The Lost Dog [O]

[Corowa]

The bay mare moved slowly out into the open. There were few remaining snowgums here on the spur, where the fire had burned at its fiercest. Smoke hung over the gully below, where fires still broke out in the scrubby bush, whipped up by the strong north wind.

The hut stood empty. There was no sign of the two bay stockhorses or of the stockman and his kelpie dog. Willunga whinnied shrilly. A moment passed, and as the wind tore through the snowgums, a half-filled billy can fell to the ground with a clatter. Spooked, Willunga wheeled around and bolted.

The stockyard fence turned her, and the mare propped back on her haunches, eyes wild and nostrils wide. Willunga wondered suddenly, whether the stockman and his horses had perished in the roaring fire.

Behind her, the timbers of the hut creaked and moaned. Then something hurtled itself out through the open door, a blur of black and tan coloured fur. Willunga shied, striking out blindly in her panic. There was a loud yelp, and the dog tumbled back, shaking itself for Willunga had caught it a stinging blow.

The dog wagged its tail and crept warily forwards. Willunga flinched back at the smell of singed flesh. The dog whined then, and reached up to lick her nose. It had been badly burnt, and it held one paw up, hopping on three legs after Willunga when the mare started off in the other direction.

There was a stand of snowgums only a hundred or so yards from the hut, and the bay brumby mare and kelpie dog rested there in the shade. The dog whined in his sleep, seeing once again the sheet of flame that had swallowed up his master.

OOC: The dog is Banjo. Tom hasn’t died, but the two were separated.

[Tiggs]

Blinding heat, searing embers, fire had raged across the High Country without mercy for brumbies, or even men it seemed. A lot of their fences had burned further down the ridge, reduced to charcoal lines on the ground. The bay stallion had seen many a carcass of their cattle that had succumbed to the inferno, their bodies blackened just like the grass and the trees. The men themselves had fled, taking as much stock as they could manage in their frenzy.

Their hut – untouched by the flames – stood empty now. It must have barely escaped the flames, perhaps by a change in the wind or the men’s precautions. The fire was not long gone, but the bay stallion returned to the area as soon as he was able. The stench of burned ground and animals alike set him on edge, and the usually collected stallion was plagued with the fiery ghosts of what he had seen. His own mare – Allambee – had been claimed by the flames, and her screams still echoed in his ears.

He’d barely escaped the tsunami of flames himself. His hide stung from a thousand tiny bites where sparks and embers had landed on his retreating hide. The white of his legs and the patch over his left shoulder were streaked black with ash mixed with sweat. His feet ached from thundering across the land, and he limped sparingly on his left foreleg, the frog tender from stepping on too-hot ground.

The ground around the hut was smothered in ash, but the grass under it was untouched. He filled his mouth with the taste of death, just to fill his stomach with something, no matter how bitter. A drink at the nearby brook washed it down, and he was able to rest. Sleep would not come easy, and the stallion could not stop thinking about the utter destruction he had just witnessed.

Thankfully, the sound of another horse drew him from his gruesome thoughts. He rounded the hut, keeping his limp to a minimum. A bay mare stood under a few surviving snowgums, and the stallion nickered to her, voice hoarse and dry. He did not see the dog for what it was, assuming it to be only a rock. Almost desperate for the distraction of company, he made his way over to the mare, his stiff gait betraying the secret of his less-than-perfect health.

[Corowa]

The air was still. The smell of smoke was stronger, and the dog stirred uneasily in its sleep. Willunga slept fitfully, terror following her much as a dog harries at a brumby’s heels. From somewhere close, a brumby called, and Willunga flinched, for there, only a few yards from them, stood a brown and white stallion.

The mare let out a surprised snort. In an instant, the dog sprang to its feet. It growled menacingly, its hackles raised as it watched the brown and white stallion. Willunga rubbed its ears with her nose and the dog whined, every instinct telling it to chase the stallion off.

Willunga encouraged the stallion closer. With a flick of her tail she stretched out her nose, her nostrils curling at the sour smell of sweat. This brown and white stallion had been run very hard, and the mare could see the strain of it in his face.

“Have you seen any others?” she asked him. “I thought I was the only one to escape. It seemed the whole High Country was on fire.” Willunga shook with the horror of what she had seen. In her mind was burned the image of a great wall of fire stretching up into the trees, exploding the crowns into flame.

The dog was watching them, tongue lolling as it sat in the shade of the snowgums. Willunga wondered how it would survive out here in the bush now with no master to feed it.

[Tiggs]

The sudden explosion of movement from the dog elicited a shrill squeal from the stallion, and he threw his head up in response. His ears pinned back, the warning clear to see in his bared teeth and tense position. The man’s beast seemed not to worry, and settled down from the touch of the mare. That startled the painted stallion more than the dog, and he looked at the mare with a queer expression; part suspicion, and equal parts admiration.

His gaze wondered over the mare, seeing the brand on her shoulder. That explained her confidence around the dog, and why she had chosen the hut as a place to rest. He guessed she was recently escaped, perhaps abandoned by her captors and now lost for what to do without them. He saw that a lot with escaped brumbies. They might have their freedom, but they sometimes just did not know what to do with it.

Keeping a side-eye on the dog, he replied to the mare after brushing her muzzle politely with his, “I’ve seen no one,” no one alive, he added to himself. It was not fair to upset the poor mare. “The fire did cover a lot of ground – this is the first place I have seen for half a day that still has edible grass...” He sighed and shook his weary head. The fire... the gallop... Allambee... He felt so completely drained.

[Corowa]

Willunga stepped back, her ears flattening slightly at the stallion’s news. Had Murungal somehow escaped? She had seen him last running with an ugly dun filly in the broken country of the lower Crackenback. Perhaps that part of the High Country had not been completely burnt out.

“I was nearly caught up on Dead Horse Ridge but the fire front swung round and went down into the valley,” Willunga said. “This seemed the only place that the fire had not touched. I thought perhaps the stockman would still be here and that he would take me away with him. But even here there was nothing for me.”

Beside her, the dog whimpered, as if it too shared the mare’s sadness. Willunga wondered how long it would wait for its stockman master to return. Perhaps if she left it would follow, though Willunga had never heard of such a thing. A stockman’s dog running with a brumby? Yet she longed desperately for companionship, whether it was offered by man or beast.

[Tiggs]

She was lucky to have escaped, he thought. Anyone was lucky to escape. It had seemed at the time that the fire would swallow the whole High Country, and every brumby in it. Sighing, the bay stallion lifted his head, morose gaze settling on the mare. The dog seemed to be just as frightened and tired as he was, although he hoped he wasn't showing it as clearly.

He needed to distract himself. The mare was confusing. She spoke of running on the Ridge, yet she'd come here to seek the men's help? Was she a stock horse, or a brumby? The mark on her shoulder suggested the former, but what she said suggested otherwise. "Why did you come to the men? Are you one of their horses?" He asked. He didn't seem to be judging her either way. If anything, he was interested to know more about her - he'd never met a stockhorse in person. They were usually just chasing him.

The dog seemed to find comfort in her presence, further confirming his suspicions. He wondered why it was that the dog was not chasing him. Every other dog he'd seen was hell-bent on catching him. Ears flickering in indecision, he decided not to concern himself with the dog right now. It was not bothering him. There were other things more important.

[Corowa]

Willunga stamped her foot, watching the brown and white stallion more closely than before. “I was tame once, long ago. But it has been many years since I have carried a man upon my back. I am not here to trap you brumby, so you need go bolting off into the bush.”

The mare could barely remember her stockman owner, or even the bushfire that had driven her so many miles from home. There was only that all-consuming terror, which had gripped her up there on Dead Horse Ridge. Willunga did not know why she had come to this place. Yet to her, man had always meant shelter and protection. She did not understand this stallion’s fear.

Having become more and more restless, the dog suddenly dropped to roll in a dusty patch of ground. Willunga jumped forwards, snorting sharply as the dog got in under her feet, excited by her sudden movements. It was only young, no more than a pup really, and as it went to nip at her heels, Willunga turned and gave it an unpleasant bite. There was a loud yelp, and then the dog shot off into the low snowgums, its sore paw all but forgotten.

[Tiggs]

Talgarno snorted softly. No, he needn’t worry about a single mare catching him. The mental vision playing out in his mind served to distract him, so he entertained it; the idea of stockhorses rounding up brumbies without men. Ridiculous, really, but they’d probably be more effective. Unhindered without man’s weight and direction, a brumby run would be an entirely different experience.

The dog made a sudden movement, and the stallion shied. The animal seemed to have regained its senses – or what counted for them in a dog – and was trying to heckle the mare’s feet. Seemly unimpressed, the mare simply nipped it like it was an exuberant foal and sent it fleeing into the bush. Shaking his head in disbelief, the stallion looked curiously at the mare. “The dog doesn’t frighten you, even though its teeth could easily lame you? Tell me your name, brave one.”

He reached out his dark brown muzzle, nostrils flaring. It was surreal to say the least, being at the man’s hut in spring, with not a man in sight, his hut and pens abandoned. He stood here talking with an escaped mare, in what was now the safest part of the High Country. What queerness this was.

[Corowa]

Willunga snorted. “That dog is stupid, no more than a pup. I have been kicking dogs since before it was born. It takes a brave dog to face a brumby standing stock-still.”

At that, the mare’s ears turned back, catching the breaking of twigs and crunch of dry leaves. The dog slunk through the rough scrub towards them, whining as it stood watching the two brumbies. There was a chunk of fur missing on its back where Willunga had bitten it. The mare was glad it had come back. She had not meant to hurt it, only teach it a lesson.

Despite her suspicion, Willunga was intrigued by the brown and white stallion. She pawed the ground uncertainly, her nostrils flaring widely, taking in the stallion’s scent. The only stallion she had run with had been bad-tempered and vicious, and the mare’s brown hide was still marked by his teeth and hooves.

Willunga knew she was an old mare. With her bay coat and heavy build, she would never be prized. She was no creamy to be fought over by stallions and hunted by man. Yet here was this stallion whose gentle brown eyes, made her body shake. Shyly, the mare touched his nose with her own. “I am Willunga, though the stockmen called me Brownie,” she told him softly. “I was born in Tooma, many miles west from here.”

[Tiggs]

Talgarno gave a nod as she explained her confidence with the dog. Nevertheless, despite her reassurance, the stallion still gave the dog a wary eye as it came slinking back out of the bush. Dogs to the wild stallion were closely linked with men and their brumby drives. It was the associated fear more than the actual danger that put Talgarno on edge.

The mare seemed to trust him enough now to give him her name, and he let his dark muzzle linger against hers as she offered it. “Then I shall call you Willunga. I am Talgarno, hailing from Davies Plain. I make this my home now though; the home of my father,” he said, introducing himself. “It seems we are both from the west, Willunga.” He gave a brief smile, ears perking in her direction.

While she was older than most mares, and of a simple pelt, Talgarno preferred mares that were calm and confident. The fire had taken his herd from him, and it hurt him to think he would replace his mares, but he told himself that he could never forget Allambee, or Kirrike. If Willunga would run with him, be the foundation of his herd of sensible mares, then it would be a step towards recreating what he’d had in an effort to preserve his memories of the good times, and wash away the cruel visions that plagued him.