The Heart in Winter

by Kevin Barry

Inside a week from then he had indeed set fire to the Zagreb Boarding House and made off with an amount of Horvat capital summing almost six hundred dollars cash money and with the few belongings and supplies they could manage in a saddlepack and maybe no more than a few hours until it all got figured out they were in the same dark wood on the edge of town with a stolen palomino and he was trying to talk reason and a spirit of co-operation into the horse and it was only at great stubborn length and with dawn already greying the edges of the scene that the horse obliged and they lit out.

It was so cold their teeth whined.

Do you believe in God the Almighty? No but I’m in discussions with Him.

Polly Gillespie got snagged on a fiddle line and took to her feet again and tried out a dance step that was unusual in style and not like anybody had ever seen before. Her arms flailing banshee-like. Her neck swivelling. Eyes popping like a swamp frog’s. Little feet stomping off in this direction. Now that. Hips moving like ooh-la-la. Then she threw up right in the middle of it all. I don’t know if this one’ll catch on, Tom Rourke said.

Winter by now was truly the sour landlord of the forest.

The deathhauntedness of the Irish brethren was frequently a complication in the working life of Sheriff Stephen Devane. Soaked in an ambience of death from the cradle, they believed themselves generally to be on the way out, and sooner rather than later, and thus could be inclined to put aside the niceties of the living realm. Terrible people, born of a terrible nation.

Tom? I got a dose of the morbs. We could start up a club, he said.