“The only gun around here is mine,” I said, and leveled my .22 rifle at the two scavvies, a boy of maybe ten and a teenage girl, balancing it across the stump of my left forearm. When I saw the door open, I’d been expectin’ a raccoon. At least that would have meant dinner. “You scavvies best move on. You ain’t squattin’ here.”

The girl said, “We’re not scavvies or squatters. We’re just lookin’ for a spot to rest for a minute.” There was no fear in her eyes, just anger. I asked her where they was goin’ and she stared right at me with that spiteful look and said, “Andersonville” like she was spittin’ the word at me. I recognized that tone, same as I recognized that she wasn’t scratchin’ her leg but reachin’ for something hid in her boot.

“You don’t want to go there,” I said. “Scavvies like you been goin’ there for years. They camp a while, pickin’ around for some mythical cache of goods. They set traps to protect their backtrail and lay claim to the place. Within a month they’re dead, killed by the next bunch to come along, or strung up by a trap set by somebody else or even their fool selves. Ain’t that always the way.” The girl looked at me funny and I asked, “You ever heard of a microcosm?” When she shook her head I said, “Andersonville’s one. Our whole damned mistrustful world in miniature. Ain’t nothin’ there.”

The girl got a hateful look in her eyes and said, “My dad said there was.

I asked, “Where’s he now?”

“Dead,” she said. “Since I was a kid.”

I said, “Best not go walkin’ into danger on account of your dead daddy’s stories. Or stories recollected by your momma.”

She just stared at me a minute and then stopped playin’ at reachin’ for that knife in her boot.