"Sim! Sim, damn you!"
"Crawl out through that hole, runt, and pull that stringbean with you! I'm a man-sized man, and I got to stay." Then, furiously, "Hurry up or they'll drag you back before you're through."
He was right. Harker knew he was right. He went to work pushing and jamming McLaren through the narrow opening. McLaren was groggy and not much help, but he was thin and small-boned, and he made it. He rolled out on a slope covered with green grass, the first Harker had seen since he was a child. He began to struggle after McLaren. He did not look back at Sim.
The black man was singing, about the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Harker put his head back into the darkness of the creek. "Sim!"
"Yeah?" Faintly, hoarse, echoing.
"There's land here, Sim. Good land."
"Yeah."
"Sim, we'll find a way...."
Sim was singing again. The sound grew fainter, diminishing downward into distance. The words were lost, but not what lay behind them. Matt Harker buried his face in the green grass, and Sim's voice went with him into the dark.