Chapter Ten - Hatless
The weather-beaten roadhouse stood alone, crumbling in the middle of the wilds. Drawing near the ramshackle building, Ethan noted the couple of fuel bowsers squatting out front. He had passed the last stop two-hundred-fifty k’s back. A plyboard sign out front read “LAST STOP 500 K’S.” Adding to the sense of desolation, the gutted carcasses of five cars from the ‘50’s sat eroding outside. Sighing, he whipped the ute onto the gravel and pulled up alongside the petrol bowser.
Studying the place for a few moments, he took in four young men around his age lounging in the shade beneath the dusty, weathered building’s overhang. Dressed in, grease-stained singlets, Blunnies, and jeans—the uniform of Oz’s rural and poor—they traded edgy glances.
Glancing at the revolver, he
