I found the pistol when I was twelve, in the cedar-plank chest that had long fascinated me, with its antiquated muzzle-loading muskets and cap-and-ball revolvers, rusted spurs and bayonets, embossed sabers and powder flasks. Like the house itself, the assortment had been handed down or left behind for generations — unsolicited and rarely inventoried, relegated to the back of the house with outmoded suitcases, heat-warped photo albums, and bankers boxes full of National Geographic magazines. The pistol was a semiautomatic, .45-caliber M1911 Colt, a model formerly issued to American servicemen. Because it appeared in the chest not long after my grandfather had died, and the holster seemed to match the one he wore in a photo from World War II, I gathered that it had been his.