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Brumbies Novels
Paula Boer
Category:
Young Adult/Teen
Publisher: IFWG Publishing
ISBN-10: 0615729592
Type: Fiction
Pages: 140
Copyright: November 2012
ISBN-13: 9780615729596
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Book 2 in the Brumbies series, a horse adventure set in Australia.
Taming a wild horse is no easy task, as Ben and Louise soon discover. Their progress is slowed by a runaway horse and a desperate search through the park for two lost hikers. Concern for an injured brumby adds to the complications.
Follow the wild twists and turns of the Best Selling sequel Brumbies adventure, as Ben and Louise explore the High Country of Australia in winter and learn what it means to break in a brumby.
Excerpt
Ben could hear Brandy scream after him as he trotted back down the track to where the tree had fallen across the road. He had left the brumby locked in the stable instead of turning him out in the stallion paddock as he didn’t want him trying to escape. Ben thought the stallion might want to follow Snip, or try to look for Honey.
As he neared the place where he had detoured through the bush, Ben whistled his dog. Relief flowed through his body like a hot liquid as he heard an answering bark. “I’m coming! Where are you?”
Following the sound of Snifter’s yelps, he located where the dog had become trapped between two logs. He must have jumped in between them but been unable to get back out with only three legs.
“Are you alright, mate?” Ben ran his hands over the dog but couldn’t find any damage.
Snifter squirmed and licked Ben’s face, wagging his tail as hard as he could. “Cut it out. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
Placing both hands under the dog’s rear end, Ben hoisted the blue heeler in the air. With that extra help, Snifter leapt out of his trap and bounded through the rest of the scrub to reach the road. There he sat and licked his paws while waiting for Ben to join him with Snip dragging behind.
“Now what am I going to do with you? I know you won’t go home on your own, and I suppose I’d better go and look for Louise.” Ben’s earlier anger at her disappearance resurfaced. “It would serve her right if she did get lost.”
The wind had grown in the time since Ben had last seen Louise. A fine powder of snow blew across the track and in his face. Heavy purple clouds scudded low across the darkening sky. “Sorry mate, but I’ll have to tie you here and come back for you. It’ll be too hard for you to come with me.”
Dragging a long piece of baling twine from his pocket, Ben tied Snifter to a tree and gave him a scratch behind the ears. “Wait here. I’m glad you’re okay.”
Seeing him dig a nest for himself in the leaf litter and lie down as he was told, Ben gave Snifter another pat then mounted Snip.
Ben pulled his scarf tighter around his neck against the wind and headed up the road. He could barely make out Honey and Ned’s hoof prints in the drifts. Reaching the locked gate, the tracks had all but disappeared.
“Now what?” Ben sat on Snip as he surveyed the country around him. He couldn’t see any evidence of horses on the other side of the locked gate. Just as he was about to dismount for a closer look, he noticed where branches had been snapped off at chest height.
Following the blazed trail, Ben saw the occasional hoof print in mud and more broken twigs. Slowed to a walk by the hard going, Ben made a number of false turns and had to double back to pick up the marks of the two horses. Then suddenly the heavy scrub gave way to open country and he emerged from the trees.
A white expanse met his gaze. Snow covered everywhere he looked. Snow in drifts on the ground, snow on the branches of trees, snow thickly covering the hillsides around the valley. The wind whistled through the tree tops and cut through his moleskin trousers.
Apart from a single hoof print on the tree-line, nothing showed which way the escaped brumby had gone. Earlier he had sometimes had glimpses of where the rope had dragged in the snow when she’d slowed down. Ben had been fairly sure he had been following two sets of hoof prints, but now he wasn’t so sure. Had Louise made it this far? He should have thought to call out as he went. What if she had come off Ned and lay injured somewhere, and the Appaloosa had returned home another way?
Despite his mother’s warnings to not come back without Louise, Ben knew he had no hope of finding anyone out in that vast whiteness; the weather made visibility almost non-existent.
Not wanting to give up too soon, Ben headed towards the old homestead in case he came across any signs of Louise or the horses. Maybe if he rode to the crest of the hill he’d be able to see movement, or something, if she was in the next valley.
Perhaps she'd reached the old mines. Then she could have cut back across the track and headed for the shelter of Gould’s caves. When a hail storm had hit them in the summer, they had taken refuge there. Then Ben remembered that Louise had been too sick to remember where they were. He thought it unlikely she would go anywhere else but back to the farm if she gave up chasing Honey.
After an hour of wading through deep snow and slipping on icy rocks, Ben climbed the rise he had been aiming for. The wind bit even deeper through his clothes. His toes had long since lost any feeling.
He could see nothing. Just more white.
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