At the bottom of the mountain, they were confronted with another obstacle. The idhng
coal train was at least a hundred cars long, and it blocked the way as far as they could see
in either direction. Unlike those of a passenger train, the coal train's cars were too close
together to step between. Diamond picked up a rock and hurled it at one of the cars. It
struck right at the name emblazoned across it: Southern Valley Coal and Gas.
"Now what?" said Lou. "Climb over?" She looked at the fully loaded cars and the few
handholds, and wondered how that would be possible.
"Shoot naw," said Diamond. "Unner." He stuck his hat in his pocket, dropped to his belly,
and slid between the car wheels and under the train. Lou and Oz quickly followed, as did
Jeb. They all emerged on the other side and dusted themselves off.
"Boy got hisself cut in half last year doing that very thing," said Diamond. "Train start up
when he were unner it. Now, I ain't see it, but I hear it were surely not purty."
"Why didn't you tell us that before we crawled under the train?" demanded a stunned
Lou.
"Well, if I'd done that, you ain't never crawled unner, now would you?"
On the main road they caught a ride in a Ramsey Candy truck and each was given a Blue
Banner chocolate bar by the chubby, uniformed driver. "Spread the word," he told them.
"Good stuff."
"Sure will," said Diamond as he bit into the candy. He chewed slowly, methodically, as
though suddenly a connoisseur of fine chocolate testing a fresh batch. "You give me
'nuther one and I get the word out twice as fast, mister."
After a long, bumpy ride the truck dropped them off in the middle of Dickens proper.
Diamond's bare toes had hardly touched asphalt when he quickly lifted first one foot and
then the other. "Feels funny," he said. "Ain't liking it none."
"Diamond, I swear, you'd walk on nails without a word," Lou said as she looked around.
Dickens wasn't even a bump in the road compared to what she was used to, but after their
time on the mountain it seemed like the most sophisticated metropolis she had ever seen.
The sidewalks were filled with people on this fine Saturday morning, and small pockets
of them spilled onto the streets. Most were dressed in nice clothes, but the miners were
easy enough to spot, lumbering along with their wrecked backs and the loud, hacking
coughs coming from their ruined lungs.
A huge banner had been stretched across the street. It read "Coal Is King" in letters black
as the mineral. Directly under where the banner had been tied off to a beam jutting from
one of the buildings was a Southern Valley Coal and Gas office. There was a line of men
going in, and a line of them coming out, all with smiles on their faces, clutching either
cash, or, presumably, promises of a good job.
Smartly dressed men in fedoras and three-piece suits chucked silver coins to eager
children in the streets. The automobile dealership was doing a brisk business, and the
shops were filled with both quality goods and folks clamoring to purchase them.
Prosperity was clearly alive and well at the foot of this Virginia mountain. It was a happy,
energetic scene, and it made Lou homesick for the city.
"How come your parents have never brought you down here?" Lou asked Diamond as
they walked along.
"Ain't never had no reason to come here, that's why." He stuffed his hands in his pockets
and stared up at a telephone pole with wires sprouting from it and smacking into one
building. Then he eyed a droop-shouldered man in a suit and a little boy in dark slacks
and a dress shirt as they came out of a store with a big paper bag of something. The two
went over to one of the slant-parked cars that lined both sides of the street, and the man
opened the car door. The boy stared over at Diamond and asked him where he was from.
"How you know I ain't from right here, son?" said Diamond, glaring at the town boy.
The child looked at Diamond's dirty clothes and face, his bare feet and wild hair, then
jumped in the car and locked the door.
They kept walking and passed the Esso gas station with its twin pumps and a smiling man
in crisp company uniform standing out front as rigidly as a cigar store Indian. Next they
peered through the glass of a Rexall drugstore. The store was running an "all-in-thewindow" sale. The two dozen or so varied items could be had for the sum of three dollars.
"Shoot, why? You can make all that stuff yourself. Ain't got to buy it," Diamond pointed
out, apparently sensing that Lou was tempted to go inside and clean out the display.
"Diamond, we're here to spend money. Have fun."
"I'm having fun," he said with a scowl. "Don't be telling me I ain't having no fun."