The man at the bow, wind-whipped in an oversized K-mart slicker, dragged out a yellow nylon cord and began lashing the two boats together as if afraid Anna would abandon them.

She shut down to an idle and climbed up the two steps from the cabin. The fisherman at the Low Dollar’s starboard quarter began to tie the sterns together. “Hey! Hey!” Anna shouted. “Don’t you tie my boat to that-” “Piece of junk” was the logical end of the sentence, but a fairly recent lecture from Lucas Vega on the importance of positive visitor contact and maintaining a good relationship with the armies of sport fishermen that invaded the island every summer passed through her thoughts.

“Untie that,” she shouted against the wind. “Untie it.” The man, probably in his mid-forties but looking older in a shapeless sweatshirt and cap with earflaps, turned a blank face toward her. He stopped tying but didn’t begin untying. Instead he looked to his buddy, still wrapping loops of line round and round the bow cleats.

“Hal?” he bleated plaintively, wanting corroboration from a proper authority.

Anna waited, her hands on the Low Dollar’s gunwale. The old tub had enough buoyancy left that a few more minutes wouldn’t make much difference. And, by the sagging flesh of the man’s cheeks and his dilated pupils, Anna guessed he was about half shocky with fear and cold.

Hal finished his pile of Boy Scout knots and made his way back the length of the boat. He was younger than the man white-knuckling the stern line, maybe thirty-five. Fear etched hard lines around his eyes and mouth but he looked, if not entirely reasonable, at least able to listen.

“Hi,” Anna said calmly. “I’m Anna Pigeon. Hal, I take it?” He nodded dumbly. “Are you the captain of the Low Dollar, Hal?” Again the nod. “You’ve taken on a bit of water, it looks like.”

The commonplace words were having their desired effect.