Down on the docks a line of rats ran across a hawser tying the riverboat to the dock.

Rats abandoning a ship, he thought? Could this be a portent? Or could it just be a fumigation or something?

There was no way to know, he thought, except that that boat has a bad list to port and there's six inches of water on the bow deck. He briefly pitied the banjo player plucking away on the Texas deck, oblivious, like all banjo pickers.