“Half of the story

I didn't grow up here.

Only been here a couple of months but I don’t care if I never go back. It looks like there’s nothing to do here.

There’s the river. There’s the woods.

I fix up people’s fishing and hunting camps — carpentry and electrical and that — enough to have something to do, enough to get by. I live in that camper trailer over there. People are real friendly, but they’ll leave you alone, you know?

No drama.

The people I ran with lived on drama, died for it. Drama and drugs. Of course, any drug you can get anywhere, you can get in Webster Springs, but I mostly stay here: up the river where nobody bothers me.

Sometimes at this time of year, a little mist will hang over the river, and the dust from the road will hang in the air, and the feeling sneaks up on you that there isn’t any world beyond the mouth of this hollow.