Around the first bend they faced a tugboat and fought its wake. Paul put them in easy water against the bank, where they could bail a few gallons that had slid in over the rail. Before long they were approached by a low aluminum flat propelled like a bullet by an overmatched Mercury. A chunky man with a black mustache raised his hand. It was Paul’s older brother, Larry, and he curled around their stern, pulling alongside.

Paul leaned over carefully and slapped his hand. “Did they send you out looking for us?”

“Hell yes. Got me out of bed before daylight and told me you was all eaten up by alligators.” Larry pushed back his cap and shoved his black hair from his eyes. “I told mamma that this old junk rig of Grand-père’s broke down and you were waiting for daylight to come out, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“We’re all right now,” Colette told him. She had cleaned her arms off, but her clothes were muddy and puckered.

Larry gave her an appraising stare. “Babe, I don’t think chasing rats agrees with you. You ought to come crawfishing with me.”

“I’ll take my chances with the dead rats,” she said, not smiling.

“Ow.” He held his hands over his heart as though shot.

“Tell Mamma that we’ll be in at the fish dock about ten-thirty,” Paul said.

“Okay, man, but don’t get in no races with that speedboat you got.” Larry pushed the throttle lever and the enormous Mercury put the flat up over the water like a kite.

Throughout the morning they dealt patiently with the sluggish trip, fighting swells of passing skiffs and trawlers. A young fisherman, a Guidry distantly related to Colette, pulled alongside and studied their load, asking if they needed help. Then three miles below the railroad bridge, a sheriff’s helicopter swooped down low and hovered over them, Joe Trosclair asking over a bullhorn if they were all right.

When they cut the engine and glided to the fish dock, Paul’s mother, father, sister, and brother and Colette’s brother were waiting as though he and Colette were floating back from another world, which, Paul figured, they were.