‘He can pick things up a kilometre away,’ Haut said, patting the dog and giving him a biscuit. ‘Must check his reaction out though. He’s a cool character.’ Haut chortled in a halting way and added: ‘Saved my life a few times. Once I was out working on the drill when a bloke came up behind me with a big knife. Mac came from nowhere and put his big jaws around the bloke’s forearm. The man dropped the weapon and ran off before I could reach my rifle.’ Haut grinned and scratched behind the dog’s ears. ‘He’d be easy to identify. He’ll have deep teeth-mark scars for life.’

‘He wanted to kill you?’

‘Well, he wasn’t going to use the knife to butter bread!’ Haut said, laughing.

‘Have there been other attempts?’

Haut rolled his eyes back as if to say ‘plenty’. He seemed unprepared to give further instances. Cavalier prompted him.

‘I’ll tell you one more, but I don’t want you to publish it, okay?’

‘Whatever you say.’

Haut paused for a moment, then said, ‘I was tying things onto the back of my ute at one of the mines.’ He stood to demonstrate how he was standing. ‘I slipped, like this, and lowered my head. Just as I did, a bullet whizzed into my hat, splitting it in two. Had I not ducked at that moment, I would have been murdered.’

Cavalier was scribbling notes. He checked his tape. He wanted to ask ‘What happened next?’ but he waited.

The memory gave Haut a few seconds of emotional reflection.

‘Various acts of God,’ he said, dropping his voice.

‘What?’

‘There have been innumerable times when “coincidences” have occurred, sometimes in saving my life. Except they are not coincidences. They are acts of God.’

‘Tell me about this one.’