Moon Filly

by Elyne Mitchell

  A Brumby Story

  Moon Filly

  Elyne Mitchell

  Illustrated by Robert Hales

  Lions

  An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers

  First published in Great Britain by Hutchinson Junior Books Ltd in 1968 First published in Lions in 1992 Lions is an imprint of HarperCollins Children's Books,

  division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

  Copyright Elyne Mitchell 1968 Illustrations copyright Hutchinson Junior Books Ltd 1968 ISBN 0 00 674688 8

  Printed by Griffin Paperbacks, Watson Avenue,

  Netley, South Australia

  Conditions of Sale This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover

  For John

  1: Mare of the Night

  Mares, and foals, and yearlings - they were scattered around the fringes of the big, grassy clearing. They had been half- sleeping in the darkness: now they were suddenly awake, hides prickling. A full moon must have risen behind the huge candlebarks. Something was going to happen. There was

  light: a magpie carolled. They waited ... tense. Even the foals woke and waited.

  The moonlight grew stronger.

  Then, in the pool of darkness beneath a great, spreading candlebark, their stallion paced slowly towards them. He stepped out of the shadow, and the moonlight set his mane alight with cold fire. A faint movement, almost a sigh, sounded through the mares. He was back. Behind him were the shad­owy shapes of new mares. He was back.

  It was the curious young horses, the older foals and year­lings, all less interested in the horse himself, who looked at the mares and foals that followed him. There were two mares close to the stallion - a third lagged behind, and most of the young horses immediately realized that there was something different about her. Exhausted - or ill - as they could see she was, there was something about her, or perhaps not about her so much as a quality that came with her - a past and a future.

  She lagged behind and a little filly foal stumbled along at her flank.

  One of the colt foals - almost a yearling, but still with his mother because she had no other foal - stood watching for longer than the others did. A light breeze lifted his forelock, ruffled his mane, the forelock and mane that were the same colour of living light that his sire’s were, and a strange vibra­tion went through him, a vibration which he had never felt before.

  When the mare stopped on the edge of the moonlight and stood breathing heavily, and the little filly folded up and lay at her feet, he could not stop himself from walking slowly out towards them.

  The mare took no notice of him and the foal was asleep already. He drew quite close and let his nose drop down to sniff the dark heap that was the very small filly. The little head rose nervously, the ears flicked forward. Moonlight glowed in the eyes, then, as though she realized that she had nothing to fear, she shut her eyes again and slept, but the colt, Wurring, shiv­ered, and he was not cold.

  He looked curiously at the mare. She was certainly unusual - slender nose and flaring, fine nostrils, fine-boned altogether - but he was too young to know that she must come of some great breed. He looked, and as he looked, she raised her head as though searching the sky. Wurring felt sure something bad had happened to her. Every hair on his body told him this.

  He dropped his nose once more to the foal. Once more the eyes opened and the moonlight shone in them. The same shiver went through him, as though snow had fallen on his back. He walked back to the other young horses. His own mother was not far off. Soon he would wander towards her, for after all it was night time, but when he did go to her he real­ized that she was restless and disturbed. All around the fringe of the flat, mares and young horses were weaving restlessly through moonlight and shadow.

  Something had come into their big grassy clearing. Was it the future that had walked in, or was it Death?

  None of the herd settled down that night. The moon rose high above the clearing, and the huge, spreading candlebarks threw black shadows. The strange mare only moved to lie down, and she got up again, quite soon, as if she were afraid to sleep on the ground in case she could never stand again. Her foal never moved. Some of the mares realized it looked under­fed, perhaps there had been something the matter with that strange mare for a long time - perhaps whatever was distress­ing her so much was not a recent accident.

  As the moon rose, the queer quality of her seemed even greater, and then slowly, slowly, while the silver light faded, she became a shadow: but every horse in the herd knew that she was there.

  The young Wurring moved through the herd wondering at their restlessness. Other mares had been brought back before: why, he wondered, was this mare different? He stood in that darkness before dawn, sniffing the air. He listened. What was that old, old mare - the oldest in the herd - neighing to the moonlit sky? That the horse from whom this mare had been stolen would undoubtedly avenge the theft... this mare came of some special family: sick or hurt though she might be, she was of immense importance.

  She was going to die.

  As the dawn began to move the darkness, he went forward very quietly and snuffled at the foal again. Once more the foal awoke, and he could feel her eyes on him. He let his nose move over her ears, so gently that he could barely feel the shape of them, but every soft hair transmitted its message ... a thrilling message that was of the future and yet of the past, containing all the mystery of country that he had never seen, the land that had made her bones, the mystery of all the unknown horses whose blood had made her. Wurring felt a flash go through him, and felt as if he were wildly galloping in front of a storm.

  The sky grew paler as he stood there. The mare moved once and her head turned towards him.

  The foal stirred, unfolded her forelegs, stretched them out in front of her, got up, her ears flickering towards Wurring, her nose quivering. Then she turned to her dam for a drink. The mare nosed her softly, and gave the faintest nicker of pleasure.

  Wurring stood quite close, then he saw his sire coming to­wards them, and even though he had felt a soundless com­munication - or sympathy - with the mare and foal, and had become vital and strong because of this, he felt small, now, as the huge horse walked towards them. He did not know that he was almost the exact replica of his sire - golden chestnut, pale golden mane and tail, and named for the sun with whose life and light he glowed.

  He dared not move, nor stay either ... but it was better to stay. If he walked away he might be more noticeable. Suddenly he felt an unusual gentleness in the big stallion. Even his sire knew that this mare must die: and he certainly knew that she had an immense value.

  With great daring, Wurring, the young sun, golden and burning, watched his sire, found himself looking into his eyes for a moment, and saw something he had never seen before - a sadness, a regret, a gentleness. This expression changed as the stallion looked from the foal to his son, but then the horse’s attention went back to the mare, and he stood there with her while the sun rose.

  As the days went by, the herd’s curiosity grew. This mare, who possessed some powerful attraction, was surely dying, and where had she come from? Who owned her? Would there be revenge?

  The other two new mares did not know. Winganna had ar­rived with her, in among their own herd, had taken them with barely a fight, from their own rather younger stallion, and then had brought them all along, rather slowly, through half a day and the moonlit night. The herd all thought of the stallion and three mares and their foals arriving - their stallion who looked like th
e sun, and a mare who seemed to bring the mystery of the night with her.

  Young Wurring galloped with the other young horses, rolled in the snowgrass or on the bare earth, shook till his golden mane and tail flew wild and flashed in the sunlight, ate, and drank the cold mountain water or his mother’s milk.

  Usually the herd wandered around through the forests and on to other plains, but for sunny day after sunny day Win­ganna stayed at Numeramang, and there the mare who was the colour of night grazed, or just stood, walked slowly down for water, moved less and less. Each night the moon grew smaller, and it seemed that she grew smaller too.

  At last there were only stars in the night sky. At the dark of the moon that mare who was made of the night sky lay down and died.

  Wurring saw a shudder, a faint flutter, and then no more movement in the dark shape which was almost invisible on the ground and in the black night. He pressed closer to his mother’s flank, his heart pounding in his own chest.

  Suddenly there was a queer, echoing neigh, and he could see the little brown foal standing out there in the dark, beside her dead mother, her head thrown up, calling.

  Wurring shivered, then he left the warmth and comfort of his mother’s side, and walked hesitatingly towards the empty darkness where there was the faint shape of that foal with her head still up, calling, though no sound came.

  Step after step, he put down each hard hoof, the dark emptiness pricking at his hide, a cool breeze making him feel every hair, so that for the first time in his life he was com­pletely conscious of his whole chestnut body, from nose and ear tips to rump, from shoulder, back and belly, to hooves - conscious of himself, and nervous.

  Young horse, almost a yearling, walking out alone. He had known that death was coming to that mare who had brought beauty and the night to their big grassy space. In fact there was still the same feeling that beauty was present, beauty and some quality of the night that had not been there before she came.

  The foal cried out again to the empty night ... and now Wurring walked out to that foal. He walked alone and the foal was alone in the darkness.

  He touched the little filly’s shoulder, let his nose stray up her mane to her ears, and all the time the electric flashes went through the soft hairs.

  At last he turned back to his own dam, not knowing why he had come, or why he was leaving. Then he became aware that the foal was just behind him. Her shoulder was touching his flank as they walked, or sometimes her head. She was very small.

  When they were nearly across the empty space he could feel her hesitating: he knew she was placing her hooves down with knees stiff as though she would swing around and go back to her dead mother, and yet her shoulder pressed closer. He could not bear to go back. The cool wind, blowing across that space, the piercing shafts of the stars, made him feel too alone and unprotected. He walked on until he reached his dam. His heart was thumping. He had been a horse as he walked towards the dead mare and the foal, now he, himself, was a foal again, and he extended his neck and his nose to suck the comforting milk. Against him he could feel the filly’s beating, thundering pulse.

  He turned his nose to hers, and then she was gone, suddenly, and he could hardly see the shape of her, out there, trotting, stumbling.

  Wurring waited and waited, then he moved out a little into the open, away from the trees, away from his mother, away from the shadowy presence of the other horses.

  He stood irresolute - for he was so young, himself, and he did not know what old stories moved in his blood, what forces shook him now, what he would know by the light of the moon, months hence, or what the summer breeze, scented with the blossoms of the mountain ash, would tell him next year.

  Out of the night came that high, echoing cry from the foal, and then he could feel her coming back again, straight towards him and she was beside him, pressing her shoulder into his flank.

  The two young ones spent the rest of the hours of darkness beside Yarran.

  Wurring knew that Winganna, his father, went out through the darkness to farewell the mare. Then, just as the dawn turned the golden stallion into a shaft of sunlight, he led his herd away, and the young Wurring trotted along with his mother. Beside him trotted and stumbled the dark brown filly foal, weak with hunger.

  When they stopped to graze, and he drank from his mother, she dropped exhausted. Yarran sniffed at her. Wurring felt that she had lain down. He stopped drinking and nosed her to her feet.

  The filly smelt the milk and, on shaking legs, she moved towards Yarran. There was only one foal drinking and Yarran took no notice.

  When the herd moved on, the tired foal trotted beside Wur­ring.

  2: A Brown Shadow

  They spent that night on a little flat where the low-growing, pink and white daisies flowered, and where the surrounding forest was a dark one of black sallee trees, each tree hung with curtains of old-man’s beard moss. Not far away there was good grass and water, too, but this was a warm, safe place to camp.

  The young horses chased each other among the black sallees. Wurring enjoyed the sensation, half-excitement, half­-fear, when the cold ropes of moss slid over his back and rump, or touched his head. He was feeling full of spring... gay... mad. It was magnificent to leap away from that black colt who had been faster than any of the other young ones only just before the full moon. Now he, young Wurring, could race away from him through these cold ropes of moss, race him, race him, dig in his sharp hooves, race, feel the leaves and branch-tips whip his shoulders. He was the stronger now - he, Wurring.

  He stopped for a moment, breathless, to rest and to hide for the fun of hiding, and he was deep in the leaves and streamers of moss. With each deep breath he took in and let out, the moss and leaves moved over his body.

  The black colt went past, out of breath too. He had lost the trail. A few other youngsters followed him, Wurring stood while his own pounding blood quietened, and his limbs felt fresh again, fresh to gallop and leap, to twist, to turn, to dance as though he were life and the sun itself.

  Then there was something creeping into his hiding place from behind ... something ... He turned his head without moving the rest of his body. He had nothing to fear, but who was coming?

  There was the little brown filly, half-afraid, half-proud, coming to stand close beside him, heart beating with his, and they shared together the mad excitement of the chase.

  Presently Wurring heard the remains of the young mob coming back, and he leapt out of his hiding place and galloped off, setting them a gay chase. Once, when he looked back, he was surprised to see the little filly trailing behind. Then the black colt drew closer. Wurring leapt through some thick trees and almost crashed on to a huge log that was between him and the creek. He braced his muscles and sprang, landing on a loamy bank on the other side of the log. One more iump put him into the creek where he would make no tracks. He turned upstream, and before the creek went round a bend, he pressed into some tea tree so that he could watch the mob come tearing over. Two or three of them fell, and Wurring’s knees felt sore as he watched them rap the log. The black colt was well in the lead as they swept down the bed of the creek, with the spray flying.

  As Wurring moved upstream, he heard a faint neigh and thought nothing of it. After he had walked a few more yards through the tea tree, he heard it again, and wondered where he had heard a call like that before... and all the time he was wondering he really knew it was the little filly who was calling. It was such a high call. Last time she had cried to the dark of the moon, despairing. Now the call was different: it blended with the last sunset clouds above: it was beautiful and it was partly forlorn. It was also a call to him. He went quietly back.

  She was walking towards him. Just then the others all burst into sight, ready to chase him again, and the fact that the funny little filly, who now shared his dam’s milk, must have known by instinct which way he went was forgotten.

  He did not think then of the flashpoint that had occurred when their hair touched, nor of how it had
been impossible to resist going out to them, when the filly foal and her dam had stood alone in the light of the full moon. He just galloped off, leading the other young horses, round and round, in and out of the trees. And often there was the little brown filly catching up, or simply there; having taken a wise short cut, there and beside him, her heart’s pounding almost shaking her whole frame.

  She was beside him when the black colt, Tallara, came at him offering fight. Suddenly it seemed that Tallara thought she was in his way, and he slashed at her angrily with teeth bared.

  The teeth only touched her, for Wurring sprang between them and knocked Tallara off balance and then turned on him in the first quite serious fight either colt had ever had. Yet, when they parted, exhausted - and Tallara marked by teeth and hooves - he still rolled the whites of his eyes at the filly, jealous that she should always be with Wurring. Wurring noted with amusement that she paid no attention to Tallara. She was not nervously seeking shelter when she came closer to his hot chestnut hide, she walked with proud carriage, ignoring the black and his bared teeth.

  The young horses were all annoyed with her. Wurring was so much the strongest of them all now, and no one could ques­tion that he was the leader, yet so often he waited for that motherless filly.

  Sometimes they would remember the feeling that went through the herd when the dying mother led the foal into the moonlit flat.

  Wurring had named her Ilinga. In truth, of course, this filly may have had a name that no one knew, but Wurring had named her Ilinga, because she had come from far away.

  After a few weeks Ilinga did not lag behind so much when they were all galloping. Yarran was mothering her alone, now. Wurring stood close by, but the stranger filly got all the milk, and, though she was still thin, she was growing stronger and taller, and her coat seemed occasionally to have an unusual radiance about it.

  The nights grew cold as summer turned to autumn - cold and sharp, then bitter cold, and the white frost lay on the hard ground; furred the grass stems with white. What once had been tall, golden daisies turned to winged seeds on the wind. Bitter cold were the early-falling nights, and the young Wur­ring stood close to his mother, with the small filly between them.