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Rachel corrected. “Murphy is a person.”
    Cowed, Bill sulked with his mouth shut while the occupants of the boat silently appraised one another. Nothing was said for a good long while, until Freitag voiced out loud a question she’d probably been silently asking herself since the moment she got into the boat. “What did I do in a previous life to deserve this?”
    Murphy heard her and laughed.
    I couldn’t help but offer up my opinion. “It’s what you did in this life, is my guess.”
    Freitag, with her vicious tongue, shot back, “You’ve got no room to talk, Mr. Fuck You Canoe.”
    I smiled at the memory of the moment when I told Freitag that she’d shot a hole in the canoe that I left her. It was one of the highlights of my post-apocalyptic life. I said, “As far as I’m concerned, we’re even.”
    “Like I believe that.”
    I reached out an empty hand. “If you’ll promise not to fuck with me anymore, I won’t fuck with you. Like I said, we’re even.”
    Freitag looked at my extended hand, clearly reluctant to put her own hand into the trap that she thought it represented.
    “Up to you,” I added.
    Just as I was about to withdraw the offer, she stood up, wobbled a bit with the rocking of the boat, and grabbed my hand in her tiny grip. She didn’t smile. She wasn’t angry. Maybe resigned. “Even.” It was a hard thing for her to say.
    “Even,” I confirmed.
    She let go and sat back down.
    I looked at Murphy. He was amused and disappointed. That made me wonder.
    Bill asked Freitag, “What’s that about?”
    “Long story,” she said.

Chapter 7
    In the wee hours of the night when we neared Monk’s Island, a row of seven school bus-shaped silhouettes floated a short distance offshore. I wondered if those were the rental houseboats that Megan mentioned back when we’d all been on the riverboat on Lake Austin, talking about coming to Lake Travis for refuge. It looked like the group staying on Monk’s Island had beaten us to it.
    A ski boat motored slowly toward us from the island. I couldn’t tell how many people were inside, but rifles bristled on its silhouette.
    Rachel reduced our speed.
    Bill pointed a thumb at Murphy and in a defeated voice said, “They’re not going to let us come back because of them.”
    Rachel shut Bill up with a harsh look.
    Murphy adjusted his grip on his rifle and looked at the boat out in front of us.
    If Murphy was nervous, that was all the indication I needed. I looked down at my weapon, checked the safety, and ran a hand across the magazines in my MOLLE vest, trying to recall which ones were empty. I had a system for that, but I had gotten confused during the firefight in the cove. Now I didn’t know where the empty and full magazines were.
    “Murphy,” Rachel said. “It’s okay. They probably saw extra people in the boat, and they’re coming out to check on us.”
    “Uh-huh.” Murphy’s tone made it clear that he didn’t accept Rachel’s assessment.
    Rachel pulled the throttle back and let the boat drift to a stop in the water. She turned the engine off.
    I glanced around. Bill was nervous, and judging by the way he was looking at me, it was clear that if trouble started, he was going to make a move on me. Unfortunately for Bill, just a few feet in front of me, he was at a range I could still hit with my M4. Karl still had his face in his hands. Freitag just looked bored.
    The boat from the island got within twenty or thirty feet of us. It throttled down and came to a stop in the water nearby. Three armed men stood behind two seated people. A woman’s voice called across, “Rachel, who’s with you?”
    The rifles pointed at us.
    Rachel said to me and Murphy, “Keep your weapons down. Don’t aim at them, please. They’re just being careful.” Then, Rachel called back, “Gretchen, it’s my brother and a friend of his.”
    “Really?” Gretchen’s voice carried a degree of disbelief. “Did you find everything we needed at the