Bone lay in water up to his waist, his head cradled among the cinders and small stones, the steam of his breath rising up into the sky.

He listened for a while to the metallic shrieks as the railcars were coupled and uncoupled in the morning darkness.

He blinked his eyes and closed them, and time ceased.

He might have died. A dozen times before, a dozen different places, he had come as close. But then, as now, some kernel of intent had hardened within him. Waking, he felt it like a song inside him. It was diffuse and not specific; he could not tack it down with words. But he knew what it meant. It meant he would survive, would heal himself, would move on. He had been moving on, it seemed to him, all his life.

There were fingers, softly, at his neck, his chest, his feet.

He opened his eyes.

Gritty sunlight seared him. His body ached. He focused on the faces of Deacon and Archie above him. Deacon was stroking the stiff lapel of Bone’s good blue pea coat.

Deacon grinned. “Bone is awake. See, Archie? Bone’s gonna be okay.”

Bone sat up.

Archie, who was angular and tall, said: “We would have taken the coat if you were dead, you know. And these shoes. We thought you might be dead.”

“But he’s not dead,” Deacon said peevishly, his voice a throaty flat midwestern rasp. “Bone’s not dead, are you, Bone? Bone, listen, there is a little jungle up the tracks. You want to come—Bone? Can you walk? Walk with old Deacon and Archie?”

Bone knew they had been trying to steal his clothes and that this was Deacon’s way of apologizing for it. He felt no animosity toward them, but he wasn’t sure he could stand up.