And while I was trying to keep from falling, another person grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, hard: I stared up into the face of an angry black, in a blue workshirt with the sleeves torn off. I didn’t even recognize him till he bellowed: “Where the hell you run off to, you motherfuckin’ little son of a bitch?”

It was Big Sambo.

“You get your yeller nigger ass back down to the tug there with Honey-Pie, or I’m gonna bust your yellow-headed self all to hell!” He raised his hand to hit me. I cowered back. “An’ if I don’t find you there when I come, you better not never let me see you again, or it’s gonna be me and you! You hear me?”

His fist fell—caught me on the shoulder, because I ducked. I dodged through the two fishermen pushing up behind me, and ran. I ran until I got to the tugs.

Then I stopped.

I looked back at the crowd. I looked at the squat, rust-hulled tug at its dock. I looked over the roadway that Nigg and Hawk had brought me down on the motorcycle.

I looked at the tug again.

I walked out on the dock, crossed the sagging plank, went to the cabin door, pulled it open, and went inside.

At the galley table, Honey-Pie sat on a chair with her bare feet wrapped behind the rungs and her fists in the lap of her dress. She looked at me, blinking.