Doney slid down the trunk and squatted, peering at the ground while Sheppard looked into the far distance. ‘We do what has to be done, we accept it like drought or fire. But town dogs? Once the owners knew what had happened they would put the dogs down. Or that’s what we thought. I stood in front of the owner of the shaggy black dog. He said it was some fancy German breed that were used as police dogs. We went around the back and that bastard dog sat as sweet as could be, a real pet. No, he said, it couldn’t have been his dog. It turned out it couldn’t have been any town dog. They were pets.

‘We demanded a full council meeting. Senior Constable Saunders, farmers, owners, anyone who wanted a tyre to kick was there. Plenty of screaming, yelling and abuse, a real old free-for-all, even a couple of fights in the car park, one of them had nothing to do with the dogs.

‘One skinny mongrel from the pound was offered up to be shot. Only trouble was, it was locked up the night the mob formed. That didn’t seem to trouble anyone though, so the dogcatcher shot the poor mongrel later. Case closed. Stupid farmers don’t know the difference between town dogs and dingoes. Shit, we thought. We are bloody stupid. So we decided to wise up. A dozen of us, all good shots, got together.’

The jury, twelve angry farmers, thought Cardilini.

‘One farm next to mine hadn’t been attacked. Smart old bugger kept his lambs in the house paddock. But that night he agreed to put them in a paddock adjoining the road from town. And to save any sweet dog the trouble of climbing through a fence, the gate facing the road was left open and a hundred yards from that, on top of a hill, he put his flock. It was a full moon, the first since the last attack, the sheep stood out like mushrooms on the darker ground: ready tucker.