48 My father and I had danced and sung our dreaming by the fading glow of our fire, until the grey of early morning stole through the bush and the birds began to stir. I believe the old warrior’s heart would have been heavy with sadness, and so much would he have been hurting, that he would have willingly given his own life not to have to do this. For the law of our people stretched back into the dreamtime, I was his seed and there was no one else. My mother and sister knew what had to be done, and now the time had come. This was our place, where my life had begun, and must now be ended. I imagine that my father’s tormented thoughts may have been of the moment of my birth, when he would have felt my warm nakedness, and heard my first cries. Perhaps, he would have remembered his young son

