“I saw smoke!” the kid said. He had his t-shirt off and was playing in the river. “Like campfire smoke!” He pointed in the direction of Andersonville, still twenty miles off.

“So what?” I said. I hadn’t eaten since the day before and had no idea where I’d find our next food. “Campfires are not a good thing. And what the hell are you doing down here?”

He kept playing with his t-shirt, rolling it up and tying one end with one of his shoestrings. “Campfires mean people,” he said. “And if it’s a nice camp, we can go back and get Danny to live there, too.”

I wanted to scream at him that there was no Camp Sunshine Bullshit! That his brother was too goddamned dead to join us even if there was! Instead, I said: “We’re going in there to find the bunker my dad told me about. If it’s safe, we stay a while. If not, we take what we can carry. But we don’t want people. People are trouble.”

“The old man wasn’t trouble. He gave us food.” The kid used a stick to prop open the bottom of his t-shirt, the neck and arms tied together to make a bag. He bent and submerged the shirt in the stream. “My Grammie and Pops said you can trust a person who shares food and doesn’t ask for anything.”

“I don’t know if I’d trust your Grammie and Pops so much, kid. Where are they now exactly?”

The kid was quiet and I started to think maybe I’d upset him, talking about his grandparents. Then he popped up suddenly, holding up his t-shirt net which squirmed with the caught fish it held. The kid looked at me proudly and asked, “Where is your dad now? Do you still trust him?”