A little stream of water ran quite close beside where Dandaloo and Choopa lay. It ran from under the fringe of a drift of snow. This rivulet of melted snow would run into the Quambat creek, and then join the Indi River, flowing on and on to the sea.
Dandaloo touched the half-sleeping Choopa with her nose.
Time flowed by in the old mare’s half-sleeping mind. A picture came of that really frightening-looking bundle to which she had given birth, in the scrub and tall trees, almost a year ago, and she saw the huge stallion staring at it for a moment, almost gently, and then moving on.
That black mare shying away from Choopa reminded her of how she had been afraid of the herd’s reaction to the strangeness of Choopa, and how she had not taken him to join the others for a long time, just because of this — fearing they might kill him. Half asleep, listening to the kookaburra’s evening laughter, she knew that it was Choopa’s somersaulting, and his joyous clowning, that had won the affection of the other horses, even of the supercilious yearlings. Choopa was nearly a yearling, himself, now.
An evening breeze began to rustle the eucalyptus leaves, to move the wattle fronds that would soon be ablaze with fluffy golden blooms.
A south wind was stirring the snow gum leaves. Images and truths floated through Dandaloo’s head — pictures of Choopa performing more of his tricks within his circle of young animals, weaving a circle of enchantment. That fun, that enchantment, was quite clearly his protection against what could be mob cruelty to an odd outsider. She saw in her dreams, too, the young wombats lying on his withers, warming Choopa in the snowstorm.
She dreamt on, until a flight of crimson and blue lowries flew chattering overhead and disturbed Choopa. Dandaloo became wide awake, and knew absolutely that nothing must ruin Choopa’s joy in his own ability to weave spells with his rhythm and his dancing.
The lowries had gone and Choopa slept again.
There was the faint sound of water trickling as the little stream ran from below the melting snow.
The moment came, a few days later, when they looked on to Quambat Flat from a fringe of trees at the foot of the Cobberas. Choopa saw a scattered mob of horses grazing on the flat. Not all the ones he remembered as friends were there, and those that were, seemed ragged and thin. The mares looked poor, too, and very rough in the coat. It was Dandaloo and Son of Storm who wondered if these mares had failed to force their way into sufficiently low country to be out of the deep snow. The grass still looked brown and pressed flat from weight of snow.
Bri Bri was nervous. Choopa was really longing to play. He started to trot towards the startled herd. Dandaloo followed him. Choopa began to gallop as he got closer to the others. This time he did not fall — strange blue and white foal with legs in flying rhythm. Suddenly he realised that the mares and yearlings had gathered together.
Dandaloo, just behind him, felt her heart beginning to thump with anxiety. Were the mares and yearlings going to turn and gallop away, and make Choopa feel utterly an outsider? Or, worse still, would one of them attack and hurt him? A queer cry of fear was forced out of her, as she watched that strange-looking foal galloping towards the silent, stiff, unwelcoming mob.
If only he could realise that his only defence was the comedy which he could create, and the spell which his rhythm and dance could cast over all who watched him. Then she saw Choopa wavering in his gallop. In the last few strides before he reached the herd, Choopa simply knew that he had to somersault, as he had done before, in front of the Quambat herd. This time he had to fall on purpose, right in front of those mares and foals, and somersault, nearly to their feet. He did it! He fell and somersaulted — that odd-looking ball of blue and white — then sprang up, reared and danced. He danced about, bowing, whirling round, and then, in a way he had never done before, he swayed from side to side, walking on his hind legs, right up to the oldest of the mares, and stretched up his white-splashed nose to hers, then dropped on to all four feet and bowed.
The whole mob gathered around Choopa, and Dandaloo, with a sigh, moved forward to be part of it all. Then out of the bush trundled two wombats, wallabies, and an echidna. The day was won, and Choopa had not been ridiculed again.
A watcher from the black sallees had seen the whole unbelievable act.
Thus it was that Choopa was left in peace, to play in the spring sunshine and in the snow that still sometimes fell. Yet there was someone who had seen that strange and beautiful dance — the dance of courage and oblation.
So someone had seen St Elmo’s fire momentarily touch that foal’s head, like a cap and bells, the day the fireball set the bush alight. Someone had seen him like a wraith in that wild summer blizzard — blizzard and place so near to that which von Guerard had survived nearly a century before. Someone had seen that blue and white foal standing in a rear in the wind-ruffled waters of the lovely double lake. Someone else had come out of that hut which could barely be seen in the fearful snowstorm, someone whose dog nearly caught Choopa. And all these reports of sightings seemed to add up to an ever-varying legend of a dancer, dancing to music which no one heard.
Now, spring sun was going to make the grass green and thick. The bacon-and-egg bushes would bloom with the golden and brown peas from which come the delicious seed pods. All the young animals would grow — though a dwarf might not.
Dandaloo and Son of Storm had brought their little herd safely through the winter, safely through the biggest snowstorms which either of them had ever known, stumbling and forcing their way through deep snowdrifts, and through dense-falling flakes that had turned each mare and foal into an invisible ghost. The whole world had been invisible and soundless — except for the roar, or cry of the wind at night through the granite rocks — yet they had battled through.
Dandaloo had never been so frightened in her life as she was almost that whole winter — not frightened for herself, but for her foal. Now spring was coming to the mountains, and she could relax. She had survived the heaviest winter she had ever known — and helped Choopa through it, too.
When the cattle no longer came to the snow country for summer grazing, no men rode out, either. There were no cattle to be salted, none to be checked, day after day, or brought back to their own snowlease if they had wandered. No smoke went up from the chimneys of the old slab huts. After whole summers without being disturbed at all, the brumbies grew more confident that there would be no more brumby drives. It seemed safe to go right up on to the bare ‘tops’, just as Dandaloo and Son of Storm had gone to visit the topmost lakes.
As more and more snow melted and ran away in streams to join the big rivers, both Dandaloo and Son of Storm were possessed with the longing to move on, up to the highest peaks. They had seen that men walked there, but men on foot, without whips or lassos, really could not present much danger. So, when most of the slopes of the Ramshead Range, above Dead Horse Gap, were free of snow, except in the steep gullies, they started to graze their way upward.
A fitful wind was blowing when they did the final climb up to the rocky horns of the South Ramshead. Instead of lying down to sleep in the lee of a big rock, Dandaloo began trotting along the snowgrass highways, splashing through the occasional pools that reflected the first stars as they appeared in the sky. Dandaloo looked back often to check on Choopa, but her very small yearling was coming along strongly. In fact Choopa was leaping and bounding with excitement.
The weird night was exciting — the enormous rocks were exciting, taking on strange shapes and forms. Sometimes it seemed that great dark horses were galloping past him in the wind, threading their way through rocks — becoming rocks, themselves; or rocks becoming huge horses with flying manes and tails, then merging with the few clouds that occasionally veiled the stars. Soundless hooves galloped over stones … starlight even shone on the wild whites of eyes — eyes that were not there … thrilling evocations of wild horses who had once raced with the wind, and of Choopa’s own excitement.
For years and years, from a time well before the last of the wide-horned cattle came, there had been a queer stone hut in the hollow below Mt Stilwell and Charlotte’s Pass. Dandaloo had seen this strangely intriguing building twice, and once she had heard something.
Choopa was listening to the sound of the wind in the tors of the Ramshead Range — for wild horses are absolutely attuned to the wild mountain winds. Then it seemed that a mob of gallopers hurtled by in the blasting air, until they reached Charlotte’s Pass and the wind dropped them there, among the miniature snow gums.
A faint sound came from the hollow below.
Choopa heard it. He pricked his ears. The sound grew a little louder, yet it seemed to be absolutely part of himself, in himself. He stood, so small, in front of Dandaloo and Son of Storm, trembling.
The moon had risen, huge and round, almost resting on the rocks of Mt Guthrie and the couloir of snow coming down between the main rock peak. Moonlight flooded the valleys on either side of the Pass. On one side, the Snowy River was a wide silver ribbon, on the other the creek meandered in bright loops. Mingling with the moonlight was a myriad of lights shining from the stone hut.
As the moon rose, the sound of music swelled, and lilted and throbbed through the night. Choopa felt it flow through his whole body, beating in his heart, in his legs, in his hard little feet, till he was pirouetting on a circle of snowgrass. He looked down and saw his white fetlocks all silvered by the light of the moon, and his swinging legs were moving perfectly with the swing of the music.
There he was, up with the stars and the moon. There he was in the centre of the Pass, swaying and dancing to the music of the waltz … He saw the moonlight shining on the Snowy River and, as the music died down for a moment, he heard the song of the Snowy.
The dwarf snow gums of that high pass brushed against his flanks, as he danced to the edge of the snowgrass clearing. His mother was standing in amongst the snow gums. He could see the moonlight making her eyes shine.
Far below, a child’s voice called:
‘There’s a tiny horse dancing on the pass.’
The music grew louder again, and Choopa’s blue and white legs and body waltzed above the Snowy River.
Then the music died down to the faintest, thrilling whisper, falling away to nothing, and only voices could be heard.
Dandaloo and Son of Storm called Choopa to follow them, and they went from the disturbing voices, away to the source of the Snowy River.
A man climbed up to the Pass, by the light of the moon, seeking the vision the child had seen. All he saw in the moonlight was a shadowy group of horses and a small foal, far along the road to the Snowy Crossing. He went back to the Chalet, certain in his mind that the foal must have played there, on the Pass, romping to the sound of the waltz.
Hands grabbing out of dense mist … A man and a dog appearing from a hut that was shrouded in a curtain of falling snow … A man in a summer blizzard by the shores of Lake Cootapatamba … A man sleeping above Lake Albina, who woke to see a blue foal rearing up, in the wind-ruffled waters of the lake.
Dandaloo, walking along towards the Snowy Crossing, was troubled. There was a danger which she did not understand. The scent of the white-starred heath bushes rose around them in the warm night. Choopa occasionally brushed against her flank. It was as if the unknown danger was something inherent in Choopa himself, as though he created his own danger.
She, too, found that the sound rising up from the valley, sometimes blending with the song of the Snowy River, had an eerie attraction, but, for Choopa, it had obviously been totally compelling. What was in Choopa that was so different from other foals she had had? Something caused by his smallness … perhaps a gift to compensate or to protect?
Standing in an ice-cold pool at one head of the Snowy River, Dandaloo gave a great sigh. Never before had there been a foal like him; never had she loved a foal so much.
She watched Choopa drinking that water at the very source of the great river. She had always hoped that he would suddenly start to grow, become a great blue stallion. Without even being aware, she now simply felt that he was perfect and that he possessed a mysterious strength.
The little blue dwarf pawed the water so that it spangled in the moonlight and moonlight flowed with it into the Snowy River.