A few of us stay outside, though. Some wives want to play along. Someone’s way-too-young second wife—blonde, named Tippi, I think, or maybe Bippi, or Pippi; one of those names that sound like an off-brand bath product—is being walked through the basics of holding a gun by her septuagenarian husband. She giggles over and over, which he seems to find charming. I’d put money on her wrist being broken by recoil before the morning is out.
I take the shotgun the staff hand me without comment. The wood of the stock is a warm honey color, polished to a shine, and the metal of the barrel has been chilled to a temperature that I can feel through my mitten. I break it open the way I saw Matvei do, peer down the barrels at nothing in particular, and snap it closed.
Huh. That’s a satisfying little so
