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this here boat, little girl?"
    "Stop it," begged Annie through her laughter.
    "Make her walk the plank," said Kim.
    "Walk the plank!" We all started to chant as Billy picked Annie up. He held her high in the air as she cackled in delight.
    A beam of light struck us from somewhere out in the murky darkness of the bay and blinded me as I held my arm up to block it. There was a boat, smaller than ours, about forty feet away.
    "Hey there," said a booming voice through a bullhorn.
    Billy set Annie down and waved at the approaching boat. "Turn the light off." He screamed to them. Either they didn't hear or didn't care as the light continued to blind us.
    "We're going to throw you a rope," said the man with the bullhorn. "Pull us over."
    "Turn off the fucking light," said Billy. This time they did as asked and the halogen light's shutter flipped closed. The sudden darkness left me blinder than before as the phantom of the spotlight blazed in my vision.
    I blinked away the ghost and stared out at the approaching vessel. It was a pontoon boat, quite a bit smaller than The Casper, and two men stood at the front. I was relieved to see that they were police officers.
    Billy helped the cops pull along side and secured them with the rope. There were three of them, two at the front and one steering the pontoon. They had their guns drawn and my momentary relief turned to dread as the one with the shotgun jumped aboard.
    "How're you folks doing?" asked the stranger.
    "Pretty shitty," said Billy.
    "Tell me about it," he said as he helped one of the other officers, a black man with a pistol, onto the boat as well.
    "I don't think you need your guns," I said. I motioned toward Kim and Annie. "We don't pose much of a threat."
    "We'll see," said the one with the shotgun. He smiled at me to reveal a set of putrid, yellow teeth. His lower lip jutted out from a packet of chewing tobacco that licked at. He stared at Kim and said, "She's a cutie."
    "What are you doing?" asked Billy. "What's this about?"
    "Calm down," said the black officer. He held his hand out at Billy as if trying to quell an uprising. It was a dramatic reaction to a reasonable question.
    "What do you want?" I asked.
    "How come you're not out with the rest of the boats?" asked the one with the yellow teeth.
    "I don’t know what you're talking about," I said. "What other boats?"
    "Out in the middle of the bay, over by Hailey's End. We're all gathering there to help each other out." He continued to hold his shotgun as if ready to use it.
    "We're doing just fine," said Billy.
    "So I see." The officer pushed the toe of his boot into one of our pilfered bags of food.
    "You can't just go out on your own," said the black officer. "We've got to work together. For the common good."
    "Can you please put your guns away?" I asked. "You're scaring my girls." Kim and Annie cowered behind me.
    "Can you keep your wife's mouth shut, please?" asked the one with the shotgun.
    "She's not my wife," said Billy. "And you should start being respectful."
    The yellow-toothed officer spit out a stream of black juice from the tobacco tucked in his cheek. "Or what?" He cocked the shotgun.
    "Calm down," I said before Billy could respond. "Everyone just calm down. What do you guys want?"
    "We've got a lot of hungry folks out there," said the black cop as he pointed to the center of Hailey Bay. "If you're hording food, you're going to have to share."
    "We've just got enough for ourselves," I said.
    "Ain't what we heard," said the one with the shotgun.
    "What did you hear, and where did you hear it?" asked Billy.
    "A couple showed up about an hour ago," said the black cop. "Said you roughed them up and threw them overboard. Said you had plenty of food and that you weren't sharing."
    "That little mother fucker," said Billy.
    "Looks like he was right," said the one with the shotgun when he found the rest of our food. "We hit the mother load."
    "That's ours," I said. "Get your hands off it."
    "Calm down, lady." The