Read Online Knife (9780698185623) by Ross Ritchell - Free Book Online

bring that from Cuba?” Hagan asked.
    â€œGuatemala,” Massey said. “And no. And fuck you.”
    Hagan laughed. “Guys,” he said, and put his big arms around Shaw and Massey. “I forgot mine.”
    Hagan never had a glove. Hagan was a mooch. Shaw grabbed a catcher’s mitt from his bag and threw it at him.
    â€œIt’s stiff,” Shaw said.
    â€œThat’s okay, Shaw. I love stiffies.”
    Hagan smiled and hugged Shaw from behind. Shaw knocked on his ribs with his elbow until Hagan let him go and Cooke smiled and brought a foot-long metal pole out of his bag and some horseshoes.
    â€œYeah, you do,” Cooke said. “But stiffy lover or not, we’re gonna knock down these shoes.” He had a huge wad of fine-cut in his lower lip and raised his eyebrows. Then he left the tent.
    Dalonna said he was going to the war room and grabbed his rifle and ruck and left the tent. Shaw and Massey followed him while Hagan helped Cooke put the horseshoe stake in the ground outside their tent.
    The three found the blue ChemLight leading down a set of stairs not far from their tent. The room was built into the ground, the roof raised a few feet above the earth. Wooden lockers spanned the room from floor to ceiling and end to end. Everything smelled of metal, Velcro, gun oil, and dust. Other teams had already claimed spots, set their helmets on top of the lockers, with their rucks, kits, and weapons placed neatly in the lockers. Cases of batteries and full mags lined footlockers with the tips of their rounds winking bright in the light. Someone had taped up a picture of a woman spreading her legs and pointing a pistol through her panties with
Local pussy kills
written underneath her in black ink. Hagan kissed his fingers and tapped the woman’s crotch when he passed, and Shaw found a spread of open lockers spanning two walls and a corner and grabbed five. He put up a couple pictures of his grandparents and Hagan saw them and nodded.
    â€œHow do, Gramms.” He said it slow, with respect.
    Shaw smiled and looked at his grandma. His favorite picture had her billowing white hair tied up in a handkerchief while she held tomatoes from her garden in her hands. She smiled wide and the tomatoes looked huge in her small hands, her pint-sized body. His grandpa’s hand was reaching toward the vegetables at the edge of the shot he’d taken himself. She had a smooth face until the day she died and she wore an agate necklace in the picture. It was deep blue, with smoky white lines running around the circumference. His grandpa said he’d found it on a beach, which was a known and loved lie. Shaw held the necklace in his pocket. He’d had it with him ever since she passed. Dalonna took out a picture of his family and taped it at eye level, flush on the wood that would house his helmet and NODs. His daughters held a shared hand over his wife’s belly. One of the girls was prettier than the other, but they were both cute. They were dressed in purple and pink ballet leotards and smiling wide, both missing a whole mess of teeth. One of the girls had orange painted across her lips and must’ve gotten into a bag of Cheetos before the shot. Dalonna never tired of saying his son was high-fiving his girls in the picture. He smiled while he taped the pictures to his locker. Besides the pictures of his girls, he taped up a photo of an ultrasound that made his son look like a wrinkled old man, a picture of his wife on their wedding day, and one of himself with his grandfather during a visit to the Philippines years before.
    Hagan stood at Dalonna’s locker and propped his hand on the wood and leaned in to the pictures.
    â€œDonna, did you get married in the eighties?”
    â€œNo, dickhead. We got married in the Philippines. It’s hot as shit there and Mirna’s hair was all frizzy.”
    â€œNo shit. All her hair?”
    Dalonna looked like he was trying to