hailer, “Cut your engines now before you swamp!” At the moment that appeared to be an immediate threat. The party boat was built to run perilously close to the water on its pontoons with little freeboard. Normally, in calm waters, that was no problem. In wind and waves, however, the big boat was difficult to handle and swamped easily.
At the moment the two engines were attempting to back the boat against the anchor chain at the bow, but it showed no sign of lifting free of the mud bottom.
The louder the engines growled, the more the boat buried its engines deeper in the lake, lifting the bow perilously high. The people on board had run toward the stern—the opposite of what they should be doing—and now stood ankle-deep in water. The two women in the group were squealing and jumping around trying to keep their feet dry.
“Move forward toward the bow!” Seth yelled. “And somebody cut those engines! Earl, get me over there.”
“Be careful. Don’t get trapped between boats, and do not fall into those propellers. They’ll cut you to pieces.” Earl, calm as always, steered his boat until it gently tapped the left pontoon amidships. Seth said a fast prayer, leaped, slipped, then righted himself safely on the deck.
He was afraid his weight would sink the boat before he could cut the engines. He moved a woman who outweighed him by a good hundred pounds toward the bow. “Get up there! You, too, ma’am,” he snapped at her companion, as thin as she was fat.
He reached past one of the men and shut off both engines. Instantly the boat settled back on its pontoons. “The rest of you, go sit down amidships and don’t move until I say so.”
“You can’t tell me what to do on my own boat!” said a grizzled man close to Seth’s size, but flabby with age and unsteady on what Seth suspected were drunken legs.
“Yes, sir, I can. Sit down. All of you.” Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the smaller of the two women surreptitiously trying to kick what looked like a bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the edge of her seat.
“Hey, ma’am, don’t try that,” Earl called from the launch. She froze.
“Fishing licenses and boat registration,” Seth said. Now that the initial disaster was averted, he was starting to seethe. “Earl, can you tie up to us and come on over here?”
“Sure thing.”
Seth stepped back. “So, this is your boat, sir?” he asked the grizzled man who’d gone suddenly silent.
“Hell, yeah, it’s mine, and you all like to have caused an accident running up on us like that.”
“Uh-huh. How many passengers do you have on board this morning?”
“Can’t you count? Five. We got five. We was just taking us a little ride...”
“Looked to me like you were doing a little fishing along the way,” Seth said.
“Without fishing licenses,” Earl said. He shrugged. “That’s what he said.” He pointed at a small man huddled in the seat across from the large woman. “More drinking than fishing, I think.”
“Now, y’all lookee here...” The big man puffed himself up and huffed out what he must’ve felt was an intimidating breath. It didn’t work. And it stank of alcohol.
“No, sir, you lookee here,” Earl said. “There are signs all over this lake. No fishing without a license.”
“May I see your current boat registration?” Seth asked. So far he’d managed to sound cool and polite, but underneath, his temper was going from simmer to boil.
The man deflated slightly. “Uh, musta left it back at the marina.”
“We’ll check it when we get back to the dock.”
“Well...could be I left it back at the house.”
“That’s perfectly all right,” Earl said. “We can check the number and expiration date on our computer over there in our boat. By law you’re supposed to carry it on board at all times...”
“Lordy, young man,” the giant lady said from her seat, “ain’t nobody does that. This ain’t no big houseboat.”
“Shut up, Phoebe,” the grizzled man snapped.
“No one seems to be wearing a life jacket, sir,” Seth said.
“They in the lockers over there,” the big woman said. “Right close, where we can get ’em if we need ’em.” She sounded satisfied. “But you don’t need life jackets on party boats, do you? Not like they sink or anything. Can’t get drownd-ed off one of these things, now, can you?”
“Uh-oh,” Earl whispered. “Seth...” He touched Seth’s forearm in warning.
Seth thought he sounded calm, but when he saw the sudden fear in the woman’s eyes he realized that something in his demeanor had telegraphed his annoyance. He opened the life jacket locker and tossed a jacket to each of the passengers. “Ma’am, you all nearly capsized ten minutes ago. A party boat doesn’t care if it floats on its roof, and it doesn’t turn back over on its own. You could’ve been trapped underneath or caught in the weeds. Please put these on. We are now going to give you a tow back to the marina, at which point we’ll write up the offenses you’re being arrested for...”
“Arrested?” The gray man inflated again. “You jackasses, write me a damn ticket, and we’ll get our own self back to the marina when we feel like it.”
Earl reached down and pulled the half-empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s out from under the seat and held it up.
“That’s not mine!” the man swore.
“It’s your boat,” Earl said mildly.
Seth never thought of Earl as a big man. Compared with Seth he was just normal. Still, when the boat owner took a swing at him, the man wound up sitting on his rear end. Earl hadn’t even disturbed the equilibrium of the boat.
“Your name, sir?” Earl asked just as calmly as before.
“Grady Pulliam, not that it’s any of y’all’s business. And I’m gonna sue your asses for harassment. I know the governor.”
“So do I,” Earl said. “He’s my first cousin once removed.”
AN HOUR LATER, Seth and Earl left the party boat locked in its slip. The keys were with the marina master. He had instructions not to allow anyone to have them, especially Mr. Pulliam, until further notice. The owner would not be partying on his boat for a while. He’d signed off on an expensive ticket and a summons to show cause why he shouldn’t lose his boat for drinking on board, plus a long list of other offenses. His wife was crying, and everyone else was shaking with embarrassment.
Earl and Seth could hear the burgeoning squabble behind them as they loaded their own boat on the trailer.
Earl said as they drove out of the parking lot, “Think
