GRACE AND JESS leapt from the back of the ute, bridles in hand, before it even came to a stop. They had the horses’ rugs unbuckled in seconds. Luke jumped the fence, carrying the saddles.
‘Double with me,’ Jess said to Grace, pulling Dodger’s girth tight and slapping the fender down. She hoisted herself into the saddle and Grace vaulted on behind. Jess kicked Dodger through the opened gate and Luke cantered on Legsy behind them.
They splashed through the river and opened the horses into a full gallop across the hillside, wads of mud flying up from the thundering hooves.
‘Which way do we go?’ yelled Grace as they neared the top of the hill.
‘I don’t know,’ called Luke. ‘Let’s start at the same spot as yesterday, go from there.’
Jess guided Dodger up the steep, narrow trail and he bounded over the ruts and rocks, puffing heavily. ‘Good boy, Dodge,’ she encouraged, clicking him up.
At the top of the hill, she let him walk.
‘I can hear them,’ said Luke, pulling a jig-jogging Legsy up beside her. ‘Listen, the brumbies are going nuts.’
Dodger pranced nervously and flicked his ears. Jess picked up the faint drumming sound too. She ran a soothing hand over her horse’s neck. ‘How can we stop them?’
There was a sudden ear-piercing scream and a pounding of hooves.
‘A stallion!’ yelled Grace. ‘Really close!’ She twisted to look behind her. ‘It’s Rambo!’ she said joyously.
The big black horse came charging through a wall of bushes, whinnying and tossing his head. He pranced on the spot and for a moment Jess could see wildness raging inside him. She saw a glimpse of what he had been in his youth, an animal with a proud crest and high-stepping knees. His tail swished angrily back and forth, and with a shake of his mane he was off, cantering in another direction, disappearing into a field of granite boulders.
They guided the horses carefully down into a gully littered with rotting logs, travelling as quickly as safety would allow. Dodger pulled at the reins and Jess had trouble holding him steady.
Rambo’s shape flickered through the bush, disappearing behind massive granite boulders and then reappearing across the gully. He backtracked every now and then, sighted them, and then charged off again.
‘We can’t lose him,’ said Luke, overtaking Jess and pushing Legsy into a canter. But Jess held Dodger at a jog.
Around them, the sound of drumming hooves grew louder and echoed off the rocks and through the canyons and valleys, shaking the branches of the beech trees and sending their leaves spiralling to the trails below. Jess heard a whip crack.
‘We should stop,’ said Grace in a frightened voice. ‘He’s leading us into the chase. It’s too dangerous.’
Jess was about to agree when she heard a heartbreaking sound. A foal screaming.
Ahead, Luke yelled ‘Jessy!’ The anguish in his tone made her push on even faster. Dodger scrambled to a ridge-top and the sight before Jess nearly tore her to pieces. ‘Min Min!’
Slung between two trees, like a huge spider web, was a net. Snared in that net, like helpless prey, was a distraught creamy foal. Beside it, Rambo pawed at the ground and shook his head. ‘Min Min!’ Jess yelled.
‘There are more,’ said Luke, pointing to two other nets strung nearby. ‘They’re gonna run the whole mob through here!’
‘What can we do?’ she said desperately.
Luke threw her a pocket knife. ‘You cut her out. I’ll head off the chase.’
Jess slipped off Dodger. ‘You go too,’ she said breathlessly to Grace. ‘We can’t let them through here.’ But she paused before letting go of the reins. ‘Take care of my boy.’
Grace nodded solemnly before leapfrogging into the saddle and reining Dodger away at a steady lope.
Jess set to work on the net, the sound of the chase all around her. Rambo ran his soft muzzle over the neck of the distressed foal, nickering gently. Min Min lay motionless, but her eyes rolled and her cries still came, each one tearing at Jess’s heart and filling her with urgency. She worked quietly and quickly, sawing at the nylon strings tangled around the foal’s entire body. Her struggling had only entangled her further. Jess hacked and sawed, pulled and stretched, until finally she tugged the last shred of net away from the filly’s back legs.
For a split second, Jess, Min Min and Rambo were collectively motionless. Then Rambo turned and trotted away. The filly leapt to her feet and scooted after him with her tail jammed hard between her legs.
Another whip crack spurred Jess to the next net, tied high between the trunks of two trees. She could cut just one side, she thought quickly, cut it from the top and peel it back, clear the way for the brumbies. With the knife in her teeth, she took hold of the net and pushed her boots into the lower holes, pulling herself up.
From the top, as she cut through the holding rope, she spied the runners, their fleeting shapes moving through the bush. Horses flashed in and out of sight. Then they disappeared into the forest, calling to each other with the excitement and adrenaline of the chase.
The galloping brumbies sent a current of terror ringing through the mountain. They pounded through the grey gums and stringybarks, getting closer. The hooves of the chasing horses clattered over rocks.
Jess sawed desperately at the ropes. She had to hurry. She heard Luke’s voice, yelling. As she looked up, she felt the last shred of rope give. Then everything went blurry around her, her vision replaced by shock and disorientation, a falling sensation. A fraction of a second later she felt the impact of her shoulder crashing against stone, and her head thudding onto the ground.
Around her the forest floor still rumbled with the rolling hoofbeats of the brumbies. They faded as she drifted away, into unconsciousness.