Booty (ii)

At the end of the war my father picked up two pieces of war booty somewhere in the South Pacific-a samurai sword and a small black Japanese bayonet, wood-handled, still greased, as I remember, probably never used. It pulled hard out of its sheath, making a scraping, metallic shriek--to me, a child, the screaming sound of war. Its blade was tarnished, unlike the samurai's chromed brilliance. Both of them were kept in the upstairs closet with what remained of his Navy life: an ordinary sailor's hat that looked silly when my sisters wore it upside down to the beach; a duffle bag I used for going to Bible camp; and some marching leggings I remember wrapping around my legs on a rainy afternoon, all of it hid­den away upstairs where no one ever saw it.

Except me. The bayonet made a perfect machete. I remember sneak­ing it along on the trapline for the first time, shoving the long sheath through the belt loop on my side so that the hook and hole at the top of the blade caught at my waist, as if I were carrying a sword. I would never have taken the samurai. Its bronze sheath and the engraved flowers made it ceremonial, but the black bayonet was made to use, not show. Hatchets were sharper and heavier, cleaner in hacking, but a hatchet had no history, not like my father's black Japanese bayonet.

It disappeared one morning at a point where the river flattens and elbows west, at the very spot where one day I remember searching with my foot through the water for the chain of a trap that had disappeared from the weeds where it was staked. When I found the chain, I raised it slowly and came face to face with a snapping turtle with the girth of a wash basin. We killed that ugly beast, chopped it in two pieces, then walked the rest of the trapline, only to find both halves still writhing when we circled back to the bridge. That's where I lost the bayonet, at the spot where we'd killed the ancient turtle.

It was early November, about the same time of year it is now, but there'd been no early storms. I don't remember why Mugsie asked me to throw it across, but I had done it before, so I did. I don't know why I messed up, but the moment I knew my father's bayonet wasn't going to make it to the other side, regret, then guilt, pried me wide open like that turtle split in two on the bank, its insides spilling, as the bayonet spun, then fell without a splash, into the flow of the river.

"Geez," John said. All three of us stood perfectly still, our eyes planted on the very spot where it had disappeared.

I knew it was gone. Even before it hit the water, I knew it would be lost in the roots and clams and rocks.

"You stay there, Mugsie--watch the spot," I yelled, and John and I stumbled through the wet grass, our hip boots still rolled down and sloshing against each other. "Stay there," I said again, pointing across at Mugsie, not even looking at him, my eyes still focused on what seemed with each passing second to be an indistinguishable spot of river current.

"We can feel it with our feet," John said. "You'll be able to feel it. It's all muddy on the bottom, and you can feel it."

We unfolded the cuffs of our boots so that the edges reached our thighs, and we waded in, knees stiff against the press of cold water. I had no idea how deep the river would be where it went in, but I kept my eyes on the spot.

Heavy rubber soles of hip boots are not good for feeling something lost on a river bottom. But in the middle, the muck firmed into gravel, and for a minute I thought it could be felt on the gritty stones. I would hear it, I thought, shrieking like something alive when I stepped on it.

"There," Mugsie yelled, "that's where it went in."

I stamped around, trying to distinguish anything on the bottom, my arms held out from my side to keep balance in the current.

“Right there,” Mugsie yelled.

John was right up behind me, hands tugging at the edge of his boots to keep his crotch dry.

“Right here.” I was sure of it. “It’s got to be right around here.”

"It could go," John said. "Shit, it could flow along the bottom-you know-the current."

I knew it too. I didn't want to say it. "It's got to be here," I said again. "This is where it went in."

________________

Tomorrow: In his memory, the fruitless search continues frantically.