We hated visitors, and I hated working the gate. The best days guarding the gate were boring. Those days my big brother, Charley, and I sat at the picnic table in the gatehouse –- our old school bus stop, expanded and fortified -- played card games, and watched the leaves skitter along the road. On those good, boring days we didn’t see anyone we knew, and we didn’t see anyone we didn’t know. The morning started out like that, but just past noon the cool breeze brought along an old black woman. She was dressed for the road; her layered coats and hoods flapped in the breeze. A banged-up aluminum cane supported her left side.