‘The mother is very old.’ A man’s voice filled the hut and was carried up the chimney with the smoke and sparks from the fire. ‘I tell you that the crippled foal will never survive the heavy winter that’s coming.’
There was a long silence while flakes of snow sizzled as they fell into the open fire and against the window. Then the man’s voice went on:
‘I’m going to try to catch that foal before the really heavy snow sets in.’
‘Why?’ Another voice broke the silence.
‘Well, why’ve you come out?’
‘Just because I was curious as to whether it was still surviving. It’s a game little bugger.’
‘Well if I catch it and take it home, it will survive.’
No words sounded for a while, nothing to cover the whisper and patter of the falling snow.
At last the quiet voice said: ‘I’d leave it with its old mother,’ and somehow the idea of the old blue roan entered the hut. The wind was rising and it cried around the slab corners, the snow gathered against the windows, and an old mare seemed to be in the shadows.
Snow stuck to the rough-barked trees in the bush, slid off the smooth-barked snow gums, slid off leaves, until so much snow had fallen that it built up on twigs and branches. In the dark, the possums, the wombats, and the dingoes and kangaroos saw the steady blanketing of the bush. All the animals and the birds knew that it was the start of a heavy winter.
Dandaloo had seen many winters, and she knew, too, that this one would bring a lot of snow. Relating everything, as she did, to how it would affect her efforts to protect Choopa, she wondered how a foal that was barely tall enough to reach up to her flank would ever struggle through deep snow.
When morning came and the snow had begun to beat on the wind, pellets stinging their hides, Dandaloo thought that perhaps she should try to take Choopa to Baringa’s secret canyon. Surely it dropped down into lower country where the snow might not get so deep. But if a lot of snow fell at Quambat Flat, it might fall deeply there, too, and anyway, was it already too late? A shiver travelled all down Dandaloo’s spine. Somehow she must protect her ‘little lizard’. That morning, before half-light, while the snow poured down, she knew that she would have to wait till this first heavy fall thawed before she could think of trying to make for lower country. Anyway, one could get caught by that canyon of Baringa’s having its escape routes blocked by deep drifts.
When there was sufficient light for the foals of the Quambat herd to see how the world had been transformed, they were uneasy and quite frightened by the white world surrounding them. Choopa and Bri Bri were the only ones of the young foals who knew what they were looking at, for they had experienced that blizzard in the high country, but they were keyed up and nervous too.
Choopa moved out from under the sheltering trees, and stood gazing. The wind was stronger at that moment, blowing a great cloud of snow, and the cloud and the wind gathered up the other foals and drove them towards Choopa. He stood paralysed. Fear engulfed him as the mob of young foals galloped straight at him, sweeping him along, the leaders beating a wide track.
For once Dandaloo had not been watching him, and as the mob — galloping hooves soundless on the snow — seemed to vanish in the white, whirling mass, she realised she had lost sight of him, and did not know where he had gone. She had no idea that he had been hurtled along by the mob, and their track was already obliterated by the huge cloud of cold, wind-blown snow.
Choopa felt his legs beginning to give way, but he made an immense effort to keep going with the others. He knew that if he tried to stop, he would be knocked over and trampled by the madly galloping foals. He could feel himself falling in his imagination, but he kept on his feet and kept moving and, because he was moving along with them, the foals seemed to part around him, pushing him but not knocking him over.
The trees through which they were going were becoming thicker so that the mob had to dodge and turn, and twist this way and that. Tree trunks loomed, branches whipped faces, eyes.
Choopa, sobbing for breath, was going far too fast to be able to control his direction. Snow beat in his eyes and into his open, gasping mouth.
He must not fall, he must not fall, he must keep going. He saw his own short, blue legs trying to stretch out in front of him, but swinging to the sides. Surely the foals would not crash into him … but he could feel their mad fear, and in this beating snow and the roaring wind, they might do anything at all. Choopa was afraid of the wind too, but not of the snow. He was much more afraid of the wildfire terror — mob terror — burning in the foals.
Most of these foals had, at some time, formed the circle around Choopa and would not wish to hurt him, but all of them together — and mad with fear — were entirely different.
Choopa tried so hard to keep up with them, then all of a sudden his legs were giving way. He was falling, too tired to somersault. He saw a snow-dusted stone sticking up out of the white-carpeted earth that was racing up to meet his face. The stone was the last thing he remembered seeing, and he remembered fear as he knew his head was going to hit it. Actually, the last thing he felt was hooves — hard hooves galloping over his rump, his back, his shoulders, withers, neck. Perhaps he squealed with fright and pain. He did not remember. There was nothing for a while, and he was intensely alone. The snow was cold beneath him, and as it fell on to his bruised, blue hide. He tried moving, but he was too sore. His head ached and throbbed. His body ached all over.
Cold … cold … He was cold and very sore. After a while he slept or fainted.
Something warm and furry crept up to his face, then another nestled up to his shoulder. He forced one bruised eyelid to open, so that he could see a blurred shape. He could just see one of the young wombats. It seemed to give a deep sigh as it saw Choopa’s eye open a bit wider. The wombat plodded forward to rub gently against his head, then two wombats lay together along his neck and withers, and a little warmth crept through him. Somewhere he could hear Dandaloo calling … perhaps he imagined her call … and the snow poured down, covering all tracks, blanketing the world, covering his body and covering the wombats.
Dandaloo’s call really did sound, and he knew he must answer. The sound he managed to make was barely a sound at all, and the falling snow deadened it. Then Dandaloo’s call sounded again, and this time he raised his head just enough to throw a weak neigh into the blizzard.
The wombats listened for Dandaloo’s reply, then one rubbed against Choopa’s face, brushing off the snow, and they both nestled into his neck.
Choopa could feel their warm bodies, and he succeeded in raising his head even more than before, to send a stronger neigh that Dandaloo could surely hear.
A branch cracked, not very far away. Choopa called again, and expected to hear his mother coming, but there was no other sound. Soft snow falling, and lying in a soft blanket all over the ground, made a quiet world except for the rush and roar of the wind.
Then all of a sudden Dandaloo was hurrying through the blizzard, floundering where snow was being blown into deep drifts, brushing snow off branches that were weighed down with it. Choopa heard her gasping for breath before he saw the beloved old blue mare. Then he saw her through the curtain of snow — really saw her, not just as the dream which he had been dreaming.
He had been so longing for her to come to find him that he succeeded in half rising up, in spite of his head spinning, and a terrible dizziness, so that he collapsed back on to the snow.
Dandaloo saw him quite unable to get up, and made a queer sound of misery, then she sprang through the last few feet of snow that separated her from her dwarf foal. She was there, right beside him, running her nose over his head — feeling the lump on his forehead where he had hit the stone — then gently touching all his body, pushing away his covering of cold snow, and snuffling her gratitude at the wombats, too.
No sharp stab of pain went through him, as her nose travelled all over him. Dandaloo knew then, even Choopa knew, that he had no broken bones — that his inability to get up was because of his swimming head. It was quite clear that although his legs were undamaged, he could not stand up, so Dandaloo nudged the little wombats up on to his neck and withers again, and she herself lay down behind him, cradling him with her legs as she had done so often before. She would keep him warm, but instinctively she knew that he must not go into a deep sleep.
The brumby-hunters’ hut was about ten miles away, and lower, where the snow had not yet fallen so thickly, and did not lie so deeply on the ground. The men had saddled up and ridden out once, but had found the going pretty heavy, so they had returned, thrown more logs on the fire, and hung the billy above the flames to make the tea.
‘I’ll try to catch that foal, when this storm is over,’ one man’s voice said. ‘I tell you this will be a heavy winter and the foal may not survive.’
‘Let him be with his mother,’ the Quiet Man said.
The snow did not cease to fall, and when their food began to run out, the men rode out of the mountains.
The Quiet Man was worried. He kept seeing a picture in his mind of the fireball, and the tiny blue roan foal seeming to wear a cap of St Elmo’s fire.
One man did not say that he was going to load up a packhorse with food and blankets and go back into the mountains.