Half the city still burned. Smoke smeared the southern sky, wind from the tail end of hurricane Ingrid pulling the ash down the coast toward Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile. Offshore, half hidden by the horizen, a battleship still circled in a holding pattern, awaiting orders. Sil set out before the sun even cleared the trees on the eastern shore. He moved slowly through the canal, toward the lake, using his bamboo pole to maneuver the tiny skiff past storm blown debris and flooded waters. He passed chokes of seagrass washed in from the barrier islands, thick oil slicks that clung to the wood hulled boat leaving behind a lingering smell of tar and gasoline. He moved through raw sewage, human extrement dyed chemical green, floating tangles of shit and clumped toilet paper that looked like limes and made him chuckle even as the smell made him choke. As he neared the lake the stench shifted, beached fish littered the banks of the channel, their white bellies swelling in the sun, clumps of crabs scurry around them, picking at the flesh. A dead egret hung from a V of limbs in an uprooted oak tree, its neck snapped, head dangling lifelessly down toward the water. At one point Sil had to lie flat on his back as the boat slid under the smashed fibers of what had once been a palm tree, uprooted and brought inland by the same twenty foot surf that had forced the the Protectorate Navy to abandon its shelling and move out to safer waters. Once he made it through the flooded debris choked channel into Pontchartrain proper he started the longtail motor and skimmed the edge of the lake, trying not to leave much wake, headed for the north shore where the debris piles would likely have come to rest. He skipped several prmoising looking mounds of seeagrass and palm fronds, making a mental note of them and nearby landmarks, should no other scavangers find them first. He spent half an hour working his way along the reedy banks, shutting off the engine and poling carefully over the flooded concrete walls, ostensibly charged with holding back the lake waters, over roads and up into the river fed marshes and wetlands just beyond the lake. He moved through the reeds, watching the cattails bounce in the wind, looking for anything metal, anything glass, anything human. But not too human. Every few minutes he glanced back at the lake to make sure none of the other scavenger crews, which had grown significantly in both strength and number since the blockade went in place six months ago, were bearing down on him. Behind him, across the lake and its fragile, now narrow, flooded strip of the sand lay the hulking metal carcasses of two frigates and the one monsterous battleship. Though he couldn't actually see them, the heavy black smoke from the exploded, half-molten hulls still bloomed occasionally from the beach. The bigger scavenge operations were likely down there, out on the ocean even, looking for a huge haul -- gun shells, armaments, electrical gear, anything that might turn a profit back in New Orleans. Or what was left of it. After several hours of fruitless searching that yielded only a few oil drums and one mess of rebar and concrete that proved too heavy to move, Sil moved into a shadowy mangrove that he had been slowly drifting toward all morning. The bobbing oil drums clanged against the stern of the boat as he slowed in the near darkness of the tree cover, the sound was like a gunshot in the air and Sil winced. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and revealed the unmistakablely human color of red. His first thought was blood, he had seen so much of it in the past six months he was beginning to thing that it was the only red thing left in the world. But blood did not protrude out of the water. Blood did not did not have a stern, nor a bow, nor did it leave masts in a tanged mess of rigging, wrapped perilously around mangrove limbs. dxSil leaned forward on the pole to rest and contemplated what was clearly a ship. She was half sunk, the bow pinned under the roots of a cypress tree, pushed at least two feet below the waterline. He glanced back out at the lake, but the only other scavenger boats were occupied with the debris piles on the south shore that Sil had skipped. He tied the skiff to a tree and sat down to roll a cigarette and think. He scanned the area, looking for survivors, or bodies at least. Could he move it? Was it seaworthy? Was it fixable? Would he be able to stop the larger crews of scavengers, some of whom had deck guns and would fire long before they stopped to ask any questions. The cigarette tasted like newspaper ink. He flicked the last of it into the water and decided to just take what he could carry and leave the hull where it was. He untied the skiff and moved closer, ducking under the mast and moving along the starboard side of the boat, inspecting the hull, which he noted was aluminul or some similar metal, trying to determine the stability of its resting place. Satisfied that even if she did break free and sink the minute he stepped aboard, he wasn't in any huge danger of downing, he tied the skiff up and gingerly hauled himself onto the stern deck and skooted forward on his butt until he reached the midships cockpit and galley entrance. Dark muddy water half filled what he could see of the galley. He stepped down, feeling with his foot for the companionway stairs until he felt something solid. He tested it, easing his weight down until he was standing. he ducked his head down and waited for his eyes to adjust. As they did he saw the glimmering light of another pair of eyes regarding him. Sil's legs shot back up before he even realized he was moving, sending him pitchiing back across the cockpit, slamming into the metal wheel and debris, watching as the crocadile lunged forward, toward him. Sil scrambled up on the side of the hull, cursing. He rolled off the boat, fell into his skiff where he bounded to his feet, rifle already sighted, sweeping the entrance to the galley. Nothing emerged, but he could hear the animal sloshing in the waters below. Sil waited until his heartrate went down, forcing himself to breathe through the nose and counting slowly with each exhale. And then he climbed back up on the hull and slowly down again into the murky darness, this time preceeding himself with the rifle. But there was nothing, the water rippled as he sat down on the step but the gator was nowhere to be found and Sil figured it was probably just as scared as he had been and retreated somewhere up into the V-berth or perhaps the bathroom since Sil wasn't entirely sure about the design on this boat. Nor was he in a hurry to find out. He climbed out and retrieved his torch from the skiff, he was just turning around to climb back on the half sunk boat when the largest, fattest gator he'd ever seen heaved itself up on the deck and regarded him for a minute, Sil kept the gun trained on the animal and contemmplated shooting it for food, but decided that, despite the seige still presumably continuing, he hadn't yet reach the point where he would stoop to eating aligator. Instead he picked up a branch and heaved it at the gator which then scurried -- alarmingly fast -- off the boat and into the swampy water where Sil watched the snaking ripples that marked its path until he was satisfied it wasn't going to return any time soon. Then he went below and began to take an inventory of potentially useful and valuable items. he worked by sense of touch mainly, grabbing at boxes that bobbed around him, once nearly leaping back out the boat when he grabbed what was unmistably a hand. He heaved it up out of the gallery and climbed out to look at a well gnawed arm, bones protruding where they should have attached to a body. Explains the gator, Sil muttered and went back below. Later he found a more in tact body, a man probably fifty years old, his legs bitten down to stumps. Sil vomited twice getting what was left of the body out of the boat. He found a water soaked wallet still in the back pocket, but there was no ID, just a little useless currency, some discount grocery cards and a captain's license issued to one Humphery Bogart. Sil regarded the bloated head for moment. Humphrey Bogart. Really? TK description of the inside of the boat. TK description of the half eaten bodies. Segue to scene at the bar several days later when Sil meets Dean and get him to help recover the eniter boat, which they do under the cover of darkness, bringing it up the river and hiding it until later when the move it to the half submerged warehouse on the river where it is when we meet sil. Also tell about Sil and Dean, Sil getting dean involved with the muling and Dean searching for parts, making contacts, etc. also hint at lazlo as the shadowy hand behind what Sil and Dean are able to accomplish. Also hint at Dean getting Sil deaper into smuggling, cargo from the south, cigarettes, marajuana, weapons etc. Sil slipped into the Cathouse via the back door, fairly sprinting the stairs to the abandoned loft area that served as Dean's living quarters. jesus man, you smell awful. Dean was sitting on the couch, cigarette between his lips, arm drapped over a woman Sil knew as either betty or Jen, but he was forever forgetting which was her real name and which was her stage name. Sil sniffed at his shirt. Yeah, swamps, you know... hey, could we talk? Betty rolled her eyes, but got up off the couch after planting a kiss on Dean's face let herself out. She's still here? I told you, she had nowhere else to go. She does know that there's like war happening out there? She does. Dean leaned forward, so what's up. I found something. A boat. A boat? You already haave a boat. No, this is like, a real boat. At least fifty feet long, double masted... you found it? Well, it's in a mangrove, shipwrecked. Half sunk actually. And... Well, I think it could be a way out this insanity. Really? You know how to sail? Of course. Well, sort of. Never anything this big... How big? I had a fourteen footer when I was kid. Sil stared at the floor sheepishly. So you don't really know how to sail this boat you found. Well the principle is the same, just a bit different rigging. Sil grabbed a cigarette off the table. I thought you quit. Earlier today I was nearly attacked by a gator and heaved said gators lunch, a half eaten human torso out of a boat and buried it in the reeds. Jesus. Dean threw Sil his lighter. So what do we do? That's just it, I don't know. If we could bump out the water and get her out from under the trees I could probably tow her back here. And then what. Fix her. Where? Another problem. how long? Depend on how bad a shape she's in. She's alluminum hulled so finding scraps shouldn't be to hard. Probably needs a new engine. Deann nodded. I know someone that can help. I figured you would... His name is Scratch. What? Well, nickname. He used to work down on the docks, old salty dog sort of a guy. He used to skipper tugs, but he had an accident, was in coma, no workman's comp, took to heroin for the pain. You think he's still alive? He's the only person I know more likely than you to survive what we just went through. Where? Well that's the question isn't it? They walked downstairs, sloshing through the flooded lobby out onto the street where Sil's dog TK sat in the boat, waiting patiently. Twenty minutes later they were skimming through the receeding waters, headed for St Tammey's parish to an address Dean thought he might remember.