‘I feel your pain, child. But there is much you do not comprehend. You have the spore of white woman in your blood as your father has the spore of white man in his heart. We watch our people’s spirit dying with this spore but we grieve not, for we can see far. We are brothers, white man and red man, and one cannot be subdued by the other forever.

‘A day will come soon when the white man is so rare on the earth as to be like the white moose. And although in his rarity he will still have the power of earthly things, of great wealth behind defended walls, he will run and hide like the moose and be treated with no kindness by the multitudes, the black and the yellow and red and brown hunters who will fill the earth.

‘White man’s day will be done then, and it will be our day once again. But when that time comes, the old ways, the ways of the spirits and the invisible world, must be the ways of man or we will all perish. There must be shamans who have the wisdom of their own souls, who were mocked before but will be honoured in the new world, as they bring the earth’s people together with their spirits to heal the earth’s wounds.’

Running Wolf heard the words and was mesmerized by the voice speaking them, but he did not understand. He said nothing. Above all, he wanted that voice to continue.

‘The white man has laid our kind low, Running Wolf, but he cannot touch our spirit. Your father’s spirit is strong and pure, but he weakens himself with a desire to be something he cannot be. You are confused by what you have seen in his soul are you not?’

The wolf nodded in its mind, and inside, the boy in the wolf felt a band of iron tighten around his heart. He was confused by everything, but with the warm sun on his fur, in this fragrant glade, a million miles away from the horror that was back at nine Oriole Drive, he could easily bear such confusion.

Another figure started to speak and he turned his head to focus on its form. This was just a man. A tall man, in chief’s ceremonial attire and head-dress, who was holding his hand out to Running Wolf.

‘Come, my son. I am Eagle Robe. We must walk together and talk of many things.’

Running Wolf looked at this man and he seemed familiar. He got up and trotted over to the outstretched hand. The man could read his heart and his thoughts.

‘Yes, I have walked with you before. And your father and your father’s father, and his before him.’

Billy Hunt struggled inside his wolf spirit to remember when that might have been, but could recall nothing.