Wurragurr's people suffered greatly from the cruelty of the dingoes. It had not always been so, of course. The dingoes were newcomers to the Bush, and as shy and quiet as the kangaroos were the dingoes never paid them much attention, preferring to practice their bullying ways on others. Over time, though, those others grew fewer and fewer, and soon the dingoes became bored and decided to torment the kangaroos. That was the way dingoes were in those days.

It was in the middle of The Very Dry Summer that the dingoes first came to Wurragurr's village. They stalked around it in a great circle and snarled and barked and snapped their jaws. The kangaroos, of course, were terrified. Then the dingoes rushed all at once into the village. The kangaroos hid inside their huts, but the dingoes were large and strong and simply pushed the huts over.

Wurragurr saw it all happen, but he could only cry helpless tears as the dingoes, barking in savage glee, amused themselves with his people. He saw one dingo leap atop a petrified kangaroo and mount her roughly. The dingo was so big that she died while he was still enjoying her. Another dingo snatched a bawling young kangaroo up in his mouth right in front of Wurragurr's eyes. He could hear its little bones crack as the dingo bounded off, the little one's head and tail flopping limply from the terrible jaws.

Finally the dingoes went away. Wurragurr and the other kangaroos who were still alive all came together and cried very hard until their tears washed away the blood from the ground. When they had no more tears left, they sat together and tried to think of what to do.

"We should go away," one said. "Yes. We can go somewhere far from the dingoes, where they will not bother us."

"But where would that be?" someone else said bitterly. "They would follow us for sure."

"Others have left. We will leave, too."

"Did the others leave, or did the dingoes eat them all up?"

There was silence around the fire for a long time after that. Then one kangaroo stood and said, "We should fight them! We must show them that they cannot do these terrible things to us without being punished."

No one thought that was a very good idea. "They are bigger than we are, and they are much stronger," they all said. "What do we have, when they have such strength and such teeth?"

Wurragurr was hardly listening. All he could hear was the awful sounds the little one's body had made after its cries suddenly stopped. His heart was so heavy it would certainly soon fall through his belly. "We have to do something," he said quietly. "The dingoes will get bored soon and they will come back, and more of us will die."

"But what will we do?" they all said.

Wurragurr looked down at the ground. "None of us knows what to do," he whispered. "So I will go out and look for the answer."

He said nothing more. The other kangaroos watched in silence as he turned away from them and hopped into the Bush.

For three days and three nights he wandered without seeing any other creature, but on the morning of the fourth day he happened on a black bird who was drinking from a billabong. The bird did not see a snake that was creeping up hungrily behind it. As the snake reared back to strike, Wurragurr jumped forward and landed with one big foot on the snake's head, crushing it flat. The black bird started up a terrible squawking until Wurragurr lifted his foot and the bird saw the dead sneak beneath it.

"Thank you," the bird said when he realized that Wurragurr had saved him. "I am in your debt."

Wurragurr shook his head and turned to leave, but the bird hopped after him. "Why did you kill the snake?" it asked.

"It was going to eat you."

"But why did that concern you?"

Wurragurr told the bird about the dingoes and how he had watched the little kangaroo being killed and carried off. "I was thinking of it when I saw the snake behind you. I suppose I just did not want to see it happen again."

The bird looked thoughtful. "You did not do anything to stop it then. So you put a stop to it this time, so that you would not feel guilty any more."

Wurragurr scowled and began to hop faster. "You are annoying," he grumbled. "I cannot concentrate on my search with your squawking."

The bird flapped over Wurragurr's head and landed in front of him. "You do not need to search any longer. I can help you."

"How?" he snorted.

The bird smiled and took a moment to preen himself. "I am Crow," he said proudly.

"So?"

"Do you know who the Sky Heroes are?"

"Of course. Everyone does."

Crow paused again to preen another errant feather back into place. "I am the one who created them," he said simply.

Wurragurr stared at him, confused, and then slowly he began to realize that what Crow was saying might be true. He had known about the Sky Heroes from his earliest youth, and as he thought about it now, the name that had been given to the one who created them was Crow. It had been so long that he'd forgotten until now. He began to shake, remembering how harshly he had spoken, and when he tried to apologize he could not make any words come out.

Crow laughed. "I am not offended," he said, seeing Wurragurr's discomfort. "I owe you my life, and because I am grateful for that I am going to make you a Sky Hero as well. Tell me how you want to get rid of the dingoes and I will use my magic to give you the power you need."

Wurragurr was stunned, and for a moment he could not think of anything, but then he thought of the snake. He turned around and looked back at the billabong where the snake's flattened body could still be seen against the dusty soil. The crack of the snake's bones echoed in his ears with the same sound of the little kangaroo's in the dingo's mouth. Wurragurr's heart, which had been heavy for three days and three nights, suddenly began to beat faster as anger filled it. He clenched his fists tightly at his sides and bared his teeth. "I want to be able to do that to them," he growled.

"Very well. Go back to your village now. Your people will need you very soon."

"But...you have not done anything yet."

Crow smiled. "It is already done. You have everything you need. Now go back quickly, before it is too late."

Wurragurr stammered, and then clasped his paws tightly before his face. "Thank you, Father Crow!" he blurted out, and then turned and hopped as swiftly as he could toward home.

From a great distance Wurragurr could hear the raucous barking of the dingoes as they descended on his village. His breath felt like fire in his chest and his legs ached from hopping, but he could not stop to rest, not now. Soon he could see the huts against the horizon, and the hulking shadows of the dingoes moving among them.

Anger blazed in his heart. He thought again of the snake, and as he did, the ground began to fall away beneath him. It was as though a great bird had swept down and was lifting him up, carrying him higher and higher into the air. The land rushed by below him. The thud of his feet began to sound like thunderclaps, each hop covering more and more ground, until with one final leap he landed with a tremendous crash right at the edge of the village.

The dingoes were dumbfounded. They stared upward, unable to believe their eyes, their tongues hanging stupidly out of their mouths. Then a single dingo yelped and started to run away with his tail tucked between his legs, and all the others did the same.

Wurragurr was on them in a second. His mighty legs launched him high into the air, right over the village. His shadow raced over the land faster than the dingoes could run and quickly caught up with the slowest ones. They looked up as the sky grew dark and all they could see was the bottoms of Wurragurr's big feet rushing down toward them.

He landed before they could even whimper, the entire Bush trembling and echoing, the little bodies smashed instantly to pieces under his feet. He had killed them almost before he had realized it, without even trying. Who would have thought it would be so easy?

Wurragurr smiled hugely, pleased with Father Crow's gift, and watched the rest of the dingoes running away from him. He let them run a little further and then he leaped again, keeping his eye on one dingo at the rear of the pack. He saw it disappear beneath his foot as he started to come down, and as the thunder of his landing rolled across the Bush he felt the dingo crunch like a beetle. It was a grand feeling, and he laughed loudly.

Another leap, but this time he nearly missed his target. The dingo jumped to the side at the last minute, and Wurragurr only managed to pin its legs beneath his toes. He stood for a moment upon it, watching it wriggle and claw at the ground and howl. It pleased him that the dingo was in pain, and even more that it was so utterly terrified of him. He waited a little while longer just to enjoy its struggling, then lifted his foot and simply stepped on it, crushing it into the dirt.

The dingoes were still running, stumbling over each other and yipping in panic. Wurragurr chased them, his giant feet crashing loudly at their heels. Now and then one of them would stagger or fall and Wurragurr would land on it, leaving it pressed flat behind him.

Finally, as Wurragurr hoped they would, the dingoes reached their village. It was a rude place with ramshackle huts and bones scattered all over the ground. Wurragurr laughed louder. Now would be his chance to teach the dingoes the lesson they deserved. He would wipe them out so that they would never bother his people again. He would not stop until he had trampled them all to dust, felt the very last one of them struggle and die beneath him.

One huge foot landed with a boom next to a dingo hut. He was about to kick it aside when a female dingo -- young, or so she seemed -- rushed out of it, and in her arms was a little pup who was howling in terror. The dingo was clutching it close to her chest, trying to shield it with her body as she ran. He could see its face staring up at him past her shoulder. Its tiny eyes were filled with fear and confusion, and the sight of him made it cry even louder.

Wurragurr stopped and stood very still. He felt unsteady. All around him things grew very dark and all he could see was the little dingo's frightened eyes staring up at him. For a brief moment Wurragurr was home, huddled again amidst the remains of his own hut. His ears were once more filled with the cries of a young kangaroo bawling for its mother as great teeth crushed out its little life. In that instant the fire died in his heart, leaving it heavier than ever before.

The darkness faded. He stared down at his feet. The dingoes were running everywhere, blind, panicked, sobbing. Their tears splashed the earth like rain: female tears, warrior tears; elder tears, little tears.

Wurragurr stared after the dingoes as they stumbled from their village and into the Bush, their tiny bodies slipping further and further away until they were gone from his sight. Then, slowly, he turned his back and returned to what was left of his home.