The short fiction of j hardy carroll
My grandfather started this cattle station back in the goldfield days. I was born here and lived my whole life here, excepting the war years when I was in Malaya. We have the devil’s own time keepin’ white ringers on the station. They start out all right, but none of them lasts a half-year. Most…
Quite a crowd of us had gathered by the massive front door when it was swung open by a grinning James Mulroy. Though just fifteen, he had a mind as spry and quick as a young fox and thus was our leader “Remember, only the stocking frames,” he said. “It’s symbolic, like.” We jumbled into…
Captain Cheap had never been popular at the best of times, and as food ran short he was less so. Added to this was the fact that the injuries he’d sustained in the wreck left him barely able to walk. He spent his days sequestered in the one surviving tent with guards posted outside. The…
I was just getting her set up when Crabs come around to tell me I was wanted in the office. There was a new fella behind the desk, a kid. He told me Butler Amusements was taking me off the wheel and putting me on the kiddie-boats. There had been complaints, he said. I should…
It was early morning as I came round the barn and saw Calraigh’s Ford puttering up the hill. He’ll have news, then, I thought, and no more. Ciaran was in the barn tending our mutual friend, as we called the hostage. He wasn’t a bad sort, the Major. In Killylastin we’d be reared to hate the…
His voice was so deep it set the glasses to rattle on the table, and when he laughed his eyes were almost swallowed by his jolly cheeks. But it was when he sat down at the piano that he come really alive. You’d never think fingers so thick and calloused could move like that, drift with…
He wanted to get away from her, from them. If he was honest, from himself. He didn’t announce it because it wasn’t planned. One day he’d grabbed his passport and driven to a used car lot, taken the salesman’s first offer and hitched a ride to the Greyhound station. On the San Diego docks, he…
Anarawd steps from the beached coracle, his steward Heilyn following behind him carrying their swords and lances. “What is this place, I wonder?” Anarwd says. “The sea-fog was so thick it might be anywhere.” “Is that not Castell Cricieth, Lord? Do not you recognize the tower?” Anarawd wipes his face to clear his eyes. It is the tower of…