On the way back to Desperance, Mozzie's convoy stops at a lagoon. When national police start an operation to search for Will, Will joins Mozzie's convoy and leaves town. Will sabotages one of the mine's pipelines, bringing operations to a halt. Mozzie leads a convoy of zealots who travel the country in an effort to follow traditional Aboriginal spirituality and ways of life. The most outspoken opponents of the mine are Mozzie Fishman and Will Phantom. Aboriginal residents oppose the mine, though many see little option but to accept jobs there. Meanwhile, an international mining company named Gurfurrit begins operations in Desperance, with the support of the town's racist, wheeling-and-dealing mayor, Stan Bruiser. Norm is heartbroken to see Elias go, since the two have become close friends and fishing partners.

When a series of destructive fires break out in Desperance, residents blame Elias and tell him he must leave town. Eventually residents choose Elias to serve as their town guard. Residents of the town decide to call him Elias Smith and they view him as their savior. One day, a disheveled white man walks out of the sea and onto the shores of Desperance, after a storm destroys all of his memories. Norm disowns his son, Will Phantom, when Will goes to live on the Eastside with Hope, a member of Joseph Midnight's clan. The Phantoms and the Midnights have warred with each other for centuries, while the white residents of Desperance continue to treat both Aboriginal settlements with disrespect and violence. The Phantoms live on the Westside of Desperance, while Joseph Midnight and his family set up a camp on the Eastside of town. Angel eventually leaves Norm to be with Mozzie Fishman, the leader of a spiritual convoy. The chaotic, quarrelsome family live in a swampy area on top of the nest of a serpent spirit, which is the ancestral creation spirit for Aboriginal people in the region. Norm and his wife Angel Day have seven children. Norm lives with his family on the outskirts of Desperance, a white settler town in the Gulf of Carpentaria, in northern Queensland, Australia. Normal Phantom is an old Black Aboriginal man known far and wide as the best fisherman.

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