“Fellas, leave me alone.”

That’s when the one with the cap came up from his squatting position and sprang.

Hillbilly brought his guitar around hard, breaking it soundly over the capped man’s head, knocking him back. Then the bearded one was on him. Hillbilly pushed him back with the palm of his hand, stuck the other hand in his pocket, pulled out his knife, flicked it open.

The one with the cap came in again, and Hillbilly stuck him under the short ribs. The knife went in as easy as poking a hole through a sheet of wet paper. The man dropped immediately. Went to his knees, tumbled on his side.

“Goddamn,” said the bearded one, whacking Hillbilly in the eye. “You hurt Winston.”

The bearded man grabbed Hillbilly in a bear hug and squeezed Hillbilly’s hands to his sides. Hillbilly butted him in the nose and he let go. Hillbilly stabbed him in the groin and he stumbled back. Hillbilly’s knife flashed again, high and wide.

The man held his throat, tried to say something, but couldn’t. He sat down as if a chair had been pulled out from under him. He sat upright for a moment, then lay on his back slowly and tried to tuck his chin, as if this might seal the wound.

Hillbilly put his boot on the man’s face and pushed with all his weight so the wound would bleed out. The man wiggled like a snake, but the wiggling didn’t last.

“I told you to leave me the hell alone,” Hillbilly said.

Hillbilly wiped his knife on the dead man’s jacket, put it away, went over and looked at the one who had worn the cap. The cap had fallen off and lay on the boxcar floor.

Hillbilly picked up the cap and put it on, then he bent over the man. He was alive, but in the partial moonlight his dark eyes looked like creek pebbles under raging water.