The tracker
The tracker examined the ground close to the school - looking for signs left by two pairs of small, barefoot, brown feet. The same size as his daughters, probably. His skin prickled under the cold stares of the white men, as they sat atop their horses and waited impatiently for him to make his assessment.
After a few moments, he was certain of which way the girls had gone - their journey was written in the ancient dirt, but he hesitated a moment more, because he knew they were someone's daughters and in his heart he wanted them to escape. He had witnessed some of the cruelty that the nuns and teachers dispensed to the girls in these schools - he had seen the scarring and bruising on countless children, some so young they still had their milk teeth. He also understood the hopelessness that came from being taken from the land to which you belonged.
'Hurry up Mulga,' the police inspector barked. 'If you want to see your girls again - you'll lead us to these two runaways.'
Mulga kept his face impassive, but his liquid eyes flashed with anger at the threat in the man's words. These white men on their horses had no chance of finding these girls without him, they had scant knowledge of the land, of the subtle signs here and there in this sparse, arid landscape.
'They headed north suh,' he says at last - pointing in the direction that the footprints led. To the north was Wollawai and the land the girls belonged to. It was over a thousand miles away, but Mulga knew there was nowhere else they would go. The land had their people, their stories, their dreaming.
The three men on their horses quickly made a plan. To his relief, none of them asked for his advice.
Finally, they rode north. No-one offered Mulga a horse. He didn't want one. He had walked this land his whole life. His people had walked this land for thousands of years.
So he followed on foot, his eyes scanning the ground for the very subtle signs the girls had left behind. Sometimes he walked a hundred metres without spotting something and would have to double back to where he had last seen the tracks - as the men on the horses audibly sighed their exasperation and made snide remarks about his ability to hunt the girls.
But he knew they would head towards water. You couldn't survive more than a few days in this land without water and the girls hadn't been given many possessions at that school. Perhaps they had managed to steal a little food and a water canteen, or perhaps in their desperation to escape, they had left with nothing at all.
Another tiny toeprint in the sand. He lead the chase north-west, with a heavy heart and leaden feet.