Most of the brumbies from the Quambat Flat area kept working their way continually downwards as the snowline became lower and lower, and further south. There was still good grazing to be found in spite of the almost ceaseless snowfalls. Dandaloo and Wingilla, with their foals, roamed about together, seeking grass. One evening Son of Storm and a few more mares and foals — heralded by a big flock of currawongs — arrived to join them.
The wind was talking in the ridges above when Son of Storm and the others came trotting into the frost hollow where Dandaloo and Wingilla were grazing. There was enough grass and shrubs for all of them for a few days and the mares were pleased to have Son of Storm’s company and perhaps his protection — though really there was nothing to fear in that blizzardy weather and freezing wind, except hunger. Yet Dandaloo kept feeling that she had something to fear for Choopa — some violence, not just the slow creeping death of starvation …
They all grazed till dark that night, and then slept close together beneath sheltering, low branches of black sallees. They awoke to an entirely different world.
Slowly, softly, insistently, all through the dark night, snow had fallen in thick curtains of flakes. All the clear green hollow was covered in white snow. The grass had vanished, the shrubs were bowed down and buried.
Each one woke, got up and looked around, shaking the snow off their coats. Then Son of Storm and Dandaloo gathered the small mob together and began urging them southwards, feeling that there must be less snow lower down. The wind was crying and howling in the rocks of the higher peaks, an icy, killing wind, and the snow fell in a thicker and thicker pall.
Cloud and snow bore in on them, matted their eyelashes. Some of them tried digging for the grass that lay underneath, but Son of Storm and Dandaloo urged them on, knowing they had to get out of the snow before it became too deep, and while their hooves made a track that Choopa could follow. Dandaloo knew that brumbies had died in heavy snow years, that even foals far bigger than Choopa failed to get through it, and lay down in the soft white snow and slept … and died.
The blizzard became denser. They could not see at all. Dandaloo grew very nervous as they went further and further on, through the unknown country which they could not see. Even though not one landmark was visible, Dandaloo began to feel more and more strongly that she had been near this place before.
Then suddenly, even when there was no sign of stockyards, she knew they were there, to one side of the long valley down which they were ploughing their way. This was where the men had driven her, with the other brumbies, before the Quiet Man let her go. Now it was all under snow … but she should never have come back here, and Choopa should not be here at all.
She stopped still, but Son of Storm urged her on into the swirling, stinging snow clouds. On they went in those clouds in which there was nothing — just a vast whiteness that moved with the wind. Sometimes the entire world swayed or went round, but mostly the wind was a roaring force which could grab at Choopa, knocking him over.
Choopa was afraid. He struggled up on to his feet.
Occasionally they knew, just in time, that they were going to walk into a snow-covered tree and they would change direction slightly, but always went back onto the line that should take them out of the snow — if they could keep going.
The wind veered briefly, and on that whirl of air came a terrifying smell.
Once more Dandaloo stopped absolutely still, shaking, then the smell was borne away on the wind, but just for that second it had brought to Dandaloo the memory of the rough touch of stockyard rails against her hide, the sound of voices, the burning rasp of a rope, the bite of a whip.
Suddenly there was a voice, and a dog barking — the bark coming closer, stronger, definitely telling that they were near. In the wild blizzard there was a shadow dog bounding in the snow — just a shadow, then gone. Suddenly it was more than a shadow, snapping at Choopa’s heels.
A voice called. The dog barked again. Dandaloo urged Choopa to go even faster, but he was already tired from forcing his short legs onwards in the deep snow, and he could not push himself any faster.
The dog bounded again after the little foal and Choopa, having never had to fight a dog off, did not know how to, but it was instinct, when the heeler got hold of one fetlock, to kick him off with all the strength he could gather up.
Again there was a voice, again a veering wind brought the scent of wood smoke.
Dandaloo could not go for the dog herself and call Choopa away, all at the same time. She called Choopa.
It was Son of Storm who was suddenly rearing up — a massive, dark stallion towering up in the cloud and blowing snow.
Son of Storm saw the man and the dog for a brief, clouded-over second, closer, far closer than he had expected, and he crashed his front hooves down, hitting the man a glancing blow. Then the man and the dog vanished in the wind-driven cloud and thick, white flakes.
Dandaloo heard that voice call, but she hurried Choopa along — her mind whirling with the snow. Danger was where there were men, men with their dogs, and fences, and fires, and smoke, but the snowflakes coated her and deepened the covering with every moment, and the deepest danger of all was the never-ceasing snow … and starvation. Without grass or the bushes that bore seed pods, they would all freeze, fade to nothing and die.
Choopa must not die.
She looked back to make sure he was still able to keep walking, even though she could feel him against her flank.
Son of Storm was nudging her along and she was nudging little blue Choopa. She caught sight of the shadowy shape of Wingilla and Bri Bri, and, occasionally, other mares.
The only way in which they knew that the day was ending was when the world, instead of being densely white and grey, became black. The snow was wetter, by then, and not falling quite so heavily. They must soon find grass and some bushes that were not bowed down and covered.
Once or twice after the dog had vanished, Dandaloo felt certain they were being followed; once she had thought she heard the clink of a bridle ring in the distance.
Choopa moved slower and slower, and nothing appeared through the cloud and blowing snow behind them.
At last they reached a long ridge where the grass showed in patches, and then clear areas of grass beneath the trees appeared, and some bushes. It was time to stop forcing the foals to keep going.
So they slept. Even Dandaloo finally slept, though she stayed awake for a long time, listening and wondering, and in that dark night, the snow began to fall even more heavily; again, no one came.
The man and the dog had given up before complete darkness, and gone back to light the fire in the hut. The dog answered the faraway howl of a dingo, and the rugged-up horse neighed to brumbies out there in the night and snow.
So there was another morning of a white world, cloud and wind and blowing snow, and the grass they had grazed the night before had vanished under the white blanket.
Some of the shrubs that were sheltered by trees were not yet bowed down and covered, so there was food for the mares, but no water to drink, and they must have water as well as food to make milk. Wingilla went searching for a stream, but when she dug in a depression in the snow, where a stream should surely run, it was frozen solid.
Mouthfuls of snow only made them more thirsty.
Son of Storm half-remembered tales of a beautifully warm valley somewhere west of south — towards the sunset. Perhaps it was only a story, perhaps they might find it, but the herd had better eat while it could, while there was food still showing above this all-pervading snow.
When they had grazed on the shrubs for some time they moved on, little Choopa struggling along the tracks made by the others, and Dandaloo keeping him close to her. Sometimes he just dropped on to the half-beaten track, and Dandaloo kept nudging him, so that he did not sleep.
Son of Storm found a creek that was deeper and not frozen right through. He broke a hole in the ice from which they could all drink.
All through that day of falling snow, they went on and on, veering slightly to the west. Dandaloo realised Choopa really could go no further, just as a reddish glow seemed to suffuse the snowflakes, yet somehow they kept struggling on, towards the sunset.
A warm fanning of air came up out of a valley. Only a little way down the bushes seemed free of snow; there were areas of grass. Dandaloo gave a deep sigh. Somehow she managed to urge her little dwarf a few feet downwards, till she found a snow-free place where he could lie. She lay down beside him, waking him whenever she knew he should have some milk, if he were to survive the onward struggle through the blizzard.
A man was riding loose-reined on his horse — riding through the snow back to Benambra. Both horse and dog knew the way through pouring snow as well, or better, than he did.
Days later, in the Golden Age pub at Omeo, he mentioned having seen a dwarf foal in the blizzard, and that he reckoned it would be dead by now.