"I'd like to think not," Shuford said finally. "I don't know that. I'd like to tell you I do."
It was more than she had expected. It was not enough. She held both of those things at once, the way she had learned to hold a patient's hand while reading their monitor, and said nothing.
"Captain," Shuford said, turning to Ozro. "I'm going to say my piece, and then you're going to do what you want, because it's your boat. The river's getting ugly. You've got wind on your beam the whole way to the bridge, and it's going to set you down on the east bank going through. I'd rather you didn't go."
"Noted, Sergeant."
"You're going."
"I'm going."
Shuford looked up the river, toward the bridge, its long concrete span gone gray in the rain, and then down at the patrol boat bumping against Clementine's stern, and at Brannon, who was standing at its console looking at his sergeant with the expression of a young man who has had a very long day and would like to know if it is going to get longer.
"Brannon," Shuford said. "We're running escort to Halls Mill Creek."
"Sarge, dispatch has got us on—"
"Tell dispatch we're on a vessel assist with an elderly operator. Which we are." He turned back to Ozro. "We'll stay off your stern. You get in trouble, you get on sixteen and we'll be there."
Ozro looked at him a long time. "Your daddy was Earnest Shuford," he said. "Ran a shrimp boat out of Bayou Coden. The Miss Delphia."