This morning it’s my turn to choose the music. I’ve been driving since we left the Barkly Highway. My best blokes are stretched out on a mattress, snoring in the back of the van. Numbers are running through my mind: how many ks per hour, how many ks per day, how many ks per litre? Do we have enough petrol to get to the next pump? My number tumbling is interrupted by a road train approaching out of the low sun. I slow, brace myself, and run the left wheels onto the dirt. I’m straddling the apron or shoulder or whatever overly domestic word you call the crumbling surface at the edge of the Landsborough Highway, giving the chrome monster lots of space. Our HiAce shudders. The blokes in the back, one sprawled on the seat, the other on a mattress on the floor, grunt and turn, are quiet again. 

I manoeuvre the wheels back onto the highway in time to avoid the roadkill. A cow, already swollen. I try not to look, but what else is there to look at? The next one hangs in tatters from scaffolds of bone.