that there was danger coming. Then he looked up further and saw a menacing black cloud gathering in the west and coming towards the mountains. Where to go — up or down? There seemed to be no good cover.

  It was the dog who had seen an umbrella-shaped snow gum, the dog who knew immediately there was snow coming. It was Lightning who remembered sheltering under the snow gum with his master and his master’s stock horse.

  He led his friend to the tree on the lee side of a deep gully, and he and Socks crept below the overhanging branches. Lightning immediately lay down, but there were tears squeezing out of his eyes as he thought of that other time he lay in this place. Socks nudged his ears and lay down beside him, cradling him with his legs.

  Both horse and dog slept, and did not hear the soft falling of snowflake into snow. Later the blizzard grew heavier, but they slept on.

  What woke them in the end was the sound of horses slithering and sliding down the mountain beside the headwall.

  Lightning was the first to peer out, and his furious bark disturbed Socks. Socks and Lightning peered out of their igloo of snow and beheld a strange sight.

  They saw the two stockmen from the Cascades riding up from the foot of the valley, and just below the igloo was the mob of four brumbies: three mares and one stallion, the stallion looking very angry.

  Lightning’s hackles rose.

  He saw the men, too, and leapt out of his snow igloo. Barking wildly, he mustered up the brumbies and drove them down on to the two men.

  Socks saw the two stockhorses rear up in fright, and realising that surprise was of great value he burst out in a cloud of snow and joined in the chase.

  The men had whips, but took a while to control their horses and crack their whips. By that time the galloping brumbies had turned into a stampede, sweeping up the stockmen before them.

  Lightning had command of the situation, biting heels indiscriminately and barking whenever he could get his breath back. He knew there were stockman’s tracks out of the Leatherbarrel Creek on either side. ‘Big Mick’ and ‘Little Mick’ they were called, steep and shaley. If only he could swing the stampeding horses around and send them up Little Mick, they’d go down the other side and never stop!

  But there was only the one crossing place of the creek. Socks woke up to what the dog was trying to do, and he began to gallop faster, and scream.

  Little Mick was also an old brumby track, and the stallion headed up it with his mares in a cloud of flying gravel and shale. The two riders were swept along with them. Lightning bit some more heels. He had never seen anything like it in his life, and he had made it happen!

  At the top of the Leatherbarrel Spur one of the stockman’s horses was intent on bolting in earnest. Lightning put on a burst of speed, jumped up and bit the horse on his hock. That was it, the horse was off!

  When Socks and Lightning finally stopped at the end of Little Mick, Lightning had just enough energy left to grin and Socks, in between great sucks of breath, rubbed his head along the dog in praise.

  Then they turned and slithered back down Little Mick, but where to now?

  They were both a little nervous of the Cascades. There were too many tales of that ghost horse, Thowra, the Silver Brumby, and as for Lightning, his old master had died somewhere near there.

  Socks headed back to his cave.

  Lightning was quite happy to go along with him. He knew all about that silver horse who appeared and then vanished — galloped into a willy-willy of snow — but somehow he felt an aura of friendliness about that ghost, if ghost it really were. He had even seen the silver horse suddenly become a white hawk, but was it a horse or a hawk? Whatever it was, it was friendly to a dog that was a true one-man dog.

  They settled into the cave as though it were their own, which perhaps it was.

  Actually, Socks did wonder about all the other stories he had heard: the son of the silver horse — or grandson; the stories of the great-grandson who was befriended by an eagle and a silver dingo pup. Where did they live? There were stories of a herd of white horses that travelled by night, and had red eyes that could see well in the dark.

  Socks went to sleep in his own cave, and in his sleep he dreamed of travelling over miles of mountains with Lightning, and he felt that he and Lightning were quite safe together.

  Lightning whimpered occasionally in his sleep, dreaming of his dead master, and each time Socks comforted him with a gentle, trembling nose.

  In the morning they set forth for Quambat Flat and the high, pointed mountain above it.

  Socks was almost sure they would find other brumbies had their bimbles there, but he was also certain that he and Lightning would find an area for themselves.

  They went up slowly from Quambat Flat, skirting round the head of Quambat Creek, where usually there were brumbies, and striking steeply upwards.

  There on the top were dead trees that Lightning remembered, dead and bleached, all blown one way as if they had been struck dead by a silver staining blast of wind (stiff silver blowing hair in a fierce wind) and a straight line between the living trees and the dead.

  It was eerie, but surely they would find good shelter in among the living trees; there were some rocks, too. Lightning led off to the north, and the belt of living snow gums. No other horses seemed to be near, until they saw a huge chestnut stallion hastening in a westerly direction.

  Let him go! thought Socks. He won’t trouble us. Something else on his mind. But Socks did keep wondering why that chestnut stallion was hurrying. Then Lightning stopped in his tracks and looked down towards Suggan Buggan. At the same time Socks heard the sound of a horseshoe ringing against stones.

  A shod horse meant danger. It meant brumby hunters, because Socks knew there were no herds of cattle in the summer mountains like there used to be.

  Then they saw the shod horses, heard men’s voices. Socks felt transfixed by their gaze.

  ‘Black with four white socks,’ he heard a voice say, then he began to back into the low snow gums, but Lightning had other ideas. He had managed to get those two stockmen’s horses to bolt along with the brumbies. He would try again.

  With a wild fearsome barking, Lightning leapt out from behind Socks. He charged down on the three
stockhorses. Socks watched, horrified, and then gathered himself together and hurtled down the steep slope.

  ‘What the hell,’ one voice called out, and raised his stockwhip to crack it at Lightning.

  Socks felt fury rise right up inside him. How dare they aim a whip at Lightning!

  The stones that he displaced in his mad gallop flew through the air, striking the horses below before they too began to charge downhill.

  Lightning was there, snapping and biting, and Socks leapt in, striking with his forefeet, but Lightning did the most damage and Lightning it was who terrified the horses. A very rough scree of boulders slackened the speed of the stockmen’s horses for a little. Socks had got in some pretty good bites himself, but then leapt into the rough scree, striking at each of the horses.

  The three stockmen tried to get away, but there was Lightning attacking them too, terrifying their horses. One horse lamed itself on a boulder and it went limping away.

  Lightning and Socks then withdrew into the belt of snow gums, determined to find a hiding place and shelter for the night.

  A man’s voice floated up: ‘That blue heeler lookin’ dog is that bugger Lightnin’ who the men from Cascade Creek said started the stampede down Leatherbarrel Spur. I wonder where the Omeo brumby hunters are — they say that one of them boasts he’s going to catch his one thousandth this year. Could be that one with Lightnin’.’

  Lightning heard his name, but did not realise that word about his ferocity was beginning to travel around the mountains.

  Hearing a man’s voice saying his name had suddenly made him think of his old master.

  He kept close to Socks as they sought out a good sleeping place. On top of a mountain like the Pilot there would be plenty of ways of escape, even if stories had gone around about the ferocity of the dog and brumby.

  Two

  After a while Socks and Lightning realised that The Pilot was not such a very safe place. It seemed to be that parties of men with whips and dogs came in from the Limestone area. Twice they drove a small mob of brumbies out the way they had come.

  Socks watched carefully, and wondered. There were no cattle — only a mob of wild horses being driven south. Perhaps they mustered them up in the valleys and brought them back via Quambat Flat, but it really might be better to find a safe place in the Ingegoodbee Valley.

  Socks remembered it as a wide valley with beautiful candlebark trees. He took Lightning off in the night. It was quite a long way, but somehow they were glad to be going, and Lightning gambolled along. Somewhere, far ahead, a bronze cuckoo called, and that gave Lightning even greater joy. Socks bent his head down and nuzzled him. Even though Socks felt that the promise contained in the bronze cuckoo’s call would never be fulfilled, he, too, linked the cuckoo’s whistle with the vision of Lightning sitting by his dead master. He did a few dancing steps to join in Lightning’s play.

  They made it to those pools that are the head of the Ingegoodbee River, as the full moon rose and was reflected in the water like a silver ball. Lightning splashed in to try to get it. Then they went on, down the Ingegoodbee until they reached the wide valley and the candlebarks that Socks remembered, and there the bronze cuckoo was calling to the moon as though it were spring.

  Socks remembered one particular candlebark that had a big hollow at the base of its trunk and he was searching for that, but Lightning seemed to go straight for it as though he knew it was there.

  Socks realised Lightning was going towards the tree, and that as he got closer he went more cautiously, almost on tiptoes. Lightning stopped, head on one side, listening.

  Socks’ ears flickered back and forth. Surely there was the whimper of something young and perhaps rather lost. At the sound, Lightning went a little bit faster, then stopped, peering into the entrance of the hollow, and went in, step by step, putting his nose down gently to something that was lying there.

  Socks saw a little, female, part-dingo pup. Even surprised and shocked as he was, he realised she was beautiful — golden brown, with the fully pricked ears that said dingo blood, the hint of a soft white ruff above the golden yellow coat. She was lying there whimpering until she saw the gentle-eyed, black and blue dog looking at her, and then his pink tongue licking her. Lightning’s tail was wagging, telling his joy, almost saying to Socks, Look what we’ve found!, and just then the bronze cuckoo gave one final call to the moon.

  Socks fitted into the hollow bole of the huge candlebark, there, near the Ingegoodbee River, and lay down beside Lightning, his dog, and the dear little girl dingo. The waning moon threw some long shadows but the three sleepers and the bronze cuckoo were lulled by the song of the river.

  In the first light the two dogs leapt up to play. Socks watched, thinking it was strange that he had two companions now and he would never be lonely again. Obviously Lightning’s little girl was going to bring joy.

  There would be something else for the magpies to sing about now — the loner colt and the dog who sat guard over his dead master, and now the beautiful little part-dingo girl dog.

  Magpies were not slow to take up the story, but the currawongs carried it further and faster, and the kookaburras laughed their way through many a meal of snake as they told the story of Socks’ family.

  It was the bronze cuckoo who told the whole story — the story of Lightning’s adored master dying and leaving Lightning sitting beside his dead body; the bereft dog listening for the call of the bronze cuckoo, following the call of the cuckoo to the valley of the Ingegoodbee River, and to the hollow tree in which Lightning found the girl pup.

  Far and wide the story went, till it got back to the brumbies at the Cascades and Leatherbarrel. No one knew how the stockmen who had bolted beside the brumbies down Leatherbarrel Spur got hold of the story, but they arrived back at the Cascades hut with one horse very lame. The story never had anything added to it because Socks and the two dogs stayed playing at the Ingegoodbee.

  One thing which did get told was that the man from Benambra was vowing to catch his one thousandth brumby this year.

  Somehow Socks knew it would happen.

  Two of the stockmen from south of the border wended their way to the Tin Mines and then down the Ingegoodbee.

  Socks had been dreaming of strange horses appearing and then they were there having made no sound, but suddenly the ring of a bridle bit. Socks melted into some tea tree that overhung the river, and Lightning called the little girl dingo-dog, but she didn’t understand the danger and splashed along the river towards him. The only thing for Socks to do was to call Lightning, and hope the beautiful girl dog would follow. Socks rushed across the river and thankfully Lightning and the pup followed.

  ‘Look, look!’ one of the men yelled, but then they were floundering through the water, and too busy keeping their horses on their feet. By the time both men and horses were across the river, Socks and his following of Lightning and Miss Dingo had vanished into grevillea scrub and prosanthera.

  Socks led on in the general direction of the Tin Mines.

  Suddenly he became aware that there were other brumbies ahead of him, so he collected Lightning and Miss Dingo and veered south, then stood quite still till the stockmen following went past. Socks and his two dogs sneaked back to the Ingegoodbee, going further down the river to the Pinch, and there they did find a good, warm cave — well hidden, and with room for two dogs and one horse.

  Socks had got used to having to consider the size of his ‘family,’ and there was something else he had got used to — his extremely protective feeling for the little Miss Dingo.

  Lightning went in first, sniffing it all out, then he called her in and Socks followed. Lightning turned round two or three times after scratching himself a hollow, then he lay down and sniffed at Miss Dingo till she curled up beside him. Socks lay down too, folding his legs around the snoozing dogs. All was well.

  They slept, only Lightning aware that men would now be after them. Socks, of course, knew only too well that they had all been seen and
noted as a strange combination. He knew, and so did Lightning, that life might not be really peaceful — anyway, there was a strange feeling throughout the bush, perhaps caused by the threat of brumby hunters.

  That night dingoes howled to the moon, but the little Miss only snuggled in closer and gave Socks a loving lick on the nose.

  Socks determined to take his ‘family’ right away from the men who had seen them.

  After all, they didn’t go very far, only to the hollow tree that was ‘home’ to Socks and Lightning. Miss Dingo loved the hollow — it was as if she chose it — and they were undisturbed by men or dogs. Lightning seemed so much more settled, and the Ingegoodbee was a great place to spend the summer.

  There would be rabbits for the dogs, and grass and shrubs for Socks, so all the family were quite content. Occasionally Lightning seemed to dream of that dead stockman, but when he whimpered in his sleep, and when tears rolled down his dear nose, Socks nudged his ears or Miss Dingo licked his face all over, and the ‘wild’ family were very happy.

  One evening, at dusk, peace was broken. Two men on horses came from the south collecting a mob of brumbies. Socks and the dogs were playing in the wide Ingegoodbee Valley, and were seen.

  Two of the men saw them among the candlebarks, then came thundering after them.

  Socks went straight for the river, trying to lure the chase after him. He soon realised that they were after the two dogs, so in boiling anger he chased the men. Miss Dingo was heading for her hollow tree. Lightning suddenly swung round to hunt the two brumby hunters, and was leaping at the stockhorses’ noses when Socks attacked them from behind. The double attack was too much for one of the horses; it turned and bolted under branches, through scrub and around trees. Socks pursued the victory, hunting both horses with bared teeth and, occasionally, flailing hooves.

  He knew he had left Lightning behind, but once he had made sure the two stockhorses were bolting out of control, he turned back to find him.

  He did not want to take the chance of leading any hunters towards the hollow — feeling sure that that was where little Miss Dingo had gone — so he went a roundabout way. When he reached the mouth of the hollow, there was Lightning standing guard and whimpering slightly. Other whimpers came from inside.