Behind dark tortoiseshell sunglasses, Joan Didion watched the road. Her hands held the steering wheel at ten and two. The air-conditioning in the rusted station wagon hummed at sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Walt had lowered his passenger-side window. His thick, salt-stiffened beard caught the rush of hot air as he stared out at the peeling public toilets and the corrugated iron of the bowling club.

“I sing the ute!” Whitman bellowed, gesturing toward a sun-baked Holden parked by the grid.

Didion did not blink. She indicated left, tapped the brake to clear a pothole, and kept her eyes on the asphalt.

“I contain the caravan park!” Whitman continued, leaning slightly closer. “I contain the septic tank, the backpacker, the rusted chassis, and the endless, surging marrow of this sun-struck continent!”

“O earth that asks no receipt!” Whitman rumbled, waving a hand toward the bush.

“You can embrace the continent,” Joan said. “The council still wants its receipt.”

Passing a rusting water tank, Walt noticed a mangy kelpie panting in the narrow strip of shade. Joan pulled onto the gravel beside the tank. Walt reached into the back, pulled out a plastic bottle and a shallow plastic container, and hopped down into the dust. For once, he went without an invocation. He poured the water into the dish and set it in the shade before climbing back into the cabin.

Didion pulled back onto the road and watched him settle his bulk back onto the bench seat.

“Then the earth can have the originals,” Walt said. “I’m keeping copies.”

Joan looked at him.

The wagon bumped over the cattle grid and pulled smoothly into the gravel parking lot of the Tomakin post office. Didion switched off the ignition. The engine stopped; the cooling exhaust ticked.

Walt laughed, pushed open his door, stepped down into the grit, and walked over to embrace the weathered community mail-delivery box.

Joan checked the collection notice in her bag and followed him into the sun.