When he neared it, he saw four men sitting on overturned buckets. They were dressed in rags, unshaven and red-faced. They saw Coot, and they all leapt to their feet with the jerky movements of old men. One man stomped on a cigarette. Another pointed a handgun at Coot. The men said something to him, but Coot was in too much of a daze to understand them.

His only response was, “How sweet on a clear Sabbath morning, to listen to the clear ringing bells; its tones so sweetly are calling, oh, come to the church in the vale.”

The men moved closer to him.

“He’s bleeding,” one said. “Like a stuck hog.”

Coot fell to his knees. His mind was beginning to shut down. He fell forward onto his chest. His chin hit the ground. He tasted dirt and gravel and saw the ratty shoes and boots gather around him. They carried him toward the fire and placed him on a pallet of blankets. One old man touched Coot’s face and said, “What happened, son?”

“Get him some water,” hollered another man.

A man pressed a cool bottle against Coot’s lips. Coot took a pull from the bottle and nearly choked. Whatever he was sipping wasn’t water. It burned his tongue and lips and throat. He gasped for air and coughed.

Coot pushed the mug away. “No, I don’t drink,” he said.

“You do now,” said the man.

“Best medicine there is,” said another.

He felt his body go soft. In a few moments he felt delirious. He wasn’t sure where he was. He wasn’t sure who he was. He wasn’t sure why he was.

He mumbled, rallying his energy to speak, but couldn’t find sentences to say. All that came out were songs.

“They built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue, and they thought they had a ship that the water would never go through.”

The hobo touched the back of Coot’s head, made a whistle, and said, “This kid needs a doc in a bad way.”

“But the good Lord raised his hand and said, ‘That ship will never land.’ It was sad when the great ship went down.”

The old man doused a rag with the bottle’s contents. He pressed the damp rag against Coot’s wounded head. It made Coot’s head sting like his head had been lit on fire. Coot moaned.

“This will help,” the man said. “Believe me, I don’t like wasting hooch any more than you do.”

The man wiped tiny bits of gravel from his wound, and Coot let out a howl.

“Sshhh,” said the old man. “Gotta get this cut clean, don’t want it to get infected, now.” He used his finger to wipe the sand and grit from Coot’s open gash. “Sing us some more songs.”