Chapter 6
Tom Bailey flung his fishing pole line into the Pai River waters, feeling strangely at peace with himself and the world. His leg wasn't stiff today and since he'd resumed his morning shaving ritual, he felt better about himself as a man. In a way, he supposed fishing for his food had made him a healthy person. Back in Dayton everybody ate too much meat and potatoes and there was a time when Julie had chided him for his mid-belly spare tire. Now he was slim with not an ounce of fat on his body, though he'd lost none of his muscles. His hands were steady today, too, and that was a good sign.
Bailey glanced out over the murky rippling waters watching a low, long fishing boat silhouetted against the teakwood trees on the opposite bank, wondering if what the villagers said about this cove was true . . . that it was a magical spot blessed with fortune. If surviving a plane wreck and watching your crew burn to death before your eyes was luck, then he supposed he was a lucky man. Real luck, however, would be finding a female body along the shore; and until he did, curse the Burmese legends!
That bothered him . . . this need for a female body close to him. There was the displaced Vietnamese prostitute in town, the woman that had literally fucked an army, but somehow he could not see himself trading a day's catch for a lay in the sack.
He watched a fish flop, making big circles in the dark water. Would he ever get back to the United States and do all those American things like go bowling with the boys on Friday night and drink beer and flirt with the waitress? Could he do those insane things after knowing the darkness of true agony? Existentialism 101 back at the University of Ohio hadn't prepared him for that metaphysical predicament and that old cloudy, dismal sensation of panicky despair came over him. Distraught, he pulled in his fishing line, and retraced his steps back to the site of the plane wreck, hoping that reenacting the horror would lessen the impact. Threading his way through teak trees and undergrowth up to his kneecaps, he entered the burned out clearing to see the mangled rusted frame of the spy plane where he'd buried his crew those years ago. The wooden crosses had rotted in the steamy humidity, but he'd managed to keep the grave sites clear of underbrush.
Perhaps the Burmese villagers had the story backwards; maybe this stretch of the Pai River was all misfortune, considering the fearsome Karenni forces whose guns he'd heard crackling in combat through the peaceful virginal forest. Sometimes, late at night when insomnia cursed him, he would sit out on the riverbank, hiding in the bushes as a low, long boat slipped by silently in the darkness. Often the Thai border patrol would stop to investigate their cargo . . . sometimes in the midst of gun fire. He was contemplating those strange episodes as he tromped through the high underbrush to return to his hut, feeling downtrodden and defeated.
Passing by a rock face cliff, he stopped. Strange he'd never noticed that before, he thought, wondering if his emotional state had affected his vision, too. Suddenly intrigued by the rocks piled up in front of the cave mouth, his curiosity was piqued. With renewed energy, he began pulling away the rocks with his bare hands until he uncovered the tiny mouth of the cave. Down on his knees, he peered into the entrance big enough for a small Oriental man. Something geometrical and metal inside caught his eyes and he lay flat on his stomach, breathing in the moist ground smell as he tugged at the mysterious box.
He held a steel box in his hand; not a spot of rust discolored it, even in the humid cave air. The hinges squeaked as he opened the box. He gasped in surprise: hand grenades, all bearing the American eagle insignia. Probably found in Cambodia during the last siege of the Vietnamese war and sold in the black-market to the Karenni smugglers, he guessed.
Obviously, someone had hid this cache of hand grenades, and recently too. Who and why? Bailey thought about pulling the pin and trying one out, but if he did the whole damned village would be scouring the forests and what they would do was anybody's guess. Gingerly, he replaced the one grenade he had withdrawn and put it back into the box, then back on his belly, he slid it into the cave.
He was about to wiggle back out from the cave when he noticed more objects. There was an American M-16. An expert on guns, Tom could see it was well oiled and in good repair, with a box of ammo cases, too. But it was the third object he absconded with: a hunk of jade that would bring a good sum on the market. A fist-sized chunk of this green jadeite should be enough to buy a good hot meal and the Da Nang prostitute for a night . . . not to mention a slow boat to China.